The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 1, by Henry Charles Lea This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 1 Author: Henry Charles Lea Release Date: July 24, 2013 [EBook #43296] Language: English *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION VOL. 1 *** Produced by Chuck Greif, Broward County Library and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net THE INQUISITION OF SPAIN WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR _A HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION OF THE MIDDLE AGES._ In three volumes, octavo. _A HISTORY OF AURICULAR CONFESSION AND INDULGENCES IN THE LATIN CHURCH._ In three volumes, octavo. _AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF SACERDOTAL CELIBACY IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH._ Third edition. (_In preparation._) _A FORMULARY OF THE PAPAL PENITENTIARY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY._ One volume, octavo. (_Out of print._) _SUPERSTITION AND FORCE._ Essays on The Wager of Law, The Wager of Battle, The Ordeal, Torture. Fourth edition, revised. In one volume, 12mo. _STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY._ The Rise of the Temporal Power, Benefit of Clergy, Excommunication, The Early Church and Slavery. Second edition. In one volume, 12mo. _CHAPTERS FROM THE RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF SPAIN, CONNECTED WITH THE INQUISITION._ Censorship of the Press, Mystics and Illuminati, Endemoniadas, El Santo Niño de la Guardia, Brianda de Bardaxí. In one volume, 12mo. _THE MORISCOS OF SPAIN. THEIR CONVERSION AND EXPULSION._ In one volume, 12mo. A HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION OF SPAIN BY HENRY CHARLES LEA. LL.D. IN FOUR VOLUMES VOLUME I. New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1922 _All rights reserved_ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1906. PREFACE. In the following pages I have sought to trace, from the original sources as far as possible, the character and career of an institution which exercised no small influence on the fate of Spain and even, one may say, indirectly on the civilized world. The material for this is preserved so superabundantly in the immense Spanish archives that no one writer can pretend to exhaust the subject. There can be no finality in a history resting on so vast a mass of inedited documents and I do not flatter myself that I have accomplished such a result, but I am not without hope that what I have drawn from them and from the labors of previous scholars has enabled me to present a fairly accurate survey of one of the most remarkable organizations recorded in human annals. In this a somewhat minute analysis has seemed to be indispensable of its structure and methods of procedure, of its relations with the other bodies of the State and of its dealings with the various classes subject to its extensive jurisdiction. This has involved the accumulation of much detail in order to present the daily operation of a tribunal of which the real importance is to be sought, not so much in the awful solemnities of the auto de fe, or in the cases of a few celebrated victims, as in the silent influence exercised by its incessant and secret labors among the mass of the people and in the limitations which it placed on the Spanish intellect--in the resolute conservatism with which it held the nation in the medieval groove and unfitted it for the exercise...