HOLY INQUISITION: ORIGIN, ACTIVITIES AND METHODS OF TORTURE - HISTORY - 2024

The Holy Inquisition, also simply called the Inquisition, was the arm of the Church in charge of ending the religious heresies that began to appear in Europe in the early 12th century. Later, these courts also acted against the Judaizers and against witchcraft.

The origins of the Holy Inquisition are in the papal crusade sent to fight the Cathars, considered heretics by the Church. Later, several bulls and papal edicts were configuring the objectives and procedures of the institution. With this, the so-called Pontifical Inquisition appeared.

Court of the inquisition. Author: Francisco de Goya - Source: Wikimedia Commons under public domain

In Spain, a country where the Holy Inquisition had a special importance, the courts were created by the Catholic Monarchs. First, only in Castile and, later, in Aragon and in the rest of the peninsular territories. Her first target was Jewish converts to Christianity suspected of keeping their old ways.

The Inquisition came to America from the hand of the conquerors. As in the rest of the places in which he acted, the process went through several steps until he found the accused guilty. Torture played an important role during that procedure, with several different methods of questioning the alleged heretic.

Origin

From the very origin of Christianity, some currents appeared that followed different interpretations of religion.

In 313, Constantine, emperor of the Roman Empire, established Christianity as the religion of the Empire. This meant that what were previously religious discrepancies became a matter of state.

Soon enough, the so-called heretics began to be persecuted. A common practice was to excommunicate those who deviated from what was marked as orthodox by the priests.

Over time, those persecutions passed into the hands of the Inquisition. The term comes from the Latin word "inquire", which means "to find out."

Types of Inquisition

Although the Inquisition is popularly considered a single entity, the truth is that there were several types.

It was the Pope who controlled the so-called medieval Inquisition. Its beginnings are in the fight against the Cathars (or Albigenses), a group of believers who departed from the official teachings of the Church, which they criticized for its excessive luxury.

The antecedent to these persecutions was the order of Frederick II to punish, even physically, those who were considered heretics. The excesses that occurred after this order were one of the causes that led the Pope to bring the Inquisition under his control. From the papal bull, it was the bishops who directed the inquisitorial processes.

The second of the types was the Spanish Inquisition. This was promoted by the monarchs and directed to combat the Judaizers. These were Jewish converts to Christianity, who were suspected of continuing to practice their original religion in secret.

Proliferation of heresies

The birth of the Inquisition is closely linked to the spread of religious interpretations that the Church considered heretical and dangerous. Most of these heresies had reached Western Europe carried by the Crusaders, on their return from the Holy Land.

In general, these ideas went against the Church understood as an institution. For his followers, Christ had not intended that such an institution should be created, and even less that it had the power and wealth that was accumulated.

Other differences with the teachings accepted by the Church were the rejection of images, baptism or the dogma of the immaculate conception. These heretics held that it was virtuous behavior that brought man closer to God.

These thoughts found considerable acceptance, especially in southern Europe. Among the most important communities, the Cathars or Albigenses stood out, who settled in various localities in the south of France.

The Church, for its part, feared that the expansion of these communities could end up causing a schism and reacted to avoid it.

Crusade against the Cathars

The crusade against the Cathars is considered the immediate precedent to the creation of the Inquisition. It was Pope Innocent III who ordered an end to the Albigensian heresy. First he sent some monks from the Cistercian Order and Domingo de Guzmán to try to convince them to abandon their beliefs.

The envoys had little success and the Pontiff called for a crusade against the Cathars in 1208. To gather men willing to fight them, the Church offered an indulgence when they had reached 45 days of service.

Thanks to this offer, the Church gathered half a million men. Commanded by French nobles, they headed to the Albi area.

The first city attacked was Beziers. In June 1209, the Crusaders massacred its 60,000 inhabitants. Although there are authors who affirm that the phrase was pronounced in another place, others explain this massacre by the words pronounced by the priests who accompanied the troops: "Kill them all, that later God will distinguish them in heaven."

The next destination was Carcassonne, where several hundred of its inhabitants were executed at the stake. However, when the 45 days required to obtain the indulgence were up, many crusaders left. The Cathars, for their part, continued to exist for some years, until 1253.

Lateran Council

Very shortly after the Albigensian crusade, the Pope convened the IV Lateran Council. In this meeting, Innocent III gave legal form to the Inquisition.

The most important point of the agreed regulation was that heresy had to be prosecuted by both civil rulers and religious authorities. In addition, it indicated that it was not necessary that there be any type of prior complaint for the Inquisition to accuse a suspect.

Those convicted of heresy would lose all their property, which would pass into the hands of the Church. Those who did not want to renounce their beliefs would be sentenced to death.

Court of the inquisition

The next step in the history of the Inquisition took place at the Council of Toulouse, held in 1229. The brutality of the crusade against the Cathars had sparked protests in parts of Europe. To prevent this type of act from being committed again, that council approved the creation of the Court of the Inquisition.

Bull Excommunicamus

Two years later, in 1231, the Papacy was not satisfied with the operation of the Inquisition as it was configured. Until then, the processes were carried out by the ecclesiastics of each locality and there was no centralized power to control them.

Gregory IX, Supreme Pontiff at that time, then issued the bull Excommunicamus. Through this he founded the so-called Papal Inquisition, which was controlled directly by the Pope. Despite being a papal order, some bishops objected to losing the power that was supposed to have the courts of the Inquisition in their hands.

The Pope put the members of some religious orders, especially the Dominicans, at the head of the new Inquisition. With a play on words, many began to call them "the dogs of the Lord" (Cane Domine)

A new Pope, Innocent IV, issued another bull related to the Inquisition in 1252. The ad extirpated allowed the accused to be tortured to get them to confess.

In a short time, the Inquisition spread across part of the European continent. It was especially important in France and Italy. For its part, the Crown of Aragon also had courts, but that of Castile created its own institution.

Spanish inquisition

In Castile, the inquisition did not begin to function until 1478. The main objective was to eliminate the remains of the Jewish religion that remained in the peninsula, especially in the Seville area. Some Jewish converts reportedly continued to practice their religion in secret. At this, Pope Sixtus IV issued the bull Exigit sincerae devotionis.

One of the main differences between the Spanish and the Pontifical Inquisitions is that the former was directly promoted by the Crown. It was, in this way, the Catholic Monarchs who promoted the establishment of courts to judge heretics.

In 1483, another papal bull allowed the Spanish inquisition to spread to Aragon and to the colonized territories in America. In the new continent, courts were formed in Lima, Cartagena de Indias and, above all, in Mexico.

The Crown appointed Tomás de Torquemada, from a family of converts, as Inquisitor General.

Inquisition in different countries

Before the Pontifical Inquisition was created, there were already courts that punished heresy in Italy, Spain, Germany, and other countries.

When the papacy began to control the processes and put the Dominicans and Franciscans in front of the courts, the inquisition became an eminently Catholic phenomenon. This does not mean that similar institutions did not exist in Protestant countries.

In these, the persecuted were, for the most part, Catholics. In addition, members of radical Protestant branches were also tried and, finally, those accused of witchcraft practices.

However, in those Protestant countries, the courts were often controlled by the monarchy or by local authorities. For this reason, it is considered that the inquisition was not established as a specific institution.

In Spain

In Spain it was the Catholic Monarchs who created the Inquisition in 1478, also known as the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition.

The focus of the supposed Judaizing practices was Seville. A Dominican who resided in the city denounced the incident before Queen Elizabeth I. Before this, the Crown requested the Pope to allow the creation of its own inquisition. Unlike other places, the monarchs were able to appoint the inquisitors themselves.

The British historian Henry Kamen has divided the history of the Spanish Inquisition into five stages. The first, which lasted until 1530, distinguished itself by persecuting Jewish converts to Catholicism. The second, at the beginning of the 16th century, was a period without much activity.

Between 1560 and 1614, the inquisition re-emerged with force. In this case, his victims were the Moors and Protestants. The fourth period developed during the 17th century, when Old Christians began to be tried.

Finally, the inquisition of the 18th century focused on other matters, since heretics had ceased to be common.

The Cortes of Cádiz, held in 1812, abolished the Spanish Inquisition. However, it was not until 1834 when its definitive elimination took place.

Inquisition in New Spain

The Spanish gave great importance to religion when conquering the American territories. In order to carry out the so-called spiritual conquest, members of the clergy were needed, but, in the absence of these, the Franciscans were the first to take on this task.

Beginning in 1523, both Franciscans and members of other religious orders received papal permission to be the ones to carry out the trials against the heresies they encountered.

Since there was no Dominican prelate in New Spain at the time, it was the local bishops who controlled the activities of the inquisition.

In the first years of the colony, the inquisition was dedicated to persecute the religious beliefs of the natives, evidently not Christians. However, they soon stopped doing it, since the thesis was imposed that they could not be guilty of violating a religion they did not know.

As happened in the peninsula, the first time that the inquisition was abolished in New Spain was in 1812, with the Cortes of Cádiz. Félix María Calleja, Viceroy at that time, signed the order to eliminate the inquisition in the colony.

Roman inquisition

The Congregation of the Holy Office, the name given to the Roman Inquisition, had its start date in 1542. The reason for its creation was the expansion of the Protestant Reformation and the threat it represented to Catholicism.

Its structure was totally different from the old inquisition. The Roman consisted of a congregation made up of cardinals and other ecclesiastics. Its operation was totally independent of the control of the Pope.

This congregation could act in any sector of the Catholic Church. Thus, one of its most important functions was to detect and eliminate those currents that appeared within it that could pose a risk to the orthodoxy dictated by Rome. Likewise, he had the power to censor the publication of books that he considered dangerous.

At first, this inquisition limited its activities to the Italian peninsula. However, as of 1555, it extended its powers to reach the rest of the continent. One of the most famous cases was the trial of Galileo Galilei, in 1633.

Portuguese inquisition

When the Spanish Crown decreed the expulsion of the Jews from its territory in 1492, many of those affected chose Portugal as a place of refuge. However, the Portuguese monarch was the son-in-law of the Catholic Monarchs and, under pressure from them, copied the expulsion order.

In this way, those Jews who did not want to convert to Christianity had to leave the country. Some of those who had come to Portugal had no choice but to accept the Catholic religion. However, accusations followed that they secretly continued to practice Judaism.

This was one of the main reasons why, in 1536, King Juan III established the inquisition in his country. In 1539, the monarch chose his brother as senior inquisitor, contrary to the wishes of the Pope. The Pontiff, however, had to accept the decision in 1547.

Activities they performed

When starting a process, the Inquisition could do so for various reasons. Thus, it could be for an accusation, for a complaint or, directly, ex officio.

Once the process began, the defendants had three main options. The first time they accepted their guilt, confessed and repented. The penalty in these cases was usually limited to mere spiritual sanctions.

On the other hand, if they only repented after being threatened with the death penalty, the sentence could be jail time.

Finally, the accused who did not deny their heretical beliefs were turned over to the civil authorities to be burned at the stake.

Beginning of the process

When suspicions of heresy appeared, the inquisition went to the place where, in theory, it was taking place. There, with the support of the governors of the area, they investigated the suspects.

In the main church of the town, the inquisitors issued an edict in which they indicated what activities against the faith were being committed and a period was established for the accused to repent. Along with that, the inhabitants were encouraged to denounce those they consider heretics.

The instruction

Those who did not show up to show repentance could end up arrested by the inquisitors. The accused were thrown into a cell, where they could be isolated for weeks. At times, they had not even been informed about the accusations against them.

Then it was time for the interrogations. These, at first, were very general, about aspects of the life of the accused. Finally, he was asked to pray in order to check that he knew the most important prayers. After this, he was ordered to confess.

Torture

Sometimes, when the prisoner did not confess and the inquisitors were convinced of his guilt, the next step was torture. The inquisition used various means of torture, such as the rack, the water or the pear.

Since a confession was very often obtained with these methods, the convictions were quite numerous. Among the mildest were the prohibition of working in some sectors, wearing some clothes that made it look like he had been convicted or jail.

If, despite everything, the accused did not repent of his beliefs, the result was the death sentence.

Auto de fe

The inquisitors expected that there would be several condemned to carry out what they called auto de fe. It was a ceremony, usually started very early, during which the prisoners were led to the inquisitor's home.

There, they were given a yellow tunic and a kind of cap that ended in a peak. With these clothes on, they were parading to some important place in the town, usually a square.

In this a mass was developed and later the sentences were read, beginning with the less serious. Those who had been sentenced to death were taken to another place, called a burner, where they were burned alive.

Torture methods

The usual thing in the processes conducted by the inquisition was that the prisoner was tortured if, after three interrogations, he did not confess to having committed the acts of which he was accused.

Only the executioner, the inquisitors and a clerk who had to collect the confession in writing could enter the room where the torture was taking place.

According to the Church, torture was only accepted in special cases. In addition, there were some methods that could not be used and all the steps were fully regulated.

The colt

The rack was possibly the most common torture method in the Middle Ages. Its use was not limited to the courts of the inquisition, but was also common in civil trials.

Its mechanism was very simple. The accused was placed on a table with four ropes. Each of them was used to tie a different limb. Those of the arms were fixed to the table, while those of the legs were rolled into a rotating cylinder. By moving that cylinder, the strings were stretching the body.

According to experts, it was first used gently, seeking to scare the inmate. Afterward, he was urged to confess. If he didn't, the torment continued. Chronicles have been found that describe how the stretch had reached 30 centimeters.

The torment of the water

Although there were several versions of this torture, the simplest was already very effective. The prisoner was laid down on a table, his feet and hands were immobilized, his nostrils were blocked and, finally, a kind of funnel was inserted into his mouth.

Once the preparations were finished came the torture part. This consisted, simply, of making him drink water in large quantities, usually about 10 liters.

The victim felt like he was drowning and, many times, lost consciousness. If it was prolonged, the prisoner could die when the stomach exploded from the amount of liquid.

The garrucha

This torture mechanism was called “estrapada” in most European countries. In Spain, on the other hand, it was called “garrucha”.

Like the colt, the pulley was one of the most used methods, possibly due to its simplicity. The prisoner was tied with his hands behind his back and some weight was placed on his feet. Later, it was raised of the ground using pulleys linked by the wrists.

When the tortured had reached a considerable height, the executioner let him fall by weight, without ever touching the ground. The most normal thing was that both arms were dislocated. This method was used with some historical figures such as Machiavelli and Savonarola.

The saw

In reality, the saw cannot be considered a method of torture. It was a way of cruelly executing the condemned.

This system was almost exclusively reserved for women accused of having had sexual relations with Satan and that they were, supposedly, pregnant with him.

The way the inquisitors invented to kill Satan's son was to hang his mother upside down, with her anus open. Then, with a saw, they cut the body until they reached the belly.

References

1. From Mesquita Diehl, Rafael. Inquisition: a brief history. Obtained from es.aleteia.org
2. EcuRed. Inquisition. Obtained from ecured.cu
3. Villatoro, Manuel P. The most bloody and cruel tortures of the Inquisition. Obtained from abc.es
4. Pinto, Joaquin. The Horrors of the Church and Its Holy Inquisition. Retrieved from churchandstate.org.uk
5. Peters, Edward; Hamilton, Bernard. Inquisition. Retrieved from britannica.com
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