Stuff You Should Know - How the Spanish Inquisition Worked

Episode Date: March 4, 2014

The idea of pious monks imbued with unbridled power and with a penchant for dealing torture and death is a scary one indeed, and one both Spain and the Catholic Church have tried to reconcile since the Spanish Inquisition ended in the 19th century. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

attention bachelor nation. He's back. The host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. During two decades in reality TV, Chris saw it all and now he's telling all. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable

happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from House of Works.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerome Rowland. Jerry. That's J-E-R-I. Yeah, for those who don't know. I think we've ever said that and we get many, many variations. Yes, it's mind-boggling to me that some people get it right. And Jerry's a lady. Yes, she is. We might as well just go ahead and get that out there. I think most people knew that

right? Most people, but new listeners are producers. J-E-R-I, the ladies. That's a t-shirt right there. Yep. 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 I song all day. Yeah, I was going to ask, how shall we start this with the song or with the nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition? So either Mel Brooks or Monty Python? Yeah, they're both great. So 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. I did too and I was like, that's good. It got me. LOL'd. Wow. Yeah, Flying Circus, one of the great sketch shows of all time, I think.

I'm curious, Chuck, what percentage of LOL's do you think are actually symbolic of a real laugh out loud? Nick, when people say that? Even if it's a chuckle. Yeah. I don't know. I never say LOL, though. I always say. Ha! Like for bobble. I've seen you type LOL. No. I have too. Dude, I've never typed LOL. That is not true. Or any internet shorthand. That's not true. It is so true. Find the documentation. I will. 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. My family just left everybody alone. That must be nice. We left one another alone. So, Chuck. Yes. You've heard of the Spanish Inquisition,

obviously. I have, sir. Were you familiar with the actual thing, like beyond the 70s, the 1970s? No. With Monty Python and Mel Brooks? No, I didn't know a whole lot about it. This one was a delight to learn. Yeah. It was one of those things in history where you realize, man, it has it all, frankly. There was more to it than just what we thought. Sure. And it's possibly misunderstood. Yeah. There's a lot of controversy surrounding how deep it went and how bloody it got. Yeah. And a lot of people are still duking it out. Yeah. And it makes sense. Pope John Paul put it very well when he said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that yes, the Inquisition happened. Yes, it was super messed up. Let's find out exactly how messed up it is. Yeah. So, the church can be fully

penitent under being fully informed. Right. But he wasn't saying like, stop making such a big deal about the Inquisition. Sure. Because it was a big deal because it was using a court system, pretty much a perverted court system. Yeah. Another kind that's like, you know, rusty and Eugene, like perverted, meaning like twisted and grotesque. Yeah. To root people out based on the idea that they weren't pious enough or pious in the right ways. Yeah. And even that was disingenuous because, ultimately, it was used to consolidate power. Yeah. And I saw other remarks from historians that 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. Sure. And it's a real blemish on the history of both the church and Europe. Yeah. But it did happen. But it's also possible that just how bad it was, like you're saying 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 vacuum. No. It was part of a larger thing, the Inquisition in general, 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 a 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. Well, I think maybe a couple of inquisitors might have been at work at times, but it definitely wasn't like a jury system by any means. None at all. There were also some other characteristics of an Inquisition. Yeah. 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. Criminals could accuse you. Family members. Other heretics. Yeah. And that was the whole point of this was to root out heretics. People who held beliefs that flew in the face of 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. Yeah. It wasn't like you're anti-Catholic or you're a non- Christian atheist. Like most of these people were either converts to Catholicism, forced converts. Yeah. Like Jews or Muslims. Or 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 during this time. Solicitation. And this is all, by the way, from the archive. They eventually opened up the secret archives the Catholic Church did about all this. Yeah. And that's capitalized, by the way, secret archives.

Yeah. It's a title. Yeah. And so they actually had percentages of what people 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. Wow. Freemasonry, sodomy, bigamy, superstitions. Basically anything that they could cook up that they wanted to cook up. Okay. So 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 teaching these beliefs just to other people, not just simply like a quiet believer of these heretic things. And you had to be doing it of your own free will and not be like if you were under the influence of Satan.

Right. And you had to still hold this belief publicly even after being corrected, even after it was pointed out that 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 yeah, you're right. So let's take it back a little further. Back in the day, Christians were very much persecuted and were thrown to the lions and were, they were very much mistreated. Sure. And apparently, they kind of took that in a lot the same way that maybe a pipsqueak who's bullied and then bulks up over time. The 90 pound wiggling. Yeah. Would treat being bullied. The Christians did much the same thing. Either that or they had a very short memory because after Constantine,

the great converted to Christianity. He was the Roman emperor. Yeah. All of a sudden, the church, the Catholic church started to enjoy a lot of power and that power grew and grew and grew. 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 became very powerful. The church became a very powerful institution. And one of the ways that it decided it was going to spread its power and maintain its power was to squash anything that was outside the purview of Catholic orthodoxy. Yeah. Anything that the Pope said was not kosher was not okay and was heresy. And this is at the same time, there are a lot of

different sects of Christianity, of Catholicism even, that were starting to gain in popularity. So things like the Illuminati came out of this era and the Cathars, like very spiritual groups that were Christian and identify as Christian but thought the Pope was corrupt. And the Pope said, we're coming after you guys. Yeah. And this was the first Inquisition. Yeah, there were even persecution of fellow Christians, Protestant Christians, Lutheran Christians. Right. 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 during the medieval or papal Inquisition starting, I think, 1231 under Pope Gregory the 9th. Yes. He issued a papal

bowl that said, we're going after heretics and we're going to use Inquisitions. Yeah. And that was the start. That's right, 1231. And he picked the what was known as the Dominican Order, which was not Dominican as in Dominican Republic, but founded by Saint Dominic de Guzman. And they were apparently like super smart and really knowledgeable. And they were the people to, I guess, the A team to go about conducting this first Inquisition. Right. So this was under King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella. And it says there were secular rulers. Do you know what that means? Did they not identify as Catholic or they just, that wasn't there? No, they definitely did. But I think what they were saying was they weren't, it wasn't like the Pope. It was, they were like,

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 a Catholic monarchy. Right. And so they were saying, we need to make sure everybody else is Catholic. So let's start an Inquisition here too. Right. Plus we can collect some money. Right. If they're found guilty. Take their land, that kind of thing. So like I said, Isabella and Ferdinand with Pope Sixtus IV. And like you said, it was to create unity on the surface, but probably it was more about power and money. And kind of just quashing any 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. Yeah. Family alliances. There's like dynasties and clans. Sure. 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 talked about Jews and Muslims. They were

two of the bigger targets as far as it was just a bigoted culture. Basically, Jews were putting ghettos or killed, which is weird because Spain was a very, it grew out of Jews, Christians, and Muslims living together in this area. Yeah. But then under Ferdinand and Isabella, they were like, it was just Catholicism. Yeah. They were officially banished with the Alhambra decree in 1492. 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, moranos, 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 Catholic. Yeah. And there were a lot of Jews who converted. They were called conversos, too, which was I think kind of a neutral term for them. But they were converted Catholics. And yes, there was a great deal of suspicion that they were Jewish in everything but name, right, and that they just converted to avoid persecution, not even necessarily at first to avoid persecution, but just to be able to gain power because the power establishment was Catholic. So I'll just go become Catholic, too. And I'm still really Jewish, but I can hang out and have communion with you guys who are running the show. And so it was the suspicion that there were what are called crypto Jews

running around in Spain that initiated the first input or the Spanish Inquisition. Yeah. And I guess the same is true of the Muslim Moors. They would convert to Catholicism. And that still didn't really count. They were known as Mariscos, which is Moorish. Yeah. And it was basically the same thing as the Jewish community. They were still targets, even though they converted. And like I said, it went all the way over to Protestants and fellow Christians. Right. So anything not Catholic, right, basically, and not even not just not Catholic, but not Orthodox Catholic. Yeah. And 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.

Right. 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 nine Catholics in a land that was there were no Catholics. So like when Spain took over Granada, it was Moorish. It was Muslim. Yeah. They set up the Inquisition there or the Portuguese also had an Inquisition. And when they went to India, they set up the Goa 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. Yeah. Yes, there's going to be Hindus here. Like this is this is awful. Yeah. But yeah, they also did it in Mexico and other places too. Yeah. And like we said, this isn't the only Inquisition

that was one in Portugal. There was the Roman Inquisition in the 1540s. That's where Galileo was famously, I guess, tried. Yeah. And he was under house arrest. Yeah. But he apparently his his arrest in his trial was more just like it just flew in the face of science. Yeah. The way he was treated apparently wasn't so bad. Like he had a pension from the pope and yeah, I thought he was really fine. No, he died of natural causes. Yeah. He was under house arrest, but he was he wasn't hurting. Right. Apparently. It was more just like the fact that that there was a trial. Right. Right. Of science by Catholicism. Right. You know, it doesn't get more literal than that. Exactly. So like, like you're saying, it's exported everywhere. Yeah. But let's let's get

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Yeah, we mentioned earlier that you could be accused by anyone anonymously. You didn't have the assistance of a lawyer. You weren't necessarily even informed of your charges. And you had to testify on your own behalf like you were forced to, basically. And on top of that, you didn't rarely have anyone coming to your defense because you would probably also be rung up as a heretic. You're kind of on your own. The witnesses. They're defensive. Yeah. I've got a character witness here and the guy's going, nope, not me. Yeah, I probably did see him flying around on a broom. Who knows? I didn't see anything about this, but it said that fellow heretics could rat out other ones.

But I wonder if there was a system of leniency if you sold people down the river. I think there definitely was. So this is how it happened from what I understand. There would be news that the parish priest would get that the inquisition was coming. And some inquisitors would come in. I couldn't believe it, but this article failed to mention Tomas to Torkmata, the grand inquisitor. His name doesn't appear in this article. It's crazy. But for a while, Torkmata took over from, I think, 1483 to 1498. And is he just like the chief of the Supreme Court? He's the head guy. And he is extremely vilified in history. He was a very hated man because he

was the face of the inquisition of all this torture and burning at the stake and rooting people out and just a literal witch hunt. 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 1483, those two years were very bloody. There was a lot of torture. There were basically no rules. Torkmata came in and established rules. So there are things like you can't torture anybody for longer than 15 minutes. A doctor has to be present during torture. If a doctor says call it off, you have to stop. True. But also, if you did do this stuff, you can also 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 going to do anything to you. Well, you could do torture because in 12, I can't remember, maybe 1283, 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, in 1252. Very appropriate. Yeah. So you could torture somebody under the auspices of the church, but you weren't supposed to like mangle them or something like that. But yes, there wasn't any punishment for these inquisitors. Right. But Torkmata is the face of the of the inquisition. But there are some people who say, well, he kind of brought a little bit of order to it if you can look at it like that. Yeah. And other people say he may have even saved

people from, you know, gang violence of people basically just running in your house and burning you at stake. Right. Or from the state because there were apparently some just common criminals who upon being captured would blaspheme and then they would be tried by the inquisition. Yeah. 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. Yeah. It was still at its core a religious exercise. Yeah. And the whole point from the inquisitor on down, especially these people who are 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 pulled out of them by any means necessary, basically. And not only that, you had to confess twice. 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. They give them a chance right then. Yeah. There's a 40 day grace period. Yeah. And so you can confess your heresy right here and you won't be tortured. You won't be punished. You might have to do some penance, of course, but you can escape torture for sure. Yeah. And you have to denounce other heretics. Right. So that

was sort of the McCarthyism. If you name names, right, then 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 mouths shut. Right. These guys will leave eventually, just shut up. Yeah. 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. Yeah. 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. Right. These weren't like sophisticated people. No. And these were 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 the nuances of Catholic orthodoxy. Yeah. They were leading questions. They would confuse them. They would get them rattled, 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. The Jews in Spain, prior to the consolidation of Spain into Spain, this was the merchant class. While there were plenty of peasants who were uneducated, there were also a lot of Jews who were very much educated, who were wealthy. So they did make even more desirable targets under that viewpoint that this was all about money and power and land, like what better group to target than the wealthy

middle class. Right. And they did. Yeah, that's a good point. I didn't think about that. Thanks, man. So where were we? They weren't clever. They were being confused basically. Depending on where you were. This is a country parish that we're talking about right now. Yeah. Pumpkins. European pumpkins. They were like saucepans on their heads, perhaps, and overalls with no shirts underneath. So the other thing is, they were imprisoned until they got a confession. So it's not like 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. Right. That was the only way to get out. And if you died in prison. Yes. Well, your bones would be, you'd be buried, but then your

bones would be dug up and cremated and basically scattered. Right. Like as an insult after death. And a little known fact, but in the 19th century, somebody did this to Turkmada's remains. Oh, really? They dug them up and incinerated what was left of them and like scattered his ashes, which I mean, if you're, if you're high up in the Dominican order, yeah, somebody did that to your bones. Yeah. It's an enormous spiritual stab in the neck. Yeah. Okay. So we have been, had the bull, the decree of torture issued. And so there were, you know, we've covered this in medieval torture devices, a lot of it, but they would do various things to extract whatever information they wanted. One was called the strapado. And that was, and this didn't sound too bad

to me at first. What? 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 itself. 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. Yeah. But then I realized that your hands were 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 arms coming out of your sockets. Yeah, we're pretty good. Very high. And there were also additions to this torture that could be added like heavy weights to your legs. Sure. You could be jerked downward. Yeah. Instead

of just hanging there. Yeah. Just to really kind of help that dislocation along. Yeah. And make the strapado even more excruciating. They might burn you with hot pokers while you were hanging there. Oh, yeah. Well, thumb screw action. Yep. Heavy boots. Yeah. The boot. You didn't want that. You didn't want the boot. We talked about the rack, which was when your hands and feet are tied and you're on these rollers and a metal frame and they basically just turn those rollers and give you a good stretch, meaning 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. I don't know. 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 just eviscerate themselves. That's awful. But that's going on right now. And no one has any idea what the heck's going on with these 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, you're 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. 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 Alexander the fourth also decreed that you could clear anyone from wrongdoing like we pointed out. So it's even you're not going to go up on a tribunal for torturing someone as an inquisitor. No, that's not going to 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 know. It may have happened. Yeah, sure. But I didn't see anything. So so let's recount real quick. Yeah. The the

Inquisition comes to town. It's made up of some inquisitors, their secretaries, their staff and a banjo player. They said they set up shop and there's a 40 day grace period where they're just hanging out. Anybody who wants to come confess can confess 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 and confess and people are like, you go do it. Right. I'm sure we'll be fine. Right. 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. A carbonito. 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. Well, penance could be rough though. It could be, but it could also not be. Yeah, but like depends 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 didn't have. Right. Hard labor for the rest of your life. 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. Yeah. On the countryside, not necessarily a little town, like Bologna, um, Toledo, they saw some, some pretty heavy action and these weren't necessarily

backwater birds. Yeah. You know, um, but the, the inquisition would come to town, set up a grace period, then the accusations would start to fly. There'd be torture. There'd be confessions. And then there was what are called the autos de fey. And an auto de fey was a religious ritual filled with a lot of pomp and ser, circumstance where the accused and convicted, uh, would walk around town in a big procession. Yeah. They'd have mass, of course. Of course. They had mass all the time. Sure. Um, and like everybody would come out for it. It was a huge thing, very much like a public execution. Yeah. In the United States or in, in other parts of Europe, but the huge difference was there was never an execution in an auto de fey. Right. 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. Yeah. It wouldn't take place during an auto de fey. 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, 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. Right. And that's where like you would get burned at the stake. Yes. Uh, especially if you were a repeat offender, like you generally weren't forgiven for that. Right. 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, it took like 30 minutes to die from it at the earliest up to a couple hours, depending on if the wind was blowing too much. Like that would be a horrible, horrible way to go. Yeah. Was it worse ways to die? No, it was more recent than that. Was it? I don't remember what it was, but, uh, we'll get to, uh, the fallout from all this stuff because you can't, you can't do this to people and not expect it to be a fallout over the course of history. Sure. And the inquisition wasn't just from the 1481 to 1492, when the, um, the decree of Alhambra was issued. Like it kept going on until the 19th century. Yeah. 1834 was when the last one in

Spain occurred. There was a school teacher who was put to death in 1826 because he taught dayism to his class. Wow. That's the 19th century. 1826 and like that's not the 15th century. It's the 19th century. No, it's not that long ago in the grand scheme of things, you know. Yeah. And in 1858, there's a very famous case of a kid named Edgardo Mortara. 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. Wow. What was that? 1858. Holy cow. Yeah. So that was even after the last inquisition supposedly. When was the, when...

1834. Yes. So here's the thing. The Spain said no more inquisition in 1834. The Catholic church still actually has something called the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. They renamed it in the 60s. The 1960s. 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 is going on these days. So since the aftermath of the inquisition is pretty controversial because beginning in the 1500s with the Protestant Reformation, you had a lot of anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish sentiment. And a lot of people that 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, were actually killed. I think it was like 0.1%. So I saw something different. I saw 1% of the 125,000 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 we're never going to know actual 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. But these numbers, the 1% of the 125,000 trials, that's based on that secret archive that the Vatican opened up in 1998 under Pope John Paul II 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 what's what. And he apologized when he announced that and then he apologized in 2004 when they issued the report finally. And that's where that 1% of the 125,000 came from. Yeah. And I saw blog opinion pieces from 2004 where some people were like, we shouldn't be apologizing for this again. Like it was like really inflated numbers and it wasn't as bad as people say. Well, again, that's the pro-Catholic side. Yeah, not pro-Inquisition necessarily, but Catholic defenders, I think is a better way to say it. 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 though, you know. It is. I mean, 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. And by the way, you don't have to answer to me. Just go ahead and have your Inquisition. And years later, he was like, man, that was probably not a good idea because Pope John Paul II 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 going to do it. But if someone else happened to right after we set them into the street, it's not, you know, on our watch and not even like set them into the street. Like they're being killed because we tried them because they weren't Catholic enough. Yeah. So but yes, I think it is this is a really great illustration of that history is never black and white. Right. 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 sure did. Tragedy plus time. Yeah. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co stars, friends and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No,

it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if

the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, cancelled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com and it will bring up this article. And since you've seen the search bar, get this, everybody. It's time for Administering Details. 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. So let's get this going here. I've got some CDs for you and vinyl albums even. Yeah. Baby and the Nobody sent us shirts and CDs. And nostril. Our buddy Gentry Kolelo sent us a vinyl LP and some t-shirts for her band Land of Vandals. Nice. Yeah, we got those. Good stuff. Matt Rob from the School on

Wheels team sent us a nice Christmas card. Thank you for that. Yeah, and since we're on Christmas cards, Amy, and that is with an IEE Meyer from Sellersburg, Indiana, sent us a nice Christmas card. Yeah, and are we seeing Matt Rob or Rab? Well, two ways. I call them Matt Broccoli Rob. In mind, so I'm going to say Rob. Okay. Stacey Wabel sent us some children's books. Rudy's Incredible Kidney Machine and Rudy Gets a Transplant. So there's a children's book for everything and this one covers kidney transplants. It's awesome. Our pals at Coed, the Cooperative for Education who help find education for kids in Guatemala who we're very fond of. They sent us a nice Christmas card. So thanks, guys. We got some knit socks from Jennifer Beaver

that are very warm and colorful, which I know you like. Yep. We got a Christmas card from Heather from Montana. Thank you. Got a postcard from Susanna Danner. Thank you for that. Lauren Coyne also sent us a Christmas card and you can watch my dessert junkie on YouTube and that's her YouTube show. Yeah. 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. Ashley Murphy for the Japanese hero masks and the nice letter that she sent. Yeah,

that was nice. Those are great. Thank you very much to Mona Collantine and Grandma Collantine and 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. Catherine Harmon Courage sent us 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, who again this year took some of his best images of us photoshopped into weird situations 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 for our friends. They sent us the books Weird Inventions and Weird Canada. Yep. And if you're Canadian, you need to get Weird Canada. Yep. And if you're not Canadian, you should get it too. They sent us a couple other ones too that I got. Oh yeah. Yeah, you can follow them on Twitter, go to their website, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. They are wonderful. Mark Palm of Vancouver, B.C. sent us a seven-inch of his band Super Crush. It's pretty great. A seven-inch is a record, by the way, for those of you not in the know. Yeah. Yeah. We got two albums from Ghosts of Sailors at Sea. We got the Skeleton Coast and a single.

So thanks for that. Nicole Winget sent us wristbands from her obstacle course racing team, the Cornfeds Spartans. Let's see. Vivian Chen in Korea sent us Shawley's Fantasy 2014 calendars, some K-pop anime. Oh yeah. Yeah, I remember that stuff. Paul sent us a lot of German cookies, like so many that the entire office couldn't eat them all. Yeah. And the DVD, Michael Moore Hates America. We also got some sweet treats from Renee Chavez. Chavez. C-H-A-V-E-S. Chaves. I'm going to say Chavez. All right. Rachel Ray Rose of Rose Sign Language Interpreting Company sent us some homemade grape jelly and pens. Oh yeah. I had some of that the other day. Yeah. Delicious. Yes. Bob Partridge sent us an Alan Turing postcard from the London Science Museum.

Neat. 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. Hilary Lozar, superfan, sent us Flathead Lake Cheese. Yeah. And by the way, I have since eaten all of it since the last time we mentioned it on the podcast. It was awesome. She also sent, you mean Emily some earrings, which is very nice. Yes, it was nice. And then Marcus, who sent us Poppin' Shots. Thanks for those. Yeah. You can check those out online. And my last one, Debbie from HammerPress sent us a goodie bag. They are a letterpress and design company from Kansas City, Missouri. And she sent us all sorts of cool stuff like hand-printed cards and like cool pencils and erasers. And so support HammerPress and letterpress designers. It's a

pretty cool thing for sure. So thanks everybody. Thanks everybody. We appreciate it. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays to you. And thanks the other 364 days of the year for all of the nice gifts. 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 SYSKpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastatdiscovery.com. And as always, you can hang out with us at our cute little home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. With over 100,000 titles to choose from, Audible.com is a leading provider

of downloadable digital audio books and spoken word entertainment. Go to audiblepodcast.com slash no stuff. K-N-O-W-S-T-U-F-F. To get a free audio book download of your choice when you sign up today. Attention Bachelor Nation. He's back. The host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. During two decades in reality TV, Chris saw it all. And now he's telling all. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Munga Shatikular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-Pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me. And my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.