From an article that appeared in the Cornell Review shortly after September 11th:

The New Inquisition

Spanish Inquisition does not live up to reputation of injustice

Since the epiphany of last September, we have heard countless comparisons between the murders by militant Mohammedans and various epochs of Western history, in a bizarre, masochistic, self-condemning attempt to extenuate the current jihad movement.

Dominating the examples of a Western conduit for bloodthirsty religious fervor similar to that of the Osama Movement has been the Spanish Inquisition. Unfortunately for our media and this self-deprecating sequela, examination of the Spanish Inquisition reveals it to be none of the things it is alleged to be, but to be in fact the most just tribunal of its time.

The very word “Inquisition” (which actually comes from the verb ‘to inquire’) conjures up morbid notions of torture, lynch mobs, and oppressive totalitarian men in brown robes carrying out sadistic punishments for no proven cause. This is the image taught and depicted as an apodictic truth by mainstream society. Modern scholars, and a recent BBC expose, have found the truth to be quite to the contrary.

One must first realize why the Spanish Inquisition was founded. At the time (late 15th century), Spain was under attack by, believe it or not, Turkish Muslims set on their own jihad – as it turns out the Iberian Peninsula was also infringing on Muslim Holy Ground. False conversions to Christianity to avoid suspicion were common – producing converts who would later clandestinely aid their invading cohorts. The uprooting of these bogus conversions in an attempt to halt the invading Turks was the initial aim of the Spanish Inquisition.

Within this and all later purposes, the only persons the Spanish Inquisition had jurisdiction over were self-proclaimed Christians. Contrary to popular belief, the Inquisition could not, nor did, prosecute anyone for being Jewish or Islamic. In fact, one way to avoid the trial or punishment by the Inquisition was simply to say that you were not a Christian. One could believe whatever he or she cared to, as long as the person did not claim to be Christian.

A common vision of the Inquisition is a mob of ignoble churls throwing accusations at some poor widow for being a witch, as portrayed by Monty Python. William Thomas Walsh describes the purpose of the Inquisition as “…a judicial instrument of conformity, which would eliminate the caprice, the anger, and the misinformation of the mob.” This view as a stabilizing effect seems more founded, since the Inquisitors, who as Alphonsus Duran points outs “were university lawyers and not even always priests,” claimed that witchcraft was a figment of the imagination. No one could be tried or burnt for witchcraft under the Spanish Inquisition, however there were harsh punishments for false accusation. In contrast, as the BBC points out: in the 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition, only between 3,000 and 5,000 people were killed, while at the same time the rest of Europe burnt 150,000 women for witchcraft alone.

Some of the information used by the BBC came from the annals of the Catholic Church, which kept in-depth internal records of each case. Since these were internal, and hence secret (until recently), their veracity is held in high regard, as forgery would gain nothing.

These records give startling enlightenment with regards to the practice of torture, which was universal in the contemporary courts of Europe. Professor Stephen Haliczer of Northern University of Illinois found that the Spanish Inquisition used torture in only 2 percent of more than 7,000 cases studied, and never for more than 15 minutes. Less than 1 percent were tortured more than once, and he found no evidence that anyone was ever tortured more than twice. This during a time when damaging shrubs in a common garden was an offence punishable by death in England.

The dungeon-like, filthy jails of the Inquisition shown in movies such as “Man of La Mancha” are another fabricated slur against the Inquisition. Prof. Haliczer claims the Inquisition’s jails were superior to all other jails in Spain, and notes, “I found instances of prisoners in secular criminal courts blaspheming in order to get into the Inquisition prison.” This is a far cry from the Neanderthal brutality and insane religious fanaticism being alluded to by the media, let alone being analogous to Bin Laden, the Taliban and the Palestinian terror groups.

So if the Inquisition did not just go from town to town executing anyone accused of heresy, how did it operate? Here is the account given in Alphonsus Duran’s book “Why Apologize for the Spanish Inquisition,” with information provided by the BBC documentary: Upon coming into a district, the Inquisitors would announce a “period of grace.” During this time, anyone accused could freely repent, whereupon a penance would be given and the offender forgiven. After this the accused would appear before the court. At this time he would be given the incredible privilege of writing a list of all his enemies who might want to commit calumny against him, whose testimony would automatically be thrown out. At this point the trial would take place guided by strict procedures which were constantly reviewed and revised by the hierarchy. The defendant could seek the assistance of lawyers. A conviction needed the agreement of at least two witnesses (our courts only require one), and a judge thought to be biased could be rejected by the accused. If convicted, there were multiple levels of appeal available to the accused.

This strict and just method defies our inherited notions of the Spanish Inquisition, but the statistics collaborate this. The BBC research shows that more men and women were executed by the guillotine of the French Revolution in one day than by the Spanish Inquisition during the entire 16th century. In the vast majority of cases, an Inquisition ended in absolution, penance, or a warning – not an execution.

With the chimera of the monolithic, nefarious Spanish Inquisition now debunked, one might still raise the question as to whether it is acceptable to punish, and in particular execute, in the name of God at all; even when done in this comparatively just and benevolent manner.

Is it justifiable to kill for the good of a society or an institution (for a church is an institution, divinely ordered or not)? Our own penal code says yes. Timothy McVeigh can attest to that. If the institution is a church instead of a state, heresy becomes equivalent to treason. American law holds execution as the standard punishment for treason, so the “malodorous” and “fanatical” Inquisitors can not be vilified by our own standards. Would we be better off if Bin Laden and company had been sent to a Muslim Inquisition and made to recant or die, stopping him before he spread his evil ideology? The U.S. response in Afghanistan seems to allude to such a sentiment, making the pathos of the Inquisition more similar to our War on Terror than to the attack on America.

http://www.cornellreview.org/viewart.cgi?num=110

Eric The(SettingTheRecordStraight)Hun

Quoted: I don't think anyone expected it.

Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.

And that's all I'll say about this!

Quoted: Wow... all of the torture devices that were developed and used during that time period must have just been for shits and giggles then

Did you read the article?

It doesn't sound as if you did.

There was torture, as there was throughout the world in those days, but it was nothing like the Disneyworld of torture that Prof. Monty Python would have you believe.

Of course, if you are predisposed to believe that the Spanish Inquisition was everything that the kind professor has taught you to believe, it may be even more difficult for you to overcome that myth, eh?

Show us where this article and the BBC research is incorrect, and then you may have a point.

Until then, you have none.

Eric The(Historical)Hun

Quoted: Glad to see Bellisaries is getting work again.

You must be referring to Michael A. Bellesiles, the author of Arming America: The Originas of a National Gun Culture, whose research proved to be not only erroneous, but downright deceitful?

Nope. He had nothing to do with either the Cornell Review's article or the BBC's documentary.

So, what, other than Monty Python's Flying Circus, upon what do you base your opinion of the Spanish Inquisition's methods?

The Illustrated Comics' Man of La Mancha?

C'mon be specific.

There is NO difference whatsoever, it appears, between what liberal professors have taught us for years about the 'depth of depravity' of the Spanish Inquisition's crusade, and what those same liberal professors would say about America's involvement in the War on Terror taking place today.

Figure out whose side you are on and go with it!

Eric The(Chuckling)Hun

The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition

by Ellen Rice

"The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition," a 1994 BBC/A&E production, will re-air on the History Channel this December 3 at 10 p.m. It is a definite must-see for anyone who wishes to know how historians now evaluate the Spanish Inquisition since the opening of an investigation into the Inquisition's archives. The special includes commentary from historians whose studies verify that the tale of the darkest hour of the Church was greatly fabricated.

In its brief sixty-minute presentation, "The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition" provides only an overview of the origins and debunking of the myths of torture and genocide. The documentary definitely succeeds in leaving the viewer hungry to know more. The long-held beliefs of the audience are sufficiently weakened by the testimony of experts and the expose of the making of the myth.

The Inquisition began in 1480. Spain was beginning a historic reunification of Aragon and Castile. The marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile created a unified Hispania not seen since Roman times. Afraid that laws commanding the exile or conversion of Jews were thwarted by conversos, i.e. synagogue-going "Catholics," Ferdinand and Isabella commissioned an investigation or Inquisition. They began the Inquisition hoping that religious unity would foster political unity, and other heads of state heralded Spain's labors for the advent of a unified Christendom. The documentary clearly and boldly narrates the historical context, which intimates that the Spanish were not acting odd by their contemporary standards.

The Inquisition Myth, which Spaniards call "The Black Legend," did not arise in 1480. It began almost 100 years later, and exactly one year after the Protestant defeat at the Battle of Mühlberg at the hands of Ferdinand's grandson, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. In 1567 a fierce propaganda campaign began with the publication of a Protestant leaflet penned by a supposed Inquisition victim named Montanus. This character (Protestant of course) painted Spaniards as barbarians who ravished women and sodomized young boys. The propagandists soon created "hooded fiends" who tortured their victims in horrible devices like the knife-filled Iron Maiden (which never was used in Spain). The BBC/A&E special plainly states a reason for the war of words: the Protestants fought with words because they could not win on the battlefield.

The Inquisition had a secular character, although the crime was heresy. Inquisitors did not have to be clerics, but they did have to be lawyers. The investigation was rule-based and carefully kept in check. And most significantly, historians have declared fraudulent a supposed Inquisition document claiming the genocide of millions of heretics.

What is documented is that 3000 to 5000 people died during the Inquisition's 350 year history. Also documented are the "Acts of Faith," public sentencings of heretics in town squares. But the grand myth of thought control by sinister fiends has been debunked by the archival evidence. The inquisitors enjoyed a powerful position in the towns, but it was one constantly jostled by other power brokers. In the outlying areas, they were understaffed - in those days it was nearly impossible for 1 or 2 inquisitors to cover the thousand-mile territory allotted to each team. In the outlying areas no one cared and no one spoke to them. As the program documents, the 3,000 to 5,000 documented executions of the Inquisition pale in comparison to the 150,000 documented witch burnings elsewhere in Europe over the same centuries.

The approach is purely historical, and therefore does not delve into ecclesial issues surrounding religious freedom. But perhaps this is proper. Because the crime was heresy, the Church is implicated, but the facts show it was a secular event.

One facet of the Black Legend that evaporates under scrutiny in this film is the rumor that Philip II, son of Charles V, killed his son Don Carlos on the advisement of the aging blind Grand Inquisitor. But without a shred of evidence, the legend of Don Carlos has been enshrined in a glorious opera by Verdi.

The special may be disturbing to young children. There are scenes of poor souls burning at the stake, and close-ups of the alleged torture devices. Scenes depicting witches consorting with pot-bellied devils are especially grotesque. For kids, this is the stuff of nightmares.

Discrediting the Black Legend brings up the sticky subject of revisionism. Re-investigating history is only invalid if it puts an agenda ahead of reality. The experts - once true believers in the Inquisition myth - were not out to do a feminist canonization of Isabella or claim that Tomas de Torquemada was a Marxist. Henry Kamen of the Higher Council for Scientific Research in Barcelona said on camera that researching the Inquisition's archives "demolished the previous image all of us (historians) had."

And the future of the Black Legend? For many it may continue to hold more weight than reality. There is the emotional appeal against the Church. The dissenters of today may easily imagine Torquemada's beady eyes as a metaphor of the Church's "dictatorial, controlling, damning" pronouncements. The myth is also the easiest endorsement of the secular state: "de-faith" the state and de-criminalize heresy. Who will be the revisionists in this case? Will the many follow Montanas' lead in rewriting history?

Our 20th century crisis of man playing God - usurping power over conception, life, and death - leaves us with no alternative but to qualify our demythologization of the Inquisition with a reminder: 3,000 to 5,000 victims are 3,000 to 5,000 too many.

Ellen Rice is assistant to the editor of Catholic Dossier.

http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Dossier/1112-96/article4.html

Eric The(ReturningWithMore)Hun

Quoted: 3-5 k is all?

Yep.

Hardly the numbers for a good old Russian Pogrom against a village or two of Jews...in the 19th Century!

I would put a smiley here, but it seems so out of place in this subject matter.

Eric The(HonestAsTheDayIsLong)Hun

They still hadn;t fully recovered from the October 13, 1307 purging of the Templars Brother Eric...  There were many inquisitions during this time period, people often confuse them.  They served one purpose and one purpose only, to destroy those who were opposed to the power of the Church - either inside or outside the church.

Quoted: Eric, while I'd be the first to say that much of the conventional wisdom related to the Spanish Inquisition is a result of anti-Catholic sentiment over the years, that article did cause me to think some things were being overlooked.

Such as?

From folks I have talked to who have studied the era, Rome was very displeased with some of the activities in Spain - and had quite a time trying to reign them in.

And....????

It also does not talk about the many rules in place in civil society that caused people to pretend to be Christian.

Sort of like the law in effect at the time that Massachusetts ratified the US Constitution that made it a felony NOT to attend church on Sundays?

Where are you going with this?

While the Inquisition itself may not have discriminated or cared if you were Jewish or Muslim, the society at large did - thus leading people to fake conversion and fall under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.

As the article states, and careful research shows, you could simply say that you were NOT a Christian and the Inquisition had no authority over you.

What the secular authorities in Spain, or the population of Spain thought about that decision is not germane to any discussion about the Spanish Inquisition.

If you'd like to start a discussion generally on man's inhumanity to man, be my guest!

The way the author presents that subject is very deceptive, IMHO.

How so?

The subject was the myth of the Spanish Inquisition.

Not the good civil manners of the ordinary people of Spain from the Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries.

Eric The(StayingOnTrack)Hun

Quoted: They still hadn;t fully recovered from the October 13, 1307 purging of the Templars Brother Eric...  There were many inquisitions during this time period, people often confuse them.  They served one purpose and one purpose only, to destroy those who were opposed to the power of the Church - either inside or outside the church.

The one which is the subject of this thread is the Spanish Inquisition, and not King Phillip the Fair's designs against the Knights Templar in which the Pope played a minor and ineffective role.

The Roman Church never regained its position in France after its failure to protect one of its own Orders from the machinations of the French Throne.

But I do understand where you are coming from, Brother HiramRanger!

Eric The(Lapsi)Hun

Quoted: Quoted: They still hadn;t fully recovered from the October 13, 1307 purging of the Templars Brother Eric...  There were many inquisitions during this time period, people often confuse them.  They served one purpose and one purpose only, to destroy those who were opposed to the power of the Church - either inside or outside the church. The one which is the subject of this thread is the Spanish Inquisition, and not King Phillip the Fair's designs against the Knights Templar in which the Pope played a minor and ineffective role. The Roman Church never regained its position in France after its failure to protect one of its own Orders from the machinations of the French Throne. But I do understand where you are coming from, Brother HiramRanger! Eric The(Lapsi)Hun

Of course it was a minor and ineffective role... the Papacy was bought and paid for my the French Throne... dark days for the Church indeed.  I believe it was centuries until the Church fully recovered from those dark days.

hell, the killing by 'christians' in spain started long before the inquisition...may 7, 1355...1200 jews killed...in one day in toledo, spain.

anyone that says the spanish inquisition is 'kinder and more gentle' is the same kind of moron that would claim the civil war was not about about slavery.

the inquisitian BEGAN by driving out jews and protestants and other non-believers...NOT muslims!!! by the 1200's, most of spain had been reconquered by christians (yeah, i know they hung on in grenada until 1492).

it was begun by ferdinand and dizzybella (yeah, those wonder folks that bankrolled chris off to new idia) as a unification tactic that would make spain a catholic nation.

Tomas de Torquemada, HIMSELF, is responsible for the execution of over 2,000!!! and take a guess at how many were tortured under just HIS orders...GO ON! GUESS!

ah! those that would revise history!

In fact, Chritianity hasn't done too badly overall compared to the deaths imposed by all belief systems.

i wonder how millions of american indians would answer that question? were they not slaughtered by those that called themselves christians?

how about the millions of mayans, toltecs, aztecs and other idians of central and south america that were killed and enslaved by catholic conquistadors?

i'll also wager that most of the guards at bergen-belsen went to church on sunday.

look harder. you will find that not all the onward christian soldiers were as christ-like as some would have us believe.

Compared to the millions (100+) killed between 1917 and 1980 for not being "true believers" in Communism, that's not a whole lot, is it?

moral relatavism?

the point is that christians killed millions of non-christians.

do terms like, heathens, savages, pagans, etc. carry relgious meaning? you bet they do.

The Christian faith does not teach to kill because they are unbelievers, and you carefully changed that to "killed by those calling themselves Christian".

ask those that were slaughtered at the hands of christians if they thought that religion had NOTHING to do with why they were killed. i submit that it DOES.

hell, the christians even turned on other 'christians' in salem, mass. not on a grand scale, but certainly exemplary of how a christian and his "thou shalt not kill" mentality can work.

Killed by elievers is not the same as killed for your belief. There wasn't a single amerind killed for refusing Christianity.

uh....go lookup the salem witch trials, sir. i think you will also find an interesting history of how the american indians were treated in the ohio river valley. some converted...some did not. the results for those did not were very ugly and shameful.

The Communists killed because people didn't believe; and Communism is indeed a religion.

no. communism is an economic system. you are confusing the cult of personality, totalitarianism and fascism with communism, also. i will agree with you that self-proclaimed communists (probably better described as marxists, lenists, trotskyites, stalinists, etc.) killed millions. EVERYONE comes away from this thing called history with blood on their hands.

to get back to the point of the post, though, the catholic christians thru the well documented acts of the spanish inquisition were definitely guilty of numerous and heinous crimes.

You won't find me a Catholic appologist either; I am technically under a Papal ban calling for my death if Rome ever gains control of the USA.

cool! may i ask what you did to piss of the pope so badly?

I also do not consider Roman Catholicism to be biblical Chritianity.

i'm not going down that road...paging sgtar...paging mr. sgtar!

There were millions of native americans here?  I did not know there were so many.  I can't imgine there were millions in north america.

thanks for correcting me, t-stox. i said protestant when i meant to say "other sects of christianity".

protestant, if you will, numbers were pretty small in spain until the 1500's...agreed.

it must be remembered that the inquisition ran for well over 300 years in all parts of europe and that protestants became increasing targets of the inquisitors as time progressed.

best estimates seem to say 32,000 were burned to death, although some estimates go much higher. add in those tortured, dispossesed, exiled and executed in other fashions and the inquisition ranks as a stain upon the history of mankind and of the christian faith.

LONG BEFORE the white man set foot on American soil, the American Indians, or rather the Native Americans, had been living in America. When the Europeans came here, there were probably about 10 million Indians populating America north of present-day Mexico.

considering that 2.48 million answered the last census indicating 'some' indian blood, it can be considered pretty much true that between disease, war, massacres (ohio is guilty of several massacres) right up to wounded knee, us white folks ancestors wasted a whole big bunch of them.

Quoted: LONG BEFORE the white man set foot on American soil, the American Indians, or rather the Native Americans, had been living in America. When the Europeans came here, there were probably about 10 million Indians populating America north of present-day Mexico. considering that 2.48 million answered the last census indicating 'some' indian blood, it can be considered pretty much true that between disease, war, massacres (ohio is guilty of several massacres) right up to wounded knee, us white folks ancestors wasted a whole big bunch of them.

That doesn't make any sense.  2.48M say they have some indian blood, and how many generations has it been.  I seriously doubt there were millions of native americans in north america when europeans showed up.  I don't think anyone would or could know.  Sounds like a made up number.

From MSN Encarta:

"A.    Early Population  

Scholars vary greatly in their estimates of how many people were living in the Americas when Columbus arrived in 1492. Estimates range from 40 million to 90 million for all of the Americas, and from 2 million to 18 million for the aboriginal population north of present-day Mexico. These figures are hypothetical; exact population figures are impossible to ascertain. Furthermore, the date of Columbus’s arrival was not necessarily the peak of the Native American population. Civilizations had risen and fallen before that time—the Hopewell culture, for example, flourished from 200 bc to ad 400 in eastern North America. Some anthropologists believe the peak occurred around ad 1200."

Any number is a wild guess.