TORQUEMADA, THOMAS (142o-1498), inquisitor-gen eral of Spain, son of Don Pedro Ferdinando, lord of Torquemada, a small town in Old Castile, was born in 1420 at Valladolid during the reign of John II. He was a nephew of the cardinal noticed above, and joined the Friars Preachers in their convent at Valla dolid. His superiors obliged him to take the priorship of the con vent of Santa Cruz in Segovia, where he ruled for 22 years. The royal family, especially the queen and the infanta Isabella, often stayed at Segovia, and Torquemada became confessor to the in fanta, who was then very young. He trained her to look on her future sovereignty as an engagement to make religion respected. He then began to teach her the political advantages of religion and to prepare the way for the Inquisition.
When Isabella succeeded to the throne (1474), she entrusted Torquemada with the care of her conscience, and with the bene fices in the royal patronage. He also became confessor to Ferdi nand and was appointed councillor of state also. In the lax toleration of religious differences he thought he saw the main obstacle to the political union of the Spains. He represented to Ferdinand and Isabella that it was essential to their safety to reorganize the Inquisition, which had since the 13th century (1236) been established in Spain. In 1473 Torquemada and Gonzalez de Mendoza, archbishop of Toledo, approached the sovereigns. Isabella and Ferdinand saw in the proposed new tribunal a means of overcoming the independence of the nobility and clergy by which the royal power had been obstructed. In as the result of a long intrigue, a papal bull author ized the appointment by the Spanish sovereigns of two inquisitors at Seville, under whom the Dominican inquisitions already estab lished elsewhere might serve. In the persecuting activity that en sued the Dominicans, "the Dogs of the Lord" (Domini canes), took the lead. The royal Inquisition thus started was subversive of the regular tribunals of the bishops, who much resented the in novation, which, however, had the power of the state at its back.
cent with the guilty, Torquemada published a declaration offering grace and pardon to all who presented themselves before the tribunal and avowed their fault. Some fled the country, but many (Mariana says 17,000) offered themselves for reconciliation. The first seat of the Holy Office was in the convent of San Pablo, where the friars, however, resented the orders, on the pretext that they were not delegates of the inquisitor-general. Soon the gloomy fortress of Triana, on the opposite bank of the Guadal quivir, was prepared as its palace. Other tribunals were speedily established in Cordova, Jaen and Toledo. The sovereigns obliged Torquemada to take as assessors five persons who would repre sent them in all matters affecting the royal prerogatives. These assessors were allowed a definite vote in temporal mat ters but not in spiritual, and the final decision was reserved to Torquemada himself, who in 1483 was appointed the sole inquisitor-general over all the Spanish possessions. In the next year he ceded to Diego Deza, a Dominican, his office of con fessor to the sovereigns, and gave himself up to the work of reducing heretics.
A general assembly of his inquisitors was convoked at Seville in November 1484 ; and there he promulgated a code of twenty eight articles for the guidance of the ministers of the faith. For the procedure adopted see INQUISITION. During the 18 years that Torquemada was inquisitor-general it is said that he burnt 10,220 persons, condemned 6,86o others to be burnt in effigy, and rec onciled 97,321, thus making an average of some 6,000 convic tions a year. These figures are given by Llorente, who was secre tary of the Holy Office from 1790 to 1792 and had access to the archives ; hut modern research reduces the list of those burnt by Torquemada to 2,000. The constant stream of petitions to Rome opened the eyes of the pope to the effects of Torquemada's se verity. On three separate occasions he had to send Fray Alfonso Badaja to defend his acts before the Holy See. The sovereigns, too, saw the stream of money, which they had hoped for, diverted to the coffers of the Holy Office, and in 1493 and again in 1496 they made complaint to the pope.