doctrine. Most of these medieval Inquisi-
tionswereoperatedbymembersofthere-
ligious orders, particularly the Domini-
cans.
The first Inquisition of Renaissance
times was established by Ferdinand and
Isabella, the king and queen of Spain, in
1478 on the authorization of Pope Sixtus
IV. These courts were created to find and
punishconversos, or Jews that had falsely
professed to have converted to Christian-
ity. In the years that followed, many Jews
fled Spain to the neighboring kingdom of
Portugal; the Spanish monarchs then or-
dered all Jews to convert sincerely or leave
Spain. The Spanish Inquisition would
eventually found new courts in Mexico,
Peru, and the Philippines. In 1536, King
John III would establish the Inquisition in
Portugal. Six years later, Pope Paul III de-
creed the founding of the Holy Office of
the Inquisition in lands controlled by the
Papacy in Italy. The papal Inquisition was
established to seek out and eradicate Prot-
estantism, the new branch of Christianity
that was spreading across northern Europe
and dividing the Christian church. A su-
preme court of appeals, known as the
Congregation of the Holy Office, was or-
ganized by the Papacy in 1588.
The Inquisitions had a strict hierarchy
and rules of procedure. The inquisitors
were experts in canon law, or the law of
the church, and presided over large staffs
of theological experts, bailiffs, clerks, law-
yers for the defendants, and jailers. Inquisi-
tors made regular visits to the cities in
their districts. They issued an Edict of
Grace that listed the heresies they were
seeking out, and invited those with any in-
formation to come forward. They offered
a short grace period, in which those ac-
cused could repent of their crimes and be
rewarded with light sentences. The Edict
of Faith, that followed, threatened more
severe punishment for those who would
not confess. The tribunal then made ar-
rests, jailing their prisoners and offering
them no chance to defend themselves or
face their accusers. Secret trials then ex-
amined the confessions and any evidence,
decreed torture if necessary to gain more
information, and then passed sentence in
public in an elaborate ceremony known as
the auto-da-fé (act of faith). Those found
guilty had to publicly repent and humili-
ate themselves by wearing a distinctive gar-
ment that marked them as penitents. The
most serious offenses were punished by
execution; the Inquisition would hand over
the prisoners to the public authorities, who
would ceremoniously burn them at the
stake. All property of condemned prison-
ers was forfeited to the church.
The Inquisition arrested and tried a
great range of people, from commoners to
nobles to church leaders with suspect
opinions, including Saint Ignatius of
Loyola and Saint Theresa of Avila. Its most
famous defendant was the Italian scientist
Galileo Galilei, who was condemned to re-
nounce his ideas on astronomy and cease
publishing his writings.
The institution gradually died out in
the eighteenth century, an age of rising
skepticism toward religious doctrine and
greater tolerance of competing religious
ideologies. The Spanish Inquisition was
officially abolished in 1834. The Congre-
gation for the Doctrine of the Faith, how-
ever, survives to this day as one of the larg-
est departments of the Vatican, with its
mission the rooting out of incorrect doc-
trine and religious heresy among members
of the church.
SEEALSO: Index; Reformation, Catholic;
Reformation, Protestant; Torquemada,
Tomás deInquisition