Portuguese Inquisition
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The Portuguese Inquisition was formally established in Portugal in 1536 at the request of the King of Portugal, João III. Manuel I had asked for the installation of the Inquisition in 1515, but was only after his death that the pope acquiesced. It was a Portuguese analogue of the more famous Spanish Inquisition. However, many place the actual beginning of the Portuguese Inquisition during the year of 1497, when many Jews were expelled from Portugal and others were forcibly converted to Catholicism. Like in Spain, the major target of the Portuguese Inquisition were the Sephardic Jews that had been expelled from Spain in 1492 (see Alhambra decree); after 1492 many of these Spanish Jews left Spain for Portugal but were eventually targeted there as well.
As in Spain, the Inquisition was put under the authority of the King. It was headed by a Grand Inquisitor, or General Inquisitor, named by the Pope but selected by the king, and always from within the royal family. The Grand Inquisitor would later nominate other inquisitors. In Portugal, the first Grand Inquisitor was Cardinal Henry, who would later become King. There were Courts of the Inquisition in Lisbon, Coimbra, and Évora
It held its first auto da fé in Portugal in 1540. Like the Spanish Inquisition, it concentrated its efforts on rooting out converts from other faiths (overwhelmingly Judaism) who did not adhere to the strictures of Catholic orthodoxy; like in Spain, the Portuguese inquisitors mostly targeted the Jewish "New Christians," "conversos," or "marranos." The Portuguese Inquisition expanded its scope of operations from Portugal to Portugal's colonial possessions, including Brazil, Cape Verde, and Goa, where it continued as a religious court, investigating and trying cases of breaches of the tenets of orthodox Roman Catholicism until 1821.
The activity of the courts was extended to book censure, divination, witchcraft and bigamy under João III. Book censure proved to have a strong influence in Portuguese cultural evolution, keeping the country uninformed and culturally backward. Originally oriented for a religious action, the Inquisition had an influence in almost every aspect of Portuguese society: politically, culturally and socially.
In Portugal, the inquisitors excommunicated King João IV in 1656, after his death. The king's corpse was pulled from his coffin as it lay in the cathedral, undressed, and cast on the ground. After excommunicating the cadaver, the inquisitiors pronounced absolution, had the corpse replaced in the coffin, and left.
The Goa Inquisition, another inquisition rife with antisemitism and antihinduism that mostly targeted Jews and Hindus, was established in Goa in 1560 by Aleixo Dias Falcão and Francisco Marques, who occupied the palace of the Sabaio Adil Khan.
[edit] See also
- Judeo-Portuguese
- Sephardic Jews
- Ladino
- Sebastião de Melo, Marquis of Pombal
- Lusophobia
- History of the Jews in the Netherlands
- History of the Jews in Latin America
- History of the Jews in England
[edit] References
- A. Herculano, “História da Origem e Estabelecimento da Inquisição em Portugal,” (English translation, 1926).
[edit] External links
Categories: Articles to be expanded since March 2007 | All articles to be expanded | 1536 establishments | Christian history | History of Portugal | Portuguese Inquisition | Religious persecution | Religion and violence | Antisemitism | Jewish Portuguese history | Judaism in Portugal | Sephardi Jews topics | Christian and Jewish interfaith topics
