Torquemada
Achievements: Spanish Inquisition
Born: 1420; Valladolid, Castile (Spain)
Died: September 16, 1498; Ávila, Castile, Spain (Aged 78)
Field & Discipline: Religion; Inquisitor
Language: Spanish
Education: Dominican monastery of St. Paul, Valladolid
Life & Times:
Almost nothing is known of Torquemada’s youth, but at an early age he entered the order founded by [in Order of] St. Dominic* in the early 13th century, at the monastery of St. Paul at Valladolid, where he studied theology and philosophy and became a brilliant scholar.In 1452, Torquemada's growing reputation won him the position of prior of the Dominican monastery of Santa Cruz, near Segovia, at the age of 32. He remained at Santa Cruz for the next 22 years. Throughout his life, Torquemada never touched meat, invariably wore the coarest hair shirt possible, and maintained the strictest personal poverty, having donated his family's fortune to the Church.
Renowned for his piety and asceticism, during the late 1760s (and possibly earlier) Torquemada was chosen by the young [confessor to] Isabella of Castile* as her confessor, and became increasingly influential, on her succession to the throne , with her husband Ferdinand of Aragon, in 1474.Now in close association with the Spanish monarchy, Torquemada's attention was turned to the problem of the Marranos (also known as “conversos” - Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity but who were suspected of adhering to their original faith clandestinely) and the Moriscos (Islamic converts in a similar position), plus the resident Jews and Moors, all of whom he (and a great many others) considered a threat to the religious and social purity and unity of Spain.
The Spanish nobility (and especially the monarchy) prided itself on the purity of its lineage and on the orthodoxy of its beliefs, and Isabella and Ferdinand - who already disliked "aliens" having power in Spain - were easily persuaded that the numerous Jews and Muslims were danger to both Church and state, and it was agreed that, in order to seek out and destroy the infidels, a revival and improvement of the medieval instrument of the Inquisition was required.
Although there was intense opposition to such a development from certain important quarters - in particular from the many conversos, or those related to conversos, at court, and from the majority of the Spanish bishops, who were reluctant to abdicate their power - Ferdinand and Isabella set up the Spanish Inquisition, with active interrogations starting in 1480.
In February 1482, Torequemada was made an assistant inquisitor, and in August 1483, Pope Sixtus IV appointed him to the new office of Inquisitor-General for Castile and Leon, then extending his authority to Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia in October, and socentralizing the Inquisition's work throughout Spain.Immediately Torquemada was given the power to order the Spanish nobles, on pain of ex-communication and imprisonment by the Inquisition, to arrest all the families of Marranos who had fled into their territories, confiscate their property, and to return them as prisoners to the tribunals of the Spanish Inquisition.
The nobility, which had effectively ruled itself for hundreds of years, was outraged by these demands, but Torquemada, working hand-in-hand with Ferdinand and Isabella (who were as keen to subdue their nobles as to rid the country of the Jews), forced their capitulation, and the work of the Inquisition began in earnest.
During the early 1480s, as papal representative and highest official of the inquisitorial court, Torquemada devoted all his energies to reorganizing the Inquisition and establishing a system of tribunals at Valladolid, Seville, Jaen, Avila, Cordova, and Villareal, and, in 1484, at Saragossa in Aragon.He also instituted a High Council of five members whose chief duty was to assist him in the hearing of appeals, and then convened a general assembly of inquisitors at Seville in November 1484, where as Inquisitor-General he presented a series of 28 articles for the guidance of inquisitors (to be used by inquisitors for the next 300 years) which secured efficiency and uniformity by regulating the use of torture, providing for documentation of denunciations and appeals, and ensuring the security of the Inquisition's prisons.
Through these statutes, Torquemada also greatly extended the powers of the Spanish Inquisition to include not only crimes of heresy and apostasy but also sorcery, sodomy, polygamy, blasphemy, usury, and other offences, dealing with many cases previously judged by the Bishops’ courts and even some by the civil courts, all in complete secrecy. By 1490, heading a vast religious body with almost unlimited powers of arrest, imprisonment, torture, and execution, Torquemada ranked second only in power in Spain to the king and queen themselves.
During this period also, Torquemada gained the reputation - partly deserved, partly exaggerated - of great cruelty and mercilessness in his conduct of the Inquisition, which, according to the estimate of most historians, was responsible for the burning of some two thousand people between 1481 and 1504.
With the occupation of Granada in January 1492, Spanish unity under the Christian monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella was complete. This was swiftly followed by the edict of March 1492 expelling all Jews from Spain, urged by Torquemada and reinforced by the alleged "discovery" in 1490 of the ritual murder by several Jews of a Christian boy, who became known as the "Holy Child of La Guardia.”This episode lead to further outbreaks of savage Jewish persecution, and finally to the edict of 31 March 1492 which ordered all Jews who refused Christian baptism to leave Spain within three months. Both the crown and the Church in Spain profited considerably from the confiscations which accompanied the numerous convictions for heresy orchestrated by the Inquisition, as well as by the seizure of real propertyabandoned by the more than 170,000 Jews who fled overseas. Torquemada, nowaged 72, had by this stage accomplished all he had set out to do in Spain, and soon after the expulsion he retired from his position as royal confessor, and withdrew to his monastery of St.Thomas in Avila.He did, however, retain the position of Grand Inquisitor. Continuing his persecutions of Jews in Avila - between 1492 and 1498, 127 conversos were burnt at the stake there - and his paranoia increasing. In 1494 Pope [restrained by] Alexander VI* responded to the widespread complaints against Torquemada by appointing four assistant inquisitors in June 1494 to restrain him.
Assessment: Tomas de Torquemada has become the symbol of the inquisitor who uses torture and confiscation to terrorize his victims, who during his tenure sent around 2,000 victims to the stake.
Oneliner: Tomas de Torquemada, infamous Inquisitor
Bibliography:
- Burman, Edward, The Inquisition: The Hammer of Heresy, Aquarian Press: Northants, 1984.
- Encyclopedia Britannica.
- Hope, Thomas, Torquemada: Scourge of the Jews, George Allen & Unwin Ltd.: London, 1939.
Father: Pero Fernandez de Torquemada
Mother: Unknown
Siblings: One sister
Spouse: None
Children: None