Spain's Inquisition answered to monarchs, not only Rome
Pope Sixtus IV authorized Spain's Holy Office in 1478; Ferdinand and Isabella named the first inquisitors in 1480. Estimates suggest about 150,000 prosecutions and 3,000 to 5,000 executions—while property confiscation, forced conversions, and exile reshaped the realm's religious map.
The Tribunal of the Holy Office replaced a medieval inquisition under papal control with an instrument of royal power. Its stated aim was Christian orthodoxy, yet the Catholic Monarchs—Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile—selected personnel and drove policy. First inquisitors Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martin were appointed in 1480. The first auto-da-fe in Seville on 6 February 1481 burned six people; thousands of conversos fled, emptying districts and hurting trade, even as Isabella insisted purity of faith outweighed fiscal loss.
Royal decrees of 1492 and 1502 ordered Jews and Muslims to convert, leave Castile, or face death. An estimated 40,000 to 100,000 Jews were expelled in 1492. The Inquisition hunted suspected crypto-Judaism and later alumbradismo, Protestantism, witchcraft, blasphemy, bigamy, and Freemasonry, extending into Southern Italy and American tribunals at Lima, Mexico City, and Cartagena. Blood-purity statutes imposed lasting discrimination against conversos. Historian Joseph Perez stressed that many punishments included confiscating victims' property.
Roots ran older than 1478. After Visigothic conversion in 587, councils and kings had already pressured Jews; 1391 riots killed thousands and drove roughly 100,000 conversions. Isabella's Seville stay of 1477–78, reinforced by reports from Archbishop Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza and Tomas de Torquemada, secured the 1478 bull. When Pope Sixtus IV protested Aragonese abuses in 1482, Ferdinand forced a reversal; by October 1483 Torquemada was Inquisitor General across Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, unifying Spanish activity under one crown-backed leader.
Source: Spanish Inquisition
