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Encyclopaedia Judaica

Persecution of the Jews: The Inquisition of the church against the Jews 1481-1834

How criminal Catholic "Christian" church and the criminal Pope justified anonymous allegations against the Jews and New Christians with torture, degradation, and burning - and confiscation of the property

from: Inquisition; In: Encyclopaedia Judaica 1971, vol. 8

presented by Michael Palomino (2007)

7. The end of the Inquisition in Portugal in 1821 and Spain 1834

<End of the Inquisition in the Peninsula

[No Jews any more in Portugal - abolition of the Inquisition in 1821]

In the second half of the 18th century, the activity of the Inquisition rapidly diminished, partly through the spread of more enlightened ideas, partly through the lack of human material. Judaism especially had been almost entirely extirpated in the larger country and in the more civilized parts of the smaller, largely through the severity of the Inquisition, but in no small part through the wholesale emigration to places of greater liberty abroad. In Portugal, the last public auto-da-fé, and the last in which a Judaizer appeared, took place on Oct. 27, 1765. The Marquês de Pombal was determined to sweep away this with other similar abuses and steadily undermined its authority. The Inquisition revived to some extent after his fall; but early in the next century, after a prolonged period of comparatively harmless inactivity, it was formally abolished (March 31, 1821).

[Abolition of the Inquisition in Spain in 1834]

In Spain the institution was more persistent. Though with diminished activity, it survived with unimpaired authority until the period of the French Revolution. It was abolished by Joseph Bonaparte during his brief reign in 1808, and this action was confirmed after his fall by the liberal Cortes of 1813. The reactionary Ferdinand VII, however, reinstituted it on July 21, 1814 with all of its previous power and authority. Its activity during the succeeding period was not great and it was abolished again by a royal decree during the constitutional revolution on March 9, 1820.

With the counter-revolutionary movement of 1823, however, its powers revived to some extent. As late as July 26, 1826, a Deist schoolmaster (not a Jew, as is commonly stated) was (col. 1389)

hanged and burned in effigy by an episcopal Inquisition, the last victim of the Holy Tribunal in the Peninsula; for, on July 15, 1834, the queen mother, Maria Christina, finally and definitely abolished the Inquisition and all of its powers, after a career of blood which had lasted for three and a half centuries.> (col. 1390)

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