Welcome to Gaia! ::

Topic: Torquemada & inquisition

Today we mark the death anniversary of Tomas de Torquemada. We don't usually note the passing of famous people, but Torquemada is an unusual case. Not only is his birthday unknown, but Torquemada's place in history was born out of his association with death: confessor of Queen Isabella, Torquemada was the First Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, the ecclesiastical tribunal responsible for torturing or killing thousands of people suspected of offenses against the Roman Catholic orthodoxy.

The name Torquemada comes from the town in Castile where the Grand Inquisitor was born sometime in the year 1420. Nowadays, thanks to the secretive, arbitrary, and cruel methods of its most famous citizen, Torquemada has become synonymous with arbitrary, notorious severity of judgment and cruelty of punishment.

The term inquisition—which is just a century older than Torquemada—comes from the Latin verb meaning "to inquire." Although the original, lower-cased inquisition referred simply to an inquiry, or to a judicial or official examination before a jury, the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition helped that term develop its sense referring to merciless, unremitting volleys of questions, or to a sustained search, thorough and often unrelenting, for hidden facts.

Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.