page_title: Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition
section_title: Protestantism
hierarchical_section_title: Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition / Origin / Protestantism
context_page_description: The Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition is the hypothesis of the existence of a series of myths and fabrications about the Spanish Inquisition used as propaganda against the Spanish Empire in a time of strong military, commercial and political rivalry between European powers, starting in the 16th century. The propaganda depicts the inquisition as the epitome of human barbarity with fantastic scenes of tortures, witch hunting and evil friars. As such, it is a part of the Spanish Black Legend propaganda, as well as of Anti-Catholic propaganda, and one of its most recurrent themes.
  Historian Edward Peters defines it as:
  a body of myths and legends that between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, established the perceived character of inquisitorial tribunals that have influenced all subsequent attempts to recover the historical reality.
  Henry Kamen:
  At all times, imperial nations tend to suffer ... in the arena of public opinion, and Spain was no exception, becoming the first victim of a long tradition of polemic that picked on the Inquisition as the most salient point of attack.
context_section_description: In Northern Europe, 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 Wycliffe or the lollards of England, the Hussites of Bohemia 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 martyrs.
  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 Dominicans 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 lad 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 fabricated 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 
caption: John Foxe (1516–1587) in an engraving by an unknown artist.
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