-by Steve Weidenkopf

“So with all that, about the Medieval inquisitors, let’s jump forward on that timeline as I mentioned to now the 15^th Century where you have the creation of these institutional tribunals like I mentioned to you, the most famous one being the Spanish Inquisition.

Now the Spanish Inquisition is a bit unique in history. The reason why it came about was because of a unique situation in Spain at the time. Spain was a unique place in Christendom, because you had the three major faiths of the world all present, all living together in Spain at the time. You had Christians, you have Jews, and you have Muslims, right, so unlike any other place throughout Christendom. And so this created a unique and interesting situation for the Spanish people as whole.

And the Inquisition was called to really address a special situation in Spain. And this situation was the situation that’s known as the conversos, or people who were known as conversos. And what these people were, these were people, these conversos, were people who had converted from Judaism or from Islam to being Catholic. So they were converts to the faith, but they were converts from Judaism and Islam.

Now most conversos, most of those who converted from those backgrounds, those conversions were authentic. There were a few conversions that were false, and there were some who converted who still maintained their Jewish and their Islamic kind of cultural traditions and cultural heritage. So many, especially Jews, who became conversos would still live together in the community. And there might be Jews who were with people who were still practicing Jews, but then also Jews who had converted to the Catholic faith living together in the same community. Many of these conversos still practiced kosher, so they didn’t eat certain foods. They maintained certain parts of their cultural heritage and tradition.

And so what grew up in Spain then, is you had these what became known as Old Christians, began to look at these people who had been Catholic and lived in Spain for generations and generations, they began to look at these New Catholics, these conversos with kind of a suspicious eye. Many of them were upset at the success of many of these conversos. Some of them kind of worked their way up through the Church as well as through society in Spain, and so they became really jealous of their success. And so theories and rumors began, conspiracy theories began to be spread about the conversos that they were still secret Jews. You know, that they were still secret Muslims. And how could we trust them, they’re really traitors.

This was before the completion of the Reconquista, or the deliverance of Spain from Muslim forces, didn’t happen until 1492. But for 20 years here you’re still dealing with a situation where there are Muslim armies and Muslim groups predominantly in the south of Spain, and so these Old Christians could say, “Well, these conversos could open the gates of the city to an Islamic army to come in and kills us. And how do we know that they’re actually Catholic?” That kind of thing.

Now, this is, you know, these rumors are just that, they were rumors and they were conspiracy theories. They’re not based on any kind of historical accuracy whatsoever. But we all know how rumors work, right, and how scapegoats and how people begin to point to other minority groups. We’ve seen that throughout our history, throughout human history, especially in the most recent last Century, the 20^th Century. So this kind of got out of control, rumors and conspiracy theories.

So ultimately what happened was the Crown, King Fernando and Queen Isabella, asked the Pope to grant them authority to establish an Inquisition to investigate the situation of these conversos. And that’s exactly what happened. So Pope Sixtus IV in 1478 grants that authority, the Crown then has authority now to establish an Inquisition in Spain, an institutional tribunal that had the job of investigating this converso situation. And so they did that.

Now one thing is to look at this in more detail you see that really the reason why the Spanish Inquisition was created was through politics, when you look more deeply at this. The Crown wanted to consolidate their power, especially in the south of Spain. When you look at where the Spanish Inquisition was really established, it was in the south of Spain, especially in the cities, in the urban areas, areas that were not completely under the Crown’s control. So a lot of this was generated by politics.

There was also concern, they began to believe these conspiracy theories about whether or not these conversos were, to use modern parlance, a national security risk. Now, were these people really a threat to our national security? Well we really need to figure that out. So it was again more focused on that than on really the faith, although that was an element of it.

Now again, the Spanish Inquisition, just like the Medieval inquisitors, only had jurisdiction over those who had been baptized, right? So practicing Jews, practicing Muslims had nothing to fear from the Spanish Inquisition. It was only those who had been baptized. Conversos, any others. Any baptized person was liable to be brought before the Inquisition if they were suspected of being a heretic.

So how this was organized was, again, this was under royal and not Papal control. As you go through the history of the Spanish Inquisition, there’s actually – even in the early parts of it, there were some abuses that began to be shown to light. This got back to Pope Sixtus IX, some irregularities in how the Inquisition was handling itself and handling cases. He sent a letter; Pope Sixtus did, to the Spanish authorities to try to combat that abuse. King Fernando got wind of that and was very upset, sent a letter back to the Pope, which was really a rebuke to the Pope, saying, “What are you doing? You gave me authority to hold this Inquisition in Spain. This is my country, this is my area, this is my territory, I have control of it, not you.”

Very different situation from what we experience with the Church today in terms of things, right? But that’s the way it was then. So it was really a royal organ, not necessarily an organ of the Church at all. There was an organization to it, there was a Council of six members appointed by the King. This Council was presided over by the Inquisitor General, and then what happened was the Inquisitor General then would establish institutional tribunals in certain cities throughout Spain. As I mentioned, most of these were in the south of Spain.

And they were governed; the procedures were governed by a set of rules very similar to those that the Papal inquisitors also utilized. The first set of these procedures was issued in 1484 by the infamous Tomás de Torquemada, who was one of the first Inquisitor Generals of the Spanish Inquisition.

So how they operated was very similar to how the Medieval inquisitors, as I mentioned, operated. These inquisitors would come into a town, they’d establish the Inquisition, they would then preach at Sunday mass or at a special feast day. “We are here, here’s the faith, if you know of anyone, or if you yourself have embraced heresies, come and tell us.” They do the same things, they’d issue an edict of grace or a period of grace for anywhere from 30 to 40 days where you could voluntarily come and confess. You would receive a light penance if you did so. If you came during this period of grace, your goods, your property, would not be confiscated. If you didn’t do that and you were brought before the tribunal later, the Inquisition later, your goods, your property were confiscated.

So after the period of grace, then there was a period of denunciations where people could come and say, you know, “I saw Farmer Joe going to this meeting with other people, he’s engaging in heretical activity, I just know it.” They would come and give testimony before the inquisitors; they would then try to gather evidence to see if this was correct.

So the system of justice at the time, both secular and Church, relied on the collaboration of the community. That’s one thing to keep in mind, is that the Spanish Inquisition was actually – it was not an unpopular thing. Were there critics of it in Spain at the time? Yes. But was there like a huge revolt against it or were the people upset with it? No, they weren’t at all. And in fact, it wouldn’t have existed for as long as it did if there was support from the people and also obviously support from the Crown.

So now the accused would come before the inquisitors, who would assess the evidence of whether or not someone was suspected of heresy. If there was enough evidence, either material evidence or verbal evidence to believe someone was a heretic, then you would be brought before the tribunal and an arrest warrant was actually issued for you, you would be arrested, brought before the tribunal, your goods confiscated for the length of the trial, and you would be placed in jail. And you were actually placed in an ecclesiastical jail, a church jail.

And what’s interesting is that Church jails at this time were much better than any secular jail. And we actually have accounts, this is somewhat humorous, but you actually have accounts of people who are accused of secular crimes being in a secular jail actually blaspheming in the secular jail so that they would be considered a heretic and moved to an ecclesiastical jail because the conditions were so much better in the Church jail. So the Church actually took care of people much better, in a better way than those in the secular world did as well.

So as I mentioned, the goods of the accused were confiscated and inventoried. If you were found innocent or if you confessed, then your goods were given back. If you were convicted, if you were obstinate in your heresy and you were remanded to the State, then your goods were confiscated by the Inquisition.

Now, what’s different from the Spanish Inquisition and the Medieval inquisitors was that you were actually allowed, the accused were allowed an advocate. So kind of like a lawyer, somebody to advocate for your side, someone who could call witnesses, someone who could disavow witnesses who came before the Inquisition.

You were also afforded the opportunity to provide a list of people who hated you, who maybe owed you money or who had some kind of bias against you. You could give that list to the inquisitors and then they would check off that list with anybody who would come and give testimony against you and they would immediately just reject that testimony, because obviously you had either a dog in the fight, you had some animus against the accused and so they wanted to make sure that this was really, you know, a good legal system and something that was based on authentic legal principle.

So again, you could call favorable witnesses, you could disable hostile witnesses, you could present extenuating circumstances, “Yes, I said this blasphemous thing, but I was drunk at the time so I was not within my complete wits, it was not of my free will.” “Okay, fine.” You could plead insanity, you could say I was young and I was just young and stupid, I didn’t know what I was saying. I didn’t understand the faith, I was dumb. And all these things were admissible, and the inquisitors would look at it and if found to be true then you either would receive a form of penance or you’d be let go.

Now in terms of torture in the Spanish Inquisition, this is very similar to the Medieval inquisitors, very, very similar. Again, it was rarely used. Just like in the Medieval period of time it was used only once. It’s estimated by one historian that it was only used in about 2 percent of the cases. Right, so 98 percent of the time, 98 percent of the cases, torture was never, ever used. Again, this is a complete contrast to that myth that the Inquisition was all about torture and killing millions of people.

Again, it was used much less frequently than in secular courts. Torture was a staple part of the secular judicial system in 15^th Century Spain, but not so in the Spanish Inquisition. It was limited to only 15 minutes in duration, and all torture sessions were carefully recorded. Inquisitors, representatives of the Bishop and a secretary were all required to be there. So there were multiple people there, it was not just one person and the accused or the inquisitors and the accused, there were other witnesses present as well.

Also, doctors were required to be there, because the intent was not to maim or kill or permanently hurt someone, it was, again, it was a form of physical punishment to elicit a confession, not used as a form of punishment. Again, same thing like the Medieval inquisitors, if you confessed under torture, they waited a day and the day after you had to then repeat that confession to make sure that it was valid and legitimate.

Now, once you have gone through the process, you’ve had this hearing, evidence has been collected against you, you’ve been given the opportunity multiple times to repent. Let’s say you did repent, or maybe you didn’t and you’re obstinate in your heresy, then the inquisitors would pass a sentence. And in some cases this was issued privately, but also in the Spanish Inquisition you had something unique called the auto-da-fé, which is just a Latin term which means an act of faith, right, the act of faith.

And so you would go into the public area, usually the public main square of the town, the inquisitors would process all of those who had been accused of heresy into the town and then their sentences would be publicly read, so everyone knew what, you know, Farmer Joe received, what kind of sentence he received from the Inquisition.

Now, some of the verdicts that were possible, is you could be acquitted. Not enough evidence presented to say that you actually were heretic, fine, you’re acquitted and let go. If you confessed and you repented, then you were given a form of penance, right, just like the Medieval inquisitors. In some cases you were called to wear what was known as a sambenito, or an actual garment. It was yellow in color that either one or two diagonal crosses on it and you had to wear that any time you went outside your house. You didn’t have to wear it inside. But any time you went outside the house you had to wear this. You had to wear it for either a certain period of time or through the rest of your life, it depended on your particular case.

Other cases, other punishments where you were given a fine, a monetary fine, you could be banished from the region, just from the towns, sent someplace else. You could also be sent to prison. Now, when we think of prison we think of highly guarded, efficient prison systems like we have in our country and other places. But in this case it wasn’t the situation. There wasn’t really an effective and well-established penal system or correctional facilities.

So what they did instead was, even if you were given like a lifetime imprisonment, that usually only amounted to about ten years. In most of the cases, prison was spent either in your own house, so you were under house arrest, or you were sent to a monastery, had to spend time at a monastery, or you were sent to a hospital. There was really no well-established correctional facilities where you whiled away your time for your life or for ten or so years. It was rarely ever in an actual jail, it was in those other situations.

Also, you could be physically punished as well. In some cases that was flogging. Now again, if you were a obstinate heretic, and you refused after multiple opportunities to confess, then you were remanded to the State just as in the Medieval period of time, and then the State, the punishment for heresy in the secular world was death. And so, most of those who had been remanded to the State were executed by being burned at the stake.

Now what are some numbers here for the Spanish Inquisition? Remember again, it was against Canon law for the Church to execute anyone, so she did not do the execution, the inquisitors handed over, remanded the person to the State, they performed the execution. And so some numbers here. At the height of the Spanish Inquisition, from 1480 to 1530, the height of the period of time when the Inquisition was really active in Spain, it’s estimated that there were 2000 individuals who were remanded to the State and executed. Two thousand, all right, this is a far cry from the millions that most people think or that the myths have perpetuated.

So that equates to, if you do the math, about 40 people a year. In other places, in other times, you look at the 350 years of the entire Inquisition; this Inquisition of Spain lasted for a long period of time, for about 350 years. Of the whole time of the Inquisition, about 4000 people in Spain were executed as a whole. Again, far cry from the millions that most people think, or again, most critics of the Church will cite or will say.

Now, what’s interesting is if you compare the Spanish Inquisition to what also is going on during the time of its existence in other places in Europe, mostly Protestant countries, although not solely. But you had this witch craze going on, especially in the 17^th Century, in the 1600s. You had witches being burned at the stake. One historian has estimated 60,000 women, mostly women, there were some men, who were burned at the stake for being witches, mostly in Protestant countries.

What’s interesting is if you look at the history of the Spanish Inquisition and also the Inquisition in the Italian city-states at the time, there was really no cases of burning of witches. The reason for that is because once it was known in Spain, for example, that somebody was accused of being a witch, the inquisitors went and investigated and they said, “There’s no witchcraft here, this person’s just delusional, suffering from some mental issues, but not a heretic and not a witch, not a threat to anybody, we don’t need to do anything.”

Same thing in the Italian city states in Rome and other places. Very little, if any, persecution of witches in those areas. But in Protestant countries, Germany and areas of France, and other places, high, high level of persecution of witches. So it’s very interesting to make that kind of distinction.

So again, one assessment from an historian, it’s clear that for most of its existence, the Inquisition was far from being a juggernaut of death, either in intention or in capability. It had an execution rate of well under 2 percent of the accused. Again, 98 percent of the cases did not result in any form of death at all.

Now again, the Inquisition in Spain had support from the people. It wasn’t necessarily overly popular, but there wasn’t a huge uprising against it. In fact, it would only have occurred and lasted for as long as it did with support from the people. It lasted, as I mentioned, for a long period of time, from 1478 to basically 1834 was the final act of suppression.

Now, what did the Spanish Inquisition bring to Spain? If we look at this objectively, we see that in Spain, Spain was different than these other countries in Christendom at the time. Spain, because of the Inquisition actually, had religious peace. So when you get to that early part of the 16^th Century and later, this is a period of time of the Protestant Revolution, when Christendom is breaking apart because you have Lutherans Zwingli and Calvin and others preaching this heresy, preaching different teachings from the faith and pulling people away from the Church into Protestantism.

That didn’t happen in Spain. In fact there very, very few Protestants that ever were erupted or ever came about in Spain as a whole. Also in Europe as you go along in the 17^th Century, there’s religious wars. Remember after every heresy there is usually a violent period of warfare. In Europe in particular in Germany of the Thirty Years’ War in the 17^th Century, horrific amount of death and destruction during that time. Spain was freed from all that, right, there was no religious war, there was no conflict, there was no horrific violence during that period of time at all, at least within Spain.

And so what’s interesting too is when you look at this, there’s very limited impact on the people of Spain as a whole. As I mentioned, the Spanish Inquisition was really rooted and centered in urban areas. So if you lived outside of the urban areas, outside of the towns, you lived in the rural areas, you had no contact at all with the Inquisition. One historian has written this, he said, “The evidence suggests that the Inquisition never built up in organizational apparatus of social control, and that its impact on the daily lives of most Spaniards was infrequent and marginal.”

Now contrast that with the myth that people have about the Spanish Inquisition that it was this all-powerful, omniscient Inquisition that controlled everything about the lives of people in Spain. It’s just not true at all.

So how do we have these myths, I mean how does this come about? And we’ll end with this. How do we come about with all of these different myths? Well, really what happens is, once you get into the – as I mentioned, the 16^th Century and the rise of Protestantism, you begin to see a tax on the Church. So, different Protestant authors began to use the printing press to write books, to write tracks against the Spanish Inquisition, and to really create this propaganda against the Church. To create the myth that millions of people were being tortured and being executed for the faith. That the Inquisition really was this monolithic organization bent on controlling the minds of everyone, and that’s just not true at all.

Again, this was the creation of different Protestant authors and the enlightenment period which you get into the 17^th and 18^th Century in France. It also picks up and then you have your modern day critics as well, who gravitate towards these false narratives that have their origins in the 16^th Century, and then they continue to maintain it. Not at all supported by historical fact whatsoever.

What’s interesting is, when the major historian of the Spanish Inquisition, a man by the name of Henry Kamen, wrote a book, originally I think it was back in the ‘70s called The Spanish Inquisition, based on the historical record at the time, what he believed, and it was very, very critical and it kind of went along with a lot of different myths and whatnot that had previously – that had come from the Protestants and other authors.

But fast-forward a few years from there in the ‘90s, he writes a revision to that book, and so now his book is called The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision. And he basically rewrote his book based on new information and new documents that he had uncovered in a new look at the whole Spanish Inquisition. And he overturned previously what he had believed, and he saw that this Inquisition was not what these false narratives present.

And this is what he wrote about the effect of the Spanish Inquisition. He said, “Indeed, the Inquisition meddled very much less than we might think. Both defenders and opponents of the Inquisition have accepted without question the image of an omniscient, omnipotent tribunal whose fingers reached into every corner of the land. For the Inquisition to have been as powerful as suggested, the 50 or so inquisitors in Spain would need to have had an extensive bureaucracy, a reliable system of informers, regular income, and the cooperation of the secular and ecclesiastical authorities. At no time did it have any of those.”

So this whole myth of this Spanish Inquisition is again just that, it’s a myth, not supported by historical fact. So whether we’re talking about the Papal inquisitors or the Spanish Inquisition, obviously we need to be armed with historical fact, we need to be able to understand the context in which these events happened in society, in Christendom and in the Church itself so that when we are approached by those in our family, our co-workers or others that come to us and say, “Hey, what about the Spanish Inquisition, what about the killing of millions of people,” we have an ability to talk to them and to engage them and provide historical fact for them so we can defend the Church.”

-by Pedro Berruguete, “Saint Dominic Presides over the Auto da Fe (Act of Faith), c. 1495.

Tolerance is NOT believing everything is true, nor equally true.  Only a fool would be that simple-minded.  Denial is not a river in Egypt.

The perpetual union, up until recently, of Church and State, is ancient, going all the way back to the god-king pharoahs of Egypt.  It is this union which led to heresy, pagan or Christian, being viewed as treason, as a crime, against the State, against society as a whole.

In The Real Story of the Inquisition, Steve Weidenkopf digs into the wealth of historical data to show that, far from being a cruel reign of terror, the Inquisition was actually a noble institution that:

• Aimed principally at the repentance and reconciliation of wayward Catholics
• Used well-regulated procedures and temperate punishments
• Protected the accused from harsher treatment by the state
• Fostered both religious and national unity

-by Steve Weidenkopf

“So let’s go through some of the myths of the Inquisition. These are some of the things that people automatically think of, these false scenarios that they have in their mind whenever they hear the word the Inquisition, and we’re going to refute those as we go along tonight.

1.  All right, so the first myth of the Inquisition is that it was a tool used by the Church to control the minds of medieval people. All right, that’s one of the major myths.
2. The second myth is that Inquisition destroyed religious and intellectual freedom and political liberty throughout Europe.
3. The third myth is that it tortured and killed millions of people.

Invariably, you talk about the Inquisition with someone, one of these three or all three of these myths will be presented.  They’ll talk with you and they’ll say this, “Well, what about the torturing and the killing of millions and millions of people? How could the Church sanction that? What was going on there?” What was the reality of the Inquisition?

Well, the reality was there was never any single, all powerful, horrific tribunal that controlled the minds of medieval people. I’ll go through this in more detail and you’ll see there was never any kind of omniscient, omnipotent, powerful tribunal attacking everything and everyone and trying to limit political freedom and religious thought throughout Christendom.

Why the Inquisition – why was it started, why did it come about?

(Ed. after the fall of the western Roman Empire, there was no legal system in the western Mediterranean and European worlds.  The Church had survived, along with its judicial system, canon law.  It was to these courts the people turned for justice and adjudication of wrongs.  In some places, the Church was the ONLY form of established government and semblance of protector available, the bishop the only executive or leader to be had.  Exacting records were kept and these records are recently being compiled, analyzed, and studied in a modern way.)

Well, it was formed to combat popular and secular persecution of heretics. As we’ll see, the Inquisition actually was formed to help the Church talk to heretics and try to convert them and bring them back to the faith. There was a lot of secular persecution among either the regular people or among secular lords against heretics. They were not afforded any kind of system of justice. They weren’t afforded any opportunity to recant, and so the Church had to step in to actually prevent violence against heretics, originally.

And then also, the reality too is that the Inquisition was formed and what they desired was the conversion of heretics, not their death. It was actually seen as an inquisitor actually failed in his job if the heretic was remanded to the state and then executed. Because the job of the inquisitor was to illustrate to the heretic his heresy, his error and to bring him back into the Church – he or she. And so if you weren’t able to do that as an inquisitor and you had to remand the heretic over to the secular authorities and they killed the heretic, then you had failed, really, in your job. So it was not a good thing.

There’s really a two-fold purpose to the Inquisition. One was to save the souls, save souls, save the souls of the heretic. That was the primary reason for why the medieval inquisitors and later on the Inquisitions existed, was an act of charity by the Church to illustrate to those who had embraced heresy that look, you have turned from the authentic faith, you’ve turned from real faith, and now were going to explain the true faith to you and give you an opportunity to repent, to convert and come back to the faith. So it was conversion of souls, it was concern for souls, was really the major purpose.

And the second purpose was to protect the unity of the Church and society. Now this is, I think, one of the most difficult things for people in the modern world, especially Americans, to understand about this historical event of the Inquisition, of why this happened.

Because for us, we’ve grown up in a society where religious toleration is the norm, where if someone differs from us in religion, that’s okay. We, as Catholics, have an obligation to evangelize, we have an obligation to catechize. We have an obligation to dialogue with those of our faith, right, who are Christian but maybe not Catholic. We have an obligation to dialogue with those who are not of the Christian faith, I mean, Muslims and Jews, and what have you.

So we dialogue, but it’s not from the point of we all need to be one or united in our religious faith. That world view that we have was completely foreign to those who lived during this period of time. So to really understand the Inquisition, we have to go deeper into their mindset to understand their world view, which is very different from ours.

A good quote to kind of help illustrate that is from the historian Thomas Madden, he writes, “For medieval people, religion was not something one just did at Church; it was their science, their philosophy, their politics, their identity and their hope of a salvation. Heresy then, struck at the heart of that truth. It doomed the heretic, endangered those near him and tore apart the fabric of society.” (Ed. avoid Presentism)

So for medieval people, a heretic really was one who – and I’ll talk more about this later – was a threat, not only to themselves for the state of their soul, but also was a threat to the larger society and to the community and to Christendom as a whole. Again, something much different than how we see a religion and how we see the faith today. But it’s important for us, if we’re going to understand this, to understand that historical context. And a good way to understand this from is a quote from Cardinal Walter Brandmuller, who is the President Emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, and he writes this about how we have to try to understand events like the Inquisition. He says. “The Inquisition, such a historical phenomena can be fathomed only when we look at it within the framework of its historical context, and do not try to measure yesterday by today’s standards.” So another way to look at this is the Catholic historian Hilaire Belloc who wrote about we should avoid reading backwards into history. Meaning, taking how we view things, how we see things, how our society is structured and applying all of that to previous historical events. It’s really kind of passing judgment on those who lived before us, unfairly.  (Ed. for a more local example, judge, truly judge, your grandparents by today’s standards, today’s standards being the authentic, irrefutable Truth!!!!  “Boy, were they NUTS is the only conclusion you can come to!  Or, are we?  I trust you take the point.)

Now obviously there are certain things we can look at, analyze, judge and say this was wrong, this was right, obviously. But in order to do that, we must at least first have an authentic understanding of their world view and, again, of their historical context. What was it that they were living through? Why was this important to them? Answer those kinds of questions so that we have a better understanding of it. So before we get into some more details of refuting these myths that I mentioned to you earlier, let me take just a brief kind of timeline of this historical event of the Inquisition.

What was this event? What are we actually talking about here?

See Albigensianism

Why is Heresey bad?

1. A threat to society and the Church, the body politic.

Well there’s many different reasons for why people in the Middle Ages believed that heresy was bad. One, was that for them heresy was a threat to their society and a threat to the Church. It was a threat to the unity that they all lived in terms of their faith. And that’s not to say that everybody was Catholic during this period of time. And you know there’s a heresy right here in the south of France, so obviously not. You also have Jews and Muslims and what not throughout Christendom, but for the most part we can say that Christendom in the medieval world was united, at least generally speaking, in the faith, in the Catholic faith.

2.  Disunity

So anything that came in to reject that or change that or set up a counter Church to that, was a threat, right, to the unity of the Church and the unity of society. And these people were very, very focused on being united. On having a united Church and a united faith. So heresy was something that obviously threatened that. And it wasn’t just a passive threat. In their minds it was an active threat. You know, the heretic seeks to change the beliefs of other people, seeks to change the belief of the community, seeks to get rid of even the Church. And that’s a threat, and that’s something that needs to be addressed.

3.  A threat to the soul.

Another reason why heresy is important is because it’s not only a threat to society and to the Church, but it’s also a threat to the soul. Not only the soul of the heretic, his soul or her soul is threatened by embracing this false teaching, but also they embrace that teaching, they teach others the false teaching, you know, they live lives that seemingly are virtuous and people then join their movement, then they’re taking other souls away from the faith as well. All right, and this was a significant issue for people in the Middle Ages.

For your soul to be threatened was a very significant endeavor, right. I mean it should be for us today too. We should not do anything that would place our soul in danger. So if it’s true for us, it was true for them as well. Embracing heresy placed your soul in danger and that was a significant theological issue and a pastoral issue as well.

4.  Invites violence.

Another reason why heresy is bad and was strenuously combated by people in the Middle Ages is because of the violence. Really when you look at the history of heresy throughout the whole of all Church history, you see that what follows a heresy is usually periods of active and pernicious violence. Because it destabilized – or it threatened to destabilize the community, so there was a reaction to that and usually it was a violent reaction.

Sometimes it was a violent reaction by secular authorities, other times there were groups of heretics that actually took up arms themselves. So this was a significant problem for all these different reasons. In the secular world, the secular view of things, secular rulers believe that heretics were revolting against their authority. The secular rulers were Catholic, they were aligned at least in part to the Church, and so to come along and be a heretic or preach something different threatened their authority.

So from the minds of a secular ruler, a heretic really was one who was committing treason. And so in their minds, heresy was a treasonous offense, it’s a capital crime, and that the punishment for capital crime in the secular world was death.

So the key thing to understand here about heresy in the Middle Ages is that heresy was not only a Church crime, but it was also a secular crime. That’s a very important distinction to keep in mind when we talk about the procedures and the death penalty and all these other things that come in later on and we talk about the Papal inquisitors and the Inquisition itself. Heresy is not only a church crime, but it’s also a secular crime in this time period. So that’s why it’s very, very significant.

Secular rulers have the goal of safeguarding their realm, as I mentioned to you earlier, they’re the police force, they’re the army, they’re all these things. A threat to their society, a threat to their authority is something that needs to be addressed, all right?

 Cura Animarum

For the Church, heresy is bad because again, it threatens the soul of the individuals, it threatens the soul of others in the communities, in the church, and so it must be addressed as well. The Church is primarily concerned with saving the souls of the heretic, whereas the secular world is more concerned with punishing the heretic. Another key distinction. Church is more concerned with saving the soul of the heretic, the secular realm is more concerned with punishing the heretic, okay. We’ll talk more about that as we go along.

Now, it was the duty of everyone in Christendom at this time to combat heresy, as I have mentioned. The Church really kind of looked initially towards secular rulers to do that. Some did that well, others didn’t. And in many cases failure to fight heresy was as bad or worse than actually embracing the heresy itself, all right. So this was the world view, this was the context in which these people lived.

 Papal Inquisitors

So with all that in mind, let’s look at these Papally appointed inquisitors, these Medieval inquisitors, that Pope Gregory IX established. Now it’s important to note that their jurisdiction, what they were appointed to do was to go and to seek out heresy, and to bring the heretic back into the bosom of the Church. And what is heresy, right? Heresy is a post-baptismal denial of the basic doctrine of the faith.

So an inquisitor is only concerned with those who have been baptized and who now are following some false teaching. Which means an inquisitor is not concerned with Jews, practicing Jews, not concerned with practicing Muslims. That’s one of the major myths of the Inquisition, is people think that the Inquisition or the Papal inquisitors were all out to get practicing Jews and Muslims and anybody who wasn’t a Christian. Completely not true. That’s historically false. They were only concerned and only had jurisdiction, they had legal jurisdiction only over those who were baptized who had fallen away from the faith. Very, very important.

Edict of Grace

So what they would do, is these inquisitors, these Medieval inquisitors would come into an area, they’d have their commission from the Pope, they’d go to these areas, they’d set up their shop, so to speak, and they would announce the fact that they are here. They would preach, they would preach the faith, they would preach the authentic faith and then they would issue what was known as a period of grace, or an edict of grace.

And this was in the medieval period of time it was anywhere from 15 to 40 days where you could come voluntarily confess to the inquisitors that you had embraced heresy or you had participated in a heretical act, and they would give you some form of penance. You say, “I’m sorry,” you repent; they would welcome you back into the Church and give you some form of penance. All right, that was during this period of grace. You could voluntarily confess.

After the period of grace, what was then done was the procedure was to open the accusations to anyone in the community. All right, so if you believe you saw Farmer Joe, your neighbor down the street, going into a meeting with known Cathari or know Albigensians, you could then go to the inquisitors and say, “Hey, I saw Farmer Joe going to this meeting with a whole bunch of other well-known Albigensians, you should probably investigate him.”

So it was opened up to accusations from others. They would gather evidence. If there was seemingly enough evidence to desire the inquisitors to actually go forth with a hearing, they would do so. A trial would commence, they’d be brought before the inquisitors. Everything that you said and everything that they asked you, all your responses were carefully written down.

That’s one of the interesting things of this – kind of ironic, really. When there’s so much misunderstanding about the Inquisition and these inquisitors, that there is so much, despite the fact that there was so much documentation from them. We have many, many, many written records, detailed written records, of what they actually did, what they said, what the punishment was, why they gave that punishment, all these things. Completely well, well recorded.

So everything was written down, and throughout the process the accused was given an opportunity to convert, to confess their heresy and to come back to the Church. Witnesses were called, could be or could not be called, asked, “Did you see Farmer Joe?” Going, “Yes, I saw.” “Well how do you know it was a,” you know, they go through the whole list. Then the accused also was allowed to call his own witnesses, right, to kind of verify his story. “I’m not an Albigensian, this is why, I have so-and-so who can vouch for me.” And so they would go on and on like this.

Again, the whole point of this, of these inquisitors, was to try to bring to an understanding of the accused that you have embraced heresy, this is a threat to your soul, and out of charity we want you to come back. We want you to renounce this heresy and to return to the church. And if you do so we’ll give you a penance.

Torture?

Now, a lot of times when it comes up, as we mentioned earlier, in terms of the myths of the Inquisition is, what about torture? Right, we had this kind of vision, this narrative in our mind of, you know, torture was being used throughout these sessions and what not.

Now, it’s interesting when you look at the historical record, is that torture wasn’t authorized to be used by inquisitors until 1252. So 20 years from Gregory IX establishing these procedures, torture wasn’t allowed to be used. But 20 years in, finally it was allowed to be used.

Now, why was it allowed to be used, or why was it even part of the legal framework? Well, because that was – torture was used extensively in the secular courts of the day. So torture was something that was used to elicit confessions and even as a form of punishment in the secular world and so it was something then that the Church also then embraced. And we’ll talk more about torture, especially as we get along to the Spanish Inquisition.

Now, what’s interesting about torture in ecclesiastical courts is that it could be used or could not be used. It wasn’t something that had to be used, it was an option given to the inquisitors. Many of them did not like to use it at all. The most famous inquisitor, Bernard Gui, who wrote an actual manual on how to be an inquisitor, how to ask the certain question or what questions to ask different heretics, he recommended not using it. He said it wasn’t effective at all; it shouldn’t be used at all. And he didn’t use it much himself.

If the inquisitor elected to use torture, he had to follow a certain number of protocols and procedures. It was well regulated, it wasn’t just, okay, you’re gonna be taken in the back and do whatever I want to you. There were certain things that the inquisitor could and could not do.

What’s interesting is that the torture itself was never applied by a cleric. (Ed. clerics could not draw blood, even so much that when surgery was required in monasteries, laymen were brought into the monastery to do the surgery.)  So the inquisitor himself could not torture the accused. Instead the secular world, the secular arm was brought in and they applied the torture. So that’s one interesting point.

The torturer in ecclesiastical courts was always used to elicit a confession, was always used to derive the truth. It was never used as a form of punishment. Most people when they think of torture and the Inquisition they immediately think, oh they’re just, you know, punishing these people for believing something different. Not true. It was always used as a means to elicit a confession, never as a means solely for punishment.

Also, it was interesting; it was allowed to be used only once. If an inquisitor went to the torture route, he could only use it one time, that’s it. It wasn’t something that was repeated often, only one time.

And it was supposed to be used after every other method had already been tried. What’s also interesting is that if the accused confessed under torture, “Yes, I’m a heretic, yes, I believe these things,” then the torture was stopped and then they were given a day to rest and then the day after the torture the inquisitors would come to them and ask them to repeat their confession. Because it was believed and it was understood that confession under torture could be false, right. So you had to freely offer the confession again outside of torture just to be sure that it was authentic.

Penances

All right, so what could be some punishments for those who were brought before the inquisitors, they were tried, it was determined they were heretics; let’s say the ones who confessed and converted and came back to the faith, what kind of penances were they given?

Well, some could be fasting. One form of penance was fasting. You were ordered to fast for a certain number of days, for a certain period of time. And in some cases you had to wear a special clothing, like a yellow cross on your garment, again for a certain period time or for maybe a long period of time.

If you were wealthy, if you’re a wealthy individual, then you could be instructed to give money to build a church. You could be instructed to give alms for the poor. Or you could also be told that you needed to go on a pilgrimage, right, or go participate in a Crusade. Again, this is a period of time of great pilgrimages and great Crusades as well. So those were different forms of penances that people could be given for confession, “Yes, I’m a heretic,” and then being brought back to the faith.

Because, again, heresy, if you engage in heresy, right, that is ecclesiastical or a church crime, right, it is sinful if you’re baptized Christian, to kind of repudiate the teachings of the faith and believe in something false. And so if you confessed that, then there’s a penance given, right, so that you can reconcile yourself to God and to the Church.

Obstinance

Now, if you were obstinate in your heresy, if you refused the many opportunities provided to you by the inquisitors to recant, to confess, and just remained obstinate, “Yes, I believe this Albigensian heresy, I believe these teachings, I’m a Perfecti, I’m never going to change, I don’t believe you, it’s a false Church, it’s created by Satan,” all these things. Then eventually there comes a point in time during the course where the inquisitors said, “Well, we can no longer help you. We’ve tried; we’ve asked these questions, we’ve tried to show you the error of your ways. We’ve tried; we’ve given you multiple opportunities for a conversion. It’s not working, we can’t do anything.”

 Remanded to the custody of the State

So then what they would do is they would remand the heretic to the State. So they would say, “We can no longer help this individual, we give you over to the State.” And the State would then ascertain, okay, this person is guilty of heresy, and again as I mentioned to you earlier, remember that heresy was not only a church crime, but also a secular crime in this time period. And so if you were convicted in a secular court, or by the secular authorities of being a heretic, the punishment for that was death. It was a capital punishment.

So then the secular authorities would take the heretic and then execute them in some manner, usually by burning at the stake. So it’s a historical fact to say authentically that the Church never, ever, ever executed anyone for heresy. In fact, it was against Canon law for the death penalty to be used. The death penalty could not be used in Canon law at all.

So what happens is again, as I mentioned, they remanded the heretic to the State. Now did the Church know that by remanded the heretic to the State that he or she would be executed? Yes. They did know that. Because, again, heresy was a secular crime. So but the Church worked diligently, inquisitors did, to try to ensure that didn’t happen. I mentioned earlier that an inquisitor who had his accused heretic remanded to the State had failed in their job, right, because they did not confess, they did not come back to the Church.

 Quantitative analysis

So let’s look at some numbers. I mean, people think that millions upon millions of people, we have this vision in our heads, this false narrative, that millions of people were killed throughout Europe during this period of time by the Papal inquisitors and later by the Spanish Inquisition. What are some real authentic numbers? Well, in the south of France, over a 50-year period of time from 1227 to 1277, there were 5000 Cathari, or 5000 Albigensians who were executed by secular authorities. About 100 people a year. You do the math, right?

So it’s not to diminish their executions, but we need to know these historical facts to be able to combat what people are saying about what went on during this period of time. “There were millions of people,” it’s not millions of people. Several thousands. It doesn’t diminish their death, obviously, but again, we need to know the authentic numbers.

I mentioned to you Bernard Gui who was one of the most famous inquisitors of the time. He was the inquisitor of Toulouse in the south of France here for a 16-year period of time in the early part of the 14^th Century. Over the course of his time as inquisitor of Toulouse, he passed 930 judgments against heretics, accused heretics. Of those 930, 42 were remanded to the State. Or about a little less than 5 percent.

So, historical record shows that overwhelmingly the vast majority of those who came before the Papal inquisitors, and we’ll see later the Spanish Inquisition, were not remanded to the State. They were not, they were penanced, the inquisitors were able to bring these people back to the faith and to the Church. And so it was a very – actually it was a very just and very humane way, really, to engage in this discussion of whether or not someone was a heretic. And we’ll talk more about that in just a minute.

The Spanish Inquisition