Page 280 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Spain

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The Spanish Inquisition

The Spanish Inquisition was set up by Fernando and Isabel in 1478 to create a single,
monolithic Catholic ideology in Spain. Protestant heretics and alleged “false converts”
to Catholicism from the Jewish and Muslim faiths were tried, to ensure the religious
unity of the country. Beginning with a papal bull, the Inquisition was run like a court,
presided over by the Inquisitor-General. However, the defendants were denied counsel,
not told the charges facing them and tortured to obtain confessions. Punishment
ranged from impris onment to beheading, hanging or burning at the stake. A for midable
system of control, it gave Spain’s Protestant enemies a major propaganda weapon by
contributing to the Leyenda Negra (Black Legend) which lasted, along with the
Inquisition, into the 18th century.

A Protestant heretic appears before the royal A convicted defendant, forced to wear a red
family, his last chance to repent and convert. sanbenito robe, is led away to prison.

Those who have refused to confess are Auto-da-Fé in the Plaza Mayor
sentenced in public by day, and then
executed before nightfall. This painting by Francisco de Ricci (1683) depicts a trial, or
auto-da-fé – literally, “show of faith” – held in Madrid’s main
square on 30 June 1680. Unlike papal inquisitions elsewhere
in Europe, it was presided over by the reigning monarch,
Carlos II, accompanied by his queen.

Torture was widely used by the
Inquisitors and their assistants to The Procession of the Flagellants (c.1812) by Goya shows the
extract confessions from their abiding influence of the Inquisition on the popular imagination.
victims. This early 19th-century The penitents in the picture are wearing the tall conical hats of
German engraving shows a man heretics tried by the Inquisition. These hats can still be seen in
being roasted on a wheel. Easter Week processions (see p42) throughout Spain.

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Eyewitness Travel LAYERS PRINTED:
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Date 5th December 2012
Size 125mm x 217mm