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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)

9. Records about the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal

[Spain: Most documents were destroyed during the abolition - intact archives]

<RECORDS. The records of the Inquisition in Spain and its colonies generally fell a victim to the popular fury at the time of the abolition of the Inquisition. Scattered documents were rescued, however, and are to be found in all the great public libraries of Europe and America, having been largely drawn upon by H. C. Lea in his History of the Inquisition of Spain (4 vols. 1906).

The only sets of archives which have remained substantially complete are those of the tribunals of Valencia, Toledo, and Cuenca, which (together with scattered documents of other tribunals) are mainly to be found in the national archives at Madrid. The latter have been catalogued by M. Gómez del Campillo: they comprise something like 1,500 cases of Judaizers of approximately one-quarter of the whole.

Of the records of the tribunals of Córdoba, Granada, Seville, etc., the only part which is left in a state of virtual completeness is the genealogical section, regarding the *limpieza de sangre, or purity of blood, of persons who applied for office.

[Portugal: Intact Inquisition archives]

The records of the three Portuguese tribunals - Lisbon, Coimbra, (col. 1390)

and Évora - have been brought together in the national archives of the Torre de Tombo, at Lisbon. They comprise about 40,000 cases, sometimes filling whole volumes of more than 1,000 pages each. The majority of these relate to Judaizers. An approximate catalog, listed by the first names, is extant in manuscript.> (col. 1391)

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