Tomas de Torquemada born 1420 died 1498, was a prominent leader of what?
Tomás de Torquemada September 16, 1498, and was interred there. His tomb was ransacked in 1832—only two years before the Inquisition was finally disbanded. His bones were allegedly stolen and ritually incinerated as though an "auto-da-fé" took place. Tomás de Torquemada Tomás de Torquemada (October 14, 1420 – September 16, 1498) was a Castilian Dominican friar and first Grand Inquisitor in Spain's movement to homogenize religious practices with those of the Catholic Church in the late 15th century, otherwise known as the Spanish Inquisition, which resulted in the expulsion from Spain of thousands of people of Jewish and Muslim faith and heritage and
Tomás de Torquemada The existence of superficial converts (i.e., Crypto-Jews) was perceived by the Spanish monarchs of that time (King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella) as a threat to the religious and social life of Spain. This led Torquemada, who himself had converso ancestors, to be one of the chief supporters of the Alhambra Decree that expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492. Torquemada was born on October 14, 1420, either in Valladolid, in the Kingdom of Castile, or in the nearby village of Torquemada. He came from a family of conversos (converts from Judaism); his uncle, Juan de Torquemada, was a celebrated theologian