Tomas Torquemada of the Spanish Inquisition Published on 01/11/2010 in Facts About Spain A man managed to write his name in the black letters of infamy for generations to come. Meet Tomas de Torquemada (1420-1498) first Inquisitor General of Spain and confessor of crypto-Jews and crypto-Muslims. Who was this man whose name and visage conjures up visions of a monster in the service of God? Torquemada was a native Spanish Dominican friar of Jewish descent, his grandmother having been a Jewish convert to Christianity who had married his grandfather Alva Fernandez de Torquemada. The irony of his Jewish ancestry is that during his tenure as Inquisitor General, many Jews would meet untimely deaths in the hands of his Inquisition. Tomas was born in Valladolid, Spain in 1420. His uncle Cardinal Juan de Torquemada was a respected theologian, a fact which helped Tomas' career. Tomas was an ascetic priest who, during his early years, had been a Dominican monk and cook.

He later rose to the position of Prior at the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Segovia; a position he held till at the age of 63 he was appointed Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. He had close relation with the queen Isabella whose confessor he had been since her childhood. At Isabella's recommendation he was appointed advisor to Ferdinand and Isabella, monarchs of Spain, and later Inquisitor General in 1483. The Inquisition was established by the Monarchs of Spain in the atmosphere of a period of war with the Moors who were finally defeated at Granada in 1492. The Inquisition had been motivated by fear and distrust of both Jewish and Moorish converts whose loyalty to the state was suspect. The Inquisition was officially not concerned with non-Christian Jews and Moors but with those who claimed to have converted to Catholicism. The sincerity of these people in their claim of conversion was held in suspicion and there was the general feeling that the larger body of Jewish population harbored potentially subversive elements.

The distrust of the Jews finally led to the Alhambra Decree sponsored by Tomas de Torquemada which resulted in the general expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. Tomas had apparently chaffed at the limitation of the power of his office as Grand Inquisitor only to the Jewish converso (that is, Jews who claimed to have converted to Christianity). Tomas detested the Spanish Jews who had not converted. He therefore, vigorously, urged Ferdinand and Isabella to issue an edict commanding all Jews to either leave Spain or convert to Catholicism. The Jews offered Ferdinand a large sum of money. Ferdinand might have accepted the offer but for a dramatic reaction from Tomas in which he stormed the Palace and accused the king of wanting to sell Christ for money like Judas did. The jurisdiction of the Inquisition, as already mentioned, was limited to Christians over the age of fourteen, especially Jews and Moors who claimed to have converted to Christianity but were believed to be secretly practicing their old religions. Historians believe that about 2000 people were burned by the Inquisition between 1480and 1530.

The abuses of the Inquisition made Tomas so unpopular than an armed guard of 250 footmen and 50 mounted men had to be provided for his security. The abuses included arbitrary detentions, torture, and reliance on anonymous denunciation. Wealthy Moors and Jews were often targeted for judicial murder and their wealth appropriated. Anyone who spoke against the Inquisition could be arrested on contrived charges of heresy. A Jew merely suspected of being a "marrano," not only had his property taken over by the Inquisition but he would be publicly humiliated by being forced to march through the streets naked from the waist down and flogged. "Marranos" were forced to live in isolated ghettos in which the conditions were very poor. Tomas made an elaborate show of organizing a fair trial, most likely to soothe his conscience over the killings. In theory, an accused who confessed his sin of apostasy or heresy would be allowed to go free without any further consequences if he recanted, kissed the cross and confessed Christ. But in reality the chances of going free on confession narrowed as the trial went through its stages. At a point in the trial the accused would be gagged to prevent him from confessing.

The accused was assumed to be guilty from the evidence of unnamed accusers who were adjudged responsible citizens. Torture would be administered to force confession. An accused person who refused to confess would finally be handed over to the civil authorities for execution. Execution was done by burning. The accused person who refused to confess throughout the trial would be executed by slow burning using green wood while those who confessed before execution could be allowed mercy by quick burning using dry seasoned wood. The luckiest were garroted. Tomas had always been an intensely religious man devoted to his faith throughout his life. He had been an ascetic friar who wore clothing of coarse materials beneath his robe to mortify his flesh. The apparent contradiction between his religious piety and involvement in the cruel murder of an estimated 2000 people can only be explained by the pattern of morality typical of the "Abrahamic" religions in which the highest expression of morality is service to God and religion. That was the context of understanding of the duty of man in which a blood drenched career is interpreted as holy service to the Christian deity.

Torquemada's exemplary service to God earned him several admirable titles: "Hammer of Heretics," "Light of Spain," and "Savior of His Country." Written by: John Thomas Didymus About the author: The writer John Thomas Didymus is the author of "Confessions of God: The Gospel According to St. John ( ) If you have found this article interesting please read the article TURIN SHROUD: FORGERY OR GENUINE? on his blog. Share it! Part 14: 12. Tomas de Torquemada (1420-1498) | CosmoLearning History 12. Tomas de Torquemada (1420-1498) F ← Video 14 of 18 → L #14 Video Description 12. The Most Evil Men in History - Tomás de Torquemada (1420-1498) Torquemada tortured and burned thousands of innocent Spaniards and expelled Spains Jewish population.

“The Hammer of the Heretics” “The Black Legend” Thomas De Torquemada was head of the Spanish inquisition and was renowned for his cruelty. As well as the atrocities of the inquisition his hatred and persecution of Spains Jews has been described as a mini-holocaust. From Encyclopaedia Btitannica : Tomas de Torquemada was born in 1420, Valladolid, Castile [Spain] and died September 16, 1498, Ávila, Castile. He was the first grand inquisitor in Spain, whose name has become synonymous with the Christian Inquisition’s horror, religious bigotry, and cruel fanaticism. The nephew of a noted Dominican cardinal and theologian, Juan de Torquemada, the young Torquemada joined the Dominicans and in 1452 became prior of the monastery of Santa Cruz at Segovia, an office that he held for 22 years. He was closely associated with the religious policy of King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I, to whom he was both confessor and adviser (to Isabella, from her childhood).

He was convinced that the existence of the Marranos (Jewish converts), Moriscos (Islamic converts), Jews, and Moors was a threat to the religious and social life of Spain, and his influence with the Catholic monarchs enabled him to affect their policies. In August 1483 he was appointed grand inquisitor for Castile and León, and on October 17 his powers were extended to Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, and Majorca. In his capacity as grand inquisitor, Torquemada reorganized the Spanish Inquisition, which had been set up in Castile in 1478, establishing tribunals at Sevilla (Seville), Jaén, Córdoba, Ciudad Real, and, later, Zaragoza. From Wikipedia : Tomás de Torquemada, O.P. (1420 – September 16, 1498) was a fifteenth century Spanish Dominican friar, first Inquisitor General of Spain, and confessor to Isabella I of Castile.

He was famously described by the Spanish chronicler Sebastián de Olmedo as "The hammer of heretics, the light of Spain, the saviour of his country, the honour of his order". He is known for his zealous campaign against the crypto-Jews and crypto-Muslims of Spain. He was one of the chief supporters of the Alhambra Decree, which expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492. The number of autos-de-fé during Torquemada's tenure as Inquisitor General have been hotly debated over the years. Today, there is a general consensus that about 2000 people were burned by the Inquisition in the whole of Spain between 1480 and 1530, while Torquemada was Grand Inquisitor from 1483 until his death in 1498. Documentary Description This series of programmes consists of 16 episodes which profile 16 evil men and women throughout history who have used their power to torture, kill, maim and eradicate millions of people. 1. The Most Evil Men in History - Attila The Hun Attila was Khan of the Huns.

He is remembered as the epitome of cruelty and rapacity. He passed unhindered through Austria and Germany, across the Rhine into Gaul, plundering and devastating all in his path with a ferocity unparalleled in the records of barbarian invasions and compelling those he overcame to augment his mighty army. 2. The Most Evil Men in History - Bad King John He murdered his nephew, inspired the legend of Robin Hood and caused the creation of Magna Carta. 3. The Most Evil Men in History - Caligula The Roman emperor's reign is a legendary frenzy of lunacy, murder, and perverse sexuality. 4. The Most Evil Men in History - Francisco Pizarro Francisco Pizarro was one of the European explorers who went to South America to colonize it and had natives murdered so he could plunder their gold and silver. Pizarro and his men arrived at Cajamarca (in 1533), where they captured Atahuallpa, the 13th and last emperor of the Incas. Atahuallpa had just won a civil war against his half-brother (Huscar), and had executed Huscar and his family.

Atahuallpa had invited Pizarro to a celebratory feast, thinking that the Spanish were not much of a threat. Pizarro ambushed Atahuallpa and killed thousands of his men. Atahuallpa offered a huge ransom for his own release, but Pizarro took the treasure and had Atahuallpa strangled on August 29, 1533; this was the end of the Incan empire. After looting and generally destroying the Incan capital of Cusco, Pizarro founded Lima. Pizarro was assassinated in Lima, Peru, in 1541, by followers of Pedro de Almagro (Cortes' captain) who wanted to seize Lima for its riches. 5. The Most Evil Men in History - Hitler Adolf Hitler tried to mould Germany and a large portion of the 20th century into his own twisted design. Luckily for posterity he failed but not before destroying the lives of millions of people. 6. The Most Evil Men in History - Idi Amin Idi Amin rose to become a brutal and utterly ruthless dictator who committed atrocities on his people. 7.

The Most Evil Men in History - Ivan the Terrible Ivan IV of Russia, also know as Ivan the Terrible, was the Grand Duke of Muscovy from 1533 to 1547 and was the first ruler of Russia to assume the title of Tsar. He was also a devout theist. With his orders, between 500 and 1,000 people were gathered every day by the troops, then tortured and killed in front of Ivan and his son. In 1581, Ivan beat his pregnant daughter-in-law for wearing immodest clothing, causing a miscarriage. His son, also named Ivan, upon learning of this, engaged in a heated argument with his father, which resulted in Ivan striking his son in the head with his pointed staff, causing his son’s (accidental) death. 8. The Most Evil Men in History - Joseph Stalin Perhaps 7 million or more people were shot with a total suppression of about 50 million under uncle Joe Stalin. One of the great tyrant's of the 20th century and indeed any century. 9.

The Most Evil Men in History - Nero He brought the entire Roman Empire to the brink of collapse with his legendary excesses and cruelty. 10. The Most Evil Men in History - Pol Pot Responsible for the Killing Fields and Year Zero Pol Pot waged a gruesome war on his own population. 11.The Most Evil Men in History - Rasputin He was an uneducated peasant who gained a reputation as a faith healer. His strange behavior and incredible influence over the imperial family made him notorious and his death made him a legend. Gregory Rasputin dominated the final years of imperial Russia. The mysterious monk who enjoyed the favour of the Czar was rumoured to be a Holy Devil, who preached the word of God but practiced every form of corruption. 12. The Most Evil Men in History - Torquemada Torquemada tortured and burned thousands of innocent Spaniards and expelled Spains Jewish population. “The Hammer of the Heretics” “The Black Legend” Thomas De Torquemada was head of the Spanish inquisition and was renowned for his cruelty. As well as the atrocities of the inquisition his hatred and persecution of Spains Jews has been described as a mini-holocaust.

13.The Most Evil Men in History - Vlad the Impaler Vlad is best known for the legends of the exceedingly cruel punishments he imposed during his reign and for serving as the primary inspiration for the vampire main character in Bram Stoker’s popular Dracula novel. 14. The Most Evil Women in History - Bloody Mary Tudor Mary was the only child of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon to live past infancy. By her orders, many prominent Protestants were burned alive for their beliefs leading to her being referred to as “Bloody Mary” since her death. Fearing the stake a further 800 Protestants left the country, unable to return until after her death. 15. The Most Evil Women in History - Countess Dracula Countess Elizabeth Bathory is considered the most infamous serial killer in Hungarian/Slovak history. Rumours had circulated for years about missing peasant girls; offered well paid work at the castle, they were never seen again. 16.

The Most Evil Women in History - llse Koch Die Hexe von Buchenwald, the Witch of Buchenwald, or the Bitch of Buchenwald was the wife of Karl Koch, commandant of the concentration camps Buchenwald from 1937 to 1941, and Majdanek from 1941 to 1943. Drunk on the absolute power rendered by her husband, she revelled in torture and obscenity. Original Broadcasting THE MOST EVIL MEN IN HISTORY is a six part documentary series about notorious historical individuals. Produced by GB. Uden Associates. Tx. Channel 5. Mon. 20.30-21.00. 2001/09/10-2001/10/15. Episodes Tomas de Torquemada facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Tomas de Torquemada COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. Tomas de Torquemada Tomas de Torquemada (1420-1498) served as the Grand Inquisitor in Spain's zealous movement to restore Christianity among its populace in the late fifteenth century.

Known for an extreme devotion to his cause and loyalty to his patrons, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Torquemada headed an organization of ecclesiastical courts which imprisoned, tortured, and burned suspected nonbelievers at the stake. It is estimated that at least 2,000 died in Spain during his tenure. Torquemada was born in 1420 in Valladolid, Spain. He was the nephew of a celebrated theologian and cardinal, Juan de Torquemada, who himself was a descendant of a converso. This was the term that designated a Spaniard who had converted to Christianity from Islam or Judaism. In the eighth century, Moors invaded Spain. This powerful group of North African nomadic peoples had originally come from Mauritania. Recent converts to Islam, they conquered the southern half of Spain and established the Umayyad emirate there. Over the next few centuries Moorish Spain thrived, and great mosques were built; religious tolerance, however, was also the order of the day, and Spain's Christians, Jews, and Muslims coexisted peacefully, however tenuous the arrangement.

Even the most famous folk hero from this era, El Cid, was a Christian who entered into the service of a Muslim ruler in the late eleventh century. By the 1200s, however, the Moors were losing much territory to hostile Christian armies from the northern half of Spain, and soon the Moorish strongholds of Toledo and Cordoba began to surrender. Religious tolerance began to ebb in the newly Christian Spanish kingdoms. Laws against Jews were enacted in several towns and cities. They were compelled to wear a special symbol or were restricted in business matters. They could not work as grocers or butchers, for example, and could not hire a Christian to work for them; in other cases, heavy fines were levied on Jews who did not appear on the religious feast day of Corpus Christi to pay respect to the annual procession. Many Muslims and Jews began to convert, finding it more socially, politically and economically expedient to join the Christian fold. An ancestor of Torquemada's did so in the 1300s. In 1391 unruly summer mobs rioted against wealthy Jews in the kingdom of Castile and forcibly baptized them.

The unrest spread to Seville, Cordoba, Valencia and Barcelona. Many of those who refused to convert were slain. An Era of Religious Intolerance New tensions arose, however, for Christians came to regard the conversos with distrust. It was rumored that many conversos practiced their true faith in private or took part in secret and blasphemous ceremonies that mocked the Christian mass. But Christianity itself was far from an orderly, organized religion in Spain at the time. Priests complained that most believers were alarmingly ignorant about the very origins of the faith, its tenets, and the sacraments; many thought that some sort of magic was involved in the liturgy. Such was the situation when Torquemada took his religious vows as a Dominican monk in the mid-1400s. Torquemada served as the prior of the Monastery of Santa Cruz at Segovia for 22 years. His more public career, however, would be closely linked to Spain's Queen Isabella I. Her marriage to Ferdinand, scion of a long line of anti-Moorish Spanish rulers of Castile and Leon, made her one of the most powerful women in the world in her day.

She came to know Torquemada when he was prior of the Monastery of Santa Cruz and she was living in Segovia. She requested that he become her confessor, or personal priest, and when she assumed the throne in 1474, Torquemada rose to a position of great influence at her court and became confessor to Ferdinand as well. She offered the monk grander ecclesiastical titles for his service as an adviser to them, which he declined. Torquemada was already well-known for his fanaticism: he had been the first to introduce a statute of limpieza sangre, or "pure blood," into a Dominican house, and had supervised a book burning of works considered heretical at a monastery in Salamanca. The Role Accorded the Dominicans The term "Inquisition" had been used as early as 1233 to designate a new type of ecclesiastical court that could determine heresy among Christian ranks and bring the accused back to the fold; the court also held the power to punish suspected nonbelievers if they refused to confess and repent.

The Dominican order to which Torquemada belonged was granted special powers by Rome and came to be the leaders of inquisitions at a local level, first in Germany, then in parts of France and Italy. The initial inquisitions in these places were decidedly unpopular and unsuccessful, and in some cases the inquisitors themselves were killed. Ferdinand and Isabella, deciding that a wholesale separation of Christians from non-Christians was the solution to Spain's unrest, asked Pope Sixtus IV to establish an Inquisition in Spain in 1478. The first attempts were disorganized and encountered much resistance. Ferdinand and Isabella again asked Rome to intervene. They were then allowed to establish seven Inquisition courts across Spain in February of 1482. Torquemada became head of one of the tribunals, having met the stipulations of the post: the inquisitors had to be at least forty years old, possess a flawless reputation, and be well-versed in theology or canonical law. A Medieval Holocaust The Inquisition launched a reign of terror in Spain. People could be summoned from their homes and taken to a secret place for questioning simply on the basis of an anonymous denunciation made to the Inquisition authorities.

The accused were kept in darkness so they could not see their accusers or judges, and testimony that would normally be discounted in a court of law-from thieves, the excommunicated, or criminals-was acceptable. The accused was not allowed to have a lawyer or legal clerk to help him with his case, since they, too, would be viewed as accomplices to heresy by the court. They were also compelled to swear an oath of truth before taking the stand, and a refusal to utter the oath was automatic grounds for imprisonment. The auto-da-fe, or a mass public bonfire of nonbelievers, began to occur with alarming frequency. In 1483 Torquemada became Grand Inquisitor of Castile, and on October 17, 1483, Ferdinand appointed him chief inquisitor of Aragon. He convened a general assembly of the other inquisitors in 1484 in Seville, and gave them an outline with 28 points to conduct their inquiries. In 1488 he was named head of the Consejo de la Suprema y General Inquisicion, which gave him virtual papal powers over a large part of Spain.

Nothing could take place without his approval, including a prison term, an excommunication order, or an auto-de-fe; he also controlled the priests and bishops, and even went after some of them as heretics as well. Opposition remained strong in many places; in some cities, Jewish or converso families had risen to prominence in politics and finance and spoke out against the Inquisition's methods, which included heinous, though bloodless according to Church law, forms of torture. Jews, however, were immune from prosecution by the Inquisition, since it was an ecclesiastical court charged with determining heresy within its own ranks. Abuse of Power The terror and officially sanctioned lawlessness of the Inquisition was the result of its violation of several human rights tenets. The prosecutor and judge were the same person, which compelled him to make his charges stick to the defendant at all costs. Secondly, all suspects were presumed guilty, and Torquemada instructed his judges that a person might outwardly be very devout, but in his or her heart could be a nonbeliever; it was the judge's role to ask a series of questions on theological topics to determine his true belief.

If the defendant still professed his innocence-his belief in Christianity as dictated by the Church, that is-he could be imprisoned for an unspecified length of time. Those who survived, confessed, and were set free were forced to wear a sanbenito, or special penitential garment with a large "X" on it. Those convicted and excommunicated could appeal to the Holy See in Rome, but Torquemada had jurisdiction over all appeals as well. The property of those condemned was seized by the inquisitors for the state, and in other cases bribes were paid for release. Torquemada's role as Grand Inquisitor allowed him to ruthlessly implement these policies across the entire Iberian peninsula. Scholars estimate that under Torquemada's watch, 2,000 to 8,800 Spaniards were burned at the stake. His powers sometimes invoked the wrath of Rome, but he was closely allied with Ferdinand and Isabella, who were determined to eradicate Spain's religious problems-by ridding the kingdoms of non-Christians entirely.

A large number of those summoned before the Inquisition courts were conversos; in Catalonia, 1,199 were tried between 1488 and 1505, and 1,191 of them were conversos. Some Jews settled old scores, lying about conversos who had treated them with disdain, and accused the new Christians of practicing Jewish customs in secret. Spain's Jews Expelled The dilemma led many to suggest that Spain's Jews should be expelled en masse, and Torquemada convinced Ferdinand to enact a decree that would ban Judaism from Spain entirely in 1492. A coalition of powerful Jewish families offered the king 30,000 ducats in return for rescinding the expulsion decree, and Ferdinand contemplated accepting their offer. Reportedly Torquemada appeared before his patron with a crucifix, said, "Judas Iscariot sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver; Your Highness is about to sell him for 30,000 ducats. Here He is; take Him and sell Him," and with those words laid the cross on the table.

Ferdinand submitted, and some 80,000 Jews were forced into exile. That same year, Spanish royal forces had seized that last stronghold of Moorish Spain at Granada, making the country, at least outwardly, a homogenous Christian nation. The Inquisition still continued, however. Torquemada served as Grand Inquisitor until his death on September 16, 1498, in the city of Avila. Diego de Deza succeeded him and the Inquisition was carried on, in varying degrees of harshness, for the next 300 years. After the rise of Protestantism in the late 1500s across many other parts of Europe, and the subsequent pyrrhic religious wars this engendered, the Inquisition courts in Spain were used to root out anti-Catholic sentiments. It spread to Spanish colonies in Central and South America as well. It was abolished by a Revolution of 1820, but only in 1869 was a law guaranteeing religious liberty for all enacted in Spain.

Books Torquemada, Tomás de (1420–1498) The Renaissance COPYRIGHT 2008 Greenhaven Torquemada, Tomás de (1420–1498) A notorious prosecutor of the Spanish Inquisition who served the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella by ruthlessly ridding their kingdom of non- Christians during the 1490s. It was Torquemada's task to root out all false converters and punish them with imprisonment, public humiliation, expulsion from the kingdom, or death. Born in the town of Torquemada, he was the nephew of a Catholic cardinal, Juan de Torquemada. Raised in Valladolid, Tomás became a friar of the Dominican order and was then appointed as the prior of Santa Cruz , a monastery in Segovia. He became confessor of Isabella, heir to the throne of Castile , while the princess was living in Segovia. In 1474, when Isabella became the queen of Castile, Torquemada followed her to the royal palace, where he became both confessor and adviser.

In 1478, Pope Sixtus IV established the Inquisition, an office meant to root out all religious heresy. The first Inquisition court was established in the southern city of Seville. In 1483, the pope rewarded Torquemada for his service to the church by naming him to the post of General Inquisitor. Over the next few years Torquemada founded Inquisition courts in Valladolid, Seville, Cordoba, Zaragoza, and Avila, established a council of five to hear appeals, and wrote a set of rules and regulations for religious trials that remained in effect until the eighteenth century. But the Inquisition had jurisdiction only over Christians; in the meantime the Jews of Spain , also known as Marranos, were accused of heinous crimes, including the notorious murder of Pedro de Arbues, another member of the Inquisition, in 1485. Frustrated by his inability to arrest and try members of the Jewish faith, Torquemada decided on a show trial as the most effective way to enhance his authority.

He had eight Jews rounded up in the town of LaGuardia, and had them tried and convicted of the ritual murder of a Christian child—even though the court had no evidence of the crime and no victim. In 1492, the threat of Jewish ritual murder, as revealed by the LaGuardia trial, persuaded Ferdinand and Isabella to pass the Alhambra Decree, giving all Jews one month to leave Spain; those who remained had to sincerely disavow their faith and convert to Christianity . Torquemada's Inquisition court arrested suspects denounced by a network of spies, and extracted confessions through torture. The Inquisition seized the property of those it accused, then paraded them through the streets before having them publicly whipped at the doors of a church. Some of the suspects were turned over to the civil authorities for a public execution. A mass execution of this sort, known as an auto-da-fé, or “act of faith,” might have a dozen or more victims tied to stakes and burned to death. See Also: Ferdinand II of Aragon; Inquisition; Isabella of Castile; Jews Cite this article The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.

Copyright The Columbia University Press Tomás de Torquemada (tōmäs´ dā tôrkāmä´ŧħä), 1420–98, Spanish churchman and inquisitor. A Dominican, he became confessor to Ferdinand II and Isabella I and in 1483 was appointed inquisitor general of Castile and Aragón, charged with the centralization of the Spanish Inquisition . He was largely instrumental in bringing about the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. His great authority was contested by colleagues and was diminished in some measure by the pope, but he remained preeminent until his death. Torquemada owes his reputation for cruelty to the harsh rules of procedure that he devised for the Inquisition and to the rigor with which he had them enforced. Cite this article The Age of Torquemada by John Edward Longhurst, Chapter 7 VII INQUISITOR GENERAL TORQUEMADA FEW men have been so completely in tune with their age as was Thomas de Torquemada. Yet, though his name symbolizes his age, details about his life are extremely scarce. We are not even certain of his place or date of birth.

We do know, however, that he grew up in Valladolid and, like his uncle (Cardinal Juan de Torquemada) he entered the Lord's service through the local Dominican monastery of San Pablo. On completion of his training in Valladolid he was sent to the Dominican house at Piedrahita, a small town near Avila.1 There, 1. Piedrahita enjoyed a momentary fame about fifty years later as the home of a visionary lady who confounded her contemporaries in the early sixteenth century. The daughter of a local peasant, she became a tertiary sister (beata) in the Dominican order in Piedrahita, taking the name of Maria de Santo Domingo. Maria was gifted with numerous revelations, in which she held celestial converse with the Blessed Virgin and the Savior. She informed her contemporaries that Christ was with her, that she was Christ, and that she was Christ's bride. For hours she would remain in an ecstatic trance, unmoving, her arms and legs rigidly extended, dissolving herself in the arms of the Deity. Though unlearned she was reputed to be the equal of the most sophisticated theologians, her supernatural lights easily compensating for her lack of schooling.

Some of these theologians, however, suspected that she was inspired by the devil rather than God, and serious charges were made regarding her orthodoxy. But King Ferdinand and the episcopal hierarchy were convinced that she enjoyed a special inspiration available to very few, and their support was largely responsible for the failure of Maria's critics to bring about her downfall as a heretic. 86 it is said, he earned a solid reputation for the triple virtues of learning, piety and austerity. As a result, he was chosen in 1452-in his very early thirties-as prior of the monastery of Santa Cruz at Segovia. Here he apparently first came in contact with the young Princess Isabella and accepted the obligation of confessing her on a fairly regular basis. He was undoubtedly present at Isabella's coronation in Segovia in 1474 and from that date his movements are largely determined by those of his queenly penitent. In 1483 he became Spain's first Inquisitor General and how devotedly he performed his duties we shall soon see. Fifteen years later, in his late seventies, he died at the Dominican monastery of Avila, which he had founded.

It is said that Torquemada wore a hair-shirt, refused to eat meat, wear linen garments or sleep between linen sheets or allow his sister to choose marriage over the nunnery. It is also said that he lived in palaces, that he 87 surrounded himself with a princely retinue of two hundred fifty armed guards on foot and ahorse, that he lived in constant fear of assassination and adorned his table with the horn of a unicorn as a sovereign remedy against poison. He is further reported to have accumulated vast wealth through property confiscations by the Inquisition and to have declined on numerous occasions the offers by his grateful queen of the archbishoprics of Seville and Toledo. Most of these assertions come from "prejudiced" historians who do not like Torquemada; except for the reports about his hair-shirt and his humility in the matter of high episcopal office, such stories are firmly rejected by his "impartial" defenders. Perhaps the hand of Providence has erased much of the personal record of Torquemada's life in order to save us from the distractions of academic bookkeeping. For Torquemada's importance to history lies in his role as an archetype rather than an individual.

He was not a rebel jousting with popular windmills. He was not a Reformer determined to recast the universe in the mold of his personal convictions. He was not the entrepreneur of anti-Semitism. He was not even the creator of its legal instrument, the Inquisition. He was a man of recognized talent and competence who could be trusted completely to devote himself to the effective execution of a program which represented his own deepest desires as well as those of his age. Historians who are quick to condemn Torquemada as a unique vessel of Satan are as quickly admonished by alert defenders for their failure to understand him as a product of his times. We do, I think, have an obligation 88 to try to understand the circumstances and the flavor of the age which creates a man's attitudes and shapes his destiny. But we do not therefore have to condone the result, Unless we consider it a proper duty of the historian to abdicate the system of human values even about known facts. I sometimes feel that the modern friends of Torquemada-or of a John Calvin for that matter-use the fetish of objectivity as a shield to ward off criticism of the wayward actions of past party members.

The process has been developed into a subtle little ritual: the attorney for the defense, in a disarmingly "reasonable" manner, "admits" that his client did indeed commit murder, and then pleads extenuating circumstances such as the "temper of the times" or, in the case of religious murder (by Christians only), certain idealistic intentions and noble goals which motivated the deed. The facts in this case compel me to confess ]">a] that I do not like Ferdinand Martinez, Vincent Ferrer, Alonso de Espina and Thomas de Torquemada, even though I might have behaved as they did were I not a product of this enlightened century, and ]">b] that I do not like the spirit of the age which made them and which they served with such obvious relish. I see no reason-not even in the expropriated name of God or Historical Objectivity-why I should excuse by a specious "neutrality" the practice of mass murder for Wrong Thinking, whether it happened only yesterday or five long centuries ago.

As for Torquemada, the man himself was no worse and no better than the mass of his contemporaries, and I do not share the view of those critics who single him out as an aberration from the mythical norm of human goodness and virtue. 89 The whole age was caught up in a wave of persecution and murder that even the dialectical puffing of that apologists' darling, Mr. G. K. Chesterton, cannot completely obscure.1 As an honest interpreter and efficient administrator of the popular will, Torquemada was superb. In the fifteen years of his reign the Spanish Inquisition grew from the single tribunal at Seville to a network of two dozen Holy Offices covering the four corners of the Peninsula and everything in between. Nobody, however important, was exempt from prosecution. The court historian, Gonzalo de Santa Maria, of the illustrious Converso family of Burgos, was tried for Judaism three times and finally died in prison. Priests and friars were burned at the stake, especially in Toledo where the Geronomite monastery of La Sisla was discovered to be a hotbed of Judaism.

In Cordova the treasurer of the local cathedral was accused of hiding a Communion wafer in his shoe; the wafer began to bleed and bathed his foot in crimson, thus leading to his seizure by the Inquisition. He broke down under questioning and confessed that for years he had observed Jewish religious practices and was in the habit of making scornful observations about the Savior. He was burned at the stake and presumably descended into Hell to join his mistress who had been burned a few months before him. 1. In Orthodoxy, Chesterton tosses off one of his typical contrapuntal phrases to compare the virtues of Torquemada with the vices of Emile Zola: "Torquemada tortured people physically for the sake of moral truth. Zola tortured people morally for the sake of physical truth. But in Torquemada's time there was at least a system that could to some extent make righteousness and peace kiss each other." 90 Probably Torquemada's biggest game among the clergy was Pedro de Aranda, bishop of Calahorra and president of the council of Castile.

Aranda, a Converso, somehow learned that Torquemada was preparing a case against him, so he fled to Rome where the Pope employed him as his ambassador to Venice and Master of the Sacred Palace. But Torquemada sent a fulsome dossier to His Holiness, highlighted by the following charges: Aranda held that the Mosaic Law was not entirely without merit; he omitted the words "Son and Holy Spirit" when reciting the "Our Father"; he ate meat on Good Friday; he questioned the value of indulgences except for the crass object of making money; he believed in Paradise but expressed doubts about Hell and Purgatory. On the Pope's order the bishop was deposed and degraded from his holy orders and thrown into the Castle of San Angelo where he died soon after. Torquemada directed the Inquisition with a scrupulosity that overlooked nothing. One Maria Sanchez was seized in 1485 on the strength of an accusation that went back five years. When the Holy Office was first opened at Seville, Maria apparently wondered out loud that King Ferdinand had consented to it, being a Converso himself.

He was very sensitive on that score, according to Maria, and once struck the queen when she threw his origin up to him. In another case a priest of Toledo was accused of having said twenty years before, when he was a boy, that the Communion wafer was only bread and not the Body of Christ. He denied the charge, even under vigorous torture, and for those who like to remind us that not everybody was burned at the stake, we may note 91 that the culprit in this case was only sentenced to make public abjuration of his heresy at an Auto de Fe. A similar fate, decided on equally flimsy evidence, overtook Diego Sanchez, organist of the cathedral at Toledo. A former maid in Diego's house, on her way to the stake, made peace with her Maker by announcing that Diego had once sent oil and candles to the local synagogue. Diego denied he had ever done such a terrible thing; his accuser, he said, was a thief and a slut, who had once sworn revenge when Diego discharged her for illegal pregnancy.

Diego's colleagues and neighbors testified to his spotless record of twenty five years' service in the Toledo cathedral, although one of the chaplains had some reservations about the orthodoxy of Diego's eating habits. Just in case, therefore, Diego was required to appear as a penitent and abjure his heresies in an Auto de Fe. To help guard against the spread of heresy Torquemada also celebrated a number of book-burning festivals, especially of Hebrew Bibles and, after the final defeat of the Moors at Granada in 1492, of Arabic books also. As for the children of heretics, who were inevitably susceptible to infection, they were considered not to be responsible for their false beliefs until they reached the ages of twelve (for girls) and fourteen (for boys). After that they were held to be adults and fully accountable to the Inquisition, although they would be accorded special mercy if they spontaneously denounced their heretical parents. The children of heretics burned at the stake or imprisoned for life were to be handed over to proper Christians who would bring them up in the True Faith, safe from the snares of evil counsellors.

92 It was a capital offense to talk against the Holy Office. In 1483 an Old Christian nobleman, friend and beneficiary of the Pope himself, was burned at the stake as a "pertinacious negativist" for cursing the Inquisition. A complaining woman suffered the same fate for saying that the Inquisition was more interested in confiscating people's property than in saving their souls. Some of the prisoners freed by the Inquisition tried to save their reputations by claiming they were innocent and had only confessed to heresy under torture. Torquemada quickly put an end to this chicanery by an order in 1484 that such persons were to be considered as false converts and to be prosecuted as such, the penalty for false conversion being death at the stake.

The Pope had a few complaints to make too.1 Early in 1482 he wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella that the Seville Inquisitors, without observing juridical prescriptions, have detained many persons in violation of justice, punishing them by severe tortures and imputing to them, without foundation, the crime of heresy, and despoiling of their wealth those sentenced to death, in such form that a great number of them have come to the Apostolic See. fleeing from such excessive rigor and protesting their orthodoxy. 1. Nobody could question the Pope's orthodoxy or his zeal for the Faith, so the modern apologist explains away the Pope's complaints on the ground that heretical refugees from Spain deceived him with their lies about the Inquisition. The usually perceptive and well-informed pontiff in this unique instance becomes a naive Trilby to the Sephardic Svengalis who seek to obstruct the pious work of Torquemada. 93 A year later the Pope complained again. The Spanish Inquisitors, he said, appear to be more interested in confiscating people's wealth than in saving their souls.

As a result they are even jailing, torturing and burning at the stake a number of innocent people whose property they then confiscate. More complaints of the same nature came from Rome in succeeding years, but Torquemada early made clear his position in the matter. In his "Instructions" to the tribunals in 1484 he refers to the papal complaints which would prejudice the free functioning of Inquisition justice and announces that no such obstacles must be allowed to interfere with the task of protecting the True Faith against those who seek to destroy it. The worst skulduggery took place at home. The Conversos of Toledo, following the example of their kinsmen in Seville, concocted a plot to kill the local Inquisitors and raise a general rebellion in town, even to the point of defying the Crown. The conspiracy was discovered in the customary nick of time and the plotters were wiped out in an Auto de Fe. In Segovia, Bishop Juan Davila made no secret of his objections to the establishment of an agency of the Holy Office in his diocese.

Though a Converso himself he had for years used his episcopal authority to harass Jews and burn Converso Judaizers, and he wanted neither help nor interference from the agents of Torquemada. The latter had no Inquisitorial authority over obstructive bishops so he began fattening up a dossier to be sent to Rome along with Bishop Davila. In addition to charges of aiding heresy by opposing the introduction of the Inquisition in 94 Segovia, it included the allegation that the bishop had secretly dug up the bones of his ancestors (in the dead of night, of course) and hidden them from pious eyes seeking proof that they had been buried in the Jewish fashion. The bishop was finally sent off to Rome for trial at the papal court. The case dragged on for years and he died before its conclusion, which was inconclusive. In Segovia, meanwhile, the new Inquisition tribunal flourished without further hindrance. The kingdom of Aragon jealously guarded its local privileges against encroachment by outsiders. Only after much heated debate did the national Cortes of Aragon finally consent in 1484 to the introduction of Torquemada's Inquisition.

Even then, local resistance had to be overcome in a number of cities, Barcelona, Valencia, Teruel and Saragossa being the most difficult. In the latter place all the ugly forces of hate and violence came together in their most destructive form. The plot against the Holy Office in that city had included some of the most eminent Conversos of the realm from the families of Santa Fe, Santa Maria, Caballeria, Santa Cruz and Santangel. The symbol of their hatred, and immediate object of their attention, was the local Inquisitor, Pedro Arbues. Inquisitor Arbues apparently suspected that his enemies were bent on killing him, for he never appeared in public without an armed guard to protect him. The Conversos waited him out in the established tradition of Renaissance assassination, which was to catch the victim off-guard in church. On the evening of September 15, 14:85, Arbues was kneeling before the high altar in the cathedral at 95 Saragossa when a professional assassin by the name of Durango stepped up behind him and struck him in the neck with a sword, "splitting him open from his cervix to his beard, " as a contemporary put it.

Arbues lurched about briefly while two other assassins stabbed him repeatedly through the body until he was dead. Retribution was even more terrible than the deed. Hundreds of suspects were thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition while the Holy Office pondered their fate. Those directly implicated were disposed of in a manner best calculated to slake the blood thirst of the enraged populace, as well as to discourage future assassinations of heavenly agents. The chief assassin-Durango-was hauled out to the great square; his hands were cut off and nailed to the door of the House of Deputies, while he was allowed to bleed to death. His body was then carted off to the market place where the head was detached, the trunk pulled apart by horses, and the pieces hung in the streets. One of his companions was burned alive, his hands being hacked off immediately prior to the lighting of the fire. The third assassin frustrated his captors by eating a glass lamp in his cell. His remains were brought out, however, and cut up into pieces while his wife, who, unfortunately, was still living, was burned alive as an accessory to the murder. For several years the vengeance continued as more details were wrung from the prisoners.

The names of some of Spain's most illustrious Converso families appear on the lists of conspirators burned alive, in corpse, and in effigy in the great Autos de Fe which followed the assassination of Inquisitor Arbues. The most shocking, perhaps, is that 96 of Francisco de Santa Fe, son of the great debater and missionary. Geronimo de Santa Fe. Francisco died by hurling himself from his prison tower to avoid being burned alive. His broken corpse was burned, of course, for the inflicting of indignity was as important as death itself. In any event, there would be no more resistance to the new Inquisition and Torquemada could get on with his work. 97

Question: Thomas de Torquemada is famous for his part in which event?
Answer: Spanish Inquisition