The Spanish Escalation

The Spanish Inquisition launched in 1478 took everything further. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella used it to consolidate power, targeting conversos — Jews and Muslims who had converted to Christianity but were suspected of secretly practicing their old faiths.

Public ceremonies called auto-da-fe — "act of faith" — turned punishment into theater. Crowds gathered for a long procession, a Mass, a sermon, an oath of obedience, and the public reading of each prisoner's sentence. The burning itself was not part of this spectacle: the condemned were handed to secular authorities and executed separately afterward, often at a site called the quemadero outside the town walls. The Spanish Inquisition operated for over 350 years until 1834, prosecuting an estimated 150,000 people across three centuries of systematic persecution.