n the first two decades after the establishment of the Inquisition over a thousand lives were lost, a majority of which were conversos. The clear persistence against conversos is evidence enough to believe that the Inquisition had religious motives which stemmed from the idea of ‘false converts’. Conversos were a clear target of the Inquisition as they did not fit into the new Spain which the Catholic monarchs wished to achieve, which was a solely Catholic Spain unified geographically and religiously. This meant that heresy was a clear threat to the Spain that they wanted, so they rooted out any heresy which existed by creating the notorious Inquisition.

Isabella and Ferdinand ruled a fragmented Spain, filled with a variety of cultural minorities such as the Jews and Muslims. The Inquisition was used in many ways to unify Spain religiously as seen through the edict of expulsion and the continuous use of trials on major heresies such as Judaism and Lutheranism. Lutheranism alone between 1540 and 1700 took up 24.2% of the total trials that took place by the hands of the Inquisition. They believed that to unite Spain, they would need one common religion; Catholicism. They, therefore, chose to drive out the Jews and other assorted heretics, through the edict of expulsion, in order to have Spain remain as solely Catholic. This stems from Isabella’s piety as she is strongly catholic and wishes to have Spain remain a solely catholic peninsula. This would allow the other foreign powers such as France and England to see Spain as a strong nation which was no longer fragmented by religious ambiguity. This, therefore, shows that despite the clearly religious motives of the Inquisition, it was initially created to achieve power and control over a divided Spain and religious unity was simply a way in which control was achieved by the Catholic sovereigns.

Whilst the Inquisition can be seen to have religious motives, it is arguable that it, in fact, was not solely based on persecuting religious/cultural minorities as the trials against Islam, Judaism and Lutheranism all together do not represent 50% of the total activity of the Inquisition. The proportion of religious trials, also known as major heresies, that were executed took up 42.2% of the total trials carried out by the Inquisition, in comparison to the minor heresies which took up 57.7% of the trials. Therefore it is impossible to claim that the Spanish Inquisition was purely religious as minor heresies, which were non-religious, dominated the number of trials carried out. This remained true at a national level and for all districts with the exception of Valencia which displayed the highest concentration of Moriscos in Spain. T