azja: Black Legend

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

The Black Legend (Spanish: leyenda negra) or the Spanish Black Legend (Spanish: leyenda negra española) is a purported historiographical tendency which consists of anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic propaganda. Its proponents argue that its roots date back to the 16th century, when Spain's European rivals were seeking, by political and psychological means, to demonize the Spanish Empire, its people, and its culture, minimize Spanish discoveries and achievements, and counter its influence and power in world affairs. According to the theory, Protestant propaganda published during the Hispano-Dutch War and the Anglo-Spanish War against the Catholic monarchs of the 16th century fostered an anti-His…

Evidence: 60 • authority: 72

The Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition is the hypothesised existence of a series of myths and fabrications about the Spanish Inquisition used as propaganda against the Spanish Empire in a time of strong military, commercial and political rivalry between European powers, starting in the 16th century. According to its advocates, Protestant propaganda depicted inquisitions of Catholic monarchs as the epitome of human barbarity with fantastic scenes of torture, witch hunting, and evil friars. Proponents of the theory see it as part of the Spanish Black Legend propaganda, as well as of anti-Catholic propaganda, and one of the most recurrent black legend themes.

Evidence: 36 • authority: 72

Anti-Spanish sentiment is the fear, distrust, hatred of, aversion to, or discrimination against Spanish people, culture, or nationhood. Instances of anti-Spanish prejudice, often embedded within anti-Catholic prejudice and propaganda, were stoked in Europe in the early modern period, pursuant to the Spanish Crown's status as a power siding with the Counter-Reformation. The Spanish colonization of the Americas was also singled out as uniquely barbarous by some commentators. 20th-century Spanish historiography shaped the construct of "Black Legend" to denote such manifestations of prejudice, generally overplaying their reach and pervasiveness. The justification of the civil wars from which ne…

Evidence: 22 • authority: 72

Evidence: 22 • authority: 72

Evidence: 20 • authority: 72

Anti-Catholicism is prejudice or discrimination against Catholics, including opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, the authority of the pope, and its adherents. Four categories of anti-Catholicism exist: political, involving concerns about Catholics' loyalty to the state; theological, rooted in disagreement with Catholic doctrines; popular, including fears and accusations that Catholics are heretics or potential traitors; and sociocultural, based on claims that the Church fosters or enables forms of immorality. Following the Reformation, a number of majority-Protestant states, including England, Northern Ireland, Prussia and Germany, Scotland, and the United States, at various time…