Dr Paul Allen

Inquisition Scene by Francisco Goya. The Spanish Inquisition was still in force in the late eighteenth century. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) A friend asked me that question earlier this week. And so I thought it might be helpful to share a few thoughts, from a historical perspective. Opinions about how to answer the question vary widely. Some suggest that just a few thousand people were executed during the Inquisition, while others project that there were tens of millions of victims. So how can the estimates be so widely divergent? There seem to be several explanations: 1. First,  the imprecise nature of the historical records means that contemporary historians are forced to extrapolate on the basis of the limited information they possess. One of the first accounts of the Inquisition came from a former Spanish secretary to the Inquisition named Juan Antonio Llorente (1756–1823). According to Llorente, the total number of “heretics” burned at the stake during the Sp...

English: Fray Pedro Fernández Pecha, by Valdés Leal, 1656, Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The sixteenth century in Europe was a century of church reform. Using the newly-invented printing press, many called the church to clean up its act. Martin Luther set reform blazing in Germany with pamphlets and a German Bible. William Tyndale issued the Bible and many booklets in English and died for it. John Calvin published a powerful theological work that won millions of followers. The very air seemed charged with new learning. Spain , too, had its champion of reformation--a freshman at the University of Alcalá. Juan Valdés was just eighteen years old on this day January 14, 1529when he published his Dialogue on Christian Doctrine . The work was not quite as he had planned. One of his professors cautioned him to make some changes so that he would not rouse the wrath of the Inquisition . Valdés agreed. Even so, the book was strongly Protestant in tone. What ...