Spanish inquisition blackened by smoke
- Languedoc (Occitania) 1184. The Inquisition was created to fight the heresy of cataracts. From there it extended to other European countries to fight other “heretics” as well.
However, the tendency to burn sinners in flames was driven by Pope Gregory IX half a century later, inspired by German tradition. And yet, the Spanish Inquisition became the paradigm of the organization, for its duration much more than in other countries; it began its activity in the Kingdom of Aragon in 1249, but it was officially founded in 1478, when it joined Castile. Until 1821 it would not be canceled.
It is difficult to know the number of victims of the Spanish Inquisition. In 1822, the General Secretary of the Inquisition, Juan Antonio Llorente, gave the following data: the organization processed 341,021 people from 1478, of which 31.912 were burned in flames. But most historians agree that these numbers are swollen and in the attempt to distinguish between myth and reality. One of the most widespread myths is that of fire, which went beyond the Atlantic. No one doubts that at the end of the 17th century the “witches” of Salem (EE.UU.) They were killed in flames and hanged. Most of those condemned by the Spanish Inquisition were also hanged and executed by other methods.
According to another estimate made in the 19th century, in the period of greatest activity of the Santa Inquisition, between 1480 and 1530 – approximately during the reign of Torquemada – the deaths were around 10,000. For Hispanist Henry Kamen this is mathematically impossible, given the Castilian population of the time, which would have meant the total failure of the economy of the Kingdom. According to historian Joseph Pérez, in 350 years the organization prosecuted some 125,000 people for these facts. Gustav Henningsen estimates that 3.5% of them were sentenced to death and more than half of them were burned in flames. Thus, in round numbers, the Spanish Inquisition condemned 4,500-5,000 people to death, of which some 2,000 were killed by suffocation. However, it is impossible to know how many died before the sentence, under torture or under poor conditions.
These revisionist studies are not intended to whitewash the activity of the organization. Numbers and methods, the Spanish Inquisition was a bloodthirsty and cruel organ of repression and control that caused thousands of deaths and many more injustices.
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