page_title: Castle of San Jorge
section_title: Headquarters of the Court of the Inquisition
hierarchical_section_title: Castle of San Jorge / History / Headquarters of the Court of the Inquisition
caption_attribution_description: English: Castle of San Jorge (Seville) when this served as jail for the Inquisition.
context_page_description: The Castle of San Jorge was a medieval fortress built on the west bank of the Guadalquivir river in the Spanish city of Seville. It was also used as headquarters and prison for the Spanish Inquisition.
  It was demolished in the 19th century and made into a food market. A museum in the underground ruins focuses on the history of the castle, the Spanish Inquisition and of religious repression. Next to the food market in the Barrio de Triana, the Alley of the Inquisition, which was part of the fortifications, now connects Castilla Street with the Nuestra Señora de la O Walk.
context_section_description: When the Inquisition began in Seville, they needed more space for their dungeons. Since the Castle of San Jorge was unused, it was a very apparent place for those duties and it was ceded to it by the Court.
  The Inquisition originally intended to suppress heresy within the Catholic Church itself, ensuring its spiritual purity. But the "Modern Inquisition" established in Seville, contrary to what is believed, was an independent institution of the Church, to prosecute false Christians and heretics.
  It was created by the Catholic Monarchs and began operating in Seville in 1481, with the converts strongly opposed to the establishment of the Court.
  Since Seville as was an amalgam of cultures, with remarkable Judeo-Moorish minorities and a large commercial center open to traffic of all nations, it was an ideal place for the presence and distribution of non-Catholic ideologies.
  An archbishop of Seville, Pedro González de Mendoza, was the true founder of the Modern Inquisition. The Christians accused of heresy were forbidden to appeal to Rome, so that the "religious control" became independent controlled outside the papal curia.
  The Tribunal of the Holy Office began with its headquarters at the convent of San Pablo of the Dominicans (present church of la Magdalena) who, because of the rivalry that it maintained with the Franciscan Order, and risking its prestige, had no problem in turning their convent into a temporary prison for the men and women "most guilty" of heresy. However, it soon had to move to the Castle of San Jorge where there was more rrom for the dungeons, where the judges and officers "of this holy office" lived.
  However, given the direction that the inquisitorial bureaucracy was taking, it did not have much space in the castle: due to the fact that two of the inquisitors had harsh differences and there were jealousies caused by the one-man office of one of the notaries.
  The essential work of the Holy Office was to pursue and prosecute the false converts.
  The real inquisition was held at the Castle of San Jorge: it was where the inmates were kept, where the Court subjected them to "interrogation," and where they awaited execution and sentencing. Instead, the sentenced were held in so-called "life imprisonment" that was in El Salvador.
  The jail was unhealthy, both wet or hot, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the cell's floor. The secret prisons were divided into high and low cells.
  The Castle of San Jorge was a feared and hated place among other things, because its walls served as shelter to criminals who had committed a crime, but as they were friends or relatives of the Inquisition, enjoyed immunity.
  Also the Inquisition had collaboration of the "familiars," a kind of police who enjoyed the privileges of escaping the jurisdiction of other courts, and were also authorized to carry weapons.
  Although expressly prohibited such excesses, the "servants of the Inquisition" and the "right of asylum" continued to commit crimes under the pretext of immunity.
  The Auto-da-fés that were held in Seville took place first on the steps of the Cathedral, and then in the Plaza de San Francisco, although many of them occurred in the Church of Santa Ana.
  On the other hand, the Auto-da-fés were considered a party by the people, and a large crowd came that used to participate in an angry way around the complicated ceremony.
  According to Giorgio Vasari, the Florentine artist Pietro Torrigiano was arrested by the Inquisition, and died in the Castle of San Jorge in 1522 in a kind of hunger strike, although it is possible that this story is apocryphal.
  The Inquisition left the castle in 1626, due to the continued deterioration of its walls due to heavy flooding. After that, it was loaned to the Count-Duke of Olivares, in which he dealt with its repairs and care, and the surveillance of goods carried to its doorstep.
  Later given to the city, City Hall demolished the castle in the 19th century. It was destroyed to widen the space to connect the Altozano with Castilla street and to create a grain warehouse.
  Around 1830, on the occasi
caption: Castle of San Jorge when it served as an Inquisition jail.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "SONY DSC", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSLR-A290", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "350", "Image YResolution": "350", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2012:09:06 12:48:12", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 6, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Image ExifOffset": "2436", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5154", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6265", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/80", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "125", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:08:01 18:15:04", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:08:01 18:15:04", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "8", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "6", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "497/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "50", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "550", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "366", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "75", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "3926"}