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Evidence record

What were the inquisitions?

Every sentence on the exploration belongs to at least one claim below. Each says what kind of statement it is, what it rests on, what the evidence does not establish, and how far it was checked. Nothing here is a score, and none of it is a verdict on a belief or a theory.

Last checked 23 September 2026.

  • Source checked: 31
  • A judgement, not a fact: 11
  • Partly checked: 7
  • Presented as open: 1

If something here is wrong, misquoted, out of date or unfair, write to support@unknownoceans.com and give the claim number, which does not change.

What the question takes for granted

A historical question about institutions, whose answer depends on unusually good records and on keeping the corrected figures apart from both the legend and the apology. It is difficult history: coercion of converts from Judaism and Islam, and of those judged heretics.

  • “The Inquisition” was one institution

    Contested

    The page begins by denying it: a medieval procedure and three early modern tribunals.

  • The death toll can be known

    Open

    Trials can be estimated from the surviving summaries. Executions were read only second-hand and for parts of the period, and the page gives those partial figures with the works they come from rather than a total.

  • A church can repent of its past

    A matter of belief

    The Catholic Church holds that it can ask pardon for its members’ sins; how that relates to its holiness is argued.

How the question is labelled

Claim: The tribunals

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: Inquisitions

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

The question

Claim: Three different institutions across five centuries,

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

The Spanish (1478), Portuguese and Roman (1542, continuing) tribunals, as the opening lists them beside the medieval procedure.

Claim 1 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: a record keeping habit that makes them unusually well documented,

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

What this does not establish

“Unusually” is a comparison with other courts of the period that nothing read makes directly.

Claim 2 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: and a body count that is both smaller than the legend and not small.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Follows from the figures in “The numbers came from the archives”.

Claim 3 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The inquisitions were courts, staffed by clergy, tasked with identifying and punishing heresy.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

The judges were clergy; the tribunals also depended on lay familiars, and executions were carried out by secular authorities.

Claim 4 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: They kept detailed records, which is why historians can say what they did rather than what people said they did.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Claim 5 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The revision that followed those records corrected the numbers and did not make the institution defensible.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

The page’s judgement, argued in “What the revision does and does not do”.

Claim 6 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: There was no single Inquisition.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Inquisition, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8The Spanish Inquisition

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: The Spanish Inquisition is distinguished from the medieval its monarchical constitution and a greater consequent centralization

Claim 7 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: There was a medieval procedure against heresy from the thirteenth century, a Spanish institution from 1478 set up by the crown under a papal bull, a Portuguese one, and a Roman one from 1542 that still exists under a different name.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Inquisition, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8origins

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: In 1233 a rescript of Gregory IX, touching these matters, was sent simultaneously to the bishops of Southern France and to the priors of the Dominican Order.

  • Supports

    Penal accountancy and the Spanish InquisitionIntroduction

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: In 1478, and following pressure from King Fernando, Pope Sixtus IV signed the decree (bula), “Exigit sinceras devotionis affectus”, which founded the Spanish Inquisition and enabled the King to appoint inquisitors

  • Supports

    War and inquisition: repression in early modern SpainTable 1

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Coimbra Inquisition 1567-1631 3,837 59 7%

  • Supports

    Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith: historical noteshistory

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: In 1542, Paul III instituted a commission of six Cardinals with the task of watching over matters of faith ... This Commission, known as the Sacred Roman and Universal Inquisition, was initially a tribunal exclusively for cases of heresy and schism.

  • Supports

    Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith: historical noteshistory

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: In 1965, Paul VI undertook a new reform of the Congregation. The name was changed to the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

  • Supports

    Numeracy of religious minorities in Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition erasection on Portugal

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: King João III finally obtained a papal bull for an Inquisition in Portugal in 1536

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “a Spanish institution from 1478 run by the crown,” Whether the Spanish Inquisition was a royal or an ecclesiastical tribunal is an old argument, which the Catholic Encyclopedia takes up against de Maistre. The founding is not disputed, and the page now says only that.

Claim 8 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The Spanish tribunal was built on the medieval procedure, and the method is recognisable in both: a tribunal, denunciations, interrogation, a record.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Partly checked. Only part of the source could be read. What was not read is listed.

  • Supports

    Procedures and Goals, in The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Inquisitionabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Abstract only, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: This chapter addresses the profound indebtedness of the Spanish Inquisition to its medieval predecessor. Both were grounded in the procedures and priorities of ancient Roman law.

  • Supports

    The long-run effects of religious persecution: Evidence from the Spanish InquisitionHistorical Background

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Trials originated with secret denunciations. ... he or she was arrested, held in special jails, and tried according to a tightly regimented procedure. ... While confessions under torture were not rare

  • Supports

    The long-run effects of religious persecution: Evidence from the Spanish InquisitionData

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Inquisition tribunals produced annual reports with summaries of every case

  • Supports

    Inquisition, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8(b) Procedure

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: sometimes much evidence was thus obtained against individuals. These were then cited before the judges ... If the accused at once made full and free confession, the affair was soon concluded ... The documents of the trial were either in their entirety handed to them, or a least an abstract drawn up by a public notary was furnished

What this does not establish

Homza is read from the abstract. The Portuguese and Roman procedures were not read, which is why the sentence no longer claims all of them.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “They shared a method: a tribunal, denunciations, interrogation, a record.” “They shared” covered four institutions; what was read carries the Spanish tribunal’s debt to the medieval one.

Claim 9 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The record is why this question has an answer.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Claim 10 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What the records show

Claim: What the records show

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

What they were for

Claim: What they were for

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: Heresy was understood as a public crime rather than a private error, which the jurists likened to treason, and the tribunals existed to detect it, extract confession, and impose penance or punishment.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Partly checked. Only part of the source could be read. What was not read is listed.

  • Supports

    Inquisition, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8(4)

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Theologians and jurists based their attitude to some extent on the similarity between heresy and high treason (crimen laesae maiestatis), a suggestion that they owed to the Law of Ancient Rome.

  • Supports

    Procedures and Goals, in The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Inquisitionabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Abstract only, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: popes and monarchs -- worked together in an attempt to stamp out public, persistent, and intentional religious dissent

  • Supports

    Procedures and Goals, in The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Inquisitionabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Abstract only, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: describes more and less typical punishments, which Spanish inquisitors called “penances” in accordance with their overarching pastoral goals

  • Supports

    Inquisition, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8(b) Procedure

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: these relations with the residents of a place often furnished important indications, pointed out the proper quarter for investigation, and sometimes much evidence was thus obtained against individuals. ... pointed out to the inquisitor four methods of extracting open acknowledgment

What this does not establish

Homza is read from the abstract.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “Heresy was understood as a crime against the community rather than a private error,” The sources read speak of public dissent and of an analogy with treason; “against the community” was the page’s gloss.

Claim 13 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Most sentences were not death: fines, public humiliation, penitential garments, pilgrimage, imprisonment, exile.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Inquisition, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8penalties

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Most frequently certain good works were ordered, e.g. the building of a church, the visitation of a church, a pilgrimage more or less distant

  • Supports

    Inquisition, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8penalties

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: fines, whose proceeds were devoted to such public purposes as church-building, road-making, and the like; whipping with rods during religious service; the pillory; the wearing of coloured crosses

  • Supports

    Penal accountancy and the Spanish Inquisitionsection 7, Discussion and conclusion

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: were imprisoned, exiled, had their estates confiscated, or served in galleys

  • Supports

    War and inquisition: repression in early modern SpainTable 1

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Spanish Monarchy 1540-1700 49,092 305 3%

What this does not establish

The list of penances is the medieval one as a 1910 Catholic reference gives it. The encyclopedia calls most of them “not inhuman”, a judgement the page does not adopt.

Claim 14 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Those condemned to die were handed to the secular authorities, who carried out the sentence.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

The handing over was the tribunal’s sentence; the secular arm was not free to refuse it, which none of the sources read discusses.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “” The page spoke of the tribunals burning people without saying how a death sentence was carried out.

Claim 15 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The Spanish tribunal was set up by Ferdinand and Isabella under a papal bull of 1478; the king nominated its grand inquisitor and the pope confirmed him.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Inquisition, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8The Spanish Inquisition

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: On 1 November, 1478, Sixtus IV empowered the Catholic sovereigns to set up the Inquisition.

  • Supports

    Inquisition, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8Organization

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: At the head of the Inquisition, known as the Holy Office, stood the grand inquisitor, nominated by the king and confirmed by the pope.

Other readings

Carmona and colleagues, after Lea and Kamen, call it “under royal jurisdiction”; the Catholic Encyclopedia argues its ecclesiastical nature “can hardly be doubted”. The page gives the arrangement rather than a side.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “The Spanish tribunal was established by the crown with papal authorisation, answered to the monarchy, and was directed for most of its early history at converts from Judaism and Islam, whose sincerity was under suspicion precisely because their conversion had been coerced.” “Answered to the monarchy” takes a side in an argument the sources carry both ways. The early decades were about converts from Judaism; converts from Islam came later. “Precisely because their conversion had been coerced” made coercion the whole cause, which the sources do not. And the institution tried many people for other things, which the page left out.

Claim 16 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Its first decades were directed at converts from Judaism and their descendants, many from families forced into baptism in 1391 or converted around the expulsion of 1492.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Partly checked. Only part of the source could be read. What was not read is listed.

What this does not establish

Homza is read from the abstract; “many” is not a proportion anyone read gives.

Claim 17 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Converts from Islam, baptised by force in the early sixteenth century, became its targets later, with trials peaking in the second half of that century.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Partly checked. Only part of the source could be read. What was not read is listed.

  • Supports

    Moriscos, in The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Inquisitionabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Abstract only, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: This chapter considers Christian converts from Islam who were converted forcibly in the early sixteenth century and known as moriscos.

  • Supports

    Moriscos, in The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Inquisitionabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Abstract only, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: The number of trials reached a high point in the second half of the sixteenth century, and only dropped when the monarchy expelled the Moriscos from the Spanish kingdoms between 1609 and 1614.

What this does not establish

Read from the abstract.

Claim 18 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Neither group’s conversion was trusted, and testing it was the tribunal’s first business.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Context

    Moriscos, in The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Inquisitionabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Abstract only, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Spanish authorities worried about Moriscos adhering to their former religion and being Christian in name only

    Read from the abstract only. The claim rests on Carmona and colleagues and on the encyclopedia, both read in full.

  • Supports

    Penal accountancy and the Spanish InquisitionIntroduction

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: The target of the Inquisition was “new” Catholics (Jews and Muslims who converted to Catholicism) who recanted their new faith.

  • Supports

    Inquisition, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8The Spanish Inquisition

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Originally called into being against secret Judaism and secret Islam

What this does not establish

The 1910 encyclopedia calls the converts “pseudo-converts”; the page does not take over its judgement.

Claim 19 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: It went on to try many people for other things: heretical propositions, blasphemy, bigamy, witchcraft.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Claim 20 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: In one study of 35,000 of its trials, charges of Judaism, Islam and Lutheranism make up barely half.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

A working paper, and seven districts; the proportion changed over time.

Claim 21 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Torture was regulated rather than unlimited: it could be used only in trials for major heresy, and a confession given under it counted, in theory, only if the accused did not recant afterwards.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    The long-run effects of religious persecution: Evidence from the Spanish InquisitionHistorical Background

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: While confessions under torture were not rare, they could only be used in certain types of trials (those for major heresies) and, at least in theory, could be considered evidence only if the accused did not recant afterward.

Claim 22 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: That is what the rules said, and the rules are not the same as the practice.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Claim 23 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The Roman tribunal is the one that did not end.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Claim 24 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Paul III set up a commission of six cardinals to watch over matters of faith in July 1542; it was renamed the Holy Office in 1908, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1965, and it is a dicastery of the same curia today.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.
Held by
Catholic

  • Supports

    Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith: historical noteshistory

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: In 1542, Paul III instituted a commission of six Cardinals with the task of watching over matters of faith (Papal bull Licet ab initio, July 21, 1542).

  • Supports

    Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith: historical noteshistory

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Pius X reorganized the Congregation, changing its name to the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office (Apostolic Constitution Sapienti consilio, June 29, 1908).

  • Supports

    Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith: historical noteshistory

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: The name was changed to the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

  • Supports

    Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith: historical notesOrganization and Responsibilities

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is constituted by a College of Members

Claim 25 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

The numbers came from the archives

Claim: The numbers came from the archives

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: The Spanish Inquisition kept summaries of its cases, and a database built largely from them covers more than 67,000 trials between 1480 and 1820.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “The Spanish Inquisition kept minutes of its cases, and a database assembled from them covers more than 67,000 trials between 1480 and 1820.” The source is the tribunals’ annual summaries, not minutes, and about a third of the records come from secondary studies.

Claim 27 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Counting works at all because each tribunal sent Madrid an annual summary of every case it heard, so those survived centrally rather than in local archives.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Claim 28 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The summaries run from about 1540, coverage peaks at over seventy per cent between 1560 and 1650, and the years outside that window are pieced together from a wide range of secondary studies.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “coverage peaks at just over seventy per cent between 1560 and 1650, and the years outside that window are pieced together from scattered work.” The paper says “over 70%”, not “just over”, and describes the other sources as a wide range of secondary studies.

Claim 29 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Extrapolating puts the whole life of the institution near 136,000 trials.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    The long-run effects of religious persecution: Evidence from the Spanish InquisitionData

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: This simple methodology yields an overall estimate of 135,967 trials throughout the life of the Inquisition. This is consistent with the recent historiography, which has offered tentative guesses of between 115,000 and 135,000 trials

Claim 30 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: How many of those ended in execution is a much smaller number.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “How many of those ended in execution is a much smaller number, read out of the same paperwork rather than out of the pamphlets, and far below what circulated before anyone counted.” The page promised a death toll and gave none, and cited it to a study with no execution figures. It now gives the old figure, with who gave it, and the two later ones that could be read, each with its source.

Claim 31 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Llorente, once general secretary of the Holy Office, put the executed at nearly 32,000.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Penal accountancy and the Spanish InquisitionIntroduction

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Llorente (1836), a general secretary of the Holy Office, reported that the number of executed heretics was nearly 32,000 and the total of punished people was 300,000.

What this does not establish

The page reports it as Llorente’s, not as a fact. No whole-life count read replaces it; the later figures beside it each cover part of the period.

Claim 32 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Two later figures each cover part of the period. Johnson and Koyama, cited in a 2019 economic history, put the converts executed before 1525 at about 2,000, with some 15,000 reconciled to the church.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Reported as Johnson and Koyama’s figure, as Juif, Baten and Pérez-Artés (Revista de Historia Económica, 2019) give it in their note 33.

What this does not establish

Read second-hand: Johnson and Koyama’s own book was not read. It covers the converts tried before 1525 and is not a total for the institution; no whole-life count of executions was read, and the page gives none.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “Counts made since are far lower: one puts the converts executed before 1525 at about 2,000, with some 15,000 reconciled to the church, and for 1540 to 1700, the years the summaries cover, about three in every hundred trials ended in execution.” Marked for a historian: both figures were read second-hand, the standard counts (Contreras and Henningsen, Kamen) could not be reached, and “counts made since are far lower” compared a whole-life figure with two partial ones. Narrowed under the owner’s rule to what each read source says, with the work each cites named on the page, and without the comparison. The second figure is now claim 61.

Claim 33 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: A table drawn from Parker (1982) gives executions in 3 per cent of the 49,092 trials held between 1540 and 1700.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Table 1 of Vidal-Robert’s working paper, whose columns are period, trials, trials per year and executions, with Parker (1982) given as the source.

What this does not establish

Read second-hand: Parker (1982) was not read. The table does not say whether burnings in effigy are counted, and it covers 1540 to 1700 only.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “” Split out of the narrowed claim 33, which records the full before and after. The figure is now attributed to the table and the work it cites, and no longer described as “the years the summaries cover”.

Claim 61 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: A 2021 study assembled a dataset of trials by municipality, covering all of Spain and three centuries, and used it for something else entirely: measuring what persecution did to the places where it was heaviest.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

The Canary Islands are excluded from the analysis.

Claim 34 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: It found that towns where the Inquisition was more active have markedly lower economic activity today, and lower trust and educational attainment.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

A statistical association with controls and matching; the authors argue it is not explained by prior poverty or religiosity.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “It found that towns where more people were tried have lower incomes, lower trust and markedly lower education today.” “Markedly” is the paper’s word for economic activity, not for education, and its measure is how often the Inquisition was present, not only how many were tried.

Claim 35 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Whatever the death toll, the institution's effects outlasted it by nearly two centuries, which is a different kind of harm and a measurable one.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “the institution's effects outlasted it by centuries,” The Inquisition was dissolved in 1834, less than two centuries ago.

Claim 36 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What the numbers do and do not settle

Claim: What the numbers do and do not settle

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: The legend was wrong about the scale, and the corrected scale is still a court that tortured people.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Claim 38 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What the revision does and does not do

Claim: What the revision does and does not do

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: The revisionist case is that the inquisitions were less murderous and less omnipresent than the legend, and that much of the imagery belongs to the black legend of Spain rather than to the records.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Partly checked. Only part of the source could be read. What was not read is listed.

  • Supports

    The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revisionpublisher’s description

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Catalogue record only, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: firmly rebuts a variety of myths and exaggerations that have distorted understandings of the Inquisition

    The publisher’s catalogue page: it carries the book’s title (The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision), author, 2014 edition and the publisher’s own description, and supports only that the book is presented as a revision against myths. The substance of the case rests on Vidal-Robert and on Drelichman and colleagues.

  • Supports

    War and inquisition: repression in early modern Spainsection 2

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: The black legend of the Spanish Inquisition sets it up as an institution, whose main mission was to eradicate any activity or behavior suspicious of heresy (mainly Judaism).

  • Supports

    War and inquisition: repression in early modern Spainsection 2

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: the relative number of executions by the Spanish Inquisition did not differ from other European countries

  • Supports

    The long-run effects of religious persecution: Evidence from the Spanish Inquisitionnote

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: The unconditional probability of any individual being actually prosecuted was therefore quite small.

What this does not establish

Kamen’s book was not read: only its publisher’s description.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “The revisionist case is that the inquisitions were less murderous, less omnipresent and more bureaucratic than the legend,” No source read says the revisionists find the inquisitions more bureaucratic than the legend. The excerpts carry fewer executions than other European courts and a small chance of being prosecuted, so the sentence keeps those two.

23 September 2026. Previously: “and that much of the imagery comes from Protestant and Enlightenment propaganda against Spain. Its best known statement is the book cited here,” Nothing read traces the imagery to Protestant and Enlightenment propaganda, and “best known” is unmeasured. The black legend is named in the sources, and reviewers quoted by the publisher call Kamen’s the best one-volume survey.

Claim 40 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: One statement of it is Henry Kamen’s survey, subtitled A Historical Revision, which its publisher describes as rebutting the myths and exaggerations that have distorted the subject.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Partly checked. Only part of the source could be read. What was not read is listed.

  • Supports

    The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revisionpublisher’s description

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Catalogue record only, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: firmly rebuts a variety of myths and exaggerations that have distorted understandings of the Inquisition

    The publisher’s catalogue page, which carries the title and subtitle, the author, the 2014 fourth edition and the publisher’s own description quoted here. It supports those facts and what the publisher says, not what the book argues.

  • Context

    The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revisionpraise

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Catalogue record only, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: remains the best one-volume survey of this well-studied institution

    A reviewer’s endorsement quoted by the publisher, not a survey of the field; the page no longer calls the book standard.

What this does not establish

The publisher’s catalogue page only: the book itself was not read, so its argument is given as the publisher describes it.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “A standard statement of it is Henry Kamen’s survey, which its publisher describes as rebutting the myths and exaggerations that have distorted the subject.” The book was read only as its publisher’s catalogue record, which can carry its title, subtitle, author and the publisher’s own description but not a judgement that it is the standard statement of the case. Narrowed to what the record says.

Claim 41 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: All of that is defensible and none of it is an acquittal.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Claim 42 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: A tribunal that imprisons on secret denunciation, tortures under rules, and sends a smaller number of people to be burned is not thereby a mild institution.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “and burns a smaller number of people is not thereby a mild institution, and the revision is frequently cited as though it were.” How the revision “is frequently cited” is a claim about its reception that nothing read measures. The tribunal handed the condemned to the secular arm rather than burning them itself.

Claim 43 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The honest statement is that the corrected numbers are the numbers, and the corrected numbers describe centuries of judicial coercion.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Claim 44 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

How much of the record survives

Claim: How much of the record survives

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: Archives were destroyed, dispersed and partly lost.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Claim 46 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Most of the full trial records of the Goa tribunal are gone, and its historians work from the case summaries that survived instead.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Partly checked. Only part of the source could be read. What was not read is listed.

What this does not establish

Read from the abstract.

Claim 47 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: In Spain the coverage is uneven rather than absent: Valladolid's documentation is particularly scarce, Seville, Cordoba and Granada are poor.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Claim 48 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Totals are extrapolations from what is left.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Claim 49 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Where the records are dense, the picture is detailed enough to reconstruct individual cases; where they are thin, the figures carry wide uncertainties, and a total quoted without them says more than the records do.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “where they are thin, the figures carry uncertainties that are often dropped when the numbers are quoted.” How often uncertainties are dropped is a claim about other writers that nothing read measures.

Claim 50 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What has been said since

Claim: What has been said since

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

What the church has said since

Claim: What the church has said since

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: In 2000 the Catholic Church held a liturgy of repentance in which John Paul II asked forgiveness for, among other things, violence in the service of truth, and a theological commission published a study of what it means for a church to ask pardon for its own past.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.
Held by
Catholic

  • Supports

    Day of Pardon: homily of John Paul II§ 4

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Let us ask pardon for the divisions which have occurred among Christians, for the violence some have used in the service of the truth

  • Supports

    Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past5.3

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Another sad chapter of history to which the sons and daughters of the Church must return with a spirit of repentance is that of the acquiescence given, especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use of force in the service of truth.

What this does not establish

The homily does not name the Inquisition.

Claim 53 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The study recalls that he had already asked historians, at a 1998 symposium on the Inquisition, for "a reconstruction, as precise as possible" before any judgement.

Kind
Quotes a source. The words of a named text, checked against the source.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.
Held by
Catholic

  • Supports

    Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past4, with note 64

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: John Paul II, referring to the historical-theological evaluation of the work of the Inquisition, stated ... Discourse to the participants in the International Symposium of study on the Inquisition, sponsored by the Historical-Theological Commission of the Central Committee of the Jubilee, n. 4; October 31, 1998.

  • Supports

    Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past4

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: the first step consists in asking the historians, not to furnish a judgement of natural ethics, which would exceed the area of their competence, but to offer help toward a reconstruction, as precise as possible, of the events

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “” The section on what the church has said did not mention the one papal statement read that was about the Inquisition by name.

Claim 54 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: That document distinguishes "the holiness of the Church from holiness in the Church", and confesses the sins of the church’s members "without obscuring this holiness".

Kind
Quotes a source. The words of a named text, checked against the source.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.
Held by
Catholic

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “That document is careful about the distinction between the church as holy and the sins of its members, which critics read as a limit on the apology and its authors present as a theological necessity.” No critic was cited, and the document does not call the distinction a necessity. It does record reservations, from the other direction. The page now quotes it and leaves the theological question open.

Claim 55 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: It records unease from those who feared that admitting faults would look like giving in to hostile accusers.

Kind
Quotes a source. The words of a named text, checked against the source.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.
Held by
Catholic

  • Supports

    Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the PastIntroduction

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Some reservations, however, have also been voiced, mainly expressions of unease ... in which the simple admission of faults committed by the sons and daughters of the Church may look like acquiescence in the face of accusations made by those who are prejudicially hostile to the Church.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “It records unease from those who feared that admitting faults would look like giving in to hostile accusers. Whether the distinction limits the apology or is the condition of making one is a theological argument, and a live one.” The last sentence characterised a theological argument over Catholic ecclesiology whose critics’ side nothing read reports, and it was marked for a theologian. Removed under the owner’s rule; see retired claim 57. The paragraph now reports only what the commission’s document says, and the open question stays in the paragraph that follows.

Claim 56 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Whether an institution can repent, and what that would consist of beyond a statement, is the part that does not resolve into a fact.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
Presented as open. The page says this is unresolved, and the review found that it is.

Claim 58 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What was read