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Tomás de Torquemada

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Tomás de TorquemadaOP
Tomás de Torquemada. Unknown artist, 19th century.
BornOctober 14, 1420
Torquemada or Valladolid, Kingdom of Castile
DiedSeptember 16, 1498 (aged 77)
Ávila, Kingdom of Castile
Alma materUniversity of Salamanca
OccupationGrand Inquisitor
FatherDon Pedro Ferdinando, lord of Torquemada
RelativesJuan de Torquemada (uncle)

Tomás de Torquemada OP (October 14, 1420 – September 16, 1498), also anglicised as Thomas of Torquemada, was a Castilian Dominican friar and first Grand Inquisitor in Spain's movement to homogenise religious practices with those of the Catholic Church in the late 15th century, otherwise known as the Spanish Inquisition.

Mainly because of persecution, Muslims and Jews in Spain at that time found it socially, politically, and economically expedient to convert to Catholicism (see Converso, Morisco, and Marrano). The existence of superficial converts from Judaism (i.e., Crypto-Jews) was perceived by the Spanish monarchs of that time (King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella) as a threat to the religious and social life of Spain. This led Torquemada, who himself had converso ancestors, to be one of the chief supporters of the Alhambra Decree that expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492.

Owing to his widespread use of torture to extract confessions, and advocacy of burning at the stake those deemed guilty, Torquemada's name has become synonymous with cruelty, religious intolerance and fanaticism.

Biography

Early life

Torquemada was born on October 14, 1420, either in Valladolid, in the Kingdom of Castile, or in the nearby village of Torquemada.  He came from a family of conversos (converts from Judaism); his uncle, Juan de Torquemada, was a celebrated theologian and cardinal whose grandmother was a conversa. The 15th Century chronicler Hernando del Pulgar, a contemporary to de Torquemada and himself a converso, recorded that Tomás de Torquemada's uncle, Juan de Torquemada, had an ancestor, Álvar Fernández de Torquemada, who was married to a first-generation conversa.

Torquemada entered the local San Pablo Dominican monastery at a very young age. As a zealous advocate of church orthodoxy, he earned a solid reputation for learning, piety, and austerity. As a result, he was promoted to Prior of the monastery of Santa Cruz at Segovia. Around this time, he met the young Princess Isabella I, and the two immediately established religious and ideological rapport. For a number of years, Torquemada served as her regular confessor and personal advisor. He was present at Isabella's coronation in 1474, remained her closest ally and supporter, and even advised her to marry King Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469 to consolidate their kingdoms and form a power base he could draw on for his own purposes. Torquemada subdued Ferdinand's own ambitions and became his confessor also.

Establishment of the Holy Office of the Inquisition

Torquemada deeply feared the Marrano and Morisco as a menace to Spain's welfare by both their increasing religious influence and their economic domination of Spain. The Crown of Aragon had Dominican inquisitors almost continuously throughout much of the 14th and the 15th centuries. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella petitioned Pope Sixtus IV to grant their request for a Holy Office to administer an inquisition in Spain. The Pope granted their request and established the Holy Office for the Propagation of the Faith in late 1478.

The papal bull gave the sovereigns full powers to name inquisitors. Rome retained the right to formally appoint the royal nominees. Henry Charles Lea observed that the Spanish Inquisition in both Castile and Aragon remained firmly under Ferdinand's direction throughout the joint reign.

Grand Inquisitor

The Pope went on to appoint a number of inquisitors for the Spanish Kingdoms in early 1482, including Torquemada. A year later he was named Grand Inquisitor of Spain, which he remained until his death in 1498. In 1484, Torquemada relinquished his role as royal confessor to Diego Deza, a Dominican who would eventually succeed him as Grand Inquisitor. The following year, at a general assembly in Seville, Torquemada promulgated the twenty-eight articles of faith that would be used to guide the inquisitors' investigations.

In the fifteen years under his direction, the Spanish Inquisition grew from a single tribunal at Seville to a network of two dozen Holy Offices. As Grand Inquisitor, Torquemada reorganized the Spanish Inquisition (originally based in Castile in 1478), establishing tribunals in Sevilla, Jaén, Córdoba, Ciudad Real and (later) Saragossa. His quest was to rid Spain of all heresy. The Spanish chronicler Sebastián de Olmedo called him "the hammer of heretics, the light of Spain, the savior of his country, the honor of his order."

Torquemada saw that the condemned were made to wear a sanbenito, a penitential garment worn over clothing, bearing a design that specified the type of penitence, if any. Relapsed heretics, who were sentenced to burning at the stake, wore a sanbenito with designs of flames or sometimes demons, dragons and/or snakes on it. Those who were sentenced to hang wore a St. Andrew's cross.

The Treaty of Granada (1491), as negotiated at the final surrender of the Muslim state of Al-Andalus, clearly mandated protection of religious rights, but this was reversed just over 3 months later by the Alhambra Decree of March 31, 1492. Under the new decree, approximately 40,000 Jews were expelled from Spain with only their personal possessions. Approximately 50,000 other Jews received Christian baptism to remain in Spain. Many of them, derogatorily dubbed "Marranos" by the Old Christian majority, secretly kept some of their Jewish traditions. They were among the chief targets of the Inquisition, but it also pursued anyone who criticized it.

So many clemency petitions were sent to Rome that the Pope became aware of Torquemada's severity, and three times he had called the Inquisition's representatives to Rome. In addition, Isabella and Ferdinand were concerned that so much money was being diverted to the Holy Office that they too protested to the Pope. But Torquemada's power kept him in his position until at least 1494.

There are various estimates of the number of victims of the Spanish Inquisition during Torquemada's reign as Grand Inquisitor. Hernando del Pulgar, Queen Isabella's secretary, wrote that 2,000 executions took place throughout the entirety of her reign, which extended well beyond Torquemada's death.

Death

During his final years, Torquemada's failing health 'ostensibly' caused Pope Alexander VI to appoint four assistant inquisitors in June 1494 to assist Torquemada with the administration of the Inquisition. While officially, this papal appointment of assistants appeared to be due to Torquemada's 'failing health,' many historians believe that the numerous complaints reaching the Pope about Torquemada's excessive zeal and cruelty may have been the true cause for this papal appointment of 'assistant inquisitors.' With his faith in his mission undiminished, Torquemada retired to the monastery of St. Thomas Aquinas in Ávila in 1494, typically leaving his cell only to attend to the royal family, and again living the more simple life of a monk. In 1498, while still holding the office of the Grand Inquisitor, he held his last general assembly, where new rules were formulated to assure the continuation of the Inquisition in Spain. These rules attempted to curb some of the administrative abuses for which complaints had been lodged against the Inquisition. After fifteen years as Spain's Grand Inquisitor, Torquemada died in the monastery on September 16, 1498, and was interred there. His tomb was robbed in 1832, only two years before the Inquisition was finally disbanded. His bones were allegedly stolen and ritually incinerated in the same manner as an auto-da-fé.

In popular culture

Mel Brooks portrays a singing and dancing Torquemada in a pastiche of classic Hollywood musical scenes in his 1981 film History of the World, Part I.

Torquemada is portrayed in the Assassin's Creed series as a leading member in the Spanish Rite of the Knights Templar. He serves as one of the main antagonists of the 2016 live action film Assassin's Creed, where he is portrayed by Spanish actor Javier Gutiérrez. He also features as the main antagonist in the video games Assassin's Creed II: Discovery, and Assassin's Creed Rebellion.

Torquemada appears in the British comic anthology 2000 AD.

The miniature wargame Warhammer 40,000 includes a character named Torquemada Coteaz, who holds the position of a Lord Inquisitor and shares several character traits with Thomas of Torquemada.

Notes

  1. English: /ˌtɔːrkɪˈmɑːdə/ TOR-kim-AH-də, Spanish: [toˈmaz ðe toɾkeˈmaða].

References

Footnotes

This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (September 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
  1. "Definition of MARRANO". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2019-12-01.
  2. "Crypto-Jews", My Jewish Learning Archived 2014-10-29 at the Wayback Machine
  3. Ott, Michael (1912). "Tomás de Torquemada" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 13. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  4. ^ "Meditations, or the Contemplations of the Most Devout". World Digital Library. 1479. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  5. ^ Falk, Avner. A Psychoanalytic History of the Jews, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996, p.508 ISBN 0838636608
  6. ^ "Tomas De Torquemada | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2019-12-01.
  7. "Tomás de Torquemada | Spanish inquisitor". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2020-10-11.
  8. von Dehsen, Christian (2013). Philosophers and Religious Leaders. Routledge. p. 188. ISBN 9781135951023.
  9. Gerli, E. Michael (2013). Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 794. ISBN 9781136771620.
  10. Whitechapel, Simon (2003). Flesh Inferno: Atrocities of Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition. Creation Books. p. 52. ISBN 9781840681055.
  11. Fernando del Pulgar (1789). Claros varones de Castilla. G. Ortega. Torquemada convertidos.
  12. Taunton 1911, p. 58.
  13. Lea, Henry Charles. A History of the Inquisition of Spain, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1906-07), 1:27-28
  14. ^ Taunton 1911, p. 59.
  15. The Age of Torquemada, by John Edward Longhurst (1962), from vlib.iue.it (European University Institute)
  16. Carr, Matthew (2009). Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain. New Press. pp. 51–57. ISBN 978-1-59558-361-1.
  17. Wolf, A (1909). Life of Spinoza (Spinoza's Short Treatise on God, Man and his Well Being). London: Adam and Charles Black. pp. 4–5.
  18. Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997), 60
  19. "The Unfathomable Cruelty Of Tomás de Torquemada". All That's Interesting. 2018-02-02. Retrieved 2021-05-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) Complaints about Torquemada reaching the Pope may have had to do with Torquemada's semi-retirement at the end of his life.
  20. Taunton 1911, p. 60.
  21. Murphy, Cullen (17 January 2012). God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 352. ISBN 9780547607825.

Bibliography

Catholic Church titles
New title
Office established 		Grand Inquisitor
of Spain
1483–1498 		Succeeded byDiego Deza
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