Inquisition
The term "Inquisition" comes from the Medieval Latin word inquisitio, which described any court process based on Roman law, which had gradually come back into use during the Late Middle Ages.[8]
Today, the English term "Inquisition" can apply to any one of several institutions that worked against heretics (or other offenders against canon law) within the judicial system of the Roman Catholic Church.
Although the term "Inquisition" is usually applied to ecclesiastical courts of the Catholic Church, it refers to a judicial process, not an organization.
Inquisitors '...were called such because they applied a judicial technique known as inquisitio, which could be translated as "inquiry" or "inquest".'
In this process, which was already widely used by secular rulers (Henry II used it extensively in England in the twelfth century), an official inquirer called for information on a specific subject from anyone who felt he or she had something to offer."[9]
The Inquisition, as a church-court, had no jurisdiction over Muslims and Jews as such.[10]
Generally, the Inquisition was concerned only with the heretical behaviour of Catholic adherents or converts.[11]
The overwhelming majority of sentences seem to have consisted of penances like wearing a cross sewn on one's clothes or going on pilgrimage.[1]
When a suspect was convicted of unrepentant heresy, canon law required the inquisitorial tribunal to hand the person over to secular authorities for final sentencing.
A secular magistrate, the "secular arm", would then determine the penalty based on local law.[12][13]
Those local laws included proscriptions against certain religious crimes, and the punishments included death by burning, although the penalty was more usually banishment or imprisonment for life, which was generally commuted after a few years.
Thus the inquisitors generally knew the fate which expected anyone so remanded.[14]
The 1578 edition of the Directorium Inquisitorum (a standard Inquisitorial manual) spelled out the purpose of inquisitorial penalties:
... quoniam punitio non refertur primo & per se in correctionem & bonum eius qui punitur, sed in bonum publicum ut alij terreantur, & a malis committendis avocentur
(translation: "... for punishment does not take place primarily and per se for the correction and good of the person punished, but for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit").[15]
Origin
Before the 12th century, the Catholic Church suppressed what they believed to be heresy, usually through a system of ecclesiastical proscription or imprisonment, but without using torture,[5] and seldom resorting to executions.[16][17]
Such punishments were opposed by a number of clergymen and theologians, although some countries punished heresy with the death penalty.[18][19]
Pope Siricius, Ambrose of Milan, and Martin of Tours protested against the execution of Priscillian, largely as an undue interference in ecclesiastical discipline by a civil tribunal.
Though widely viewed as a heretic, Priscillian was executed as a sorcerer.
Ambrose refused to give any recognition to Ithacius of Ossonuba, "not wishing to have anything to do with bishops who had sent heretics to their death".[20]
In the 12th century, to counter the spread of Catharism, prosecution of heretics became more frequent.
The Church charged councils composed of bishops and archbishops with establishing inquisitions (the Episcopal Inquisition).
The first Inquisition was temporarily established in Languedoc (south of France) in 1184.
The murder of Pope Innocent's papal legate Pierre de Castelnau in 1208 sparked the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229).
The Inquisition was permanently established in 1229 (Council of Toulouse), run largely by the Dominicans[21] in Rome and later at Carcassonne in Languedoc.