Snippet from Wikipedia: Inquisition

The Inquisition was a Catholic judicial procedure where the ecclesiastical judges could initiate, investigate and try cases in their jurisdiction. Popularly it became the name for various medieval and reformation-era state-organized tribunals whose aim was to combat heresy, apostasy, blasphemy, witchcraft, and customs considered to be deviant, using this procedure. Violence, isolation, torture or the threat of its application, have been used by the Inquisition to extract confessions and denunciations. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, but convictions of unrepentant heresy were handed over to the secular courts for the application of local law, which generally resulted in execution or life imprisonment.

Inquisitions with the aim of combatting religious sedition (e.g. apostasy or heresy) had their start in the 12th-century Kingdom of France, particularly among the Cathars and the Waldensians. The inquisitorial courts from this time until the mid-15th century are together known as the Medieval Inquisition. Other banned groups investigated by medieval inquisitions, which primarily took place in France and Italy, include the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites, and the Beguines. Beginning in the 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order, replacing the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges.

Inquisitions also expanded to other European countries, resulting in the Spanish Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition.

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Snippet from Wikipedia: Spanish Inquisition

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (Spanish: Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición) was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile and lasted until 1834. 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 of the three different manifestations of the wider Catholic Inquisition.

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 1492 and 1502 ordering Jews and Muslims to convert to Catholicism or leave Castile, or face death, 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 inquisition expanded to other domains under the Spanish Crown, including Southern Italy and the Americas, while also targeting those accused of alumbradismo, Protestantism, witchcraft, blasphemy, bigamy, sodomy, Freemasonry, etc.

A key feature of the Spanish Inquisition was the auto-da-fe, a public ceremony devised to reinforce the Church's power and the monarchy's control, where the accused were paraded, sentences read and confessions made, after which the guilty were turned over to civil authorities for the execution of sentences. According to some modern estimates, around 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offences during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition, of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed, mostly by burning at the stake. Other punishments ranged from penance to public flogging, exile from place of residence, serving as galley-slaves, and prison terms from years to life, together with the confiscation of all property in most cases.

An estimated 40,000 - 100,000 Jews were expelled in 1492.

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