Tomás de Torquemada

He appears in a letter of Sixtus IV of 11 February 1482 as “Thomas de Turrecremata”, bachelor of theology, one of eight friars of the Order of Preachers whom the pope made inquisitors in Castile and León. The pope says that the men had been recommended to him by the envoy of the king and queen, a Dominican (Sixtus IV, Letters of 1482, letter of 11 February 1482 (Fita, pp. 462–464)).

On 29 November 1484 inquisitors and lawyers met at Seville, called together by order of the king and queen and by him. The record of the meeting calls him prior of the monastery of Santa Cruz at Segovia, confessor of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, and inquisitor general in their name (Instructions of Seville (1484), preamble (fol. 2r–v)). The collection of the Inquisition’s rules printed in 1667 calls him on its title page the first inquisitor general of the kingdoms and lordships of Spain (Instructions of Seville (1484), title page of the printing of 1667).

The articles agreed at that meeting set a term of grace of thirty or forty days, in which those who confessed fully would escape death, perpetual prison and confiscation (Instructions of Seville (1484), articles 1–4 (fol. 3r–v)). They also laid on the reconciled public abjuration and lifelong exclusion from public office, and took the property of those who came forward late (Instructions of Seville (1484), articles 5–8 (fol. 4r–v)). See the Spanish Inquisition and the Expulsion of the Jews.