Everyone Expects the Spanish Inquisition: The Making of Spain's 'Black Legend'

Spain became a byword for cruelty in much of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whether it was the brutality of American colonisation, the tyranny of the Spanish Inquisition or the horrors of the Eighty Years' War in the Netherlands.

This lecture will survey this 'black legend' and ask what made it so enduring - and why some parts of the story, such as the Inquisition's genocidal campaign against Spanish Jews, received so much less attention than others.

A lecture by Alec Ryrie, Gresham Professor of Divinity 25 September 2019

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/spains-black-legend

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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