A Friar of Valladolid
Tomás de Torquemada was born on 14 October 1420, at Valladolid in Castile or in the nearby town of Torquemada from which his family took its name. His uncle Juan de Torquemada was a celebrated Dominican theologian and cardinal who wrote in defense of papal authority. A contemporary chronicler, himself of Jewish descent, claimed that the family had converso ancestors, Jews who had become Christians; a recent study of the cardinal's ancestry found no evidence for it.
Tomás entered the Dominican convent of San Pablo in Valladolid as a young man and gained a reputation for learning and for personal austerity. He refused rich food and fine clothing, and he declined higher church offices. For more than twenty years he was prior of the convent of Santa Cruz at Segovia. He became confessor to the young princess Isabella of Castile, who became queen in 1474 and ruled jointly with her husband, Ferdinand of Aragon.
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