The Inquisition: 20 Myths Exposed
What really happened behind one of history's most misunderstood institutions
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In 1817, a former official of the Spanish Inquisition put the number of people it had burned at 31,912. Writers copied the figure for a century and a half. It was an extrapolation. Most historians now estimate three to five thousand executions, concentrated in the early decades.
The book puts the other familiar claims to the same test: where did each story start, and what do the records show? You come away knowing which parts of the legend hold and which collapse.
On witchcraft, the records cut against the legend. When a panic swept the Basque valleys in 1609, two of the three inquisitors at Logroño believed what they heard, and six people were burned. The third, Alonso de Salazar Frías, spent eight months questioning nearly two thousand people and found their stories contradicted one another. The leadership in Madrid sided with him, and after 1614 the Spanish Inquisition burned no more witches.
Some of the legend holds: at Toledo, about a quarter of the 397 accused heretics between 1575 and 1610 were tortured. You leave with figures, dates and names to stand your ground when the subject comes up, and every chapter lists its sources.
Questions about this book
Where does the popular image of the Spanish Inquisition come from?
From a Latin book printed at Heidelberg in 1567 under the name Montanus. The book examines its likely authors, Spanish Protestant exiles who fled in 1557, and the foreign audience that made it a success.
Does the book explain whether the Inquisition persecuted Jews and Muslims?
Yes. It examines the Inquisition’s jurisdiction over baptized conversos and moriscos and compares it with the royal decrees of 1492 for Jews and 1502 for Castile’s Muslims.
Does the book cover the iron maiden and other torture devices?
Yes. It traces the iron maiden to a 1793 German account and sets it beside the three methods named in the tribunal’s own records: the pulley, the water torture and the potro.
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