The extradition treaties of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions (1500-1700)

Abstract

For nearly three centuries, the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions cooperated in the repression of heresy in the Iberian Peninsula. This cooperation not only took the form of regular exchanges of information and documents but also included the extradition of fugitive heretics. To date, modern scholars have entirely neglected this aspect of the history of both Inquisitions, which remains obscure. Using unedited documentary sources preserved in Spanish and Portuguese archives, this article will focus on the extradition of prisoners between the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This work will reconstruct, in considerable detail, the complex negotiations that led to the establishment of two extradition treaties in 1544 and 1570 and will examine the various problems that confronted the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions both before and after these important dates.