Auto-da-fé

An auto-da-fé or auto-de-fé (from Portuguese auto da fé, meaning "act of faith") was the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the Spanish Inquisition, Portuguese Inquisition or the Mexican Inquisition had decided their punishment, followed by the execution by the civil authorities of the sentences imposed.

The most extreme punishment imposed on those convicted was execution by burning. In popular usage, the term auto-da-fé, the act of public penance, came to mean the burning at the stake that was held on a separate day.

History

The first recorded auto-da-fé was held in Paris in 1242, under Louis IX.

In 1478, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella received permission from Pope Sixtus IV to name Inquisitors throughout their domains, to protect Catholicism as the true faith. It originally applied to the Crown of Castile, the domain of Isabella, but in 1483, Ferdinand extended it to his domain of the Crown of Aragon. Ferdinand's action met great resistance in Catalonia, but in spite of this social discontent it is considered that between 1487 and 1505 the Chapter of Barcelona processed more than 1000 people, of which only 25 were absolved.

Auto-da-fé (disambiguation)

An auto-da-fé (or auto da fé or auto de fe) is a Roman Catholic church ritual which became associated with its use during the Spanish Inquisition.

Auto-da-fé may also refer to:

Literature

Music

See also

Auto-da-Fé (novel)

Auto da Fé (original title Die Blendung, "The Blinding") is a 1935 novel by Elias Canetti; the title of the English translation (by C. V. Wedgwood, 1946) refers to the burning of heretics by the Inquisition.

Publication history

The book manuscript was finished in 1931, and the book was published in 1935, by Herbert Reichner in Vienna (Canetti's hometown at that time). It is Canetti's first publication.

In 1943 Canetti got an offer to publish the book in English with Jonathan Cape, but it was decided to delay publication until after the war. It was eventually released in 1946. The book did not become widely known until after the worldwide success of Canetti's Crowds and Power (1960). Jonathan Spence observes that "there is nothing discreet, chaste, or high minded about the finest and wildest of all fictions that centre on a student of China, Canetti's Auto-da-fe."

Plot and themes

The protagonist is Herr Doktor Peter Kien, a middle-aged philologist and Sinologist, uninterested in human interaction or sex, content with his monkish, highly disciplined life in his book-lined apartment in Vienna.