How Revenue May Have Been the Motivating Factor Behind the Spanish Inquisition

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" Or so the famous Monty Python sketch would have us believe. In fact, many people expected the Spanish Inquisition, or at least were not surprised when the inquisitors showed up. Of course, it is important to keep in mind that the Spanish were not the only Inquisitors. Inquisitions could be found throughout Europe, beginning at the local level and expanding upward to national levels. The primary goal of the Spanish Inquisition and its brethren was to root out heretics and glorify the word of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Mmm-hmm, but as with all things related to the Catholic Church, the real motivation behind the Spanish Inquisition may not be quite so black and white.

One aspect of being the victim of the Inquisition that is often overlooked is that those who were found to be heretics would have their property confiscated. Records detailing just how much property was confiscated from convicted heretics and handed over to the Vatican are rather difficult to come by. Equally difficult is the task of finding out just how much money all the property was worth.

One aspect of the Inquisition that is known is that how the money made off the sale of the property was split. A third of the money would go directly to the Vatican while the other two thirds were split equally between the Inquisitor at the local level and the surrounding authorities. Of course, with all that money just lying around, sometimes the local inquisitors and the local authorities got it into their head that they could see a healthy payday by perhaps not handing over everything to the Catholic Church. The Vatican has always played hardball when it comes to getting money it thinks it deserves and it was certainly not unknown for the Pope to launch his army outward against the local inquisitors and authorities to ensure the Church got its fair share.

With all that money to be found just by concluding that one was a heretic, you can rest assured that many who expected the Spanish Inquisition were overwrought with fear. After all, the terms under which a suspected heretic could be found guilty and thereby be forced to hand over his property were pretty elastic. For instance, the alleged heretic was considered to be guilty from the moment of suspicion; the burden of proof that he was not a heretic fell upon him. Another pretty cool tool for the Inquisition was that they were not required to provide any details of the accusations made against the supposed heretic to the heretic. The accused were not defended by lawyers since by definition that would mean that the lawyer was defending heresy and that was most certainly a no-no. Then, of course, there was the torture.

Oh, was there the torture!

All those who cry out that Islam is a religion of hatred and Christianity is a religion of peace would do well to read some accounts of the genuinely malevolent and imaginatively depraved methods of torture created and engaged in by the Catholic Church. Yes, true, they were searching for heretics to keep their sweet religion pure. But a few more coins in the coffers of the Catholic Church were perhaps not the least reason why the Inquisition was so intense and lasted so long.