Inquisition - Tribunals and Institutions

Tribunals and Institutions

Before 1100, the Catholic Church had already suppressed what they believed to be heresy, usually through a system of ecclesiastical proscription or imprisonment, but without using torture and seldom resorting to executions. Such punishments had a number of ecclesiastical opponents, although some countries punished heresy with the death penalty.

In the 12th century, to counter the spread of Catharism, prosecution of heretics by some secular governments became more frequent. The Church charged councils composed of bishops and archbishops with establishing inquisitions (see Episcopal Inquisition). The first Inquisition was temporarily established in Languedoc (south of France) in 1184. In 1229 it was permanently established. It was centered under the Dominicans in Rome and later at Carcasonne in Provence. Having full ownership of their property in the countries where it was set up. an international network was set up in these countries to check on any newcomers to a place and to track down any escapees. Its decentralised autonomous proceedings became difficult to control above all civil and other ecclesiastical laws even against the intercession of senior Bishops and even a few Popes. Arrests could be made without any evidence, merely on suspicion. According to Henry Charles Lea one of the worst cases of this being that of an old woman who found pork disagreeable and on refusing to eat it on an unfortunate Saturday was arrested for being a crypto-Jew rather than being actually Catholic.