Wednesday, October 8, 2025

It is the 8^th of October 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I'm your guest host, Sam Leanza Ortiz.

History is full of unexpected twists and turns, and no event was more unexpected than the Spanish Inquisition…. I’ll see myself out. All Monty Python references aside, we turn to this difficult chapter in history today to remember the infamous auto-de-fé at Valladolid on this day in 1559.

The inquisition is one of those events, like the Salem Witch Trials, that is easy to blow out of historical proportion. Of course, to our modern sensibilities, the working out of theological differences in a court of law is unthinkable for many.

The inquisition, far from being a maniacal hunt for anyone a hair out of line, was simply a judicial process used by the papacy and secular governments to combat heresy. The procedure dates back to the twelfth century and was often used not to target individuals but rather to deal with larger movements of perceived heresies, like the Cathars, the Lollards, or the Hussites.

The Spanish Inquisition formally began by papal bull, granted at the monarchy’s request, in 1478, with the first auto-da-fé taking place in 1481. An auto-da-fé was a public ceremony in which the inquisitors proclaimed the sentences of those brought before them. If the sentence was death, the secular authorities carried it out.

By 1478, as Spain was consolidating its political power in the union of the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile, it was also undergoing a consolidation of religious power in its pursuit of confessional unity. Before the Reformation, the primary target of these inquisitors was the sizeable Jewish and Muslim populations, until they were presented with an ultimatum in 1492 of convert or leave.

The new heresy on the block, emerging from the German lands, presented an entirely new target for the inquisitors: Protestants. The historiography, or the history of how historians have talked about something, of the Reformation in Spain has concluded mainly that the Reformation didn't happen at all there.

The Spanish monarchy worked very hard to ensure that was the case. They banned people from traveling abroad for university, controlled the borders rigorously, and published indices of banned books, including vernacular Bibles. The king of Spain during the first generation of the Reformation, Charles V, was a devout Catholic, who, though his attention was divided, managed to leave an administration in Spain that could tentatively handle the Protestant issue.

But the proclamation of the Gospel, as articulated by the Reformers, could not be stopped. Spaniards did convert, but inquisitors hesitated to take these conversions seriously.

By 1559, however, conversions had reached a critical mass that demanded the inquisitors’ attention. Two circles of Protestant believers—one in Valladolid and one in Seville—were discovered, confirming that Protestantism had indeed infiltrated the Spanish population.

The response was swift.  Charles V had died the previous year, leaving his son, Philip II, to manage the kingdom. The first significant auto-da-fé of his reign took place in May 1559, in Valladolid, and fourteen people were killed, with sixteen reconciling to the church. A second occurred in September 1559 in Seville, taking even more lives as twenty-one were executed by the state. Still, on this, October 8^th, in 1559, was a proper event as the inquisitors had waited especially for Philip II to return from the Low Countries to be present at what one chronicler called “this grand festival.”

King Philip had quite a retinue with him, including his son and sister, several French ambassadors, the Archbishop of Seville, and numerous Spanish dukes and counts. As was typical of an auto-da-fé, a sermon was preached that proclaimed the true Roman faith, and then the sentencing began.

In total, twenty-nine people were sentenced, with thirteen going to their deaths and sixteen reconciling with the church. Of the men, rank spanned from imperial nobles to clerics to servants. Nearly half of those killed were women, former nuns who held fast to their Lutheran faith and suffered the heretic’s death of strangulation and burning at the stake.

Of those reconciled, they were condemned to penances, which could include imprisonment, deprivation of property, lashings, or even service on galley ships, which for many was essentially a death sentence.  

The Inquisition would go on for several more centuries, with the last auto-da-fé taking place in Mexico in 1850.

The Spanish Inquisition is a story that is all too familiar with Christians using state power to exact harm, even if not perceived as such. One point of interest here is that the Reformation did in fact make its way to Spain, and in spite of the Inquisition’s attempt to stop the proclamation of the Protestant faith, God’s word could not be stopped. We have their stories to consider, including those who perished in the auto-de-fé of Valladolid on this day in 1559.

The last word for today comes from the daily lectionary, from Mark 11:

²⁰ In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. ²¹ Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!”

²² “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. ²³ “Truly^[a] I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. ²⁴ Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 8^th of October 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

This show has been produced by Christopher Gillespie.

This episode has been written and ready by Sam Leanza Ortiz, who will never pass up on an opportunity to lament that Spanish food isn’t more popular in America, filling in for Dan van Voorhis, who laments that the Spanish siesta hasn’t caught on.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.