Tomás de Torquemada

Tomás de Torquemada
Tomás de Torquemada
Born 1420
Torquemada or Valladolid, Kingdom of Castile
Died September 16, 1498 (aged 77–78)
Ávila, Kingdom of Castile
Occupation Grand Inquisitor
Parent(s)
  • Don Pedro Ferdinando, lord of Torquemada (father)
Relatives Juan de Torquemada (cardinal) (uncle)

Tomás de Torquemada[lower-alpha 1] OP (1420 – September 16, 1498) was a Castilian Dominican friar and first Grand Inquisitor in Spain's movement to homogenize religious practices with those of the Catholic Church in the late 15th century, otherwise known as the Spanish Inquisition, which resulted in the expulsion from Spain of thousands of people of Jewish and Muslim faith and heritage and the execution of 3,000 to 5,000 people.

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).[1] The existence of superficial converts (i.e., Crypto-Jews)[2] 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.[3] This led Torquemada, who himself had converso ancestors,[4][5][6] to be one of the chief supporters of the Alhambra Decree that expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492.

Biography

Early life

Torquemada was born in 1420, either in Valladolid, Old Castile, in the Kingdom of Castile,[7] or in the nearby village of Torquemada. [8][9] He came from a family of conversos (converts from Judaism); his uncle, Juan de Torquemada, was a celebrated theologian and cardinal,[4] whose grandmother was a conversa. The 15th Century chronicler, Hernando del Pulgar, who was 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.[5][6]

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, and remained her closest ally and supporter. He even advised her to marry King Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469, in order to consolidate their kingdoms and form a power base he could draw on for his own purposes.[10]

Establishment of the Holy Office of the Inquisition

Torquemada deeply feared the Marranos and Moriscos as a menace to Spain's welfare by both their increasing religious influence, and their economic domination of Spain.[5] The Crown of Aragon had Dominican inquisitors almost continuously throughout much of the fourteenth and fifteenth 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.[11]

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 the fifteen years under his direction, the Spanish Inquisition grew from the single tribunal at Seville to a network of two dozen Holy Offices.[12] 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. One type, worn by those sentenced to death, had designs of hell's flames, or sometimes demons, dragons, and/or snakes on it. Another type had a cross, and was worn instead of imprisonment, then hung in the parish church.

The Treaty of Granada (1491), as negotiated at the final surrender of the Muslim state of Al-Andalus, clearly mandated protection of religious rights,[13] 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. Another approximately 50,000 Jews received a Christian baptism so as to remain in Spain; many of these, derogatorily dubbed "Marranos" (literally, "Swines") by the Old Christian majority, secretly kept some of their Jewish traditions.[14] They were one of the chief targets of the Inquisition, but it also pursued anyone who would criticize it.

There are various estimates of the number of victims of the Spanish Inquisition during Torquemada's reign as Grand Inquisitor. It is thought unlikely that there were more than 2,000 executed for heresy. 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.[15]

Death

During his final years, Torquemada's failing health, coupled with widespread complaints, caused Pope Alexander VI to appoint four assistant inquisitors in June 1494 to restrain the Spanish Inquisition. After fifteen years as Spain's Grand Inquisitor, Torquemada died in the monastery of St. Thomas Aquinas in Ávila on September 16, 1498, and was interred there. His tomb was ransacked in 1832—only two years before the Inquisition was finally disbanded. His bones were allegedly stolen and ritually incinerated as though an auto-da-fé took place.[16]

In fiction

  • 50 fathoms, an tabletop RPG setting. After being sucked into an alternate dimension while on a boat, like may other humans of earth from the golden age of sail, Torquemada re-establishes the inquisition and ruthlessly hunts down mages across the drowning fantasy land of the Caribdus.
  • Torquemada, a historical novel by Howard Fast.
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov features a parable involving Christ coming back to Seville in the days of the Spanish Inquisition, and being confronted by Torquemada as the Grand Inquisitor.
  • Torquemada, a play by Victor Hugo.
  • Tomás de Torquemada is one of the main protagonists of Jerzy Andrzejewski's novel And Darkness Covered the Earth (also translated as The Inquisitors).
  • Tomás de Torquemada is one of the main characters of Gilbert Sinoué's novel Le livre de saphir.
  • Mel Brooks portrayed Torquemada in the musical number "The Inquisition" in the 1981 comedy film History of the World, Part I.
  • Torquemada is the name of the primary antagonist in the comic series Nemesis the Warlock by Pat Mills. This future Torquemada is later revealed to be an incarnation of the original Torquemada. Mills also featured Torquemada in the graphic novel series Requiem Chevalier Vampire.
  • Lance Henriksen portrays a fictionalized Torquemada in the 1991 horror film The Pit and the Pendulum.
  • Marlon Brando portrayed Torquemada in the 1992 film Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.
  • Torquemada appears on chapter 4 of the Spanish historical fiction television series El Ministerio del Tiempo.
  • Tomás de Torquemada is one of the main antagonists of a movie based on the video game franchise Assassin's Creed, portrayed by the Spanish actor Javier Gutierrez. He is also the main antagonist of the 2009 Nintendo DS and iOS spin-off game Assassin's Creed II: Discovery.
  • In Requiem Chevalier Vampire (Requiem the Vampire Knight in the English version), Grand Inquisitor Torquemada is featured as the leader of the Werewolves—religious fanatics in life, their hatred incarnates them as wild beasts upon Resurrection.
  • Torquemada makes a short but important appearance in Chapter Seventeen of The Black Castle, Book One of the "Don Sebastian Vampire Chronicles" by Les Daniels.
  • God Emperor of Dune, Leto II Atreides, God Emperor speaks of Torquemada to his Major Domo Moneo Atreides: "In the shadow of every religion lurks a Torquemada," Leto said. "You have never encountered that name because I caused it to be expunged from all records." "Why was that, Lord?" "He was an obscenity. He made living torches out of people who disagreed with him." ..."Torquemada, however, delighted in commending to his god the agonized screams of his burning victims."
  • Tom Torquemada is the name taken by the devil, in the form of a game show host, in Brooke McEldowney's comic series Pibgorn.
  • Referenced in The Addams Family Musical in Act 1 Scene 7 "Fifteenth Century. 'The Heretic's Chair." Once owned by Tomas de Torquemada, Grand Inquisitor of Madrid."
  • Torquemada appears in the movie Assassin's Creed (2016), the role played by Javier Gutiérrez. IMDB Assassin's Creed

Notes

  1. ↑ English: Thomas of Torquemada. Pronounced /ˌtɔːrkəˈmɑːdə/ Spanish: [toɾkeˈmaða].

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "Marrano", Merriam-Webster Dictionary
  2. ↑ "Crypto-Jews", My Jewish Learning Archived 2014-10-29 at the Wayback Machine.
  3. ↑  Ott, Michael (1912). "Tomás de Torquemada". In Herbermann, Charles. Catholic Encyclopedia. 13. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  4. 1 2 "Meditations, or the Contemplations of the Most Devout". World Digital Library. 1479. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  5. 1 2 3 Falk, Avner. A Psychoanalytic History of the Jews, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996, p.508 ISBN 0838636608
  6. 1 2 "Tomas de Torquemada", Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2004
  7. ↑ von Dehsen, Christian (2013). Philosophers and Religious Leaders. Routledge. p. 188. ISBN 9781135951023.
  8. ↑ Gerli, E. Michael (2013). Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 794. ISBN 9781136771620.
  9. ↑ Whitechapel, Simon (2003). Flesh Inferno: Atrocities of Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition. Creation Books. p. 52. ISBN 9781840681055.
  10. ↑ Fernando del Pulgar (1789). Claros varones de Castilla. G. Ortega.
  11. ↑ Lea, Henry Charles. A History of the Inquisition of Spain, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1906-07), 1:27-28
  12. ↑ The Age of Torquemada, by John Edward Longhurst (1962), from vlib.iue.it (European University Institute)
  13. ↑ Carr, Matthew (2009). Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain. New Press. pp. 51–57. ISBN 978-1-59558-361-1.
  14. ↑ 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.
  15. ↑ Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997), 60
  16. ↑ Cullen Murphy, God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012

Bibliography

  • Duran, Alphonsus Maria, Why Apologize for the Spanish Inquisition?, (Eric Gladkowski, Ed., 2000). ISBN 0-9702235-0-1.
  • Goldberg, Enid A. & Itzkowitz, Norman, "Tomas de Torquemada" (A Wicked History), (Scholastic Books, 2008) ISBN 1-4351-0322-X
  • Kamen, Henry, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, (Yale University Press, 1999). ISBN 0-300-07880-3.
  • Lea, Henry Charles, The history of the Inquisition of Spain, (Macmillan, 1906–07) Wikisource:A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages/Volume I
  • Sabatini, Rafael, Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition, (Bretano's 1913; reprinted BiblioLife, 2009). # Paperback: 304 pages, Publisher: House of Stratus; New edition (31 May 2001) # Language English # ISBN 1-84232-834-4 # ISBN 978-1-84232-834-7
  • Wikisource Taunton, Ethelred Luke (1911). "Torquemada, Thomas". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  • Walsh, William Thomas, Characters of the Inquisition, (Tan Books and Publishers, 1987). ISBN 0-89555-326-0 .
Catholic Church titles
New title
Office established
 Grand Inquisitor
of Spain
1483–1498		 Succeeded by
Diego Deza
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