The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (Spanish: Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición) was authorized by Pope Sixtus IV in 1478 and the first inquisitors, Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martín, were appointed by the future Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, in 1480. Although its stated aim was to maintain Christian orthodoxy, it became an effective instrument of state power by replacing the Medieval Inquisition, which was under Papal control.
Over the course of the Inquisition, the Inquisition prosecuted an estimated 150,000 people for various offences. Of these, an estimated 3,000–5,000 were relaxed to the state for execution, particularly in the initial 50 years, mostly by burning at the stake. Other punishments included penance and public flogging, exile, enslavement on galleys, and prison terms ranging from several years to life imprisonment. According to Joseph Pérez an important aspect of many of these punishments was the profit motive confiscation of all the victims' property.
The Inquisition was originally intended primarily to identify heretics among those who converted from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism. The regulation of the faith of newly converted Catholics intensified following the royal decrees issued in 1492 and 1502 ordering Jews and Muslims to either convert to Catholicism, leave Castile or face death. Hundreds of thousands of forced conversions, torture and executions, the persecution of conversos and moriscos, and the mass expulsions of Jews and Muslims from Spain all followed. An estimated 40,000–100,000 Jews were expelled in 1492. Conversos were subjected to blood purity statutes (limpieza de sangre), which introduced racially-based discrimination and antisemitism, lasting into the 19th and 20th centuries.
The inquisition expanded to other domains under the Spanish Crown, including Southern Italy and the Americas, while also targeting those accused of alumbradismo, Protestantism, witchcraft, blasphemy, bigamy, sodomy, and Freemasonry. A notable feature was the auto-da-fe, where the accused were paraded, sentences read, and confessions made, after which the guilty were turned over to civil authorities for the execution of sentences.
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Background
Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in 313 with the Edict of Milan. Persecuted under previous emperors, the new religion persecuted heterodox beliefs - Arianism, Manichaeism, Gnosticism, Adamites, Donatists, Pelagians, and Priscillianists In 380 Emperor Theodosius I established Nicene Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire. It condemned other Christian creeds as heresies and approved their repression. In 438, under Emperor Theodosius II, Codex Theodosianus (Theodosian Code) provided for property confiscation and execution for heretics.
Following the conversion of Spain's Visigoth royal family to Catholicism in 587, the situation for Jews deteriorated as the monarchy and church aligned to consolidate the realm under the new religion. The Church's Councils of Toledo imposed restrictions, including prohibitions on intermarriage and holding office, culminating in King Sisebut's 613 decree demanding conversion or expulsion, which led many Jews to flee or convert. Despite brief periods of tolerance, subsequent rulers and church councils intensified persecution, banning all Jewish rites, forcing baptisms, seizing property, enslaving Jews (after accusations of conspiracy in 694), taking children away from Jewish parents, and imposing severe economic hardships. This oppression alienated the Jewish population, causing some to welcome the Muslim invasion in 711.
While Muslims in the Holy Land were the primary targets of the Crusades, other perceived enemies of Christianity soon became targets. In 1184 Pope Lucius III created the Episcopal Inquisition to combat Catharism in southern France. Heretics were to be handed over to secular authorities for punishment, have their property seized, and face excommunication. When this failed to stem the heresy, Pope Innocent III called forth the Albigensian Crusade. The Crusaders killed 200,000 to 1,000,000 Cathars, perpetrated massacres (e.g. at Béziers), and burned hundreds at the stake. It was the start of a centralization in the fight against heresy, The Dominican Order was established to preach against the heresy, later serving as inquisitor throughout Europe. In 1252 Pope Innocent IV issued the bull Ad extirpanda, authorizing inquisitors to use torture against heretics.
European Jews became targets, leading to massacres and expulsions. While papal bulls sought to shield Jews from violence, starting in the twelfth century papal bulls also prohibited Jews from holding public office, required them to wear distinctive badges, ordered the burning of the Talmud, limited their employment, confined Jews to ghettos, and expelled them from the Papal States, along with other restrictions aimed at subordinating Jews. In 1231 Pope Gregory IX expanded the Papal Inquisition to Aragon. Cathars, Jewish converts and others deemed heretics were targeted, with trials, imprisonments and executions. Books by Spanish friars attacked Jews and Muslims. In Castile the Church Synod of Zamora protested rights granted Jews by the king. Calls for restrictions on Spanish Jews were made by Popes and Cortes (assemblies of the Church, nobles and cities). Some kings protected Jews, since they benefited from Jews' taxes, and Jews serving as courtiers and tax collectors. Others, like Alfonso X, Sancho IV and Henry II, restricted Jews and exploited anti-Jewish sentiment for political gain.
The Shepherds' Crusade of 1320, started to help reconquer Spain from the Muslims, instead killed hundreds of Jews in France and Spain. In 1328, mobs inflamed by the sermons of Franciscan preacher Pedro Olligoyen massacred several Jewish communities in Navarre. Years of virulent anti-Jewish preaching by Ferrand Martínez, Archdeacon of Ecija, climaxed in the massacres of 1391 when riots broke out in Seville, Barcelona, Valencia, Toledo, Mallorca and elsewhere, killing thousands of Jews. To save themselves, some fled, mainly to North Africa, while an estimated 100,000, or one half of all Spanish Jews, converted to Catholicism. Following anti-Jewish riots in 1435 in Mallorca, Papal Inquisitor Antonio Murta played a key role in forced conversions of local Jews. The converts were called conversos. While mostly poor or of modest means, some conversos became successful in government and commerce, drawing resentment. Conversos were also suspected of continuing to practice Judaism in secret. Periods of stress, food shortages, plague and inflation led to attacks on conversos—in 1449 in Toledo (conversos were tortured and burned alive there), in 1462 in Carmona, again in Toledo in 1467, etc. In Cordoba in 1473 mobs killed conversos, regardless of sex and age, burning and looting their homes.
Queen Isabella was convinced of the existence of Crypto-Judaism among Andalusian conversos during her stay in Seville between 1477 and 1478. A report, produced by Pedro González de Mendoza, Archbishop of Seville, and by the Dominican Tomás de Torquemada, confessor to Ferdinand and Isabella, corroborated this assertion. The Catholic monarchs requested a papal bull to establish an inquisition in Spain. In 1478 Pope Sixtus IV granted the bull Exigit sincerae devotionis affectus, to deal with those who had been baptized, but "revert to the rites and customs of the Jews and to keep the dogmas and precepts of the Jewish superstition and perfidy. ... Not only do they themselves persist in their own blindness, but also some who are born of them and some who associate with them are poisoned by their perfidy." To "expel this perfidy", "to convert the infidels to the proper faith", and punish all those "guilty of such crimes along with their harborers and followers," the bull permitted the monarchs to select and appoint three bishops or priests to act as inquisitors.
The first two inquisitors, the Dominicans Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martín were named two years later, on 27 September 1480. The first auto de fé execution was held in Seville on 6 February 1481: six people were burned alive. Thousands of conversos fled in terror, depopulating large parts of the country, hurting commerce. Government revenues declined, but the Queen was interested in "the purity of her lands", stating, per the chronicler Hernando del Pulgar, "the essential thing was to cleanse the country of that sin of heresy".
The scale of the operations required more resources. Accordingly, in February 1481, Pope Sixtus IV appointed seven more inquisitors, all Dominican friars. One of them was Tomás de Torquemada. The Inquisition grew rapidly in the Kingdom of Castile. By 1492, tribunals existed in eight Castilian cities: Ávila, Córdoba, Jaén, Medina del Campo, Segovia, Sigüenza, Toledo, and Valladolid. In 1482 Ferdinand sought to take over the existing Papal Inquisition in Aragon, which led to resistance since it infringed on local rights. Relatives and others complained of the brutality to the Pope, who wanted to maintain control of the inquisition.
On 18 April 1482, Pope Sixtus IV promulgated what historian Henry Charles Lea called "the most extraordinary bull in the history of the Inquisition," "Ad Perpetuam Rei memoriam", affirming that:
... in Aragon, Valencia, Mallorca and Catalonia the Inquisition has for some time been moved not by zeal for the faith and the salvation of souls, but by lust for wealth, and that many true and faithful Christians, on the testimony of enemies, rivals, slaves and other lower and even less proper persons, have without any legitimate proof been thrust into secular prisons, tortured and condemned as relapsed heretics, deprived of their goods and property and handed over to the secular arm to be executed, to the peril of souls, setting a pernicious example, and causing disgust to many.Historian Henry Charles Lea wrote that the Pope sought to treat heresy like as other crimes. According to A History of the Jewish People,In 1482 the pope was still trying to maintain control over the Inquisition and to gain acceptance for his own attitude towards the New Christians which was generally more moderate than that of the Inquisition and the local rulers. Outraged, Ferdinand feigned doubt about the bull's veracity, arguing that no sensible pope would have published such a document. He wrote the pope on 13 May 1482, saying: "Take care therefore not to let the matter go further, and to revoke any concessions and entrust us with the care of this question." The Pope suspended the bull, then switched to full cooperation, by issuing a new bull on October 17, 1483, with which he appointed Torquemada Inquisitor General of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia, thus uniting all Spanish activity under a single leader. Setting to work immediately, they burned the first converses at the stake in Aragon in 1484. Opposition continued in Aragon and Catalonia, which sought to maintain local control. Pope Innocent VIII then resolved the issue by withdrawing all papal inquisitors from Aragon and Catalonia, thus relinquishing full control to Torquemada, specifying that all appeals be addressed by Torquemada.
The Spanish Inquisition expanded to other territories under the Spanish Crown – Southern Italy, including Sicily and Sardinia, and Central and South America, with tribunals in Lima, Peru, Mexico City and Cartagena (present-day Colombia).
Tomás de Torquemada established Inquisition procedures in 1484, creating a 28-article code, Compilación de las instrucciones del oficio de la Santa Inquisición, based on Nicholas Eymerich's Directorium Inquisitorum. That code remained largely unchanged for over three centuries. The state deemed heresy to be treason, punishable by death. Courts announced a 30-day grace period for self-confessions and denunciations, requiring individuals to report themselves and others, including relatives and friends, for attending Jewish prayer meetings. Inquisitors collected accusations from neighbors. Signs of crypto-Judaism included no chimney smoke on Saturdays, buying many vegetables before Passover, or purchasing meat from a converted butcher. Courts presumed the accused guilty, withholding accusers' identities. Trials aimed to extract confessions, often using water torture, the rack, or suspending individuals by their wrists with weights tied to their feet, repeatedly raising and dropping them.
Confessions occurred publicly at autos-da-fé. Legal expert Francisco Peña stated in 1578 that trials and executions aimed to ensure public good and instill fear, requiring public sentencing "for education and to terrify". These ceremonies rivaled bullfights in popularity. In 1680, King Charles II marked his marriage with an auto-da-fé in Madrid, drawing 50,000 spectators and sentencing 118 individuals, mostly Jewish conversos, to severe penalties, including execution by burning. Confessed individuals faced punishments like penance, public flogging, exile, or servitude as galley slaves, common in the 16th century. Others received prison sentences, from years to life, with near universal property confiscation, even for repentant heretics.
Between 1536 and 1543, eight courts seized 87 million maravedis from victims. Reconciled individuals could not hold public or church positions, nor work as tax collectors, pharmacists, or doctors, with restrictions extending to their descendants. Non-confessors or relapsed individuals faced death.
The Inquisition peaked from 1480 to 1530, with estimates of 2,000 executions, mostly Jewish conversos. In Valencia, 91.6% of those judged between 1484 and 1530 were of Jewish origin, and 99.3% in Barcelona from 1484 to 1505. From 1531 to 1560, converso trials dropped to 3%. Persecutions rose again after discovering crypto-Jews in Quintanar de la Orden in 1588 and denunciations increased in the 1590s.
In the early 17th century, some conversos returned from Portugal, escaping its Inquisition. Spanish Inquisitor General Antonio Zapata and others reported "strong evidence of Judaism", prompting more trials, including financiers and artisans. The 1680 Madrid auto-da-fé sentenced 118, with 21, mostly immigrant Jewish conversos, executed. Dominican Thomas Navarro's sermon blamed Jews for denying Christ, using medieval anti-Jewish arguments and racist terms like "stubborn nation" and "perfidious", tied to blood purity concepts.
In 1691, Mallorca's autos-da-fé burned 37 chuetas, or local conversos, alive. Accusations of conversos declined in the 18th century. Manuel Santiago Vivar, tried in Córdoba in 1818, was the last prosecuted for crypto-Judaism.
Expulsion of Jews and Jewish conversos
The Spanish Inquisition aimed to prevent conversos from practicing Judaism. Torquemada persuaded the monarchs that unbaptized Jews remained a threat, leading to the 1492 Alhambra Decree expelling all Jews. The decree stated that Christian-Jewish interactions caused "great harm" to Christians through contact and communication. It ordered all Jews, regardless of age, to leave the kingdom and never return, under penalty of death and property confiscation. Assisting or sheltering Jews incurred severe penalties, including loss of possessions and titles.
Estimates of expelled Jews vary. Early accounts by Juan de Mariana speaks of 800,000 people, and Don Isaac Abravanel claimed 300,000, while modern estimates, based on tax returns and population data, suggest 80,000 Jews and 200,000 conversos lived in Spain, with about 40,000 emigrating. Joseph Pérez estimates 50,000 to 100,000 expelled.
Expelled Jews, known as Sephardic Jews, from Castile mainly fled to Portugal, where forced conversion occurred in 1497, followed by expulsions under the Portuguese Inquisition. Others, called Megorashim ("expelled" in Hebrew), migrated to Morocco and North Africa. Jews from Aragon often went to Italy, not Muslim lands. Sicily, under Spanish rule, with 25,000–37,000 Jews, also faced expulsions in 1492. After Spain annexed Naples, Apulia and Calabria (1510–1535), Jews there were expelled. Many settled in the Ottoman Empire, particularly Thessaloniki, where expellees built synagogues named after Castile, Aragon, and Catalonia in 1492–1493, with three more added by 1502 for those expelled from Spanish-controlled Sicily, Apulia, and Calabria.
Most conversos assimilated into Catholic culture, but a minority secretly practiced Judaism, gradually migrating to Europe, North Africa, and the Ottoman Empire, often joining existing Sephardic communities. Persecution of conversos peaked in 1530, followed by blood purity laws (limpieza de sangre), introducing racial discrimination and antisemitism that persisted into the 19th and 20th centuries. Jews could return to Spain in 1868 under a new constitutional monarchy that allowed religious diversity, but the expulsion decree remained until 1968, limiting communal Jewish practice.
Expulsion of Muslim conversos
The Inquisition targeted Moriscos, converts from Islam, for suspected secret practice of their former faith. A decree on 14 February 1502 forced Muslims in Granada to convert to Christianity or face expulsion. In the Crown of Aragon, most Muslims faced this choice after the Revolt of the Brotherhoods (1519–1523). Expulsion enforcement varied, often ignored in interior and northern regions where Moriscos, protected by locals, had coexisted for over five centuries. Moriscos were suspected of aiding Barbary pirates backed by Spain's enemy, the Ottoman Empire, regularly raided the coast.
The War of the Alpujarras (1568–1571), a Muslim and Morisco uprising in Granada anticipating Ottoman support, led to the forced dispersal of about half the region's Moriscos across Castile and Andalusia, heightening Spanish authorities' suspicions. Many Moriscos guarded their domestic privacy, fueling suspicions of secret Islamic practices. Unlike crypto-Jews, Moriscos initially faced evangelization rather than harsh persecution. Absent records, the Inquisition deemed all Moors baptized, thus Moriscos, subject to its authority. A 1526 decree allowed 40 years of religious instruction before prosecution. Fifty Moriscos were executed before clarification. Moriscos, often poor, rural, Arabic-speaking laborers, received limited Church education efforts. In Valencia and Aragon, noble jurisdiction protected many Moriscos, as persecution threatened the economy.
Late in Philip II's reign, tensions escalated. The 1568–1570 Morisco Revolt in Granada faced harsh suppression, and the Inquisition intensified focus on Moriscos. From 1560 to 1571, Moriscos comprised 82% of Granada's tribunal cases, dominating tribunals in Zaragoza and Valencia. They faced less severe treatment than Judaizing conversos or Protestants, with fewer executions. In 1609, King Philip III, advised by the Duke of Lerma and Archbishop Juan de Ribera, ordered the Moriscos' expulsion. Ribera cited Old Testament texts urging the destruction of God's enemies to justify the decree. The edict mandated Moriscos leave under penalty of death and confiscation, taking only what they could carry, without money, bullion, jewels, or bills of exchange. Estimates suggest 300,000 Moriscos, or 4% of Spain's population, were expelled, though Trevor J. Dadson argues the impact was less severe in many regions. Valencia, with high ethnic tensions, suffered economic collapse and depopulation.
Most expelled Moriscos settled in the Maghreb or Barbary Coast. Those avoiding expulsion or returning assimilated into the dominant culture. At the Inquisition's peak, Morisco cases comprised under 10% of trials. In 1621, Philip IV ordered a halt to harsh measures against Moriscos. In 1628, the Council of the Supreme Inquisition instructed Seville inquisitors to prosecute expelled Moriscos only for significant disturbances. The last major prosecution for crypto-Islamic practices occurred in Granada in 1727, with most receiving light sentences. By the late 18th century, indigenous Islamic practices had ceased in Spain.
Blood purity
During the Spanish Inquisition, limpieza de sangre (blood purity statutes) targeted Jewish and Muslim converts to Christianity, introducing race-based discrimination and antisemitism. Toledo enacted the first statute in 1449 after anti-converso riots and killings. That statute barred conversos or those with converted parents or grandparents from holding public or private office or testifying in court. In 1496, Pope Alexander VI approved a purity statute for the Hieronymites. Religious and military orders, guilds, and other groups added bylaws requiring proof of "clean blood." Converso families faced discrimination or resorted to bribing officials and forging documents to claim Christian ancestry.
By 1530, Inquisition tribunals required towns to maintain genealogy registers, labeling married men and their families as Old Christians or conversos, marking them as "pure" or "impure." Investigations and trials followed if individuals lacked proof of pure lineage or faced suspicion of lying. By the 16th century, these statutes systematically excluded conversos from Church and state roles, fostering fear, hostile witnesses, and perjury. A single Jewish ancestor could cost a family everything, laying the groundwork for race-based antisemitism.
These statutes hindered Spaniards emigrating to the Americas, as proof of no recent Muslim or Jewish ancestry was required for travel to the Spanish Empire. In 1593, the Jesuits adopted the Decree de genere, barring those with any Jewish or Muslim ancestry, however distant, from joining the Society of Jesus, applying Spain's blood purity principle globally. Blood purity tests declined by the 18th century, but persisted into the 19th century in some areas. In Mallorca, no Xueta (descendants of Mallorcan Jewish conversos) priests could perform Mass in a cathedral until the 1960s.
Christian heretics
Protestantism
The Spanish Inquisition rarely targeted Protestants due to their limited presence. It labeled anyone offending the Church as "Lutheran." Early trials focused on the Alumbrados, a mystical sect in Guadalajara and Valladolid, leading to long prison sentences but no executions. These cases prompted the Inquisition to pursue intellectuals and clerics influenced by Erasmian ideas, diverging from orthodoxy. Charles I and Philip II admired Erasmus.
From 1558 to 1562, under Philip II, the Inquisition prosecuted Protestant communities in Valladolid and Seville, totaling about 120 people. That period saw heightened Inquisition activity, with several autos de fe, some attended by royalty, resulting in about 100 executions. Henry Kamen notes that from 1559 to 1566, Spain executed around 100 for heresy, compared to twice as many in England under Mary Tudor, three times as many in France, and ten times as many in the Low Countries. These mid-century autos de fe nearly eliminated Spanish Protestantism, a small movement initially.
After 1562, repression lessened, though trials continued. In the late 16th century, about 200 Spaniards faced Protestantism accusations. Most were not actual Protestants; inquisitors or accusers marked irreligious acts, drunken mockery, or anticlerical comments as "Lutheran." Disrespecting church images or eating meat on forbidden days also indicated heresy. Roughly 12 Spaniards were burned for Protestantism during that time.
The Inquisition often treated Protestantism as a sign of foreign influence or political disloyalty rather than a religious issue.
Orthodox Christianity
Even though the Inquisition had theoretical permission to investigate Orthodox schismatics, it rarely did. No major war came between Spain and any Orthodox country, lacking reasons to do so. One casualty was tortured by "Jesuits" (though most likely Franciscans) who administered the Spanish Inquisition in North America, according to authorities within the Eastern Orthodox Church: St. Peter the Aleut. Even that single report has various inaccuracies that make it problematic, and confirmation in the Inquisitorial archives.
Freemasonry
The Roman Catholic Church has regarded Freemasonry as heretical since about 1738; the suspicion of Freemasonry was potentially a capital offence. Spanish Inquisition records reveal two prosecutions in Spain and only a few more throughout the Spanish Empire. In 1815, Francisco Javier de Mier y Campillo, the Inquisitor General of the Spanish Inquisition and the Bishop of Almería, suppressed Freemasonry and denounced the lodges as "societies which lead to atheism, to sedition and to all errors and crimes." He then instituted a purge during which Spaniards could be arrested on the charge of being "suspected of Freemasonry".
Censorship
As part of the Counter-Reformation, the Spanish Inquisition issued "Indexes" of prohibited books to curb heretical ideas. Other places in Europe had similar lists a decade before the Inquisition's first, published in 1551, a reprint of the 1550 University of Leuven Index. Further Spanish Indexes appeared in 1559, 1583, 1612, 1632, and 1640. The 1559 Index spanned 72 pages, while the 1667 Novus Index Prohibitorum et Expurgatorum reached 1300 pages. The Catholic Church's Index Librorum Prohibitorum banned thousands of books from 1560 to 1966.
Some notable Spanish literature works, mostly plays and religious texts, appeared in the Indexes. Several religious writers, now considered saints, had works listed. In early modern Spain, books required prepublication approval from secular and religious authorities, sometimes with modifications. Even approved texts faced later censorship, occasionally decades after publication. As Catholic theology evolved, some texts were removed from the Index. Initially, inclusion meant total prohibition, but this proved impractical and counterproductive for educating clergy. Inquisition officials began expurgating texts by blotting out specific words or passages, allowing these versions to circulate. Some historians argue that strict control was unenforceable, permitting more cultural freedom than commonly thought. Irving Leonard revealed that romances like Amadis of Gaul reached the New World despite royal bans, with Inquisition approval. In the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment led to more licenses for possessing prohibited texts.
The Inquisition's censorship did not halt the Siglo de Oro, though many major authors, including Bartolomé Torres Naharro, Juan del Enzina, Jorge de Montemayor, Juan de Valdés, Lope de Vega, the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes, and Hernando del Castillo's Cancionero General, appeared on the Index. La Celestina faced expurgation in 1632 and a full ban in 1790. Non-Spanish authors like Ovid, Dante, Rabelais, Ariosto, Machiavelli, Erasmus, Jean Bodin, Valentine Naibod, and Tomás Moro were prohibited. A prominent case involved Fray Luis de León, a converso humanist and religious writer, imprisoned from 1572 to 1576 for translating the Song of Songs from Hebrew.
The Inquisition stifled free and scientific thought. One exiled Spaniard lamented, "Our country is a land of pride and envy ... barbarism; one cannot produce culture without suspicion of heresy, error, and Judaism". While Europe embraced the Enlightenment, Spain stagnated, though this view is debated.
Censorship proved ineffective, as banned books circulated widely. The Inquisition rarely targeted scientists, and few scientific works appeared on the Index. Spain enjoyed more political freedom than other absolute monarchies from the 16th to 18th centuries, influenced by hermeticist religious ideas and early enlightened absolutism. The Index aimed to protect laypeople from misinterpreting symbolic or complex texts, not to condemn the works outright. Scholars often accessed these books freely, and most banned texts, carefully collected by Philip II and Philip III, remain in the Monasterio del Escorial library, accessible to intellectuals and clergy after Philip II's death. The Inquisition rarely intervened, though it occasionally urged the king to limit collecting grimoires or magic-related texts.
Offenses
In 15th-century Spain, no distinction existed between religious and civil law. Breaking a religious law equated to violating tax laws–the Inquisition did not distinguish them. It prosecuted crimes often unnoticed by the public, including domestic offenses, crimes against vulnerable groups, administrative violations, forgeries, organized crime, and offenses against the Crown.
These crimes encompassed sexual and family-related offenses, including rape and sexual violence—which the Inquisition uniquely prosecuted nationwide—bestiality, pedophilia (often overlapping with sodomy), incest, child abuse, neglect, and bigamy. Non-religious offenses included procurement (not prostitution), human trafficking, smuggling, forgery of currency, documents, or signatures, tax fraud, illegal weapons, swindles, disrespect to the Crown or its institutions (including the Inquisition, church, guard, and kings), espionage, conspiracy, and treason.
Non-religious crimes formed a significant portion of Inquisition investigations, though distinguishing them from religious crimes in records is challenging, as no official divide existed. Many crimes fell under the same legal article; for instance, "sodomy" included pedophilia as a subtype, with some data on male homosexuality prosecutions actually reflecting pedophilia convictions. Religious and non-religious crimes, while distinct, were often treated equivalently. Public blasphemy and street swindling, both seen as misleading the public, received similar punishments. Likewise, counterfeiting currency and heretical proselytism, viewed as spreading falsifications, faced death penalties and similar subdivisions. Heresy and material forgeries were treated comparably, suggesting equivalence in the Inquisition's view. Trials were complicated by witnesses or victims adding charges, particularly witchcraft. As with Eleno de Céspedes, such accusations were typically dismissed but often appeared in investigation statistics.
Witchcraft and superstition
The Spanish Inquisition prosecuted witchcraft less intensely than France, Scotland, or Germany. A notable case involved the "witches" of Zugarramurdi in Navarre, persecuted during the Logroño witch trials. An auto de fe in Logroño on 7–8 November 1610 burned six people and another five in effigy. The Inquisition's role in witchcraft cases was limited, with secular authorities retaining jurisdiction over sorcery and witchcraft long after the Inquisition's establishment. The Inquisition generally viewed witchcraft as baseless superstition. After the Logroño trials, Alonso de Salazar Frías, who delivered the Edict of Faith across Navarre, reported to the Suprema that "neither witches nor bewitched existed in a village until they were discussed or written about."
