The Inquisitions were run by both civil and church authorities, which were used as a way for the Spanish rulers to unify the country into a strong nation. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella established the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, along with a reluctant approval of Pope Sixtus IV. Entirely controlled by the Spanish kings, the pope barely had a grip on the Inquisition, the only thing that he had control of, was naming who the inquisitor general was. The entire purpose of the Inquisition was to unify and organize the country by punishing, or trying to convert any "non-believers" like the Jewish, Muslims, Pagans, Moors, and any others. Any heresy was intolerable for the Catholics.

After someone was accused of a heresy or other crimes, a court would examine the evidence that they were given, and they would be the judges of whether or not the person was faithful to the Catholic religion, or even considered an enemy. In the

The Catholics themselves did none of the torturing, considering they thought it was wrong to perform it on someone. So rather then doing the torture themselves, this is mainly where the civil authorities came into play. The Catholics would accuse men and women of their sins, and when they wanted something to be done about it, they would let the government take over with the torture, and other means of "punishment".

People who were accused were almost always found guilty, especially since they were considered as guilty right from the beginning, the reason being, was because the person who was accused did not have the right to counsel, let alone the right to face or question his or her accuser, they didn't even have the right to know who had accused them, therefore they could not cross-examine the accusations, and thus often had a hard time convincing the judge that they did not commit these crimes. These kinds of trials happened far too often, because men, who wanted the position of power that another man held, could simply accuse the man of higher power of heresy, or other things, and they could gain a position of power.

It is documented, that anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 people, male and female were executed during the 350 years of life that the Spanish Inquisition lived. This was astonishingly low, compared to the 150,000 females that were burned at the stake in other parts of Europe, like Poland (15,000+), France (5,000+), England (1,000), Scotland (1,400), and other places, during the same centuries. Keep in mind though, that these numbers aren't even the total amount of females executed in these countries. Those numbers only represent the number of Pagans, and/or witches that were executed. The amount of women that were killed in these trials seems insanely high, especially when compared to the amount of f

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