Auto Da Fe In The Spanish Inquisition

[Norseman82]

[quote name='ruso' post='1105589' date='Oct 30 2006, 07:30 PM']
The document this is Portuguese no in Spanish.
[/quote]

I'm glad somebody noticed that!

[KizlarAgha]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1105751' date='Oct 30 2006, 10:50 PM']
Bottom line: Nobody was ever burned at the stake for not being "racially pure."
[/quote]

Well, scientifically, it is impossible to prove something wrong in all cases. However, "racially pure" is anachronistic terminology with no place in the middle ages. And I have certainly never heard of any case of racially motivated burnings. They didn't think in terms of race - religion was the race of the middle ages.

[Budge]

[quote]Since you can read Spanish, why don't you quote something where the actual document talks about "racial purity." I really don't know what that text is talking about, but it looks poorly and anochronistically worded. "Racial purity" was a 19th-20th century ideology, and the concept did not really exist in 15th century Spain. (And would not have really made sense, Spain being made up a number of various ethnic/racial groups)[/quote]

The historian pointed out the issue of racial purity not me.

[quote]Although the Inquisition was in force in Spain in the 14th century, it was not until the late 15th century with the marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon that the Inquisition became an instrument to promote racial purity and Catholic orthodoxy throughout the two kingdoms. Publications of the Holy Office contained in the collection depict the development of the administrative machinations as the Holy Office prosecuted these tasks during this period. Further, the Holy Office's careful record keeping found in these documents captures Spain's social and political life of the period.[/quote]

[url="http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:gTahncWRyRgJ:www.rarebooks.nd.edu/exhibits/inquisition/+Racial+purity+and+Spanish+Inquisition&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1"]LINK[/url]


[quote]The issue it is probably referring to is religious, rather than racial, in nature, concerning that of "false conversos."[/quote]

It had to be intertwined with race, in that much of this had to do with Jews, who had Jewish blood, who was Jewish? They used the race stuff to figure out who the Jews were. Auto da fe's focused on them also.

And we know that continues throughout hsitory, do you realize one of the major reasons the Germans could figure out who was Jewish was via Catholic marriage and baptism roles as well as the apostate Prot churches in Germany?


[quote]
So which is it Budge, is the Church evil for being too harsh on those poor Muslims, or for being too nice and friendly with them??!! [/quote]

Catholicism is a mirror image of Islam. After all when Muslims put those to death who convert away from Islam, how are Catholic Inquisitions any different?

[Justified Saint]

[quote]It had to be intertwined with race, in that much of this had to do with Jews, who had Jewish blood, who was Jewish? They used the race stuff to figure out who the Jews were. Auto da fe's focused on them also. [/quote]

This theory is kind of novel, but not without support. B. Netanyahu advances a similar argument -- that the origins of the (Spanish) Inquisition were fundamentally racial and not religious. It is an interesting interpretation that seems convincing on some points, but not without its problems. Part of the problem is that "race" is a rather ambigious term that has meant different things at different times.

[KizlarAgha]

[quote name='Justified Saint' post='1107476' date='Nov 1 2006, 12:57 PM']
This theory is kind of novel, but not without support. B. Netanyahu advances a similar argument -- that the origins of the (Spanish) Inquisition were fundamentally racial and not religious. It is an interesting interpretation that seems convincing on some points, but not without its problems. Part of the problem is that "race" is a rather ambigious term that has meant different things at different times.
[/quote]

I would argue that the Spanish Inquisition was on the whole religious, rather than racial. In fact, racism as we know it in the modern day was an unknown in the middle ages. For example, the rationale for enslaving black Africans by the Spanish and the Portuguese was that they were Moors, and therefore captives of good war - the same exact rationale that had been used in the prior slave trade involving Moors from Spain and North Africa. This same system was used to enslave Native Americans. So, it seems to me that anyone who studies slavery in the medieval Iberian peninsula would recognize that the preponderance of the evidence supports a view of religious rather than racial justification. The same is true of the Inquisition whose express purpose was to inquire to matters concerning religion.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Budge' post='1107342' date='Nov 1 2006, 09:51 AM']
The historian pointed out the issue of racial purity not me.[/quote]
And the "historian" has given no evidence for his vague statement. It sounds like he's using sloppy language to me.
[url="http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:gTahncWRyRgJ:www.rarebooks.nd.edu/exhibits/inquisition/+Racial+purity+and+Spanish+Inquisition&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1"]LINK[/url]
[quote]It had to be intertwined with race, in that much of this had to do with Jews, who had Jewish blood, who was Jewish? They used the race stuff to figure out who the Jews were. Auto da fe's focused on them also. [/quote]
You have given not a shred of evidence that "race stuff" (whatever that means) was used to find anyone guilty during the inquistion. Jews were only found guilty if praciticing Judaism while pretending falsely to be Christian. No one was tried or killed for simply having Jewish blood, Nazi style. Again, the issue was religous not racial (very unlike the Nazis, who wanted to kill Jews for their race).

If your going to make serious accusations like this, Budge, you'd better have something more solid to back it up!

[quote]Catholicism is a mirror image of Islam. After all when Muslims put those to death who convert away from Islam, how are Catholic Inquisitions any different?[/quote]
So Catholics and Muslims are deadly enemies? That's odd, because I thought, from your earlier posts, that the Catholic Church was in some kind of syncretist league with Islam, and worshipped the same pagan gods together.

"The Inquisition had no jurisdiction over practicing Jews and Muslims, only over professed Christians who were in fact still Jews or Muslims, though concealing it." ~ (Warren H. Carroll, "The Glory of Christendom", p. 609)

And many fewer Jews and Muslims were killed in the Spanish Inquisition than were "witches" by "Bible-only" Christians in the 17th century!

Edited November 2, 2006 by Socrates

[Justified Saint]

[quote name='KizlarAgha' post='1108218' date='Nov 1 2006, 07:02 PM']
I would argue that the Spanish Inquisition was on the whole religious, rather than racial. In fact, racism as we know it in the modern day was an unknown in the middle ages. For example, the rationale for enslaving black Africans by the Spanish and the Portuguese was that they were Moors, and therefore captives of good war - the same exact rationale that had been used in the prior slave trade involving Moors from Spain and North Africa. This same system was used to enslave Native Americans. So, it seems to me that anyone who studies slavery in the medieval Iberian peninsula would recognize that the preponderance of the evidence supports a view of religious rather than racial justification. The same is true of the Inquisition whose express purpose was to inquire to matters concerning religion.
[/quote]

I'm not sure I completely follow the slavery connection. I agree though that racism cannot be categorically applied to historical periods since it is very problematical. Thinking back to Netanyahu, his argument (i.e. the origins of the Spanish Inquisition) is based not so much on racism as anti-semitism, which is essentially a catch-all phrase for the hatred of everything Jewish. In that sense he marshalls forth some convincing proof.

[KizlarAgha]

[quote name='Justified Saint' post='1108495' date='Nov 2 2006, 02:30 AM']
I'm not sure I completely follow the slavery connection. I agree though that racism cannot be categorically applied to historical periods since it is very problematical. Thinking back to Netanyahu, his argument (i.e. the origins of the Spanish Inquisition) is based not so much on racism as anti-semitism, which is essentially a catch-all phrase for the hatred of everything Jewish. In that sense he marshalls forth some convincing proof.
[/quote]

Well, anti-semitism and racism need to be clearly distinguished. The medieval period clearly had rampant anti-semitism from the 14th century expulsion of Jews from England to the 15th century expulsion of Jews from Spain. There were crusades leveled against the Jews (not official crusades mind you, but splinter groups of people caught up in religious fervor who borrowed the ideology of crusading). In Spain it was also common for people to stone the gates of the Jewish quarter every year during Holy Week in many cities. However, the concept of race as we see it - based on skin color or ethnicity is largely lost when looking back at medieval beliefs. The anti-semitism in the middle ages dealt almost entirely with the Jews' responsibility for killing Christ. It was fueled by other issues like usurious banking practices and royal protections, but for the most part, the hatred was of a religious nature. So, while anti-semitism can certainly be argued for most region of Europe in the middle ages, racism is something of an anachronism. Certainly racial purity is an even greater anachronism.

[Justified Saint]

[quote name='KizlarAgha' post='1108497' date='Nov 2 2006, 12:40 AM']
Well, anti-semitism and racism need to be clearly distinguished. The medieval period clearly had rampant anti-semitism from the 14th century expulsion of Jews from England to the 15th century expulsion of Jews from Spain. There were crusades leveled against the Jews (not official crusades mind you, but splinter groups of people caught up in religious fervor who borrowed the ideology of crusading). In Spain it was also common for people to stone the gates of the Jewish quarter every year during Holy Week in many cities. However, the concept of race as we see it - based on skin color or ethnicity is largely lost when looking back at medieval beliefs. The anti-semitism in the middle ages dealt almost entirely with the Jews' responsibility for killing Christ. It was fueled by other issues like usurious banking practices and royal protections, but for the most part, the hatred was of a religious nature. So, while anti-semitism can certainly be argued for most region of Europe in the middle ages, racism is something of an anachronism. Certainly racial purity is an even greater anachronism.
[/quote]

I don't disagree with that assessment, but the religiosity of the conversos is exactly what is at stake. Were they really crypto-Jews, or were the charges mostly fabricated? Netanyahu argues for the latter which suggests a kind of anti-semitism that is not exlusively, and perhaps not even primarily, religious. I don't say I agree with him, but I think he has some good points. Namely, that religion was more of a justification and pre-text for violence against Jews. I think the difficutly is in how we want to think about the importance of the religion of that time period. It might border on tautology to say that anti-semitism (or the Middle Ages for that matter) was religious in nature. In other words, what exactly does it mean to say that a society is religious?

[KizlarAgha]

[quote name='Justified Saint' post='1108499' date='Nov 2 2006, 02:57 AM']
I don't disagree with that assessment, but the religiosity of the conversos is exactly what is at stake. Were they really crypto-Jews, or were the charges mostly fabricated? Netanyahu argues for the latter which suggests a kind of anti-semitism that is not exlusively, and perhaps not even primarily, religious. I don't say I agree with him, but I think he has some good points. Namely, that religion was more of a justification and pre-text for violence against Jews. I think the difficutly is in how we want to think about the importance of the religion of that time period. It might border on tautology to say that anti-semitism (or the Middle Ages for that matter) was religious in nature. In other words, what exactly does it mean to say that a society is religious?
[/quote]

Well I think the main point of the society being religious is that the major distinctions made by the society were between Christian and non-Christian (or in the case of Islamic societies, muslim and non-muslim). Take a non-religious society like the United States for example. We don't differentiate largely between Christian and non-Christian but rather according to "races" - black, white, hispanic, asian american, pacific islander, etc. These aren't the sorts of classifications used in medieval texts.

As to the charges against the reconversos being trumped up, that's a possibility. I think the Spanish inquisition is an interesting case because it was so tied up with notions of Spanish royal sovereignty. The Spanish government (rightly or wrongly) considered Jews to be a threat to the established order. That's why Jews were expelled from the country entirely in 1492. The inquisition itself was begun in the 1470s but continued right the way through the 16th century, and wasn't formally abolished until the 19th century. So, it makes sense then that the Spanish, who were so worried about Jews to begin with, would worry about false converts after the expulsion of the Jews. The idea then being that they might have some Jews in their midst who had not been expelled and were undermining the security of the country. In my mind, while the term anti-semitism clearly fits these practices, the term racism does not.

[Budge]

Odd so an atheist is jumping on board to defend the Inquisition with the Catholics here?

As Ive said before the lines are being drawn Christians vs. everyone else.

Hmm when I was a pagan Humanist UU, reading Free Inquiry and The Humanist, they still had a smattering of conscience back then to condemn the Inquisitions.

The race thing would have played in, because Jewishness as much back then was considered linked to ones ETHNIC group.

its just history repeating itself.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Budge' post='1108579' date='Nov 2 2006, 10:16 AM']
Odd so an atheist is jumping on board to defend the Inquisition with the Catholics here?

As Ive said before the lines are being drawn Christians vs. everyone else.

Hmm when I was a pagan Humanist UU, reading Free Inquiry and The Humanist, they still had a smattering of conscience back then to condemn the Inquisitions.

The race thing would have played in, because Jewishness as much back then was considered linked to ones ETHNIC group.

its just history repeating itself.
[/quote]
rotfl
So when an atheist medieval historian agrees with what Catholics are pointing out as truth, you see it as a bad thing???

It would just kill you to admit that you are wrong. But of course you are surrounded by conspiracies, cause in your paranoia we are all conspiring against you.

[Budge]

[quote]So when an atheist medieval historian agrees with what Catholics are pointing out as truth, you see it as a bad thing???[/quote]

Hey all this proves is that Rome is joining together with every occultist, atheist, Hindu, name your false religion here, and even UUs, opposed to Christianity.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Budge' post='1108594' date='Nov 2 2006, 10:29 AM']
Hey all this proves is that Rome is joining together with every occultist, atheist, Hindu, name your false religion here, and even UUs, opposed to Christianity.
[/quote]

Ah so you think non-christians are all liars?

How is telling the truth opposition to christianity?

Would it occur to you non-christians might have an allegance to telling the truth just as christians do, or is truth and integrity reserved to your version of christianity alone?

Again you just can't conceive of being wrong.

[Budge]

[quote]
Ah so you think non-christians are all liars?

How is telling the truth opposition to christianity?

Would it occur to you non-christians might have an allegance to telling the truth just as christians do, or is truth and integrity reserved to your version of christianity alone?

Again you just can't conceive of being wrong.[/quote]


Years ago atheists, at least ones I knew, and pagan UUs, had enough of a consicence to condemn things like the Inquisition.

But I know the world has changed even in that short time, and as mroe and more deceptions build up, even non-Christians are being fooled by Rome's calling evil good and vice versa. They do not have the protection of the Holy Spirit for discernment.

Actually the idea that an atheist would support the Inquisition is really weird, considering he would have been one of the first put to the stake.

This is just more evidence to me, that the lines are being drawn.