Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:24:29.475Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Recusants in the Spanish Inquisition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Derek W. Lomax
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

As is well known, the Spanish Inquisition was originally established to investigate suspected cases of reversion to Judaism by baptised Spaniards, but in the century of the Reformation it naturally came to extend its jurisdiction over heretics of all kinds, native and foreign; and many English Protestants who landed on Spanish soil were dismayed to find themselves the objects of its attention. Most of them were sailors or merchants, visiting willingly or by accident those Spanish territories which fell under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition Court in the Canary Islands, some details of which have already been published. The records of this court survived the massive destruction of Inquisition archives in the early nineteenth century; so too did the records of the court at Toledo, which had jurisdiction over most of Central Spain, and which despite its inland position also found itself dealing with a number of Lutherans, Calvinists and Anglicans. In view of the general opinion that Calvinism represented a tougher line in the Reformation, it is interesting to see that all the Calvinists and Anglicans accepted reconciliation with the papacy, while most of the Lutherans resisted the pressures of the Inquisition and were condemned.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , January 1967 , pp. 53 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1967

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. de Alberti, L. & Chapman, A. B. W., eds. English Merchants and the Spanish Inquisition in the Canaries, London 1912.Google Scholar

2. Vignau, V., Catálogo de las causas contra la fe seguidas ante el tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición de Toledo, Madrid 1903, passim. Google Scholar

3. Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid, Inquisición, legajo 108, doc. 6.

4. A. H. N. Inquisición, legajo 108, doc. 7.

5. A. H. N. Inquisición, legajo 108, doc. 1.

6. Clark, A., ed., Register of the University of Oxford, Vol 11 (1571-1622), 4 parts, Oxford Google Scholar 1887-1889, Pt. II, 38; Pt. Ill, 27.

7. H. Foley, S.J., Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, Vol. VI, London 1880, 166.Google Scholar

8. Foster, J., Alumni Oxonienses, Oxford 1891, 91.Google Scholar

9. Foley, op. cit., 190.