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The drive toward the imposition of religious orthodoxy in this period had its roots in the Christian fervor that accompanied the political aims of the Reconquest and was particularly potent in Castile. Though Christians, Muslims, and Jews had coexisted through most of the period of Islamic rule and much of that of Castilian, Portuguese, and Aragonese, Isabella secured papal authorization for the establishment of a state rather than an ecclesiastically based Inquisition.

The persecution of heresy began in 1478. The first targets of the Inquisition were the converted Jews or conversos, many of whom had advanced socially and economically and were suspected of being insincere in their Christian beliefs. Then in 1492, the persecution intensified when the Jewish population was ordered en masse by the Crown to convert or leave Spain; some fifty thousand became conversos while another one hundred thousand departed. In 1502, the Catholic kings issued a similar order regarding the Muslims of Castille. As a consequence, large numbers of Muslim peasants left the Peninsula, though three hundred thousand stayed and converted to Christianity, becoming known as moriscos. As the Spanish Crown worked itself into position as defender of the Catholic faith in Europe, popular support for the imposition of religious orthodoxy grew. In 1609 under Philip III (1578-1621), the moriscos were expelled altogether.

Over the course of three centuries the Inquisition brought about the execution of some three thousand persons suspected of various forms of religious heresy. Still, the inquisition was by no means a wholly centralized program. Regional courts carried out their repression in varying ways. In some areas, such as Aragon, there was shifting popular support and opposition to the Inquisition, and acts of sexual transgression were punished just as harshly as spiritual heresy. . .

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