The Inquisition was a judicial procedure and a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, apostasy, blasphemy, witchcraft, and customs considered deviant. Violence, torture, or the simple threat of its application, were used by the Inquisition to extract confessions and denunciations from heretics.[1] Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, but convictions of unrepentant heresy were handed over to the secular courts, which generally resulted in execution or life imprisonment.[2][3][4] The Inquisition had its start in the 12th-century Kingdom of France, with the aim of combating religious deviation (e.g. apostasy or heresy), particularly among the Cathars and the Waldensians. The inquisitorial courts from this time until the mid-15th century are together known as the Medieval Inquisition. Other groups investigated during the Medieval Inquisition, which primarily took place in France and Italy, include the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites, and the Beguines. Beginning in the 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order, replacing the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges.[5]
During the Late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, the scope of the Inquisition grew significantly in response to the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. During this period, the Inquisition conducted by the Holy See was known as the Roman Inquisition. The Inquisition also expanded to other European countries,[4] resulting in the Spanish Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions were instead focused particularly on the New Christians or Conversos, as the former Jews who converted to Christianity to avoid antisemitic regulations and persecution were called, the anusim (people who were forced to abandon Judaism against their will by violence and threats of expulsion) and on Muslim converts to Catholicism. The scale of the persecution of converted Muslims and converted Jews in Spain and Portugal was the result of suspicions that they had secretly reverted to their previous religions, although both religious minority groups were also more numerous on the Iberian Peninsula than in other parts of Europe, as well as the fear of possible rebellions and armed uprisings, as had occurred in previous times. During this time, Spain and Portugal operated inquisitorial courts not only in Europe, but also throughout their empires in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. This resulted in the Goa Inquisition, the Peruvian Inquisition, and the Mexican Inquisition, among others.[6]
With the exception of the Papal States, the institution of the Inquisition was abolished in the early 19th century, after the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the Spanish American wars of independence in the Americas. The institution survived as part of the Roman Curia, although it underwent a series of name changes. In 1908, it was renamed the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. In 1965, it became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.[7] In 2022, this office was renamed the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The term "Inquisition" comes from the Medieval Latin word inquisitio, which described any court process based on Roman law, which had gradually come back into use during the Late Middle Ages. [9]Today, the English term "Inquisition" can apply to any one of several institutions that worked against heretics or other offenders against the canon law of the Catholic Church. Although the term "Inquisition" is usually applied to ecclesiastical courts of the Catholic Church, it refers to a judicial process, not an organization. Inquisitors '...were called such because they applied a judicial technique known as inquisitio, which could be translated as "inquiry" or "inquest".' In this process, which was already widely used by secular rulers (Henry II used it extensively in England in the 12th century), an official inquirer called for information on a specific subject from anyone who felt he or she had something to offer."[10]
Theoretically, the Inquisition, as a church court, had no jurisdiction over Muslims and Jews as such. Despite several exceptions, like the infamous example of the Santo Niño de La Guardia,[11] the Inquisition was concerned mainly with the heretical behaviour of Catholic adherents or converts (including forced converts).[12]
The overwhelming majority of sentences seem to have consisted of penances like wearing a cross sewn on one's clothes or going on pilgrimage.[2] When a suspect was convicted of major, willful, unrepentant heresy, canon law required the inquisitorial tribunal to hand the person over to secular authorities for final sentencing. A secular magistrate, the "secular arm", would then determine the penalty based on local law.[13][14] Those local laws included proscriptions against certain religious crimes, and the punishments included death by burning, although the penalty was more usually banishment or imprisonment for life, which was generally commuted after a few years. Thus the inquisitors generally knew the expected fate of anyone so remanded.[15] The "secular arm" didn't have access to the trial record of the defendants, only executed the sentences and was obliged to do so on pain of heresy and excommunication.[16][17]
The 1578 edition of the Directorium Inquisitorum (a standard Inquisitorial manual) spelled out (by Francisco Peña) the purpose of inquisitorial penalties: ... quoniam punitio non refertur primo & per se in correctionem & bonum eius qui punitur, sed in bonum publicum ut alij terreantur, & a malis committendis avocentur (translation: "... for punishment does not take place primarily and per se for the correction and good of the person punished, but for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit").[18]
Before the 12th century, the Catholic Church suppressed what they believed to be heresy, usually through a system of ecclesiastical proscription or imprisonment, but without using torture,[19] and seldom resorting to executions.[20][21] Such punishments were opposed by a number of clergymen and theologians, although some countries punished heresy with the death penalty.[22][4] Pope Siricius, Ambrose of Milan, and Martin of Tours protested against the execution of Priscillian, largely as an undue interference in ecclesiastical discipline by a civil tribunal. Though widely viewed as a heretic, Priscillian was executed as a sorcerer. Ambrose refused to give any recognition to Ithacius of Ossonuba, "not wishing to have anything to do with bishops who had sent heretics to their death".[23]
In the 12th century, to counter the spread of Catharism, and other heresies, prosecution of heretics became more frequent. The Church charged councils composed of bishops and archbishops with establishing inquisitions (the Episcopal Inquisition). Pope Lucius III issued the bull Ad Abolendam (1184), which condemned heresy as contumacy toward ecclesiastical authority. [24] The bull Vergentis in Senium in 1199 stipulated that heresy would be considered, in terms of punishment, equal to treason (Lèse-majesté), and the punishment would be imposed also on the descendants of the condemned.[25] The first Inquisition was temporarily established in Languedoc (south of France) in 1184. The murder of Pope Innocent III's papal legate Pierre de Castelnau in 1208 sparked the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229). The Inquisition was permanently established in 1229 (Council of Toulouse), run largely by the Dominicans[26] in Rome and later at Carcassonne in Languedoc.
Historians use the term "Medieval Inquisition" to describe the various inquisitions that started around 1184, including the Episcopal Inquisition (1184–1230s) and later the Papal Inquisition (1230s). These inquisitions responded to large popular movements throughout Europe considered apostate or heretical to Christianity, in particular the Cathars in southern France and the Waldensians in both southern France and northern Italy. Other Inquisitions followed after these first inquisition movements. The legal basis for some inquisitorial activity came from Pope Innocent IV's papal bull Ad extirpanda of 1252, which authorized the use of tortures in certain circumstances by the Inquisition for eliciting confessions and denunciations from heretics.[27] By 1256 Alexander IV's Ut negotium allowed the inquisitors to absolve each other if they used instruments of torture.[28][29]
In the 13th century, Pope Gregory IX (reigned 1227–1241) assigned the duty of carrying out inquisitions to the Dominican Order and Franciscan Order. By the end of the Middle Ages, England and Castile were the only large western nations without a papal inquisition. Most inquisitors were friars who taught theology and/or law in the universities. They used inquisitorial procedures, a common legal practice adapted from the earlier Ancient Roman court procedures. [9] They judged heresy along with bishops and groups of "assessors" (clergy serving in a role that was roughly analogous to a jury or legal advisers), using the local authorities to establish a tribunal and to prosecute heretics. After 1200, a Grand Inquisitor headed each Inquisition. Grand Inquisitions persisted until the mid 19th century.[30]
Only fragmentary data is available for the period before the Roman Inquisition of 1542. In 1276, some 170 Cathars were captured in Sirmione, who were then imprisoned in Verona, and there, after a two-year trial, on February 13 from 1278, more than a hundred of them were burned.[31] In Orvieto, at the end of 1268/1269, 85 heretics were sentenced, none of whom were executed, but in 18 cases the sentence concerned people who had already died.[32] In Tuscany, the inquisitor Ruggiero burned at least 11 people in about a year (1244/1245).[33] Excluding the executions of the heretics at Sirmione in 1278, 36 Inquisition executions are documented in the March of Treviso between 1260 and 1308.[34] Ten people were executed in Bologna between 1291 and 1310.[35] In Piedmont, 22 heretics (mainly Waldensians) were burned in the years 1312–1395 out of 213 convicted.[35] 22 Waldensians were burned in Cuneo around 1440 and another five in the Marquisate of Saluzzo in 1510.[36] There are also fragmentary records of a good number of executions of people suspected of witchcraft in northern Italy in the 15th and early 16th centuries.[37] Wolfgang Behringer estimates that there could have been as many as two thousand executions.[38] This large number of witches executed was probably because some inquisitors took the view that the crime of witchcraft was exceptional, which meant that the usual rules for heresy trials did not apply to its perpetrators. Many alleged witches were executed even though they were first tried and pleaded guilty, which under normal rules would have meant only canonical sanctions, not death sentences.[39] The episcopal inquisition was also active in suppressing alleged witches: in 1518, judges delegated by the Bishop of Brescia, Paolo Zane, sent some 70 witches from Val Camonica to the stake.[40]
The Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229) a crusade proclaimed by the Catholic Church against heresy, mainly Catharism, with many thousands of victims (men, women and children, some of them Catholics), had already paved the way for the later Inquisition.[41][42]
France has the best preserved archives of the medieval inquisition (13th–14th centuries), although they are still very incomplete. The activity of the inquisition in this country was very diverse, both in terms of time and territory. In the first period (1233 to c. 1330), the courts of Languedoc (Toulouse, Carcassonne) are the most active. After 1330 the center of the persecution of heretics shifted to the Alpine regions, while in Languedoc they ceased almost entirely. In northern France, the activity of the Inquisition was irregular throughout this period and, except for the first few years, it was not very intense.[43]
France's first Dominican inquisitor, Robert le Bougre, working in the years 1233–1244, earned a particularly grim reputation. In 1236, Robert burned about 50 people in the area of Champagne and Flanders, and on May 13, 1239, in Montwimer, he burned 183 Cathars.[44] Following Robert's removal from office, Inquisition activity in northern France remained very low. One of the largest trials in the area took place in 1459–1460 at Arras; 34 people were then accused of witchcraft and satanism, 12 of them were burned at the stake.[45]
The main center of the medieval inquisition was undoubtedly the Languedoc. The first inquisitors were appointed there in 1233, but due to strong resistance from local communities in the early years, most sentences concerned dead heretics, whose bodies were exhumed and burned. Actual executions occurred sporadically and, until the fall of the fortress of Montsegur (1244), probably accounted for no more than 1% of all sentences.[46] In addition to the cremation of the remains of the dead, a large percentage were also sentences in absentia and penances imposed on heretics who voluntarily confessed their faults (for example, in the years 1241–1242 the inquisitor Pierre Ceila reconciled 724 heretics with the Church).[47] Inquisitor Ferrier of Catalonia, investigating Montauban between 1242 and 1244, questioned about 800 people, of whom he sentenced 6 to death and 20 to prison.[48] Between 1243 and 1245, Bernard de Caux handed down 25 sentences of imprisonment and confiscation of property in Agen and Cahors.[49] After the fall of Montsegur and the seizure of power in Toulouse by Count Alfonso de Poitiers, the percentage of death sentences increased to around 7% and remained at this level until the end of the Languedoc Inquisition around from 1330.[50]
Between 1245 and 1246, the inquisitor Bernard de Caux carried out a large-scale investigation in the area of Lauragais and Lavaur. He covered 39 villages, and probably all the adult inhabitants (5,471 people) were questioned, of whom 207 were found guilty of heresy. Of these 207, no one was sentenced to death, 23 were sentenced to prison and 184 to penance.[51] Between 1246 and 1248, the inquisitors Bernard de Caux and Jean de Saint-Pierre handed down 192 sentences in Toulouse, of which 43 were sentences in absentia and 149 were prison sentences.[52]
In Pamiers in 1246/1247 there were 7 prison sentences [201] and in Limoux in the county of Foix 156 people were sentenced to carry crosses.[53] Between 1249 and 1257, in Toulouse, the Inquisition handed down 306 sentences, without counting the penitential sentences imposed during "times of grace". 21 people were sentenced to death, 239 to prison, in addition, 30 people were sentenced in absentia and 11 posthumously; In another five cases the type of sanction is unknown, but since they all involve repeat offenders, only prison or burning is at stake.[54] Between 1237 and 1279, at least 507 convictions were passed in Toulouse (most in absentia or posthumously) resulting in the confiscation of property; in Albi between 1240 and 1252 there were 60 sentences of this type.[55]
The activities of Bernard Gui, inquisitor of Toulouse from 1307 to 1323, are better documented, as a complete record of his trials has been preserved. During the entire period of his inquisitorial activity, he handed down 633 sentences against 602 people (31 repeat offenders), including:
In addition, Bernard Gui issued 274 more sentences involving the mitigation of sentences already served to convicted heretics; in 139 cases he exchanged prison for carrying crosses, and in 135 cases, carrying crosses for pilgrimage. To the full statistics, there are 22 orders to demolish houses used by heretics as meeting places and one condemnation and burning of Jewish writings (including commentaries on the Torah).[56]
The episcopal inquisition was also active in Languedoc. In the years 1232–1234, the Bishop of Toulouse, Raymond, sentenced several dozen Cathars to death. In turn, Bishop Jacques Fournier of Pamiers (he was later Pope Benedict XII) in the years 1318–1325 conducted an investigation against 89 people, of whom 64 were found guilty and 5 were sentenced to death.[57]
After 1330, the center of activity of the French Inquisition moved east, to the Alpine regions, where there were numerous Waldensian communities. The repression against them was not continuous and was very ineffective. Data on sentences issued by inquisitors are fragmentary. In 1348, 12 Waldensians were burned in Embrun, and in 1353/1354 as many as 168 received penances.[58] In general, however, few Waldensians fell into the hands of the Inquisition, for they took refuge in hard-to-reach mountainous regions, where they formed close-knit communities. Inquisitors operating in this region, in order to be able to conduct trials, often had to resort to the armed assistance of local secular authorities (e.g. military expeditions in 1338–1339 and 1366). In the years 1375–1393 (with some breaks), the Dauphiné was the scene of the activities of the inquisitor Francois Borel, who gained an extremely gloomy reputation among the locals. It is known that on July 1, 1380, he pronounced death sentences in absentia against 169 people, including 108 from the Valpute valley, 32 from Argentiere and 29 from Freyssiniere. It is not known how many of them were actually carried out, only six people captured in 1382 are confirmed to be executed.[59]
In the 15th and 16th centuries, major trials took place only sporadically, e.g. against the Waldensians in Delphinate in 1430–1432 (no numerical data) and 1532–1533 (7 executed out of about 150 tried) or the aforementioned trial in Arras 1459–1460 . In the 16th century, the jurisdiction of the Inquisition in the kingdom of France was effectively limited to clergymen, while local parliaments took over the jurisdiction of the laity. Between 1500 and 1560, 62 people were burned for heresy in the Languedoc, all of whom were convicted by the Parliament of Toulouse.[60]
Between 1657 and 1659, twenty-two alleged witches were burned on the orders of the inquisitor Pierre Symard in the province of Franche-Comte, then part of the Empire.[61]
The inquisitorial tribunal in papal Avignon, established in 1541, passed 855 death sentences, almost all of them (818) in the years 1566–1574, but the vast majority of them were pronounced in absentia.[62]
The Rhineland and Thuringia in the years 1231–1233 were the field of activity of the notorious inquisitor Konrad of Marburg. Unfortunately, the documentation of his trials has not been preserved, making it impossible to determine the number of his victims. The chronicles only mention "many" heretics that he burned. The only concrete information is about the burning of four people in Erfurt in May 1232.[63]
After the murder of Konrad of Marburg, burning at the stake in Germany was virtually unknown for the next 80 years. It was not until the early fourteenth century that stronger measures were taken against heretics, largely at the initiative of bishops. In the years 1311–1315, numerous trials were held against the Waldensians in Austria, resulting in the burning of at least 39 people, according to incomplete records.[64] In 1336, in Angermünde, in the diocese of Brandenburg, another 14 heretics were burned.[65]
The number of those convicted by the papal inquisitors was smaller.[66] Walter Kerlinger burned 10 begards in Erfurt and Nordhausen in 1368–1369. In turn, Eylard Schöneveld burned a total of four people in various Baltic cities in 1402–1403.[67]
In the last decade of the 14th century, episcopal inquisitors carried out large-scale operations against heretics in eastern Germany, Pomerania, Austria, and Hungary. In Pomerania, of 443 sentenced in the years 1392–1394 by the inquisitor Peter Zwicker, the provincial of the Celestinians, none went to the stake, because they all submitted to the Church. Bloodier were the trials of the Waldensians in Austria in 1397, where more than a hundred Waldensians were burned at the stake. However, it seems that in these trials the death sentences represented only a small percentage of all the sentences, because according to the account of one of the inquisitors involved in these repressions, the number of heretics reconciled with the Church from Thuringia to Hungary amounted to about 2,000.[68]
In 1414, the inquisitor Heinrich von Schöneveld arrested 84 flagellants in Sangerhausen, of whom he burned 3 leaders, and imposed penitential sentences on the rest. However, since this sect was associated with the peasant revolts in Thuringia from 1412, after the departure of the inquisitor, the local authorities organized a mass hunt for flagellants and, regardless of their previous verdicts, sent at least 168 to the stake (possibly up to 300) people.[69] Inquisitor Friedrich Müller (d. 1460) sentenced to death 12 of the 13 heretics he had tried in 1446 at Nordhausen. In 1453 the same inquisitor burned 2 heretics in Göttingen.[70]
Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer, author of the Malleus Maleficarum, in his own words, sentenced 48 people to the stake in five years (1481–1486).