Talk:Spanish Inquisition

Henningsen-Contreras statistics

I've added the table with the data about the number of trials and executions according to the statistics of Gustav Henningsen and Jaime Contreras. Since the authors themeselves admit that their statistics is far from being complete, I've compared the numbers given by them with the numbers that appear from other available sorces for the respective tribunals. I've based primarily on William Monter, Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisition from the Basque Lands to Sicily, Cambridge 2003. CarlosPn (discussion) 31 Oct 2008 22:15 CET

Council of Troubles

The Council of Troubles in the Netherlands was not connected to the Inquisition. It was a temporary war time committee set up in the Netherlands to root out and punish those who had led the rebellion against the king.

Reasons for the Inquisition

In the introductory parargraph, various reasons for the Inquisition were given, but none that I remember from my Spanish History Class. I'm not an expert, but I wish a scholar would step in and clarify. My understanding is that Ferdinand and Isabella wanted to unite their new kingdom which was filled with people speaking different languages and practicing different religions and with regions accustomed to being their own kingdom with very different cultures. They had recently united Castile and Aragon and then regained the south of Spain from Muslim hands and wished to unite all of Spain under one culture- Catholicism. They feared that leaving false converters in the ranks would only lead to dangerous outside alliances which would threaten their reign. Yes, it was also used just to punish those who might oppose them. And an "us against them" approach to governing was an obvious bid to form an "us" and to claim divine right (or at least papal approval) to their reign. What they told me in Spain was that while the Inquisiton was awful, it essentially made Spain in the sense that it unified and defined the culture of the country and created a strong enough monarchy to keep the country united for centuries. Of course there are still plenty of regions of Spain that would still like to break off and be their own country... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.33.81.68 (talk) 19:22, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia contradiction: Sentencing to be an oarsman?

On this page:

In the case of men, the penalty was five years service as an oarsmen in a royal galley (tantamount to a death sentence).

On the linked-to page, galley:

Contrary to the popular image of rowers chained to the oars, conveyed by movies such as Ben Hur, there is no evidence that ancient navies ever made use of condemned criminals or slaves as oarsmen, with the possible exception of Ptolemaic Egypt.[144]

Perhaps the resolution is that the Spanish Inquisition is not ancient. But perhaps one or the other could be verified and clarified.

The article on galleys refers to ancient Greece, Rome, Cathage etc. It does not refer to late medieval/early modern galleys used by Spain, France, Turkey etc. Those galleys used prisoners or slaves, and is where the notion of rowers chained to oars comes from. The point is that the ancient world didn't practice it.

Bobagem (talk) 02:20, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Question/Personal Opinion?

Question, asking the reader. Should be rephrased.

"Included in the Indexes, at one point, were many of the great works of Spanish literature. Also, a number of religious writers who are today considered saints by the Catholic Church saw their works appear in the Indexes. At first, this might seem counter-intuitive or even nonsensical—how were these Spanish authors published in the first place if their texts were then prohibited by the Inquisition and placed in the Index? The answer lies in the process of publication and censorship in Early Modern Spain. Books in Early Modern Spain faced prepublication licensing and approval (which could include modification) by both secular and religious authorities. However, once approved and published, the circulating text also faced the possibility of post-hoc censorship by being denounced to the Inquisition—sometimes decades later. Likewise, as Catholic theology evolved, once-prohibited texts might be removed from the Index."

173.168.32.87 (talk) 16:38, 15 July 2013 (UTC)