The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision

 The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision.  By Henry Kamen, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997.

 

Mention the Spanish Inquisition, and images of terror, tyranny, torture, and religious fanaticism are bound to pop into people’s heads.  Three of the most prominent images of the Spanish Inquisition in popular culture are Edgar Allan Poe’s tale of suspense “The Pit and the Pendulum,” Mel Brooks’ musical send-up in History of the World, Part One, and the Monty Python sketch with the famous line, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

 

The Spanish Inquisition is commonly used as a cudgel against the Catholic Church.  A reference to the Inquisition is usually used by the Church’s detractors to strip the Church of its moral authority, painting it as bigoted, violent, and cruel.  Even staunch Catholics feel that the Inquisition is a blot on the Church’s history.  Certainly the Inquisition was no credit to those who led it, and there were many cases of innocent people suffering for actions of conscience, but for all of its disturbing sins and injustices, the Spanish Inquisition is one of the most misunderstood and wrongly represented periods in history.  This is not meant to say that the prevailing views of the Inquisition are wholly wrong, far from it, but the Inquisition has been blended with mythology and historical distortions, so that the popular conception of the Inquisition is a far cry from the actual historical event.

 

Kamen first wrote The Spanish Inquisition as a young scholar in 1965, arguing that for all of the Inquisition’s iniquities, the overreaching devastation and viciousness that supposedly characterized the era was grossly exaggerated, a product of Protestant propaganda, Enlightenment exaggerations, and authors of historical novels that were more fancy than fact.  The true state of Spain during the time of the Inquisition is too complex to summarize, but the Inquisition was run by the Spanish government, at a time when the country was fighting over its national identity.  Anti-Semitism was common, but a surprising amount of fear and hostility was directed towards many Jewish converts to Christianity, even against families that had been Catholic for generations.  Yet the complexity, intricacy, and contradictions of the era make summarizing the time period challenging, and prove that the popular conceptions of the age have been highly distorted.  The scope of this review cannot do justice to all of the points that Kamen addresses, and the absence of time spent discussing certain aspects of his analysis is not meant to belittle or whitewash any facts not covered here. 

 

Kamen observes that, “We can be certain of one thing.  Spain was not, as often imagined, a society dominated exclusively by zealots.” (5)  In his introduction, Kamen writes about his goals in writing this book:

 

“Written principally for the general reader, this book pays due attention to the major scholarly themes that have dominated Inquisition studies.  Its conclusions, though based firmly on documentary sources, will not satisfy everybody.  My aim, however, has been t go beyond polemic and present a balanced and updated synthesis of what we know about the most notorious tribunal of the western world.  Like its predecessor, my book is fundamentally a ‘state of the question’ paper and therefore still open to discussion.  It is dedicated to all those who have helped us to look more dispassionately at the Holy Office of the Inquisition.” (xi-xii)

 

Kamen is a very good writer, but he deals with a massive and complex subject, and for people with a limited background in European history, particularly Spanish history, the sheer breadth of information is enough to overwhelm casual readers.  History is way more complex.  In order to understand the political culture during the reign of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, it is important to know the details behind the Reconquista.  In order to understand the Reconquista, one needs a solid grasp of the details of life under the years of Muslim conquest.  In order to comprehend the state of society under Muslim rule, one needs to know what life was like before that...  And so on and so forth.  Kamen’s greatest stumbling block as a writer is a common one for many historians.  He knows so much about Spanish history that he often forgets that many of his readers have a much more limited knowledge of the subject. One does not need to be an expert on Spanish history to appreciate this Kamen’s fine work, but it may require a little additional effort in to understand the nuances of historical currents at work here.

 

Another problem facing those who seek to easily summarize the Inquisition is the fact that the Inquisition seemed to have broad popular support.  Kamen writes:

 

“Throughout the history of the Inquisition, commentators agreed on the impressive support given to it by the people.  Foreign visitors to the peninsula were appalled by the mass participation of the public in autos de fe.  Subsequent defenders of the tribunal felt that they could in part justify the Inquisition by the evidence of its roots in the authentic faith of Spainards.  Opponents of the tribunal were equally impressed.  Eceb the great Llorente, the first modern historian of the tribunal, was staggered by the lack of evidence for any opposition to it in Spain…

The apparent support given by the people to the Inquisition has inevitably created problems of interpretation.  Partisans of the Holy Office have maintained that its popularity was based on its unswerving sense of justice, and that it responded to a profound religious need.  Critics, by contrast, have presented it as a tyranny imposed by the state upon the free conscience of Spainards.  Both extremes of opinion can probably be supported by contemporary evidence, but neither is wholly plausible.  The primitive state bureaucracies of fifteenth-century Castile and Aragon were ill equipped to impose a tyranny on the mass of the people abd in reality never attempted to do so.  If the Inquisition acquired a broad base of support, on the other hand, we need to examine why this came about.” (66)

 

Other writers have attempted to revise conceptions of the Inquisition.  Thomas F. Madden’s brief essay “The Truth About the Spanish Inquisition” (http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0075.html), is an interesting overview of how contemporary scholarship has led to major revisions of scholarly interpretations of the Inquisition.  Madden’s essay, though its theses vary slightly from Kamen’s work, may be a useful piece of pre-reading before studying Kamen’s book.

 

 

“The Inquisition helped to institutionalize the prejudices and attitudes that had previously been commonplace in society.  Like all police forces that operate in secrecy and are not publicly accountable, it began to enjoy the arrogance of power.  As the society of conflict developed, the Inquisition found itself at the centre of communal tensions.  The people accepted it because its punishments were directed not against them but against the scapegoats and the marginalized: heretics, foreigners, deviants.  Outside the crisis years of the mid-sixteenth century, few intellectuals felt threatened.  From the early eighteenth century onwards many felt that the Inquisition could be rendered harmless if subjected entirely to government control.  Not until the end of that century did the tribunal show itself to be clearly out of step with opinion in both Church and state.”   (320)

 

What lessons should we draw from our revised view of the Spanish Inquisition?  The Inquisition is often denounced as an example of intolerance gone mad.  Yet one particularly harmful form of intolerance is the belief that the people of the past were less intelligent, decent, and civilized that the people of the modern era.  If we bemoan the very real flaws of past societies, we have to be seriously prepared to address the similar problems in our own culture.  Observers of American culture can see how people who diverge from the standards of political correctness are demonized in the public arena.  Right now in Great Britain, victims of violent crimes are sued and prosecuted simply for defending themselves against assaults, and children are charged with crimes (known as Anti-Social Behaviour Ordinances) for as little as playing ball in the streets.  (For a look at the insanity that has crept into the British legal system, please read John Mortimer’s perceptive novel Rumpole Misbehaves).  The Spanish Inquisition was not a time for anyone involved to be proud of it, but those who condemn the mores of the past would to well to turn a critical eye towards the follies of the present.

 

 

–Chris Chan