Grand Inquisitor
In the 13th century, Pope Gregory IX (reigned 1227–1241) assigned the duty of carrying out inquisitions to the Dominican Order. They used inquisitorial procedures, a legal practice common at that time. They judged heresy alone, using the local authorities to establish a tribunal and to prosecute heretics. After 1200, a Grand Inquisitor headed each Inquisition. The most notorious at the start of the sixteenth century being the first of the Spanish Inquisition Tomas Torquemada. Grand Inquisitions persisted until the mid 19th century.
Read more about this topic: Inquisition
Famous quotes containing the word grand:
“They have their belief, these poor Tibet people, that Providence sends down always an Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom some belief in a kind of pope! At bottom still better, a belief that there is a Greatest Man; that he is discoverable; that, once discovered, we ought to treat him with an obedience which knows no bounds. This is the truth of Grand Lamaism; the “discoverability” is the only error here.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)