What Made the Spanish Inquisition So Horrible?
Today most of us live in a world where we are free to pursue whatever spiritual path
we see fit, and worship whatever god- or gods- we fancy, without fear of reprisal or persecution.
That was not the case for medieval Europe however, when starting in the 12thcentury
the Catholic Church launched a bloody inquisition that would last for hundreds of years and
see tens of thousands of people tortured and executed, all in the name of their version
of God.
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Infographics Show- today we're taking a look
at some of the greatest horrors of The Inquisition.
Christianity, originally conceived in ancient Israel, was at its inception persecuted as
heresy by the Jewish leaders of the time.
Jesus was famously humiliated, beaten, and ultimately crucified for his claims that he
was the living Son of God, and after his death his closest followers went into hiding until,
fueled by their belief that Jesus had risen from the dead as promised and thus proven
he was the son of God, they began to spread their beliefs in Jesus as saviour.
This led to their becoming known as Christians, and of the original disciples, many would
suffer terrible fates at the hands of the Jewish leadership.
Over a thousand years later though, Christianity had arisen to become the prominent religion
across Europe, and in a bit of irony, it now became the faith that persecuted Jews for
their beliefs.
Yet Christianity was being challenged from both within and without, with many Christians
deeply unhappy with the Vatican's abuses of power and calling into question problematic
Catholic dogma.
Others who simply wanted to worship God in their own ways were also threatening the power
and influence of the Church, and that could not be tolerated.
Publicly proclaiming that there could be only one road to God and all else was dangerous
heresy that threatened to steer people away from God's love, the Inquisition was launched
in the late 12thcentury, though sadly the truth was that the church was more concerned
with securing its own power and wealth rather than the souls of the faithful it claimed
were being threatened.
The Inquisitors were specially trained priests who were instructed in the art of discovering
heresy and rooting it out, then extracting penance and confessions from heretics, almost
always through torture.
When an Inquisitor arrived in town he would immediately announce his presence to the local
population, and would give citizens present a chance to admit their heresy.
If they did, then they would be doled out a punishment befitting their level of heresy,
everything from a forced pilgrimage to holy sites in Rome to severe whippings which could
scar a person for life.
For Inquisitors, true penance could only be achieved through deep pain, thus most Inquisitors
would make use of special bullwhips which would come with small metal beads at the end
in order to deeply lacerate flesh.
Others still used a tool known as a cat-of-nine-tails, which was a whip with nine extensions, typically
with each one inlaid with small pieces of sharpened metal.
The wounds would be so severe that often those receiving this punishment would die from infection
or be crippled afterwards.
Those that survived bore the scars for life, their backs forever disfigured by the horrible
whipping.
This was of course lighter punishment reserved for those who freely confessed.
If one did not confess, the Inquisitor would immediately begin their investigation, calling
in local townsfolk for one-on-one meetings.
Citizens were encouraged to speak up about the heretical practices of their neighbors,
and once accused there was often little evidence needed to determine guilt.
This led to many cases of revenge in the form of false accusations by angry neighbors, or
perhaps just by individuals who coveted the lands or even wives of others for themselves.
With the scantest proof of heresy, one could convince an Inquisitor that their neighbor
was a horrible heretic, deserving of the fires of hell itself.
Of course the Church itself hardly ever needed much incentive to persecute people as heretics.
Count Raymond VII of Toulouse would regularly burn people at the stake for heresy, even
if they had confessed when given an opportunity.
Because often those who were persecuted were Jews, Muslims, or other religious minorities,
the process of killing them was little more than a handy way to cleanse the population
of undesirables.
That included gays, who were persecuted under laws of sodomy and brutally tortured before
being killed.
In the kingdom of Aragon in Spain, the Inquisition only stopped giving out the death penalty
for sodomy after almost 1,000 trials- most of which ended with torture and death for
the accused.
Diego Rodriguez Lucero, an inquisitor nicknamed “the bringer of darkness”, operated from
1499 to 1506, and routinely used the power of his position for his self-gain.
Once he sent an innocent man named Julian Trigueros to burn at the stake so that he
could take the man's wife for himself after his death, and later when he desired one of
his many mistresses for himself, he sent her husband and parents to burn at the stake.
Nobody was safe from Lucero, and in one year- 1506- he handed out 100 death sentences.
Eventually the marquis of Cordoba sent his army to attack Lucero's prison and set all
inside of it free.
Unfortunately Lucero escaped, but he was so hated and thoroughly corrupt that the Grand
Inquisitor in Rome had him arrested two years later.
Because trying Lucero for corruption would be the Catholic Church as the pot calling
the kettle black, Lucero was quickly released, and in a frustrating lack of karmic justice,
would die peacefully in Seville that same year.
For the Inquisitor, extracting confessions was paramount- and it mattered little whether
they were real or false.
Inevitably the accused would face one of many different forms of punishment which weren't
meant to actually punish the individual, but rather just get them to confess.
One of the preferred method of exacting confessions was called Strappado.
In this form of torture an individual would have their hands tied behind their back and
the rope attached to a pulley.
Then they were raised so that they would hang from their arms, which would inevitably lead
to the shoulders being pulled out of their sockets.
Often the Inquisitor would raise the victim up high and suddenly drop them before catching
their fall, forcing the body to jerk violently.
As if this wasn't enough, weights would often be tied to the person's feet to make the hanging
even more painful.
The rack was yet another popular tool of the Inquisition, and a very effective one at that.
Here the subject had their hands and feet tied or chained up to rollers at one or perhaps
both ends of a wooden frame.
The Inquisitor then slowly turned the rollers with a handle, which pulled on the ropes or
chains and stretched the victim's arms and legs until they dislocated.
Sometimes the process would simply continue until limbs were torn off completely.
Even though mutilation was forbidden by the Church, in 1256 Pope Alexander IV gave Inquisitors
the power to forgive each other for any wrongdoing they committed during their torture sessions.
This meant that Inquisitors were free to add any form of torture they could dream up to
victims who were enduring the torture of strappado or the rack, and thus they often did- because
why waste a good chance to mutilate someone?
If confessions weren't forthcoming, or perhaps the Inquisitor didn't quite believe they were
honest enough, they could get inventive with their bound up prisoner.
This would include the use of devices such as the Boot, which was a wooden framed shoe
that was placed on the foot of a victim and was slowly tightened until eventually it crushed
the bones of the feet and lower legs.
Another popular device was the thumbscrew, which was made up of small inserts for each
of the fingers on a hand which were gradually tightened until they crushed the finger bones
completely.
For women, one of the most horrific implements of torture was known as the breast ripper,
which was nothing more than a prong-like iron device which would be heated in a fire and
then affixed over each breast, with the Inquisitor violently ripping away the breast tissue until
there was little more left than a mass of cauterized tissue.
All of these were things the victim would suffer along with their normal torture, and
designed to not just exact confessions, but to ensure that the guilty would be forever
marked by the ordeal.
The Judas Chair was number 3 of the top 3 torture devices used by the Inquisition, and
consisted of a pyramid like seat with a sharpened point at the top, upon which the accused was
sat on.
The point of the pyramid was forced into the anus or the vagina, and the Inquisitor would
gradually force the victim down upon the device by lowering them from above by ropes they
were attached to.
Sometimes the ropes were attached from below, allowing an inquisitor to turn a crank and
slowly force the accused down onto the device.
Ironically this was seen as the most humane of the three main methods of torture, as this
would rarely lead to death and instead would disfigure the person and create lifelong difficulties
walking.
For women it would basically make child-bearing all but impossible.
A milder form of punishment was known as the Heretic's Fork, and was an ingenious device
which consisted of a two-pronged fork-like device.
The device would be tied around the person's neck and one end of the forks would be placed
below the neck, digging into the lower jaw.
The other end of the fork would be gouged into the flesh of the chest, securely holding
it in place.
Thus the victim would be unable to move their head forward at all without impaling themselves,
and the act of speaking was excruciatingly painful.
Victims would often be left like this for days before trials in order to encourage their
cooperation, even if those trials more often than not ended in being burned at the stake.
For any who wished to avoid their ultimate fate by trying to impale themselves on the
fork, the prongs were placed in such a way that doing so was impossible and would only
lead to even more pain instead.
The Nuremberg Virgin, or Iron Maiden as it's often known, was a sarcophagus like device
in the shape of a woman, with a Virgin Mary placed atop it by the Inquisitors to symbolize
the triumph of Christianity over heresy and dissidence.
Models differed, but in essence they all worked the same way: the victim was shoved inside
it and then had the door thrown shut.
In some models the inside of the maiden was rigged with spikes several inches long, in
others there were no spikes but instead small holes through which long nails could be thrust
through.
In order to keep a victim from dying too fast though the spikes or nails were situated in
such a way that they did not pierce any vital organs, thus ensuring the victim could stay
alive for a long period of time.
Models differ, but generally the victim was stabbed through in both shoulders, the lower
back, in three places across the chest, on each buttock, and once in the stomach.
Some models had special slots for inserting nails that would impale the victim through
the eyes, but not so deeply as to penetrate into the brain.
Inquisitors may throw someone inside and leave them until they died of their wounds, the
victim trapped in the enclosed space and unable to move without deepening the wounds they
are already suffering.
Other Inquisitors would slam the door to the maiden open and shut several times, stabbing
the victim through over and over again.
Curiously, the device was meant to symbolize the victim entering into the embrace of the
Virgin Mary herself, an act that symbolizes the Catholic Church's absolution of the accused's
sins.
The Spanish Inquisition was a time of legalized horror inflicted upon the religious minorities
of Europe; mostly Jews, pagans, and Muslims.
Often the motivations were nothing more than a desire for more wealth and power, with the
Church seizing the assets of the accused, even if they were allowed to live after their
accusation.
Men in power who coveted the wives or lands of others would send innocent men to be executed,
and jealous lovers betrayed their partners to Inquisitors for revenge.
While the Inquisition was meant to combat sin, it ironically only ended up enabling
some of the greatest sins in European history.
Today the world casts a mistrustful eye towards organized religion in most parts of the world,
partly due to the heritage of the Inquisition and its many abuses.
Yet while we like to think we are far removed from such barbarism, one can't help but wonder
given the particular, almost religious like zeal of some extreme far-right political movements
around the world just how far we really are from a new age of torture in the name of God.
One also can't help but wonder how those faithful to a Christ who endured horrible torture would
imagine that he would be ok with them inflicting the same on others in his name.
Found this video interesting, check out our other video titled What Happens When You Die?
See you next time?!
