Spanish Inquisition

27 September 1480, at Medina del Campo

At Medina del Campo on 27 September 1480, Ferdinand and Isabella issued commissions under the 1478 papal bull to two Dominicans: Juan de San Martín, prior of San Pablo in Burgos, and Miguel de Morillo, associated with the order's Aragonese province.

Dr Juan Ruiz de Medina, a secular cleric and member of the royal council, served as their legal assessor. The first field team was three men.

One archdiocese, not a country

The two were commissioned to act in the archdiocese of Seville. This was a specific deployment, not the simultaneous opening of tribunals throughout the monarchs' territories.

The crown had held the appointment power since 1478 and used it only now, after an interval in which church leaders had pursued pastoral instruction of conversos.

The recognised target group was conversos — baptised Christians suspected of heresy or Judaizing — not Jews who had never converted.

What had still not happened

The commissions made the authorisation operational, but no investigation or prosecution started at Medina del Campo that day. San Martín and Morillo travelled to Seville, sought cooperation from Andalusian authorities and began work there.

People were leaving Seville before the first auto de fe, reacting to the tribunal's arrival and its demands. An auto de fe was in any case a ceremony of penance and sentencing; those condemned to death were handed to secular authorities for execution.

Torquemada's appointment and the central governing machinery came later.