It began toward the end of the Reconquista and aimed to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and replace the Medieval Inquisition , which was under papal control. Along with the Roman Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition , it became the most substantive [ citation needed ] of the three different manifestations of the wider Catholic Inquisition. The "Spanish Inquisition" may be defined broadly as operating in Spain and in all Spanish viceroyalties and territories, which included the Canary Islands , the Kingdom of Naples , [ citation needed ] and all Spanish possessions in North America and South America.
According to some modern estimates, around , people were prosecuted for various offences during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition, of whom between 3, and 5, were executed, approximately 2.
The King of Spain ordered "that the inquisitors should never proceed against the Indians, but against the old Christians and their descendants and other persons against whom in these kingdoms of Spain it is customary to proceed". The Inquisition was originally intended primarily to identify heretics among those who converted from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism.
The regulation of the faith of newly converted Catholics was intensified following royal decrees issued in and ordering Jews and Muslims to convert to Catholicism or leave Castile , or face death, [ 3 ] resulting in hundreds of thousands of forced conversions , torture and executions, the persecution of conversos and moriscos , and the mass expulsions of Jews and Muslims from Spain. The Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in Having been severely persecuted under previous emperors, the new religion now felt capable of commencing its program of persecution.
From the moment it was recognised and empowered, there were persecutions against the adherents of other cults β pagans, Jews, and heretics. Though only in the fourth century of its existence, Christianity had spread widely and was already beginning to experience a multiplicity of schisms within itself.
