The Real Inquisition: Investigating the popular myth.

National Review Online ^ | June 18, 2004 | Thomas F. Madden

[edsheppa]

Oh yes, lest we forget, in addition trying to justify the Spanish Inquisition by yesterday's standards, he's also justify it by today's standards. It's neat rhetoric but he's wrong on both counts.

[GoLightly]

Edward I expelled the Jews from England, cuz they no longer had enough money to help support his military ambitions. Your hint was not necessary, cuz it's included in most things written about Edward I.

[dangus]

>> This means that anyone excommunicated from the Roman church whome a catholic in good standing chooses to murder is fair game and the charge of murder will not fall upon them.<<

Funny... That's not all how that reads to me. It says they must be doing so in defense of the Church.

>> It doesn't even bother to reach the extent of pronouncing them a heretic which is only done under Lateran IV after a year of thoughtful time to recant. <<

No actually, being excommunicated is far worse and far rarer than being termed a heretic... You're really talking out your butt, aren't you. The U.S. is 99% heretical, and there have only been a few excommunications in U.S. history. Methinks maybe you are confusing being denied communion with being excommunicated?

>>For those who don't know what I'm speaking of, try here<<

Oh, yeah... James Wylie... Now THERE'S an impartial, level-headed sort *eyeroll*

[dangus]

I don't find this rebuttal to SD anywhere... I se quabbling over whether to assign blame for Tinsdale on The Heretic King or not (as if Henry VIII is a model Catholic), but nothing to change the substance of his comments.

But as for later reference to killing seditionists and treasonists, please do relate what you find so unreasonable.

[dangus]

>>Basically Spain wasn't able to fight on three fronts at once (England, where they seriously lost to the English navy; the Netherlands, and fighting the Turks in the Mediterranean as well.<<

Yup. Catholics vs. the Protestants and Muslims. I know what side I'm on.

[dangus]

>> 1%?!? I don't think any modern madman was "successful" enough to achieve that rate. Never-mind, I have something more important to question.<<

You start with the presumption that there was no charge that could ever merit death then? Without the inquisition, the accused were usally killed. With the inquiisition, 99% of them are spared. That's pretty amazing actually.

>>Is the author trying to say life was more or less precious to those living at that time? <<

What he is saying is that the Inquisition was a remarkable leap forward in justice, which demonstrates a respect for life.

>> When did it stop being about the universal truth?<<

When Protestants decided that that they could have 15,478,386 opinions on any moral standard, and they were all okay, as long as they disagreed with Catholic tradition.

>> IMO, this is just as true now as it was then. <<

Well, your flat out wrong then. OUR society is built on religious pluralism and secualr standards of law, and loyalty. There are very few institutions which rely *directly* on religion in America.

[gitmo]

"The traditional majority"opinion is that of enemies of the Catholic Church. Could that not make it suspect?

I'm not aware of that many "enemies of the Catholic Church". But this is a new perspective that is contrary to the historical record. Since it is coming from a partisan, it is suspect.

[Snuffington]

Let's go back to the original article.

Next time you do that, read the whole thing. Because some of the objections you raise were already answered in it. This one for example:

1%?!? I don't think any modern madman was "successful" enough to achieve that rate.

You don't? Here you have people accused of a capital crime. You didn't appear in front of the Inquisition at random. You either got your local secular court or that of the Inquisition. What's the average rate of conviction and punishment for a capital crime in our own courts? In any other in the world? Feel free to look it up. Your horror about 1% of the accused not getting off seems a little naive.

Of course, that's only comparing it with modern times, which is a pretty slick trick, considering it dodges the central question. Did the Inquisition improve the situation of those accused, or harm it? If you were accused of heresy, were your chances of survival better or worse because of the Inquisition? The article makes it pretty clear your chances were dramitically better with the Inquisition involved than without it.

Taking your own advice, and going back to the article, you seem to have missed this: "Compared to other medieval secular courts, the Inquisition was positively enlightened."

Gonna pause here, cuz I have to comment on this before going further. Death was more common during medieval times. Is the author trying to say life was more or less precious to those living at that time? Are our beliefs different & less important to us without a healthy fear of an immanent death? Is that the meaning of religion? Religion is something we're just supposed to do at church?

This one is actually a perfectly valid question, but impossible for any single article to address. You need to understand the whole worldview of the middle ages to truly understand this. It's very different from the modern view. The article hints to elements of it, like:

"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."

Not quite enough to give you the full picture of course. But lest you think the author of the article is just making it up, do all the research you'd care to. This is not a controversial or recent discovery. Try reading "Autumn of the Middle Ages" by Johan Huizinga.

IMO, this is just as true now as it was then. Should I try to make the author of this piece part of my mere 1%?

Sure. Pick a court. Make your accusation. That's how these things worked, which is something you seem to have missed.

[valkyrieanne]

No time to go into detail now, but most of the battles you list are good examples of "winning the battle but losing the war."

[Polybius]

Edward I expelled the Jews from England, cuz they no longer had enough money to help support his military ambitions. Your hint was not necessary, cuz it's included in most things written about Edward I.

While hints may not be necessary for individuals versed in history, the typical American of 2004 does not know Agincourt from Antietam but does know that the Spanish Inquisition had to do with Spain persecuting Jews.

It is unfortunate that the complex history of Jewish tolerance and intolerance in Spain has been condensed in the American mind to a Mel Brooks song.

Jews lived in peace and tolerance in Roman Spain for centuries until the Visigothic invasians brought religious persecution not only to the Jews but also to the Catholic Church by the Visigoths who initially practiced Aryanism. After the Visogothic conversion to Catholicism, the Visigothic persecution of Catholics ended but the Visigothic persecution of Jews remained. It was no wonder that the Jews welcomed the Islamic invaders as liberators in 711 A.D.

Although the Islamic period of southern and central Spain is usually depicted as a model of Jewish toleration, that was only true in the initial wave of Islamic invasion. When the fanatical Almoravides invaded in 1086 and the even more fanatical Almohades invaded in 1146, religious toleration in Muslim Spain came to a screeching halt and thousands of Jews and Mozarabes (Christians living in Muslim territory)fled to the northern Spanish Christian Kingdoms where they were welcome.

By 1212, the Spanish Christian victory at Tolosa had broken the back of Muslim power. Cordoba fell in 1236, Valencia fell in 1238 and Seville fell in 1248. After all of Spain except the rump Muslim Kingdom of Granada had returned to Christian rule, Jews were held in high regard by the courts of both Fernando III (San Fernando) and his son Alfonso X (the Learned). There was hardly a noble house in Spain that had not intermarried with Jewish families.

Unfortunately, Jews became caught up in the three-way power struggle between the Crown, the nobles and the commoners during the reign of Peter the Cruel (1350-1369). As the aptly labeled Peter the Cruel could not trust his own people, he used only Muslim royal guards and Jewish tax collectors. Fairly or unfairly, this inflamed the resentment of the commoners against both Jews and Muslims who then not only associated Jews with the excesses and oppression of Peter the Cruel but also were jealous of Jewish prosperity and their close association with the Spanish nobility.

During the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Spanish Crown used this popular resentment against Jews to consolidate Royal power at the expense of the nobilty. The commoners and the towns that had jelously guarded their "fueros" (rights) for centuries, gladly sided with the Crown. However, once the Jews were expelled and the power of the nobility broken, the Crown eventually turned it's attention to then consolidating Royal power over the towns themsleves.

It is undoubtedly true that Spain would have been much better off if the power struggle between the Crown, the nobility and the commoners had continued on more equal terms as was the case in British history and if the Jews had never been expelled.

However, the fact remains that, up until 1492, Jews had found more tolerance in Spain than in almost any other country in Europe. In England, the Jews were not allowed to return until the time of Cromwell.

Unfortunately, the average American knows only that Jews were persecuted during the Spanish Inquisition and knows nothing about the Jewish expulsion from England.

[OLD REGGIE]

You're hysterical as always. For those not prone to flights of fantasy and interested in facts, consider: exterminate

\Ex*ter"mi*nate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Exterminated; p. pr. & vb. n. Exterminating.] [L. exterminatus, p. p. of exterminare to abolish, destroy, drive out or away; ex out + terminus boundary, limit. See Term.] 1. To drive out or away; to expel.

They deposed, exterminated, and deprived him of communion. --Barrow.

(SD: exterminated and deprived of communion? That's pretty bad. We usually give communion to the dead.)

2. To destroy utterly; to cut off; to extirpate; to annihilate; to root out; as, to exterminate a colony, a tribe, or a nation; to exterminate error or vice.

To explode and exterminate rank atheism. --Bentley.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc

Of course, to the Havoc-inclined, you are suppoed to remain ignorant of the meaning of words and believe that this Papal pronouncement is calling for the killing of all heretics, when it is instead calling for them to be removed from territories. As a source of division and conflict, seperation seemed only fitting. That is a discussion which can continue.

But put aside any notions that this means the Pope was whipping out a big can of Raid in order to kill. heretics. dead.

SD

You are spinning as always. To the SuperSpinnerDave inclined you are supposed to accept a benign definition of "exterminate.

Thomas Aquinas had no great difficulty with the definition.

Aquin.: SMT SS Q[11] A[3] Body Para. 1/2
I answer that, With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death.

Aquin.: SMT SS Q[11] A[3] Body Para. 2/2
On the part of the Church, however, there is mercy which looks to the conversion of the wanderer, wherefore she condemns not at once, but "after the first and second admonition," as the Apostle directs: after that, if he is yet stubborn, the Church no longer hoping for his conversion, looks to the salvation of others, by excommunicating him and separating him from the Church, and furthermore delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death. >For Jerome commenting on Gal. 5:9, "A little leaven," says: "Cut off the decayed flesh, expel the mangy sheep from the fold, lest the whole house, the whole paste, the whole body, the whole flock, burn, perish, rot, die. Arius was but one spark in Alexandria, but as that spark was not at once put out, the whole earth was laid waste by its flame."

Of course Aquinas wasn't in spin mode.

[RobbyS]

"The historical record", at least the English language historography was largely written by Whig and liberal historians. In the Latin world much of the "record"was written by anti-clericals like Voltaire. But as Henry Kamen points out, none of them had taken a look at the archives of the Spanish Inquisition, so by any reasonable standard can be called hearsay or second-hand report. It is a partisan or, certainly, a one-sided view. Why do you object to hearing from those who have actually looked at the records of the Roman Inquisition? Why aren't you suspicious of history that does not take these documents into account?

[OLD REGGIE]

It is. When Havoc posts something in order to lead others into confusion, the Church, via its member (me) clarifys. Neat little system, isn't it?

Rather, SpinningDave feels forced to twist and torture the language to fit his contrived definition.

Note there is one member of the Church of Dave.

[FITZ]

It's interesting --- kind of ironic that Israel is now seen in a similar way as Spain --- and only because they do what they must to survive.

[OLD REGGIE]

If you want to argue with the dictionary, be my guest. Your hatred blinds you. As usual.

It's easy to compare scholars who have studied the issue with internet jockeys who traffic in outrage for polemical purposes. There's no honest comparison. Caught in your deception, you can only turn the finger on someone else, the object of your hatred.

Argue with Thomas Aquinas what is meant by "exterminate". At least he is honest enough to admit it's desired result is death!

You are too transparent Dave. When caught up in your slippery web you haul out the magic "hate" word. Try something new.

You are pitiful.

[OLD REGGIE]

Unfortunately, it's not so easy to the average person, who isn't likely to read a scholarly source. Easy prey for the polemicists.

This is the same scholarly source who claims the Crusades were purely defensive battles and the Muslims won so they should be happy.

What a joke.

[OLD REGGIE]

... The heresy had to be exterminated. In today's world the measures used in the 13th century would be seen as overly harsh, but this was a primitive time with primitive means.

Furthermore, it's not as if people were being indiscriminately killed. To be convicted of heresy, you had to be publicly spreading the pernicious doctrines of the sect, not merely privately adhering to it. If you recanted, your life would be spared. The numbers actually killed were small.

You and SuperSpin should get together on your understanding of "exterminate". Don't you understand you must be a Catholic Hater to equate "exterminate" with "kill"?

[RobbyS]

On the part of the Church, however, there is mercy which looks to the conversion of the wanderer, wherefore she condemns not at once, but "after the first and second admonition," as the Apostle directs: after that, if he is yet stubborn, the Church no longer hoping for his conversion, looks to the salvation of others, by excommunicating him and separating him from the Church, and furthermore delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death

Sounds to me like a good justification for the death penalty. Follow due process, but if the SOB is hardened to his crime, then kill him. Which goes back to a point of the article. The Inquisition introduced due process, and a high level of dueprocess into the prosecution of heretics. Of course, you can't admit that heresy could be a crime. This is a bit like liberals who could never admit that being a communist could be a crime. But I won't push the matter. In any case, the argument is made in the article that a person accused of heresy was more likley to receive what we would call a fair ttrial than a person accused of, say, theft. I think that is the chief claim of the article, that the Inquisition provided for a fair trial, at least in theory and often also in fact. A lawyer's trick: man accused of stealing a pig claims that his religious beliefs allowed him to do it. A matter of heresy. The case is taken over by the Church court. He adjures his heresy and gets off with a penance. This is the practical side of an ecclessiastical court being more lenient than a secular court. For this reason everyone one who could read and write claimed clerical status.

[Polybius]

"The traditional majority"opinion is that of enemies of the Catholic Church. Could that not make it suspect?......RobbyS

I'm not aware of that many "enemies of the Catholic Church".....gitmo

Anti-Catholicism was a dominant theme in English and American popular history since the days of Henry VIII. That anti-Catholicism persisted until well into the 20th Century.

If you do not know know how English popular history and then American popular history portrayed Catholicism in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th Centuries, then you need to read a little bit more of it.

18th Century English Children's Textbook

"Religious Freedom is Guaranteed" by Thomas Nast

“The American River Ganges,” Harper’s Weekly (30 September 1871) by Thomas Nast

[Havoc]

As for the rest of your post, I think you have no basis for knowing that there is an absolute standard that God has handed down

If there is anything I've ever seen that is heretical, it is what you just said. There is a basis and that is the problem. Christians actually believe God's word and accept it. Philosophers playing at religion don't believe God's word and resort to their moral and intellectually relative judgements of what might be best given their relative understanding of the notion of being "good" vs being "evil".

For the Christian, it is understood that we are not allowed to stand in God's reserved place of mortal judgement over another person due to that person's sin. We can call it sin - recognize it and refuse to participate in it; but, the moment we stand in God's shoes and usurp His role, we are in sin and guilty of the blood we spill and of the soul we may send to hell in the doing. There is not only a basis but an absolute basis and what you said is indicative of the problem.