File:Tomás_de_Torquemada.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
Tomás de Torquemada
Sign in to saveAlso known as Tomas de Torquemada, Torquemada, Thomas de Torquemada
Grand Inquisitor of Spain (1420-1498)
Tomás de Torquemada was the head of the Spanish Inquisition during the late 1400s, a period when the Catholic Church investigated and punished heresy in Spain. He is historically significant and controversial because he oversaw the Inquisition during a time of intense religious persecution, making him a pivotal but deeply divisive figure in European history.
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Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Tomás
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Kingdom of Castile
- Place of birth
- Valladolid
- Place of death
- Ávila
- Occupation
- friar
- Position held
- confessor
- Educated at
- University of Salamanca
- Languages spoken
- Latin
- Religion
- Catholic Church
- Image
- Tomás de Torquemada.jpg
- Religious order
- Dominican Order
Show 8 more facts
- date of death
- 1498-09-16
- date of birth
- 1420-10-14
- described by source
- Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition
- Commons category
- Tomás de Torquemada
- name in native language
- Tomás de Torquemada
- relative
- Juan de Torquemada
- on focus list of Wikimedia project
- Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
- P12749
- flag of Morocco
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
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Encyclopedic overview
Tomás de Torquemada OP (14 October 1420 – 16 September 1498), anglicized as Thomas of Torquemada, was a Spanish Dominican friar and the first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. In that role, he led a group of ecclesiastical prelates created in 1478 to uphold Catholic religious orthodoxy within the newly formed union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon, presently known as the Kingdom of Spain.
In part because of persecution, Muslims and Jews in Castile and Aragon at that time found it socially, politically, and economically advantageous to convert to Catholicism (becoming what were known as conversos, moriscos, and marranos). The existence of superficial converts from Judaism was perceived by the Catholic Monarchs as a threat to the religious and social life in their realms. This led Torquemada to be one of the chief supporters of the Alhambra Decree, which expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Tomás de Torquemada” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.