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Name: ________________________ 8-____ 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.