10 Things You Never Knew About the Inquisition

Mel Brooks and Monty Python have taken cracks at it, and most people look at it with absolute dread as a time when the world was in its darkest hour. Some of this common thought about the Inquisition is true; some of it is not. Here are twenty-five absolutely true facts about the Inquisition, however, that you likely never knew:

1. There was no "The Inquisition."

When people say "The Inquisition" as though its a giant body regulating all of Europe, they are not telling the whole story. Inquisitions were actually small, self-autonomous courts that existed as they were needed. Inquisitions were specific to their region, their time, and their case, and were often dismantled upon completion. An Inquisition, however, could be started due to a fear of heresy.

2. The Inquisition never killed anybody.

The Inquisition actually had no authority to execute someone. They were simply lawyers and judges who were expected to judge based on a uniformed code of laws and edicts. The executions themselves were carried out by the secular governments who requested the assistance of Inquisitors, the actual robed figures were only there to ascertain guilt, and attempt to pardon the convicted. Although the "uniform" of codes and regulations was never really fair or scientific, it was leaps and bounds over the unwritten and seemingly capricious laws of local lords.

3. Heresy was not a Papal capital crime.

The Papacy appalled, at least outwardly, the idea of killing heretics, normally that is. It goes without saying that true threats to political power, such as the Cathars and Protestants, were particularly targeted by the Church, but by and large, Inquisitors were trained to try to acquire repentance over sentences.

4. The Malleus Maleficarum was considered something of a joke by Europe.

Many people took this dreaded book seriously, but the macabre name and the malevolence inherent in its stature breeds legends wherever it goes. It's kind of like a real life Necronomican, it's fun to think about historically, but the fact is, it was so self contradictory and was based on such sloppy research, that most people just ignored it. No doubt, it was used in some courts, but there was already a legal standard established that the Inquisitors worked by. The book itself was highly popular and widely read, and the panic induced by it may have lead to more trials, but the fact remains that it had very little practical impact on the proceedings themselves.

Some researchers have even compared the Malleus Maleficarum with a docu-drama compared to real court proceedings.

5. The Church was actually appalled at the first heretical executions.

Emperor Maximus was an unpopular emperor of the Western Roman Empire - that's probably why he only ruled for roughly a year. But in his time, he apprehended several heretics, whom he sentenced to execution. The early Catholic Church was outraged, and tried to gain clemency for the victims, and insisted that they should be given a chance to repent. Maximus was less interested, and had them executed any way.

6. Inquisitors were more interested in repentance than convictions.

It goes without saying that this general rule had its exceptions - but generally speaking, most inquisitors were after repentance, not convictions. They were trying to convince the heretic that their ways were wrong, and that they should return to the fold. If, after an exhaustive attempt at convincing them to convert, they failed, the consequence was to be handed over to the secular powers, who would do with them what they will.

7. Secular nations burned witches at the stake, not the Church.

Although the Church has much blood on its hands, and it played an integral part in their condemnations, just as point 5 states, they were never actually involved in the actual killing. They would be pursued by a secular power who would ask an inquisition to try them for heresy. If they were convicted and refused to repent, the concluded proceedings would be handed over to the secular government, who were allowed to sentence based on their own specific laws and edicts. Unfortunately until the high Middle Ages and near the Renaissance, there were very few written, strict, codex's of laws, therefore the punishments were usually arbitrarily assigned.

8. Inquisitors did not discriminate minorities.

It wasn't legally possible for an Inquisitor to discriminate minorities, be them religious or ethnic. No doubt life was hard if you weren't with the "in-crowd" in the Middle Ages, but this was universally true, not just of Medieval Europe. But the common myth that Muslims, Jews, Gypsies, and other ethnic minorities or religious minorities were targets of Inquisitors is absolutely false. The targets were exclusively heretical Christians, such as Gnostics, Protestants, or the Lollard followers of Wycliffe. They were considered shepherds, whose job it was to find and return sheep who had wandered from the flock.

This is not to say that secular governments did not persecute minorities - the English were among the first to integrate wide scale legislation against Jews, the Spanish after liberating the Iberian Peninsula evicted Muslims and Jews from the border lands, and the Germans waged a brutal war of extermination against the Lithuanians. But none of these were backed by Inquisitors, who could only deal in wayward Christianity.

9. The Spanish Inquisition was a locally controlled, separate entity from the Roman Catholic Church.

The Spanish Inquisition is among the most famous and notorious of the dastardly, red robed "goons" as they're seen. But for as much as the Church is openly condemned for their involvement with the Spanish Inquisition, the truth of the matter is that the Pope actually wrote several letters of protest to the Spanish monarchy for their abuse of power. Though the Papacy was eager to assist in the formation of the institution, it quickly sped out of control, and turned into puppets of Ferdinand and Isabella to be used to rebuild their coffers.

There's a lot of important contextual information about this specific Inquisition - as in many ways it was seen as a way to normalize the Iberian Peninsula after hundreds, maybe even thousands of years of war between the Africans and the Iberians, who had been battling since the days of Carthage. Though at the time it was a truly terrible thing to behold, one has to wonder if, in the long run, it was beneficial that the chisel was taken to the unshaped rock, and defined it as purely Spanish. But this altruistic forced integration of a single Hispanic culture was hardly the sole motivator of the Spanish Inquisition. Ferdinand and Isabella were just simply out of money after the 600 year Reconquista.

As they saw it, the newly converted Jews, conversos, had plenty of money - and that meant that they were ripe targets for persecution. Because an arrest meant that the government confiscated your goods, it was essentially plundering the spoils of your own country.

10. One who confessed to heresy was not executed.

The Inquisition, as it were, implored confessions from its suspects - and when they did, they were not met with malice, but usually with joy, excitement, and even festivities. Those who repented would find themselves hoisted in parades, banquets thrown for them, and their lives fundamentally set, minus a rather black mark on their credit for having fallen to the heretical ways to begin with. But as the Inquisitors in The Messenger said, "The Holy Mother Church never closes her arms to a soul."

While exceptions naturally occurred, and some inquisitors out of personal vendettas no doubt abused their power to the point of not accepting confessions, it is generally accepted that a confession was a "get out of jail free card".

Sources:

-Recent Developments in Witchcraft Studies
-Wikipedia - Malleus Maleficarum
-The Malleus Maleficarum
-Wikipedia - Lollard
-The Lollard Society
-Emperor Maximus
-Answers.com