A reference encyclopedia article on the Portuguese Inquisition, formally established 23 May 1536 by the papal bull Cum ad Nihil Magis of Pope Paul III at the long-standing request of King John III, and operating three mainland tribunals at Lisbon (1540 to 1794), Coimbra (1541 to 1781) and Evora (1536 to 1781) until final abolition on 31 March 1821. Its principal target was the Conversos, New Christians converted from Judaism and suspected of secretly Judaizing, with estimates of around 40,000 such persons investigated between 1540 and 1765. Presents a combined tribunal-level table of sentences compiled from the historian Fortunato de Almeida's work: 27,186 persons penanced and 1,118 executed in person plus 578 more burned in effigy across the three mainland tribunals' documented autos-da-fe, alongside a broader, less precisely sourced estimate of the total judicial processes across the institution's full span running into the tens of thousands.
Facts
Assessment
Reliability TierReference-encyclopedia tier 3, its tribunal-level trial and execution table sourced to the historian Fortunato de Almeida's compiled records of the mainland Portuguese autos-da-fe, used here for a documented sentence count rather than for a contested interpretive judgment. Citation
URLhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Inquisition 1 Sources
Claims Backed By This Source (37 claims)
This source backs 37 claims across the atlas. As facts: 31 well-attested, 1 scholarly debate. As cited relationships: 4 connected. Plus 1 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
Disposition By Topic
- Religious Events, 37 claims: 31 well-attested, 1 scholarly debate, 4 connected, 1 general references.
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