The Medieval Inquisition was a series of inquisitions (Catholic Church bodies charged with suppressing heresy) from around 1184, including the Episcopal Inquisition (1184–1230s) and later the Papal Inquisition (1230s). The Medieval Inquisition was established in response to movements considered apostate or heretical to Catholicism, in particular Catharism and Waldensians in Southern France and Northern Italy. These were the first of many inquisitions that would follow.
The Cathars were first noted in the 1140s in Southern France, and the Waldensians around 1170 in Northern Italy. Before this point, individual heretics such as Peter of Bruys had often challenged the Church. However, the Cathars were the first mass organization in the second millennium that posed a serious threat to the authority of the Church.
Background
The Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in 312. Though only in the fourth century of its existence, Christianity had spread widely and was already beginning to experience a multiplicity of schisms within itself. Among the most significant of the heresies at this time were Arianism, Manichaeism, Gnosticism, the Adamites, the Donatists, the Pelagians, and Priscillianists.
The Edict of Thessalonica issued on 27 February 380 by Emperor Theodosius I established Nicene Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire. It condemned other Christian creeds as heresies of "foolish madmen" and approved their punishment. In 438, under Emperor Theodosius II, the Codex Theodosianus (Theodosian Code), a compilation of laws of the Roman Empire, already provided for the confiscation of property and the death penalty for heretics. After the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, there followed almost seven centuries in which persecutions for heresy became very rare. Some of the old heresies survived, but in a weakened state, and they tended not to operate openly. No new schisms appeared to emerge during this period.
Definition and Practice An inquisition was a process that developed to investigate alleged instances of crimes. Its use in ecclesiastical courts was not at first directed to matters of heresy, but a broad assortment of offenses such as clandestine marriage and bigamy. French historian Jean-Baptiste Guiraud (1866–1953) defined Medieval Inquisition as "... a system of repressive means, some of temporal and some others of spiritual kind, concurrently issued by ecclesiastical and civil authorities in order to protect religious orthodoxy and social order, both threatened by theological and social doctrines of heresy."
Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Grosseteste, defined heresy as "an opinion chosen by human perception, created by human reason, founded on the Scriptures, contrary to the teachings of the Church, publicly avowed, and obstinately defended." The fault was in the obstinate adherence rather than theological error, which could be corrected; and by referencing scripture Grosseteste excludes Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christians from the definition of heretic.
There were many different types of inquisitions depending on the location and methods; historians have generally classified them into the episcopal inquisition and the papal inquisition. All major medieval inquisitions were decentralized, and each tribunal worked independently. Authority rested with local officials based on guidelines from the Holy See, but there was no central top-down authority running the inquisitions, as would be the case in post-medieval inquisitions.
Early Medieval courts generally followed a process called accusatio, largely based on Germanic practices. In this procedure, an individual would make an accusation against someone to the court. However, if the suspect was judged innocent, the accusers faced legal penalties for bringing false charges. This provided a disincentive to make any accusation unless the accusers were sure it would stand. Later, a threshold requirement was the establishment of the accused's publica fama, i.e., the fact that the person was widely believed to be guilty of the offense charged.
By the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, there was a shift away from the accusatorial model toward the legal procedure used in the Roman Empire. Instead of an individual making accusations based on first-hand knowledge, judges now took on the prosecutorial role based on information collected. Under inquisitorial procedures, guilt or innocence was proved by the inquiry (inquisitio) of the judge into the details of a case.
Episcopal inquisitions The common people tended to view heretics as "an antisocial menace. Heresy involved not only religious division, but social upset and political strife." In 1076 Pope Gregory VII excommunicated the residents of Cambrai because a mob had seized and burned a Cathar determined by the bishop to have been a heretic. A similar occurrence happened in 1114 during the bishops absence in Strassburg. In 1145 clergy at Liège managed to rescue victims from the crowd.
The first medieval inquisition, the episcopal inquisition, was established in the year 1184 by a papal bull of Pope Lucius III entitled Ad abolendam ("for the purpose of doing away with"). It was a response to the growing Catharist movement in southern France. This inquisition was called the "episcopal" inquisition, because it was administered by a local bishop, also known in latin as episcopus. This inquisition obliged bishops to visit their diocese twice a year in search of heretics.
The methods of dealing with heretics were gradually revised. Practices and procedures of episcopal inquisitions could vary from one diocese to another, depending on the resources available to individual bishops and their relative interest or disinterest. Convinced that Church teaching contained revealed truth, the first recourse of bishops was that of persuasio. Through discourse, debates, and preaching, they sought to present a better explanation of Church teaching. This approach often proved very successful.
Legatine inquisitions The spread of other movements from the 12th century can be seen at least in part as a reaction to the increasing moral corruption of the clergy, which included illegal marriages and the possession of extreme wealth. In the Middle Ages, the Inquisition's main focus was to eradicate these new sects. Thus, its range of action was predominantly in Italy and France, where the Cathars and the Waldensians, the two main heretic movements of the period, were.
Bishops always had the authority to look into alleged heretical activity, but as it was not always clear what constituted heresy they conferred with their colleagues and sought advice from Rome. Legates were sent out, at first as advisors, later taking a greater role in the administration.
During the pontificate of Innocent III, papal legates were sent out to stop the spread of the Cathar and Waldensian heresies to Provence and up the Rhine into Germany. Procedures began to be formalized by time of Pope Gregory IX.
Cathars The Cathars were a group of dissidents mostly in the South of France, in cities like Toulouse. The sect developed in the 12th century, apparently founded by soldiers from the Second Crusade, who, on their way back to France, were converted by a Bulgarian sect, the Bogomils.
The Cathars' main heresy was their belief in dualism: the evil God created the materialistic world and the good God created the spiritual world. Therefore, Cathars preached poverty, chastity, modesty and all those values which in their view helped people to detach themselves from materialism. The Cathars presented a problem to feudal government by their attitude towards oaths, which they declared under no circumstances allowable. Therefore, considering the religious homogeneity of that age, heresy was an attack against social and political order, besides orthodoxy.
The Albigensian Crusade resulted in the defeat of the Cathars militarily. After this, the Inquisition played an important role in finally destroying Catharism during the 13th and much of the 14th centuries. Punishments for Cathars varied greatly. Most frequently, they were made to wear yellow crosses atop their garments as a sign of outward penance. Others undertook obligatory pilgrimages, many for the purpose of fighting against Muslims. Another common punishment, including for returned pilgrims, was visiting a local church naked once each month to be scourged. Cathars who were slow to repent suffered imprisonment and, often, the loss of property. Others who altogether refused to repent were burned.
Waldensians The Waldensians were mostly located in Germany and Northern Italy. The Waldensians were a group of orthodox laymen concerned about the increasing wealth of the Church. As time passed, however, they found their beliefs at odds with Catholic teaching. In contrast with the Cathars and in line with the Church, they believed in only one God, but they did not recognize a special class of priesthood, believing in the priesthood of all believers. They also objected to the veneration of saints and martyrs, which were part of the Church's orthodoxy. They rejected the sacramental authority of the Church and its clerics and encouraged apostolic poverty.Peters, Edward (1988). Inquisition. New York London: Free Press Collier Macmillan. p. 43 These movements became particularly popular in Southern France as well as Northern Italy and other parts of Holy Roman Empire.
Papal inquisition One reason for Pope Gregory IX's creation of the Inquisition was to bring order and legality to the process of dealing with heresy, since there had been tendencies by mobs of townspeople to burn alleged heretics without much of a trial. According to historian Thomas F. Madden: "The Inquisition was not born out of desire to crush diversity or oppress people; it was rather an attempt to stop unjust executions. Heresy was a crime against the state. Roman law in the Code of Justinian made heresy a capital offense" (emphasis in original). In the early Middle Ages, people accused of heresy were judged by the local lord, many of whom lacked theological training. Madden claims that "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." Madden argues that 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.
The complaints of the two main preaching orders of the period, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, against the moral corruption of the Church to some extent echoed those of the heretical movements, but they were doctrinally conventional, and were enlisted by Pope Innocent III in the fight against heresy. In 1231 Pope Gregory IX appointed a number of Papal Inquisitors (Inquisitores haereticae pravitatis), mostly Dominicans and Franciscans, for the various regions of Europe. As mendicants, they were accustomed to travel. Unlike the haphazard episcopal methods, the papal inquisition was thorough and systematic, keeping detailed records. Some of the few documents from the Middle Ages involving first-person speech by medieval peasants come from papal inquisition records. This tribunal or court functioned in France, Italy and parts of Germany and had virtually ceased operation by the early fourteenth century.