Reference
- InquisitionIn Roman law an inquisitio was simply a judicial inquiry. In Christianity it came to mean an inquiry into a person's beliefs to determine whether they are heretical. The term also means the judicial panels that conducted such inquiries in Europe and the Americas for several hundred years.
Originally Christians did not use force against heretics and schismatics but rather tried to persuade them and, failing that, sought to excommunicate, exile, or silence them. After Augustine justified the use of force against Donatism and developed the theory of a just war, inquisitional authorities began to use force to extract confessions from heretics and others. The first person known to die after an inquisition was Priscillian of Ávila (d. 385).
In the Middle Ages Pope Lucius III (r. 1181-85) issued the bull Ad Abolendam (September 4, 1184), in which he sought the support of the emperor and princes in the repression and elimination of heretics throughout Christendom. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, however, sought to preserve the early tradition with his formula fides suadenda est, non imponenda-”faith is to be spread by persuasion and not imposed by force.” Gregory IX (r. 1227-41) appointed inquisitors to conduct secret examinations of suspected heretics without the benefit of defense witnesses. Many canon lawyers questioned the legitimacy of these inquiries. Most inquisitors were from the Dominican and Franciscan Orders, the most famous of which was the Dominican Bernardo of Gui (1261-1331), who wrote a handbook for inquisitors. The medieval Inquisition was accompanied by the military extirpation of the Cathari (Albigensians) and other groups deemed heretical. In 1252 Innocent IV (r. 1243-54) issued the bull Ad Extirpanda (May 15, 1252), which justified the use of torture.
The Inquisition was exercised mainly in the heart of the European continent. Often the targets expanded from heretics to political enemies. Philip IV of France (1268-1314) used the Inquisition to bring down the Knights Templar. Pope John XXII (r. 1316-34) also pursued the Franciscan Spirituals with the Inquisition. The British Isles, Scandinavia, and the kingdom of Castile escaped the Inquisition early on, but in 1477 Ferdinand I of Aragon and Isabella of Castile asked Pope Sixtus (r. 1471-84) to set up the Spanish Inquisition to examine which conversos, Jews forced to convert to Catholicism, were genuine and which were not. The notorious Tomás de Torquemada (1420-98) was appointed inquisitor general in 1483.
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Primary Sources
- Archive of the InquisitionThe Archive of the Inquisition (or more fully the Archive of the Inquisition and Index), officially referred to as the Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (abbreviated to ACDF for Archivio Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei) in the Vatican, contains the Catholic Church's documents dealing with doctrinal and theological issues related to church teaching.
- Census of the Archives of the Inquisition in ItalyIn the last thirty years, and expecially in the last fifteen, the historical research on the Roman Inquisition has been considerably improved, leading to new approaches and opening new perspectives.
Streaming Media
- Carcassonne—Cathars and CrusadersHere, encounter the heretical Cathars, who opposed the Roman church, and the resulting Albigensian Crusade, called to destroy them. Follow the response of the church in the grim events of the Inquisition, and visit the Inquisition Tower, the great cathedral of St. Nazaire, and other sites linked to the conflict.
- The Trial of Giordano BrunoWhat made Giordano Bruno's ideas on natural philosophy so dangerous to 16th-century thought? Why does his execution represent a failure of the Roman Inquisition to perform its mission to admonish, not punish? What impact did this trial have on another heresy case fifteen years later: that of Galileo?
Perspectives
The Spanish Inquisition
This book challenges the reputation of the Spanish Inquisition as an instrument of religious persecution, torture and repressionand looks at its wider role as an educative force in society. A reassessment of the history of the Spanish Inquisition. Challenges the reputation of the Inquisition as an instrument of religious persecution, torture and repression. Looks at the wider role of the Inquisition as an educative force in society. Draws on the findings of recent research by American, British and European scholars. Includes original documentary evidence in translation.
The Italian Inquisition
The Italian Inquisition, or Holy Office, was established in 1542, stimulated partly by the earlier Spanish operation. Certainly Spain’s "black legend” affected opinions of the Inquisition in Italy, but as this pioneering book shows, there were significant differences between their operations, targets, and casualties. In this pioneering history of the Italian Inquisition, Christopher F. Black charts how it developed and changed over time. He maps its cumbersome means of command, supervision, and action, as well as its role as a surprisingly approachable regulatory body working within communities. Ranging right across the Italian panorama, and rooting his enquiry in striking individual cases, Black uncovers Inquisitional procedure from denunciation to punishment. This scrupulous and richly rewarding book shows how the Inquisition shaped Italy’s religious and social worlds.
A History of Medieval Heresy and Inquisition
In this concise and balanced survey of heresy and inquisition in the Middle Ages, Jennifer Kolpacoff Deane explores the increasingly bitter encounters between piety, reform, dissent, and the institutional Church between 1100 and 1500. Although the loaded terms of "heresy" and "orthodoxy" employed by ecclesiastical officials suggest a clear division between right and wrong, that division was in fact vigorously contested by medieval people at all levels of society. Deane investigates key issues that sparked confrontations between Christians, including access to scripture, apostolic models of poverty and preaching, the Eucharist and sacramental power, and clerical corruption and wealth. She traces the means by which Church elites developed an increasingly complex set of inquisitorial procedures and resources to identify, label, and repress "heresy," examines the various regional eruptions of such confrontations across medieval Europe, and considers the judicial processes that brought many to the stake. The book ranges from the "Good Christians" of Languedoc and Lombardy and the pan-European "Poor," to Spiritual Franciscans, lay religious women, anticlerical and vernacular movements in England and Bohemia, mysticism, magical practices, and witchcraft. Throughout, Deane considers how the new inquisitorial bureaucracies not only fueled anxiety over heresy, but actually generated fictional "heresies" through their own texts and techniques. Incorporating recent research and debates in the field, her analysis brings to life a compelling issue that profoundly influenced the medieval world.
The Roman Inquisition
While the Spanish Inquisition has laid the greatest claim to both scholarly attention and the popular imagination, the Roman Inquisition, established in 1542 and a key instrument of papal authority, was more powerful, important, and long-lived. Founded by Paul III and originally aimed to eradicate Protestant heresy, it followed medieval antecedents but went beyond them by becoming a highly articulated centralized organ directly dependent on the pope. By the late sixteenth century the Roman Inquisition had developed its own distinctive procedures, legal process, and personnel, the congregation of cardinals and a professional staff. Its legal process grew out of the technique of inquisitio formulated by Innocent III in the early thirteenth century, it became the most precocious papal bureaucracy on the road to the first "absolutist" state. As Thomas F. Mayer demonstrates, the Inquisition underwent constant modification as it expanded. The new institution modeled its case management and other procedures on those of another medieval ancestor, the Roman supreme court, the Rota. With unparalleled attention to archival sources and detail, Mayer portrays a highly articulated corporate bureaucracy with the pope at its head. He profiles the Cardinal Inquisitors, including those who would play a major role in Galileo's trials, and details their social and geographical origins, their education, economic status, earlier careers in the Church, and networks of patronage. At the point this study ends, circa 1640, Pope Urban VIII had made the Roman Inquisition his personal instrument and dominated it to a degree none of his predecessors had approached.