Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

The era of the Spanish Inquisition is most commonly remembered as a period of widespread fear and paranoia,

where communities turned on each other and torture was rife.

But how true is this popular perception?

While speaking to Emily Griffith,

historian and author Giles Tremlett answers listener questions on the Spanish Inquisition.

From the real history behind the sinister and bloodthirsty black legend to whether there was

any hope of survival for people singled out by the Inquisitors.

Hi Giles, thank you so much for joining me on the History Extra podcast.

Hi, Emily, it's good to be here again.

We're going to be answering lots of listener questions on the Spanish Inquisition.

Now, first and foremost, I think we need to answer what exactly was the Spanish Inquisition?

Well, obviously, nothing to do with Monty Python, which is what most people think about.

No, the Spanish Inquisition is an attempt by

the Spanish church and the Spanish state in the late 15th century to hunt down Catholic heretics

and deal with them. It's something that starts in Spain but then spreads through what will

become the Spanish Empire and it's something that will go on for another 300 years and won't

die out until the 19th century. So what were its origins then? Well, its origins are to do with

Spain's complex, ethnic, religious makeup in the

13th, 14th, 15th centuries. Spain had long had a mixture of religions, predominantly Christian,

but also with a large Muslim population, a large Jewish population, in fact, the

world's largest Jewish population in the 13th century. And so this was the background against

...