How the Spanish Inquisition Worked

listeners are producers. J E. R. Right, the lady, Oh night, that's a T shirt right there. Uh okay, well we have that settled officially. If anybody ever asked, we can just send them the link to the Spanish Inquisition episode. Yeah. I've been singing the History of the World Part one song all day. Yeah, I was gonna ask, how how shall we start this with with the song or with the Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Uh so either of

mel Brooks or Monty Python. Well, they're both great to you do one and I'll do the other at the same time. The Inquisition. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition. I watched that bit again today too, and I was like, that's good. He got me l o LD. Wow. Yeah, Flying Circuits one of the great sketch shows of all time. I think I'm curious, Chuck, what percentage of l O L s do you think are actually symbolic of a real laugh out loud, like when people say that, even

if it's a chuckle. Yeah, I don't know. I never say l O L though, always say like, oh, I've seen you. No, I have to dude, I've never typed l O L. That is not for any Internet shorthand. That's true. It's is so true. To find the documentations, Okay, I'm going to find it. I didn't expect the third degree. Nobody expects the third degree. That's what my family said. We said the third degree, not the Spanish Inquisition third degree.

Uh my family just left everybody alone. That must uh so, Chuck, Yes, you've heard of the Spanish Inquisition obviously, are you? Were you familiar with the actual thing, like beyond the seventies and the nineteen seventies, No, with money Python and mel Brooks. No, I didn't know a whole lot about it. Was this one was a delight to learn. Yeah, it was one of those things in history where you realize a man, it has it all. Frankly, there was more to it

than just what we thought, and it's possibly misunderstood. Yeah, there's a lot of controversy surrounding how uh deep it went and how bloody it got, and uh a lot of people are still duking it out. Yeah, and that's a that's it makes sense. Pope John Paul put it very well when he said, and I'm paraphrasing here that um, like, yes, the Inquisition happened. Yes it was super messed up. Let's find out exactly how messed up it is so the church can be fully penitent h under um, being fully informed.

But he wasn't saying, like, stop making such a big deal about the inquisition everywhere, because it was a big deal because it was using, um, a court system, pretty much a perverted court system, and now the kind that's like you know, rusty and eugene like perverted meaning like twisted and grotesque. Um two route people out based on the idea that there they weren't pious enough or pious in the right ways. And even that was disingenuous because

ultimately it was used to consolidate power. Yeah, and I saw other remarks from historians it even more ultimately, perhaps it was a way to get money. Yeah, so power and money. I think. So the whole thing just disgusting at its core, and it's a real blemish on the history of both the Church and Europe. Um. But it did happen. But it's also possible that just how bad it was, like you're saying was was exaggerated over the years.

So let's talk about this. We're talking specifically about the Spanish Inquisition, but you can't really just talk about the Spanish Inquisition. It didn't happen in a vacuum. It was part of a larger thing that the inquisition in general. Um which is basically a court system where the court is actually responsible for trying you rather than being an impartial spectator referee. Yeah, it's called the tribunal. Basically, there's

no jury. It's the judge decides whether you're guilty or not and what your fate will be, right, which is kind of uneasy for the person who's being tried. Yeah, you got one. Well, I think maybe a couple of inquisitive wors uh might have been at work at times, but it definitely wasn't like a jury system by any means none at all. Um. There were also some other characteristics of a UM inquisition. You were not allowed to know who is accusing you, and anyone could accuse you.

You had to testify whether you wanted to or not without any help. Yeah, and like you said, anybody could accuse you. Other criminals could accuse you, family members, other other heretics. And that was the whole point of this was to root out heretics, people who UM were who held beliefs that flew in the face of church church orthodoxy. Yeah, and I think we should get into this a little bit because there's a broad definition of heretic. Like what

they could actually ring people up for was vast. You know, it wasn't like your Thai Catholic or you're a non Christian atheist, like most of these people were either converts to Catholicism, you know, forced converts like Jews or Muslims, or you know, it could have been anything from bigamy to quote superstitions was one of the things. Yeah, there are a lot of witches who were rooted out solicitation and this is all by the way from the archive. Um.

They eventually um opened up the Secret Archives. The Catholic Church did about all this. Yeah, that's capitalized by the way, secret archives. That's a really it's a title. Um. And so they actually had percentages of the of what people were were brought in for. And like I said, most of them was because you were a different faith. But one of them was a miscellaneous two or three thousand people freemasonry, sodomy, bigamy, superstitions, basically anything that they could

cook up that they wanted to cook up. Okay, so let's if they wanted to and that was heresy and that was the umbrella crime that was being investigated by the inquisitions. Yeah, supposedly you had to be um. You had to be teaching these beliefs just to other people, not just simply like a quiet believer of these uh heretic things. Um. And you had to be doing it of your own free will and like not be like

if you were under the influence of Satan. Hey, and you had to um still hold this belief publicly even after being corrected, even after its pointed out that what you what you believe is heresy. So you want to correct yourself yeah, so if you didn't correct, if you didn't auto correct, then uh, yeah, you're right. So let's take it back, um a little further back in the day. Uh, Christians were very much persecuted and we're thrown to the lions and were, Um there's there they were. They were

very much mistreated. And apparently they kind of took that in a lot the same way that um maybe uh Pip squeak, who's bullied and then bulks up over time, Yeah, would treat being bullied. Um. The Christians did much the same thing. Either that or they had a very short memory. Because Um, after Constantine the Great converted to Christianity, he was the Roman emperor. Um, all of a sudden, the Church, the Catholic Church, started to enjoy a lot of power,

and that power grew and grew and grew. Um. And then all of a sudden, there were monarchies all over Europe that were Catholic, They considered themselves Catholic, they associated with the Catholic Church, they were in cahoots with the pope, and they they became very powerful. The Church became a very powerful institution. Um. And one of the ways that it's I did it was going to spread its power and maintain its power. Was to squash anything that was

outside the purview of Catholic orthodoxy. Anything that the Pope said was not kosher was um not okay, it was heresy. And this is at the same time there are a lot of different sects of Christianity, of Catholicism, even that we're starting to gain in popularity. So things like the Illuminati came out of this um era and the cars like very spiritual uh groups that were Christian and identify as Christian but thought the Pope was corrupt, and the Pope said, or we're coming after you guys. And this

was the first Inquisition. Yeah, there were even uh persecution of fellow Christians, Protestant Christians, Lutheran Christians. So it wasn't necessarily just your Jew or your Muslim. No, these were Christians initially. It wasn't until the Spanish Inquisition that Jews were targeted. It was um during the medieval or Papal Inquisition starting and I think twelve thirty one under Pope Gregory the ninth, he issued a papal bull that said, uh,

we're going after heretics and we're going to use uh inquisitions. Yeah, and that was the start, that's right, twelve thirty one, and uh, he picked the what was known as the Dominican Order, which was not Dominicans in Dominican Republic, but founded by Saint Dominic de Guzman Um. And they were apparently like super smart and really knowledgeable, and they were the people too, I guess, the a team to go

about conducting this first inquisition. Right. So this was under King Ferdinand two and Queen Isabella, and it says there were secular rulers. Do you know what that means? Uh? Did they not identify as Catholic or they just that wasn't there? No, they definitely did. I think what they were saying was they weren't. It wasn't like the pope. It was they were like, Okay, they were the head of government. Okay, that makes sense, Yeah, I got you.

But they did identify as Catholic, and they just recently united Spain under the Catholic monarchy, and so they were saying, we need to make sure everybody else's Catholic. So let's let's start an inquisition here too, right. Plus we can collect some money, right if their found guilty, take their land.

That kind of thing. Uh. So, like I said, Isabelle and Ferdinand with Pope six to the fourth uh And like you said, it was to create unity on the surface, but probably was more about power and money and um kind of just squashing any alternative alternative thought. Right. Yeah, I mean they were like, if you're consolidating two lands into a single kingdom, it's not like flipping a switch. You know, like there's a lot of people who have political ties and alliances on a more local level, there's

like Dina's ease and clans um. The I guess Isabella and Ferdinand said, you know, a really good way to unite everybody is under the banner of Catholicism. But ultimately it was about them consolidating their power and breaking up these alliances and and to gain money because part of the inquisition was if you were accused of heresy, and if you were convicted of heresy, the church and the government would take your land and split it with the

person who accused you. So it ultimately became this very powerful political tool and almost a machine that raised a lot of money for Spain. Yeah. We we talked about Jews and Muslims. They were two of the bigger targets um. As far as it was just a bigoted culture. Basically, Jews were putting ghettos or killed um, which is weird because Spain was a very it grew out of Jews, Christians and Muslims living together in this area. But then

under Ferdinand and Isabella, they were like, it was just Catholicism. Yeah, they were officially banished um with the Alhambra decree in four two. And here's the rub is a lot of these Jews converted to Catholicism. But it wasn't like they were like, oh cool, well, you know, that's great, you converted to our religion and that's all well and fine. They called them pigs um maranos, which is derogatory, and said we think you're probably still really practicing Judaism, which

some of them might have been. So yeah, it was like the suddenly the power establishment was was Catholic and there were a lot of Jews who converted. They were called converse those two, which was I think kind of a neutral term for him. But they were converted Catholics. And yes, there was a great deal of suspicion that they were Jewish and everything but name and that they just converted to avoid persecution, not even necessarily at first to avoid persecution, but just to to be able to

gain power because the power establishment was Catholic. So I'll just go become Catholic too, and not still really Jewish, but I can hang out and have communion with you guys who were running the show. And so it was the suspicion that they were what are called crypto Jews running around in Spain that initiated the First inquis or the Spanish Inquisition. Yeah, and I guess the same is true with the Muslim mores Um. They would convert to Catholicism,

and that still didn't really count. They were known as Morisco's which is Moorish, and it was basically the same thing as the Jewish community. There were still targets even though they converted. And uh, like I said, it went all the way over to Protestants and fellow Christians. So anything not Catholic basically, and not even not just not Catholic, but not orthodox Catholic. Yeah, it wasn't just in Europe either, it was it happened in the New World in Mexico,

basically anywhere Spain was setting up shop. There could be a mobile inquisition unit. So like that was one of the even more despicable aspects of the Inquisition was that they would go conquer a land and then set up an inquisition to root out the non Catholics in a land that was there were no Catholics. So like when Spain took over Granada, um it was Moorish, it was Muslim.

They set up the the inquisition there, or the Portuguese also had an inquisition, and when they went to India they set up the goa In Inquisition and rooted out Hindus. Well it's like, of course there's Hindus here. You guys came from over there to the land of Hindus. Yes, there's gonna be Hindus here. Like this is this is awful yea. But yeah, they also did it in Mexico and other places too. Uh yeah. And like we said, this isn't the only inquisition that was one in Portugal.

There was the Roman Inquisition in the fifteen forties. That's where Galileo was famously uh I guess tried, yeah, and he was under house arrest, but he apparently his um his arrest in his trial was more just like it just flew in the face of science. The way he was treated apparently wasn't so bad. Like he had a pension from the pope, and yeah, I thought he was he died of natural causes. Yeah, but he was under

house arrest, but he was He wasn't hurting, apparently. It was more just like the fact that that that there was a trial right right of science by Catholicism. You know, it's it doesn't get more literal than that exactly, So like like you're saying, it's it's exported everywhere. Yeah, but let's let's get into the trials in a minute, right after these messages. Okay, welcome back. Do you want to talk about the trials, Chuck. Yeah, we mentioned earlier that

you could be accused by anyone anonymously. You didn't have the assistance of a lawyer. Um, you weren't necessarily even in formed of your charges, and you had to testify on your own, behalf you like you were forced to basically. Yeah, and on top of that, you didn't rarely have anyone coming to your defense because you would probably also be wrung up as a heretic. You're kind of on your own. The witnesses, Yeah, their defense. Yeah, character witness here and

the guy's going Nope, not me. Yeah, I probably did see him flying around on him room, who knows. And I didn't see anything about this, but it said that fellow heretics could ride out other ones. But I wonder if there was a system of leniency if you've sold people down the river. I think there definitely was. So so let's this is how it happened. From what I understand, Um, there would be news that the parish priest would get that the inquisition was coming, and some inquisitors would come,

and I couldn't believe it. But this article failed to mention Thomas the Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, like he's not his doesn't appear in this article. It's in It's crazy. But for a while Torqumoda took over from I think Um fourteen eighty three to fo like the chief of the Supreme Court. He's the head guy, and he is um extremely vilified in history. He was a very hated man because he was the face of the Inquisition, of all this torture and and burning at the stake and

rooting people out and just a literal witch hunt. Um. But so he's also somewhat defended by history a little bit too. Apparently prior in the two years after the Spanish Inquisition started and when he took over in fourteen eighty three, those two years were very bloody. There was

a lot of torture. There were basically no rules. Torqumada came in and established rules, so there were things like, you can't torture anybody for longer than fifteen minutes, a doctor has to be present during torture, and the doctor says call it off, you have to op true. But also if you did do this stuff, you can also get a get off pretty easily, right, Like, if you did torture and you weren't supposed to, it's really not that big of a deal, Like, no one's gonna do

anything to you. Well, you could do torture because in twelve uh, I can't remember, maybe twelve eighty three, well, one of the popes issued another papal bull saying, in addition to being able to do an inquisition, you can torture too. That was Pope Innocent the fourth, very appropriate. So you could torture somebody under the auspices of the church, but you weren't supposed to like mangle him or something like that. But yes, there wasn't any punishment for these inquisitors.

But Torqumod is the face of the of the inquisition. Um. But there there are some people who say, well, he kind of brought a little bit of order to it,

if you, if you can look at it like that. Yeah, And other people say he may have even saved people from you know, uh, gang violence of people basically just running into your house and burning you at the stake, right or from the state because um, there were apparently some just common criminals who upon being captured with blaspheme and then they would be tried by the Inquisition, which

is apparently a little more lenient and forgiving. Because consider this, Chuck, this was is as gross as it is, as dark, as despicable as this whole the Inquisition was. It was still at its core a religious exercise, and the whole point from the inquisitor on down, especially these people who were true believers, the whole point was to extract a confession and save the heretic soul. Yeah, it was all

about the confession. You couldn't just pronounce someone guilty. It was that was pulled out of them by any means necessary, basically, and only that you had to confess twice. You had to if you confess under torture, you had to further confess under you know, normal light of day, that what you said was in fact true. Right, So the inquisitors would come to town, they would set up shop, they would establish they would say mass, they would tell everybody

what was going on, that they were here for an inquisition. Yeah, and they give him a chance, right then, Yeah, there's a forty day grace period and say you can confess your heresy right here, and you won't be tortured. You won't be punished. Um, you might have to do some penance, of course, but you can escape torture for sure, and you have to denounce other heretics. So that was sort of the McCarthy is m if you name names and

we'll go easy on you. And so apparently some parish priests would find out that the inquisition was coming and would gather their flock and say, everybody, keep your mouth shut. These guys will leave eventually. Just shut up. And a lot of times these were just like country peasants who had like they knew that they loved Jesus and the Pope was in charge of them. But they also knew that they like needed to get back to their donkey because they hadn't fed it that day and they needed

to plow the fields later that afternoon. These weren't like sophisticated people, and these were the the most educated, scholarly people on the planet at the time coming to their town, Yes, coming to their town and interrogating these peasants as to like the nuances of Catholic Orthodoxy. Yeah, they were leading questions, they would confuse them, they would get them rattled. Uh, all just in the name of I guess, taking land

and money and assuming power. Right. And that was another thing too that I think we didn't mention, um the Jews in Spain prior to the consolidation of Spain into Spain, where this was the merchant class. They were, um. While there were plenty of peasants who were uneducated, there are also a lot of Jews who were very much educated, who were wealthy. So they did make even more desirable targets under that um that viewpoint that this was all about money and power and land. Like, what better group

to target then the wealthy middle class And they did. Yeah, that's a good point and think about that, thanks man. So where were we They weren't clever. They were being uh confused basically, and depending on where you were, like this is this is a country parish that we're talking about right now. Yeah, pumpkins, European pumpkins. They were like saucepans on their heads for hats and overalls with no

shirts underneath. Um. So the other thing is is they would be uh they were imprisoned until they got a confession. So it's not like they if they didn't get a confession eventually they would just let them go and shun them. They would hold on to them until they confessed, basically, like that was the only way to get out. And if you died in prison, um to your well, your bones would be you'd be buried, but then your bones would be dug up and cremated and basically scattered like

as an insult after death. And little known fact, but in the nineteenth century somebody did this to Torqumata's remains. They dug them up and incinerated what was left of him and like scattered his asses, which I mean if you're if you're high up in the Dominican order. Yeah, if somebody did that to your bones, it's an enormous spiritual stab in the neck, you know. Uh. Okay, so we have been uh had the bull the decree of torture issued, and so they were you know, we've covered

this in medieval torture devices, a lot of it. But they would do various things, uh to extract whatever information they wanted. One was called the strapado and that was UM. And this didn't sound too bad to me at first. Well, hold on, let me explain. So at first I read this is your hands. You were hung basically by your arms above your head, which is pretty bad in and

of its well, I mean that in the rack. Both sound like early chiropractic care in a way, like it could really work some things out in the lower back. But then I realized that your hands are tied behind your back, and then you were hung from those hands. That's a way different thing than just being hung from your hands. Yeah, because the chances of your your arms coming out of your sockets, yeah, we're pretty good, very high. And there were also additions to this torture that could

be UM added, like heavy weights to your legs. You could be jerked downward instead of just hanging there. Yeah, um, just to really kind of help that this location along and make the stripato even more excruciating. They might burn you with hot pokers while you were hanging there. Some screw action. Yep, heavy boots. Yeah, the boot. You didn't

want that. You didn't want the boot. We talked about the rack um, which is when you know your hands and feet are tied and you're on these rollers and the metal frame, and they basically just turned those rollers and give you a good stretch, meaning your your limbs would come out of socket, and if they did it too much, they might come completely away from your body.

You know what's crazy? I heard or read that there is a there's something going on with a certain species of starfish right now that are they appear to be committing suicide. They're getting some sort of infection and to kill themselves, they their arms crawl in different directions until the middle is ripped apart and they eviscerate themselves. That's awful, but that's going on right now. No one has any idea of what the heck is going on with the

starfish or why they're getting this mysterious infection. And then no one knew that starfish committed suicide. And the fact that they know this is pretty remarkable too, that somebody's studying starfish that closely that they have realized this is going on. Well, they were probably watching the first starfish the first time. You're like, let's starfish is really confused. How cute? Oh my god. And then another one does it, and another one You're like, we've got a problem. I

need to go write a paper. Uh, nothing's funny about that. I love starfish. I don't know why I'm laughing. So, like you pointed out earlier, mutilation was prohibited supposedly during the torture, but um Alexander the fourth also decreed that you could clear anyone from wrong doing, like we pointed out, So it's even you're not gonna go up on a tribunal for torturing someone as an inquisitor. No, that's not

gonna happen. I didn't see anything anywhere in the research where any inquisitor ever got in trouble for anything that was done during the Spanish inquisition. I don't I don't know. It may have happened, but I didn't see anything. So so let's recount real quick. The the inquisition comes to town. It's made up of some inquisitors, their secretaries, their staff. In a banjo player said, they set up shop and um, there's a forty day grace period where they're just hanging out.

Anybody who wants to come confess can can fest and be forgiven. I bet that was scary though, Like you don't want to be the first guy to trust that. Yeah, Like, come on confess and people are like you, go do it. I'm sure it'll be fine. Well, apparently like you would wear like a yellow cross on your clothes much like

a scarlet letter for a while. As part of your penance, there was there you were forgiven and even after the grace period if you were if you confessed under torture, and then they made you confess again without being under torture, and they took it as a genuine one. You were forgiven. Penance could be rough though, it could be, but it could also not be. Yeah, but like pends on the it was on. It was on the case and it

was left up to the inquisitors to use their judgment. True, but some of the some of the penance included like taking all your land, like we said, paying additional fines of money, you might have hard labor for the rest of your life. Um. Sometimes you're exiled completely from your county or from your country. Yeah, so you've got all of this is going on in a little town on the countryside, not necessarily a little town like Bologna, um, Toledo.

They saw some some pretty heavy action. And these weren't necessarily back water birds, you know. Um. But the the inquisition would come to town side up a grace period,

then the accusations would start to fly. There'll be torture, there'll be confessions, and then there was what are called the auto's de fee, And an auto de fee was a religious ritual fill with a lot of pomp and their circumstances, where the accused and convicted would walk around town in a big procession they have of course, of course they have mass all the time, um, and like everybody would come out for it. It was a huge thing, very much like a public execution in the United States

or in in other parts of Europe. But the huge difference was there was never an execution in an auto to face. It was a religious ceremony and they wouldn't it wouldn't have ended in execution. Even if the people who were in the procession who had been convicted had been sentenced to death. It wouldn't take place during an auto to fay. It would take place separately, and in most cases the inquisitors gave that person over to the secular authorities to carry out the execution. Yeah, they didn't

execute folks themselves. Um, although they could just abandon you is one way to look at it, where they would just say, kind of say he's a heretic, turn him over to the public. And that's where like you would get burned at the stake, especially if you're a repeat offender like you generally weren't forgiven for that if you messed up more than once. And we talked before, I don't remember what it was in, but burning at the stake. We came across some documentation of what it would like.

It took like thirty minutes to die from it at the earliest, up to a couple of hours, depending on if the wind was blowing too much. Like that would be a horrible, horrible way to go. Yeah, was the worst ways to die. No, it was more recent than that, was it? It was? But we'll get to, uh, the fallout from all this stuff because you can't you can't do this to people and not expected to be a

fallout over the course of history. Sure, And the Inquisition wasn't just from the fourteen eighty one to fourteen ninety two when the the Decree of Alambre was issued, like, it kept going on until the nineteenth century. Yeah, eighteen thirty four was when the last one in Spain occurred. There was a school teacher who was put to death in eighteen twenty six because he taught Deism to his class. That's the nineteenth century, eighty six, and like, that's not

the fifteenth century, that's the nineteenth century. Now, it's not that long ago in the grand scheme of things, you know. Yeah, And in eighteen fifty eight, there's a very famous case of a kid named Edgardo uh more Tara, and he was a Jewish kid raised in a Jewish family who was dying of a fever when he was like seven or something like that, and one of the domestic servants

did an emergency baptism on the kid. The church found out about it, came and took him from his family and raised him as a Catholic When was that eighteen fifty eight, So that was even after the last inquisition supposedly when was the win four? Yes, so here's the thing. The Spain said no more inquisition in eighteen thirty four. The Catholic Church still actually has something called the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and renamed it in

the sixties sixties. Yeah, so it's still I mean, there's still the concept of the Inquisition as part of the Holy See, which is the Pope's power. But obviously nothing

like this was going on these days. Uh So since the aftermath of the Inquisition is pretty controversial because beginning in the fift hundreds of the Protestant Reformation, you had a lot of uh, anti Catholic and anti Spanish sentiment, and a lot of people from the Catholic side these days are saying it was so exaggerated in the aftermath that a very small percentage when we look in our secret archives and our statistics, uh, we're actually killed. Um,

I think it was what like point one percent. So I saw I saw something different. I saw um one percent of the hundred and twenty five thousand trials in Spain, Italy and Portugal. And here's the thing, man, I looked at like three or four different sets of numbers, and

they're all way different. So you're never gonna we're never gonna know actual, like solid numbers, because if you are anti Catholic, you probably have your one set of numbers, and if you're pro Catholic, you have your set of numbers. You know what I'm saying. But these numbers, that one percent of the hundred twenty five thousand trials um that was,

that's based on that secret archive that the um. Yeah, that the thank you that the Vatican opened up under Pope John Paul the second and said, you know what, you guys, come in here, you scholars, root around and give us a full report on the inquisition and let's see you know what's what. And he apologized when he announced that, and then he apologized in two thousand four when they issued the report finally. And that's where that

one percent of the hundred and twenty five thousand came from. Yeah, and that's how blog opinion pieces from two thousand four where some people are like, you, we shouldn't be apologizing for this again, like it was really inflated numbers and it wasn't as bad as people say. Well, again, that's the the pro Catholic uh side. Yeah, not pro inquisition necessarily, but the Catholic defenders. I think it is a better

way to say. Yeah. I think they're probably also pointing out like, yeah, this is mostly Spain and it was mostly the monarchy and most of these executions were carried out by the Spanish state rather than the inquisition. Yeah. It's kind of tricky wording, now, you know it is. I mean, the the pope was definitely involved. He gave his blessing at the time to Ferdinand and Isabella to carry this out, even though he came to regret it later.

But they were saying that he came to regret it because he gave away so much power, because they said, can we have an inquisition here in Spain? And he said, I don't know, And they said, hey, you know those Spanish troops that are protecting you from Turkey right now in Rome, how about we recall them home? And he said, yeah, why don't you have an inquisition? Yeah? Uh, And by the way, you don't have to answer to me, just

go ahead and have your inquisition. And years later he's like, man, that was probably not a good idea because Pope John Paul the Second is going to have to apologize twice for this right. And Plus what's the difference in executing someone yourself at the end of a tribunal and saying, well, we're not gonna do it, but if someone else happened to after we set them into the street, it's not you know, on our wives and even like set them into the street like they're being killed because we tried

them because they weren't Catholic enough. So but yes, I think it is. This is a really great illustration of the history is never black and white, and it can very easily become conflated, and even still today, like we don't necessarily know what happened, and even if we do know what happened from this symposium on the Inquisition, not everybody believes it. You know. Yeah, well we got some good comedy out of it from mel Brooks and Monty Python.

Years later we shared a tragedy. Plus time. Uh, let's see, you got anything else I do not, sir. If you want to learn more about the Inquisition, you can type that word and the search part how stuff works dot com and it will bring up this article. And since you said search part, get this everybody. It's time for all right. So, as most of you know, this is a time when we thank people for sending us nice things, from records and books to Christmas cards and cookies. Uh uh,

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us a nice Christmas card. Yeah. And are we saying Matt Rob or Rab two ways? I called them Matt Broccoli Rob in mind, so I'm gonna say Rob. Stacy Wabell sent us some children's books Rudy's Incredible Kidney Machine and Rudy gets a trans plant. So there's a children's book for everything, and this one covers kidney transpense. Is awesome. Our pals at co ed the Cooperative for Education who helped fund education for kids in Guatemala, who were very fond of They send us a nice Christmas cards, so

thanks guys. We got some knit socks from Jennifer Beaver that are very warm and colorful. Whatch I know you like? We got a Christmas card from Heather from Montana, Thank you. I got a postcard from Susannah Danner, Thank you for that. Lauren Coyne also sent us a Christmas card. Um, and you can watch my Dessert Junkie on YouTube and that's

our YouTube show. Um. We got three not one, not two, but three volumes of short documentaries from Robin Canfield from Actuality Media, which supports a documentary study Abroad program which is pretty awesome, So all of you documentarians out there check that out. Actuality Media very cool. Thank you Charles Shell for sending us custom stuff you should know necklace. Yeah, Ashley Murphy for the Japanese hero masks and the nice

letter that she sent. Yeah, that was nice. Those are great. Uh. Thank you very much to Mona Collantine and Grandma Colling Teine in the whole Collantine family for sending us the big old tin of Christmas cookies again this year. Thank you Ramona. She's one of our local fans and she's awesome. Although her boyfriend I don't think helps and Nathan unless you make cookies for us, I won't mention you again.

Although he might have helped Katherine Harmon the Courage send the book Octopus and that's with an exclamation point because she knows that we love the Octopus. Yes, and our buddy Aaron a c ZZ Cooper Cooper, who again this year took some of his best images of us photoshopped into weird situations uh and made hard posters for us, which are awesome, So thanks Coop. We appreciate them. As always. You're the best. Uncle John's Bathroom Reader they always send

us great stuff, your friends. They sent us the book's Weird Inventions in Weird Canada and if you're Canadian you need to get Weird Canada and if you're not Canadian, you should get into They sent us a couple other ones too that I got. Yeah. Yeah. You can follow them on Twitter, go to their website Uncle John's Bathroom Readers. They are wonderful. Mark Palm of Vancouver, BC sen it's a seven inch of his band super Crush. It's pretty great. Seven inches a record by the way, for those of

you not in the know. Uh. We got two albums from Ghosts of Sailors at See. We got the Skeleton Coast and a single, so thanks for that. Nicole Wingett send us wristbands from her Obstacle Course racing team, the corn Fed Spartans. Uh, let's see. Vivian Chin in Korea sent us Shawley's Fantasy two thousand fourteen calendars. Some K pop anime. Oh yeah, I remember that stuff. Paul sent us a lot of German cookies, like so many that the entire office couldn't need them all. Uh. And the

DVD Michael Moore Hates America we got. Also got some sweet treats from Renee. Uh. Chavez Chaves, C H A V E. S. Javes. I'm gonna say Chavis all right. Rachel Ray Rose of Rose Sign Language Interpreting Company send us some homemade grape jelly and Pence. Oh yeah, I had someone that the other day. Delicious. Yes, Bob Partridge, Tennis and Alan Turing postcard from the London Science Museum. So that was on point and pretty cool. Yeah. I got a couple more you got some more. I have

one more, so you go ahead. Hillary Lozar super fan sinn Us Flathead Lake cheese. Yeah, and by the way, I've since eaten all of it since the last time we mentioned it on the podcast. It was awesome. She also sent, uh, you mean Emily some earrings, which is very nice. Yes, it was nice. Um. And then Marcus who sent us popping shots. Thanks for those. Yeah, yeah, you can check those out online. And my last one,

Debbie from hammer Press sent us a goodie bag. They are a letter press and design company from Kansas City, Missouri, and she sent us all sorts of cool cool stuff like hand printed cards and like cool pencils and erasers and uh so support hammer Press and letter press designers. It's a pretty cool thing for sure. So thanks everybody. Thanks everybody, We appreciate it. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to you, and uh thanks the other three d and sixty four

days of the year for all of the nice gifts. Uh. If you want to get in touch with me and Chuck to talk to us to send us a gift for whatever reason, you can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com. Slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and as always, you can hang out with us at our cute little home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of

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