Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition
Encyclopedia
The Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition is a term used by authors who consider the existence of a romanticized or exaggerated image of the Spanish Inquisition
as the epitome
of terror and human barbarity. As such, it is a part of the Spanish Black Legend
and one of its most recurrent themes.
Peters defines it as:
During the creation process of the Black Legend
the persecution of heretics
or morisco
s and marrano
s did not raise major criticisms in the parts of Europe outside the Iberian peninsular. Kamen established two sources for the Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition. Firstly, an Italian Catholic origin, and secondly, a Protestant
background in Central
and Northern Europe
.
Crown and later of the Spanish one on the Italian Peninsula
led public opinion
, including the Papacy
, to see the Spaniards as a threat. An unfavorable image of Spain
grew that naturally ended up involving a negative view of the Inquisition. Revolts against the Inquisition in Spanish Crown territories in Sicily
occurred in 1511 and 1526 and mere rumors of the future establishment of tribunals caused riots in Naples
in 1547 and 1564.
The ambassadors of the independent Italian governments promoted the image of an impoverished Spain dominated by a tyrannical Inquisition. In 1525, Contarini, Venetian
ambassador, said that all tremble before the Inquisition. Another ambassador, Tiepolo, wrote in 1563 that everyone is afraid of its authority, which has absolute power
over property
, life
, honor and even the souls of men. He also, commented that the King favors it as a way to control the population. Ambassador Soranzo stated in 1565 that the Inquisition had greater authority
than the King. Francesco Guicciardini
, Florentine
ambassador at the court of Charles I
, stated that Spaniards were "in appearance religious, but not in reality", almost the same words by Tiepolo in 1536.
In general, Italians considered the Inquisition as a necessary evil for the Spaniards, whose religion was questionable if not false, after centuries of mixing with Jews
and morisco
s. In fact, after 1492, the word marrano
became synonymous with Spaniard and Pope Alexander VI
was called the "circumcised marrano". However, the Inquisition was seen as merely a ruse to steal money from the Jews which had no business being on Italian territory, where it was not necessary. When the Inquisition began to persecute Lutherans
, the explanation was that the Spaniards were by nature more prone to heresy
.
, the religious confrontation and the threat of Spanish imperial
power gave birth to the Black Legend, as the small number of Protestants who were executed by the Inquisition would not have justified such a campaign. Protestants, who had successfully used the press
to disseminate their ideas, tried to win with propaganda
the war they could not win by force of arms.
On one hand, Catholic
theologians
criticized the Protestants
as newcomers, who, unlike the Catholic Church could not prove a continuity from the time of Christ
. On the other hand, Protestants theologians reasoned that this was not true and that theirs was the true Church which had been oppressed and persecuted by the Catholic Church throughout history. This reasoning, which was only outlined by Luther
and Calvin
, was fleshed out by later Protestant historiography identified with Wyclif or the lollard
s of England, the Hussite
s of Hungary
and the Waldensians
of France
. All this despite the fact that in the 16th century heretics were persecuted in both Catholic and Protestant countries. By the end of the 16th century the Protestant denominations had identified with the heretics of previous times and defined them as martyr
s.
When the persecution of Protestants started in Spain the hostility felt towards the Pope was immediately extended to include the King of Spain, on whom the Inquisition depended, and the Dominican
s who carried it out. After all, the greatest defeat suffered by the Protestants had been at the hands of Charles I of Spain in the battle of Mühlberg
in 1547. An image of Spain as the champion of Catholicism spread throughout Europe. This image was in part promoted by the Spanish crown.
This identification by the Protestants with heretics from the time of the conversion of Imperial Rome until the 15th century lead to the creation of martyrologies
in Germany and England, description of the lives of martyrs in morbid detail, usually heavily illustrated, that circulated among the poorer classes and which incited indignation against the Catholic Church. One of the most famous and influential was the Book of Martyrs by John Foxe
(1516–1587). Foxe dedicated an entire chapter to the Spanish Inquisition: The execrable Inquisition of Spayne.
Many of the themes that are repeated later on are to be found in this text: anyone can be tried for any triviality; the Inquisition is infallible; people are usually accused to gain money, because of jealousy or to hide the actions of the Inquisition; if proof is not found it is invented; the prisoners are isolated with no contact with the outside world in dark dungeons where they suffer horrible torture etc. Foxe warned that this sinister organization could be introduced into any country that accepted the Catholic faith.
Another influential book was the Sanctae Inquisitionis Hispanicae Artes (Exposition of the Arts of the Spanish Holy Inquisition) published in Heidelberg
in 1567 under the pseudonym Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus
. It appears that Gonzalvius was a pseudonym of Antonio del Corro
, a Spanish Protestant theologian exiled in Holland. Del Corro added credibility to his tale with his knowledge of the tribunal. The book was an immediate success, two editions were printed between 1568 and 1570 in English
and French
, three in Dutch
, four in German
and one in Hungarian
, and the book continued to be published and referenced until the 19th century.
The largely true story relates the tale of a prisoner who passes through all the stages of the process and above all the interrogation, allowing the reader to identify with the victim. Del Corro's description presents some of the most extreme practices as being routine, such as the innocence of all the accused, the officials of the Inquisition are shown as being devious and vain and each step of the process is shown as a violation of natural law
. Del Corro supported the initial purpose of the Inquisition which was to persecute false converts and he had not foreseen that his book would be used to support the Black Legend in a similar manner to that of Bartolomé de las Casas
. He was convinced that the Dominican monks had converted the Inquisition into something execrable, that Phillip II was not aware of the true proceedings and that the Spanish people were opposed to the sinister organization.
was seen as a liberation of the human soul from darkness and superstition.
France, Britain and Holland had the most active presses on the continent and they were used very effectively as a means of defense when these countries felt threatened. The documents generated between 1548 and 1581 became reference materials in the studies of later historians.
This fear was manipulated by Protestants and by those calling for Dutch independence in pamphlets such as On the Unchristian, tyrannical Inquisition that Persecutes Belief, Written from the Netherlands or The Form of the Spanish Inquisition Introduced in Lower Germany in the Year 1550 published by Michael Lotter. In 1570, religious refugees presented a document to the Imperial Diet
entitled A Defence and true declaration of the things lately done in the lowe countrey which described not only the crimes perpetrated against Protestants but also accused the Spanish Inquisition of inciting revolts in Holland in order to force Phillip II to exercise a firm hand, and accused him of the death of Prince Carlos of Asturias.
stimulated anti-Spanish propaganda.
The Catholic monarchs in England, had created religious courts to fight against heresy, the last being created by Mary Tudor
. The English monarchs, above all Elizabeth I, preferred to create civil tribunals to repress religious dissidents, above all Catholics, distancing themselves from the previous practices. Catholic heretics were identified as traitors by a system that was not that much different from the Inquisition. It even went so far as to kidnap an English Catholic lawyer from the Netherlands, John Story
, before taking him to England to be tortured, accused of treason and conspiracy and executed. The system by which the government insisted on trying traitors, not heretics, remained in place until the reign of James I
which maintained the illusion that the Inquisition was a catholic institution clearly identified with Spain and Rome.
In this way the religious fanatics gained the support of others who were more moderate and above all of the government, which financed pamphlets and published edicts. During this time many pamphlets were published and translated including A Fig for the Spaniard. A leaflet published by Antonio Pérez
in 1598 entitled A treatise Paraenetical repeated William of Orange's claims conferring a tragic aspect to Prince Carlos of Asturias and one of religious fanaticism to Phillip II and the Inquisition that survived into modern era.
in Spanish historiography
.
, Anabaptist
s, Quakers, Unitarians
, Mennonite
s etc. In fact, Philipp van Limborch
, the great historian of the Inquisition, was a Remonstrant and Gilbert Brunet, an English historian of the Reformation
was a Latitudinarian
.
Towards the end of the 16th century the religious wars in Europe had made it clear that any attempt to make religiously uniform states were bound to fail. Intellectuals, starting in Holland and France, affirmed that the State should occupy itself with the well-being of its citizens even if this allowed the growth of the heresy of allowing tolerance in exchange for social peace. By the end of the 17th century these ideas had spread to Central Europe and diversity was beginning to be considered more "natural" than uniformity, and that, in fact, uniformity threatened the richness of a nation. Spain was the perfect demonstration of this. It had started to decline economically by the middle of the 17th century and the expulsion of the Jews and other rich, industrious citizens was thought to be one of the main reasons for this decline. Also, the fines and seizures of property and wealth would make the problem worse, as the money was being directed to unproductive areas of the Catholic Church.
The Inquisition was therefore converted into an enemy of the state and as such was reflected as such in the economic and political tracts of the time. In 1673, Francis Willoughby
wrote A Relation of a Voyage Made through a Great Part of Spain in which he concluded the following:
The liberal European societies started to look down on those societies that maintained their uniformity, they were also the object of social analysis. The existence of the Inquisition in Portugal, Spain and Rome was thought to be due to the use of force or because the spirit of the people was weakened, it was not considered possible that the Inquisition was supported voluntarily. This supposed weakness of spirit combined with the strength of the Inquisition in these countries was predicted to lead to a lack of imagination and learning as well as hindering advances in science, literature and the arts. Spain, despite the golden age of the Siglo de Oro and although the Inquisition generally only focused on doctrinal matters, is represented after the 17th century as a country without literature
, art
or science
.
As of the 17th century the "Spanish character" was included as part of the analysis of the Inquisition. This supposed "Spanish character" was publicized in many travel books which were the most popular type of literature of the period. One of the first and the most influential was written by the Countess d'Aulnoy in 1691 in which she consistently belittled Spanish achievements in the arts and sciences. Other notable books from the 18th century include those by Juan Álvarez de Colmenar, (1701), Jean de Vayarac (1718), Pierre-Louis-Auguste de Crusy, Marquis de Marcillac, Edward Clarke, Henry Swinburne
, Tobias George Smollett, Richard Twiss
and innumerable others who perpetuated the Black Legend. It has been noted that the writers of the Enlightenment
obtained their knowledge of Spain from these stories.
One of the most important critics of religious persecution and of the Inquisition was Pierre Bayle
(1647–1706). Bayle based many of his ideas on the writing of the "dissident" thinkers of the beginning of the century and founded his philosophy on skepticism
and the conviction that an individuals religious conscience should never be forced. He based his knowledge of Spain and the Spanish in part on the stories of the Countess d'Aulnoy and he united the various arguments of the Legend as a whole in a literary package littered with irony, logic, cartesian proofs and a certain taste for the scandalous that converted it into popular reading.
. Montesquieu is therefore one of the first to describe the Jews as victims, however, he does not defend the theological arguments of his protagonist when dealing with the Inquisitors, in fact he rejects them in footnotes relating to the incident. However, his message is clear: the Inquisition is anachronistic, irrational and irreligious.
No 18th century author did more to disparage religious persecution than Voltaire
. Voltaire united the religious and philosophical arguments of Bayle and the economic and political arguments of Montesquieu to definitively create the modern myth of "the Inquisition", metonymy
for all the worst forms of religious persecution. He did not have a deep knowledge of the Inquisition until later in life, but he used it often to sharpen his satire and ridicule his opponents, as shown by his Don Jerónimo Bueno Caracúcarador, an Inquisitor who appears in Histoire de Jenni (1775). In Candide (1759), one of his best known titles, he does not show a knowledge of the functioning of the Inquisition greater than that to be found in travel books and general histories. Candide includes his famous description of an auto-da-fé
in Lisbon, a satirical gem, that introduces the Inquisition to comedy. Voltaire's attacks on the Inquisition became more serious and acute from 1761. He shows a better understanding and knowledge of the internal workings of the tribunal, probably thanks to the work of Abbe Morellet who he used extensively and to his direct knowledge of some cases, such as that of Gabriel Malagrida
, whose death in Lisbon caused a wave if indignation throughout Europe.
Abbe Morellet published his Petite écrit sur une matière intéresante and Manuel des Inquisiteurs in 1762. Both works extracted and summarized the darkest parts of the Inquisition and focussed on the use of deception to secure convictions, thereby making procedures known that even the most bitter enemies of the Inquisition had ignored.
Abbe Guillaume-Thomas Raynal attained a fame equivalent to that of Montesquieu, Voltaire or Rousseau with his book Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des européens dans les deux Indes, even to the point that in 1789 he was considered one of the fathers of the French Revolution
. His History of the Indies gained fame thanks to its censorship and a number of editions were published in Amsterdam
, Geneva
, Nantes
and The Hague
between 1770 and 1774. As one would expect, the book was also about the Inquisition. In this case Raynal did not criticize the deaths or the use of torture, instead he stated that thanks to the Inquisition Spain had not suffered religious wars. He thought that in order to return Spain to the Concert of Europe
the Inquisition would need to be eliminated which would require the importation of foreigners of all beliefs as the only means of attaining "good results" in a reasonable amount of time; as he considered that the use of indigenous workers would take centuries to achieve the same results.
One of the most important works of the century, L'Encyclopédie, dedicated one of its entries to the Inquisition. The article was written by Louis de Jaucourt
a man of science who had studied at Cambridge and who also wrote the majority of the articles about Spain. Jaucourt was not very fond of Spain and many of his articles were filled with invective. He wrote articles on Spain, Iberia
, Holland, wool
, monasteries
and titles of the nobility etc. which were all derogatory. Although his article on wine
praised Spanish wine his conclusion was that its abuse can cause incurable illnesses.
The article on the Inquisition is clearly taken from Voltaire's writings. For example, the description of the auto-da-fé is based on that given by Voltaire in Candide. The text is a ferocious attack against Spain:
Repeating what Voltaire had already said: «The Inquisition would be the cause of the ignorance of philosophy that Spain lives in, thanks to which Europe and "even Italy" had discovered so many truths.»
After the publication of L'Encyclopédie came an even more ambitious project, that of the "Encyclopédie méthodique" which comprised 206 volumes. The article on Spain was written by Masson de Morvilliers and it naturally mentions the Inquisition. He advances the theory that the Spanish monarchy is nothing more than the play thing of the church and specifically the Inquisition. That is to say, the Inquisition is the true government of Spain. He explains that the cruelty of the Spanish Inquisition is due, in part, to the rivalry between the Franciscan
s and the Dominican
s. In Venice
and Tuscany
the Inquisition was in the hands of the Franciscans and in Spain it was in the hands of the Dominicans. Who "in order to distinguish itself in this odious task, were led to unprecedented excesses". He recounts the legend of Philip III
who on seeing the death of two convicts commented "Here are two unfortunate men who are dying for something they believe in!" When the Inquisition was informed it demanded a phlebotomy
of the King whose blood was then burnt.
has attributed much importance to this 18th century image of Spain. It would have given Napoleon the ideological justification for his invasion
in 1807: the enlightened French taking their light to the backward and benighted Spain. In fact, one of the reforms that Napoleon introduced in Spain was the elimination of the Inquisition.
In addition, Reverend Ingram Cobbin MA, in a 19th century reissue of Foxe's The Book of Martyrs regaled his readers with the most fantastic tales about what the French troops found in the Inquisition's prison when they occupied Madrid
used it during the Cuban War of Independence
. The American politician and orator Robert Green Ingersoll (1833–1899) is quoted as saying:
In America in the 19th century, knowledge of the Inquisition was spread by Protestant polemical writers and historians such as Prescott and John Lothrop
, whose ideology influenced the story. Along with the myths woven around the burning of witches in America
the myth of the Inquisition was maintained as a malevolent abstraction, sustained by anti-Catholicism.
According to Peters, the terms inquisition, inquisitorial and witch hunt became generalized in American society in the 1950s to refer to oppression by its government, whether referring to the past or the present, this was possibly due to the influence of contemporary European authors. Carey McWilliams
published Witch Hunt: The Revival of Heresy in 1950 which was a study of the Committee of Un-American Activities in which wide use was made of the term Inquisition to refer to the contemporary phenomenon of anticommunist hysteria. The tenor of the work was later widened in The American Inquisition, 1945-1960 by Cedric Belfrage
and even later in 1982 with the book Inquisition: Justice and Injustice in the Cold War by Stanley Kutler
. The term inquisition has become so widely used that it has come to be a synonym for official investigation, especially of a political or religious nature, characterized by its lack of respect for individual rights, prejudice on the part of the judges and cruel punishments.
).
Public opinion slowly started to change after the 18th century thanks to contacts with the outside world, as a consequence the Black Legend began to appear in Spain. The religious and intellectual freedom in France was watched with interest and the initial victims of the Inquisition, conversos and moriscos, had disappeared. Enlightened intellectuals started to appear such as Pablo Olavide and later Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes
and Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos
, who blamed the Inquisition for the injust treatment of the conversos. In 1811 Moratín
published Auto de fe celebrado en la ciudad de Logroño (Auto de fe held in the city of Logroño) which related the history of a large trial against a number of witches that took place in Logroño
, with satirical comments from the author. However, these liberal intellectuals, some of whom were members of the government, were not revolutionary and were preoccupied with the maintenance of the social order.
The Inquisition ceased to function in practice in 1808, during the Spanish War of Independence
as it was abolished by the occupying French government, although it remained as an institution until 1834.
A school of liberal historians appeared in France and Spain at the start of the 19th century who were the first to talk about Spanish decline. They considered the Inquisition to be responsible for this economic and cultural decline and for all the other evils that afflicted the country. Other European historians took up the theme later on and this position can still be seen today. This school of thought stated that the expulsion of the Jews and the persecution of the conversos had led to the impoverishment and decline of Spain as well as the destruction of the middle class. This type of author made Menéndez y Pelayo exclaim:
This school of thought along with the other elements of the Black Legend would form part of the Spanish anticlericalism of the end of the 19th century. This anticlericalism formed part of many other ideologies of the left wing, such as socialism
, communism
and anarchism
. This is demonstrated by a statement made by the Socialist Member of Parliament Fernando Garrido in April 1869 that the Church had used the Court of the Inquisition as an instrument for its own ends. The Church used the Inquisition to gag freedom of expression and impede the diffusion of the truth. It imposed a rigid despotism over three and a half centuries of Spanish history.
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...
as the epitome
Epitome
An epitome is a summary or miniature form; an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment....
of terror and human barbarity. As such, it is a part of the Spanish Black Legend
Black Legend
The Black Legend refers to a style of historical writing that demonizes Spain and in particular the Spanish Empire in a politically motivated attempt to morally disqualify Spain and its people, and to incite animosity against Spanish rule...
and one of its most recurrent themes.
Peters defines it as:
Origin
Black Legend
The Black Legend refers to a style of historical writing that demonizes Spain and in particular the Spanish Empire in a politically motivated attempt to morally disqualify Spain and its people, and to incite animosity against Spanish rule...
the persecution of heretics
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
or morisco
Morisco
Moriscos or Mouriscos , meaning "Moorish", were the converted Christian inhabitants of Spain and Portugal of Muslim heritage. Over time the term was used in a pejorative sense applied to those nominal Catholics who were suspected of secretly practicing Islam.-Demographics:By the beginning of the...
s and marrano
Marrano
Marranos were Jews living in the Iberian peninsula who converted to Christianity rather than be expelled but continued to observe rabbinic Judaism in secret...
s did not raise major criticisms in the parts of Europe outside the Iberian peninsular. Kamen established two sources for the Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition. Firstly, an Italian Catholic origin, and secondly, a Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
background in Central
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
and Northern Europe
Northern Europe
Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...
.
Italy
The increasing influence during the sixteenth century of the AragoneseCrown of Aragon
The Crown of Aragon Corona d'Aragón Corona d'Aragó Corona Aragonum controlling a large portion of the present-day eastern Spain and southeastern France, as well as some of the major islands and mainland possessions stretching across the Mediterranean as far as Greece...
Crown and later of the Spanish one on the Italian Peninsula
Italian Peninsula
The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula is one of the three large peninsulas of Southern Europe , spanning from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. The peninsula's shape gives it the nickname Lo Stivale...
led public opinion
Public opinion
Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views....
, including the Papacy
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
, to see the Spaniards as a threat. An unfavorable image of Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
grew that naturally ended up involving a negative view of the Inquisition. Revolts against the Inquisition in Spanish Crown territories in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
occurred in 1511 and 1526 and mere rumors of the future establishment of tribunals caused riots in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
in 1547 and 1564.
The ambassadors of the independent Italian governments promoted the image of an impoverished Spain dominated by a tyrannical Inquisition. In 1525, Contarini, Venetian
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
ambassador, said that all tremble before the Inquisition. Another ambassador, Tiepolo, wrote in 1563 that everyone is afraid of its authority, which has absolute power
Political power
Political power is a type of power held by a group in a society which allows administration of some or all of public resources, including labour, and wealth. There are many ways to obtain possession of such power. At the nation-state level political legitimacy for political power is held by the...
over property
Property
Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...
, life
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
, honor and even the souls of men. He also, commented that the King favors it as a way to control the population. Ambassador Soranzo stated in 1565 that the Inquisition had greater authority
Authority
The word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...
than the King. Francesco Guicciardini
Francesco Guicciardini
Francesco Guicciardini was an Italian historian and statesman. A friend and critic of Niccolò Machiavelli, he is considered one of the major political writers of the Italian Renaissance...
, Florentine
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
ambassador at the court of Charles I
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...
, stated that Spaniards were "in appearance religious, but not in reality", almost the same words by Tiepolo in 1536.
In general, Italians considered the Inquisition as a necessary evil for the Spaniards, whose religion was questionable if not false, after centuries of mixing with Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
and morisco
Morisco
Moriscos or Mouriscos , meaning "Moorish", were the converted Christian inhabitants of Spain and Portugal of Muslim heritage. Over time the term was used in a pejorative sense applied to those nominal Catholics who were suspected of secretly practicing Islam.-Demographics:By the beginning of the...
s. In fact, after 1492, the word marrano
Marrano
Marranos were Jews living in the Iberian peninsula who converted to Christianity rather than be expelled but continued to observe rabbinic Judaism in secret...
became synonymous with Spaniard and Pope Alexander VI
Pope Alexander VI
Pope Alexander VI , born Roderic Llançol i Borja was Pope from 1492 until his death on 18 August 1503. He is one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes, and his Italianized surname—Borgia—became a byword for the debased standards of the Papacy of that era, most notoriously the Banquet...
was called the "circumcised marrano". However, the Inquisition was seen as merely a ruse to steal money from the Jews which had no business being on Italian territory, where it was not necessary. When the Inquisition began to persecute Lutherans
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
, the explanation was that the Spaniards were by nature more prone to heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
.
Protestantism
In Northern EuropeNorthern Europe
Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...
, the religious confrontation and the threat of Spanish imperial
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
power gave birth to the Black Legend, as the small number of Protestants who were executed by the Inquisition would not have justified such a campaign. Protestants, who had successfully used the press
News media
The news media are those elements of the mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public.These include print media , broadcast news , and more recently the Internet .-Etymology:A medium is a carrier of something...
to disseminate their ideas, tried to win with propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
the war they could not win by force of arms.
On one hand, Catholic
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
theologians
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
criticized the Protestants
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
as newcomers, who, unlike the Catholic Church could not prove a continuity from the time of Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
. On the other hand, Protestants theologians reasoned that this was not true and that theirs was the true Church which had been oppressed and persecuted by the Catholic Church throughout history. This reasoning, which was only outlined by Luther
Martin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...
and Calvin
John Calvin
John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...
, was fleshed out by later Protestant historiography identified with Wyclif or the lollard
Lollardy
Lollardy was a political and religious movement that existed from the mid-14th century to the English Reformation. The term "Lollard" refers to the followers of John Wycliffe, a prominent theologian who was dismissed from the University of Oxford in 1381 for criticism of the Church, especially his...
s of England, the Hussite
Hussite
The Hussites were a Christian movement following the teachings of Czech reformer Jan Hus , who became one of the forerunners of the Protestant Reformation...
s of Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and the Waldensians
Waldensians
Waldensians, Waldenses or Vaudois are names for a Christian movement of the later Middle Ages, descendants of which still exist in various regions, primarily in North-Western Italy. There is considerable uncertainty about the earlier history of the Waldenses because of a lack of extant source...
of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. All this despite the fact that in the 16th century heretics were persecuted in both Catholic and Protestant countries. By the end of the 16th century the Protestant denominations had identified with the heretics of previous times and defined them as martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
s.
When the persecution of Protestants started in Spain the hostility felt towards the Pope was immediately extended to include the King of Spain, on whom the Inquisition depended, and the Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
s who carried it out. After all, the greatest defeat suffered by the Protestants had been at the hands of Charles I of Spain in the battle of Mühlberg
Battle of Mühlberg
The Battle of Mühlberg was a large battle at Mühlberg in the Electorate of Saxony during the Protestant Reformation at which the Catholic princes of the Holy Roman Empire led by the Emperor Charles I of Spain and V of the Holy Roman Empire decisively defeated the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League of...
in 1547. An image of Spain as the champion of Catholicism spread throughout Europe. This image was in part promoted by the Spanish crown.
Martyrology
A martyrology is a catalogue or list of martyrs , arranged in the calendar order of their anniversaries or feasts. Local martyrologies record exclusively the custom of a particular Church. Local lists were enriched by names borrowed from neighbouring churches...
in Germany and England, description of the lives of martyrs in morbid detail, usually heavily illustrated, that circulated among the poorer classes and which incited indignation against the Catholic Church. One of the most famous and influential was the Book of Martyrs by John Foxe
John Foxe
John Foxe was an English historian and martyrologist, the author of what is popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, , an account of Christian martyrs throughout Western history but emphasizing the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the fourteenth century through the...
(1516–1587). Foxe dedicated an entire chapter to the Spanish Inquisition: The execrable Inquisition of Spayne.
Many of the themes that are repeated later on are to be found in this text: anyone can be tried for any triviality; the Inquisition is infallible; people are usually accused to gain money, because of jealousy or to hide the actions of the Inquisition; if proof is not found it is invented; the prisoners are isolated with no contact with the outside world in dark dungeons where they suffer horrible torture etc. Foxe warned that this sinister organization could be introduced into any country that accepted the Catholic faith.
Another influential book was the Sanctae Inquisitionis Hispanicae Artes (Exposition of the Arts of the Spanish Holy Inquisition) published in Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
in 1567 under the pseudonym Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus
Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus
Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus was a pseudonym used by the Spanish evangelic theologian and Bible translator Casiodoro de Reina.- The pseudonym :...
. It appears that Gonzalvius was a pseudonym of Antonio del Corro
Antonio del Corro
Antonio del Corro was a Spanish monk who became a Protestant convert. A noted Calvinist preacher and theologian, he taught at the University of Oxford and wrote the first Spanish grammar in English....
, a Spanish Protestant theologian exiled in Holland. Del Corro added credibility to his tale with his knowledge of the tribunal. The book was an immediate success, two editions were printed between 1568 and 1570 in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, three in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, four in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and one in Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
, and the book continued to be published and referenced until the 19th century.
The largely true story relates the tale of a prisoner who passes through all the stages of the process and above all the interrogation, allowing the reader to identify with the victim. Del Corro's description presents some of the most extreme practices as being routine, such as the innocence of all the accused, the officials of the Inquisition are shown as being devious and vain and each step of the process is shown as a violation of natural law
Natural law
Natural law, or the law of nature , is any system of law which is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law Natural...
. Del Corro supported the initial purpose of the Inquisition which was to persecute false converts and he had not foreseen that his book would be used to support the Black Legend in a similar manner to that of Bartolomé de las Casas
Bartolomé de Las Casas
Bartolomé de las Casas O.P. was a 16th-century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar. He became the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians"...
. He was convinced that the Dominican monks had converted the Inquisition into something execrable, that Phillip II was not aware of the true proceedings and that the Spanish people were opposed to the sinister organization.
European politics in the 16th century
A number of books appeared between 1559 and 1562 that presented the Inquisition as a threat to the liberties enjoyed by Europeans. These writings reasoned that those countries that accepted the catholic religion not only lost their religious liberties but also their civil liberties due to the Inquisition. To illustrate their point they would describe autos-da-fé and tortures and they would provide numerous stories from people that had fled from the Inquisition. The ReformationReformation
- Movements :* Protestant Reformation, an attempt by Martin Luther to reform the Roman Catholic Church that resulted in a schism, and grew into a wider movement...
was seen as a liberation of the human soul from darkness and superstition.
France, Britain and Holland had the most active presses on the continent and they were used very effectively as a means of defense when these countries felt threatened. The documents generated between 1548 and 1581 became reference materials in the studies of later historians.
Holland
There was a generally held fear in Holland dating from the reign of Charles I that the king would try to introduce the Inquisition in order to reduce civil liberties, even though Phillip II had stated that the Spanish Inquisition was not exportable. Phillip II recognized that Holland had its own inquisition more ruthless than the one in Spain. Between 1557 and 1562 the courts in Antwerp executed 103 heretics, more than were killed in the whole of Spain in this same period. Various changes in the organization of the Dutch Inquisition increased people's fears of both the Spanish Inquisition and the local one. In addition, opposition grew to such an extent through the 16th century that it was feared anarchy would break out if Calvinism was not legalized.Reichstag (Holy Roman Empire)
The Imperial Diet was the Diet, or general assembly, of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire.During the period of the Empire, which lasted formally until 1806, the Diet was not a parliament in today's sense; instead, it was an assembly of the various estates of the realm...
entitled A Defence and true declaration of the things lately done in the lowe countrey which described not only the crimes perpetrated against Protestants but also accused the Spanish Inquisition of inciting revolts in Holland in order to force Phillip II to exercise a firm hand, and accused him of the death of Prince Carlos of Asturias.
Great Britain
The political rivalry between Spain and England and the attempted invasion of England by Phillip II's armadaSpanish Armada
This article refers to the Battle of Gravelines, for the modern navy of Spain, see Spanish NavyThe Spanish Armada was the Spanish fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588, with the intention of overthrowing Elizabeth I of England to stop English...
stimulated anti-Spanish propaganda.
The Catholic monarchs in England, had created religious courts to fight against heresy, the last being created by Mary Tudor
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
. The English monarchs, above all Elizabeth I, preferred to create civil tribunals to repress religious dissidents, above all Catholics, distancing themselves from the previous practices. Catholic heretics were identified as traitors by a system that was not that much different from the Inquisition. It even went so far as to kidnap an English Catholic lawyer from the Netherlands, John Story
John Story
Blessed John Story , English Roman Catholic martyr, was born the son of Nicholas Story of Salisbury and educated at Hinxsey Hall, University of Oxford, where he became lecturer on civil law in 1535, being made later principal of Broadgates Hall, afterwards Pembroke College.He appears to have...
, before taking him to England to be tortured, accused of treason and conspiracy and executed. The system by which the government insisted on trying traitors, not heretics, remained in place until the reign of James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
which maintained the illusion that the Inquisition was a catholic institution clearly identified with Spain and Rome.
In this way the religious fanatics gained the support of others who were more moderate and above all of the government, which financed pamphlets and published edicts. During this time many pamphlets were published and translated including A Fig for the Spaniard. A leaflet published by Antonio Pérez
Antonio Pérez
]Antonio Pérez was a Spanish statesman, secretary of king Philip II of Spain.- Early years :Antonio Perez was born in Madrid in 1540. In 1542 he was legalized as son of Gonzalo Pérez, Secretary of the Council of State of king Charles I of Spain . Most probably Antonio was indeed the son of...
in 1598 entitled A treatise Paraenetical repeated William of Orange's claims conferring a tragic aspect to Prince Carlos of Asturias and one of religious fanaticism to Phillip II and the Inquisition that survived into modern era.
The black legend
Paraphrasing Peters, all these factors came together at the end of the 16th century to create an image of Spain in Europe that blackened the character of the Spanish people and their leaders to the extent that Spain was converted into a symbol of all the forces of repression, brutality, religious and political intolerance and intellectual and artistic backwardness during the following centuries. This process is called the Black LegendBlack Legend
The Black Legend refers to a style of historical writing that demonizes Spain and in particular the Spanish Empire in a politically motivated attempt to morally disqualify Spain and its people, and to incite animosity against Spanish rule...
in Spanish historiography
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
.
The 17th century
During the 16th century some Catholic and Protestant thinkers had already begun to discuss the freedom of conscience, but the movement was marginal up until the start of the 17th century. It considered that those states that carried out religious persecution were not only poor Christians, but also illogical, given that they acted on the basis of a conjecture and not a certainty. These thinkers attacked all types of religious persecution, but the Inquisition offered them a perfect target for their criticism. These points of view were most popular with the followers of minority religious beliefs, "dissidents", such as RemonstrantsRemonstrants
The Remonstrants are the Dutch Protestants who, after the death of Jacobus Arminius, maintained the views associated with his name. In 1610 they presented to the States of Holland and Friesland a remonstrance in five articles formulating their points of disagreement from Calvinism.-History:The five...
, Anabaptist
Anabaptist
Anabaptists are Protestant Christians of the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe, and their direct descendants, particularly the Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites....
s, Quakers, Unitarians
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
, Mennonite
Mennonite
The Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after the Frisian Menno Simons , who, through his writings, articulated and thereby formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders...
s etc. In fact, Philipp van Limborch
Philipp van Limborch
Philipp van Limborch , Dutch Remonstrant theologian, was born at Amsterdam, where his father was a lawyer.He received his education at Utrecht, at Leiden, in his native city, and finally at Utrecht University, which he entered in 1652...
, the great historian of the Inquisition, was a Remonstrant and Gilbert Brunet, an English historian of the Reformation
Reformation
- Movements :* Protestant Reformation, an attempt by Martin Luther to reform the Roman Catholic Church that resulted in a schism, and grew into a wider movement...
was a Latitudinarian
Latitudinarian
Latitudinarian was initially a pejorative term applied to a group of 17th-century English theologians who believed in conforming to official Church of England practices but who felt that matters of doctrine, liturgical practice, and ecclesiastical organization were of relatively little importance...
.
Towards the end of the 16th century the religious wars in Europe had made it clear that any attempt to make religiously uniform states were bound to fail. Intellectuals, starting in Holland and France, affirmed that the State should occupy itself with the well-being of its citizens even if this allowed the growth of the heresy of allowing tolerance in exchange for social peace. By the end of the 17th century these ideas had spread to Central Europe and diversity was beginning to be considered more "natural" than uniformity, and that, in fact, uniformity threatened the richness of a nation. Spain was the perfect demonstration of this. It had started to decline economically by the middle of the 17th century and the expulsion of the Jews and other rich, industrious citizens was thought to be one of the main reasons for this decline. Also, the fines and seizures of property and wealth would make the problem worse, as the money was being directed to unproductive areas of the Catholic Church.
The Inquisition was therefore converted into an enemy of the state and as such was reflected as such in the economic and political tracts of the time. In 1673, Francis Willoughby
Francis Willughby
thumbnail|200px|right|A page from the Ornithologia, showing [[Jackdaw]], [[Chough]], [[European Magpie|Magpie]] and [[Eurasian Jay|Jay]], all [[Corvidae|crows]]....
wrote A Relation of a Voyage Made through a Great Part of Spain in which he concluded the following:
The liberal European societies started to look down on those societies that maintained their uniformity, they were also the object of social analysis. The existence of the Inquisition in Portugal, Spain and Rome was thought to be due to the use of force or because the spirit of the people was weakened, it was not considered possible that the Inquisition was supported voluntarily. This supposed weakness of spirit combined with the strength of the Inquisition in these countries was predicted to lead to a lack of imagination and learning as well as hindering advances in science, literature and the arts. Spain, despite the golden age of the Siglo de Oro and although the Inquisition generally only focused on doctrinal matters, is represented after the 17th century as a country without literature
Spanish literature
Spanish literature generally refers to literature written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the state of Spain...
, art
Spanish art
Spanish art is the visual art of Spain, and that of Spanish artists worldwide. Whilst an important contributor to Western art and producing many famous and influential artists Spanish art has often had distinctive characteristics and been assessed...
or science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
.
As of the 17th century the "Spanish character" was included as part of the analysis of the Inquisition. This supposed "Spanish character" was publicized in many travel books which were the most popular type of literature of the period. One of the first and the most influential was written by the Countess d'Aulnoy in 1691 in which she consistently belittled Spanish achievements in the arts and sciences. Other notable books from the 18th century include those by Juan Álvarez de Colmenar, (1701), Jean de Vayarac (1718), Pierre-Louis-Auguste de Crusy, Marquis de Marcillac, Edward Clarke, Henry Swinburne
Henry Swinburne
Henry Swinburne was an English travel writer.-Life:He was born at Bristol on 8 July 1743, into a Catholic family, and was educated at Scorton school, near Catterick, Yorkshire. He was then sent to the monastic seminary of Lacelle in France. He afterwards studied at Paris, Bordeaux, and in the...
, Tobias George Smollett, Richard Twiss
Richard Twiss
Richard Twiss is a Native American educator and author. He is a member of the Sicangu Lakota Oyate from the Rosebud Lakota Sioux Reservation in South Dakota...
and innumerable others who perpetuated the Black Legend. It has been noted that the writers of the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
obtained their knowledge of Spain from these stories.
One of the most important critics of religious persecution and of the Inquisition was Pierre Bayle
Pierre Bayle
Pierre Bayle was a French philosopher and writer best known for his seminal work the Historical and Critical Dictionary, published beginning in 1695....
(1647–1706). Bayle based many of his ideas on the writing of the "dissident" thinkers of the beginning of the century and founded his philosophy on skepticism
Skepticism
Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...
and the conviction that an individuals religious conscience should never be forced. He based his knowledge of Spain and the Spanish in part on the stories of the Countess d'Aulnoy and he united the various arguments of the Legend as a whole in a literary package littered with irony, logic, cartesian proofs and a certain taste for the scandalous that converted it into popular reading.
The Enlightenment
Montesquieu saw in Spain the perfect example of the maladministration of a state under the influence of the clergy. Once again the Inquisition was deemed to be guilty of the economic ruin of nations, the great enemy of political freedom and social productivity, and not just in Spain and Portugal, there were signs throughout Europe that other countries could come to be "infected" with this contagion. He described an Inquisitor as someone "separated from society, in a wretched condition, starved of any kind of relationship, so that he will be tough, ruthless and inexorable...". In his book "The Spirit of the Laws" he dedicates chapter XXV.13 to the Inquisition. The chapter is written in such a way as to call attention to a young Jew who was burnt to death by the Inquisition in LisbonLisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
. Montesquieu is therefore one of the first to describe the Jews as victims, however, he does not defend the theological arguments of his protagonist when dealing with the Inquisitors, in fact he rejects them in footnotes relating to the incident. However, his message is clear: the Inquisition is anachronistic, irrational and irreligious.
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
. Voltaire united the religious and philosophical arguments of Bayle and the economic and political arguments of Montesquieu to definitively create the modern myth of "the Inquisition", metonymy
Metonymy
Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept...
for all the worst forms of religious persecution. He did not have a deep knowledge of the Inquisition until later in life, but he used it often to sharpen his satire and ridicule his opponents, as shown by his Don Jerónimo Bueno Caracúcarador, an Inquisitor who appears in Histoire de Jenni (1775). In Candide (1759), one of his best known titles, he does not show a knowledge of the functioning of the Inquisition greater than that to be found in travel books and general histories. Candide includes his famous description of an auto-da-fé
Auto-da-fé
An auto-da-fé was the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the Spanish Inquisition or the Portuguese Inquisition had decided their punishment, followed by the execution by the civil authorities of the sentences imposed...
in Lisbon, a satirical gem, that introduces the Inquisition to comedy. Voltaire's attacks on the Inquisition became more serious and acute from 1761. He shows a better understanding and knowledge of the internal workings of the tribunal, probably thanks to the work of Abbe Morellet who he used extensively and to his direct knowledge of some cases, such as that of Gabriel Malagrida
Gabriel Malagrida
Gabriel Malagrida was an Italian Jesuit missionary in Brazil and influential figure in the political life of the Lisbon Royal Court who described the devastating 1755 Lisbon earthquake as retribution prompted by God's wrath.Malagrida was famously caught up in the Távora affair and executed as a...
, whose death in Lisbon caused a wave if indignation throughout Europe.
Abbe Morellet published his Petite écrit sur une matière intéresante and Manuel des Inquisiteurs in 1762. Both works extracted and summarized the darkest parts of the Inquisition and focussed on the use of deception to secure convictions, thereby making procedures known that even the most bitter enemies of the Inquisition had ignored.
Abbe Guillaume-Thomas Raynal attained a fame equivalent to that of Montesquieu, Voltaire or Rousseau with his book Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des européens dans les deux Indes, even to the point that in 1789 he was considered one of the fathers of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. His History of the Indies gained fame thanks to its censorship and a number of editions were published in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Nantes
Nantes
Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....
and The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
between 1770 and 1774. As one would expect, the book was also about the Inquisition. In this case Raynal did not criticize the deaths or the use of torture, instead he stated that thanks to the Inquisition Spain had not suffered religious wars. He thought that in order to return Spain to the Concert of Europe
Concert of Europe
The Concert of Europe , also known as the Congress System after the Congress of Vienna, was the balance of power that existed in Europe from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the outbreak of World War I , albeit with major alterations after the revolutions of 1848...
the Inquisition would need to be eliminated which would require the importation of foreigners of all beliefs as the only means of attaining "good results" in a reasonable amount of time; as he considered that the use of indigenous workers would take centuries to achieve the same results.
One of the most important works of the century, L'Encyclopédie, dedicated one of its entries to the Inquisition. The article was written by Louis de Jaucourt
Louis de Jaucourt
Chevalier Louis de Jaucourt was a French scholar and the most prolific contributor to the Encyclopédie. He wrote about 18,000 articles on subjects including physiology, chemistry, botany, pathology, and political history, or about 25% of the entire encyclopedia, all done voluntarily...
a man of science who had studied at Cambridge and who also wrote the majority of the articles about Spain. Jaucourt was not very fond of Spain and many of his articles were filled with invective. He wrote articles on Spain, Iberia
Iberia
The name Iberia refers to three historical regions of the old world:* Iberian Peninsula, in Southwest Europe, location of modern-day Portugal and Spain** Prehistoric Iberia...
, Holland, wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
, monasteries
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
and titles of the nobility etc. which were all derogatory. Although his article on wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
praised Spanish wine his conclusion was that its abuse can cause incurable illnesses.
The article on the Inquisition is clearly taken from Voltaire's writings. For example, the description of the auto-da-fé is based on that given by Voltaire in Candide. The text is a ferocious attack against Spain:
Repeating what Voltaire had already said: «The Inquisition would be the cause of the ignorance of philosophy that Spain lives in, thanks to which Europe and "even Italy" had discovered so many truths.»
After the publication of L'Encyclopédie came an even more ambitious project, that of the "Encyclopédie méthodique" which comprised 206 volumes. The article on Spain was written by Masson de Morvilliers and it naturally mentions the Inquisition. He advances the theory that the Spanish monarchy is nothing more than the play thing of the church and specifically the Inquisition. That is to say, the Inquisition is the true government of Spain. He explains that the cruelty of the Spanish Inquisition is due, in part, to the rivalry between the Franciscan
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
s and the Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
s. In Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
and Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
the Inquisition was in the hands of the Franciscans and in Spain it was in the hands of the Dominicans. Who "in order to distinguish itself in this odious task, were led to unprecedented excesses". He recounts the legend of Philip III
Philip III of Spain
Philip III , also known as Philip the Pious, was the King of Spain and King of Portugal and the Algarves, where he ruled as Philip II , from 1598 until his death...
who on seeing the death of two convicts commented "Here are two unfortunate men who are dying for something they believe in!" When the Inquisition was informed it demanded a phlebotomy
Bloodletting
Bloodletting is the withdrawal of often little quantities of blood from a patient to cure or prevent illness and disease. Bloodletting was based on an ancient system of medicine in which blood and other bodily fluid were considered to be "humors" the proper balance of which maintained health...
of the King whose blood was then burnt.
The 19th and 20th centuries
The Historian Ronald HiltonRonald Hilton
Ronald Hilton was a British-American academic, reporter and think-tank specialist, specializing in Latin America and, in particular, Fidel Castro's Cuba....
has attributed much importance to this 18th century image of Spain. It would have given Napoleon the ideological justification for his invasion
Peninsular War
The Peninsular War was a war between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when French and Spanish armies crossed Spain and invaded Portugal in 1807. Then, in 1808, France turned on its...
in 1807: the enlightened French taking their light to the backward and benighted Spain. In fact, one of the reforms that Napoleon introduced in Spain was the elimination of the Inquisition.
In addition, Reverend Ingram Cobbin MA, in a 19th century reissue of Foxe's The Book of Martyrs regaled his readers with the most fantastic tales about what the French troops found in the Inquisition's prison when they occupied Madrid
America
In the same way that England had used the Black Legend as a political weapon in the 16th century, AmericasAmericas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
used it during the Cuban War of Independence
Cuban War of Independence
Cuban War of Independence was the last of three liberation wars that Cuba fought against Spain, the other two being the Ten Years' War and the Little War...
. The American politician and orator Robert Green Ingersoll (1833–1899) is quoted as saying:
In America in the 19th century, knowledge of the Inquisition was spread by Protestant polemical writers and historians such as Prescott and John Lothrop
John Lothrop
John Lothropp was an English Anglican clergyman, who became a Congregationalist minister and emigrant to New England. He was the founder of Barnstable, Massachusetts.-Early life:...
, whose ideology influenced the story. Along with the myths woven around the burning of witches in America
Salem witch trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693...
the myth of the Inquisition was maintained as a malevolent abstraction, sustained by anti-Catholicism.
According to Peters, the terms inquisition, inquisitorial and witch hunt became generalized in American society in the 1950s to refer to oppression by its government, whether referring to the past or the present, this was possibly due to the influence of contemporary European authors. Carey McWilliams
Carey McWilliams (journalist)
Carey McWilliams was an American author, editor, and lawyer. He is best known for his writings about social issues in California, including the condition of migrant farm workers and the internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II...
published Witch Hunt: The Revival of Heresy in 1950 which was a study of the Committee of Un-American Activities in which wide use was made of the term Inquisition to refer to the contemporary phenomenon of anticommunist hysteria. The tenor of the work was later widened in The American Inquisition, 1945-1960 by Cedric Belfrage
Cedric Belfrage
Cedric Henning Belfrage was a socialist, author, journalist, translator and co-founder of the radical US-weekly newspaper the National Guardian...
and even later in 1982 with the book Inquisition: Justice and Injustice in the Cold War by Stanley Kutler
Stanley Kutler
Stanley Ira Kutler is an American historian best known for his lawsuit against the National Archives and Richard Nixon that won the release of the Watergate tapes....
. The term inquisition has become so widely used that it has come to be a synonym for official investigation, especially of a political or religious nature, characterized by its lack of respect for individual rights, prejudice on the part of the judges and cruel punishments.
The Black Legend in Spain
The degree to which the Spanish people accepted the Inquisition is hard to evaluate. Kamen tried to summarize the situation by saying that the Inquisition was considered as an evil necessary for maintaining order. It is not as if there were not any critics of the Tribunal, there were many as is evident from the Inquisition's own archives, but these critics are not considered relevant to the Black Legend. For example, in 1542 Alonso de Virués, humanist and Archbishop, criticized its intolerance and those that used chains and the axe to change the disposition of the soul; Juan de Mariana, despite supporting the Inquisition, criticized forced conversions and the belief in purity of blood (limpieza de sangreLimpieza de sangre
Limpieza de sangre , Limpeza de sangue or Neteja de sang , meaning "cleanliness of blood", played an important role in modern Iberian history....
).
Public opinion slowly started to change after the 18th century thanks to contacts with the outside world, as a consequence the Black Legend began to appear in Spain. The religious and intellectual freedom in France was watched with interest and the initial victims of the Inquisition, conversos and moriscos, had disappeared. Enlightened intellectuals started to appear such as Pablo Olavide and later Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes
Pedro Rodríguez, Conde de Campomanes
Pedro Rodríguez, Conde de Campomanes , Spanish statesman and writer, was born at Santa Eulalia de Sorribia, in Asturias....
and Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos was an Asturian-born Spanish neoclassical statesman, author, philosopher and a major figure of the Age of Enlightenment in Spain.-Life:...
, who blamed the Inquisition for the injust treatment of the conversos. In 1811 Moratín
Leandro Fernández de Moratín
Leandro Fernández de Moratín was a Spanish dramatist, translator and neoclassical poet.-Biography:Moratín was born in Madrid the son of Nicolás Fernández de Moratín, a major literary reformer in Spain from 1762 until his death in 1780.Distrusting the teaching offered in Spain's universities at...
published Auto de fe celebrado en la ciudad de Logroño (Auto de fe held in the city of Logroño) which related the history of a large trial against a number of witches that took place in Logroño
Logroño
Logroño is a city in northern Spain, on the Ebro River. It is the capital of the autonomous community of La Rioja, formerly known as La Rioja Province.The population of Logroño in 2008 was 153,736 and a metropolitan population of nearly 197,000 inhabitants...
, with satirical comments from the author. However, these liberal intellectuals, some of whom were members of the government, were not revolutionary and were preoccupied with the maintenance of the social order.
The Inquisition ceased to function in practice in 1808, during the Spanish War of Independence
Peninsular War
The Peninsular War was a war between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when French and Spanish armies crossed Spain and invaded Portugal in 1807. Then, in 1808, France turned on its...
as it was abolished by the occupying French government, although it remained as an institution until 1834.
A school of liberal historians appeared in France and Spain at the start of the 19th century who were the first to talk about Spanish decline. They considered the Inquisition to be responsible for this economic and cultural decline and for all the other evils that afflicted the country. Other European historians took up the theme later on and this position can still be seen today. This school of thought stated that the expulsion of the Jews and the persecution of the conversos had led to the impoverishment and decline of Spain as well as the destruction of the middle class. This type of author made Menéndez y Pelayo exclaim:
This school of thought along with the other elements of the Black Legend would form part of the Spanish anticlericalism of the end of the 19th century. This anticlericalism formed part of many other ideologies of the left wing, such as socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
and anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
. This is demonstrated by a statement made by the Socialist Member of Parliament Fernando Garrido in April 1869 that the Church had used the Court of the Inquisition as an instrument for its own ends. The Church used the Inquisition to gag freedom of expression and impede the diffusion of the truth. It imposed a rigid despotism over three and a half centuries of Spanish history.
External links
- The Real Inquisition de Thomas F. Madden, professor at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri.
- Dave Hunt and the Spanish Inquisition
- Drunken With The Blood Of The Saints!
- The Inquisition - A Pictorial History