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Read and React - Inquisition
Directions: Read the article and write one reaction for each paragraph. Your reaction should focus on the
role/power of the church and the reasons for the Inquisition. A reaction is not “Wow” or “Really.” A reaction is
a thoughtful comment, connection, or question about the article. Your reactions need to be on this article – not
on a separate sheet.
Inquisition
The Inquisition was a Roman Catholic institution that fought against heresy and other
forms of irregular religious belief and practice. The name Inquisition comes from the Latin
inquiro, which means "to inquire into." The Inquisition has been one of Western Europe's
most durable and controversial institutions; though its supporters thought it was
indispensable for maintaining Catholic orthodoxy, its enemies have condemned it for using
religion as an excuse to commit repulsive crimes.
Before the religious upheavals of the 16th century, the Catholic Church was thought to be a
perfect and sovereign society based on a pure revelation from God, and it saw it’s most
important duty as keeping that original faith unsullied. Orthodoxy was to be maintained at
all costs; individual opinions on faith were not to be considered. Although the early Church
had been characterized by an emphasis on free will and a variety of sects, by the fifth
century, the Roman emperors had decided that it was their duty to enforce uniformity of
religion.
The Inquisition arose out of that desire to maintain orthodoxy among believers. It existed in
three distinct forms. The medieval version was restricted mostly to southern Europe and
existed mainly to combat heresy. The Spanish Inquisition was inaugurated in 1478 and
gave the Inquisition its worst reputation. The Roman Inquisition was created in 1542; its
primary goal was to combat the threat of Protestantism.
The Medieval Inquisition
The Inquisition made its first appearance in 1231, when Pope Gregory IX instituted it to
apprehend and try heretics. Various heretical sects, like the Cathars, had risen up, and the
Church saw them as hostile to the establishment; they attacked the mass, the sacrament,
and the ecclesiastical hierarchy and organization. The Church and the Christian rulers
thought heresy was a menace to Christian society and that the Inquisition was a political
necessity, needed to retain order. Various monarchs had already passed laws punishing
heretics quite severely when the pope authorized the Inquisition.
The inquisitors were special permanent judges who executed their judgments in the pope's
name. The procedure and punishments were not unique to the Inquisition; rather, it was the
nature of the judge and the fact that he had the right granted by the pope to deal with
offenses against the faith that made the institution different from secular courts.
The medieval Inquisition operated mainly in northern Italy and southern France. Inquisitors
traveled around visiting heresy-ridden districts and summoned the inhabitants to appear
before them. Under inquisitorial procedure, suspects were given time to confess first; if
they did not, the inquisitor would interrogate them and call witnesses to testify against
them. Those who confessed and repented of their own accord were not severely punished.
Those who denied their heresy were tried, imprisoned, and threatened with death or torture.
Witnesses generally testified against the accused; witnesses for the defense hardly ever
appeared. The accused generally represented himself or herself. The accused was usually
not imprisoned during the trial after swearing an oath that he would appear in court and
accept his eventual sentence; sometimes bond was set.
The Inquisition did not initially allow torture, but Pope Innocent IV authorized it in 1252.
Originally, torture was regarded not as a punishment but as a means of seeking the truth. In
the medieval Inquisition, it was not supposed to cause the loss of life or limb, and it was
only to be applied once, as a last resort. Better judges attached no importance to
confessions extracted under torture. However, the practice was soon abused; inquisitors
would consider several days of torture to be but one "session," and some would apply a
separate session of torture for each new piece of evidence. After confession, the inquisitor
might continue the torture to obtain more names of heretics. Eventually, even witnesses
would be put to torture.
The inquisitor would pronounce his verdict at a ceremony called the sermo generalis or
auto-da-fé. When a suspect admitted guilt or was convicted, penalties ranged from prayer
to imprisonment; occasionally a condemned prisoner would be turned over to the secular
authorities, who alone could impose a death penalty. Sometimes imprisonment was a light
affair, with plenty of freedom. Other prisoners were bound in chains and forced to sleep on
the ground. Often the state would confiscate the condemned person's property.
MLA
"Inquisition." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.
The Spanish Inquisition
On November 1, 1478, Pope Sixtus IV, during the reign of Ferdinand V and Isabella I,
issued a papal bull authorizing the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish monarchs thought that
the Catholic faith in Spain was endangered by the presence of false converts from Judaism
and Islam, who they suspected had not converted to Christianity at all and were still
practicing their old religions. After the Muslims had been driven out of Spain in the 15th
century, the Catholic rulers wanted to enforce religious and political unity, and the
Inquisition was designed to achieve that goal.
Though it is impossible to say for sure how many cases the Spanish Inquisition tried, the
number has been estimated at nearly 50,000 cases between 1540 and 1700. In its early
period (before 1530), the Spanish Inquisition concentrated on converted Jews; after those
had been exhausted, the tribunal turned its attention to the Christian population. It focused
on enforcing the decrees of the Council of Trent as a way of preventing the spread of
Protestantism and various unorthodox beliefs.
The judges of the Spanish Inquisition were to be at least 40 years old, of unimpeachable
reputation, of distinguished virtue and wisdom, and masters of theology or doctors of canon
law, and they had to follow the usual ecclesiastical rules and regulations. The Spanish
inquisitors quickly earned a reputation for cruelty. Less than a year after Sixtus authorized
the institution, he started receiving complaints of grievous abuses by the inquisitors,
including unjust imprisonment, torture, and sequestering the property of the executed. The
pope threatened to depose the judges, but the Spanish monarchs interceded on their behalf.
Tomás de Torquemada was the true leader at the start of the Spanish Inquisition. Appointed
the first grand inquisitor in Spain in 1483, he centralized and spread the institution
throughout Spain. It did not take permanent hold in Italy, though, and efforts to push it into
the Netherlands ended in failure.
The head of the Inquisition (also called the Holy Office) was the grand inquisitor,
nominated by the king and confirmed by the pope. He was aided by the Consejo Supremo
(High Council), appointed by him after consultation with the king. All power was
concentrated in that council. It made all important decisions, heard appeals, and reviewed
the Inquisition's finances. Priests, bishops, kings, and nobles were all subject to its
authority.
The Spanish Inquisition's procedure was substantially the same as that of the medieval
version. The accused had a 30-day grace period before the trial. Examination was supposed
to take place in the presence of two disinterested priests, who ideally would restrain any
arbitrary acts. A lawyer would defend the accused, witnesses were sworn, and grievous
punishments awaited false witnesses who were caught. The inquisitors applied torture
liberally and cruelly, though perhaps no more cruelly than the civil courts under Emperor
Charles V.
In Spain, the Inquisition operated into the 19th century. It fought Protestantism in the 16th
century and tried to combat rationalism and immorality in the 18th century but was
unsuccessful. It was suppressed in Spain by Joseph Bonaparte in 1808, but Ferdinand VII
restored it in 1814. It was suppressed again in 1820, brought back another time in 1823,
and finally ended in 1834.
Portugal established its own version of the Inquisition in 1536; it lasted until about 1751.
That tribunal also concerned itself mainly with Jews and enforcing new Christian
orthodoxy. In its later days, it was punishing increasing numbers of Christians for
superstition, witchcraft, bigamy, blasphemy, and other offenses.
The Roman Inquisition
The Roman Inquisition was established by Pope Paul III in 1542 as a direct result of the
failure of Emperor Charles V to reconcile Catholics and Protestants at the conference in
Regensburg the previous year. The Roman Inquisition was created entirely to suppress
Protestantism, and it was much less severe than the Spanish version. The religious situation
in Italy had become sharply polarized around the time that the Council of Trent was called,
and moderate Catholics found themselves caught between Protestants and more orthodox
Catholics, who considered the moderates almost as bad as actual Protestants. Various
Italian nobles had espoused the new religion, and commoners had joined with them, and
the Church did not like that development. In addition, popular culture had created attitudes
toward faith that the Church found objectionable; like the Spanish Inquisition, the Roman
Inquisition sought to remold popular culture in accordance with current religious ideals.
Paul III established the Sacra Congregatio Romanae et universalis Inquisitionis seu sancti
officii by the Constitution of July 21, 1542. That inquisitional tribunal, composed of six
cardinals, was to be at once the final court of appeal for trials concerning faith and the court
of first instance for cases reserved to the pope. The popes who succeeded Paul III added to
the court's powers and rules, and in 1587, Pope Sixtus V thoroughly overhauled it with his
Constitution, Immensa aeterni.
The Roman Inquisition was governed by an independent group of cardinals, the
Congregation of the Inquisition. Generally, the popes insisted that their Inquisition be run
moderately and limit its scope to Italy, and with a couple of exceptions, that was the case.
Pope Paul IV ran a tougher Inquisition that alienated nearly everyone involved. Pope Pius
V actively participated in the Inquisition during his reign, as he considered spiritual
uniformity a priority of his pontificate.
The personnel of the Inquisition included judges, officials, consulters, and qualifiers. Paul
III set the number of judges at eight, and Sixtus V raised it to 13. The congregation had no
cardinal-prefect; the pope presided in person when major decisions were to be announced.
The Holy Office had jurisdiction over all Christians and, according to Pius IV, even over
cardinals.
In its first years, the Roman Inquisition concentrated on Protestantism. Toward the end of
the 1500s, it saw more cases of witchcraft and magic. Though this Inquisition did
occasionally use torture, there were restrictions on when and how much it could be
employed, and confessions given under torture were treated with a grain of salt; they were
not considered valid until they had been ratified 24 hours later outside the torture chamber.
Those accused of crimes had legal counsel, and judges were generally quite responsible in
their decisions, declining to convict anyone not conclusively proven guilty.
Once the Church stopped seeing Protestantism as a threat to religious unity, the Roman
Inquisition's role changed to simply maintaining order and purity of faith among Catholics.
Pope Pius X officially changed its name in 1908 to the Holy Office. Pope Paul VI
reorganized it in 1965, made the congregation of cardinals more democratic, and renamed
it the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Further Reading
Haliczer, Stephen, ed. Inquisition and Society in Early Modern Europe. Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1987;
Kamen, Henry. The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998;
Peters, Edward. Inquisition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
MLA
"Inquisition." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.