A HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
BY
HENRY CHARLES LEA
The Inquisition
Until the advent of Nazism in modern Germany, Europe knew no system
of organized terrorism to rival the 500 year reign of the Inquisition.
Historian Henry Charles Lea, the leading expert on the medieval
period, called the Inquisition “a standing mockery of justice – perhaps
the most iniquitous that the arbitrary cruelty of man has ever devised
... Frantic zeal, arbitrary cruelty, and insatiable cupidity rivaled each
other in building up a system unspeakably atrocious. It was a system
which might well seem the invention of demons.”
(See, Henry Charles Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Age, at 60, 97,
257).
The Inquisition was the most elaborate extortion racket ever devised,
primarily developed for profit.
(See, Henry Charles Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages at 224)
After the arrest, the property of the accused was instantly confiscated
and nothing was returned. The popes publicly praised the rule of
confiscation as a prime weapon against heresy.
(See, Rossell Hope Robbins, Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology
at 229).
Affluent Italy made its inquisitors incredibly rich in the 14th century.
Within two years, the inquisitor of Florence amassed “more than seven
thousand florins, an enormous sum.”
(See, Henry Charles Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages at 173-75,
225).
As the inquisitor Heinrich von Schultheis complacently wrote, “When I
have you tortured, and by the severe means afforded by the law I bring
you to confession, then I perform a work pleasing in God’s sight; and it
profiteth me.”
(See, Rossell Hope Robbins, Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology at
451).
Confiscation took place before conviction, because it was taken for
granted that no one escaped. In 1300 a nobleman named Jean Baudier
was arrested and first examined on January 20. He refused to confess
for a long time but finally was broken down by torture and confessed
on February 5. He was condemned on March 7. However, his impounded
property had been sold on January 29, before the confession.
Similarly, Guillem Garric was arrested at Carcassonne in 1284 but not
sentenced until 1319. Nevertheless, officials were quarreling over
his castle in 1301.
(See, Henry Charles Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages at 213-14)
Property could be seized from the dead, whose bones might be dug up
from their graves and burned as post-mortem heretics; then the
property was taken away from legal heirs.
(See, G.G. Coulton, Inquisition and Liberty at 132, 148).
If a person knowing he was about to arrested tried to sell or give
away his property, or commit suicide before the torturers got to him,
his property was seized, because a heretic was forbidden to make any
legal transaction, and a suicide could bequeath property to no one;
it was taken by the church.
If the accused fled the country, he was tried and convicted in
absence. Families of the accused were left destitute, and no one
dared help them for fear of falling under suspicion. Thus, the
Inquisition established the law of property seizures for suicides,
which remained the rule in most European countries and the British
Isles until 1870.
(See, John Holland Smith, Constantine The Great at 418).
The witch’s or heretic’s trial was a mockery and the accused had no
lawyer; Pope Boniface directed that trials must be conducted “simply,
without the noise and form of lawyers.”
(See, John Holland Smith, Constantine the Great at 284).
Evidence was accepted from witnesses who could not legally testify in
any other kind of trial, such as condemned criminals, other heretics,
and children, even as young as the age of two. The inquisitor Bodin
“valued child witnesses because at their tender age they could be
easily persuaded or forced to inform.”
(See, Rossell Hope Robbins, Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology
at 229, 554)
A witness who withdrew adverse testimony was punished for perjury, but
his testimony remained as evidence on the record.
(See, John Holland Smith, Constantine the Great at 284).
Inquisitors “jealously guarded their records from all outsiders.”
(See, G.G. Coulton, Inquisition and Liberty at 119)
On one occasion, magistrates of Brescia objected to burning a number
of condemned witches without having examined records of their trials.
But the inquisitors kept their records sequestered, and the pope
declared the magistrates’ reluctance a scandal to the faith.
“He ordered the excommunication of the magistrates if within six days
they did not execute the convicts ... a decision which was held to give
the secular courts six days in which to carry out the sentence of
condemnation.”
(See, Henry Charles Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages at 235).
Even when kept hidden, records were often falsified. Inquisitors had
special terms for everything they did. For example, torturers said
their victims were “laughing” when they contorted their faces with
pain; or “sleeping” when they fainted.
Those who died under torture either “committed suicide” or were slain
by the devil. Having confessed under torture, the accused was compelled
to repeat the confession outside the torture chamber, knowing he would
be returned thereto if he didn’t obey; nevertheless, this was recorded
as a confession given “freely and spontaneously, without the pressure of
force or fear,” and court documents often claimed the accused had
confessed without toture.
Sometimes confessions were described “voluntary” if they were obtained
after the first degree of torture – binding and racking.
(See, Henry Charles Robbins, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages at 108,
269, 482-83, 540)
“One of the conditions (for escaping the stake during Inquisition
in Spain) was that of stating all they knew of other heretics and
apostates, which proved an exceedingly fruitful source of
information ..."
-- Henry Charles Lea quote