March 4, 2014 • 43 mins
The idea of pious monks imbued with unbridled power and with a penchant for dealing torture and death is a scary one indeed, and one both Spain and the Catholic Church have tried to reconcile since the Spanish Inquisition ended in the 19th century.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerome Rowland. Jerry,
that's j E. R. I. Yeah, for those who don't know,
(00:22):
we've ever said that, and we get many, many variations. Yeah,
it's it's mind boggling to mean that some people get
it right. And Jerry's a lady. Yes, shews. We'll just
go ahead and you know, get that out there. I
think that most people knew that, right, most people new
listeners are producers. J E. R. Right, the lady, Oh night,
(00:44):
that's a T shirt right there. Uh okay, well we
have that settled officially. If anybody ever asked, we can
just send them the link to the Spanish Inquisition episode. Yeah.
I've been singing the History of the World Part one
song all day. Yeah, I was gonna ask, how how
shall we start this with with the song or with
the Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Uh so either of
(01:06):
mel Brooks or Monty Python. Well, they're both great to
you do one and I'll do the other at the
same time. The Inquisition. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
I watched that bit again today too, and I was like,
that's good. He got me l o LD. Wow. Yeah,
Flying Circuits one of the great sketch shows of all time.
(01:27):
I think I'm curious, Chuck, what percentage of l O
L s do you think are actually symbolic of a
real laugh out loud, like when people say that, even
if it's a chuckle. Yeah, I don't know. I never
say l O L though, always say like, oh, I've
(01:48):
seen you. No, I have to dude, I've never typed
l O L. That is not for any Internet shorthand.
That's true. It's is so true. To find the documentations, Okay,
I'm going to find it. I didn't expect the third degree.
Nobody expects the third degree. That's what my family said.
(02:10):
We said the third degree, not the Spanish Inquisition third degree.
Uh my family just left everybody alone. That must uh so, Chuck, Yes,
you've heard of the Spanish Inquisition obviously, are you? Were
you familiar with the actual thing, like beyond the seventies
and the nineteen seventies, No, with money Python and mel Brooks. No,
(02:32):
I didn't know a whole lot about it. Was this
one was a delight to learn. Yeah, it was one
of those things in history where you realize a man,
it has it all. Frankly, there was more to it
than just what we thought, and it's possibly misunderstood. Yeah,
there's a lot of controversy surrounding how uh deep it
(02:53):
went and how bloody it got, and uh a lot
of people are still duking it out. Yeah, and that's
a that's it makes sense. Pope John Paul put it
very well when he said, and I'm paraphrasing here that um, like, yes,
the Inquisition happened. Yes it was super messed up. Let's
find out exactly how messed up it is so the
(03:15):
church can be fully penitent h under um, being fully informed.
But he wasn't saying, like, stop making such a big
deal about the inquisition everywhere, because it was a big
deal because it was using, um, a court system, pretty
much a perverted court system, and now the kind that's
like you know, rusty and eugene like perverted meaning like
(03:38):
twisted and grotesque. Um two route people out based on
the idea that there they weren't pious enough or pious
in the right ways. And even that was disingenuous because
ultimately it was used to consolidate power. Yeah, and I
saw other remarks from historians it even more ultimately, perhaps
(04:03):
it was a way to get money. Yeah, so power
and money. I think. So the whole thing just disgusting
at its core, and it's a real blemish on the
history of both the Church and Europe. Um. But it
did happen. But it's also possible that just how bad
it was, like you're saying was was exaggerated over the years.
So let's talk about this. We're talking specifically about the
(04:24):
Spanish Inquisition, but you can't really just talk about the
Spanish Inquisition. It didn't happen in a vacuum. It was
part of a larger thing that the inquisition in general.
Um which is basically a court system where the court
is actually responsible for trying you rather than being an
impartial spectator referee. Yeah, it's called the tribunal. Basically, there's
(04:47):
no jury. It's the judge decides whether you're guilty or
not and what your fate will be, right, which is
kind of uneasy for the person who's being tried. Yeah,
you got one. Well, I think maybe a couple of
inquisitive wors uh might have been at work at times,
but it definitely wasn't like a jury system by any
means none at all. Um. There were also some other
(05:09):
characteristics of a UM inquisition. You were not allowed to
know who is accusing you, and anyone could accuse you.
You had to testify whether you wanted to or not
without any help. Yeah, and like you said, anybody could
accuse you. Other criminals could accuse you, family members, other
(05:30):
other heretics. And that was the whole point of this
was to root out heretics, people who UM were who
held beliefs that flew in the face of church church orthodoxy. Yeah,
and I think we should get into this a little
bit because there's a broad definition of heretic. Like what
(05:52):
they could actually ring people up for was vast. You know,
it wasn't like your Thai Catholic or you're a non
Christian atheist, like most of these people were either converts
to Catholicism, you know, forced converts like Jews or Muslims,
(06:12):
or you know, it could have been anything from bigamy
to quote superstitions was one of the things. Yeah, there
are a lot of witches who were rooted out solicitation
and this is all by the way from the archive. Um.
They eventually um opened up the Secret Archives. The Catholic
Church did about all this. Yeah, that's capitalized by the way,
(06:34):
secret archives. That's a really it's a title. Um. And
so they actually had percentages of the of what people
were were brought in for. And like I said, most
of them was because you were a different faith. But
one of them was a miscellaneous two or three thousand
people freemasonry, sodomy, bigamy, superstitions, basically anything that they could
(06:57):
cook up that they wanted to cook up. Okay, so
let's if they wanted to and that was heresy and
that was the umbrella crime that was being investigated by
the inquisitions. Yeah, supposedly you had to be um. You
had to be teaching these beliefs just to other people,
not just simply like a quiet believer of these uh
(07:17):
heretic things. Um. And you had to be doing it
of your own free will and like not be like
if you were under the influence of Satan. Hey, and
you had to um still hold this belief publicly even
after being corrected, even after its pointed out that what
(07:38):
you what you believe is heresy. So you want to
correct yourself yeah, so if you didn't correct, if you
didn't auto correct, then uh, yeah, you're right. So let's
take it back, um a little further back in the day. Uh,
Christians were very much persecuted and we're thrown to the
(07:58):
lions and were, Um there's there they were. They were
very much mistreated. And apparently they kind of took that
in a lot the same way that um maybe uh
Pip squeak, who's bullied and then bulks up over time, Yeah,
would treat being bullied. Um. The Christians did much the
(08:22):
same thing. Either that or they had a very short memory.
Because Um, after Constantine the Great converted to Christianity, he
was the Roman emperor. Um, all of a sudden, the Church,
the Catholic Church, started to enjoy a lot of power,
and that power grew and grew and grew. Um. And
then all of a sudden, there were monarchies all over
(08:43):
Europe that were Catholic, They considered themselves Catholic, they associated
with the Catholic Church, they were in cahoots with the pope,
and they they became very powerful. The Church became a
very powerful institution. Um. And one of the ways that
it's I did it was going to spread its power
and maintain its power. Was to squash anything that was
(09:07):
outside the purview of Catholic orthodoxy. Anything that the Pope
said was not kosher was um not okay, it was heresy.
And this is at the same time there are a
lot of different sects of Christianity, of Catholicism, even that
we're starting to gain in popularity. So things like the
(09:29):
Illuminati came out of this um era and the cars
like very spiritual uh groups that were Christian and identify
as Christian but thought the Pope was corrupt, and the
Pope said, or we're coming after you guys. And this
was the first Inquisition. Yeah, there were even uh persecution
(09:49):
of fellow Christians, Protestant Christians, Lutheran Christians. So it wasn't
necessarily just your Jew or your Muslim. No, these were
Christians initially. It wasn't until the Spanish Inquisition that Jews
were targeted. It was um during the medieval or Papal
Inquisition starting and I think twelve thirty one under Pope
Gregory the ninth, he issued a papal bull that said, uh,
(10:14):
we're going after heretics and we're going to use uh inquisitions. Yeah,
and that was the start, that's right, twelve thirty one,
and uh, he picked the what was known as the
Dominican Order, which was not Dominicans in Dominican Republic, but
founded by Saint Dominic de Guzman Um. And they were
(10:36):
apparently like super smart and really knowledgeable, and they were
the people too, I guess, the a team to go
about conducting this first inquisition. Right. So this was under
King Ferdinand two and Queen Isabella, and it says there
were secular rulers. Do you know what that means? Uh?
Did they not identify as Catholic or they just that
(10:57):
wasn't there? No, they definitely did. I think what they
were saying was they weren't. It wasn't like the pope.
It was they were like, Okay, they were the head
of government. Okay, that makes sense, Yeah, I got you.
But they did identify as Catholic, and they just recently
united Spain under the Catholic monarchy, and so they were saying,
we need to make sure everybody else's Catholic. So let's
(11:19):
let's start an inquisition here too, right. Plus we can
collect some money, right if their found guilty, take their land.
That kind of thing. Uh. So, like I said, Isabelle
and Ferdinand with Pope six to the fourth uh And
like you said, it was to create unity on the surface,
but probably was more about power and money and um
(11:41):
kind of just squashing any alternative alternative thought. Right. Yeah,
I mean they were like, if you're consolidating two lands
into a single kingdom, it's not like flipping a switch.
You know, like there's a lot of people who have
political ties and alliances on a more local level, there's
like Dina's ease and clans um. The I guess Isabella
(12:03):
and Ferdinand said, you know, a really good way to
unite everybody is under the banner of Catholicism. But ultimately
it was about them consolidating their power and breaking up
these alliances and and to gain money because part of
the inquisition was if you were accused of heresy, and
if you were convicted of heresy, the church and the
(12:25):
government would take your land and split it with the
person who accused you. So it ultimately became this very
powerful political tool and almost a machine that raised a
lot of money for Spain. Yeah. We we talked about
Jews and Muslims. They were two of the bigger targets um.
As far as it was just a bigoted culture. Basically,
(12:46):
Jews were putting ghettos or killed um, which is weird
because Spain was a very it grew out of Jews,
Christians and Muslims living together in this area. But then
under Ferdinand and Isabella, they were like, it was just Catholicism. Yeah,
they were officially banished um with the Alhambra decree in
(13:08):
four two. And here's the rub is a lot of
these Jews converted to Catholicism. But it wasn't like they
were like, oh cool, well, you know, that's great, you
converted to our religion and that's all well and fine.
They called them pigs um maranos, which is derogatory, and
said we think you're probably still really practicing Judaism, which
(13:31):
some of them might have been. So yeah, it was
like the suddenly the power establishment was was Catholic and
there were a lot of Jews who converted. They were
called converse those two, which was I think kind of
a neutral term for him. But they were converted Catholics.
And yes, there was a great deal of suspicion that
they were Jewish and everything but name and that they
(13:52):
just converted to avoid persecution, not even necessarily at first
to avoid persecution, but just to to be able to
gain power because the power establishment was Catholic. So I'll
just go become Catholic too, and not still really Jewish,
but I can hang out and have communion with you
guys who were running the show. And so it was
the suspicion that they were what are called crypto Jews
(14:15):
running around in Spain that initiated the First inquis or
the Spanish Inquisition. Yeah, and I guess the same is
true with the Muslim mores Um. They would convert to Catholicism,
and that still didn't really count. They were known as
Morisco's which is Moorish, and it was basically the same
thing as the Jewish community. There were still targets even
(14:36):
though they converted. And uh, like I said, it went
all the way over to Protestants and fellow Christians. So
anything not Catholic basically, and not even not just not Catholic,
but not orthodox Catholic. Yeah, it wasn't just in Europe either,
it was it happened in the New World in Mexico,
basically anywhere Spain was setting up shop. There could be
(14:57):
a mobile inquisition unit. So like that was one of
the even more despicable aspects of the Inquisition was that
they would go conquer a land and then set up
an inquisition to root out the non Catholics in a
land that was there were no Catholics. So like when
Spain took over Granada, um it was Moorish, it was Muslim.
(15:18):
They set up the the inquisition there, or the Portuguese
also had an inquisition, and when they went to India
they set up the goa In Inquisition and rooted out Hindus.
Well it's like, of course there's Hindus here. You guys
came from over there to the land of Hindus. Yes,
there's gonna be Hindus here. Like this is this is
(15:38):
awful yea. But yeah, they also did it in Mexico
and other places too. Uh yeah. And like we said,
this isn't the only inquisition that was one in Portugal.
There was the Roman Inquisition in the fifteen forties. That's
where Galileo was famously uh I guess tried, yeah, and
he was under house arrest, but he apparently his um
(16:02):
his arrest in his trial was more just like it
just flew in the face of science. The way he
was treated apparently wasn't so bad. Like he had a
pension from the pope, and yeah, I thought he was
he died of natural causes. Yeah, but he was under
house arrest, but he was He wasn't hurting, apparently. It
was more just like the fact that that that there
(16:24):
was a trial right right of science by Catholicism. You know,
it's it doesn't get more literal than that exactly, So
like like you're saying, it's it's exported everywhere. Yeah, but
let's let's get into the trials in a minute, right
after these messages. Okay, welcome back. Do you want to
(16:47):
talk about the trials, Chuck. Yeah, we mentioned earlier that
you could be accused by anyone anonymously. You didn't have
the assistance of a lawyer. Um, you weren't necessarily even
in formed of your charges, and you had to testify
on your own, behalf you like you were forced to basically. Yeah,
(17:09):
and on top of that, you didn't rarely have anyone
coming to your defense because you would probably also be
wrung up as a heretic. You're kind of on your own.
The witnesses, Yeah, their defense. Yeah, character witness here and
the guy's going Nope, not me. Yeah, I probably did
see him flying around on him room, who knows. And
(17:29):
I didn't see anything about this, but it said that
fellow heretics could ride out other ones. But I wonder
if there was a system of leniency if you've sold
people down the river. I think there definitely was. So
so let's this is how it happened. From what I understand, Um,
there would be news that the parish priest would get
that the inquisition was coming, and some inquisitors would come,
(17:52):
and I couldn't believe it. But this article failed to
mention Thomas the Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, like he's not
his doesn't appear in this article. It's in It's crazy.
But for a while Torqumoda took over from I think
Um fourteen eighty three to fo like the chief of
the Supreme Court. He's the head guy, and he is
(18:15):
um extremely vilified in history. He was a very hated
man because he was the face of the Inquisition, of
all this torture and and burning at the stake and
rooting people out and just a literal witch hunt. Um.
But so he's also somewhat defended by history a little
(18:35):
bit too. Apparently prior in the two years after the
Spanish Inquisition started and when he took over in fourteen
eighty three, those two years were very bloody. There was
a lot of torture. There were basically no rules. Torqumada
came in and established rules, so there were things like,
you can't torture anybody for longer than fifteen minutes, a
(18:55):
doctor has to be present during torture, and the doctor
says call it off, you have to op true. But
also if you did do this stuff, you can also
get a get off pretty easily, right, Like, if you
did torture and you weren't supposed to, it's really not
that big of a deal, Like, no one's gonna do
anything to you. Well, you could do torture because in
twelve uh, I can't remember, maybe twelve eighty three, well,
(19:18):
one of the popes issued another papal bull saying, in
addition to being able to do an inquisition, you can
torture too. That was Pope Innocent the fourth, very appropriate.
So you could torture somebody under the auspices of the church,
but you weren't supposed to like mangle him or something
like that. But yes, there wasn't any punishment for these inquisitors.
But Torqumod is the face of the of the inquisition. Um.
(19:42):
But there there are some people who say, well, he
kind of brought a little bit of order to it,
if you, if you can look at it like that. Yeah,
And other people say he may have even saved people
from you know, uh, gang violence of people basically just
running into your house and burning you at the stake,
right or from the state because um, there were apparently
some just common criminals who upon being captured with blaspheme
(20:06):
and then they would be tried by the Inquisition, which
is apparently a little more lenient and forgiving. Because consider this, Chuck,
this was is as gross as it is, as dark,
as despicable as this whole the Inquisition was. It was
still at its core a religious exercise, and the whole
(20:28):
point from the inquisitor on down, especially these people who
were true believers, the whole point was to extract a
confession and save the heretic soul. Yeah, it was all
about the confession. You couldn't just pronounce someone guilty. It
was that was pulled out of them by any means necessary, basically,
(20:49):
and only that you had to confess twice. You had
to if you confess under torture, you had to further
confess under you know, normal light of day, that what
you said was in fact true. Right, So the inquisitors
would come to town, they would set up shop, they
would establish they would say mass, they would tell everybody
what was going on, that they were here for an inquisition. Yeah,
(21:09):
and they give him a chance, right then, Yeah, there's
a forty day grace period and say you can confess
your heresy right here, and you won't be tortured. You
won't be punished. Um, you might have to do some penance,
of course, but you can escape torture for sure, and
you have to denounce other heretics. So that was sort
of the McCarthy is m if you name names and
we'll go easy on you. And so apparently some parish
(21:32):
priests would find out that the inquisition was coming and
would gather their flock and say, everybody, keep your mouth shut.
These guys will leave eventually. Just shut up. And a
lot of times these were just like country peasants who
had like they knew that they loved Jesus and the
Pope was in charge of them. But they also knew
(21:52):
that they like needed to get back to their donkey
because they hadn't fed it that day and they needed
to plow the fields later that afternoon. These weren't like
sophisticated people, and these were the the most educated, scholarly
people on the planet at the time coming to their town, Yes,
coming to their town and interrogating these peasants as to
(22:15):
like the nuances of Catholic Orthodoxy. Yeah, they were leading questions,
they would confuse them, they would get them rattled. Uh,
all just in the name of I guess, taking land
and money and assuming power. Right. And that was another
thing too that I think we didn't mention, um the
Jews in Spain prior to the consolidation of Spain into Spain,
(22:38):
where this was the merchant class. They were, um. While
there were plenty of peasants who were uneducated, there are
also a lot of Jews who were very much educated,
who were wealthy. So they did make even more desirable
targets under that um that viewpoint that this was all
about money and power and land. Like, what better group
(22:59):
to target then the wealthy middle class And they did. Yeah,
that's a good point and think about that, thanks man.
So where were we They weren't clever. They were being
uh confused basically, and depending on where you were, like
this is this is a country parish that we're talking
about right now. Yeah, pumpkins, European pumpkins. They were like
(23:22):
saucepans on their heads for hats and overalls with no
shirts underneath. Um. So the other thing is is they
would be uh they were imprisoned until they got a confession.
So it's not like they if they didn't get a
confession eventually they would just let them go and shun them.
They would hold on to them until they confessed, basically,
(23:44):
like that was the only way to get out. And
if you died in prison, um to your well, your
bones would be you'd be buried, but then your bones
would be dug up and cremated and basically scattered like
as an insult after death. And little known fact, but
in the nineteenth century somebody did this to Torqumata's remains.
(24:06):
They dug them up and incinerated what was left of
him and like scattered his asses, which I mean if
you're if you're high up in the Dominican order. Yeah,
if somebody did that to your bones, it's an enormous
spiritual stab in the neck, you know. Uh. Okay, so
(24:26):
we have been uh had the bull the decree of
torture issued, and so they were you know, we've covered
this in medieval torture devices, a lot of it. But
they would do various things, uh to extract whatever information
they wanted. One was called the strapado and that was UM.
And this didn't sound too bad to me at first. Well,
(24:49):
hold on, let me explain. So at first I read
this is your hands. You were hung basically by your
arms above your head, which is pretty bad in and
of its well, I mean that in the rack. Both
sound like early chiropractic care in a way, like it
could really work some things out in the lower back.
But then I realized that your hands are tied behind
(25:10):
your back, and then you were hung from those hands.
That's a way different thing than just being hung from
your hands. Yeah, because the chances of your your arms
coming out of your sockets, yeah, we're pretty good, very high.
And there were also additions to this torture that could
be UM added, like heavy weights to your legs. You
(25:32):
could be jerked downward instead of just hanging there. Yeah, um,
just to really kind of help that this location along
and make the stripato even more excruciating. They might burn
you with hot pokers while you were hanging there. Some
screw action. Yep, heavy boots. Yeah, the boot. You didn't
want that. You didn't want the boot. We talked about
(25:53):
the rack um, which is when you know your hands
and feet are tied and you're on these rollers and
the metal frame, and they basically just turned those rollers
and give you a good stretch, meaning your your limbs
would come out of socket, and if they did it
too much, they might come completely away from your body.
You know what's crazy? I heard or read that there
(26:13):
is a there's something going on with a certain species
of starfish right now that are they appear to be
committing suicide. They're getting some sort of infection and to
kill themselves, they their arms crawl in different directions until
the middle is ripped apart and they eviscerate themselves. That's awful,
(26:35):
but that's going on right now. No one has any
idea of what the heck is going on with the
starfish or why they're getting this mysterious infection. And then
no one knew that starfish committed suicide. And the fact
that they know this is pretty remarkable too, that somebody's
studying starfish that closely that they have realized this is
going on. Well, they were probably watching the first starfish
the first time. You're like, let's starfish is really confused.
(26:57):
How cute? Oh my god. And then another one does it,
and another one You're like, we've got a problem. I
need to go write a paper. Uh, nothing's funny about that.
I love starfish. I don't know why I'm laughing. So,
like you pointed out earlier, mutilation was prohibited supposedly during
the torture, but um Alexander the fourth also decreed that
(27:19):
you could clear anyone from wrong doing, like we pointed out,
So it's even you're not gonna go up on a
tribunal for torturing someone as an inquisitor. No, that's not
gonna happen. I didn't see anything anywhere in the research
where any inquisitor ever got in trouble for anything that
was done during the Spanish inquisition. I don't I don't know.
It may have happened, but I didn't see anything. So
(27:43):
so let's recount real quick. The the inquisition comes to town.
It's made up of some inquisitors, their secretaries, their staff.
In a banjo player said, they set up shop and um,
there's a forty day grace period where they're just hanging out.
Anybody who wants to come confess can can fest and
be forgiven. I bet that was scary though, Like you
don't want to be the first guy to trust that. Yeah, Like,
(28:06):
come on confess and people are like you, go do it.
I'm sure it'll be fine. Well, apparently like you would
wear like a yellow cross on your clothes much like
a scarlet letter for a while. As part of your penance,
there was there you were forgiven and even after the
grace period if you were if you confessed under torture,
(28:26):
and then they made you confess again without being under torture,
and they took it as a genuine one. You were forgiven.
Penance could be rough though, it could be, but it
could also not be. Yeah, but like pends on the
it was on. It was on the case and it
was left up to the inquisitors to use their judgment. True,
but some of the some of the penance included like
(28:47):
taking all your land, like we said, paying additional fines
of money, you might have hard labor for the rest
of your life. Um. Sometimes you're exiled completely from your
county or from your country. Yeah, so you've got all
of this is going on in a little town on
the countryside, not necessarily a little town like Bologna, um, Toledo.
(29:11):
They saw some some pretty heavy action. And these weren't
necessarily back water birds, you know. Um. But the the
inquisition would come to town side up a grace period,
then the accusations would start to fly. There'll be torture,
there'll be confessions, and then there was what are called
the auto's de fee, And an auto de fee was
(29:32):
a religious ritual fill with a lot of pomp and
their circumstances, where the accused and convicted would walk around
town in a big procession they have of course, of
course they have mass all the time, um, and like
everybody would come out for it. It was a huge thing,
(29:53):
very much like a public execution in the United States
or in in other parts of Europe. But the huge
difference was there was never an execution in an auto
to face. It was a religious ceremony and they wouldn't
it wouldn't have ended in execution. Even if the people
who were in the procession who had been convicted had
(30:15):
been sentenced to death. It wouldn't take place during an
auto to fay. It would take place separately, and in
most cases the inquisitors gave that person over to the
secular authorities to carry out the execution. Yeah, they didn't
execute folks themselves. Um, although they could just abandon you
is one way to look at it, where they would
just say, kind of say he's a heretic, turn him
(30:37):
over to the public. And that's where like you would
get burned at the stake, especially if you're a repeat
offender like you generally weren't forgiven for that if you
messed up more than once. And we talked before, I
don't remember what it was in, but burning at the stake.
We came across some documentation of what it would like.
It took like thirty minutes to die from it at
the earliest, up to a couple of hours, depending on
(31:00):
if the wind was blowing too much. Like that would
be a horrible, horrible way to go. Yeah, was the
worst ways to die. No, it was more recent than that,
was it? It was? But we'll get to, uh, the
fallout from all this stuff because you can't you can't
do this to people and not expected to be a
fallout over the course of history. Sure, And the Inquisition
(31:22):
wasn't just from the fourteen eighty one to fourteen ninety
two when the the Decree of Alambre was issued, like,
it kept going on until the nineteenth century. Yeah, eighteen
thirty four was when the last one in Spain occurred.
There was a school teacher who was put to death
in eighteen twenty six because he taught Deism to his class.
(31:43):
That's the nineteenth century, eighty six, and like, that's not
the fifteenth century, that's the nineteenth century. Now, it's not
that long ago in the grand scheme of things, you know. Yeah,
And in eighteen fifty eight, there's a very famous case
of a kid named Edgardo uh more Tara, and he
was a Jewish kid raised in a Jewish family who
(32:04):
was dying of a fever when he was like seven
or something like that, and one of the domestic servants
did an emergency baptism on the kid. The church found
out about it, came and took him from his family
and raised him as a Catholic When was that eighteen
fifty eight, So that was even after the last inquisition
(32:25):
supposedly when was the win four? Yes, so here's the thing.
The Spain said no more inquisition in eighteen thirty four.
The Catholic Church still actually has something called the Congregation
of the Doctrine of the Faith and renamed it in
the sixties sixties. Yeah, so it's still I mean, there's
(32:46):
still the concept of the Inquisition as part of the
Holy See, which is the Pope's power. But obviously nothing
like this was going on these days. Uh So since
the aftermath of the Inquisition is pretty controversial because beginning
in the fift hundreds of the Protestant Reformation, you had
a lot of uh, anti Catholic and anti Spanish sentiment,
(33:08):
and a lot of people from the Catholic side these
days are saying it was so exaggerated in the aftermath
that a very small percentage when we look in our
secret archives and our statistics, uh, we're actually killed. Um,
I think it was what like point one percent. So
I saw I saw something different. I saw um one
(33:29):
percent of the hundred and twenty five thousand trials in Spain,
Italy and Portugal. And here's the thing, man, I looked
at like three or four different sets of numbers, and
they're all way different. So you're never gonna we're never
gonna know actual, like solid numbers, because if you are
anti Catholic, you probably have your one set of numbers,
(33:49):
and if you're pro Catholic, you have your set of numbers.
You know what I'm saying. But these numbers, that one
percent of the hundred twenty five thousand trials um that was,
that's based on that secret archive that the um. Yeah,
that the thank you that the Vatican opened up under
(34:11):
Pope John Paul the second and said, you know what,
you guys, come in here, you scholars, root around and
give us a full report on the inquisition and let's
see you know what's what. And he apologized when he
announced that, and then he apologized in two thousand four
when they issued the report finally. And that's where that
one percent of the hundred and twenty five thousand came from. Yeah,
(34:33):
and that's how blog opinion pieces from two thousand four
where some people are like, you, we shouldn't be apologizing
for this again, like it was really inflated numbers and
it wasn't as bad as people say. Well, again, that's
the the pro Catholic uh side. Yeah, not pro inquisition necessarily,
but the Catholic defenders. I think it is a better
(34:55):
way to say. Yeah. I think they're probably also pointing
out like, yeah, this is mostly Spain and it was
mostly the monarchy and most of these executions were carried
out by the Spanish state rather than the inquisition. Yeah.
It's kind of tricky wording, now, you know it is.
I mean, the the pope was definitely involved. He gave
his blessing at the time to Ferdinand and Isabella to
carry this out, even though he came to regret it later.
(35:17):
But they were saying that he came to regret it
because he gave away so much power, because they said,
can we have an inquisition here in Spain? And he said,
I don't know, And they said, hey, you know those
Spanish troops that are protecting you from Turkey right now
in Rome, how about we recall them home? And he said, yeah,
why don't you have an inquisition? Yeah? Uh, And by
the way, you don't have to answer to me, just
(35:37):
go ahead and have your inquisition. And years later he's like, man,
that was probably not a good idea because Pope John
Paul the Second is going to have to apologize twice
for this right. And Plus what's the difference in executing
someone yourself at the end of a tribunal and saying, well,
we're not gonna do it, but if someone else happened
to after we set them into the street, it's not
(35:59):
you know, on our wives and even like set them
into the street like they're being killed because we tried
them because they weren't Catholic enough. So but yes, I
think it is. This is a really great illustration of
the history is never black and white, and it can
very easily become conflated, and even still today, like we
don't necessarily know what happened, and even if we do
(36:23):
know what happened from this symposium on the Inquisition, not
everybody believes it. You know. Yeah, well we got some
good comedy out of it from mel Brooks and Monty Python.
Years later we shared a tragedy. Plus time. Uh, let's see,
you got anything else I do not, sir. If you
want to learn more about the Inquisition, you can type
that word and the search part how stuff works dot
(36:44):
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all right. So, as most of you know, this is
a time when we thank people for sending us nice things,
(37:06):
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So let's get this going here. I've got some CDs
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sent us shirts and c ds and Nostrin. Our buddy,
Gentry Kalelo sent us a vinyl LP and some T
(37:26):
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for that. Yeah. And Central on Christmas cards Amy that
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Matt Rob or Rab two ways? I called them Matt
(37:50):
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(38:32):
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(38:55):
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Thank you very much to Mona Collantine and Grandma Colling
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(39:20):
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Although he might have helped Katherine Harmon the Courage send
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(39:42):
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You're the best. Uncle John's Bathroom Reader they always send
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They are wonderful. Mark Palm of Vancouver, BC sen it's
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Seven inches a record by the way, for those of
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(40:25):
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(41:10):
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So that was on point and pretty cool. Yeah. I
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(42:16):
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Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerome Rowland. Jerry,
that's j E. R. I. Yeah, for those who don't know,
(00:22):
we've ever said that, and we get many, many variations. Yeah,
it's it's mind boggling to mean that some people get
it right. And Jerry's a lady. Yes, shews. We'll just
go ahead and you know, get that out there. I
think that most people knew that, right, most people new
listeners are producers. J E. R. Right, the lady, Oh night,
(00:44):
that's a T shirt right there. Uh okay, well we
have that settled officially. If anybody ever asked, we can
just send them the link to the Spanish Inquisition episode. Yeah.
I've been singing the History of the World Part one
song all day. Yeah, I was gonna ask, how how
shall we start this with with the song or with
the Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Uh so either of
(01:06):
mel Brooks or Monty Python. Well, they're both great to
you do one and I'll do the other at the
same time. The Inquisition. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
I watched that bit again today too, and I was like,
that's good. He got me l o LD. Wow. Yeah,
Flying Circuits one of the great sketch shows of all time.
(01:27):
I think I'm curious, Chuck, what percentage of l O
L s do you think are actually symbolic of a
real laugh out loud, like when people say that, even
if it's a chuckle. Yeah, I don't know. I never
say l O L though, always say like, oh, I've
(01:48):
seen you. No, I have to dude, I've never typed
l O L. That is not for any Internet shorthand.
That's true. It's is so true. To find the documentations, Okay,
I'm going to find it. I didn't expect the third degree.
Nobody expects the third degree. That's what my family said.
(02:10):
We said the third degree, not the Spanish Inquisition third degree.
Uh my family just left everybody alone. That must uh so, Chuck, Yes,
you've heard of the Spanish Inquisition obviously, are you? Were
you familiar with the actual thing, like beyond the seventies
and the nineteen seventies, No, with money Python and mel Brooks. No,
(02:32):
I didn't know a whole lot about it. Was this
one was a delight to learn. Yeah, it was one
of those things in history where you realize a man,
it has it all. Frankly, there was more to it
than just what we thought, and it's possibly misunderstood. Yeah,
there's a lot of controversy surrounding how uh deep it
(02:53):
went and how bloody it got, and uh a lot
of people are still duking it out. Yeah, and that's
a that's it makes sense. Pope John Paul put it
very well when he said, and I'm paraphrasing here that um, like, yes,
the Inquisition happened. Yes it was super messed up. Let's
find out exactly how messed up it is so the
(03:15):
church can be fully penitent h under um, being fully informed.
But he wasn't saying, like, stop making such a big
deal about the inquisition everywhere, because it was a big
deal because it was using, um, a court system, pretty
much a perverted court system, and now the kind that's
like you know, rusty and eugene like perverted meaning like
(03:38):
twisted and grotesque. Um two route people out based on
the idea that there they weren't pious enough or pious
in the right ways. And even that was disingenuous because
ultimately it was used to consolidate power. Yeah, and I
saw other remarks from historians it even more ultimately, perhaps
(04:03):
it was a way to get money. Yeah, so power
and money. I think. So the whole thing just disgusting
at its core, and it's a real blemish on the
history of both the Church and Europe. Um. But it
did happen. But it's also possible that just how bad
it was, like you're saying was was exaggerated over the years.
So let's talk about this. We're talking specifically about the
(04:24):
Spanish Inquisition, but you can't really just talk about the
Spanish Inquisition. It didn't happen in a vacuum. It was
part of a larger thing that the inquisition in general.
Um which is basically a court system where the court
is actually responsible for trying you rather than being an
impartial spectator referee. Yeah, it's called the tribunal. Basically, there's
(04:47):
no jury. It's the judge decides whether you're guilty or
not and what your fate will be, right, which is
kind of uneasy for the person who's being tried. Yeah,
you got one. Well, I think maybe a couple of
inquisitive wors uh might have been at work at times,
but it definitely wasn't like a jury system by any
means none at all. Um. There were also some other
(05:09):
characteristics of a UM inquisition. You were not allowed to
know who is accusing you, and anyone could accuse you.
You had to testify whether you wanted to or not
without any help. Yeah, and like you said, anybody could
accuse you. Other criminals could accuse you, family members, other
(05:30):
other heretics. And that was the whole point of this
was to root out heretics, people who UM were who
held beliefs that flew in the face of church church orthodoxy. Yeah,
and I think we should get into this a little
bit because there's a broad definition of heretic. Like what
(05:52):
they could actually ring people up for was vast. You know,
it wasn't like your Thai Catholic or you're a non
Christian atheist, like most of these people were either converts
to Catholicism, you know, forced converts like Jews or Muslims,
(06:12):
or you know, it could have been anything from bigamy
to quote superstitions was one of the things. Yeah, there
are a lot of witches who were rooted out solicitation
and this is all by the way from the archive. Um.
They eventually um opened up the Secret Archives. The Catholic
Church did about all this. Yeah, that's capitalized by the way,
(06:34):
secret archives. That's a really it's a title. Um. And
so they actually had percentages of the of what people
were were brought in for. And like I said, most
of them was because you were a different faith. But
one of them was a miscellaneous two or three thousand
people freemasonry, sodomy, bigamy, superstitions, basically anything that they could
(06:57):
cook up that they wanted to cook up. Okay, so
let's if they wanted to and that was heresy and
that was the umbrella crime that was being investigated by
the inquisitions. Yeah, supposedly you had to be um. You
had to be teaching these beliefs just to other people,
not just simply like a quiet believer of these uh
(07:17):
heretic things. Um. And you had to be doing it
of your own free will and like not be like
if you were under the influence of Satan. Hey, and
you had to um still hold this belief publicly even
after being corrected, even after its pointed out that what
(07:38):
you what you believe is heresy. So you want to
correct yourself yeah, so if you didn't correct, if you
didn't auto correct, then uh, yeah, you're right. So let's
take it back, um a little further back in the day. Uh,
Christians were very much persecuted and we're thrown to the
(07:58):
lions and were, Um there's there they were. They were
very much mistreated. And apparently they kind of took that
in a lot the same way that um maybe uh
Pip squeak, who's bullied and then bulks up over time, Yeah,
would treat being bullied. Um. The Christians did much the
(08:22):
same thing. Either that or they had a very short memory.
Because Um, after Constantine the Great converted to Christianity, he
was the Roman emperor. Um, all of a sudden, the Church,
the Catholic Church, started to enjoy a lot of power,
and that power grew and grew and grew. Um. And
then all of a sudden, there were monarchies all over
(08:43):
Europe that were Catholic, They considered themselves Catholic, they associated
with the Catholic Church, they were in cahoots with the pope,
and they they became very powerful. The Church became a
very powerful institution. Um. And one of the ways that
it's I did it was going to spread its power
and maintain its power. Was to squash anything that was
(09:07):
outside the purview of Catholic orthodoxy. Anything that the Pope
said was not kosher was um not okay, it was heresy.
And this is at the same time there are a
lot of different sects of Christianity, of Catholicism, even that
we're starting to gain in popularity. So things like the
(09:29):
Illuminati came out of this um era and the cars
like very spiritual uh groups that were Christian and identify
as Christian but thought the Pope was corrupt, and the
Pope said, or we're coming after you guys. And this
was the first Inquisition. Yeah, there were even uh persecution
(09:49):
of fellow Christians, Protestant Christians, Lutheran Christians. So it wasn't
necessarily just your Jew or your Muslim. No, these were
Christians initially. It wasn't until the Spanish Inquisition that Jews
were targeted. It was um during the medieval or Papal
Inquisition starting and I think twelve thirty one under Pope
Gregory the ninth, he issued a papal bull that said, uh,
(10:14):
we're going after heretics and we're going to use uh inquisitions. Yeah,
and that was the start, that's right, twelve thirty one,
and uh, he picked the what was known as the
Dominican Order, which was not Dominicans in Dominican Republic, but
founded by Saint Dominic de Guzman Um. And they were
(10:36):
apparently like super smart and really knowledgeable, and they were
the people too, I guess, the a team to go
about conducting this first inquisition. Right. So this was under
King Ferdinand two and Queen Isabella, and it says there
were secular rulers. Do you know what that means? Uh?
Did they not identify as Catholic or they just that
(10:57):
wasn't there? No, they definitely did. I think what they
were saying was they weren't. It wasn't like the pope.
It was they were like, Okay, they were the head
of government. Okay, that makes sense, Yeah, I got you.
But they did identify as Catholic, and they just recently
united Spain under the Catholic monarchy, and so they were saying,
we need to make sure everybody else's Catholic. So let's
(11:19):
let's start an inquisition here too, right. Plus we can
collect some money, right if their found guilty, take their land.
That kind of thing. Uh. So, like I said, Isabelle
and Ferdinand with Pope six to the fourth uh And
like you said, it was to create unity on the surface,
but probably was more about power and money and um
(11:41):
kind of just squashing any alternative alternative thought. Right. Yeah,
I mean they were like, if you're consolidating two lands
into a single kingdom, it's not like flipping a switch.
You know, like there's a lot of people who have
political ties and alliances on a more local level, there's
like Dina's ease and clans um. The I guess Isabella
(12:03):
and Ferdinand said, you know, a really good way to
unite everybody is under the banner of Catholicism. But ultimately
it was about them consolidating their power and breaking up
these alliances and and to gain money because part of
the inquisition was if you were accused of heresy, and
if you were convicted of heresy, the church and the
(12:25):
government would take your land and split it with the
person who accused you. So it ultimately became this very
powerful political tool and almost a machine that raised a
lot of money for Spain. Yeah. We we talked about
Jews and Muslims. They were two of the bigger targets um.
As far as it was just a bigoted culture. Basically,
(12:46):
Jews were putting ghettos or killed um, which is weird
because Spain was a very it grew out of Jews,
Christians and Muslims living together in this area. But then
under Ferdinand and Isabella, they were like, it was just Catholicism. Yeah,
they were officially banished um with the Alhambra decree in
(13:08):
four two. And here's the rub is a lot of
these Jews converted to Catholicism. But it wasn't like they
were like, oh cool, well, you know, that's great, you
converted to our religion and that's all well and fine.
They called them pigs um maranos, which is derogatory, and
said we think you're probably still really practicing Judaism, which
(13:31):
some of them might have been. So yeah, it was
like the suddenly the power establishment was was Catholic and
there were a lot of Jews who converted. They were
called converse those two, which was I think kind of
a neutral term for him. But they were converted Catholics.
And yes, there was a great deal of suspicion that
they were Jewish and everything but name and that they
(13:52):
just converted to avoid persecution, not even necessarily at first
to avoid persecution, but just to to be able to
gain power because the power establishment was Catholic. So I'll
just go become Catholic too, and not still really Jewish,
but I can hang out and have communion with you
guys who were running the show. And so it was
the suspicion that they were what are called crypto Jews
(14:15):
running around in Spain that initiated the First inquis or
the Spanish Inquisition. Yeah, and I guess the same is
true with the Muslim mores Um. They would convert to Catholicism,
and that still didn't really count. They were known as
Morisco's which is Moorish, and it was basically the same
thing as the Jewish community. There were still targets even
(14:36):
though they converted. And uh, like I said, it went
all the way over to Protestants and fellow Christians. So
anything not Catholic basically, and not even not just not Catholic,
but not orthodox Catholic. Yeah, it wasn't just in Europe either,
it was it happened in the New World in Mexico,
basically anywhere Spain was setting up shop. There could be
(14:57):
a mobile inquisition unit. So like that was one of
the even more despicable aspects of the Inquisition was that
they would go conquer a land and then set up
an inquisition to root out the non Catholics in a
land that was there were no Catholics. So like when
Spain took over Granada, um it was Moorish, it was Muslim.
(15:18):
They set up the the inquisition there, or the Portuguese
also had an inquisition, and when they went to India
they set up the goa In Inquisition and rooted out Hindus.
Well it's like, of course there's Hindus here. You guys
came from over there to the land of Hindus. Yes,
there's gonna be Hindus here. Like this is this is
(15:38):
awful yea. But yeah, they also did it in Mexico
and other places too. Uh yeah. And like we said,
this isn't the only inquisition that was one in Portugal.
There was the Roman Inquisition in the fifteen forties. That's
where Galileo was famously uh I guess tried, yeah, and
he was under house arrest, but he apparently his um
(16:02):
his arrest in his trial was more just like it
just flew in the face of science. The way he
was treated apparently wasn't so bad. Like he had a
pension from the pope, and yeah, I thought he was
he died of natural causes. Yeah, but he was under
house arrest, but he was He wasn't hurting, apparently. It
was more just like the fact that that that there
(16:24):
was a trial right right of science by Catholicism. You know,
it's it doesn't get more literal than that exactly, So
like like you're saying, it's it's exported everywhere. Yeah, but
let's let's get into the trials in a minute, right
after these messages. Okay, welcome back. Do you want to
(16:47):
talk about the trials, Chuck. Yeah, we mentioned earlier that
you could be accused by anyone anonymously. You didn't have
the assistance of a lawyer. Um, you weren't necessarily even
in formed of your charges, and you had to testify
on your own, behalf you like you were forced to basically. Yeah,
(17:09):
and on top of that, you didn't rarely have anyone
coming to your defense because you would probably also be
wrung up as a heretic. You're kind of on your own.
The witnesses, Yeah, their defense. Yeah, character witness here and
the guy's going Nope, not me. Yeah, I probably did
see him flying around on him room, who knows. And
(17:29):
I didn't see anything about this, but it said that
fellow heretics could ride out other ones. But I wonder
if there was a system of leniency if you've sold
people down the river. I think there definitely was. So
so let's this is how it happened. From what I understand, Um,
there would be news that the parish priest would get
that the inquisition was coming, and some inquisitors would come,
(17:52):
and I couldn't believe it. But this article failed to
mention Thomas the Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, like he's not
his doesn't appear in this article. It's in It's crazy.
But for a while Torqumoda took over from I think
Um fourteen eighty three to fo like the chief of
the Supreme Court. He's the head guy, and he is
(18:15):
um extremely vilified in history. He was a very hated
man because he was the face of the Inquisition, of
all this torture and and burning at the stake and
rooting people out and just a literal witch hunt. Um.
But so he's also somewhat defended by history a little
(18:35):
bit too. Apparently prior in the two years after the
Spanish Inquisition started and when he took over in fourteen
eighty three, those two years were very bloody. There was
a lot of torture. There were basically no rules. Torqumada
came in and established rules, so there were things like,
you can't torture anybody for longer than fifteen minutes, a
(18:55):
doctor has to be present during torture, and the doctor
says call it off, you have to op true. But
also if you did do this stuff, you can also
get a get off pretty easily, right, Like, if you
did torture and you weren't supposed to, it's really not
that big of a deal, Like, no one's gonna do
anything to you. Well, you could do torture because in
twelve uh, I can't remember, maybe twelve eighty three, well,
(19:18):
one of the popes issued another papal bull saying, in
addition to being able to do an inquisition, you can
torture too. That was Pope Innocent the fourth, very appropriate.
So you could torture somebody under the auspices of the church,
but you weren't supposed to like mangle him or something
like that. But yes, there wasn't any punishment for these inquisitors.
But Torqumod is the face of the of the inquisition. Um.
(19:42):
But there there are some people who say, well, he
kind of brought a little bit of order to it,
if you, if you can look at it like that. Yeah,
And other people say he may have even saved people
from you know, uh, gang violence of people basically just
running into your house and burning you at the stake,
right or from the state because um, there were apparently
some just common criminals who upon being captured with blaspheme
(20:06):
and then they would be tried by the Inquisition, which
is apparently a little more lenient and forgiving. Because consider this, Chuck,
this was is as gross as it is, as dark,
as despicable as this whole the Inquisition was. It was
still at its core a religious exercise, and the whole
(20:28):
point from the inquisitor on down, especially these people who
were true believers, the whole point was to extract a
confession and save the heretic soul. Yeah, it was all
about the confession. You couldn't just pronounce someone guilty. It
was that was pulled out of them by any means necessary, basically,
(20:49):
and only that you had to confess twice. You had
to if you confess under torture, you had to further
confess under you know, normal light of day, that what
you said was in fact true. Right, So the inquisitors
would come to town, they would set up shop, they
would establish they would say mass, they would tell everybody
what was going on, that they were here for an inquisition. Yeah,
(21:09):
and they give him a chance, right then, Yeah, there's
a forty day grace period and say you can confess
your heresy right here, and you won't be tortured. You
won't be punished. Um, you might have to do some penance,
of course, but you can escape torture for sure, and
you have to denounce other heretics. So that was sort
of the McCarthy is m if you name names and
we'll go easy on you. And so apparently some parish
(21:32):
priests would find out that the inquisition was coming and
would gather their flock and say, everybody, keep your mouth shut.
These guys will leave eventually. Just shut up. And a
lot of times these were just like country peasants who
had like they knew that they loved Jesus and the
Pope was in charge of them. But they also knew
(21:52):
that they like needed to get back to their donkey
because they hadn't fed it that day and they needed
to plow the fields later that afternoon. These weren't like
sophisticated people, and these were the the most educated, scholarly
people on the planet at the time coming to their town, Yes,
coming to their town and interrogating these peasants as to
(22:15):
like the nuances of Catholic Orthodoxy. Yeah, they were leading questions,
they would confuse them, they would get them rattled. Uh,
all just in the name of I guess, taking land
and money and assuming power. Right. And that was another
thing too that I think we didn't mention, um the
Jews in Spain prior to the consolidation of Spain into Spain,
(22:38):
where this was the merchant class. They were, um. While
there were plenty of peasants who were uneducated, there are
also a lot of Jews who were very much educated,
who were wealthy. So they did make even more desirable
targets under that um that viewpoint that this was all
about money and power and land. Like, what better group
(22:59):
to target then the wealthy middle class And they did. Yeah,
that's a good point and think about that, thanks man.
So where were we They weren't clever. They were being
uh confused basically, and depending on where you were, like
this is this is a country parish that we're talking
about right now. Yeah, pumpkins, European pumpkins. They were like
(23:22):
saucepans on their heads for hats and overalls with no
shirts underneath. Um. So the other thing is is they
would be uh they were imprisoned until they got a confession.
So it's not like they if they didn't get a
confession eventually they would just let them go and shun them.
They would hold on to them until they confessed, basically,
(23:44):
like that was the only way to get out. And
if you died in prison, um to your well, your
bones would be you'd be buried, but then your bones
would be dug up and cremated and basically scattered like
as an insult after death. And little known fact, but
in the nineteenth century somebody did this to Torqumata's remains.
(24:06):
They dug them up and incinerated what was left of
him and like scattered his asses, which I mean if
you're if you're high up in the Dominican order. Yeah,
if somebody did that to your bones, it's an enormous
spiritual stab in the neck, you know. Uh. Okay, so
(24:26):
we have been uh had the bull the decree of
torture issued, and so they were you know, we've covered
this in medieval torture devices, a lot of it. But
they would do various things, uh to extract whatever information
they wanted. One was called the strapado and that was UM.
And this didn't sound too bad to me at first. Well,
(24:49):
hold on, let me explain. So at first I read
this is your hands. You were hung basically by your
arms above your head, which is pretty bad in and
of its well, I mean that in the rack. Both
sound like early chiropractic care in a way, like it
could really work some things out in the lower back.
But then I realized that your hands are tied behind
(25:10):
your back, and then you were hung from those hands.
That's a way different thing than just being hung from
your hands. Yeah, because the chances of your your arms
coming out of your sockets, yeah, we're pretty good, very high.
And there were also additions to this torture that could
be UM added, like heavy weights to your legs. You
(25:32):
could be jerked downward instead of just hanging there. Yeah, um,
just to really kind of help that this location along
and make the stripato even more excruciating. They might burn
you with hot pokers while you were hanging there. Some
screw action. Yep, heavy boots. Yeah, the boot. You didn't
want that. You didn't want the boot. We talked about
(25:53):
the rack um, which is when you know your hands
and feet are tied and you're on these rollers and
the metal frame, and they basically just turned those rollers
and give you a good stretch, meaning your your limbs
would come out of socket, and if they did it
too much, they might come completely away from your body.
You know what's crazy? I heard or read that there
(26:13):
is a there's something going on with a certain species
of starfish right now that are they appear to be
committing suicide. They're getting some sort of infection and to
kill themselves, they their arms crawl in different directions until
the middle is ripped apart and they eviscerate themselves. That's awful,
(26:35):
but that's going on right now. No one has any
idea of what the heck is going on with the
starfish or why they're getting this mysterious infection. And then
no one knew that starfish committed suicide. And the fact
that they know this is pretty remarkable too, that somebody's
studying starfish that closely that they have realized this is
going on. Well, they were probably watching the first starfish
the first time. You're like, let's starfish is really confused.
(26:57):
How cute? Oh my god. And then another one does it,
and another one You're like, we've got a problem. I
need to go write a paper. Uh, nothing's funny about that.
I love starfish. I don't know why I'm laughing. So,
like you pointed out earlier, mutilation was prohibited supposedly during
the torture, but um Alexander the fourth also decreed that
(27:19):
you could clear anyone from wrong doing, like we pointed out,
So it's even you're not gonna go up on a
tribunal for torturing someone as an inquisitor. No, that's not
gonna happen. I didn't see anything anywhere in the research
where any inquisitor ever got in trouble for anything that
was done during the Spanish inquisition. I don't I don't know.
It may have happened, but I didn't see anything. So
(27:43):
so let's recount real quick. The the inquisition comes to town.
It's made up of some inquisitors, their secretaries, their staff.
In a banjo player said, they set up shop and um,
there's a forty day grace period where they're just hanging out.
Anybody who wants to come confess can can fest and
be forgiven. I bet that was scary though, Like you
don't want to be the first guy to trust that. Yeah, Like,
(28:06):
come on confess and people are like you, go do it.
I'm sure it'll be fine. Well, apparently like you would
wear like a yellow cross on your clothes much like
a scarlet letter for a while. As part of your penance,
there was there you were forgiven and even after the
grace period if you were if you confessed under torture,
(28:26):
and then they made you confess again without being under torture,
and they took it as a genuine one. You were forgiven.
Penance could be rough though, it could be, but it
could also not be. Yeah, but like pends on the
it was on. It was on the case and it
was left up to the inquisitors to use their judgment. True,
but some of the some of the penance included like
(28:47):
taking all your land, like we said, paying additional fines
of money, you might have hard labor for the rest
of your life. Um. Sometimes you're exiled completely from your
county or from your country. Yeah, so you've got all
of this is going on in a little town on
the countryside, not necessarily a little town like Bologna, um, Toledo.
(29:11):
They saw some some pretty heavy action. And these weren't
necessarily back water birds, you know. Um. But the the
inquisition would come to town side up a grace period,
then the accusations would start to fly. There'll be torture,
there'll be confessions, and then there was what are called
the auto's de fee, And an auto de fee was
(29:32):
a religious ritual fill with a lot of pomp and
their circumstances, where the accused and convicted would walk around
town in a big procession they have of course, of
course they have mass all the time, um, and like
everybody would come out for it. It was a huge thing,
(29:53):
very much like a public execution in the United States
or in in other parts of Europe. But the huge
difference was there was never an execution in an auto
to face. It was a religious ceremony and they wouldn't
it wouldn't have ended in execution. Even if the people
who were in the procession who had been convicted had
(30:15):
been sentenced to death. It wouldn't take place during an
auto to fay. It would take place separately, and in
most cases the inquisitors gave that person over to the
secular authorities to carry out the execution. Yeah, they didn't
execute folks themselves. Um, although they could just abandon you
is one way to look at it, where they would
just say, kind of say he's a heretic, turn him
(30:37):
over to the public. And that's where like you would
get burned at the stake, especially if you're a repeat
offender like you generally weren't forgiven for that if you
messed up more than once. And we talked before, I
don't remember what it was in, but burning at the stake.
We came across some documentation of what it would like.
It took like thirty minutes to die from it at
the earliest, up to a couple of hours, depending on
(31:00):
if the wind was blowing too much. Like that would
be a horrible, horrible way to go. Yeah, was the
worst ways to die. No, it was more recent than that,
was it? It was? But we'll get to, uh, the
fallout from all this stuff because you can't you can't
do this to people and not expected to be a
fallout over the course of history. Sure, And the Inquisition
(31:22):
wasn't just from the fourteen eighty one to fourteen ninety
two when the the Decree of Alambre was issued, like,
it kept going on until the nineteenth century. Yeah, eighteen
thirty four was when the last one in Spain occurred.
There was a school teacher who was put to death
in eighteen twenty six because he taught Deism to his class.
(31:43):
That's the nineteenth century, eighty six, and like, that's not
the fifteenth century, that's the nineteenth century. Now, it's not
that long ago in the grand scheme of things, you know. Yeah,
And in eighteen fifty eight, there's a very famous case
of a kid named Edgardo uh more Tara, and he
was a Jewish kid raised in a Jewish family who
(32:04):
was dying of a fever when he was like seven
or something like that, and one of the domestic servants
did an emergency baptism on the kid. The church found
out about it, came and took him from his family
and raised him as a Catholic When was that eighteen
fifty eight, So that was even after the last inquisition
(32:25):
supposedly when was the win four? Yes, so here's the thing.
The Spain said no more inquisition in eighteen thirty four.
The Catholic Church still actually has something called the Congregation
of the Doctrine of the Faith and renamed it in
the sixties sixties. Yeah, so it's still I mean, there's
(32:46):
still the concept of the Inquisition as part of the
Holy See, which is the Pope's power. But obviously nothing
like this was going on these days. Uh So since
the aftermath of the Inquisition is pretty controversial because beginning
in the fift hundreds of the Protestant Reformation, you had
a lot of uh, anti Catholic and anti Spanish sentiment,
(33:08):
and a lot of people from the Catholic side these
days are saying it was so exaggerated in the aftermath
that a very small percentage when we look in our
secret archives and our statistics, uh, we're actually killed. Um,
I think it was what like point one percent. So
I saw I saw something different. I saw um one
(33:29):
percent of the hundred and twenty five thousand trials in Spain,
Italy and Portugal. And here's the thing, man, I looked
at like three or four different sets of numbers, and
they're all way different. So you're never gonna we're never
gonna know actual, like solid numbers, because if you are
anti Catholic, you probably have your one set of numbers,
(33:49):
and if you're pro Catholic, you have your set of numbers.
You know what I'm saying. But these numbers, that one
percent of the hundred twenty five thousand trials um that was,
that's based on that secret archive that the um. Yeah,
that the thank you that the Vatican opened up under
(34:11):
Pope John Paul the second and said, you know what,
you guys, come in here, you scholars, root around and
give us a full report on the inquisition and let's
see you know what's what. And he apologized when he
announced that, and then he apologized in two thousand four
when they issued the report finally. And that's where that
one percent of the hundred and twenty five thousand came from. Yeah,
(34:33):
and that's how blog opinion pieces from two thousand four
where some people are like, you, we shouldn't be apologizing
for this again, like it was really inflated numbers and
it wasn't as bad as people say. Well, again, that's
the the pro Catholic uh side. Yeah, not pro inquisition necessarily,
but the Catholic defenders. I think it is a better
(34:55):
way to say. Yeah. I think they're probably also pointing
out like, yeah, this is mostly Spain and it was
mostly the monarchy and most of these executions were carried
out by the Spanish state rather than the inquisition. Yeah.
It's kind of tricky wording, now, you know it is.
I mean, the the pope was definitely involved. He gave
his blessing at the time to Ferdinand and Isabella to
carry this out, even though he came to regret it later.
(35:17):
But they were saying that he came to regret it
because he gave away so much power, because they said,
can we have an inquisition here in Spain? And he said,
I don't know, And they said, hey, you know those
Spanish troops that are protecting you from Turkey right now
in Rome, how about we recall them home? And he said, yeah,
why don't you have an inquisition? Yeah? Uh, And by
the way, you don't have to answer to me, just
(35:37):
go ahead and have your inquisition. And years later he's like, man,
that was probably not a good idea because Pope John
Paul the Second is going to have to apologize twice
for this right. And Plus what's the difference in executing
someone yourself at the end of a tribunal and saying, well,
we're not gonna do it, but if someone else happened
to after we set them into the street, it's not
(35:59):
you know, on our wives and even like set them
into the street like they're being killed because we tried
them because they weren't Catholic enough. So but yes, I
think it is. This is a really great illustration of
the history is never black and white, and it can
very easily become conflated, and even still today, like we
don't necessarily know what happened, and even if we do
(36:23):
know what happened from this symposium on the Inquisition, not
everybody believes it. You know. Yeah, well we got some
good comedy out of it from mel Brooks and Monty Python.
Years later we shared a tragedy. Plus time. Uh, let's see,
you got anything else I do not, sir. If you
want to learn more about the Inquisition, you can type
that word and the search part how stuff works dot
(36:44):
com and it will bring up this article. And since
you said search part, get this everybody. It's time for
all right. So, as most of you know, this is
a time when we thank people for sending us nice things,
(37:06):
from records and books to Christmas cards and cookies. Uh uh,
So let's get this going here. I've got some CDs
for you and vinyl albums. Even Baby in the Nobody
sent us shirts and c ds and Nostrin. Our buddy,
Gentry Kalelo sent us a vinyl LP and some T
(37:26):
shirts for her band Land of Vandals. Nice. Yeah, we
got those good stuff. Matt Rob from the School on
Wheels Team sent it's a nice Christmas card. Thank you
for that. Yeah. And Central on Christmas cards Amy that
is with an I. E. Meyer from Sellersburg, Indiana sent
us a nice Christmas card. Yeah. And are we saying
Matt Rob or Rab two ways? I called them Matt
(37:50):
Broccoli Rob in mind, so I'm gonna say Rob. Stacy
Wabell sent us some children's books Rudy's Incredible Kidney Machine
and Rudy gets a trans plant. So there's a children's
book for everything, and this one covers kidney transpense. Is awesome.
Our pals at co ed the Cooperative for Education who
helped fund education for kids in Guatemala, who were very
(38:12):
fond of They send us a nice Christmas cards, so
thanks guys. We got some knit socks from Jennifer Beaver
that are very warm and colorful. Whatch I know you like?
We got a Christmas card from Heather from Montana, Thank you.
I got a postcard from Susannah Danner, Thank you for that.
Lauren Coyne also sent us a Christmas card. Um, and
(38:32):
you can watch my Dessert Junkie on YouTube and that's
our YouTube show. Um. We got three not one, not two,
but three volumes of short documentaries from Robin Canfield from
Actuality Media, which supports a documentary study Abroad program which
is pretty awesome, So all of you documentarians out there
check that out. Actuality Media very cool. Thank you Charles
(38:55):
Shell for sending us custom stuff you should know necklace. Yeah,
Ashley Murphy for the Japanese hero masks and the nice
letter that she sent. Yeah, that was nice. Those are great. Uh.
Thank you very much to Mona Collantine and Grandma Colling
Teine in the whole Collantine family for sending us the
big old tin of Christmas cookies again this year. Thank
you Ramona. She's one of our local fans and she's awesome.
(39:20):
Although her boyfriend I don't think helps and Nathan unless
you make cookies for us, I won't mention you again.
Although he might have helped Katherine Harmon the Courage send
the book Octopus and that's with an exclamation point because
she knows that we love the Octopus. Yes, and our
buddy Aaron a c ZZ Cooper Cooper, who again this
(39:42):
year took some of his best images of us photoshopped
into weird situations uh and made hard posters for us,
which are awesome, So thanks Coop. We appreciate them. As always.
You're the best. Uncle John's Bathroom Reader they always send
us great stuff, your friends. They sent us the book's
Weird Inventions in Weird Canada and if you're Canadian you
(40:02):
need to get Weird Canada and if you're not Canadian,
you should get into They sent us a couple other
ones too that I got. Yeah. Yeah. You can follow
them on Twitter, go to their website Uncle John's Bathroom Readers.
They are wonderful. Mark Palm of Vancouver, BC sen it's
a seven inch of his band super Crush. It's pretty great.
Seven inches a record by the way, for those of
you not in the know. Uh. We got two albums
(40:25):
from Ghosts of Sailors at See. We got the Skeleton
Coast and a single, so thanks for that. Nicole Wingett
send us wristbands from her Obstacle Course racing team, the
corn Fed Spartans. Uh, let's see. Vivian Chin in Korea
sent us Shawley's Fantasy two thousand fourteen calendars. Some K
(40:46):
pop anime. Oh yeah, I remember that stuff. Paul sent
us a lot of German cookies, like so many that
the entire office couldn't need them all. Uh. And the
DVD Michael Moore Hates America we got. Also got some
sweet treats from Renee. Uh. Chavez Chaves, C H A
V E. S. Javes. I'm gonna say Chavis all right.
(41:10):
Rachel Ray Rose of Rose Sign Language Interpreting Company send
us some homemade grape jelly and Pence. Oh yeah, I
had someone that the other day. Delicious. Yes, Bob Partridge,
Tennis and Alan Turing postcard from the London Science Museum.
So that was on point and pretty cool. Yeah. I
got a couple more you got some more. I have
one more, so you go ahead. Hillary Lozar super fan
(41:32):
sinn Us Flathead Lake cheese. Yeah, and by the way,
I've since eaten all of it since the last time
we mentioned it on the podcast. It was awesome. She
also sent, uh, you mean Emily some earrings, which is
very nice. Yes, it was nice. Um. And then Marcus
who sent us popping shots. Thanks for those. Yeah, yeah,
you can check those out online. And my last one,
(41:53):
Debbie from hammer Press sent us a goodie bag. They
are a letter press and design company from Kansas City, Missouri,
and she sent us all sorts of cool cool stuff
like hand printed cards and like cool pencils and erasers
and uh so support hammer Press and letter press designers.
It's a pretty cool thing for sure. So thanks everybody.
Thanks everybody, We appreciate it. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to you,
(42:16):
and uh thanks the other three d and sixty four
days of the year for all of the nice gifts. Uh.
If you want to get in touch with me and
Chuck to talk to us to send us a gift
for whatever reason, you can tweet to us at s
Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
dot com. Slash stuff you Should Know. You can send
us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com,
(42:38):
and as always, you can hang out with us at
our cute little home on the web. Stuff you Should
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