The Spanish Inquisition - One of the Most Barbaric Episodes in European History [audio 45min]

The Inquisition has its roots in the Latin word inquisito, which means inquiry. The Romans used the inquisitorial process as a form of legal procedure employed in the search for evidence. Once Rome's religion changed to Christianity under Constantine, it retained the inquisitorial trial method but also developed brutal means of dealing with heretics who went against the doctrines of the new religion. Efforts to suppress religious freedom were initially ad hoc until the establishment of an Office of Inquisition in the Middle Ages, founded in response to the growing Catharist heresy in South West France. The Spanish Inquisition set up in 1478 surpassed all Inquisitorial activity that had preceded it in terms of its reach and length. For 350 years under Papal Decree, Jews, then Muslims and Protestants were put through the Inquisitional Court and condemned to torture, imprisonment, exile and death. How did the early origins of the Inquisition in Medieval Europe spread to Spain? What were the motivations behind the systematic persecution of Jews, Muslims and Protestants? And what finally brought about an end to the Spanish Inquisition 350 years after it had first been decreed? Host Melvyn Bragg investigates the history of ideas and debates their application in modern life with his guests John Edwards, Research Fellow in Spanish at the University of Oxford; Alexander Murray, Emeritus Fellow in History at University College, Oxford; and Michael Alpert, Emeritus Professor in Modern and Contemporary History of Spain at the University of Westminster. Baron Bragg -- historian, journalist and novelist -- is Controller of Arts for London Weekend Television.

From Bragg's Email Newsletter: There are some programmes that go on for just about the right length of time. There are a few that definitely need more time, but who can legislate for that in the scheduling scheme of things? There are others, like this morning’s programme, which are really an introduction to what should be a series. The 350 years’ history of the Spanish Inquisition contains so much about the dark heart of Europe, the stain on Christianity, the relationship between certain groups (in this case particularly the Jews) and economic and cultural well-being, the mixture of military expansion and Christian zeal, or should I say their elision, that we needed more time. Given what we had, I thought the contributors delivered some tremendous insights and a useful catalogue of facts and incidents. The position of the Conversos, ie: Orthodox Jews who converted to Christianity, was something we could have explored for the whole programme, I think. Most of them converted, as far as we can tell from what Michael Alpert kept reminding us were often meagre records, because not to do so would have risked lynching from mobs rampant even in so-called multicultural Spain. The massacres in 1391, for instance. To convert to Christianity meant that you enjoyed an enormous number of benefits from society, benefits which were the daily bread of the Spanish. But even after four generations, driven by Ferdinand and Isabella and spearheaded by the Inquisition, this was thought to be not good enough and unattributed rumours began to spread that although certain Jews had converted, they still practised their own religion in private, they contributed to Jewish causes, they read the great Jewish books, they had put on useful camouflage, but their minds and hearts and souls were still with their own tradition. It is a tormented, complex and fascinating subject. It gets even more complicated in that Isabel and Ferdinand’s Inquisition under Torquemada, who ought to have got a mention, went for the Conversos rather than those who had stayed Orthodox. So for about twelve years, from 1478 to 1490, you were safer if you were an unconverted Jew. The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 levelled all that in the most disturbing way. Holland was one of the beneficiaries. The Jews who went to Holland are credited with having built up that tiny country to the point where it was able to seek out, as it did, a world role. Most of the Conversos went to Portugal which then developed its own Inquisition and from Portugal they travelled to other parts of Europe. I was fascinated to learn from Michael Alpert that in 1856, when Cromwell, who wholly hated the Roman Catholics, invited the Jews back to England, there were already Jews in London living secretly. They were Portuguese Jews who ‘practised’ Roman Catholicism. They made the daring calculation that to declare themselves as Jews would be safer than to continue to practise as Roman Catholics. They were right. And for the last 350 years the growth of Anglo-Jewry in this country, its achievements and its qualities, has been one of the finest aspects of our culture. Michael spoke of the first Jewish synagogue in London, built in 1701, which he said could be mistaken for a Wren church, a beautiful gem he calls it, in which, even to this day, some of the language used is Portuguese. The heart of the knot for me is how far Christianity was used and how far Christianity abused. We touched on that, but it’s important to revisit it some time and I hope we can.