#84 – The Spanish Inquisition

The papal bull issued by Pope Sixtus IV on 1 November 1478 provided for the appointment of two or three priests over forty years of age as inquisitors. Powers of appointment and dismissal were granted to the Spanish crown. This wasn't the first time an inquisition into heretics had been established. In 1401 a special new law in England permitted the execution of heretics - De heretico comburendo - a law passed by Parliament under King Henry IV. In Spain, the first auto de fe (‘act of faith’) of the new Inquisition was celebrated on 6 February 1481, when six people, men and women, were burnt at the stake and the sermon at the ceremony was preached by Fray Alonso de Hojeda.

Om Podcasten

Starting in Florence in the 14th century, a new era began to emerge in the West. People like Petrarch, who re-discovered Cicero’s lost letters, and the new humanists - who valued the study of classical antiquity - ushered in a rebirth, or as we know it today, a “renaissance" - in the study of the arts, the sciences, philosophy, and the theatre. They rediscovered what it meant to be human.