The History of the Inquisition

Not One Institution

The word “Inquisition” suggests a single organization with a long, fixed history. The medieval reality was looser. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the church developed ways of finding and judging people suspected of heresy, meaning stubborn belief in doctrines the church rejected. These methods changed over time and differed from place to place. The phrase medieval Inquisition is a convenient label for this group of courts and procedures, not for a centralized body with a headquarters and staff.

It also helps to separate it from the better-known Spanish Inquisition, which was created in the late fifteenth century under the Spanish crown and belongs to a different period and set of purposes. The medieval courts were church tribunals, active mainly in parts of France, Italy and Germany.

Before the Inquisition

For most of the early Middle Ages, heresy was handled by bishops. A bishop who heard of unorthodox preaching in his diocese could summon the accused, question them and require them to recant. Courts relied on someone bringing an accusation, and the procedure was neither systematic nor especially effective. Many bishops also had other duties and little desire to pursue the matter.

In the twelfth century, groups of dissenters grew more visible, particularly in southern France and northern Italy. The best known were the Cathars, who held a dualist religion that most Christians found alarming, and the Waldensians, who began as lay preachers and ran into trouble for preaching without permission. Church leaders feared these movements. In 1184 Pope Lucius III, working with the emperor at Verona, issued a decree that required bishops to search out heretics and that is often seen as a first step toward a more organized system. In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council repeated and strengthened the demand that heretics be pursued and punished.

Papal Inquisitors

The decisive change came in the 1220s and 1230s. Pope Gregory IX began appointing particular men to investigate heresy on his authority, rather than leaving the work to local bishops. These were mainly friars of the Dominican order, with Franciscans also used, since they were trained preachers and theologians and were not tied to local families and politics. Their commission could cover a region, such as a province or a group of dioceses.

An inquisitor was not a permanent judge sitting in one place. He traveled with a small staff of notaries, assistants and clerics, set up in a town or a church for a period, and announced his arrival. His power came from the pope, which meant he could act even where the local bishop was reluctant, and that was precisely the point. In time, handbooks for inquisitors were written, the best known coming from the early fourteenth century.

How an Inquiry Worked

Practices varied, but a typical medieval inquiry had several stages.

1. Announcement. The inquisitor arrived and delivered a sermon, then invited people to come forward. Often a “time of grace,” lasting a number of days, was offered: those who confessed voluntarily within it might receive lighter penalties.
2. Denunciation and summons. People could report suspects, and the inquisitor could summon anyone. Witnesses were often kept secret from the accused, which was a notable feature of the system, and a source of fear.
3. Questioning. The accused swore an oath to tell the truth and was questioned about their beliefs and contacts. Notaries wrote down the answers. The procedure, based on Roman and church law, was inquisitorial: the judge himself led the investigation, in contrast to a trial in which two sides argue before a judge.
4. Admission and reconciliation. The process rested on confession and penance. A person who admitted error and promised to return to the church, abjuring heresy, could be reconciled. Questioning continued until the inquisitor was satisfied, and the accused were encouraged to name others.
5. Sentence. At a public ceremony sometimes called a sermon of the faith, sentences were announced.

Penalties

Most sentences were penances, not death. Penalties included reciting prayers, attending church, fasting, going on pilgrimage, or wearing a cloth cross sewn onto clothing, which marked the penitent publicly. Property might be confiscated in some regions. More serious cases led to imprisonment, which could be for years or, in some sentences, for life, usually in a monastic or purpose-built prison.

The harshest penalty was for those who refused to recant or who relapsed after reconciliation. The church court did not itself carry out executions. It “relaxed” the person to the secular authorities, which would normally burn them. This division of roles was legal, though in practice the church knew what would follow. Historians usually describe executions as a small proportion of outcomes in the medieval courts, though the numbers are uncertain and varied greatly by time and place.

Judicial torture was not part of the earliest procedure. A papal bull of 1252 allowed its use in some circumstances, with limits such as not causing death or lasting injury, and later popes extended the practice. How often it was used, and how severely, is not well documented and probably varied among individual inquisitors.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Evidence

The relationship between inquisitors and suspects was unequal, and our knowledge comes mostly from the inquisitors’ own records: registers of testimony, sentence lists and manuals. Some of these survive in great detail, particularly from the early fourteenth century in southern France, and they show village life, family ties and religious belief with unusual clarity. But they were written by the court, and testimony given under pressure may not always reflect what a person really believed. Other records have been lost or destroyed.

The medieval system was also limited by practical matters: few inquisitors, long distances, resistance from local lords or towns, and uneven support from rulers. In many regions, long periods passed with little activity, while a few campaigns were intense. This helps explain why the picture of an all-seeing, constant machine is more a later image than a medieval fact.