AL - ÁNDALUS

INDEX

Ethymology

History of Spain: Muslim Era and the Reocupation by Christian Kings (8th-
15th centuries)

Society

Treatment of non-Muslims

Culture

Translations

La Convivencia

Rise and fall of Muslim power

Morisco

Marrano

The Inquisition

Spanish Inquisition

Timeline
Etymology

The etymology of the word “al-Andalus” is dispute. At least three specific etymologies
have been proposed.

The name "Andalusia" or "Vandalusia" was traditionally believed to be derived from

"Vandal" (the Germanic tribe that colonized parts of Iberia from 407 to 429),
however, there is no historical reference to support this.1

Another proposal is that "Andalus" is an Arabic language version of the name

"Atlantis". This idea has recently been defended by the Spanish historian Vallvé,
but purely on the grounds that it is allegedly plausible phonetically and would
explain several toponymic facts (no historical evidence was offered). 2

The third theory also rejecting the "Vandal" proposal, originated an innovative
alternative. The points of departure ancient reports that Germanic tribes in general
were reported to have distributed conquered lands by having members draw lots,
and that Iberia during the period of Visigothic rule was sometimes known to
outsiders by a Latin name, Gothica Sors, whose meaning is 'lot Gothland'.
However, the Gothic language version of the term Gothica Sors is not attested.
The propose was that *landahlauts3 (the asterisk is the standard symbol among
linguists for a linguistic form that is merely proposed, not attested). Halm (who
proposed this theory) then suggested that the hypothetical Gothic language term
gave rise to both the attested Latin term, Gothica Sors (by translation of the
meaning), and the Arabic name, Al-Andalus (by phonetic imitation). However,
Halm did not offer evidence (historical or linguistic) that any of the language
developments in his argument had in fact occurred.

History of Spain: Muslim Era and the Reoccupation by Christian Kings

(8th–15th centuries)

By 711 Arabs and Berbers had converted to Islam, which by the 8th century dominated
all the north of Africa. A raiding party led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad was sent to intervene in a
civil war in the Visigothic kingdoms in Iberia. Crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, it won a
decisive victory in the summer of 711 when the Visigothic king Roderic was defeated
and killed on July 19 at the Battle of Guadalete. Tariq's commander, Musa bin Nusair
quickly crossed with substantial reinforcements, and by 718 the Muslims dominated
most of the peninsula. The advance into Europe was stopped by the Franks under
Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732.

Caliph Al-Walid I paid great attention to the expansion of an organized military,

building the strongest navy in the Umayyad era. It was this tactic that supported the
ultimate expansion to Spain. Caliph Al-Walid I's reign is considered as the apex of
Islamic power.
1
Reinhart Dozy
2
Vallvé
3
Halm
The rulers of Al-Andalus were granted the rank of Emir by the Umayyad CaliphAl-
Walid I in Damascus. After the Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasids, some of
their remaining leaders escaped to Spain under the leadership of Abd-ar-rahman I who
challenged the Abbasids by declaring Cordoba an independent emirate. Al-Andalus was
rife with internal conflict between the Arab Umayyad rulers and the Visigoth-Roman
Christian population.

The first navy of the Emirate was built after the humiliating Viking ascent of the
Guadalquivir in 844 when they sacked Seville. In 942, pagan Magyars raided as far
west as Al-Andalus.

In the 10th century Abd-ar-rahman III declared the Caliphate of Cordoba, effectively
breaking all ties with the Egyptian and Syrian caliphs. The Caliphate was mostly
concerned with maintaining its power base in North Africa, but these possessions
eventually dwindled to the Ceuta province. Meanwhile, a slow but steady migration of
Christian subjects to the northern kingdoms was slowly increasing the power of the
northern kingdoms. Even so, Al-Andalus remained vastly superior to all the northern
kingdoms combined in population, economy, culture and military might, and internal
conflict between the Christian kingdoms contributed to keep them relatively harmless.

Al-Andalus coincided with La Convivencia, an era of religious tolerance and with the
Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula (912, the rule of Abd-ar-Rahman
III - 1066, Granada massacre).

Muslim interest in the peninsula returned in force around the year 1000 when Al-
Mansur (also known as Almanzor), sacked Barcelona (985). Under his son, other
Christian cities were subjected to numerous raids. After his son's death, the caliphate
plunged into a civil war and splintered into the so-called "Taifa Kingdoms". The Taifa
kings competed against each other not only in war, but also in the protection of the arts,
and culture enjoyed a brief upswing. The Taifa kingdoms lost ground to the Christian
realms in the north and, after the loss of Toledo in 1085, the Muslim rulers reluctantly
invited the Almoravides, who invaded Al-Andalus from North Africa and established an
empire. In the 12th century the Almoravid empire broke up again, only to be taken over
by the Almohad invasion, who were defeated in the decisive battle of Las Navas de
Tolosa in 1212.

Medieval Spain was the scene of almost constant warfare between Muslims and
Christians. The Almohads, who had taken control of the Almoravids' Maghribi and
Andalusian territories by 1147, far surpassed the Almoravides in fundamentalist
outlook, and they treated the dhimmis harshly. Faced with the choice of death,
conversion, or emigration, many Jews and Christians left. By the mid-13th century
Emirate of Granada was the only independent Muslim realm in Spain, which would last
until 1492.

The Kings of Aragón ruled territories that consisted of not only the present
administrative region of Aragon but also Catalonia, and later the Balearic Islands,
Valencia, Sicily, Naples and Sardinia (see Crown of Aragon). Considered by most to
have been the first mercenary company in Western Europe, the Catalan Company
proceeded to occupy the Duchy of Athens, which they placed under the protection of a
prince of the House of Aragon and ruled until 1379.
Society

The society of Al-Andalus was made up of three main religious groups: Christians,
Muslims and Jews. The Muslims, though united on the religious level, had several
ethnic divisions, the main being the distinction between the Berbers and the Arabs.
Mozarabs were Christians that had long lived under Muslim rule and so had adopted
many Arabic customs, art and words, while still maintaining their Christian rituals and
their own Romance languages. Each of these communities inhabited distinct
neighborhoods in the cities. In the 10th century a massive conversion of Christians took
place, so that muladies (Muslims of ethnic Iberian origin) comprised the majority of the
population of Al-Andalus by the century's end.

The Berbers, who made up the bulk of the invaders, lived in the mountainous regions of
what is now the north of Portugal and in the Meseta Central, while the Arabs settled in
the south and in the Ebro Valley in the northeast. The Jews worked mainly as tax
collectors, in trade, or as doctors or ambassadors. At the end of the fifteenth century
there were about 50,000 Jews in Granada and roughly 100,000 in the whole of Islamic
Iberia.

Treatment of non-Muslims

The non-Muslims were given the status of ahl al-dhimma (the people under protection),
adults paying a "Jizya" tax, equal to one Dinar per year with exemptions for old people,
women, children and the disabled, whenever there was a Christian authority in the
community. When there was no Christian authority, the non-Muslims were given the
status of majus.

The treatment of non-Muslims in the Caliphate has been a subject of considerable

debate among scholars and commentators, especially those interested in drawing
parallels to the coexistence of Muslims and non-Muslims in the modern world. María
Rosa Menocal, a specialist in Iberian literature, has argued that "tolerance was an
inherent aspect of Andalusian society". In her view, the Jewish and Christian dhimmis
living under the Caliphate, while allowed fewer rights than Muslims, were much better
off than in other parts of Christian Europe.

Jews constituted more than 5% of the population. Jews from other parts of Europe
emigrated to Al-Andalus, where they were treated with dignity, as were Christians of
sects regarded as heretical by various European Christian states.[citation needed] Al-Andalus
was a key center of Jewish life during the early Middle Ages, producing important
scholars and one of the most stable and wealthy Jewish communities. But there is no
consensus among scholars that the relationship between Jews and Muslims was indeed a
paragon of interfaith relations. Bernard Lewis takes issue with this view, arguing its
modern use is ahistorical and apologetic. He argues that Islam traditionally did not offer
equality nor even pretended that it did, arguing that it would have been both a
"theological as well as a logical absurdity."
Culture

Many tribes, religions and races coexisted in al-Andalus, each contributing to the
intellectual prosperity of Andalusia. Literacy in Islamic Iberia was far more widespread
than any other country of the West.

From the earliest days, the Umayyads wanted to be seen as intellectual rivals to the
Abbasids, and for Córdoba to have libraries and educational institutions to rival
Baghdad's. Although there was a clear rivalry between the two powers, freedom to
travel between the two Caliphates was allowed, which helped spread new ideas and
innovations over time.

In the 10th century, the city of Cordoba had 700 mosques, 60,000 palaces, and 70
libraries, the largest of which had up to 600,000 books. In comparison, the largest
library in Christian Europe at the time had no more than 400 manuscripts, while the
University of Paris library still had only 2,000 books later in the 14th century. In
addition, as many as 60,000 treatises, poems, polemics and compilations were published
each year in Al-Andalus. In comparison, modern Spain published 46,330 books per year
as of 1996.

Some prominent intellectuals in different branches of science and belles letters were:
Averroes, Avempace, Ibn Tufail, Judah Halevi, Dunash ben Labrat, Maimonides, Ibn
Zuhr (Avenzoar), Abu al-Qasim (Abulcasis), Ibn Sina (Avicenna).

Translations

Translations did not begin in Spain until after 1085 when Toledo was reconquered by
Christians. The early translators in Spain focused heavily on scientific works, especially
mathematics and astronomy, with a second area of interest including the Qur'an and
other Islamic texts. Spanish collections included many scholarly works written in
Arabic, so translators worked almost exclusively from Arabic, rather than Greek texts,
often in cooperation with a local speaker of Arabic.

Toledo, however, was a center of multilingual culture, with a large population of Arabic
speaking Christians (Mozarabs) and had prior importance as a center of learning. This
tradition of scholarship, and the books that embodied it, survived the conquest of the
city by King Alfonso VI in 1085. A further factor was that Toledo's early bishops and
clergy came from France, where Arabic was not widely known. Consequently the
cathedral became a center of translations, which were on a scale and importance that
"has no match in the history of western culture".

King Alfonso X of Castile (reigned 1252–84) also promote a lot translations, as well as
the production of original scholarly works.

Important members of this school included; Yehudah ibn Tibbon, Herman the German,
Adelard of Bath and Gerard of Cremona.
La Convivencia

"The Coexistence" is a term used to describe a postulated situation in Spanish history

from the Muslim Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 to 1492 – concurrent with the
Reconquista ("Reconquest") – when Jews, Muslims, and Catholics in Spain lived in
relative peace together within the different kingdoms (during the same time, however,
the Christian reclaiming of land conquered by the Moors was ongoing). The phrase
often refers to the interplay of cultural ideas between the three groups, and ideas of
religious tolerance.

But some intellectuals or scholars challenge the significance of the age of

“convivencia”, claiming that far from a “peaceful convivencia”, “violence was a central
and systemic aspect of the coexistence of majority and minority in medieval Spain, and
even suggests that coexistence was in part predicated on such violence.

Toledo is considered to have been a center of la Convivencia by those who believe in

the concept. This city played an important role in bringing the classics of Greek
philosophy to Europe, with translations Greek to Arabic to Hebrew and Latin.

Rise and fall of Muslim power

The Caliphate treated non-Muslims differently at different times. The longest period of
tolerance began after 912, with the reign of Abd-ar-Rahman III and his son, Al-Hakam
II where the Jews of Al-Andalus prospered, devoting themselves to the service of the
Caliphate of Cordoba, to the study of the sciences, and to commerce and industry,
especially to trading in silk and slaves, in this way promoting the prosperity of the
country. Southern Iberia became an asylum for the oppressed Jews of other countries.

Christians, braced by the example of their coreligionists across the borders of al-
Andalus, sometimes asserted the claims of Christianity and knowingly courted
martyrdom, even during these tolerant periods. For example, 48 Christians of Córdoba
were decapitated for religious offences against Islam. They became known as the
Martyrs of Córdoba. These deaths played out, not in a single spasm of religious unrest,
but over an extended period of time; dissenters were fully aware of the fates of their
predecessors and chose to protest against Islamic rule.

Under the Almoravids and the Almohads there may have been intermittent persecution
of Jews, but sources are extremely scarce and do not give a clear picture, though the
situation appears to have deteriorated after 1160.

During these successive waves of violence against non-Muslims, many Jewish and even
Muslim scholars left the Muslim-controlled portion of Iberia for the then-still relatively
tolerant city of Toledo, which had been reconquered in 1085 by Christian forces. Some
Jews joined the armies of the Christians (about 40,000), while others joined the
Almoravids in the fight against Alfonso VI of Castile.

The 11th century saw Muslim pogroms against Jews in Spain; those occurred in
Cordoba in 1011 and in Granada in 1066.
The Almohads, who had taken control of the Almoravids' Maghribi and Andalusian
territories by 1147, far surpassed the Almoravides in fundamentalist outlook, and they
treated the dhimmis harshly. Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many
Jews and Christians emigrated. Some, such as the family of Maimonides, fled east to
more tolerant Muslim lands, while others went northward to settle in the growing
Christian kingdoms.

Medieval Spain and Portugal was the scene of almost constant warfare between
Muslims and Christians. Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from Al-Andalus to
ravage the Christian Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms, bringing back booty and slaves.
In raid against Lisbon in 1189, for example, the Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur took
3,000 female and child captives, while his governor of Córdoba, in a subsequent attack
upon Silves in 1191, took 3,000 Christian slaves.

The last Muslim bastion, Nasrid Granada fell around 1492. By this time the Moors in
Castile numbered "half a million within the realm, 100,000 had died or been enslaved,
200,000 emigrated, and 200,000 remained as the residual population. Many of the
Muslim elite, including Muhammad XII, who had been given the area of the Alpujarra
mountain as a principality, found life under Christian rule intolerable and passed over
into north Africa"

Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon were known as the "Catholic Monarchs"
(Spanish: los Reyes Católicos), a title bestowed on them by Pope Alexander VI. They
married in 1469 in Valladolid, uniting both crowns and effectively leading to the
creation of the Kingdom of Spain, at the dawn of the modern era. They oversaw the
final stages of the Reconquista of Iberian territory from the Moors with the conquest of
Granada, conquered the Canary Islands and expelled the Jews and Muslims from Spain
under the Alhambra decree.

If until the 13th century religious minorities (Jews and Muslims) had enjoyed quite
some tolerance in Castilla and Aragon - the only Christian kingdoms where Jews were
not restricted from any professional occupation - the situation of the Jews collapsed
over the 14th century, reaching a climax in 1391 with large scale massacres in every
major city, with the exception of Avilla. Over the next century, half of the estimated
200,000 Spanish Jews converted to Christianity (becoming "conversos"). The final step
was taken by the Catholic Monarchs, who, in 1492, ordered the remaining Jews to
convert or face expulsion from Spain. Depending on different sources, the number of
Jews actually expelled is estimated to be anywhere from 40,000 to 120,000 people.
Over the following decades, Muslims faced the same fate and about 60 years after the
Jews, they were also compelled to convert ("moriscos") or be expelled. Jews and
Muslims were not the only people to be persecuted during this time period. Gypsies also
endured a tragic fate: all Gypsy males were forced to serve in galleys between the age of
18 and 26 - which was equivalent to a death sentence - but the majority managed to hide
and avoid arrest.

Morisco

A morisco (Spanish) or mourisco (Portuguese), meaning "Moor-like", was a nominally

Catholic inhabitant of Spain and Portugal of Muslim heritage. Over time the term was
used in a pejorative sense applied to those nominal Catholics who were suspected of
secretly practicing Islam. Similarly, converted Jews (conversos) who secretly held to
Judaism were called marranos.

In the medieval period, Iberian Muslims who had come under Christian rule as a result
of the Reconquista, who were also known as Mudejars, had been tolerated on the
peninsula, although treated as inferiors by Christian authorities. In the early 1500s, this
policy of toleration gradually began to change.

After the fall of Granada in 1492, under the Treaty of Granada, the government granted
the Muslim population the same sort of toleration with discrimination which had
traditionally been extended by medieval Spanish rulers. That promise was short-lived.
When peaceful conversion efforts on the part of Granada's first archbishop, Hernando
de Talavera, brought subversive opposition, Cardinal Cisneros took stronger measures:
forcing conversions, burning Islamic texts, and prosecuting some of Granada's Muslims.
In response to these and other violations of the treaty, Granada's Muslim population
rebelled in 1499. The revolt, which lasted until early 1501, gave the Spanish authorities
an excuse to void the remaining terms of the treaty.

In 1501, Spanish authorities delivered an ultimatum to Granada's Muslims: they could

either convert to Christianity or leave. Most did convert, but often only superficially.
Many continued to dress in their traditional fashion, speak Arabic, and some secretly
practiced Islam. Many used the aljamiado writing system, i.e., Castilian or Aragonese
texts in Arabic writing with scattered Arabic expressions. In 1502, Queen Isabella
formally rescinded toleration of Islam for the entire crown of Castile. In 1508, Castilian
authorities banned traditional Moorish clothing. With the absorption of Navarre into the
crown of Castile in 1512, the Muslims of Navarre were ordered to convert or leave by
1515. However, Ferdinand, as King of Aragon, continued to tolerate the large Muslim
population living in his territory. Since the crown of Aragon was juridically independent
of Castile, their policies towards Muslims could and did differ in this period.

Historians have suggested that the crown of Aragon was inclined to tolerate Islam in its
realm because the landed nobility there depended on the cheap, plentiful labor of
Muslim vassals. But, the landed elite's exploitation of Aragon's Muslims exacerbated
class resentments. In the 1520s, when Valencian artisans rebelled against the local
nobility in the Revolt of the Brotherhoods, the rebels "saw that the simplest way to
destroy the power of the nobles in the countryside would be to free their vassals, and
this they did by baptizing them." The Inquisition and monarchy decided to prohibit the
forcibly baptized Muslims of Valencia from returning to Islam.

In the last step, Charles V issued a decree compelling all Muslims in the crown of
Aragon to convert to Catholicism or leave Spain by the end of January 1526. Thus
through the threat of expulsion, many Muslims of Spain became Moriscos.

Until the reign of Philip II, Moriscos were seldom subject to prosecution by the
Inquisition. By contrast, judaizing conversos were more often prosecuted in this period.
Some Moriscos rose to positions of wealth and prominence and wielded influence in
society. Moreover, Aragonese and Valencian nobles in particular were interested in
keeping their Morisco vassals under personal control; they tried to protect them from
Inquisitorial prosecution by advocating patience and religious instruction. However, in
1567 Philip II changed tack. He directed Moriscos to give up their Muslim names and
traditional Muslim dress, and prohibited their speaking Arabic. In addition, their
children were to be educated by Christian priests. In reaction, there was a Morisco
uprising in the Alpujarras from 1568 to 1571.

Spies reported that the Ottoman Emperor Selim II was planning to attack Malta and
from there move on to Spain. They said he wanted to incite an uprising among Spanish
Moriscos. In addition, "some four thousand Turks and Berbers had come into Spain to
fight alongside the insurgents in the Alpujarras," which was an obvious military threat.
After the government defeated the rebels, they expelled some 80,000 Moriscos from
Granada. Most settled elsewhere in Castile. The Alpujarras uprising hardened the
attitude of the monarchy, for "the excesses committed on both sides were without equal
in the experience of contemporaries; it was the most savage war to be fought in Europe
that century." As a consequence, the Inquisition's prosecution of Moriscos increased
after the uprising.

French Huguenots were in contact with the Moriscos in plans against Spain in the
1570s. Around 1575, plans were made for a combined attack of Aragonese Moriscos
and Huguenots from Béarn under Henri de Navarre against Spanish Aragon, in
agreement with the king of Algiers and the Ottoman Empire, but these projects
foundered with the arrival of John of Austria in Aragon and the disarmement of the
Moriscos. In 1576, a three-pronged fleet from Istanbul was planned to disembark
between Murcia and Valencia while the French Huguenots would invade from the north
and the Moriscos accomplish their uprising, but the Ottoman fleet failed to arrive.

Toward the end of the 16th century, Morisco writers challenged the perception that their
culture was alien to Spain. Their literary works expressed early Spanish history in
which Arabic-speaking Spaniards played a positive role.

Expulsion

At the instigation of the Duke of Lerma and the Viceroy of Valencia, Archbishop Juan
de Ribera, Philip III expelled the moriscos from Spain between 1609 (Valencia) and
1614 (Castile). They were ordered to depart "under the pain of death and confiscation,
without trial or sentence... to take with them no money, bullion, jewels or bills of
exchange... just what they could carry." Estimates for the number expelled in this
second wave have varied, although contemporary accounts set the number at around
300,000 (about 4% of the Spanish population). The majority were expelled from the
Crown of Aragon (modern day Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia). In contrast, the
majority in the first wave were expelled from Andalusia shortly after the events of 1492.
Some historians have blamed the subsequent economic collapse of the Spanish
Mediterranean on the attempted replacement of morisco workers by Christian
newcomers. Not only were there fewer of the new laborers, but they were not as
familiar with the local techniques.

Adult moriscos were often assumed to be covert Muslims (i.e. crypto-Muslims), but the
arrangements for expulsion of their children presented Catholic Spain with a dilemma.
As the children had all been baptized, the government could not legally or morally
transport them to Muslim lands. Some authorities proposed that children should be
forcibly separated from their parents, but sheer numbers showed this to be impractical.
Consequently, the official destination of the expellees was generally stated to be France
(more specifically Marseille). After the assassination of Henry IV in 1610, about
150,000 moriscos went there. Most of the moriscos then migrated to North Africa,
leaving only about 40,000 to settle permanently in France.

Those moriscos who wished to remain Catholic were generally able to find new homes
in Italy (especially Livorno). The overwhelming majority of the refugees settled in
Muslim-held lands, mostly in the Ottoman Empire (Algeria and Tunisia) or Morocco.

"During the reign of Sultan Saadian ech Sheikh Mohammed (1554-1557), the Turkish
danger was felt on the eastern borders of Morocco and the sovereign, even though a
hero of the holy war against Christians, showed a great political realism by becoming an
ally of the King of Spain, still the champion of Christianity. Everything changed from
1609, when King Philip III of Spain decided to expel the moriscos which, numbering
about three hundred thousand, were Muslims who had remained Christian. Rebels,
always ready to rise, they vigorously refused to convert and formed a state within a
state. The danger was that with the Turkish pressing from the east, the Spanish
authorities, who saw in them [the moriscos] a "potential danger", decided to expel them,
mainly to Morocco…."

Based at mainly northern towns of North Africa, some Morisco men fought as corsairs
against Christians. Some Morisco mercenaries (in the service of the Moroccan sultan),
armed with European-style guns, crossed the Sahara and conquered Timbuktu and the
Niger Curve in 1591. A Morisco worked as military advisor for Sultan Al-Ashraf
Tumanbay II of Egypt (the last Egyptian Mamluk Sultan) during his struggle against the
Ottoman invasion in 1517 led by Sultan Selim I. The Morisco military advisor
suggested that Sultan Tomanbey use men armed with guns instead of depending mainly
on cavalries. Arabic sources recorded that Moriscos of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt joined
Ottoman armies. Many Moriscos of Egypt joined the army in the time of Muhammad
Ali of Egypt.

Numerous Moriscos remained in Spain, living among the Christian population. Some
stayed on for genuine religious reasons, some for merely economic reasons. It is
estimated that in the kingdom of Granada alone, between 10,000 and 15,000 Moriscos
remained after the general expulsion of 1609. Scholars have suggested that the
Mercheros (also Quinquis), a group of nomadic tinkerers traditionally based in the
northern half of Spain, may have had their origin among surviving Moriscos.
Marrano

Marranos or secret Jews (also known as Anusim) were Sephardic Jews (Jews resident in
the Iberian peninsula) who were forced to adopt Christianity under threat of expulsion
but who continued to practice Judaism secretly, thus preserving their Jewish identity.
The term in Spanish meant pigs; it stemmed from the ritual prohibition against eating
pork, a prohibition practiced by both Jews and Muslims. In Spanish, the term marrano
acquired the meaning of "swine" or "filthy". In contemporary Spanish it is no longer
associated with Jews. In Portuguese, the word refers only to crypto-Jews, since pig or
"swine" is marrão or varrão.

Not all conversos were immediately accused of being marranos. Those suspicions arose
during times of social tension, when resentment targeted conversos who began to rise in
position and influence. People who were jealous found it convenient to accuse them of
secretly continuing Judaism as a way of attacking them in a society of state religion.

In recognition of the force used against the Jews in Spain and Portugal, Jews outside the
region judged the conversos gently; in Italy a special prayer was offered for them every
Sabbath, asking that "God might lead them from oppression to liberty, from darkness to
the light of religion." To the conversos who lived in secret conformity with Jewish law,
the rabbis applied the Talmudic passage: "Although he has sinned, he must still be
considered a Jew".

Hebrew-speakers called forced converts anusim (‫" ֲאנּוִסים‬constrained" or "forced").

Anusim is a general word for forced converts from Judaism and is not specific to this
period. According to rabbinic law, anusim (or conversos) who took the first opportunity
to go to a foreign country and openly profess Judaism, were allowed to act as witnesses
in religious matters.

Historians have disagreed as to how many Jews converted in the 14th and 15th century,
as opposed to the number who left the Iberian Peninsula. Numbers have been difficult to
determine from historic evidence. There were reasons for historians of different
backgrounds to favor material that suggested either more or fewer converts. A primary
source, the Ladino Me'am Lo'ez in its section on Tisha b'Av, mentions that a third of the
Spanish Jewish population converted, a third went into exile, and a third died for their
faith. The fraction is obviously rounded, but the implication is clear that large numbers
of people fell into each category.

Under state pressure in the late 15th century, an estimated 100,000–200,000 Jews in the
Iberian Peninsula converted to Christianity.

In Spain

According to historian Cecil Roth, Spanish political intrigues had earlier promoted the
anti-Jewish policies which culminated in 1391, when Regent Queen Leonora of Castile
gave the Archdeacon of Ecija, Ferrand Martinez, considerable power in her realm.
Martinez gave speeches that led to violence against the Jews, and this influence
culminated in the sack of the Jewish quarter of Seville on June 4, 1391. Throughout
Spain during this year, the cities of Ecija, Carmona, Córdoba, Toledo, Barcelona and
many others saw their Jewish quarters destroyed and massacred.

It is estimated that 200,000 Jews saved their lives by converting to Christianity in the
wake of these persecutions. Other Jews left the country altogether.

In 1449 feelings rose against conversos, breaking out in a riot at Toledo. Instigated by
two canons, Juan Alfonso and Pedro Lopez Galvez, the mob plundered and burned the
houses of Alonso Cota, a wealthy converso and tax-farmer. They also attacked the
residences of wealthy New Christians in the quarter of la Magdelena. Under Juan de la
Cibdad, the conversos opposed the mob, but were repulsed. They were executed with
their leader. As a result, several prominent converso men were deposed from office, in
obedience to a new statute.

Nearly 20 years later in July 1467, another riot occurred where a mob attacked
conversos in Toledo. The chief magistrate (alcalde mayor) of the city was Alvar Gomez
de Cibdad Real, who had been private secretary to King Henry IV of Castile. He was a
protector of the conversos. Together with prominent conversos Fernando and Alvaro de
la Torre, Alvar wished to take revenge for an insult by the counts de Fuensalida, leaders
of the Old Christians. His intention was to seize control of the city, but fierce conflict
erupted. Opponents set fire to houses of New Christians near the cathedral. The
conflagration spread so rapidly that 1,600 houses were consumed. Both Christians and
conversos perished. The brothers De la Torre were captured and hanged.

Riots at Córdoba

Tensions arose in Córdoba between Christians and conversos, where they formed two
hostile parties. On March 14, 1473, during a dedication procession, a girl accidentally
threw dirty water from the window of the house of one of the wealthiest conversos (the
customary way to dispose of it.) The water splashed on an image of the Virgin being
carried in procession in honor of a new society (from which conversos had been
excluded by Bishop D. Pedro.) Thousands immediately joined in a fierce shout for
revenge.

The mob went after conversos, denouncing them as heretics, killing them, and burning
their houses. To stop the excesses, the highly respected D. Alonso Fernandez de
Aguilar, whose wife was a member of the converso family of Pacheco, together with his
brother D. Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordova ("El Gran Capitán"), and a troop of soldiers,
hastened to protect the New Christians. D. Alonso called upon the mob to retire. Its
leader insulted the count, who immediately felled him with his lance. Aroused the
people considered him a martyr. Incited by Alonso de Aguilar's enemy, they again
attacked the conversos. Men, women, and children were all killed. The rioting lasted
three days. Those who escaped sought refuge in the castle, where their protectors also
took shelter. The government decreed that no converso should thenceforth live in
Cordoba or its vicinity, nor should one ever again hold public office, as if that meant the
people would never find a reason to riot.

In 1473 attacks on conversos arose in numerous other cities: Montoro, Bujalance,

Adamuz, La Rambla, Santaella, and elsewhere. Mobs attacked conversos in Andujar,
Úbeda, Baeza, and Almodovar del Campo also. In Valladolid groups looted the
belongings of the New Christians. At Segovia there was a massacre (May 16, 1474). D.
Juan Pacheco, a converso, led the attacks. Without the intervention of the alcalde
Andreas de Cabrerafamily, all New Christians may have died. At Carmona, every
converso was killed.

The Inquisition

The conversos of Seville and other cities of Castile, and especially of Aragon, bitterly
opposed the Spanish Inquisition established in 1478. They rendered considerable
service to the king, and held high legal, financial, and military positions. The
government issued an edict directing traditional Jews to live within a ghetto and be
separated from conversos. Despite the law, however, the Jews remained in
communication with their New Christian brethren.

"They sought ways and means to win them from Catholicism and bring them back to
Judaism. They instructed the Marranos in the tenets and ceremonies of the Jewish
religion; held meetings in which they taught them what they must believe and observe
according to the Mosaic law; and enabled them to circumcise themselves and their
children. They furnished them with prayer-books; explained the fast-days; read with
them the history of their people and their Law; announced to them the coming of the
Passover; procured unleavened bread for them for that festival, as well as kosher meat
throughout the year; encouraged them to live in conformity with the law of Moses, and
persuaded them that there was no law and no truth except the Jewish religion." These
were the charges brought by the government of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of
Castile against the Jews. They constituted the grounds for their expulsion and
banishment in 1492, so they could not subvert conversos. Jews who did not want to
leave Spain had to accept baptism as a sign of conversion.

The historian Henry Kamen's recent Inquisition and Society In Spain in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries questions whether there were such strong links between
conversos and Jewish communities. Whilst historians such as Yitzhak Baer state, "the
conversos and Jews were one people", Kamen claims, "Yet if the conversos were hated
by the Christians, the Jews liked them no better." He documented that "Jews testified
falsely against them [the conversos] when the Inquisition was finally founded." This
issue is being debated by historians.

Spanish Inquisition

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, commonly known as the Spanish
Inquisition, was a tribunal established in 1478 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. The
Inquisition worked in large part to ensure the orthodoxy of recent converts, especially
Jews, Muslims and others. Various motives have been proposed for the monarchs'
decision to found the Inquisition, such as increasing political authority, weakening
opposition, suppressing conversos, and profiting from confiscation of the property of
convicted heretics. The new body was under the direct control of the Spanish monarchy.
It was not definitively abolished until 1833, during the reign of Isabella II.
The start of the Inquisition

Alonso de Hojeda, a Dominican friar from Seville, convinced Queen Isabel of the
existence of Crypto-Judaism among Andalusian conversos during her stay in Seville
between 1477 and 1478. A report, produced by Pedro González de Mendoza,
Archbishop of Seville, and by the Segovian Dominican Tomás de Torquemada,
corroborated this assertion.

The monarchs decided to introduce the Inquisition to Castile to discover and punish
crypto-Jews, and requested the Pope's assent. Sheyn Aubreu pressured Sixtus IV by
threatening to withdraw military support at a time when the Turks were threatening
Catholic Europe. On November 1, 1478, Pope Sixtus IV published the Papal bull, Exigit
Sinceras Devotionis Affectus, through which the Inquisition was established in the
Kingdom of Castile. The bull also gave the monarchs exclusive authority to name the
inquisitors. The first two inquisitors, Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martín were
not named, however, until two years later, on September 27, 1481 in Medina del
Campo.

The first auto de fe was held in Seville on February 6, 1481: six people were burned
alive. From there, the Inquisition grew rapidly in the Kingdom of Castile. By 1492,
tribunals existed in eight Castilian cities: Ávila, Córdoba, Jaén, Medina del Campo,
Segovia, Sigüenza, Toledo, and Valladolid.

Expulsion of Jews and Repression of Conversos

The Spanish Inquisition had been set up in part to prevent conversos from engaging in
Jewish practices, which, as Christians, they were supposed to have given up. However
this remedy for securing the orthodoxy of conversos' religion was eventually deemed
inadequate, since the main justification the monarchy gave for formally expelling all
Jews from Spain was the "great harm suffered by Christians (i.e. conversos) from the
contact, intercourse and communication which they have with the Jews, who always
attempt in various ways to seduce faithful Christians from our Holy Catholic Faith.".
The decree of expulsion was issued in January 1492. The number of Jews who left
Spain is not even approximately known. Historians of the period give extremely high
figures: Juan de Mariana speaks of 800,000 people, and Don Isaac Abravanel of
300,000. Modern estimates are much lower: Henry Kamen estimates that, of a
population of approximately 80,000 Jews, about one half or 40,000 chose emigration.
The Jews of the kingdom of Castile emigrated mainly to Portugal (from where they
were expelled in 1497) and to Morocco. However, according to Henry Kamen, the Jews
of the kingdom of Aragon, went "to adjacent Christian lands, mainly to Italy," rather
than to Muslim lands as is often assumed. Much later the Sefardim, descendants of
Spanish Jews, established communities in many cities of Europe, North Africa, and the
Ottoman Empire.

Jews were baptised in the three months before the deadline for expulsion, some 40,000
if one accepts the totals given by Kamen: most of these undoubtedly to avoid expulsion,
rather than a sincere change of faith. These conversos were the principal concern of the
Inquisition; continuing to practice Judaism put them at risk of denunciation and trial.
The most intense period of persecution of conversos lasted until 1530. From 1531 to
1560, however, the percentage of conversos among the Inquisition trials dropped to 3%
of the total. There was a rebound of persecutions when a group of crypto-Jews was
discovered in Quintanar de la Orden in 1588; and there was a rise in denunciations of
conversos in the last decade of the 16th century. At the beginning of the 17th century,
some conversos who had fled to Portugal began to return to Spain, fleeing the
persecution of the Portuguese Inquisition, founded in 1532. This led to a rapid increase
in the trials of crypto-Jews, among them a number of important financiers. In 1691,
during a number of Autos de Fe in Majorca, 36 chuetas, or conversos of Majorca, were
burned.

During the 18th century the number of conversos accused by the Inquisition decreased
significantly. Manuel Santiago Vivar, tried in Cordoba in 1818, was the last person tried
for being a crypto-Jew.

The generally accepted number burnt at the stake by the Inquisition (including all
categories such as Protestants, blasphemers, bigamists and crypto-Jews) is below 5,000

Repression of Moriscos

The Inquisition did not exclusively target Jewish conversos (marranos) and Protestants,
but also the Moriscos, converts to Catholicism from Islam. The Moriscos were mostly
concentrated in the recently conquered kingdom of Granada, in Aragon, and in
Valencia. Officially, all Muslims in the Crown of Castile had been converted to
Christianity in 1502. Muslims in the Crown of Aragon were obliged to convert by
Charles I's decree of 1526, as most had been forcibly baptized during the Revolt of the
Brotherhoods (1519–1523) and these baptisms were declared to be valid.

Many Moriscos were suspected of practicing Islam in secret, and the jealousy with
which they guarded the privacy of their domestic life prevented the verification of this
suspicion. Initially they were not severely persecuted by the Inquisition, but experienced
a policy of evangelization without torture, a policy not followed with those conversos
who were suspected of being crypto-Jews. There were various reasons for this. Most
importantly, in the kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon a large number of the Moriscos
were under the jurisdiction of the nobility, and persecution would have been viewed as a
frontal assault on the economic interests of this powerful social class. Still, fears ran
high among the population that the Moriscos were traitorous, especially in Granada.
The coast was regularly raided by Barbary pirates backed by Spain's enemy the
Ottoman Empire, and the Moriscos were suspected of aiding them.

In the second half of the century, late in the reign of Philip II, conditions worsened
between Old Christians and Moriscos. The 1568–1570 Morisco Revolt in Granada was
harshly suppressed, and the Inquisition intensified its attention to the Moriscos. From
1570 Morisco cases became predominant in the tribunals of Zaragoza, Valencia and
Granada; in the tribunal of Granada, between 1560 and 1571, 82% of those accused
were Moriscos. Still, according to Kamen, the Moriscos did not experience the same
harshness as judaizing conversos and Protestants, and the number of capital
punishments was proportionally less.
In 1609 King Philip III, upon the advice of his financial adviser the Duke of Lerma and
Archbishop of Valencia Juan de Ribera, decreed the Expulsion of the Moriscos.
Hundreds of thousands of Moriscos were expelled, some of them probably sincere
Christians. This was further fueled by the religious intolerance of Archbishop Ribera
who quoted the Old Testament texts ordering the enemies of God to be slain without
mercy and setting forth the duties of kings to extirpate them. The edict required: 'The
Moriscos to depart, under the pain of death and confiscation, without trial or sentence...
to take with them no money, bullion, jewels or bills of exchange.... just what they could
carry.' So successful was the enterprise, in the space of months, Spain was emptied of
its Moriscos. Expelled were the Moriscos of Aragon, Murcia, Catalonia, Castile,
Mancha and Extremadura. As for the Moriscos of Granada, such as the Herrador family
who held positions in the Church and magistracy, they still had to struggle against exile
and confiscation.

An indeterminate number of Moriscos remained in Spain and, during the 17th century,
the Inquisition pursued some trials against them.

Other offenses

Although the Inquisition was created to suppress heresy, it also occupied itself with a
wide variety of offences that only indirectly could be related to religious heterodoxy. Of
a total of 49,092 trials from the period 1560–1700 registered in the archive of the
Suprema, appear the following: judaizantes (5,007); moriscos (11,311); Lutherans
(3,499); alumbrados (149); superstitions (3,750); heretical propositions (14,319);
bigamy (2,790); solicitation (1,241); offences against the Holy Office of the Inquisition
(3,954); miscellaneous (2,575). Witchcraft, Blashpemy, Bigamy, Sodomy
(homosexuality, rape, and separately bestiality), Freemasonry.

Functioning of the inquisition

The Inquisition operated in conformity with Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church;
its operations were in no way arbitrary. Its procedures were set out in various
Instrucciones issued by the successive Inquisitors General, Torquemada, Deza, and
Valdés.

Accusation

When the Inquisition arrived in a city, the first step was the Edict of Grace. Following
the Sunday mass, the Inquisitor would proceed to read the edict: it explained possible
heresies and encouraged all the congregation to come to the tribunals of the Inquisition
to "relieve their consciences". They were called Edicts of Grace because all of the self-
incriminated who presented themselves within a period of grace (about one month)
were offered the possibility of reconciliation with the Church without severe
punishment. The promise of benevolence was effective, and many voluntarily presented
themselves to the Inquisition. But self-incrimination was not sufficient: one also had to
accuse all one's accomplices. As a result, the Inquisition had an unending supply of
informants. With time, the Edicts of Grace were replaced by the Edicts of Faith, doing
away with the possibility of quick, painless reconciliation.
The denunciations were anonymous, and the defendants had no way of knowing the
identities of their accusers. This was one of the points most criticized by those who
opposed the Inquisition (for example, the Cortes of Castile, in 1518). In practice, false
denunciations were frequent, resulting from envy or personal resentments. Many
denunciations were for absolutely insignificant reasons. The Inquisition stimulated fear
and distrust among neighbours, and denunciations among relatives were not uncommon.

Detention

After a denunciation, the case was examined by the calificadores (qualifiers), who had
to determine if there was heresy involved, followed by detention of the accused. In
practice, however, many were detained in preventive custody, and many cases of
lengthy incarcerations occurred, lasting up to two years, before the calificadores
examined the case.

Detention of the accused entailed the preventive sequestration of their property by the
Inquisition. The property of the prisoner was used to pay for procedural expenses and
the accused's own maintenance and costs. Often the relatives of the defendant found
themselves in outright misery. This situation was only remedied following instructions
written in 1561.

The entire process was undertaken with the utmost secrecy, as much for the public as
for the accused, who were not informed about the accusations that were levied against
them. Months, or even years could pass without the accused being informed about why
they were imprisoned. The prisoners remained isolated, and, during this time, the
prisoners were not allowed to attend mass nor receive the sacraments. The jails of the
Inquisition were no worse than those of civil society, and there are even certain
testimonies that occasionally they were much better. Some prisoners died in prison, as
was frequent at the time.

The trial

The inquisitorial process consisted of a series of hearings, in which both the denouncers
and the defendant gave testimony. A defense counsel was assigned to the defendant, a
member of the tribunal itself, whose role was simply to advise the defendant and to
encourage them to speak the truth. The prosecution was directed by the fiscal.
Interrogation of the defendant was done in the presence of the Notary of the Secreto,
who meticulously wrote down the words of the accused. The archives of the Inquisition,
in comparison to those of other judicial systems of the era, are striking in the
completeness of their documentation. In order to defend themselves, the accused had
two possibilities: abonos (to find favourable witnesses) or tachas (to demonstrate that
the witnesses of accusers were not trustworthy).

In order to interrogate the accused, the Inquisition made use of torture, but not in a
systematic way. It was applied mainly against those suspected of Judaism and
Protestantism, beginning in the 16th century. For example, Lea estimates that between
1575 and 1610 the court of Toledo tortured approximately a third of those processed for
heresy. In other periods, the proportions varied remarkably. Torture was always a means
to obtain the confession of the accused, not a punishment itself. It was applied without
distinction of sex or age, including children and the aged.
Torture

The methods of torture most used by the Inquisition were garrucha, toca and the potro.
The application of the garrucha, also known as the strappado, consisted of suspending
the victim from the ceiling by the wrists, which are tied behind the back. Sometimes
weights were tied to the ankles, with a series of lifts and drops, during which the arms
and legs suffered violent pulls and were sometimes dislocated. The toca, also called
interrogatorio mejorado del agua, consisted of introducing a cloth into the mouth of the
victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they had impression of
drowning (see: waterboarding). The potro, the rack, was the instrument of torture used
most frequently.

The assertion that "confessionem esse veram, non factam vi tormentorum" (literally: ((a
person's)) confession is truth, not made by way of torture.) sometimes follows a
description of how, presently after torture ended, the subject freely confessed to the
offenses.

Once the process concluded, the inquisidores met with a representative of the bishop
and with the consultores, experts in theology or Canon Law, which was called the
consulta de fe. The case was voted and sentence pronounced, which had to be
unanimous. In case of discrepancies, the Suprema had to be informed.

Sentencing

The results of the trial could be the following:

1. Although quite rare in actual practice, the defendant could be acquitted.

2. The trial, itself, could be suspended, in which case the defendant, although
under suspicion, went free (with the threat that the process could be continued at
any time). Suspension was a form of acquittal without specifying that the
accusation had been erroneous.
3. The defendant could be penanced. Since they were considered guilty, they had
to publicly abjure their crimes (de levi if it was a misdemeanor, and de
vehementi if the crime were serious), and accept a public punishment. Among
these were sanbenito, exile, fines or even sentencing to the galleys.
4. The defendant could be reconciled. In addition to the public ceremony in which
the condemned was reconciled with the Catholic Church, more severe
punishments existed, among them long sentences to jail or the galleys, plus the
confiscation of all property. Physical punishments also existed, such as
whipping.
5. The most serious punishment was relaxation to the secular arm, which implied
burning at the stake. This penalty was frequently applied to impenitent heretics
and those who had relapsed. Execution was public. If the condemned repented,
they were shown mercy and garroted before the body was given to the flames. If
not, they were burned alive.

Frequently, cases were judged in absentia, and when the accused died before the trial
finished, the condemned were burned in effigy.
The distribution of the punishments varied considerably over time. It is believed that
sentences of death were enforced in the first stages within the long history of the
Inquisition. According to García Cárcel, the court of Valencia employed the death
penalty in 40% of the processings before 1530, but later that percentage lowered to 3%).

The Autos de Fe

If the sentence was condemnatory, this implied that the condemned had to participate in
the ceremony of an auto de fe, that solemnized their return to the Church (in most
cases), or punishment as an impenitent heretic. The autos de fe could be private (auto
particular) or public (auto publico or auto general).

Although initially the public autos did not have any special solemnity nor sought a large
attendance of spectators, with time they became solemn ceremonies, celebrated with
large public crowds, amidst a festive atmosphere. The auto de fe eventually became a
baroque spectacle, with staging meticulously calculated to cause the greatest effect
among the spectators.

The autos were conducted in a large public space (in the largest plaza of the city,
frequently), generally on holidays. The rituals related to the auto began the previous
night (the "procession of the Green Cross") and sometimes lasted the whole day. The
auto de fe frequently was taken to the canvas by painters: one of the better known
examples is the painting by Francesco Rizzi held by the Prado Museum in Madrid and
which represents the auto celebrated in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid on June 30, 1680.
The last public auto de fe took place in 1691.

The auto de fe involved: a Catholic Mass; prayer; a public procession of those found
guilty; and a reading of their sentences (Peters 1988: 93-94). They took place in public
squares or esplanades and lasted several hours: ecclesiastical and civil authorities
attended. Artistic representations of the auto de fe usually depict torture and the burning
at the stake. However, this type of activity never took place during an auto de fe, which
was in essence a religious act. Torture was not administered after a trial concluded, and
executions were always held after and separate from the auto de fe (Kamen 1997: 192-
213), though in the minds and experiences of observers and those undergoing the
confession and execution, the separation of the two might be experienced as merely a
technicality.

The first recorded auto de fe was held in Paris in 1242, during the reign of Louis IX.
However, the first Spanish auto de fe did not take place until Seville in 1481; six of the
men and women that participated in this first religious ritual were later executed. The
Inquisition enjoyed limited power in Portugal, having been established in 1536 and
officially lasting until 1821, although its influence was much weakened with the
government of the Marquis of Pombal, in the second half of the 18th century. Autos de
fe also took place in Mexico, Brazil and Peru: contemporary historians of the
Conquistadors such as Bernal Díaz del Castillo record them. They also occurred in the
Portuguese colony of Goa, India, following the establishment of Inquisition there in
1562-1563.

The arrival of the Enlightenment in Spain slowed inquisitorial activity. In the first half
of the 18th century, 111 were condemned to be burned in person, and 117 in effigy,
most of them for judaizing. In the reign of Philip V, there were 728 autos de fe, while in
the reigns of Charles III and Charles IV only four condemned were burned.

During the eighteenth century, the Inquisition changed: Enlightenment ideas were the
closest threat that had to be fought. The main figures of the Spanish Enlightenment were
in favour of the abolition of the Inquisition, and many were processed by the Holy
Office, among them Olavide, in 1776; Iriarte, in 1779; and Jovellanos, in 1796. The
latter sent a report to Charles IV in which he indicated the inefficiency of the
Inquisition's courts and the ignorance of those who operated them:

In its new role, the Inquisition tried to accentuate its function of censoring publications,
but found that Charles III had secularized censorship procedures and, on many
occasions, the authorization of the Council of Castile hit the more intransigent position
of the Inquisition. Since the Inquisition itself was an arm of the state, being within the
Council of Castile, it was generally civil censorship and not ecclesiastic that ended up
prevailing. This lose of influence can also be explained because the foreign
Enlightenment texts entered the peninsula through prominent members of the nobility or
government, influential people with whom it was very difficult to interfere. Thus, for
example, Diderot's Encyclopedia entered Spain thanks to special licenses granted by the
king.

However, with the coming of the French Revolution, the Council of Castile, fearing that
revolutionary ideas would penetrate Spain's borders, decided to reactivate the Holy
Office that was directly charged with the persecution of French works.

However, inquisitorial activity was impossible in the face of the information avalanche
that crossed the border.

The fight from within against the Inquisition almost always took place in clandestine
form. The first texts that questioned the inquisitorial role and praised the ideas of
Voltaire or Montesquieu appeared in 1759. After the suspension of pre-publication
censorship on the part of the Council of Castile in 1785, the newspaper El Censor began
the publication of protests against the activities of the Holy Office by means of a
rationalist critique and, even, Valentin de Foronda published Espíritu de los Mejores
Diarios, a plea in favour of freedom of expression that was avidly read in the salons.
Also, Manuel de Aguirre, in the same vein, wrote, On Toleration in El Censor, El
Correo de los Ciegos and El Diario de Madrid.

End of the Inquisition

During the reign of Charles IV, in spite of the fears that the French Revolution
provoked, several events took place that accelerated the decline of the Inquisition. In the
first place, the state stopped being a mere social organizer and began to worry about the
well-being of the public. As a result, they considered the land-holding power of the
Church, in the señoríos and, more generally, in the accumulated wealth that had
prevented social progress. On the other hand, the perennial struggle between the power
of the throne and the powe

r of the Church, inclined more and more to the former, under which, Enlightenment
thinkers found better protection for their ideas.
The Inquisition was abolished during the domination of Napoleon and the reign of
Joseph Bonaparte (1808–1812). In 1813, the liberal deputies of the Cortes of Cádiz also
obtained its abolition, largely as a result of the Holy Office's condemnation of the
popular revolt against French invasion. But the Inquisition was reconstituted when
Ferdinand VII recovered the throne on July 1, 1814. It was again abolished during the
three year Liberal interlude known as the Trienio liberal. Later, during the period known
as the Ominous Decade, the Inquisition was not formally re-established, although, de
facto, it returned under the so-called Meetings of Faith, tolerated in the dioceses by
King Ferdinand. These had the dubious honour of executing the last heretic condemned,
the school teacher Cayetano Ripoll, garroted in Valencia on July 26, 1826 (presumably
for having taught deist principles), all amongst a European-wide scandal at the despotic
attitude still prevailing in Spain. Juan Antonio Llorente, who had been the Inquisition's
general secretary in 1789, became a Bonapartist and published a critical history in 1817
from his French exile, based on his privileged access to its archives.

The Inquisition was definitively abolished on July 15, 1834, by a Royal Decree signed
by regent Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies, Ferdinand VII's liberal widow, during the
minority of Isabella II and with the approval of the President of the Cabinet Francisco
Martínez de la Rosa. (It is possible that something similar to the Inquisition acted during
the 1833-1839 First Carlist War, in the zones dominated by the Carlists, since one of the
government measures praised by Conde de Molina Carlos Maria Isidro de Borbon was
the re-implementation of the Inquisition to protect the Church). During the Carlist Wars
it was the conservatives who fought the progressists who wanted to reduce the Church's
power, amongst other reforms to liberalise the economy.
 TIMELINE
YEA
STAGE EVENT DURATION
R
Tarik, general of the governor from the
North of Africa, goes from Tanger with a
711 host of 9.000 men and lands in Gibraltar.
The ocupation of the peninsula takes
FROM THE around 5 years. 711-756
BEGGINING
UNTIL 756 Abd Al-Rahman I, last Umayyad from S. VIII
Damasco survivor to the persecution his
756 family suffered, arrive to the peninsula
and occupies Córdoba, establishing the
Umayyad dinasty.
Begins the construction of Córdoba’s
784
mosque.
The successor to Al-Hakkem I,
Abderraman II, brought a period of
INDEPENDENT 822 prosperity to Al-Andalus. He extended the 756-929
UMAYYAD Mosque of Cordoba and Jaen and create
EMIRATE others in Seville. S. VIII-X

851 Insurrection by the mozárabes.

Insurrection fo the muladí Umar ben
879
Hafsuf against the Umayyad Emirate.
Abd Al-Rahman III declares himself caliph,
929
independent from Baghdad.
Begins the construction of the city
936
Madinat Al-Zahra.
955 Fundation of Almería. 929-1031
UMAYYAD
CALIPHATE 961 Al-Hakken II succes Abd Al-Rahman III.
S. X-XI
Campaign against Santiado de
997
Compostela by Almanzor.
Fall of the Caliphate. Begin to emerge
1031 independent Taifa kingdoms throughout
Al-Andalus.
Begin of the construction of the Alcázar de
1042
Sevilla.
1031-1086
TAIFAS Alfonso VI takes Toledo. The king of
KINGDOMS 1085 Sevilla Al-Mutamid ask for help to the
almorávides. S. XI

1086 Defeat of the christians in Sagrajas.

ALMORÁVIDE 1163 Sevilla, capital of South Al-Andalus. 1086-1232
AND
ALMOHADE 1184 Begining of the constructions of the
S. XI-XII
Giralda.
 Almohad troops defeat the Christian army
1195
Alfonso VII of Castile in Alarcos.
1198 Death of Averroes.
The allied armies of Castile, Aragon and
1212 Navarra, defeat the Almohads in the battle
GOBERMENT of Navas de Tolosa.
S
Al-Ahmar ibn Nasr, Nazari dynasty's
founder, is appointed governor of Arjona,
1231
his hometown, and soon extended their
power over Guadix and Jaen.
Córdoba surrenders to Ferdinand III of
Castile. Some years later fall Arjona Jaen,
1236
Sevilla (1248) and other cities of Al-
Andalus.
Beginin of Alhambra constructions under
1237
the direction of Al-Ahmar
Muhammad I establishes the Nazarí
1238
Kingdom of Granada.
1314 Begining of Generalife’s works.
1232-1492
NAZARI Begining of Granada’s war. Boabdil seizes
1484
KINGDOM the throne from his father.
S. XIII-XV
Málaga is submitted to the christian
1487
forces.
Baeza y Almería surrender peacefully to
1489
the Catholic Monarchs.
Boabdil, last nazarí king, capitulates to the
1491 Catholic Monarchs and negotiates the
surrender of Granada.
Los Reyes Católicos entered in Granada
1492
the 2nd of January.