Editing Spanish Inquisition (section)

== Death Toll ==

Modern estimates based on incomplete but detailed records put the total number of people trialed from 1540 to 1700 at around 87,000, with 2,070 people being sentenced to death. With these death sentences, the numbers that ended with an execution ''in persona'' (the person is actually executed) is around 1,300. Some managed to escape the Inquisition before they were executed so instead they were executed ''in effigy'', as in an effigy of the accused was burned in their place; "executions" in this manner (again, from 1540 to 1700) numbered at around 770. Even with records being re-examined in the wake of the Catholic Church opening historical archives, even the highest estimates from historians put the death toll below 5,000 across their 354 years. This gives the Spanish Inquisition's trials during this period a death penalty rate of less than 1-in-40, which is milder than secular courts of the time. Sure, some inquisitors (like the infamous Torquemada) were trigger-happy fucknuts, but they were exception and not rule. 

On top of that, one needs to keep in mind that, even with the clusterfuck that medieval jurisdiction could be, the Spanish Inquisition dealt with numerous crimes besides those of religious nature. Crimes of a (mostly) secular nature like espionage, forgery, smuggling, fraud, tax evasion and treason also fell under the purview of the inquisitors (fear of treason also played a role in the Spanish Inquisition's founding). And pursuing and punishing those who committed such crimes is ([[skub|unlike the religious ones]]) justifiable even looking at them with a modern lens.