Medieval Christianity: The Inquisition

This panoramic study offers the general reader a description and interpretation of the Inquisition and its methods based on two essential moments in its history: the gradual establishment of the Holy Office and its dramatic reflowering three hundred years later. Such an approach shows how the Inquisition functioned as an elastic response to heretical and political pressure, and how its power was in direct proportion to specific geographical and temporal needs. In the course of his survey Edward Burman describes the crucial role of the Dominican Order in the work of the Inquisition and demonstrates that the Franciscans - in spite of the gentle piety of their founder - were also involved in stamping out heresy. In addition he provides a wealth of fascinating detail concerning the Inquisitors' methods (including torture, confiscation of property, and the terrible trials for the dead), their manuals, the Inquisition in Italy, the Inquisition in France from the Albigensian Crusade to the burning of Joan of Arc, the persecution of witches, the Spanish Inquisition, the economic and cultural effects of the Inquisition in Europe, and the legacy of the Inquisition.

This impressive volume is actually three histories in one: of the legal procedures, personnel, and institutions that shaped the inquisitorial tribunals from Rome to early modern Europe; of the myth of "The Inquisition", from its origins with the anti-Hispanists and religious reformers of the sixteenth century to its embodiment in literary and artistic masterpieces of the nineteenth century; and of how the myth itself became the foundation for a "history" of the inquisitions. Peters reveals how "a single all-powerful, horrific tribunal, whose agents worked everywhere to thwart religious truth, intellectual freedom, and political liberty" never existed. Begun as a simple procedure in Roman Law, the inquisition was adapted by the Latin Christian Church to preserve orthodox religious beliefs from the attacks of heretics. Peters explains that from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, popes appointed individuals to the function of inquisitor in specific cases. It was not until the late fifteenth century that inquisitions were institutionalized on a permanent basis to protect orthodox beliefs and maintain ecclesiastical discipline in several parts of Catholic Europe, including Spain, Portugal, Rome, and Venice.

The Inquisition - the very name conjures up a blood-soaked aura. And yet, our sources, till now tainted with prejudice, have left us uncertain of the facts about that fierce, unrelenting persecution. This long-needed and highly readable work, by a man who seeks neither to revive old animosities nor to whitewash disagreeable facts, reveals the mystery of why the Inquisition began, and how its fury spread throughout Europe for centuries. John O'Brien does more than trace its history - which began in 1231 when Pope Gregory IV entrusted Dominicans with punishing heretics, and officially ended with the Vatican Council II's "Declaration of Religious Freedom". He tells of individuals: popes, Inquisitors, secular rulers, bishops, judges, innocent citizens, heretics and "witches" - their ideals, moods, thoughts, ways of life. The reader perceives medieval society, culture and tradition as though he were living it, and is able to grasp an understanding of the Inquisition within its actual context - distinct from modern moral and intellectual standards.-Flap cover.

"This book documents the origins of the Roman Catholic Inquisition, explaining how the movement expanded and changed over many centuries. The author examines the Inquisition from the mid-thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries, the Spanish Inquisition, the Roman Inquisition, and the Modern Office of the Inquisition"--Provided by publisher.

The author traces the history of the Spanish Inquisition from 1478 when it was founded,through its agenda against dissenters,to its demise and abolition in the early nineteenth century.Taking account of the work of a new generation of international historians,she demonstrates that the Inquisition was a far less brutal instrument of control than hitherto envisaged,that torture and the death penalty were only rarely applied,and then almost exclusively during the early years of its history.The book also draws attention to the wider role of the Inquisition as an educative force in society that strengthened the bonds between church and state.-Back cover.

The Spanish Inquisition was responsible for one of the fiercest repressions in human history. It fused the triple evil of a police state, a totalitarian ideology, and racial persecution. Its terrible reverberations have been felt in our own century, and are likely to be felt in the next. Yet for all its notoriety, its origins have never been fully explored or clearly understood before now. What caused this monstrous attack upon Spain's so-called conversos - the Christian descendants of the Jews who had been forced to convert during the anti-Semitic riots that swept across Spain at the end of the fourteenth century? Were the thousands of conversos who died at the hands of the Inquisition in fact secretly still Jews, only pretending to be good Christians, as the Inquisition charged and as most scholars continue to believe? In this magnum opus, the renowned scholar B. Netanyahu shows us that this claim is groundless. After a lifetime of research in long-unexamined Spanish sources, he reveals that at the time of the Inquisition, almost all conversos were in fact full-fledged Christians, and that the few Judaizers among them had dwindled into insignificance. The vast machinery of the Inquisition could not have been founded to kill a dying movement. What, then, was its purpose? The Origins of the Inquisition answers this question definitively. By examining Spanish anti-Semitism from its origins, Professor Netanyahu demonstrates that the brutal anti-converso movement that led to the Inquisition was the same one responsible for the massacre of Jews in Spain in 1391 and the ensuing mass conversion of Spanish Jews (at sword-point) to Christianity. The rapid rise of the conversos to high royal offices - higher, even, than those attained by their Jewish forefathers - made them the target of the same forces that had persecuted the Jews. It was to remove the conversos from their influential positions, and to prevent their intermarriage with the Spanish people, that they were accused of being secret Judaizers and members of a "corrupt" race that would "pollute" the Spanish blood. This was the first time that extreme anti-Semitism was wedded to a theory of race - a union that would dramatically affect the course of modern history.

Here is the complete story of one of history's most appalling tyrannies, first established in 1232 and destined to survive, in one form or another, into the nineteenth century. The Inquisition was slow to spread to Spain, yet it flourished there as nowhere else. Under Isabella it took firm root. During the next half century it grew exceedingly. But it was the reign of Philip II which enabled it to dominate the country. And the fervent desire of that monarch was to extend the persecution of heretics into all his dominions. In the Netherlands, Alva set up the notorious Council of Blood, and those who clung to their opinions were tortured and often burned or buried alive. Attempts were also made to establish the Inquisition in Peru, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Milan, the Canaries, Portugal and Goa - with varying success. But the coming of the Bourbons saw the first real check to the Inquisitors' power. Charles III's long reign brought a new stability and an atmosphere in which bigotry could not flourish so effectively. The Inquisition started on its slow decline. Meanwhile its toll had been terrible. Among its victims had been Antonio Perez, whose intrusion into the emotional life of Philip II and the Princess of Eboli is still a matter for speculation; Olivares, who had tried to destroy the Inquisition; Louis Rame, who left an account of his sufferings for posterity; English sailors such as John Drake and Richard Hawkins; William Grdiner, who was slowly roasted alive in Lisbon; the martyrs of the Netherlands; and the tragic Moors. -Flap cover.

"Since the sixteenth century, the Spanish inquisition has been synonymous with terror, bigotry, and persecution. In this book, a renowned historian sweeps away old misconceptions and presents a new view of this notorious and fascinating period." "Henry Kamen reassesses the significance and consequences of the expulsion of the Jews and also argues that there is little evidence for the alleged Jewishness of the conversos who were the Inquisition's first victims. He presents a major revision of the impact of blood purity prejudices on Spanish society, revises the figures given for execution of heretics by the tribunal, and examines the amount of Spanish persecution in the context of executions in neighboring countries. He gives a completely new picture of the infamous censorship system, showing it to be much less effective than is often presented, and he investigates the role played by foreign propaganda in the creation of the diabolic image of the Inquisition."--Jacket.

The Spanish Inquisition has been the subject of much unrestrained and exaggerated writing, expressing points of view that are diametrically opposed. From such authors as Garcia Rodrigo, who laud its work of purification, misrepresent its scope, and deplore (in our own times) the extinction of that terrible tribunal, it is a far cry indeed to such writers as Dr. Rule, who dip their pens in the gall of an intolerance as virulent as that which they attack. The author has sought here to hold a course that is unencumbered by religious partisanship, treating purely as a phase of history the institution for which Torquemada was so largely responsible. He has not written in the Catholic interest, or the Protestant interest, or the Jewish interest. He holds the view that on the score of intolerance it is not for Christians of one sect at Christians of another. Each will find in his own history more than enough to answer for at the bar of Humanity. And when achievement is measured by opportunity, each will discover that he is entitled to fling at the others no reproaches which the others are not entitled to fling at him. If the Spanish Inquisition is here shown as a ruthless engine of destruction whose wheels drip the blood of mangled generations, yet it is very far from being implied that religious persecution is an offense peculiar to the Church of Rome.

Investigation of the development of the Cathar heresy in south-west France, looking at how and why its growth differed across the regions.

The Crusades and the Inquisition, two separate historical events, are more closely related than most people realize. It is no accident that the Inquisition followed quickly on the heels of the Crusades, just as it is no coincidence that the Crusades as well as the Inquisition have been greatly misunderstood over the centuries, with popular historians focusing on and, indeed, exaggerating the atrocities committed by Christian armies and inquisitors. Recent research has reversed many of these misconceptions, and the results will be enlightening to anyone curious about this much-disputed period in Christian history. In this unique book, which combines discussion of both events and shows how they are related, Fr. John Vidmar offers a magisterial synthesis of the latest research and brings his own extensive knowledge as a historian of this era to provide an accessible, eminently readable book that will be indispensable to student and average reader alike.-Back cover.

From historian James Reston comes an account of the pivotal events of 1492, a year when towering political ambitions, horrific religious excesses, and a drive toward adventure and conquest changed the world forever. This book chronicles one of the most savage epochs in history, the years of the Spanish Inquisition. In an effort to consolidate their power on the Iberian Peninsula, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella turned to the priest Torquemada, a member of the Dominican order. Torquemada urged an Inquisition that would strengthen the sovereigns' authority throughout Spain, particularly in the coming campaign against the Moors of Granada. When Granada fell, tens of thousands of Muslims were given the choice of converting to Christianity or facing death or banishment. Torquemada then turned his ferocity on Spain's Jews. Reston also looks beyond the dark deeds of 1492, capturing the excitement of exploration and the promise of the future that was born in the same year.--From publisher description.

This analytical narrative describes the emergence of heresy in southern France and the attempts to suppress it.Neither persuasion nor war in the form of the Albigensian Crusade(1209-1229) were notably successful against the Cathars or Albingensian heretics with their dualistic theology,or the Poor of Lyon, Waldensian heretics who had broken with the church in their zeal for poverty and preaching.The Inquisition in its first years after 1233 was also vigorously resisted,but failure of southern military ventures agaisnt the French crown in 1240 and 1242 gaave it greater opportunity.By 1250 victory over the major heretical sects was assured.

There have been numerous studies in recent decades of the medieval inquisitions, most emphasizing larger social and political circumstances and neglecting the role of the inquisitors themselves. In this volume, Karen Sullivan sheds much-needed light on these individuals and reveals that they had choices - both the choice of whether to play a part in the orthodox repression of heresy and, more frequently, the choice of approach heretics with zeal or with charity. In successive chapters on key figures in the Middle Ages - Bernard of Clairvaux, Dominic Guzman, Conrad of Marburg, Peter of Verona, Bernard Gui, Bernard Delicieux, and Nicholas Eymerich - Sullivan shows that it is possible to discern each inquisitor making personal, moral choices as to what course of action he would take. All medieval clerics recognized that the church should first attempt to correct heretics through repeated admonitions and that, if these admonitions failed, it should then move toward excluding them from society. Yet more charitable clerics preferred to wait for conversion, while zealous clerics preferred not to delay too long before sending heretics to the stake. By considering not the external prosecution of heretics during the Middle Ages, but the internal motivations of the preachers and inquisitors who pursued them, as represented in their writings and in those of their peers, "The Inner Lives of Medieval Inquisitors" explores how it is that the most idealistic of purposes can lead to the justification of such dark ends. -Flap cover

"Righteous Persecution examines the long-controversial involvement of the Order of Preachers, or Dominicans, with inquisitions into heresy in medieval Europe. From their origin in the thirteenth century, the Dominicans were devoted to a ministry of preaching, teaching, and pastoral care, to "save souls" particularly tempted by the Christian heresies popular in western Europe. Many persons then, and scholars in our own time, have asked how members of a pastoral order modeled on Christ and the apostles could engage themselves so enthusiastically in the repressive persecution that constituted heresy inquisitions: the arrest, interrogation, torture, punishment, and sometimes execution of those who deviated in belief from Roman Christianity." "Drawing on wide base of ecclesiastical documents, Christine Caldwell Ames recounts how Dominican inquisitors and their supporters crafted and promoted explicitly Christian meanings for their inquisitorial persecution. Inquisitors' conviction that the sin of heresy constituted the graver danger to the Christian soul and to the church at large led to the belief that bringing the individual to repentance-even through the harshest means-was indeed a pious way to carry out their pastoral task. However, the resistance and criticism that inquisition generated in medieval communities also prompted Dominicans to consider further how this new marriage of persecution and holiness was compatible with authoritative Christian texts, exemplars, and traditions. Dominican inquisitors persecuted not despite their faith but rather because of it, as they formed a medieval Christianity that permitted-or demanded-persecution."--Jacket.

Natural philosopher Giordano Bruno accepted nothing and challenged everything in his pursuit of an all-embracing system of thought, a vision that earned him the patronage of powerful royals including France's Henry III and England's Elizabeth I. But his radical theories put this Catholic priest in direct conflict with the Church. Arrested by the Inquisition, Bruno was convicted of heresy and eventually burned at the stake years before Galileo's famous trial. Yet even death could not stem the growing tide of this brilliant thinker's influence -- a philosophy that inspired some of the greatest minds in history, including Galileo, Newton, Spinoza, and even Shakespeare.

The opening of the archives of the Roman Inquisition and of the Index of Prohibited Books, in January 1998, enables us to think afresh about the history of two organisations more notorious than understood. Both have been considered, almost exclusively, from the perspective of their victims, such as Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno. This book uses hitherto secret sources of the Inquisition and Index to reconstruct the history of Roman censorship in its first, formative years from the standpoint of Galileo's judge. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) was a censor for the Index and a consultor to the Holy Office, before becoming cardinal inquisitor and (three centuries after his death) a saint and Doctor of the Church. His career provides a paradigm of how an intellectual could make his way to the top in Counter-Reformation Rome. Censored by Pope Sixtus V, Bellarmine responded by suppressing the pontiff's version of the Vulgate and by representing the Sistine Index of Prohibited Books. A new interpretation - including a revaluation of Galileo's first trial - of Roman censorship is offered in this book. Based on unpublished sources from the archives, which it edits and interprets for the first time, "The Saint as Censor" will alter our understanding of the Roman Inquisition and the Index. -Flap cover.

"Examines writings by three early modern Spanish Franciscans in Mexico. Alfonso de Castro, an inquisitional theorist, offers a defense of Indian education. Alonso Cabello, convicted of Erasmianism by the Mexican Inquisition, discusses Christ's humanity in a Nativity sermon. Diego Muñoz, an inquisitional deputy, investigates witchcraft in Celaya"--Provided by publisher.

The ten essays that comprise this volume describe and analyze archival sources on the Inquisition in Southern Europe.The work of internationally prominent scholars,the essays provide a rich resource for students of the Inquisition and establish a significant overview of the social history of the period.-Back cover.

"On two hundred and one days between May 1, 1245, and August 1, 1246, more than five thousand people from the Lauragais were questioned in Toulouse about the heresy of the good men and the good women (more commonly Known as Catharism). Nobles and diviners, butchers and monks, concubines and physicians, blacksmiths and pregnant girls - in short, all men over fourteen and women over twelve - were summoned by Dominican inquisitors Bernart de Caux and Jean de Saint-Pierre. In the cloister of the Saint-Sernin abbey, before scribes and witnesses, they confessed, whether they, or anyone else, had ever seen, heard, helped, or sought salvation through the heretics. This inquisition into heretical depravity was the single largest investigation, in the shortest time, in the entire European Middle Ages." "Mark Gregory Pegg examines the sole surviving manuscript of this great inquisition with unprecedented care - often in unexpected ways - to build a richly textured understanding of social life in southern France in the early thirteenth century."--Jacket.

Depicts the life of persecuted minorities, as well as that of the wealthy and the ordinary people of Spain during the Spanish Inquisition. For three and a half centuries, the Inquisition permeated every aspect of daily life in early modern Spain. This history depicts the dangers faced by Jews and Muslims and their suffering at the hands of the Inquisitors, as well as the struggle for survival of the lower classes and the ostentatious display of wealth of the high nobility. Interwoven in the text is a discussion of relevant political and economic events that helped to shape the times, as well as comments from both contemporary Spanish writers and foreign visitors who witnessed firsthand the conditions and attitudes of the people.--From publisher description.

Based on extensive archival research, this study casts new light on the Inquisition in northern Italy during the Renaissance. It focuses on some representative inquisitors and their principal pursuits - the prosecution of heretics, Waldensians and Judaizers, and witch-hunting.

On 31 May 1310, at the Place de Grève in Paris, the Dominican inquisitor William of Paris read out a sentence that declared Marguerite “called Porete,” a beguine from Hainault, to be a relapsed heretic, released her to secular authority for punishment, and ordered that all copies of a book she had written be confiscated. William next consigned Guiard of Cressonessart, an apocalyptic activist in the tradition of Joachim of Fiore and a would-be defender of Marguerite, to perpetual imprisonment. Over several months, William of Paris conducted inquisitorial processes against them, complete with multiple consultations of experts in theology and canon law. Though Guiard recanted at the last moment and thus saved his life, Marguerite went to her execution the day after her sentencing. "The Beguine, the Angel, and the Inquisitor" is an analysis of the inquisitorial trials, their political as well as ecclesiastical context, and their historical significance. Marguerite Porete was the first female Christian mystic burned at the stake after authoring a book, and the survival of her work makes her case absolutely unique. The Mirror of Simple Souls, rediscovered in the twentieth century and reconnected to Marguerite's name only a half-century ago, is now recognized as one of the most daring, vibrant, and original examples of the vernacular theology and beguine mysticism that emerged in late thirteenth-century Christian Europe. Field provides a new and detailed reconstruction of hitherto neglected aspects of Marguerite’s life, particularly of her trial, as well as the first extended consideration of her inquisitor's maneuvers and motivations. Additionally, he gives the first complete English translation of all of the trial documents and relevant contemporary chronicles, as well as the first English translation of Arnau of Vilanova’s intriguing “Letter to Those Wearing the Leather Belt,” directed to Guiard's supporters and urging them to submit to ecclesiastical authority. -Amazon.