Now we move our focus to a completely different geographical area. This case study is in early modern Spain, specifically the Inquisition, and some of the ways they punished people.
The Spanish Inquisition was created in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. Its main purpose was to maintain the catholic orthodoxy in the realms of Spain. The inquisition was under direct control of the monarchy, and it was abolished in 1834. Because it existed during such a long period of time, its main focus changed over the centuries. During that period of time, they persecuted Jews, protestants, moriscos and women who they thought to be witches.
The person who was accused of a crime would be sent into …show more content…
It is a good example of the new ways that appeared in this period to punish and torture the body. Most of the ones that are created during this period are extremely cruel and painful. There was a new interest in the anatomy of the body, something that was not present in Medieval times. I believe this is one of the factors that promoted the invention of so many different ways of torture and punishment. The body was the central focus of this practices. It was broken, dismembered and mutilated. Again, we see in this example, how the body is used by the punishers to get what they want from the …show more content…
I believe that the main conclusion we can obtain is that pain was not the goal of these punishments; rather, the objective of the punishers was to shame and dishonour the person in many ways, but always using the body as a tool so the rest of the people would see the punished as a disgraced human being. I find this idea incredibly interesting, because we, as people, are formed by a mind and a body. No matter all the physical things we own, the relationships we have, at what we always must live with is our body and our mind. Therefore, it is logical to think that the punishers would use the first in order to shame the disgrace the latter. In addition, as we have seen, concepts like religion beliefs or pollution also determined the ways in which the body was punished, and probably, if we changed our focus to another geographical area, there would be other aspects to take in consideration while researching this
The Spanish Inquisition was created in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. Its main purpose was to maintain the catholic orthodoxy in the realms of Spain. The inquisition was under direct control of the monarchy, and it was abolished in 1834. Because it existed during such a long period of time, its main focus changed over the centuries. During that period of time, they persecuted Jews, protestants, moriscos and women who they thought to be witches.
The person who was accused of a crime would be sent into …show more content…
It is a good example of the new ways that appeared in this period to punish and torture the body. Most of the ones that are created during this period are extremely cruel and painful. There was a new interest in the anatomy of the body, something that was not present in Medieval times. I believe this is one of the factors that promoted the invention of so many different ways of torture and punishment. The body was the central focus of this practices. It was broken, dismembered and mutilated. Again, we see in this example, how the body is used by the punishers to get what they want from the …show more content…
I believe that the main conclusion we can obtain is that pain was not the goal of these punishments; rather, the objective of the punishers was to shame and dishonour the person in many ways, but always using the body as a tool so the rest of the people would see the punished as a disgraced human being. I find this idea incredibly interesting, because we, as people, are formed by a mind and a body. No matter all the physical things we own, the relationships we have, at what we always must live with is our body and our mind. Therefore, it is logical to think that the punishers would use the first in order to shame the disgrace the latter. In addition, as we have seen, concepts like religion beliefs or pollution also determined the ways in which the body was punished, and probably, if we changed our focus to another geographical area, there would be other aspects to take in consideration while researching this