A torture chamber of the Inquisition. Priest supervising his scribe while men and women are suspended from pulleys, tortured on the rack or burnt with torches. The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the government system of the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy. It started in 12th century France to combat religious sectarianism, in particular the Cathars and the Waldensians. During the Late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the concept and scope of the Inquisition expanded in response to the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation, resulting in the Spanish Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition. The Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions focused particularly on the issue of Jewish anusim and Muslim converts to Catholicism, partly because these minority groups were more numerous in Spain and Portugal than in many other parts of Europe, and partly because they were often considered suspect due to the assumption that they had secretly reverted to their previous religions. Except within the Papal States, the institution of the Inquisition was abolished in the early 19th century.