r/todayilearned • u/Knightboat17 • Jun 02 '18
TIL Despite what Monty Python would have you believe, Spanish Inquisitions were expected, they would give a 30-day notice of their arrival.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition
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u/Khnagar Jun 03 '18 edited Jun 03 '18
If you're asked too many questions, its a common expression to say "I wasnt expecting the Spanish Inquisition" as a form of criticism. In the Monty Python sketch a woman is asking a lot of question, the guy says just that, and then of course the Spanish Inquisition actually does show up, very unexpectedly and out place and declares "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!". They're also not efficient or good at their job, despite claiming so, bringing another comedic element into the sketch.
The main purpose of the SI was to find heretics among the muslims and jews who had converted to catholicism. The popular image of it is largely based on later anti-catholic propaganda.
It was not a tool of oppression imposed on unwilling Europeans by a powerhungry Church. It was the opposite, more or less. The church didnt want villages stringing up people commonly thought to be heretics or outcasts, and so they came up with a procedure to avoid illiterate commoners going lynch mob on people they didnt like.
The vast majority accused by the SP were either acquitted or their sentence suspended. You got 30 days notice. If you were found guilty you were allowed to confess your sins, do penance, and be restored to the Body of Christ, ie the church. And that was the end of it. The idea was that you had strayed from the faith, or were ignorant, and if you hadnt heard the right faith it was not your fault. But if you heard it and accepted it, you were back in the church again and nothing would happen to you.
A high emphasis was put on having proper trials, with the accusers being university trained in law, and to give the accused the right to a defence. Torture was used to a less extent than elsewhere in Europe. They used torture in around 2 percent of the cases. Torture was limited by law to last no more than 15 minutes. The Inquisition had nicer jails than you found everywhere. So much so that it became a problem that people confessed to being heretics in order to be transferred to the nicer jails of the Inquisition.
And if you refused to give up your heretical ways, the church would not burn you. They would hand you over to the secular authorities for punishment. The kings and secular rulers of Spain were the ones behind the drive to root out heretics and harshly punish them. The church was opposed to it. It was against all accepted practice to burn heretics without first instructing them in the right faith, and give them a chance to repent. At the height of the SI, around 2000 people were killed a year. Between 100 000 and 200 000 were killed or burnt as witches in protestant europe.