Posted on 06/18/2004 9:55:45 AM PDT by xsysmgr
When the sins of the Catholic Church are recited (as they so often are) the Inquisition figures prominently. People with no interest in European history know full well that it was led by brutal and fanatical churchmen who tortured, maimed, and killed those who dared question the authority of the Church. The word "Inquisition" is part of our modern vocabulary, describing both an institution and a period of time. Having one of your hearings referred to as an "Inquisition" is not a compliment for most senators.
But in recent years the Inquisition has been subject to greater investigation. In preparation for the Jubilee in 2000, Pope John Paul II wanted to find out just what happened during the time of the Inquisition's (the institution's) existence. In 1998 the Vatican opened the archives of the Holy Office (the modern successor to the Inquisition) to a team of 30 scholars from around the world. Now at last the scholars have made their report, an 800-page tome that was unveiled at a press conference in Rome on Tuesday. Its most startling conclusion is that the Inquisition was not so bad after all. Torture was rare and only about 1 percent of those brought before the Spanish Inquisition were actually executed. As one headline read "Vatican Downsizes Inquisition."
The amazed gasps and cynical sneers that have greeted this report are just further evidence of the lamentable gulf that exists between professional historians and the general public. The truth is that, although this report makes use of previously unavailable material, it merely echoes what numerous scholars have previously learned from other European archives. Among the best recent books on the subject are Edward Peters's Inquisition (1988) and Henry Kamen's The Spanish Inquisition (1997), but there are others. Simply put, historians have long known that the popular view of the Inquisition is a myth. So what is the truth?
To understand the Inquisition we have to remember that the Middle Ages were, well, medieval. We should not expect people in the past to view the world and their place in it the way we do today. (You try living through the Black Death and see how it changes your attitude.) For people who lived during those times, religion was not something one did just at church. It was science, philosophy, politics, identity, and hope for salvation. It was not a personal preference but an abiding and universal truth. Heresy, then, struck at the heart of that truth. It doomed the heretic, endangered those near him, and tore apart the fabric of community.
The Inquisition was not born out of desire to crush diversity or oppress people; it was rather an attempt to stop unjust executions. Yes, you read that correctly. Heresy was a crime against the state. Roman law in the Code of Justinian made it a capital offense. Rulers, whose authority was believed to come from God, had no patience for heretics. Neither did common people, who saw them as dangerous outsiders who would bring down divine wrath. When someone was accused of heresy in the early Middle Ages, they were brought to the local lord for judgment, just as if they had stolen a pig or damaged shrubbery (really, it was a serious crime in England). Yet in contrast to those crimes, it was not so easy to discern whether the accused was really a heretic. For starters, one needed some basic theological training — something most medieval lords sorely lacked. The result is that uncounted thousands across Europe were executed by secular authorities without fair trials or a competent assessment of the validity of the charge.
The Catholic Church's response to this problem was the Inquisition, first instituted by Pope Lucius III in 1184. It was born out of a need to provide fair trials for accused heretics using laws of evidence and presided over by knowledgeable judges. From the perspective of secular authorities, heretics were traitors to God and the king and therefore deserved death. From the perspective of the Church, however, heretics were lost sheep who had strayed from the flock. As shepherds, the pope and bishops had a duty to bring them back into the fold, just as the Good Shepherd had commanded them. So, while medieval secular leaders were trying to safeguard their kingdoms, the Church was trying to save souls. The Inquisition provided a means for heretics to escape death and return to the community.
As this new report confirms, most people accused of heresy by the Inquisition were either acquitted or their sentences suspended. Those found guilty of grave error were allowed to confess their sin, do penance, and be restored to the Body of Christ. The underlying assumption of the Inquisition was that, like lost sheep, heretics had simply strayed. If, however, an inquisitor determined that a particular sheep had purposely left the flock, there was nothing more that could be done. Unrepentant or obstinate heretics were excommunicated and given over to secular authorities. Despite popular myth, the Inquisition did not burn heretics. It was the secular authorities that held heresy to be a capital offense, not the Church. The simple fact is that the medieval Inquisition saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.
During the 13th century the Inquisition became much more formalized in its methods and practices. Highly trained Dominicans answerable to the Pope took over the institution, creating courts that represented the best legal practices in Europe. As royal authority grew during the 14th century and beyond, control over the Inquisition slipped out of papal hands and into those of kings. Instead of one Inquisition there were now many. Despite the prospect of abuse, monarchs like those in Spain and France generally did their best to make certain that their inquisitions remained both efficient and merciful. During the 16th century, when the witch craze swept Europe, it was those areas with the best-developed inquisitions that stopped the hysteria in its tracks. In Spain and Italy, trained inquisitors investigated charges of witches' sabbaths and baby roasting and found them to be baseless. Elsewhere, particularly in Germany, secular or religious courts burned witches by the thousands.
Compared to other medieval secular courts, the Inquisition was positively enlightened. Why then are people in general and the press in particular so surprised to discover that the Inquisition did not barbecue people by the millions? First of all, when most people think of the Inquisition today what they are really thinking of is the Spanish Inquisition. No, not even that is correct. They are thinking of the myth of the Spanish Inquisition. Amazingly, before 1530 the Spanish Inquisition was widely hailed as the best run, most humane court in Europe. There are actually records of convicts in Spain purposely blaspheming so that they could be transferred to the prisons of the Spanish Inquisition. After 1530, however, the Spanish Inquisition began to turn its attention to the new heresy of Lutheranism. It was the Protestant Reformation and the rivalries it spawned that would give birth to the myth.
By the mid 16th century, Spain was the wealthiest and most powerful country in Europe. Europe's Protestant areas, including the Netherlands, northern Germany, and England, may not have been as militarily mighty, but they did have a potent new weapon: the printing press. Although the Spanish defeated Protestants on the battlefield, they would lose the propaganda war. These were the years when the famous "Black Legend" of Spain was forged. Innumerable books and pamphlets poured from northern presses accusing the Spanish Empire of inhuman depravity and horrible atrocities in the New World. Opulent Spain was cast as a place of darkness, ignorance, and evil.
Protestant propaganda that took aim at the Spanish Inquisition drew liberally from the Black Legend. But it had other sources as well. From the beginning of the Reformation, Protestants had difficulty explaining the 15-century gap between Christ's institution of His Church and the founding of the Protestant churches. Catholics naturally pointed out this problem, accusing Protestants of having created a new church separate from that of Christ. Protestants countered that their church was the one created by Christ, but that it had been forced underground by the Catholic Church. Thus, just as the Roman Empire had persecuted Christians, so its successor, the Roman Catholic Church, continued to persecute them throughout the Middle Ages. Inconveniently, there were no Protestants in the Middle Ages, yet Protestant authors found them there anyway in the guise of various medieval heretics. In this light, the medieval Inquisition was nothing more than an attempt to crush the hidden, true church. The Spanish Inquisition, still active and extremely efficient at keeping Protestants out of Spain, was for Protestant writers merely the latest version of this persecution. Mix liberally with the Black Legend and you have everything you need to produce tract after tract about the hideous and cruel Spanish Inquisition. And so they did.
In time, Spain's empire would fade away. Wealth and power shifted to the north, in particular to France and England. By the late 17th century new ideas of religious tolerance were bubbling across the coffeehouses and salons of Europe. Inquisitions, both Catholic and Protestant, withered. The Spanish stubbornly held on to theirs, and for that they were ridiculed. French philosophes like Voltaire saw in Spain a model of the Middle Ages: weak, barbaric, superstitious. The Spanish Inquisition, already established as a bloodthirsty tool of religious persecution, was derided by Enlightenment thinkers as a brutal weapon of intolerance and ignorance. A new, fictional Spanish Inquisition had been constructed, designed by the enemies of Spain and the Catholic Church.
Now a bit more of the real Inquisition has come back into view. The question remains, will anyone take notice?
— Thomas F. Madden is professor and chair of the department of history at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri. He is the author most recently of Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice and editor of the forthcoming Crusades: The Illustrated History.
Wasn't expecting that either. Monty Python's Holy Grail makes a lot more sense now.
Exactly. The Moorish "converts" to Catholicism weren't always sincere, either, as this article on the "Moriscos" points out.
Moors converted to Christianity after the Christian reconquest (11th–15th cent.) of Spain. The Moors who had become subjects of Christian kings as the reconquest progressed to the 15th cent. were called Mudéjares. They remained Muslim, and their religion and customs were generally respected. After the fall of Granada (1492), Cardinal Jiménez converted many Moors by peaceful means. However, the rigorous treatment of those who refused conversion or apostatized from the new faith led to an uprising (1500–1502) in Granada. This was soon suppressed. Faced with choosing between conversion or banishment, the majority accepted conversion, but many continued secretly to practice Islam. The Moriscos at times provided the Ottoman Turks with information facilitating Turkish raids on the Spanish coast. Persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition and subjected to restrictive legislation (1526, 1527), the Moriscos rose in a bloody rebellion (1568–71), which Philip II put down with the help of John of Austria. The Moriscos prospered in spite of persecutions and furthered Spanish agriculture, trade, and industries. However, in 1609 Philip III, influenced by Lerma, decreed their expulsion for both religious and political reasons.
Suppose we stick to the topic. The article basically points out that the Inquisition was not as bad as the secular courtsof the time, and that it is false to make it the epitome of injustice.
It was still God-Awful by the standards of a modern American Court, althoiugh these may in their own way be as impatient of the truth as a Nazi Court. Dostoevski may not have been "fair"to the actual Inquisition, or even to the best known of the Grand Inquisitors, Torquemado,after whom he modeled his character. but he caught the essence of the spirit that moves such men, which is the fear of losing control. It was that spirit which sent Jesus to the Cross. We knw only too well what men are capable of, and sometimes in our zeal to prevent evil, we kill Christ again.
The aim of the Austrians originally was to make the elected throne of Bohemia hereditary and theirs.
The Austrians had held the title as an elected one since 1520. The Bohemians elected the Count of the Palatinate.
The Austrians won, though not easily, and the the Bohemian's chosen monarch was called the "winter king" as he only lasted one winter.
Feeling their oats, the Austrians saw a chance to assert their domination over Germany as a whole. How much religion was a reason and how much it was nothing more then an excuse is murky.
The Danes and Dutch rallied to the Protestant cause...but it was not enough.
With the Brandenburgers and Saxons quaking in their boots - and considering bowing before the Austrians, the Swedes landed. While they were incredibly effective, it was interestingly French money that kept them in the field.
The Swedes managed to save Germany, and were actually starting to threaten Austria itself when their brilliant monarch was killed in battle.
Shortly thereafter, seeing Spain and Austria were weak from years of fighting, Catholic France officially joined the Protestant cause and thrashed the tired Spanish and Austrians.
So the 30 Years War came to a close with Catholic France the clear victor...though Austria would keep its hereditary claim to Bohemia until 1918...
Catholic Poland and Protest England both important powers at the time had managed to stay out of the conflict.
Overall, I think the religious elements of the 30 Years War have been exaggerated at the expense of the Austrian urge for territorial aggrandizement, though that was certainly an element.
Spain was the first society with three religions and could never come up with a polity that accomodated all three. But is was never more than a minority of the Conversos or the Moriscos who secretly practiced their faiths. There wre many more who were never more than nominal Catholics. Still others became fanatical Catholics, who turned on their compatriots.
It is always unquiet when consciences are suppressed. St. Augustine secured the suppression of the Donatists but that left Africa divided when the Vandals appeared.
Actually, the article goes further. It suggests that the Inquisition was enlightened. That it advanced justice by giving the unjustly accused a better chance of acquital, and saved lives. And the article is backed by pretty much the entire scholarly world in asserting this.
The problem is that those who want to hate the Church cannot allow themselves to see it as a good force in protecting the faithful. The secularists hate it for punishing for the sake of religious beliefs (which they regard as meaningless superstition rather than meaningful for the eternal life of a person's soul), and the anti-Catholics hate it for punishing their own personal beliefs about Christianity. Normal historical inquiry takes a back seat to those so agendized.
No one has claimed that "every Catholic alive at that time loved the Inq! They had a thing like All-Star voting, and people voted for their favorite torturer!" The thing existed, was monstrously evil, and trying to minimize the evil of it backfires with many people. Even if the Inq authorities had, and strictly adhered to, a 15 minute time limit that anyone could be tortured, I'm not impressed.
Glad to stick to the topic. I think that's generally what I have done all along. And for once you've said something leaning heavily toward sensible. Unfortunately, I don't believe it's for the right reasons; but, so be it.
Certainly it does. I don't see any other interpretation of this statement:
We should not expect people in the past to view the world and their place in it the way we do today.
Same with Stalin and Al Quada ... what we think is happening is just our imagination and if some of it really is happening it really is a good thing.
The author of this article is a devout Catholic. He's just trying to pave the way in somehow trying to give the Catholic church credibility even though it's been in self destruct mode for a long time.
It's mostly ignornant people in third world countries that sign up for that belief system. If they ever get their hands on a Bible and actually read it they spiritually flee their system.
You can say that the Inquisition was "enlightened." if one confines oneself to the field of jurisprudence. I think its rules of procesure was an advance over the Civil Law. Still I can justify it only by remembering that sometimes it was dealing with people as rabid in their rejection of convention as the radical Islamists who cut off the head of Mr. Johnson. When someone as mild and rational as St. Thomas can accept its actions, people like the Cathars must have been something else.
The invention of the printing press scared the hell out of the Catholic church. The church was no longer the only source of spiritual information for the people.
As a result, the inquisition was invented to insure that the people were obeying the teachings of the Catholic Church and were not being contaminated by reading the actual scriptures.
This is a sad part of your history.
It has been in "destruct mode" since 1519, by your estimation, I would guess, but it keeps coming back. As you say, it is widely accepted in Third World Countries, but they do not seem t be no more ignorant of Christ as the people of our World, who have easy access to the Bible.
This is a weird statement. The Inquisition was more humane both in asserting guilt and inflicting punishment than any other legal body available at the time. Yet you can only justify it because those they condemned were really nasty? Doesn't sound well reasoned.
That is an important point. It's just as important to say that most catholics today would find it abhorent. But they don't have one lick to say in what the church does because unlike the Biblical model, the clergy doesn't answer to the Body of Christ.. UNLESS as in the pedophile scandals of recent history, the US government leaned on the Church and the congregants stopped paying tithes - all of a sudden, Rome was all ears. They still foot dragged, and so on; but, they at least began to look concerned enough to do more than shuffle people around, cover up and let it continue elsewhere.
Scripture tells us that our ministers are to be judged on their message against that which was delivered by Christ and the Apostles - period. Paul said that even to the extent that if he should come preaching another Gospel, the congregants should curse him. Not the clergy, the congregation! He wasn't speaking to the southern baptist convention of ministers, he was speaking to the church congregation. The clergy did wrong and the congregation did nothing to stop it of any measure and were rather complicit.. but as if they had any choice. The clergy in the Roman church isn't of them, it is over them. That isn't biblical. The clergy answers only to itself up or down and the Pope essentially answers to no one. That isn't scriptural. It may be Catholic; but, it isn't scriptural.
Killing people over their sin isn't scriptural under the new covenant either. These are the Christian lessens to be learned - they haven't been and in fact are utterly rebuked by the Church as anti-catholic.
From a purely practical standpoint, there is no remedy here that I can see.
Moral relativism asserts that morality is as good as another. What he said is unremarkable. It is like saying that we should not expect people in the Middle East to view the world as we do. To do is to misunderstand much of what they do. That dos not mean that there are no fixed standards by which to judge their society--or ours, for that matter. By certain principles of jurisprudence, the Inquisition was an improvement, just as the xommon law courts were an improvement over the manorial courts, in large part because there was less injustice. But to assume this is to accept that there is such a thing as justice and even by our imperfect lights, we can see the Inquisition did much injustice.
Often they were doing the best they could. In early Texas the settlers were confronted by the Comanche, who were probably the most formidable of the Plains Indians. It took General Sherman himself to subdue them, by methods he perfected in Georgia. You didn't sit down and reason with a Comanche. The samething was true of heretics like the Cathars, whom the Catholic subdued not by persuasion--although St. Dominic tried--but by main force.
If you haven't noticed, you are dealing with reason most directly. His reasoning is based on an end model of defend at all costs. From his standpoint, he is being reasonable. His world is what he knows and believes - he isnt' concerned with anything else. If this is an eye opener, you might try listening to some things like Walter Martin's "Q&A" and "Under Fire" tape sessions. You ain't seen nothin. Martin was the foremost expert on comparative religion till his death some years ago. I've got 3 gig online of his debates, discussions and run downs on cults and the like. The mindset is the norm.
They can't see it; but, then scripture tells us why. Now I'll be quiet and prepare to roll my eyes a bit ;)
Here's you problem. No. They did better than that. They did better than any other court system in the world they could read about or experience. That's an important historical distinction from "they were doing the best they could."
These guys advanced the cause of human rights and justice. And to the extent they appear barbaric: that was the extent to which they were unable to rise above their times, not the extent to which they subjected their times to otherwise unknown hardship.
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