The Inquisition in Medieval Europe Roger Morscheiser

Keywords: Inquisition, Heresy, Catholic Church, Torture, Medieval, Papal Authority

I. Abstract

The Inquisition of Medieval Europe was an attempt by the Roman Catholic Church to suppress heresy. In order to achieve this end, the Church deployed inquisitors who were to interrogate suspected heretics in order to gain confessions or information on other heretics. These inquisitors followed inquisitorial manuals in their interrogations which allowed for the use of extreme means in their interrogation, even torture. The authority behind this crusade was the Pope and Roman Catholic Church. Structurally, the Inquisition was divided into tribunals spread throughout Europe. These institutions established the legislations and statutes that guided the Inquisition as well as the inquisitors themselves in their duties. Supporters of the Inquisition state that it was necessary to combat heresy for the sake of maintaining the Church’s credibility. However, it seems the true motivation behind the Roman Catholic Church’s crusade on heretics was not merely to suppress heresy, but rather to maintain control over the common man, by scaring him into submission through the threat of torture and death.

II. Scope and Purpose of the System

The Inquisition in Europe during the Middles Ages came about as a result of the Roman Catholic Church’s efforts to suppress heresy. Heresy can be defined as any belief or doctrine that contradicts the orthodox doctrine of the Catholic Church. The Inquisition lasted about 200 years, divided into different stages of development. The common motivation, though not the only motivation, during these stages was the expulsion of anti-Catholic sentiment. During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church had become a very centralized institution, which “occupied a central place in government, administration and economic life,” and basically “presided over all stages of an individual’s life” (Hamilton 17). Therefore, whenever a movement arose in opposition to the Church or threatening to this control the Church maintained, it was considered a matter of utmost importance that had to be controlled immediately. This intense need for control and subservience from the laymen was a propeller for the Inquisition. Therefore, to combat heresy, the Church established a series of councils and legislations aiming to dispel heretics and purify the populace. It is important to mention that the Inquisition was not a single entity, there was no single Inquisition. Rather, there was an abundance of such councils and tribunals, consisting of papal officials that were scattered across Europe. The Inquisition’s numerous ‘inquisitors’ reached far and deep, high and low, throughout most of Western European society to accomplish its goal of purification and maintenance of control.

III. Authority Structure

A. Sources and Criteria of Valid Knowledge

The receipt of knowledge for the system of the Inquisition is very dissimilar to those of other religious systems. The Inquisition was not so much a belief system as it was a policeman of a belief system, Catholicism. Though the tenets of Catholicism and theological views were central to its foundation and points of reference, it was really the statutes and legislation that developed over time during the Inquisition that account for its “knowledge.” The Inquisition “instituted a mechanism for producing knowledge, a system for interrogating and interpreting all kinds of subjects, and a “will to know” that transcended the particular historical and geographical moment” (Arnold 55).

The knowledge more characteristic of the Inquisition was that of innocence or guilt and

confession regarding suspected heretics and rather than any sort of religious knowledge. Thus, its knowledge was obtained from the accused heretics. Therefore, the knowledge was gained through the practice of legislation and statutes established by inquisitorial tribunals and councils. These statutes were the guiding principles for the main driving force behind the Inquisition, the inquisitors themselves. They were in constant change, being rewritten and added on to with each individual inquisition. Therefore, the sources of knowledge during the Inquisition were the accused heretics, the inquisitions themselves, and then the resulting legislations. Since the knowledge the Inquisition sought came directly as a result of inquiry, most of this section will be covered in the following section, “Methods of Inquiry.”

B. Methods of Inquiry

In explaining the methods of inquiry, the majority of the focus will be on the inquisitors and their personal methods. The knowledge these inquisitors sought was that of the innocence or guilt of the suspected heretic. Over the years of the Inquisition, the methods employed were established and reestablished with each trial. Therefore it is difficult to establish one procedure followed by inquisitors. However, there was an initial set of procedure that inquisitors followed, called the Directory by Raymond of Penafort, which was the earliest written manual followed by early inquisitors.

One of the earliest concerns of early inquisitors was that of the actual denouncement of heretics, how were heretics supposed to be recognized? Raymond answered these questions and more in the Directory. This manual was divided into ten sections, each dealing with a separate step in the procedure of inquisition. The first section was entitled Qui dicantur heretici, qui suspecti, et sic de singulis (Who should be declared heretics, who suspects, and so for others). This section defines exactly how heretics are identified. The time this was written, the main heretic group was the Cathars, which preached that there were actually two Gods rather than one. Therefore, much description of heretic behavior surrounds them. Raymond outlines many different classes of heretics: those who listen to Cathar sermons and those who believe the Cathars are good men. Raymond also gives a list of those who can be considered as suspects of heresy. He mentions those who see heretics but don’t report them, those who make pacts not to reveal a heretic’s presence, those who hide heretics in their home, those who defend heretics, those who in any way assist heretics. He also makes note of those who return to heretical ways after renouncing them in the past.

In further sections, Raymond outlines procedure for sentencing and punishment, but never really gets into the specifics of the inquiry itself. In a later manual, the Processus inquisitionis by Bernard of Caux and John of St. Pierre, there is more of a focus on the actual phrases and methods for inquisitors to use. Throughout this manual, specific procedures are given with blank spaces left that are to be filled with names and places of the particular case. For example, the inquisitors are to ask the accused if they have seen a heretic, if so with whom and when, if they listened to preaching, if they have eaten anything blessed by heretics, if they “adored” them, if they associated themselves with heretics, or if they have received the osculum Insabbatato (the Cathar kiss, or Peace). Inquisitors are also to ask the accused whether they have been present at the heretic rites of consolamentum or apparellamentum. This manual, in addition to providing lines of questioning, outlines the manner in which the interrogation is to be executed, with confessions being recorded in the presence of at least one of the two inquisitors and then the confession is to be authenticated by a notary or scribe. These confessions were then to be put on file if the need arise for later use. The Processus also indicates that inquisition is to take place over a wide geographical area, and that all men from age fourteen and all women from age twelve must appear before an inquisitor. This type of inquisition does not merely seek to rouse heretics from their hiding places, but rather to examine the entire community. Under Processus, every person to come before an inquisitor had to swear an oath against heresy and everyone was questioned about crimes they might have committed “against the faith.”

Inquisitions were also to remain cloaked with absolute secrecy. The accused heretic was not allowed to know the names of his accusers nor those of witnesses against him. The accused often was never even told the specific charge against him. Once the accused undertakes the process of interrogation, if the inquisitors think he is lying or holding back, they are permitted to use certain powers of persuasion. David of Ausburg suggests four factors that are very helpful in obtaining confessions: the fear of death, placement in the dungeon, a visit from “two sure, zealous and cautious men,” and torture. The technique of torture to obtain confessions is one that grew progressively with time. These methods of inquiry show that the validity of knowledge was not something that was under anyone’s control other than the inquisitors’. They were the ones who constituted what “proof” was, they came into each interrogation with a certain proof of guilt, in the form of a confession, that they wanted to hear and they used any means necessary to obtain that proof.

Torture was the most effective technique used in inquiries to obtain the “truth” from accused. If interrogations failed, the inquisitors resorted to torturous means. Most popular during the Middle Ages were six means of torture: water, fire, strappado, wheel, rack, and stivaletto.

Water torture consisted of forcing the accused to ingest large quantities of water. The water was forced into the prisoners mouth via a funnel or by a soaking piece of cloth forced into the throat. If enough water was ingested, the accused blood vessels could burst.

Fire torture basically consisted of cooking the accused over a fire. He was bound and placed before a fire, with fat or grease covering his feet, and then his feet were burned until a confession was given.

The strappado was essentially torture by means of pulleys. In its exercise, the accused was stripped and his ankles shackled and arms bound behind his back. The wrists were then fastened to another rope that ran over a pulley up on the ceiling. The accused was then raised about six feet off the ground and left hanging there. He was interrogated in this uncomfortable position, and if he still did not comply, he was hoisted to the top of the ceiling. At the point, the torturer drops the accused down suddenly, and then tightens the rope, causing an intense strain that results in dislocations. This process was repeated until the accused confessed.

The wheel involved the accused being bound to a very large cartwheel. Then the accused was beaten to near death with hammers, clubs, or bars. Bones were constantly broken and bodies disfigured.

The rack was a torturous device that involved stretching the body to its breaking point. The accused were shackled at the wrists and ankles and interrogated. If the desired response was not given, the rack was tightened and the body stretched. This was continued until a confession was obtained or the accused limbs were detached.

Finally, stivaletto involved the attachment of two thick boards to each leg with a strong rope as tightly as possible. Then four wedges are placed between the board and the leg. The ropes are tightened, driving the wedges into the legs, the ropes cutting the leg flesh, causing intense pain. The ropes are continuously tightened until confession. Such great pressure on the legs can easily cause the bones to crack and crush.

These methods of inquiry, the intense interrogation, the employment of torture, clearly show that the inquisitors in every way, shape, and form were the determinants of the “truth” and what was sufficient “proof.” Such methods, however inhumane they seem, were not considered wrong or immoral in any way. The inquisitors, the tribunals, the Catholic Church was so steadfast in their goal to exterminate heresy that they would resort to any means necessary to achieve that end. This may be hard to fathom, considering that the justice system in the United States prides itself on providing the accused with rights, with assuring that the interrogation and trial process is conducted fairly and justly, with inflicting punishments that are not cruel and indecent.

C. Institutions and Professional Structure

At the head of the Inquisition was the Roman Catholic Church. However, there was no single institution or establishment that supervised the whole thing. Every inquisitor was “accountable to the Pope and he alone had the right to excommunicate or suspend them” (Hamilton 40), but the Pope was never one to physically head the inquisitorial campaign. Rather, there was a series of tribunals and councils that each managed a certain segment of Europe. These tribunals staffed by papal judges, some of which were Dominicans, some Franciscans. These tribunals were scattered throughout Europe, and were never joined together into a single organization. However, they did all have similar attributes. All officials were subject to the pope, they were allowed to proceed ex officio, which meant they did not need formal accusations to be brought against suspects, proceedings were kept secret, and the suspect had to take an oath and testify against themselves or face pain and persecution.

However, neither the Roman Catholic Church nor the tribunals was the real source of authority; rather, it was the inquisitors themselves. Though inquisitors used the archives and manuals of past inquisitions as guidelines for procedure, the methods they imposed were really dependant on them.

The typical inquisitor as of about 1300 was a doctores legum, or doctors of the law that were university trained. The Council of Vienne in 1311 required inquisitors to be at least age 40, and were to be “wise and mature men capable of asserting their authority” (Burman 53). Bernard Gui, an inquisitor himself and authors of many manuals, describe the inquisitor as one who “should be constant, and should persists amidst dangers and adversities even to the point of death; he should be prepared to suffer in the course of justice, neither inviting danger nor avoiding his duty out of fear” (Burman 53). Diligence, zealousness, honesty, self-control should dominate the inquisitor’s character. Inquisitors were also to carry on cases slowly and arrive at the best judgment possible.

All inquisitors were given full indulgences, which was pretty much a free ticket to heaven, as well as remarkable jurisdictional authority. Each inquisitor had “jurisdiction over everybody living within the area in which the Pope commissioned them to operate, except for diocesan bishops and their officials” (Hamilton 40). They were also allowed to sell goods that were confiscated from heretics. This was especially advantageous since there was no social standing above the reach of inquisitors. They could investigate the wealthiest members of Medieval society.

The inquisitors did not work alone though; they had a series of assistants that accompanied them on inquisitions. Each inquisitor had a fellow inquisitor as a companion, called a socius. Then there were substitutes, called comissari, who could replace the inquisitors in a trial. Servientes bore arms and served as messengers; and there were notaries and scribes who documented the proceedings.

IV. History

The history of the Inquisition is something that is seen in early stages of the Middle Ages.

Its roots began around 1140-50, just as the Catholic Church became a more centralized and much more authoritative institution. As it started to stretch its control into aspects of everyday life, it began to find that not everyone agreed with its doctrines and tenets. Thus, in an effort to maintain its authority over its people, it turned to forceful practices to subservient the populace. And hence, the beginnings of the repressive nature of the Inquisition arise.

The Inquisition began in order to exterminate heresy from Europe. However, such attempts were taking place long before the actual appearance of inquisitions. In the year

1200, the Cathars and Waldensians had emerged as growing heretic groups in southern France. Also, the threat of encroaching Islam bothered the Pope, Innocent III. His main objectives then at the time were to reform the Church and liberate the Holy Land. As a result, he established the Mendicant Orders.

The Mendicant Orders involved the sending of the man Dominic and his followers to the heretics of southern France in an attempt to reform their heresies through preaching. Innocent also sent Francis Bernadone and his followers to preach as well.

Given the little success from the Mendicant Orders, Innocent resolved to use military force against the heretics and marched an army into southern France to exterminate the heretics. Innocent, upon victory, then established the Lateran Council, which reiterated the doctrines of the Church and also listed the ways in which the heretics strayed from the orthodox doctrines. The Council also was able to organize Innocent’s two objectives, a crusade into the Holy Land and a third Canon to suppress heresy. It was this Canon that sought out heretics that sparked the beginnings of the Inquisition. The Canon was continued into the papacy of Gregory IX, during whose papal order the Inquisition is determined to have started (1227 – 1233).

V. Representative Examples of Argumentation

In defense of the Church’s motivations and actions during the Inquisition, it is important to look at exactly what the Church was up against. Now the heretics that drew most attention of the Church “were those who advocated that the Church as men knew it should be abolished altogether, because it was a false Church, inspired by the devil and not by God” (Hamilton 19). Hamilton continues on to give a very reasonable explanation for the Church’s reaction:

All societies have limits to what they are prepared to tolerate, otherwise they

would be anarchies. The limits of medieval western toleration were reached when

radical attacks were made on the Church to which everyone belonged and in

whose values they all to some extent shared. The heretics no doubt thought that

they were simply attacking the Church, but they were, in fact, attacking the entire

social order of which the Church formed an indivisible part. No society which

has faith in its own values will tolerate public criticism of that kind, and from its

first appearance this sort of radical heresy was treated not merely as an error but

as a crime. (Hamilton 19 – 20)

Many of the religious figures during this time viewed heresy in much the same way. They saw irreverence and refutation of Catholic doctrine as an act of sin, as St. Paul stated:

“If a man disputes what you teach, then after the first and second warning, have no more to do with him. You will know that a man of that sort has already lapsed and condemned himself as a sinner (Titus, ch. 3, vv. 10 – 11)” (Hamilton 27). Bishop Wazo of Liege, when he was consulted on the outbreak of heresy and the harsh punishments resorted to by the Inquisition, concluded that “although Christian piety despises these tenets…nevertheless, in emulation of our savior…we are commanded for a time to bear with such things in some measure (Wakefield and Evans, op. cit., p. 91)” (Hamilton 28).

Despite this very understandable justification, the Inquisition remains a very difficult system to defend. The fact is, the Inquisition didn’t focus simply on those radical heretics, its grasp reached for everyone. The main goal of the Inquisition was not eliminating the heretics that threatened the Church, it was gaining complete control of every man, woman, and child in Europe. The Church just used the expulsion of heresy notion to cloak its true intentions. It gained this control through the use interrogation, through the use of fear, and through the use of torture. But if this were not the case, if the Church really only focused on heretics, why were confessions forced out of the innocent through torture, why was the common man, the devote Catholic living in constant fear that an inquisitor might come knocking on their door? Hamilton states that “people who were Catholics at heart...were frightened into strict orthodoxy by the activities of the Inquisition” (Hamilton 57). It seems that the Church acted more like a sadistic totalitarian regime rather than a holy, righteous institution of God. The Church, in its actions, “tried to coerce people into the right belief” (Hamilton 58), what it thought was the right belief. This example the Church set forth during the Inquisition is one that future dictators, future menaces to society, such as Adolph Hitler, would feed off of.

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VI. Suggested Position in Comparative Scales

a. Traditional Authority --- Experience: 5

This segment goes about half and half since much inquisition was directed by

traditional inquisitorial procedures, yet much of it was based on the own inquisitor’s

experience.

b. Centralized Authority --- Decentralized Authority: 3

Due to the fact that the Pope and Catholic Church were at the forefront of the

Inquisition, the authority of the Inquisition was more centralized. However, a good

amount of authority still lied with the inquisitors themselves. They were given the

freedom to proceed with inquiries in any way they deemed necessary.

c. Invisible Realities --- Material Realities: 10

The Inquisition really had nothing to do with anything spiritual, it was all about the

here and now, what was going on in the physical realm.

d. Moral Objectives --- Pragmatic Aims: 10

The objectives of the Inquisition certainly were not moral in any way. It can in no

way be moral to put innocent people through torture or even murder them and hide

behind the excuse that it was to eliminate heresy.

e. Divine Being --- Individual: 10

Once again, there was no spiritual nature to the Inquisition, rather it was concerned

with the individual participants, the inquisitors and the accused heretics.

Annotated Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Arnold, John H. Inquisition and Power: Catharism and the Confessing Subject in Medieval

Languedoc. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.

This book provides explanations and reasons for Church and Pope’s move to Inquisition. It also has excerpts from actual manuals used by inquisitors in there interrogations of suspected heretics.

Burman, Edward. The Inquisition: The Hammer of Heresy. Wellingborough: The Aquarian

Press, 1984. Pages 9 – 135.

Burman gives actual accounts of Cathars and Waldensians concerning their complaints with the Church. Then shifts focus to the movement towards and foundation of the inquisition. Some of the most notorious inquisitors are described by peers and their methods documented. In addition, there are segments of the legislations and statutes passed by inquisitorial tribunals.

Given, James B. Inquisition and Medieval Society: Power, Discipline, and Resistance in Languedoc. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.

Given details the inquisitors and provides actual accounts of their techniques, and provides a common man’s response to the inquisitors.

Hamilton, Bernard. The Medieval Inquisition. New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc.,

1981.

Hamilton discusses the development of heresy and its growth up to 1215, the Church’s response in the form of inquisition, its essential aspects throughout 13^th and 14^th centuries. Included in this work are accounts of many religious figures that lived during the Inquisition regarding its credibility. Also there are descriptions of the inquisitors and their techniques by peers and the inquisitors themselves.

Secondary Sources:

Ed: Bettenson, Henry. Documents of the Christian Church. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1999.

Good source of documents regarding Christian doctrines and beliefs. Also provides good information about the Church and its stance on heresy.

Glucklich, Ariel. Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2001.

This book includes a great segment on the tortures of the Inquisition, as well as insights into the mentality of those heretics that faced these tortures.

Klawinski, Rion. Chasing the Heretics: A Modern Journey Through the Medieval

Languedoc. St. Paul, Minnesota: Hungry Mind Press, 1999.

Klawinski provides an informative account of the Inquisition, focusing on the crusade against the town of Languedoc, a supposed hot bed for heretics in the early years of the Inquisition.

Moynahan, Brian. The Faith: A History of Christianity. New York: Doubleday Press, 2002.

This is a very extensive account of the history of the Christian religion, including a segment on the Catholic Church and its defense of its doctrines (i.e. Inquisition).

Nickerson, Hoffman. The Inquisition: A Political and Military Study of its Establishment.

New York: Houghton Mifflin Press, 1923.

Begins with a description of society prior to the Inquisition and the forces and influences of this society that preempted inquisition. Nickerson goes on to recount the affair of Languedoc and the Albigensian Crusade. He moves on to describe the Mendicant Order (the Dominicans and Franciscans) and the Inquisition.