Tomás de Torquemada

Tomás de Torquemada OP (14 October 1420 – 16 September 1498), also anglicized as Thomas of Torquemada, was a Roman Catholic Dominican friar and first Castillian Grand Inquisitor of the Tribunal of the Holy Office, which was a group of ecclesiastical prelates created in 1478 and charged with the somewhat ill-defined task of "upholding Catholic religious orthodoxy" within the lands of the newly formed union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon, presently known as the Kingdom of Spain.

In part because of persecution, Muslims and Jews in Castile and Aragon at that time found it socially, politically, and economically advantageous to convert to Catholicism (see Converso, Morisco, and Marrano). The existence of superficial converts from Judaism (i.e., Crypto-Jews) was perceived by the Catholic Monarchs as a threat to the religious and social life in their realms. This led Torquemada to be one of the chief supporters of the Alhambra Decree that expelled the Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon in 1492.

Owing to the Inquisition's use of torture to extract confessions and burning at the stake of those declared guilty, and to Torquemada's own approval, even advocacy, of these practices, his name has become synonymous with cruelty, religious intolerance, and fanaticism.