Spanish Inquisition: Basics - Medieval Religion DOCUMENTARY

Kings and Generals' animated historical documentary series on medieval history and history of religion continues with a video on the Basics of the Spanish Inquisition.

#Documentary #Medieval #Inquisition

[ImperatorHispania]

Only in the massacre of Saint Bartholome (5, 000-30, 000 deaths) or the witch persecutions in Germany and England during the 16th century (25, 000) were there more deaths than in the three centuries of existence of the Spanish Inquisition (3, 000 deaths at most). In addition, while in the 17th century in most of Europe alleged witches were still being executed in Spain, this practice had already been prohibited at the beginning of the century. However, despite all the data that exists that shows that religious persecution was worse in the rest of Europe, what remains in the world's mind is the topic of the Spanish Inquisition. The reason for this is not because the Spaniards were kinder or more tolerant than the rest of the Europeans, but because of the obligation of the Inquisition to follow all kinds of paperwork and legal procedures before sentencing someone, while in the rest of Europe a single accusation was enough so that your own neighbors or the authorities executed you.
Regarding the caste system, several historians have questioned the existence of this phenomenon in the historical sociopolitical dynamics, considering that it could be a modern invention, emerged in the 1940s, that would distort qualifiers and lexicon of colonial culture to result in the system being exposed. The historian Pilar Gonzalbo devoted a study entitled The Caste Trap to dismissing the idea of ​​this kind of social regulation in New Spain, as long as this system was understood as a "social organization based on race and sustained by coercive power" in the way its two main popularizers claimed.

Joanne Rappaport, in her 2013 book The Disappearing Mestizo, also rejected the caste system for its problems of historical interpretation, including the difficulty of applying this model to the entire colonial world and the weakness of the relationship between "caste" and "race" that could have been found in this period. Ben Vinson, in a study of the historical archives of Mexico carried out in 2018, addressing the issue of racial diversity in Mexico and its relationship with imperial Spain, ratified these conclusions.
Personally, it seems contradictory to me that there was supposedly an iron caste system but at the same time Isabel I approved a law on mixed marriages in 1503 (in the United States it was prohibited until well into the 20th century) and that there were also black, indigenous, Creoles, mulattoes and mestizos occupying important positions such as; Agustín Agualongo a mestizo who was Supreme Commander, Antonio Huachaca, an indigenous man who reached the rank of general, Joaquín Mosquera y de Figueroa, a Creole who became regent of Spain, Juan Latino, the first black professor in the history of Europe, and Eusebio Puello Castro, a mulatto general. Like these cases, there are hundreds if not thousands of names of people of all kinds of race who held great positions in the Spanish empire.

[eduardoesteban]

No one expects the french and German inquisition to be worse than the Spanish inquisition

[sebastianbravo]

Wow, i didn't expect this video!

Thank K&G

[restitutororbis]

Kudos for yet another great video, Kings and Generals. I have two comments:

1) There is a very tiny error around 3:42, when the Catholic Kings are introduced as "Queen Isabella II and Kings Ferdinand I of Spain". It's actually Isabella I (of Castille) and Ferdinand II (of Aragon). Or simply the "Catholic Kings" or "Catholic monarchs".

2) Fun Fact: The word "sambenito" used to describe the penitential garments worn by the accused during the public trials (10:35) is utilized in modern Spanish (in addition to its historical meaning) to express that somebody has been discredited, has acquired a bad reputation or is guilty of something. For instance, "Le colgaron el sambenito" (literally, they put the penitential garment on him/her) can be translated as "They discredited him/her"

[mattl]

Whoever writes those segues from the intro into the sponsor is doing an excellent job!

[LadyMarch]

We were not expecting a video on the Spanish Inquisition!

[beep]

you simply cannot get your sources on Spanish history from an english historian, especially if theyre from the early 20th century backwards, because of the Black Legend mainly. You did mention the Black Legend here on the video, defending it as a victim of exaggeration and lies which is good, but then you spent the entire fucking video saying exactly what the Black Legend says.

[michaelmoorrees]

From someone raised in the 60s & 70s, Monty Python covered the Spanish Inquisition in depth, and is the true authority on this topic !

[Adaliddetanit]

The spanish Inquisition is the famous one and its speak only about her, but the german medieval inquisition has a bigger number of victims.

[johnnovotny]

It might be noted that Henry Kamen held a more negative view of the Inquisition before he was granted unrestricted access to the archives of the Spanish Inquisition for research on his book "The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision". A fascinating read of a very tragic situation either way.

[LightxHeaven]

Finally we can get to the truth to of the question: DId anybody expect the Spanish inquistion? :D

[adriancampos]

The part about the abolition of the Inquisition at the end was increadibly misleading. It wasn't just the french invader who abolished the inquisition, but also the Cadiz Courts, which organized the resistance against the french, who banned the Inquisition in the spanish constitution of 1812.

Also, the queen regent Maria Cristina didn't ban the Inquisition out of her own will. There was a liberal revolt in 1836 and in the constitution that followed it in 1837 the inquisition was finally abolished.

[ivantorres]

You talk about the fact that the inquisition debate is still open but you only show a minute of the revisionist point of view to immediately go on to the one that "refutes" him saying that the executions were the least important as fear and paranoia. The inquisition was much less brutal compared to the rest of Europe, even the native Americans in the Spanish empire were exempt from being judged by the inquisition. How is fear and paranoia going to be an important factor if only a 2- 4% in all the centuries that lasted? The French killed an estimated 200, 000 to 1, 000, 000 Cathars, tens of times more than the entire Inquisition including women and children, I have my doubts but I think what the French did was much more effective in causing fear. And let's not talk about the burning of witches in Protestant Germany where 25 thousand women died as a result of paranoia, or the persecution of Catholics in England where more than 20, 000 Catholics died during the Henry the VIII and Elizabeth the I reigns alone. How to explain that the whole world remembers the Spanish inquisition as an act of brutality, corruption and the worst religious fanaticism if it is not for the malicious propaganda of the black legend?

[jdsonical]

i don't think anyone expected this video!

[chrisaustin]

I don't care what the English speakers say, as a Hispanic I am completely grateful that the Spanish have come here to Hispanic America and have taught us their stuff, because surely if it had been the British Empire, there would be no stone left unturned and there would be racial conflicts like those in the United States.

[phatpigeonii]

I really like how you present different opinions from various historians in some of these videos, rather than just authoritatively stating things which may or may not be true. Well done!

[cseijifja]

Again, i usually love the content, but i fear again the video suffers from lack of actual spanish sources and the reliance on anglo ones. This seems to be a standard of K&G, like the cartagena de indias video, where it would let you believe that the british performed excelently and admirable and just fell dead out of magical happenstance. Particularly using Toby green, a west african and lusophone historian with not exactly a focus on the subject (to boot, he uses sources from my region, latin america, wich are, well very limited, by admitance of the own best historians of my own country, Peru, since most registries and works are back in spain) Using him against probably one of the only british historians (Kamen) who has actually done academic work both in england and spain, and has formed multiple thesis out of this decades long investigation is ... well.

The inquisition in latin america had chapter of its own, and it mainly acted against foreig preachers and protestants, for example in lima, where executions could be counted with the hands in their 300 years of history here. But what really throws off is the idea that the inquisitions "suported the casta system and further abuses of the natives" wich really tells what bias he has. The "casta system " is a meme, it didnt happen, mostly, and is an anglo aplication of their understanding of european-native relations, like the british in india. What happened in america, at least in the viceroyalty of Peru, for example, was that what primed was nobility and rank and not "race". Most native nobles were well above most white spanish, be them rich or not, and almost always above criollos, wich made them extremely jealous of them in many cases, and was, in no small part, what led to the horrible treatment by the newly independant nations of the native population, ocne they casted off spanish overlordship. The only "peninsular" nobles who were really on top where the onces from castille, but they were on top of everyone, be it lords from mexico, peru, sicily, aragon, or anywhere else really, this was due to the nature of feudalism . To boot, spanish peasants were arguably worse off than native ones in america, as such, there is absolutely no proof of any sort of aplication of the supoused "casta system", anywhere, at best the popular paints that we have both in mexico and peru serve as attemps at taxnomy for the incredible variation and diversity found in spanish kingdoms.

Fact is, in place like my country, again, the spanish had an administrative and comercial role in a few coastal cities like Lima, and true factual power was held by the native lords torught the core of the country, who were both the economic motor and responsible for keeping the peace on the kingdom, hence the extremely low incidents of revolts trought spanish rule, adn the fact that the spanish never, in thier history, had to send armies to america, it was all american amies, mostly led and made up of the native population.Revolts like the one of Tupa Amaru II (wich was a product of the bourbons reforms and the creation of the viceroyalty of the rio de la plata) were entirely smashed by loyalist natives, and never prospered due to, overall, strong popular support for spain.

[HeAndrRoiz]

Not a single historian cited here is Spanish, they are all English-speaking..

[Alejojojo]

The castes system in Americas was not "truly" a caste system. It was a way to call people of mixed etnicity.... but all were considered Spanish.

[inferno]

To be honest the whole "Casta as an all-powerful colonial system" is also under debate because we see both cases of antagonistic and harmonious ethnic relations across the former Spanish colonies in the Western Hemisphere.