Inquisition

INQUISIZIONE. – Special ecclesiastical tribunal for combating and suppressing heresy.

SUMMARY:

I. Medieval Inquisition

II. Spanish Inquisition.

#### I. MEDIEVAL INQUISITION.

I. ORIGIN

The essential mission of the episcopate is not only to teach the truths of the faith, but also to defend them against those who attack them. Now, it proved powerless to repress the disturbing advances made in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, especially by the Cathars (called patarini in Italy, and Albigensians in Languedoc, after the name of the region in which they abounded) and by the Waldensians. The papacy therefore, in order to avert the grave danger threatening Christendom, created a special tribunal: the I. But it proceeded by stages. First, Lucius III, at Verona, in 1184, establishing the principle of a more expeditious procedure than that of public accusation, inherited from Roman law, obliged the bishops to visit once or twice a year, personally or through substitutes, the parishes contaminated by heresy, in order to hear, under oath, the testimony of trustworthy persons. They were also responsible for the official investigation (inquisitio) of the guilty, their reconciliation with the Church, or their punishment if they refused to purge themselves, by oath, of the charge of heresy or became relapsed. The episcopate also had jurisdiction over exempt persons, because it acted as a delegate of the Holy See (9, X, V, 7). Various constitutions issued by Innocent III in the years 1205, 1206, and 1212, and canon 3 of the Lateran Ecumenical Council (1215), completed the prescriptions of Lucius III (17–19, 21, X, V, 5; 13, X, V, 7).

Since the episcopate still proved unequal to this task, the Holy See entrusted temporary powers to delegates, the most active of whom were, in France: Pietro de Castelnau, assassinated on 15 January 1208, and Romano, cardinal of S. Angelo; in Italy: Cardinal Ugolino. Once the crusade that overthrew the power of the Albigensians in Languedoc had ended, Raimondo VII, Count of Toulouse, King Louis I, and the Roman legate signed the Treaty of Paris on 12 April 1229, which secured the cooperation of the State with the Church (text reproduced photographically in J. Guiraud, Histoire de l'Inquisition au moyen âge, II, Parigi 1938, p. 8).

For his part, the emperor Federico II promulgated constitutions against heretics in 1220, 1224, and 1231 (J.-L.-A. Huillard-Bréholles, Historia diplomatica Frederici II [Parigi 1852], p. 4, 421 and 19, X, V, 7). It was then that Gregory IX established, throughout Europe, from 1231 to 1234, tribunals of the I., presided over by permanent inquisitors, who exercised their powers within defined districts. For this purpose he chose Franciscans and Dominicans, appointed to this office by their hierarchical superiors (L. Auvray, Registres de Grégoire IX [there 1890], pp. 539–41 and Th. Ripoll, Bullarium Ordinis Pratum Praedic, I [Roma 1720], p. 47) or, later, by the Holy See itself.

II. THE INQUISITORS

Dominicans and Franciscans displayed ardent zeal against the heretics. In Italy they clashed with the local authorities who protected them, and with the Ghibellines who had formed an alliance with them. Pietro di Verona paid with his life for the exercise of his duties as inquisitor in the Milanese territory and at Florence (29 April 1252). But despite the resistance, the Cathar heresy was declining toward the end of the thirteenth century and at the beginning of the fourteenth. As for the Waldensians, persecuted everywhere, they emigrated to the Alps of Dauphiné and then, driven from their refuges, went to Piedmont, where they still exist today. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the inquisitors prosecuted the pseudo-apostles, fra' Dolcino (v.), and the degenerate lovers of Franciscan poverty, known by the names of Beghards, Spirituals, and Fraticelli. Those who appeared before them also included converted Jews who apostatized, blasphemers, the excommunicated, after a year of contumacy, and those guilty of witchcraft, divination, sorcery, magic, invocation of the devil, crimes against nature, adultery, incest, concubinage, usury and, finally, violators of the Sunday rest.

In their capacity as judges delegated by the Holy See, the inquisitors enjoyed exceptional powers, which made them independent of the Ordinary, at least insofar as the exercise of their office was concerned. Some committed abuses, but the fault more often lay with their subordinates, such as, for example, the notaries. The Holy See punished the guilty without mercy, for example, Roberto le Bougre, who was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. To put an end to all arbitrariness, Clement V decreed that the use of torture, the promulgation of final sentences, and the supervision of prisons were to be the joint responsibility of the bishops and the inquisitors (1, 2, V, 3 in Clem.). Subsequently, Giovanni XXII obliged the judges of the Inquisition to communicate the proceedings to the Ordinaries (J.-M. Vidal, Bullaire de l'Inquisition française au XIVᵉ siècle, Paris 1913, nos. 40, 55, 56).

III. THE PROCEDURE

Inquisitorial procedure is known in its minutest details, thanks to the manuals composed by Nicola Eymeric, Bernardo Gui, and others. Suspicions, denunciations, accusations, and even public rumor were sufficient for the inquisitor to summon the persons implicated to appear before him, or to have them arrested, either by the civil authorities or by his own agents (sergeants, messengers, notaries, jailers). The interrogation had to take place in the presence of two witnesses. A notary—or, in his absence, two suitable persons—recorded the minutes of the depositions, or at least their substance.

Exempt from every jurisdiction, the inquisitor, save for exceptions, dispensed with observing the procedure of common law and followed at his pleasure that introduced by Clement V and called summary procedure; he disregarded every privilege, dilatory proceedings, appeal, and the application of canon 37 of the Fourth Lateran Council, which prohibited summonses to places more than two days’ journey (dietae) from the domicile of the accused. The inquisitor therefore possessed discretionary power.

Guilt was established either through the confession of the persons concerned or through testimonial evidence. Heretics and persons of ill repute could also be heard as witnesses, although their depositions were subjected to careful examination. The mortal enemies of the person concerned were excluded. Two testimonies from trustworthy persons were sufficient to establish guilt; the witnesses’ depositions were communicated to the accused, but their names were kept secret for fear of reprisals. After Boniface VIII, however, this required that the danger be judged very serious (20, V, 2 in 6°).

Various means existed to compel the accused to confess: the regime of harsh imprisonment, which involved fasting, deprivation of sleep, confinement in dungeons, shackles on the feet and chains on the wrists, as well as still more cruel torments. If he resisted, the prisoner was subjected to torture, namely, the rack, the rope, burning coals, or the boot torture. Nevertheless, mutilation and the danger of death always had to be avoided.

By virtue of the decretal Si adversus (11, X, V, 7), the advocate or notary who lent the assistance of his office to a heretic or supporter of heresy exposed himself to the loss of his office and incurred infamy. Consequently, the accused remained undefended. At most, the advocate was permitted to advise the guilty party to confess. Once proof of the crime of heresy had been established, the inquisitor convened a jury composed of religious, secular clerics, men of standing, and jurists, in considerable number, sometimes reaching forty. After hearing their opinion, he pronounced the sentence either publicly and solemnly, in the so-called «general sermon», or outside II. If the heretic obstinately refused to retract his errors, or if he relapsed after abjuring them (in which case he was judged a relapsed heretic), the inquisitor abandoned him (relinquimus)—deliberately refraining from using the verb tradimus—to the secular arm, asking it to spare the guilty person mutilation and death. In practice, however, this recommendation had no effect; it merely protected the judge from the irregularity into which he would have fallen by participating in a capital sentence. If the lay court of justice had not burned the impenitent or the relapsed heretic, it would have been liable to excommunication, since it was favoring heresy (C. Douais, Practice Inquisitionis heretice pravitatis, auctore Bernardo Guidonis, Paris 1886, pp. 88 and 127).

Led to the place of execution, if the condemned person declared that he repented and renounced his errors, the tribunal returned him to the inquisitor, who subjected him to a very searching interrogation in order to prevent any deception. The penitent had to denounce his accomplices, presumably without any physical coercion, and abjure his heresies one by one. As punishment, he was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. If his conversion in extremis appeared to be feigned, the original sentence resumed its effect. The relapsed heretic who converted at the final hour obtained only the grace of receiving the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist before dying at the stake: the crime of heresy was likened to an offense against the divine majesty.

If the guilty person was a cleric or had received Orders, the ecclesiastical authority proceeded to degrade him before abandoning him to the civil power.

On the basis of the apostolic constitutions, the Liber Sextus (18, V, 2, in 6°), and imperial legislation, some authors have imagined that appeal was permitted only in the case of an interlocutory sentence, but excluded in the case of definitive sentences, particularly condemnations entailing recourse to the secular arm. The papal registers have demonstrated, at least with regard to the fourteenth century, the falsity of these assertions (

V. J

M. Vidal, Bullaire de l'Inquisition française, pp. LXXII-LXXX). Among the penalties inflicted on heretics who abjured their errors, imprisonment seems to have been the one most widely employed by the inquisitors. The penitentiary regime varied according to the cases and the places: the «broad prison» excluded irons and dungeons, penalties reserved for those condemned to the «harsh prison» or the «most harsh prison».

In every case, however, the prisoners received no other food than «the bread of sorrow and the water of tribulation».

IV. THE PENITENTS

At times, prisoners obtained provisional or definitive freedom. They were nevertheless required to wear, on their clothing, signs of infamy: pieces of yellow or red fabric, of various shapes, which exposed them to every kind of abuse, insult, and inconvenience, making their lives difficult. Indeed, good Christians refused to have dealings with them or to give their sons and daughters in marriage to their sons and daughters. Insults and persecutions were not spared them.

Slanderers and false witnesses were severely punished: for two consecutive days, from sunrise until None, and on the four following Sundays, they were hoisted onto a ladder, with their hands bound and their heads uncovered, dressed in a tunic without a belt, before the doors of the churches, so that the crowd might heap insults upon them.

At other times, the inquisitors imposed pilgrimages of greater or lesser distance on the penitents. The major pilgrimages were to S. Giacomo di Compostella, to Rome, to S. Tommaso di Canterbury, and to the SS. Tre Re Magi di Colonia. On their return, the pilgrims presented certificates attesting to the journey undertaken and to the obligatory visits to the shrines. Public flagellation ordinarily accompanied the pilgrimages and the signs of infamy. On certain feast days or Sundays, the penitent attended the parish Mass, presenting himself to the celebrant with a candle in one hand and rods in the other, and received the scourging. The ceremony could also take place during processions. The scourged man announced to the assembled people that he had deserved his fate because he had committed misdeeds against the inquisitors and the tribunal of the I. The penitents were then burdened with other duties, such as attending the sermon and the sung Mass, abstaining from servile work on forbidden days, receiving the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist on the appointed dates, fasting, etc. The penalties inflicted on the guilty were regarded by the Church not so much as punishments as penances useful to the salvation of the penitents who had returned to the true Christian faith. Thus, on the first Sunday of the month, the parish priest explained the penitential letters in a penitent’s possession and reminded him of the obligations incumbent upon him.

V. IL FINANZIAMENTO

The investigation and capture of heretics or of those who supported them entailed considerable expense. To offset it, the inquisitors imposed fines, both as principal penalties and as commutation for severe penalties exchanged for lighter ones. The remainder of the proceeds was devoted to charitable works, such as the construction or maintenance of churches, bridges, and fountains, and the purchase of sacred vestments and sacred vessels intended for places of worship.

Total confiscation was imposed on the property of obstinate heretics and relapsed heretics, even if penitent, who had been handed over to the secular arm, as well as on the property of those condemned to perpetual imprisonment. In France, a royal official known as the «receveur des encours» received the proceeds of the confiscations, which enabled him to assume the expenses of the tribunal of the Inquisition that fell upon the king. In Italy, the revenues of the tribunal of the Inquisition were divided into three parts, among the cities, the lay officials, and the tribunal itself.

VI. CONSEQUENCES OF THE SENTENCES

The stain of heresy did not cease with death: according to the provisions of the Decretals (12, X, III, 28 and 8, X, V, 7), the presence of the body of a heretic profaned the cemetery where he had been buried, and the inquisitor ordered that the bones be exhumed and reduced to ashes at the stake.

Certain apostolic constitutions and an edict of Frederick II prescribed the total destruction of the houses in which Cathars, called «perfect» or «perfect women», had been arrested, or had hidden themselves, or had preached or administered the consolamentum, a sort of sacrament that took the place of those of the Church. In reality, the inquisitors applied these decrees only to houses in which persons who had received the consolamentum at the point of death had died, with the owner’s knowledge, or in which persons had been elevated to the rank of «perfect».

Finally, certain civil and ecclesiastical disabilities struck—

ipso facto—all heretics reconciled with the Church, up to the second generation in the paternal line and up to the first in the maternal line; clerics became incapable of holding ecclesiastical dignities and benefices; laymen could neither hold public office nor perform certain acts of civil life (L. Tanon, Histoire des Tribunaux de l'Inquisition en France, Paris 1893, pp. 539-45).

The inquisitors often granted remissions and commutations of penalties, but these were always subject to revision.

VII. THE NUMBER

What was the number of heretics and relapsed persons who suffered the torment of fire? The insufficient documentation prevents its exact determination. Precise information is available only concerning the activity, in the 14th century, of the tribunal of Pamiers, where, out of 64 persons condemned, 5 were handed over to the secular arm, and that of the inquisitor Bernardo Gui in the Toulousain, where, out of 930 persons, 42 perished at the stake (cf. J.-M. Vidal, Le tribunal d'Inquisition de Pamiers, Toulouse 1906, p. 329; C. Douais, Documents pour servir à l'histoire de l'Inquisition dans le Languedoc, I, Paris 1900, p. ccv).

Modern scholars have judged the institution of the I. severely and have accused it of being contrary to freedom of conscience. But they forget that in the past this freedom was unknown and that heresy aroused horror among right-minded people, who were certainly the great majority even in the countries most infected by heresy. Nor should it be forgotten that in certain countries the Tribunal of the I. lasted for a very short time and had relatively little importance: thus in southern Italy, in the Spanish kingdoms during the 13th and 14th centuries, and in Germany. In Rome itself it soon disappeared: the proceedings against Luther in 1518 were conducted by the General Editor of the Apostolic Camera. As for the Tribunal of the Roman I. from the 16th century onward, V. CONGREGAZIONI ROMANE: II, I, S. Congr. del S. Ufficio.

XXII., in Quellen und Forschungen, 26 (1936), pp. 21-142; 27 (1937), pp. 109-34; C. Della Veneria, L'I. medievale e il processo inquisitorio, Milan 1939; P. Ilarino da Milano, Le eresie popolari del sec. XI nell'Europa occidentale, in Studi gregoriani, 1 (1947), pp. 43-89; R. Morghen, Osservazioni critiche su alcune questioni fondamentali riguardanti le origini ed i caratteri delle eresie medievali, in Miscellanea storica in memoria di Pietro Fedele, Rome 1946, pp. 97-151.

II. I. SPAGNOLA.

I. INSTITUTION

The Jews, extremely numerous in Spain, had attained a predominant position there thanks to their commercial acumen. Their arrogance, their luxury and their wealth, as well as the practice of usury, aroused public exasperation against them, which from time to time erupted in savage reprisals and massacres. Repeated preaching, particularly through the efforts of S. Vincenzo Ferreri, and severe edicts in 1412–13 induced many of them to convert to Christianity. But too often such conversions were prompted by self-interest or fear, without leading to any change in their customs or occupations; many of these conversos, or marranos as they were called, secretly practised Jewish rites, while others went so far as to return to Judaism, particularly at the point of death; consequently, the Spaniards regarded them as worse than those who had not converted.

To remedy this state of affairs and to restore religious order in Spain, yielding to the appeals of prominent figures among the higher clergy and the laity, the sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella asked Sixtus IV to restore the I.

II. ORGANIZATION

By a bull of 1 November 1478 the I. was in fact restored. It nevertheless assumed a more distinctly national character because, although receiving their powers from the pope, the inquisitors were appointed on the sovereigns’ proposal, and the latter could remove and replace them whenever they did not suit their purposes. The sovereigns also had their share in the confiscations imposed on the guilty. The first three inquisitors were appointed in 1480; the Pope added seven others, and, in order to ensure uniformity and discipline in their proceedings, the two sovereigns, alongside the other councils of the Crown, established the Consejo de la Suprema y General Inquisición (more briefly called the Suprema), with jurisdiction over everything concerning the faith. At the head of this council was placed a general inquisitor with full authority over the judges of the individual subordinate tribunals. The inquisitors began their activity in Seville, a city populated by converts, many of whom went into exile. An edict of 2 January 1481 required anyone who gave them shelter to hand them over to the I. A second edict, called the edict of grace, promised forgiveness to penitents; when the period of grace granted had expired, the denunciation of those guilty of or suspected of apostasy became obligatory, and, in order to detect false Christians, a memorandum in 37 articles was compiled, indicating their characteristic observances.

Numerous complaints, brought as far as Rome, against the inquisitors’ manner of proceeding, led Sixtus IV to withdraw from the Crown the power of appointing them and to establish in Castile a court of appeal for trials of heresy (25 May 1483); but the attempt failed. TORQUEMADA, JUAN DE (v.) general inquisitor, and he exercised his functions first in Castile (1483), then in Aragon (1484), and thereafter in the rest of Spain (3 April 1487). For his subordinates he composed a code which, supplemented by later additions, was published in Madrid in 1576 under the title of Compilación de las instrucciones del officio de la Sancta Inquisición. It was not an original work, since it condensed the doctrine expounded by Bernardo Gui in the Practica Inquisitionis and by Nicolò Eymerich in the Directorium Inquisitorum. It added only detailed clarifications and occasional directives.

In Aragon the I. encountered strong opposition. The conversos of Saragossa plotted against the two inquisitors, Pedro Arbues de Epila and Yuglar. On the night of 14 September 1485, Pedro was killed by a sword thrust. His death (17 September) provoked an uprising in Saragossa by the population against the conversos. The repression was severe, and all the conspirators perished at the stake.

In 1492 all the Jews who did not agree to become Christians were forced to leave Spain, because of the disorders and conspiracies they were fomenting; thereafter there were judicial proceedings only sporadically, although those Christians descended from converted Jews were viewed with suspicion or contempt. What had happened to the marranos also happened to the Moors who remained in Spain after the conquest of Granada (1492), and who in 1498 were required either to become Christians or to leave. Thus a class of converts (moriscos) was created who were Christian only superficially, and against them the activity of the I. was directed. The errors of the alumbrados (v.) in the 16th and 17th centuries also kept the I. occupied; moreover, common-law offences were subjected to its judgment, although they had very little to do with heresy, in view of the better functioning of its procedure compared with that of the other tribunals, its secrecy, and the greater integrity of its judges. It did not forget the medieval tradition of leading the guilty to penance, chiefly in order to spare them delivery to the secular arm and the related consequences; nevertheless, it did not escape the prejudices of the age in the application of corporal punishments and in the solemn apparatus of the auto da fé (v.). It is certain that, as the powers of the I. in Spain expanded, the episcopal tribunals suffered, since they were deprived almost entirely of coercive power. Indeed, it was reportedly the intention of the Suprema to subject the bishops themselves to its authority (v. CARRANZA); but Rome would not consent to this. There were, moreover, numerous conflicts with papal authority, which intervened to moderate the inquisitors’ zeal and prevent excesses, without always succeeding in correcting their harsh spirit of independence and their inflexible and severe conduct. The attempts of King Philip II to introduce the I. into his domains of Naples and Milan and into the Netherlands, where he encountered the determined resistance of the inhabitants, are well known. In Spain the I., suppressed for the first time under French rule in 1809, was restored in 1814 and then definitively suppressed in 1821.

Guglielmo Mollat