manifestations of the Inquisition

Galileo facing the Roman Catholic Inquisition

Inquisition tribunals and institutions


Before the 12th century, the Roman Catholic Church already suppressed what it saw as heresy, usually through a system of ecclesiastical proscription or imprisonment, but usually without using torture[2] and seldom resorting to executions.







[3] Such punishments had many ecclesiastical opponents, although some non-secular countries[which?] punished heresy with the death penalty.[4][5]

In the 12th century, to counter the spread of Catharism, prosecution of heretics became more frequent. The Church charged councils composed of bishops and archbishops with establishing inquisitions (see Episcopal Inquisition).

In the 13th century, Pope Gregory IX (reigned 1227–1241) assigned the duty of carrying out inquisitions to the Dominican Order.

Inquisitors acted in the name of the Pope and with his full authority. 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 the end of the twelfth century, a Grand Inquisitor headed each Inquisition. Inquisitions in this form persisted in parts of the world until the 19th century.[6]

By the start of the 16th century the Roman Catholic Church had reached an apparently dominant position as the established religious authority in western and central Europe, dominating a faith-landscape in which Judaism, Waldensianism, Hussitism, Lollardry and the finally conquered Muslims of al-Andalus hardly figured in terms of numbers or of influence. When the institutions of the church felt themselves threatened by what they perceived as the heresy, and then schism of the Protestant Reformation, they reacted. Paul III (Pope from 1534 to 1549) established a system of tribunals, administered by the "Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition", and staffed by cardinals and other Church officials. This system would later become known as the Roman Inquisition.

In 1908 Saint Pope Pius X renamed the organisation: it became the "Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office". This in its turn became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith[7] in 1965, which name continues to this day[update].



Historians distinguish four different manifestations of the Inquisition:

1.the Medieval Inquisition (1184–1230s)
2.the Spanish Inquisition (1478–1834)
3.the Portuguese Inquisition (1536–1821)
4.the Roman Inquisition (1542 – c. 1860 )