The abolition of the Spanish Inquisition occurred in four stages. In December 1808 the Spanish Inquisition was suppressed by Napoleon Bonaparte through the Decrees of Chamartín, which were applied in “afrancesado” Spain. In “patriotic” Spain, however, abolition occurred several years later, when the Cortes of Cádiz decreed its suppression on 28 February 1813. In July 1814 the Inquisition was restored by King Ferdinand VII together with the entire Ancien Régime, ordering that all decrees of the Cortes be “removed from the course of time.” Yet on 9 March 1820, compelled by the triumph of the Riego uprising, which reinstated the Spanish Constitution of 1812, the king again abolished it. After the restoration of his absolute powers in October 1823—thanks to the intervention of the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis ending the Trienio Liberal—Ferdinand VII did not re-establish the Inquisition; instead, certain dioceses created Juntas de Fe. In July 1834, at the beginning of the regency of Maria Christina of Bourbon, the moderate liberal government of Francisco Martínez de la Rosa issued a decree whose first article declared: “The Tribunal of the Inquisition is definitively suppressed.” This was the fourth and final abolition of the Inquisition in Spain.Escudero, José Antonio (2014). Las Juntas de Fe (1823–1834): una Inquisición sin Inquisición. Vol. 12. doi:10.20318/hn.2014.0215.
Background: the Spanish Inquisition in the 18th century
Decline of the Inquisition? There are discrepancies among historians when assessing the activity of the Inquisition in the 18th century AD. While some speak of a “decline” of the Holy Office, especially in its second half, others prefer to use terms such as ‘accommodation’ and “restructuring.” Certainly, in the 18th century AD, there was a decline in the activity of the Inquisition, and the privileges of the inquisitors were questioned and some were abolished, such as exemption from paying taxes or housing troops. La Parra López Casado, 2013, pp=22–23, “The number of personnel in its service declined, especially Commissary of the Holy Office and Familiar of the Holy Office; salaries fell and were often paid with long delays, causing trials to drag on endlessly and many cases to remain unresolved or forgotten.”
However, the Inquisition remained remarkably active throughout the 18th century, and it was not until 1780 that there was a significant drop in the number of cases, although between that date and 1820 some 50,000 people were reported to the Inquisition. La Parra López Casado, 2013, pp=21; 24
What historians who have researched the subject more recently do agree on is that in the 18th century AD, especially in the second half, there was a change in the crimes dealt with by the Inquisition. As the “heretics” who had been its main target—Judaizers, Protestants, and Moriscos—had almost disappeared, the Holy Office now focused on the defenders of new enlightened ideas and on crimes considered “minor,” such as blasphemy, pious women, superstitions, witchcraft, bigamy, and other practices contrary to Catholic morality, especially “solicitation.” Thus, “in the 18th century AD, the Inquisition became the guardian of Catholic morality and the enemy of new ideas”—precisely in the second half of the 18th century AD, the most frequent crime was that of propositions: “statements, sayings, or expressions that could be interpreted in a non-Catholic or heterodox sense.” La Parra López Casado, 2013, pp=24–25
Clergy and lay people who were branded as Jansenists by their opponents were subject to special surveillance by the Inquisition. These individuals advocated an “enlightened” reform of religion based on a more internal experience of faith, making it more rational by eliminating superstitious practices and the external pomp of worship. They also advocated changes in the organization of the Church, in accordance with the episcopalist approaches that were widespread in Europe at the time, which called into question the very existence of the Inquisition, since it was considered that it was the bishops who should deal with moral and faith issues. La Parra López Casado, 2013, pp=26-27
As a consequence, many writers, politicians, soldiers, and clergy were accused and imprisoned by the Inquisition, though most were never sentenced. For some, imprisonment caused irreversible harm. The Augustinian Pedro Centeno went insane and spent the rest of his life confined to a convent. “The problem,” write La Parra and Casado, “lay less in receiving a guilty verdict than in enduring a perpetual state of uncertainty.” La Parra López Casado, 2013, pp=227-28
Proof of this was the trial of Pablo de Olavide, an enlightened figure and official under Charles III of Spain, who was sentenced in 1778 to eight years' imprisonment in a convent, although he escaped after two years, for being a “heretic, infamous and rotten member of the religion,” which fueled the discrediting of the Inquisition in Spain and the rest of Europe La Parra López Casado, 2013, pp=31
The Inquisition “softened” its methods somewhat, attempting to adapt to the new times. In 1748, it abolished the penalty of galley slavery, and around the same time, the custom of hanging the sambenitos (penitential robes) of the condemned in churches to perpetuate the infamy of their sin on their descendants was abandoned. The treatment of prisoners in secret prisons also became less rigorous, although the use of torture to obtain confessions was not abandoned. La Parra López Casado, 2013, pp=31-32
The first reason for introducing these changes was the advance of Enlightenment ideas, which inevitably affected the Inquisition—some inquisitors, such as Felipe Bertrán, Grand Inquisitor between 1775 and 1783, shared the new ideas, although most opposed them. The second reason was the regalist policy of the Bourbon monarchy, which sought to reform the Inquisition, leading to considerable conflict between the Holy Office and the Crown, although its abolition was never considered. The monarchy's objective was summarized by the Count of Floridablanca, minister of Charles III, in his well-known Confidential Instruction of 1787: La Parra López Casado, 2013, pp=35–38 "The king’s first obligation is to protect the Catholic religion throughout this vast monarchy… while combining due respect for the Holy See with the defense of royal preeminence and authority."
Bourbon policy toward the Inquisition
Philip V received the full support of the Inquisition during the War of the Spanish Succession, but after the conflict he instructed Melchor de Macanaz, fiscal of the Council of Castile, to draft a report reinforcing royal authority over the Holy Office. The request stemmed from the opposition of the inquisitor general, Francesco del Giudice, to Macanaz’s December 1713 memorandum, which proposed limiting papal influence in the Spanish Church. Philip V dismissed del Giudice and commissioned Macanaz’s report. Pérez, 2012, pp.190
In his report on the Inquisition, Macanaz warned the king that the Holy Office had encroached on the prerogatives of the Crown and had acquired a degree of autonomy and immunity that was difficult for an absolute monarch to tolerate. What Macanaz proposed was not to abolish the institution but to reinforce the monarch's authority over it, reducing its scope of competence to strictly spiritual matters and subordinating it to the royal courts when it came to classifying crimes, all within the context of a clearly regalist policy. La Parra López Casado, 2013, pp=37–39
However, Macanaz's proposal did not go ahead because the opinion of Philip V's advisors was divided on the issue of the Inquisition and because Macanaz ended up falling into disgrace at court and was banished from the kingdom in 1715—he was not allowed to return until two years after Philip V's death in 1746, remaining in prison until his death in 1760. Pérez, 2012, pp.190
From then on, the attitude of the Bourbon ministers towards the Inquisition can be described as ambiguous, as it was asked to continue defending Catholic orthodoxy while at the same time helping to eradicate certain “superstitious” practices that hindered the progress of enlightenment. Thus, enlightened prelates were appointed to the position of Grand Inquisitor, such as Felipe Bertrán, Bishop of Salamanca, appointed in 1764, while the lower ranks of the institution continued to be made up of “ignorant clergy clinging to their meager livelihoods and privileges.” Pérez, 2012, pp.192–93
At the same time, what Henry Kamen has called “disillusionment” with the Inquisition was spreading, caused, among other reasons, by contact with the outside world. A pharmacist arrested in 1707 by the Inquisition in La Laguna (Tenerife) declared: "that in France one could live freely because there was neither the strictness nor the constraints found in Spain and Portugal; in France no one sought to know who each person was or what religion he professed, and thus anyone who lived honorably could be whatever he wished." Kamen, 2011, p=304
The first effective measures to bind the Inquisition more closely to the Crown were taken during the reign of Charles III. The opportunity arose when the Grand Inquisitor Manuel Quintano Bonifaz banned the circulation of the French work Exposición de la doctrina cristiana (Exposition of Christian Doctrine) by Mesenguy, considering it Jansenist—as it had been declared in a papal brief—despite the fact that the book had obtained royal license. When the king ordered him to lift the ban, the Grand Inquisitor refused and was banished from court. Shortly thereafter, the king issued a royal decree in 1768 limiting the Inquisition's powers to censor books. When the inquisitor reacted against this measure, the prosecutors of the Council of Castile, Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes and José Moñino, future Count of Floridablanca, reminded him that his authority came from the king and hinted that the Inquisition could be abolished “if the public interest so required.” Two years later, another royal decree of 1770 reduced the Inquisition's jurisdiction to crimes of contumacious heresy and apostasy, with the rest being transferred to the royal courts, although blasphemy, sodomy, and bigamy remained divided between the two. In 1784, inquisitors were prohibited from prosecuting nobles, ministers of the Crown, magistrates, and army officers without the express permission of the king. La Parra López Casado, 2013, pp=37–39
One of the first to speak out in favor of abolishing the Inquisition was the Count of Aranda, who in 1761 wrote a letter to Minister Ricardo Wall from Warsaw, where he was serving as ambassador, saying that “the Inquisition is unnecessary; it is enough to follow the Supreme Pontiff in his beliefs, and that is all that a prince and people who are children of his church can do.” In the letter, he referred to the rejection that the Holy Office aroused throughout Europe, and that it only served “the clergy and friars” to intimidate the laity and “prohibit anything that might open their eyes.” Aranda earned a reputation as an enemy of the Inquisition and was congratulated for this by Voltaire. La Parra López Casado, 2013, pp=41
Criticism intensified, both inside and outside Spain, during the trial of the enlightened royal official Pablo de Olavide, who was arrested in 1776 and sentenced by the Inquisition in 1778 to eight years' imprisonment in a convent for “heresy”—although he managed to escape after two years and went into exile in France. Even King Frederick II of Prussia was enraged by what had happened and in a letter sent to the French philosopher D'Alembert, one of the two editors of L'Encyclopédie, he said Pérez, 2012, pp.193
"One shudders with indignation at seeing the Inquisition reestablished in Spain." La Parra López Casado, 2013, pp=41-42