The Inquisition was a judicial procedure and a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy , apostasy , blasphemy , witchcraft , and customs considered deviant. Violence, torture, or the simple threat of its application, were used by the Inquisition to extract confessions and denunciations from heretics.
The inquisitorial courts from this time until the midth century are together known as the Medieval Inquisition. Other groups investigated during the Medieval Inquisition, which primarily took place in France and Italy , include the Spiritual Franciscans , the Hussites , and the Beguines.
Beginning in the s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order , replacing the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges. The Inquisition also expanded to other European countries, [4] resulting in the Spanish Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions were instead focused particularly on the New Christians or Conversos , as the former Jews who converted to Christianity to avoid antisemitic regulations and persecution were called, the anusim people who were forced to abandon Judaism against their will by violence and threats of expulsion and on Muslim converts to Catholicism.
The scale of the persecution of converted Muslims and converted Jews in Spain and Portugal was the result of suspicions that they had secretly reverted to their previous religions, although both religious minority groups were also more numerous on the Iberian Peninsula than in other parts of Europe, as well as the fear of possible rebellions and armed uprisings , as had occurred in previous times. During this time, Spain and Portugal operated inquisitorial courts not only in Europe , but also throughout their empires in Africa , Asia , and the Americas.
With the exception of the Papal States , the institution of the Inquisition was abolished in the early 19th century, after the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the Spanish American wars of independence in the Americas. The institution survived as part of the Roman Curia , although it underwent a series of name changes.
