Sixtus IV

His bull of 1 November 1478, dated in the eighth year of his pontificate, granted the petition of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile: they might choose priests to act as inquisitors against baptised people who kept Jewish rites, and might remove and replace them (Sixtus IV, Exigit sincerae devotionis, Fita, pp. 449–452).

On 29 January 1482 he wrote to them that the bull had been issued contrary to the decrees of the fathers, because its terms had been put to him only in general and confusedly. He passed on what was alleged against the two inquisitors at Seville, unjust imprisonment, cruel torture and the seizure of the goods of the dead among it, left them in office with a warning, and ordered that inquisitors act together with the bishops (Sixtus IV, Letters of 1482, brief of 29 January 1482 (Fita, pp. 459–461)). On 11 February he himself named eight more Dominicans as inquisitors in Castile and León, among them Tomás de Torquemada (Sixtus IV, Letters of 1482, letter of 11 February 1482 (Fita, pp. 462–464)). On 18 April he ordered that in the lands of Aragon the accused be told the names of accusers and witnesses, be allowed advocates and be free to appeal to Rome (Sixtus IV, Letters of 1482, bull of 18 April 1482 (Lea, vol. 1, pp. 587–590)). Ferdinand replied that he would not let this take effect (Ferdinand, Letter to Sixtus IV, Lea, vol. 1, pp. 590–592).

In 1483, in the dispute over the conception of Mary, he condemned those who called it heresy to hold that she was conceived without original sin, and reproved those who said the same of the contrary opinion, because the Roman church had not decided. The collection that prints the text gives his years as pope as 1471 to 1484 (Sixtus IV, Grave nimis Denzinger 735, under the heading “Sixtus IV 1471–1484”). See the Spanish Inquisition and the Expulsion of the Jews.