Gothic house
It is rare to find a region in Galicia where local tradition does not imaginatively attribute to some ancient building the condition of being a place where the Inquisition tortured its prisoners. Ribadavia, a land of Jews, was no exception. The “House of the Inquisition” is what people call the Gothic house on San Martiño street, undoubtedly due to the Inquisitorial coat of arms on its door.
Ethnologic Museum
The Inquisitorial Emblem in Galicia:
The Holy Office took detainees from all over Galicia to interrogate, torture, and judge them in its prison in Santiago de Compostela. The Inquisition also had an important network of family members and commissioners, who had the right to bear arms, to collect denunciations, spy, and act as intermediaries, sometimes corruptly. These positions were coveted by minor nobles and clergy who adopted the Inquisition’s emblem as their heraldic symbol, which consisted of three elements: the cross, representing Christ the Redeemer and His Church; an olive branch on the right, symbolizing divine grace; and a sword on the left, representing the necessary punishments and penalties against heretics and unbelievers.
In the Ribeiro region, several houses with Inquisitorial coats of arms are preserved, belonging to family members or commissioners of the Holy Office, in Leiro, Moldes, Eiras, Arnoia, and Remuinos. In the town of Ribadavia, we also find an inquisitorial emblem at the convent of San Domingos, and another on the beautiful house of San Martiño, built in the 15th century by Señor Pedro Vázquez de Puga, alongside other coats of arms belonging to the surnames Puga, Bahamonde, and Mosquera, all of which were closely linked to the Inquisition in Galicia in the 17th century. This same series of coats of arms is repeated at the church of the Olive Tree and in a now-destroyed house in San Cristovo de Regodeigón, both connected to the descendants of the local ruler, Pedro Vázquez.
Local inquisitors introduced significant variations in the emblems of the Inquisition, which they displayed with pride. In the shield of the Gothic house, the secular sword is placed over the cross, highlighting the punitive role of the Holy Office. Meanwhile, on the funerary tombstone of San Domingos, the prominent feature is a large cross of the preaching friars, accompanied on its right by a sword, where the engraver or time has removed the hilt that would have shaped it like a cross.
