Tomás de Torquemada[a] OP (14 October 1420 – 16 September 1498), also anglicized as Thomas of Torquemada, was a Roman Catholic Dominican friar and first Castillian Grand Inquisitor of the Tribunal of the Holy Office, which was a group of ecclesiastical prelates created in 1478 and charged with the somewhat ill-defined task of "upholding Catholic religious orthodoxy" within the lands of the newly formed union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon, presently known as the Kingdom of Spain.
