Rewind to the Spanish Tragedy

The extra credit speaker on the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico still applies to our readings in the Jacobean-Carolinean ages because the actual Alto de Feys she discussed started in Jacobean times and ended in 1649. So all of this occurs after the Spanish Armada and the great popularity of The Spanish Tragedy. The story of the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico begins in Spain where it is more famously known to have happened. The Inquisition began sometime in the 15th Century and probaby ended sometime in the 17th. The gist of it is that jews and muslims were being forced to convert to Christianity or leave Spain. The third option was to be totrured or killed. A lot of jews in particualr went to Portugual, who then encouraged a lot of people to move to the new world. Apparently a good amount of Jewish merchants saw this as a good business oppurtunity and became heavily involved in the Portugese colonization of the new world. It turns out that was a good business venture and many of the merchants became very prosperous and powerful in new world port cities. Spain still had jurisdiction over Portugual (interesting to consider in The Spanish Tragedy) and they decided to take the inquisition on a new world tour. The Spanish put on these massive exhibitions called Alto de Feys where they tried to recreate damnation in hell through a scene with persecuted jews, fire, executions, and pardonings for the women and children. These displays were kind of like entertainment in the same way that the violence in THe Spaniosh Tragedy was entertainment, except the inquisition violence was real. THe speaker talked a lot about a Grand Alto De Fey in which 108 men accused of Judaism were garretted and then burned at the stake. Their wives and children were pardoned and returned to everyday life. The Spanish of course confiscated the accused men's properties and either sold them or recommisioned them for different purposes. The last Alto de Fey to happen in Mexico was in 1649, the same year Charles I was executed in England.