THE INQUISITION

It tortured, maimed, killed and destroyed the lives of millions of people. As such the Inquisition must constitute as horrific an episode in human history as the Holocaust, and the most disgraceful and premeditated act in the dark history of the Roman Catholic Church. The Inquisition as an institution provided a terrifyingly inspirational model for the secret police of future totalitarian regimes.  Although Pope John Paul II on March 12, 2000 in his Day of Pardon mass did ask forgiveness for all the past and present sins of the church, unlike the German government which continues to make reparations to its World War II war crime victims, no reparations have been offered or made to victims of the Inquisition. A thorn by any other name, the Inquisition continues even today, but renamed as Congretatio pro Doctrina Fidei (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). 

The word “Inquisition” comes from the Latin inquisitio - the act of inquiring - a judicial technique, whereby an official inquirer, helped by consultants, weighed the evidence he had gathered and decided whether there was reason for further action (1).

The two most infamous inquisitions were the Medieval Inquisition and the Spanish Inquisition. Romana Inquisito -- the Medieval Inquisition -- was started in Rome by Innocent III (2). The oxymoronic Pope Innocent had begun his rule by calling for a Fourth Crusade against the Infidels (the Church’s term for Moslem or Saracen) in the Holy Land. The First Crusade in 1099 had been fought to secure safe pilgrim routes to Jerusalem. Conquest of that city led to the bloody extermination of the entire population at the hands of the crusaders upon orders of the Church. The Second Crusade had been a disaster, most noted for its unruly mobs that massacred Jews and slaughtered Christians along the route. The Cistercian monk Bernard de Clairvaux who had preached in favor of the crusade, was shocked at the ensuing violence and wrote letters to the Archbishop of Mainz protesting the slaughter of Jews in the Rhineland.

The Third Crusade glorified the struggle between Richard the Lionheart of England and Saladin (Salah al Din), king of the Saracen, but ended as a hollow victory for the crusaders who had underestimated the terrain, the climate, and their opponents’ martial skill and determination. The Fourth Crusade began in 1202 and intended to sail from Venice; however, the Venetians realized their opportunity for profit and demanded extortionate ship’s passage.  Frustrated, the crusaders sacked the Christian city of Zara on the Adriatic (3). After the crusaders reached Constantinople in 1204, the fiasco culminated with the sack of Constantinople. For three days the entire city was raped and pillaged. Even today in Aya Santa Sophia, the guides relate how the crusaders rode their horses inside the magnificent basilica smashing anything in their way. Such was the mindset of the zealous crusading mob.

While there were certain exceptions, most of the clergy in the twelfth century was corrupt, lascivious, money hungry, and ignorant. The Archbishop of Toulouse, Raymond de Rabastens, mortgaged Church property and bankrupted the diocese in order to wage war against his own vassals (4). One bishop even moved the altar and furnishings of his church to the porch and stabled his horses and dogs in the nave (5). The church demanded exorbitant tithes of its parishioners and to further support its coffers, the Church offered them the mechanism of indulgences: for the right price they could shorten their own, or their relative’s stay in purgatory (whose very existence is now under discussion at the Vatican). For over four hundred years, along with the sale of saintly relics, the sale of indulgences provided the Church with enormous income.

The hard working villager who had one or, at most, two sets of clothes on his back and who ate mostly bread and root vegetables saw members of the clergy in lavish silken robes feasting on rich food and wines and fornicating with women. To add insult to injury, the villager was told that he had no chance of entering heaven unless he humbled himself before such specimens, who were the only ones who could interpret the scriptures and perform the rites of absolution, baptism, marriage, and the last rites (extreme unction).

In contrast to the priests, in the rich, civilized and tolerant Languedoc the holy men and women of the region known as Bons Chretiens (Good Christians) worked hard in the fields, at the loom, healing, and teaching their version of the word of God to any who would listen. Those who decided to consecrate themselves to this way of life -- the Parfait or Parfaite in the case of women—did not eat meat or fowl (rien qui ne marche ni vole), fight, steal or lie; and nothing was asked in return for their services. They criticized the power of the church and the corruption of its priests for they believed that the kingdom of God was within everyone’s reach, that priests and churches were unnecessary, and that the cross of crucifixion was an instrument of suffering and murder and as such should not be worshipped. They also refused to take any oaths, believed in reincarnation, the equality of women, and free instruction and the teaching of Scripture in their native language Occitan, which could be readily understood by the common people. 

Small wonder that through their example, these Bons Chretiens were held in such high regard by the local population and the number of their adherents grew. Even Bernard of Clairvaux was forced to admit that their morals were pure and that their teachings were truly in keeping with those of Jesus. Little is preserved in writing about this group, known as les Cathares (Cathars), and most of that which does remain is from the official inquisitorial records, which is “rather like reconstructing Jewish theology from Nazi records of the Holocaust”(6). Unfortunately it is the tragedy of human history that it tends to be written by the winners.

Les Cathares were an enormous threat to the church for whole villages practiced this lifestyle, and refused to send tithes to Rome, preferring instead the honest simplicity of the teachings of Jesus as presented to them buy the Parfaits and Parfaites. In 1179, the third Lateran Council declared them heretic and pronounced against anyone giving them food or shelter. However, in spite of the Church’s efforts, the movement continued to grow and flourish.

The crime of heresy was considered by the church as treason against god and the worst offense in Christendom because it challenged “the order of society” (the Church). Christendom itself was merely a linkage of individual systems encased by a shell of feudalism. If an individual or group should foreswear, the survival of the whole was in jeopardy. The Dominican inquisitor Bernard Gui called heresy a crime of lese-majeste against the divine (7). In reality it was an attack on the power of the Roman Church rather than on God.

The Pope decided that this civil and religious disobedience in the Languedoc could no longer be tolerated, and in 1198 he sent two legates into the Languedoc to preach against the Cathars. They met with little to no success. Five years later, he appointed the native Langudocien Peter of Castelnau to preach and, one year later, the Cistercian Abbot of Clairvaux, Arnold Amaury. The papal legates were frequently ridiculed because they traveled in great style, which was in direct contrast to the humble ascetic Parfaits. Domingo de Guzman, the founder of the Dominican order, whose aesthetic appearance the pope hoped would gain more converts arrived in 1206, but his best effort only led to the “redemption” of a few converts (8).

In an attempt to negate the opposition, starting in 1165, the Church decided to allow open debates between the Parfaits and carefully selected catholic churchmen., The result was devastating for the Church as the better educated Cathars outsmarted the overconfident and arrogant priests. At Pamiers in 1207 the famous Esclarmonde de Foix, herself a Parfaite and described by some historians as the “Jeanne D’Arc of the South”, rose to enter the debate and was shouted down by a Dominican priest and told to return to her spinning. Understandably such behavior did little to enhance the reputation of either the church or its dissolute clergy.

Hated throughout the Languedoc and the subject of frequent death threats, the papal legate Peter of Castelnau was returning to Rome when he was assassinated while crossing a river. Raymond, Duke of Toulouse was blamed, although it was never proven and he swore he was not guilty. Pope Innocent saw his chance to rid himself of les Cathares and called for a crusade against them, offering salvation, remission of sins, cancellation of debt and all the plunder they could amass. He won the support of the king of France, which was at that time a very small region far poorer and less civilized than the Languedoc. The king, in turn, encouraged his land-hungry nobles of second, third and fourth sons who, unlike their counterparts in the Languedoc, were not allowed to inherit any land. Riff-raff and rabble-rousers who had failed to gain plunder in the Holy Land and gratuitously killed their fellow Christians, were also recruited. The ensuing Albigensian Crusade was a bloodthirsty genocide. (See Article: The Albigensian Crusade)

The carnage continued for twenty years, while the Inquisition was creating the first police state. The same role was later played by The Spanish Inquisition, which lasted from 1478 to 1834 and began in Seville, burning over 400 in the first two years. Its primary focus was on rooting out the conversos, Jews who had converted to Catholicism but who were suspect of retaining their prior beliefs. Horrendous tortures were inflicted on men, women and children. The tortura del agua – commonly and currently known as “water boarding” in the American prison at Guantanamo – was a common torture as was breaking on the rack. More elegant varieties included the Judas Chair (a large pyramid-shaped chair that accused heretics were placed on top of, with the point inserted into their anuses or genitalia, then very slowly lowered onto the point with ropes.); the Head Vice(thehead was inserted into a specially fitted vice, and tightened until the teeth were crushed, the bones cracked and eventually the eyes popped out of their sockets) and the Pear(alarge bulbous gadget inserted in the orifice of choice, whether mouth, anus or vagina and a lever on the device then caused it to slowly expand whilst inserted.

Archbishop Fulk of Toulouse, who had replaced Rabastens founded a “White Brotherhood” whose members set fire to houses of Cathares and Jews and harassed them on the streets. By 1233, there were Papal Inquisitors firmly entrenched in Toulouse, Albi and Carcassonne. Pope Gregory IX officially sanctioned the Dominican Order and charged them with the final solution -- the extinction of Les Cathares (9).

The Inquisition did not inform people of the charges against them, no one had the right to know their accusers, trials were held in secret, any lawyer called in was charged with aiding heresy, and there were no appeals. The inquisitor became prosecutor, judge and jury. People were encouraged to denunciate as many friends and relatives as possible, and no one felt safe. It literally ripped apart the trust and fabric of society. The penalty for heretics was burning at the stake, and hundreds of thousands were consigned to the flames. Those who converted back to Catholicism were forced to wear yellow crosses on their clothes. Some people, trying to avoid giving names of their friends and relatives, gave the names of the dead; the Inquisition promptly dug them up, burned the corpses, and confiscated their lands. Confiscation of the property of convicted heretics became a major source of revenue for the inquisitors and the Church.  

In one particularly wretched incident, an old woman on her deathbed asked to see a Parfait. An informer in the household told the local bishop who came and pretended to be one. When he had ascertained that she was a Cathar by the medium of confession, he had her lashed to her bed, carried outside to a field where she was burned to death. The bishop and his fellow priests then retired to enjoy a good dinner and “toast God’s justice” (10). It was no wonder that the Inquisition was fiercely hated by the local populace. In Albi, Arnold Amaury was set upon by a mob and nearly beaten to death.  In Toulouse, a jeering mob threw the Inquisitors out of town and pelted them with stones and excrement (11).  

Persecution included such acts of terror as putting out eyes, slicing off noses and mutilating lips, which happened to a hundred Cathares at Bram, who were led across the mountains to safety by the one man who had been allowed to keep an eye. This was done on the orders of Simon de Montfort, a savage northern crusader who eventually managed to acquire more lands than were held by the King of France.

In 1252, Pope Innocent IV’s Bull Ad exstirpanda authorized the use of torture to gain confession, specifically “citra membri diminutionem et mortis periculum—i.e, it was not to cause the loss of life or limb or imperil life...” (12).  Torture was to be limited to once; however, once could also mean that every instrument in the arsenal was to be used once. The Inquisition’s methods of torture became more and more refined, as for example in Nuremberg, Bavaria:

“There were instruments for compressing the fingers till the bones should be squeezed to splinters. There were instruments for probing below the finger-nails till an exquisite pain, like a burning fire, would run along the nerves. There were instruments for tearing out the tongue, for scooping out the eyes, for grubbing-up the ears. There were bunches of iron cords, with a spiked circle at the end of every whip, for tearing the flesh from the back till bone and sinew were laid bare. There were iron cases for the legs, which were tightened upon the limb placed in them by means of a screw, till flesh and bone were reduced to a jelly. There were cradles set full of sharp spikes, in which victims were laid and rolled from side to side, the wretched occupant being pierced at each movement of the machine with innumerable sharp points. There were iron ladles with long handles, for holding molten lead or boiling pitch, to be poured down the throat of the victim, and convert his body into a burning cauldron. There were frames with holes to admit the hands and feet, so contrived that the person put into them had his body bent into unnatural and painful positions, and the agony grew greater and greater by moments, and yet the man did not die. There were chestfuls of small but most ingeniously constructed instruments for pinching, probing, or tearing the more sensitive parts of the body, and continuing the pain up to the very verge where reason or life gives way”(13).

Clearly, the teachings of Jesus on love, mercy, and compassion were unknown or completely misunderstood by the Inquisition. Rather sadism, brutality, and a profound hatred of womankind best describe this infamous institution. 

Lest one think that the days of the Inquisition were numbered after the famous 1633 trial of Galileo who was ordered to recant on his position that the earth revolves around the sun and imprisoned for life, the latest trail for heresy took place in December 2005 in Los Angeles, California.  A former Roman Catholic priest who had left for another Catholic denomination that rejects the infallibility of the pope, has ordained women, and allows homosexuals to take confession, was tried in absentia by three priests in a secret one-day trial in the diocese of San Bernadino.  The former priest considered himself no longer a Roman Catholic and was automatically excommunicated when he left the Church.  Not content with that, the Church demanded that he be formally excommunicated and defrocked for heresy.  A previous heresy trail was also held in the same parish diocese in 2003 (14).

Plus ca change!
© Laconneau & Lorely Crewe-Halici

Footnotes
1. (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/inquisition1.html)
2. Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.catholicity.com/encyclopedia/
3. Stephen O’Shea,. The Perfect Heresy,(Croyden, Surrey, UK: Profile Books, 2001),72-73
4. Sean Martin, The Cathars,(London: Pocket Essentials, 2004) 73
5.  Marshall Baldwin,  The Medieval Church (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1953), 34
6.  http://www.heretication.info/_cathars.html
7.  Bernard Gui,  Manuel de l’Inquisiteur ( Paris: Societe d’Editions-Les Belles Lettres, 1906),.xxx
8. O’Shea, p.6
9. http://www.heretication.info/_cathars.html
10. O’Shea, p. 191
11. Martin, pp.111-112
12. New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia,Inquisition. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/index.html
13. Wylie, James A. The History of Protestantism, Volume Second, Book Fifteen,
http://www.doctrine.org/history/HPv2b15.htm#CHAPTER%2011
14. Robert Jablon, “Southern Californian Priest tried for Heresy,”San Diego Tribune, December 13, 2005.

The Albigensian Crusade ©2007 Laconneau/Crewe