Thanks for your insight. I consider myself reasonably well read, but I had no idea about the (small) scale of the Inquisition. I had always assumed it was much larger than that.
Compared to similar non religious events like purging of wrong think (religious belief and other) under any USSR or Pol Pot and probably a few others it just doesn't compare.
It is mostly a good story because it is both true and also paints some of the mainstream western ideas, and Christianity in particular, in a bad light.
Comparisons with 19th and 20th century events are tricky since the scales are vastly different. Without industrialized agriculture and modern healthcare, today's population would be difficult to feed and keep healthy.
The Inquisition proper wasn't huge, but it was part of a general pattern of religious persecution. Pogroms had been going on for a long time before it was set up.
Well, it was an organization with the aim of controlling the population not extermination.
It was bad of course, and most population despised it. Many politicians (liberals) tried to abolish it, but the conservatives counter-attacked several times by restating it. It was at last abolished in 1834.
