Church Records: Inquisition

The Portuguese inquisition was established in 1536 and was meant to root out heresy in the Catholic Church as a part of the counter-Reformation movement of the 16th Century. Its first and main center was in Lisbon, with other centers being set up in Coimbra to the North, and Évora to the East. As a general rule, the majority of those accused lived on the peninsula, with the geographical closeness to the offices making it more likely for one to be put on trial.

That being said, the Inquisition operated heavily overseas, if sporadically. Only one permanent office existed outside of Portugal proper, operating in Goa, the center of the Eastern half of the Portuguese Empire. However, after 1551, the Portuguese Inquisition gained direct jurisdiction over the Portuguese territories in Africa and Brazil, and occasionally sent traveling inquisitors to root out heresy and those accused by others.

The Inquisition lasted in Portugal until 1821. In that time, it produced thousands of records (called Processos or Autos da Fé) and millions of pages of documentation. Unfortunately, a large part of these have been lost over time, due to burnings or the weathering of documents. This is especially true of the Goa office, which burned the majority of its records at the termination of the Inquisition. However, thousands still exist and provide thousands and thousands of pages of information on individuals throughout the operation of the Inquisition.

While the record lengths are as varied as the cases themselves, they nearly all follow a general layout similar to court cases. Note that not all inquisition cases are complete, so one or more sections could be missing from the register.

The first thing generally listed in the case is the arrest and details of the accusation of the accused.

After that, testimonies are called for and against the accused. Their testimonies can be given at the mesa da inquisição, or can be brought from afar, depending on the case. Relevant documents can also be copied as proof of one case or another, making them a good source of secondary information.

Arguments can also be made after sets of testimonies as to the occurrences of the crime accused and please of leniency or innocence.

The last thing present in Inquisition records (those that have remained complete to the present day) is the verdict, which includes the charges and punishments of the accused. These punishments could be as simple as performing an act of faith, donating money to the Church for pious works, or being sentenced to a few years of exile, all depending on the crime and circumstances. The punishments, famously, could also be as grave as being burned at the stake.

Unlike the other records found in the Catholic Church, the information available in these records is more varied, due to its structure. Some records can be hundreds of pages long, while others can be just a few. Depending on the individual accused (called the Réu or Ré) it could contain a lot of information on the individual and his/her family.
Here is a short list of information that can be found in inquisition records:

• The accused/accuser's name (always)
• The names of witnesses and their relationship with the accused (always)
• The accused's home city and current residence (nearly always)
• The accused's religious/social status (nearly always)
• The accused's profession (nearly always)
• The accused's social status (very likely)
• The accused's spouse's name and social status (likely)
• The accused's parents names (somewhat likely)

The majority of surviving Inquisition records have been indexed and archived and can be found in the Torre do Tombo. Of these, many have been digitized and are available for public viewing.

Image: "Rogo inquisizione iberica," found in Wikipedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/Rogo_inquisizione_iberica.jpg/1280px-Rogo_inquisizione_iberica.jpg (accessed July, 2026).