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Spanish Inquisition: Centuries
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The Spanish Inquisition wasn't the first of its kind. The institution of the Inquisition was created by the Pope in the late 12th century, as a way of eliminating religious schism. Before it reared its head in Spain, the "Papal Inquisition" stamped out heresy in various European locales, mostly in southern France and northern Italy.
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The organization of the Spanish Inquisition differed markedly from its Roman predecessor. The former, with its emphasis upon centralization and royal control, reflected the emergence of the nation-state and the responsibility the monarchy now assumed to guarantee religious orthodoxy. Thus the Grand Inquisitor was appointed by the king and answerable to him, with only the nominal approval of the pope. The Inquisitor in turn appointed the five members of the High Council over which he presided; this body, with its swarm of consultants and clerical staff, exercised ultimate power within the Inquisition's competence. It decided all disputed questions and heard all appeals from the lower inquisitorial courts, which by the middle of the sixteenth century numbered nineteen scattered across Spain and several more in Spanish-occupied territories in Italy and America. Without the permission of the High Council no priest or nobleman could be imprisoned.
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[One] thing to note is that the Spanish Inquisition, in a wrong way, may have saved some lives. In many European countries in the 16th century, religious wars were the cause of tens of thousands of deaths. But in Spain, there was political and religious unity as a result of the Inquisition, and there was no such war.
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No institution in Western history has so fearful a reputation as the Spanish Inquisition. In the sixteenth century a Jewish writer referred to it as “a wild monster of such terrible mien that all of Europe trembles at the mere mention of its name.” Every nation opposed it during the period of its greatest influence.
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