Henry Kamen

The Spanish Inquisition Was Bad, and Yes, Mostly Secular

Published by Papa Giorgio

This post is to just get on record some numbers about the Spanish Inquisition. A good summary is this one via Strange Notions, take note of the last bullet point:

• The Inquisition was originally welcomed to bring order to Europe because states saw an attack on the state’s faith as an attack on the state as well.
• The Inquisition technically had jurisdiction only over those professing to be Christians.
• The courts of the Inquisition were extremely fair compared to their secular counterparts at the time.
• The Inquisition was responsible for less than 100 witch-hunt deaths, and was the first judicial body to denounce the trials in Europe.
• Though torture was commonly used in all the courts of Europe at the time, the Inquisition used torture very infrequently.
• During the 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition, between 3,000-5,000* people were sentenced to death (about 1 per month).
• The Church executed no one.

[….]

In recent years, however, the Vatican opened up its secret archives for historical investigation. Inquisition records that were made by and for the Inquisition were allowed to be researched for the first time in history. Since then, the above facts have been generally discoverable in modern history books (whether Catholic or not). Corrected Inquisition history can be found in sources such as Inquisition by Edward Peters and The Spanish Inquisition: An Historical Revision by Henry Kamen. Comparative secular documentaries include The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition (BBC) and the more sensationalistic The Spanish Inquisition (History Channel).

(*See Kamen death totals below.)

Okay, the Catholic Church didn’t suppress science from Galileo, they didn’t kill him either, he died of old age. And in 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition, they killed about 3,000-to-5,000 people people due to it. here is this better understood history used in a debate between atheist

The above will play into another aspect of this story as well… that is, this was largely a secular movement. Continuing. The years in which the Inquisition was extremely active was between 1480 and 1530. Henry Kamen estimates about 2,000 executed, based on the documentation of the autos-da-fé, the great majority being conversos of Jewish origin. He offers striking statistics: 91.6% of those judged in Valencia between 1484 and 1530 and 99.3% of those judged in Barcelona between 1484 and 1505 were of Jewish origin. (WIKI, and Kamen’s book).

Here is Kamen’s commentary on the death toll:

In Castile the incidence of executions was probably higher. In the auto de fe at Ciudad Real on 23 February 1484, thirty people were burnt alive and forty in effigy; in the auto at Valladolid on 5 January 1492, thirty-two were burnt alive. The executions were, however, sporadic and concentrated only in the early years. In rounded terms, it is likely that over three-quarters of all those who perished under the Inquisition in the three centuries of its existence, did so in the first half-century. Lack of documentation, however, makes it impossible to arrive at totally reliable figures.  One good estimate, based on documentation of the autos de fe, is that 250 people were burnt in person in the Toledo tribunal between 1485 and 1501 . Since this tribunal and that of Seville and Jaen were among the few in Castile to have had an intense level of activity, it would not be improbable to suggest a figure five times higher, around one thousand persons, as a rough total for those executed in the tribunals of Castile in the early period. Taking into account all the tribunals of Spain up to about 1530, it is unlikely that more than two thousand people were executed for heresy by the Inquisition.

Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (London, England: Yale University Press, 1997), 59-60.

Dennis Prager Comments on “Religious Violence” Via Prager’s “Masters Program.” (DAILY WIRE)

This is KEY!

Using Kamen’s numbers, about 6[-] people were killed a year by the Spanish Inquisition over its 350-year long stretch. If you use the high numbers, you get about 14[+] people killed a year. Below is Dinesh D’Souza referencing this information in a debate with an atheist

Secularism More Dangerous!

The Bible does not teach the horrible practices that some have committed in its name. It is true that it’s possible that religion can produce evil, and generally when we look closer at the details it produces evil because the individual people [Christians] are actually living in rejection of the tenets of Christianity and a rejection of the God that they are supposed to be following. So it [religion] can produce evil, but the historical fact is that outright rejection of God and institutionalizing of atheism (non-religious practices) actually does produce evil on incredible levels. We’re talking about tens of millions of people as a result of the rejection of God. For example: the Inquisitions, Crusades, Salem Witch Trials killed about anywhere from 40,000 to 80,000 persons combined (World Book Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Americana), and the church is liable for the unjustified murder of about (taking the high number here) 300,000-women over about a 300 year period. A blight on Christianity? Certainly. Something wrong? Dismally wrong. A tragedy? Of course. Millions and millions of people killed? No. The numbers are tragic, but pale in comparison to the statistics of what non-religious criminals have committed); the Chinese regime of Mao Tse Tung, 60 million [+] dead (1945-1965), Stalin and Khrushchev, 66 million dead (USSR 1917-1959), Khmer Rouge (Cambodia 1975-1979) and Pol Pot, one-third of the populations dead, etc, etc. The difference here is that these non-God movements are merely living out their worldview, the struggle for power, survival of the fittest and all that, no evolutionary/naturalistic natural law is being violated in other words (as non-theists reduce everything to natural law — materialism). However, and this is key, when people have misused the Christian religion for personal gain, they are in direct violation to what Christ taught, as well as Natural Law.

A condensing of Gregory Koukl’s, “The Real Murderers: Atheism or Christianity?”

A recent comprehensive compilation of the history of human warfare, Encyclopedia of Wars by Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod documents 1763 wars, of which 123 have been classified to involve a religious conflict. So, what atheists have considered to be ‘most’ really amounts to less than 7% of all wars. It is interesting to note that 66 of these wars (more than 50%) involved Islam, which did not even exist as a religion for the first 3,000 years of recorded human warfare. [That means that 2.6% of all wars fought are split up between Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and the like.]

Even the Seven Years’ War, widely recognized to be “religious” in motivation, noting that the warring factions were not necessarily split along confessional lines as much as along secular interests. And the Thirty Years’ War cannot be viewed as “religious” either…read more

Dennis Prager makes a point that one of the common traits with the mass shooters is that they are never regular church goers. They are more likely to be secular… not taking into account the Judeo-Christian concept of God and the ethics that follow such a belief.

Not only that, the inquisition was largely secular. Ahhh, too bad history has a way of proving pop-theories of history and peoples use of misconception to tarnish the church when it was mainly secular authorities that did these horrible acts.wrong:

“The Inquisition had a secular character, although the crime was heresy. Inquisitors did not have to be clerics, but they did have to be lawyers. The investigation was rule-based and carefully kept in check. And most significantly, historians have declared fraudulent a supposed Inquisition document claiming the genocide of millions of heretics…. But the grand myth of thought control by sinister fiends has been debunked by the archival evidence….. he approach is purely historical, and therefore does not delve into ecclesial issues surrounding religious freedom. But perhaps this is proper. Because the crime was heresy, the Church is implicated, but the facts show it was a secular event……

…Sixtus IV promulgated a new bull categorically prohibiting the Inquisition’s extension to Aragon, affirming that,

▼ many true and faithful Christians, because of the testimony of enemies, rivals, slaves and other low people—and still less appropriate—without tests of any kind, have been locked up in secular prisons, tortured and condemned like relapsed heretics, deprived of their goods and properties, and given over to the secular arm to be executed, at great danger to their souls, giving a pernicious example and causing scandal to many.

In 1482 the pope was still trying to maintain control over the Inquisition and to gain acceptance for his own attitude towards the New Christians, which was generally more moderate than that of the Inquisition and the local rulers….

(Two different sources: Catholic Education Resource Center, and, Wiki [which is well referenced for further review].)

All this is to note the idea that skeptics have a distorted view of history precisely BECAUSE this view fits their presupposition that the “Church” (Christianity) is bad. Keep in mind it was still bad, Kamen notes right after the toll numbers: “The final death toll may have been smaller than historians once believed, but the overall impact was certainly devastating for the cultural minorities most directly affected.” We must keep in mind many were displaced and peoples faith were shaken as well as honed in trial and tribulation.

This is merely a side note and has nothing to do with the Spanish Inquisition as much as merely pointing out another time in history that is often overblown. Sensationalized in the aspect that mob mentality will quickly spread rumors and innuendo and act on IT rather than truth (ahem, Furguson), as was the case for the beginning of the Frech Revolution… which was opportunism taken by radicals in that society.

Dennis Prager interviews Ann Coulter in regards to her new book, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America. Ann points out a fact that I wasn’t aware of in regards to the mob mentality that set the standard for the French Revolution. Much like the misunderstanding in regards to the Crusades, the witch trials, and the like, numbers are not the forte of the left… nor is putting into context meaning behind them.

For more clear thinking like this from Dennis Prager… I invite you to join Pragertopia: http://www.dennisprager.com/

The Inquisitions Bush`s Fault? Almost ~ The Tale of Two Books

Published by Papa Giorgio

NPR has a left leaning bias, we all know that and I have proven it in the past. So reviews of a book they laud connecting the fanciful imaginations of the progressive in regards to history and Bush is a dream come true. In two reviews of the book/topic with the author of the book, God’s Jury, you can see a creeping bias, much like the pre-war Germany propaganda, has on the cover a “hooked nosed” Pope designating (implicitly or explicitly) the secular leftist hatred for anything Christian.

Cullen Murphey’s Cover:

WWII Propaganda:

Modern Islamo-Nazi Depiction:

Some NPR stories on the book/author:

1) The Inquisition: Alive And Well After 800 Years
2) The Inquisition: A Model For Modern Interrogators

NewsBusters has this in what they call a Liberal Two-Fer:

…NPR promoted it this way:

Murphy’s new book God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World  traces the history of the Inquisitions — there were several — and draws parallels between some of the interrogation techniques used in previous centuries with the ones used today.

“A few years ago, the intelligence agencies had some transcripts released … of interrogations that were done at Guantanamo, and the interrogations done by the Inquisition were surprisingly similar and just as detailed,” he tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “[They were] virtually verbatim.”

“Many people in the Bush administration were insisting [it] was not torture at all. The Inquisition was actually very clear on the matter. It obviously was torture. That’s why they were using it.”

Murphy’s own website summarizes the book this way:

The Inquisition pioneered surveillance and censorship and “scientific” interrogation. As time went on, its methods and mindset spread far beyond the Church to become tools of secular persecution. Traveling from freshly opened Vatican archives to the detention camps of Guantánamo to the filing cabinets of the Third Reich, Murphy traces the Inquisition and its legacy.

Surprise, surprise! Murphy sought out a blurb by leftist New Yorker writer Jane Mayer, one of the most prominent Bush-trashing journalists (and a favorite of Terry Gross):

“From Torquemada to Guantanamo and beyond, Cullen Murphy finds the ‘inquisitorial impulse’ alive, and only too well, in our world. His engaging romp through the secret Vatican archives shows that the distance between the Dark Ages and Modernity is shockingly short.”
—Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side.

…read more…

This book is at odds with the most renown scholar and author of the book, The Spanish Inquisition, Henry Kamen. Take note of the difference in tone and most probably scholarship — as this interview shows… his [Cullen Murphey] connections are so general that any religion or government can be connected to this event. These generalities are not to connect a historical event to a modern one but in progressive fashion the goal of stoking emotions rather than basing something in fact/history is the prime mover.

From an Amazon book reviewer and author of Author of “Mission,” an African novel set in Kenya:

Henry Kamen’s The Spanish Inquisition is an amazing experience. It is a highly detailed, supremely scholarly and ultimately enlightening account of an historical phenomenon whose identity and reputation have become iconic. So much has been written about it, so many words have been spoken that one might think that there is not too much new to be learned. But this is precisely where Kamen’s book really comes into its own, for it reveals the popular understanding of the Inquisition as little more than myth.

He explodes the notion that the busy-bodies of inquisitors had their nose in everyone’s business. It was actually quite a rare event for someone to be called before it. And in addition, if you lived away from a small number of population centres, the chances were that that you would hardly even have known of its existence.

Also exploded is the myth of large numbers of heretics being burned at the stake. Yes, it happened, but in nowhere near the numbers that popular misconceptions might claim. Indeed, the more common practice was to burn the convicted in effigy, since the accused had fled sometimes years before the judgment, or they might have died in prison while waiting for the case to reach its conclusion. The intention is not to suggest that the inquisition’s methods were anything but brutal, but merely to point out that perceptions of how commonly they were applied are often false.

Henry Kamen skilfully describes how the focus of interest changed over the years. Initially the main targets were conversos, converts to Christianity, families that were once Jewish or Muslim who converted to Christianity during the decades that preceded the completion in 1492 of Ferdinand and Isabella’s reconquest. Protestants were targeted occasionally in the following centuries, but it was the families of former Jews that remained the prime target, sometimes being subjected to enquiry several generations after their adoption of their new faith. A focus on converts to Christianity gave rise to a distinction between Old and New Christianity, an adherent of the former being able to demonstrate no evidence of there having been other faiths in the family history.

What consistently runs through arguments surrounding Old and New Christianity, a distinction that was also described as pure blood versus impure blood, is that at its heart this apparent assertion of religious conformity was no more than raw xenophobia and racism. Henry Kamen makes a lot of the contradiction here, since Spain at the time was the most “international” of nations, having already secured an extensive empire and sent educated and wealthy Spaniards overseas to administer it. In addition, of course, Spain was emerging from a long period when Muslims, Jews and Christians lived competitively, perhaps, but also peacefully under Moorish rule. It is worth reminding oneself regularly that the desire and requirement for religious conformity during the reconquest was imposed from above.

Completing Henry Kamen’s The Spanish Inquisition prompts the reader to reflect on which other major historical reputations might be based on reconstructed myth. One is also prompted to speculate on the future of an increasingly integrated Europe, a continent forcibly divided for half a century where xenophobia and religious intolerance might be closer to the surface than most of us would want to admit.

One of my favorite quotes comes from a debate between Dinesh D’Souza and the late atheist Christopher Hitchens:

  ✦ Atheists regimes killed more people in a week than the inquisition could kill in three-centuries

 

And another reviewer:

The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen is a balanced overview of this sad part of Spanish History. At 300 plus pages the author shows the motivation behind the Spanish Inquisition and that this inquisition was just that, “Spanish.” By sourcing Inquisition, Spanish, and other documentation author Kamen traces the roots and history of the Spanish Inquisition. He shows how this was a tool of the unified Spanish Crown that resulted in its own fear of it past and inability, at times, to deal with contemporary Spain, which came to be at the end of the Muslim domination of Spain and rise of the Protestant Reformation in the rest of Europe. The author does not gloss over the suffering it caused to both Jewish and Muslim converts to Christianity, but shows that overall people were better treated by “The Holy Office” aka the Spanish Inquisition than the secular courts. Remember, heresy was a secular crime, punishable only by the secular authorities. And while those Jews and Muslims who did not convert might be considered heathens they could not be heretics. So, those who suffered at its hands were Catholics. The author also shows that, for its time, the Spanish Inquisition acted rationally. For example, when the great witchcraft scare was dominating Europe and its colonies (lets not forget the Salem Witch Trials) for its part the Spanish Inquisition so this phenomena as mental illness or an overactive imagination. In other words Witch hunting stopped dead in its tracks when it got to Spain. Henry Kamen does not gloss over the torture or burnings of the inquisition’s victims, but does show that for all of Europe, Catholic and Protestant, this was not uncommon for most crimes. And, many of the victims of the Spanish Inquisition were burnt and punished in effigy. Kamen shows how the Spanish Crown used the Inquisition to deal with its fear of an Andulus (former Muslim rulers of Spain) Fifth column and the rise of Protestantism in Western Europe. Remember Spain controlled a good part of the present day Netherlands and Belgium as well as Parts of Germany. So some Lutheran ideas did make their way to Spain. But, Kamen also shows that much of Spain, mainly the rural areas, was never even touched by the Inquisition. And that the Inquisition never had whole hearted support from the crown, those in positions of power, and the common folk. It was not the Gestapo like machine painted by many of its critics. But, criticized it should be and author Kamen shows the sad effects of the Inquisition not only on its victims, but on Spain itself. The author concludes by showing that people’s view of the Spanish Inquisition is not based on the historical data available but on the imaginations of those who have not reviewed or studied this data. Overall a great work of history is this book.

A great video by a fellow arm-chair apologists is a good introduction to the topic: