Tomás de Torquemada (1420 - September 16, 1498) was a Spanish Catholic churchman, confessor to The Catholic Monarchs, and the most famous member of The Spanish Inquisition. His name, not without the coincidence that his surname means "burned tower", has become synonymous with burning heretics, Jews, Muslims, freethinkers, books and whatever else Spanish inquisitors enjoy burning in pop culture, although his true biography is, as usual, less bloodthirsty and more complex than the legend claims.
In a supreme strike of irony for someone whose task was to keep Christianity and Judaism aseptically separated, it's traditionally believed the good inquisitor was himself the grandson of conversos or Christianized ex-Jews, which might have made Torquemada the target of his own policies had it been proved in his lifetime. He was also far from being the only case of this, in fact, with inquisitors like Alonso de Espina and Alonso de Cartagena having Jewish origins. Whether Torquemada and company were massive hypocrites trying to deflect suspicions as far away as possible or were genuinely overcompensating to purge the sins of their families, we will never know. We know, however, that he was nephew of an important theologian, joined the Dominican order very young, and studied in the University of Salamanca (although he wasn't part of the eponymous school of thought, whose members were often his intellectual opponents in several fields). While serving as the Prior of the monastery of Santa Cruz de Segovia, he met the young queen Isabella of Castile, of which he became her confessor, advisor, and even matchmaker, in this case advising her to marry King Ferdinand of Aragon.
At the time, the occurrence of crypto-Judaism (in this case, marranos, that is, conversos that were secretly still Jews) was one of the main concerns of the Christian clergy, not just in Spain but in most Christian countries, and this eventually crystallized into a suggestion by Alonso de Ojeda (not to mistake with the conquistador of the same name, who was his cousin) for the Catholic Monarchs to create a Holy Inquisition to manage the problem in their lands. Therefore, supported by Torquemada, Cardinal Pedro de Mendoza, and Pope Sixtus IV himself, the Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478, with Torquemada being appointed its Grand Inquisitor five years later when they needed a man of true faith in charge. Initially, some regions of Spain resisted to the idea of being surveyed by a cadre of centralist bureaucrats with license to torture and execute, but after Inquisitor Pedro Arbués was murdered by supposed conversos in spectacular fashion, any popular resistance was softened. It didn't help that, libels and popular enmities aside, many conversions were undoubtedly insincere, as it could not be otherwise when the only alternatives were either converting or losing your money and social status.
Initially, and contrary to popular belief, the Inquisition had no jurisdiction over practicing Jews, only over conversos. However, it was eventually reasoned that the presence of the former might encourage the latter to return to their Jewish ways, so in 1492, by Torquemada's influence, the crown issued the Alhambra Decree, by which Jews were forced to either convert to Christianity themselves or leave Spain altogether. The issue and its ruthless enforcement were quite impactful, as about two thirds of Spain's Jewish population converted (or so they claimed), and even among those who left, many would ultimately return and convert anyway because living in exile was evidently harder. This was a huge career win for Torquemada, although by this point both the Catholic Monarchs and Pope Alexander VI decided that he was scaling things up a bit too much, so after many discussions, he was eventually Kicked Upstairs to the head of a more relaxed administration. Still content with the state of things, however, Torquemada opted to retire to the monastery of Santo Tomás in Ávile, where he died a few years later.
As with everything related to the darkest points of Spain, Torquemada's historical legacy is difficult to assess. He was indeed considered a massive Holier Than Thou in his own time, even although few people had sympathy for the Jews anyway, and his own fellow churchmen in both Spain and Rome couldn't wait for him to get out of his seat, if anything because many realized that a less intense approach would basically benefit everybody. As said above, despite their initial enthusiasm, the Catholic Monarchs eventually came to believe that his idea of an inquisition was costing them too much money and resources, while people back in Rome got tired of reading clemency petitions coming from Spain. At the same time, people couldn't help but see Torquemada as a humble, honest Christian of Incorruptible Pure Pureness: aside from his inquisitorial entourages and escorts, which came by default with his job, he lived the life of a simple monk, to the point of being a vegetarian, and donated most of the confiscated Jewish riches to build monasteries and churches.
In modern times, his name is indissolubly associated to cruelty and intolerance, not without obviously good reasons, although precise research has shown that, as with the Spanish Inquisition as a whole, Torquemada's personal misdeeds are rather unimpressive. As death sentences were the rarest kind issued by the Inquisition, he might have signed less than 1,500,note true barbarism to our eyes but a pretty low number in the world history of religious fanaticism, and still regular compared to what secular authority at his own time could do on similarly petty grounds. In an even starker contrast with his popular image, he seems not to have been particularly keen of torture, as the practice is largely absent from the trial records of his time and was heavily limited in the cases where it was applied. Even his approach for the expulsion of the Jews was actually Fair for Its Day compared to the dozens of expulsions that happened both before and afterwards in all of Europe, as unlike them, it actually attempted to integrate Jews as productive Christians and gave them the chance to convert and stay.
He's unrelated to Juan de Torquemada, the chronicler of the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire (who must not be confused with Tomás' theologian uncle, who was also named Juan de Torquemada), or to Antonio de Torquemada, author of an early treatise of Paranormal Investigation.
In fiction:
Comic Books- Nemesis the Warlock: In the distant future, the evil leader of the intergalactic Termight Empire is named "Tomás De Torquemada" as a direct reference to his Real Life counterpart. At one point in the series' run, it's even revealed that this very character is, in fact, a reincarnation of the real life Torquemada. They even get to meet each other through time travel at one point. After the historical Torquemada hears his future counterpart mention reincarnation, he decides to personally introduce him to the torture methods of Spanish Inquisition as a heretic. However, the Torquemada of the future keeps talking up his own evil actions and how the historical Torquemada served as his inspiration. This horrifies the historical Torquemada.
- In Requiem Vampire Knight, Torquemada is reborn as a werewolf, which in the Crapsack World of Resurrection is reserved for religious fanatics who persecuted those of other faiths.
- Portrayed by Marlon Brando in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992).
- Portrayed by Javier Gutiérrez in the Assassin's Creed film. A purely villainous version who's aligned with the franchise's version of The Knights Templar and purges Southern Spain from the Assassin Brotherhood, who are allies to the Emirate of Granada and are treated like heretics by the Inquisition.
- He's portrayed by Juan Gea in The Ministry of Time, which again showcases a particularly angry version of him.
