Bloodline Racism - Who chooses the DNA - Who decides the Truth - The Spanish Inquisition 1478-1834

The Inquisition, intended to root out Catholic heresies and heretics, was created through a papal bull at the end of the 12th century. Although the Inquisition of Spain is most well known, the bull was intended to track down and put an end to heresy throughout all the lands of Christendom.

The Jews of Europe were under constant pressure to convert, were forced to wear identifying clothing, to sit in church as observers of Catholic services. Since conversion was typically coerced, sometimes at the point of a sword, the converts were always suspected of insincerity.

Those “Jews” most likely to be targeted by the Inquisition were the Conversos, suspected of secretly remaining Jews, of practicing the religion secretly at home while passing as Catholic in the street. But this was not always the case. The head of Poland’s Inquisition, St. John Capistrano, also known as the “Scourge of the Jews,” targeted both Jews and converts (See, Grosser, Paul and Halperin, Edwin, 1978, Antisemitism: Causes and Effects, p. 136).

Torture Chamber of the Inquisition In addition to its mission to track down heresy, the Spanish Inquisition was also used to unify Spain and consolidate Catholic power under the monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella.

Its primary target was the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. The Jews, that other foreign population, were given the choice of expulsion or conversion.

In the early years the Inquisition was most concerned with establishing the credibility of those conversions. As the years went by and some Conversos rose to positions of authority within the church bureaucracy, including, according to some sources, the head of the Inquisition,

Tomas de Torquemada. Fear of “Jewish influence” increased as more Jews converted, which attracted the attention of the inquisitors. The Conversos were tortured to extract a confession, and then burned at the stake for “confessing.”

Antisemitism Jewish Survival

'Purity of Blood' and The Spanish Inquisition (1492)

Estimates vary regarding the actual number of Conversos who died in the fires of the Inquisition. Based on statistics drawn from the records of Autos da fe, as many as 8,000 may have been burned at the stake. Jewish Virtual Library estimates that, in addition to “Conversos” directly murdered by the Spanish Inquisition, “[t]ens of thousands of refugees [expelled from Spain by the 1492 edict] died while trying to reach safety.”

In response to fear of the “Jewish Influence” posed by the Conversos, the Inquisition took a step beyond determining the degree of sincerity of the new Catholics by extending their investigation into Catholic pedigree back generations. Purity of blood, or limpieza de sangre, became the hallmark of who was, and not, a Catholic.

“Now Jewishness is… a permanent inborn characteristic that even baptism does not remove,” (Nicholls, William, 1993, Christian Antisemitism, A History of Hate, p. xxi). “Those who wished to hold public office had to present a certificate … showing that there were no Jews in their lineage, that they were free of… mala sangre, bad blood (ibid. pp. xx-xxi).

Most recent in this series, Antisemitism and Jewish Survival:

1. From Black Death to Blood Libels: The Jews did it!

2. The Crusades (1096-1272): 'Rehearsal' for Holocaust

3. Anti-Jewish Persecution and the failed Parousia: the year 1000

Spanish Inquisition

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Spanish Inquisition (disambiguation).

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (Spanish: Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición), commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition(Inquisición española), was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval Inquisition which was under Papal control. It became the most substantive of the three different manifestations of the wider Christian Inquisition along with the Roman Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition.

The Inquisition was originally intended in large part to ensure the orthodoxy

of those who converted from

Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Spain

Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición

Spanish Inquisition

Seal for the Tribunal in Spain.

Type

History

Type

Tribunal under the election of theSpanish monarchy, for upholding religious orthodoxy in their realm

Judaism and Islam. This regulation of the faith of the newly

converted was intensified after the royal decrees issued in 1492 and 1501 ordering Jews and Muslims to convert or leave.

The Spanish Inquisition

1478-1834

The concepts of an inquisition and inquisitorial procedure lie deep in the roots of world history. Inquisitions were used during the decline of the Roman Empire until the Spanish Inquisition's decline in the early 1800s. An inquisition can be run by both civil and church authorities in order to root out non-believers from a nation or religion. The Spanish Inquisition was one of the most deadly inquisitions in history.

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The Spanish Inquisition was used for both political and religious reasons. Spain is a nation-state that was born out of religious struggle between numerous different belief systems including Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism and Judaism. Following the Crusades and the Reconquest of Spain by the Christian Spaniards the leaders of Spain needed a way to unify the country into a strong nation. Ferdinand and Isabella chose Catholicism to unite Spain and in 1478 asked permission of the pope to begin the Spanish Inquisition to purify the people of Spain. They began by driving out Jews, Protestants and other non-believers.

In 1483 Tomas de Torquemada became the inquisitor-general for most of Spain. He was responsible for establishing the rules of inquisitorial procedure and creating branches of the Inquisition in various cities. He remained the leader of the Spanish Inquisition for fifteen years and is believed to be responsible for the execution of around 2,000 Spaniards. The Catholic Church and the Pope attempted to intervene in the bloody Spanish Inquisition but were unable to wrench the extremely useful political tool from the hands of the Spanish rulers.

The Inquisition was run procedurally by the inquisitor-general who established local tribunals of the Inquisition. Accused heretics were identified by the general population and brought before the tribunal. The were given a chance to confess their heresy against the Catholic Church and were also encouraged to indict other heretics. If they admitted their wrongs and turned in other aggressors against the church they were either released or sentenced to a prison penalty. If they would not admit their heresy or indict others the accused were publicly introduced in a large ceremony before they were publicly killed or sentenced to a life in prison. Around the 1540s the Spanish Inquisition turned its fire on the Protestants in Spain in an attempt to further unify the nation. The Spanish Inquisition's reign of terror was finally suppressed in 1834.

Edited by: Kristian A. Werling

Researched by: Chad E. Anderson

Written by: Kristin Kreger

May 5, 1997

http://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2013/01/on-son-rise-morning-show-blessed.html

Established

Disbanded

Seats

Voting system

Elections

Meeting place

Spanish Empire

Footnotes

Henry VIII and the Reformation

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The words “Protestant Reformation” usually trigger a vision of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of the cathedral in Wittenburg on October 31, 1517. Most of the theses were biblical and faith-based refutations of the widespread sale of indulgences in European Christendom.

The sale of indulgences (the absolution of sins) worked very much like a modern-day franchise, such as McDonald’s. Instead of a corporate headquarters, the franchisee would pay a fee to the papacy in Rome in return for a document recognizing the indulgence seller as approved by the pope to forgive sin.

Unlike a modern-day franchise, however, the franchisee would sell the forgiveness of sins on a “sliding scale.” In other words, a rich man would pay a great deal more than a poor man to have an adulterous escapade forgiven. The seller would then kick back a portion of his sales to Rome and then pocket the rest.

Unfortunately, there is no support for this practice anywhere in the Bible. Indeed, it is contrary to the oft-repeated tenet of being “saved by grace.” This is what compelled Luther to do what he did, thus provoking an earthshaking split in the Roman church.

The easy part

As it turned out, nailing the documents to a church door was the easy part of starting the Reformation. During the next two centuries bloody strife would claim the lives of over a million people, mostly Protestants.

Although the Reformation was contained geographically in northern Germany and the “low countries”—Holland and Flanders—the drive to exterminate the “heretics” by the Catholics was hampered by a long-standing rift in the Roman ranks between the “guelfi” (supporters of the pope) and the “ghibellini” (supporters of the Roman emperor).

The conflict between Pope Clement VII and Emperor Charles V came to a head in 1527 when Rome was sacked by the imperial army. Clement was imprisoned and was completely under the sway of the emperor.

If things had remained as they were at this point, it is possible that the Reformation could have been crushed out of existence. In those Renaissance days, there were only three large nation states in Western Europe — Spain, France and England — and they were all Catholic.

Spain, with its terrifying Inquisition, never tolerated even the slightest move toward Reformation. France had a substantial number of Protestants, called Huguenots, but all their leaders would be massacred on St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1572. England was solidly Catholic. Henry VIII had been dubbed “Defender of the Faith” by the pope for sending an army to help the Spanish wipe out Protestants in Holland and Flanders.

The English Reformation

The possibility of an English Reformation seemed out of the question, but it happened, crucially shaping world history from that point on. The English Reformation occurred not for theological or philosophical reasons, as was the case with Martin Luther, but because of simple human nature, although who’s to say that the hand of God was not instrumental?

King Henry VIII was a vital, energetic man. His amorous exploits were not limited to his Spanish queen, Catherine of Aragon. He was known to have a number of mistresses, the exact number is unknown. He rationalized this behavior by pointing out that Catherine, in many years of marriage, had been unable to bear him a son, and he had a powerful desire for his line to continue.

After carrying on an affair with Mary Boleyn, in 1525, Henry became enamored of her sister, Anne. This vivacious and intelligent woman, however, refused to go to bed with him. She declared that the only way she would ever sleep with the king was if he married her.

This stipulation presented Henry with a vexing problem. There was no divorce allowed, nor would Catherine go away quietly. In 1529 he sent his private secretary to Rome to ask Clement to grant him an annulment of his marriage to Catherine freeing him to marry Anne Boleyn.

Under normal circumstances, Clement would have probably granted a powerful monarch of a Catholic ally anything he wanted. But Henry was in England and Clement was in Rome, under the powerful influence of Charles V, who happened to be the nephew of Catherine of Aragon. The annulment was not granted.

Henry, by this time was absolutely obsessed with having sex with Anne. So in 1532 he married her, was duly excommunicated by Rome, and in 1534 he established the Church of England with himself as its head. In an instant, England became a Protestant country, and with Henry VIII as its leader, there was no way that the English Reformation could be overturned.

Unfortunately for Anne Boleyn, she did not bear Henry a male heir and he now trained the royal eye on another young girl, Jane Seymour, so charges of adultery and incest were trumped up against the queen and on May 19, 1536, her head was cut off. She had failed to produce a son, but she did have one daughter, Elizabeth, who would be a great queen of England and would put the idea of ending the Reformation started by Martin Luther to rest forever.

You might also want to read: The Reformation lives | Living in the midst of reformation | A toast to the Reformation |

Categories: Education Tags: Church history, Henry VIII, Martin Luther, Reformation, Seeds, Seeds for the Parish

Painting of Henry VIII by Northern Renaissance painter Hans ll Giovane (German 1497-1543).

Bloodline Racism - Who chooses the DNA - Who decides the Truth - The Spanish Inquisition 1478-1834

Antisemitism Jewish Survival

'Purity of Blood' and The Spanish Inquisition (1492)

Spanish Inquisition

The Spanish Inquisition

1478-1834

Henry VIII and the Reformation

The easy part

The English Reformation

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