Then you will be interested in reading what the recent report has to say and compare that with what you have read already. I would like to have your impression. Heresy trials and witchcraft trials, need to taken separately, if only because witchcraft was regarded by many learned men as a secular matter (e.g. Cotton Mather) The witch-craze is certainly one of the strangest social phenomenon of European history.
IAC, What seems to ring true from what I have read above in the article is that the Church did at least bring jurisprudence to the process of trying heretics, a kind of recovery of the sort of due process that was in effect in late Roman times. I think that torture is allowed under the civil law, so our current practice of prohibiting it is a welcome new invention.
BTW, Those who have "gone ape" about the ABU Graib incident don't know that Iraqis in particular and Middle eastern people in general don't in principle condemn torture . The world norm today is closer to Our old wild west justice or to to English Star Chamber trials then we would like to think.
The Church did indeed bring order to the trials. But it also championed the use of torture, as it reasoned that a confession was necessary to save the souls of the accused (not a confession in the sense that someone confessed to committing a crime or a civil wrong, but in the way of a mea culpa); and the Church opined that for such serious offenses as heresy, the confession must be particularly heartfelt, and the surest way of enacting true contrition was by suffering pain (i.e., torture). The Church realized
-- correctly -- that an accused would gladly confess to almost any crime in order to escape torture, thus such a confession was not valid. In order for the confession to be true, the Church reasoned that it must be "confirmed" by torture and pain and suffering.