Spanish Inquisition

Spanish Inquisition

  • Submitted By: 135330
  • Date Submitted: 01/26/2014 10:13 AM
  • Category: Religion
  • Words: 341
  • Page: 2
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Torture and Punishment of the Spanish Inquisition
The Spanish inquisition began in the 15th century in Europe. At the time the Catholic Church had incredible political and religious power. In order for the church to maintain their power they had to put an end the heretics. Therefore, the inquisition began. The most memorable part about it were the many torture devices used to receive a confession from the heretics.
In order for the catholic torturers to get a confession, they used many methods of torture such as starvation and being forced to consume large amounts of fluids. Sometimes burning heaps of coal were put on the bodies of the accused. However, these methods did not always work so other forms of punishment would have been used like the strappado.
The strappado was a type of torture where the victim was held in the air by a rope that was tied to their hands which are placed behind their back. This could cause one’s arms to become dislocated. Sometimes while the person was hanging in the air, the torturers would perform a series of drops from the suspended height in which the person was hanging from. The repetition of these drops could cause broken shoulders. Another form of torture was the rack.
The rack consisted of a long wooden rectangular frame. It was slightly raised from the ground and had rollers at both end. The victim’s feet were chained to one of the rollers and their hands to the other. A handle and ratchet were used to increase the tension on the chains. When the tension was increased, it would slowly cause one’s joints to dislocate which brought about tremendous pain.
These are only a handful of the forms of torture used during the Spanish inquisition. Thankfully, now in days it would be against the law to perform these acts.












Works Cited
"How the Spanish Inquisition Worked." HowStuffWorks. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
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