Helen Rawlings reviews the recent literature which has prompted a fundamental reappraisal of the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition — first established in 1478 in Castile under Queen Isabella I and suppressed in 1834 by Queen Isabella II — has left its indelible mark on the whole course of Spain’s history. It has traditionally been regarded as a barbarous, repressive instrument of racial and religious intolerance that regularly employed torture and the death penalty as punishments and was responsible for severely restricting Spain’s development for generations.