Time for me to sign up as a papist again? Inquisition not so bad.

[a_unique_person]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3809983.stm



The Vatican has published a new study on the abuses committed by the mediaeval Inquisition and come to a rather surprising conclusion - that in fact the much feared judges of heresy were not as brutal as previously believed.
According to the 800-page report, the Inquisition that spread fear throughout Europe throughout the Middle Ages did not use execution or torture to anything like the extent history would have us believe.

In fact the book's editor, Professor Agostino Borromeo, claims that in Spain only 1.8% of those investigated by the notorious Spanish Inquisition were killed.



The rest just had a sore thumb or back.

[fishbob]

The rest just had a sore thumb or back.

The comfy chair was maybe not so comfy.

[Zep]

They were just incarcerated for a short stretch...

[Blue Monk]

What!?

This wine is supposed to be served chilled but it is only room temperature.

You Bastards!!

I'll bet about a zillion Historians are all rushing off to correct their works due to this new revelation.

After all, who could be more objective about the Inquisition than the Vatican?

[LW]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
The rest just had a sore thumb or back.

(I wonder how did I manage to post this empty the first time.)

But anyway, most of the rest had to wear yellow clothes for a couple of years.

If you are really surprised that the Inquisition was not an infernal machine that destroyed everybody who it laid hands on, then you should read less Protestant propaganda and more history.

I'd suggest starting from Emmanuel Le Roy's Montaillou.

[LW]

Originally posted by Blue Monk

After all, who could be more objective about the Inquisition than the Vatican?

This isn't exactly a startling new revelation. The Vatican archives are vast and contain lots and lots of details about heresy trials.

The usual procedure went something like this:

1) If you could convince your first interrogator that you didn't hold any heretical beliefs, you were set free.

2) If you confessed your interrogator your heresies and promised to repent, you would get some penintence to do and wear a mark of a heretic for some years (usually in form of a piece of a yellow clothing).

3) If you didn't confess but the interrogator thought that you were hiding something, he would order you to be tortured. Officially, you would be tortured only once but some investigators sidestepped about this restriction by "pausing" the torture for a couple of days.

4) If you confessed (voluntarily or out of torture) but refused to repent, then you would be condemned to death. Though, you would stilll get a few changes to repent before the sentence was carried out.

The vast majority of Inquistion trials ended in stage on or two.

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by Blue Monk
I'll bet about a zillion Historians are all rushing off to correct their works due to this new revelation.

After all, who could be more objective about the Inquisition than the Vatican? Er... much modern scholarship about the inquisition basically agrees with this new report. There aren't a "zillion historians" who still believe all of the myths associated with the bad reputation of the Inquisition.

By the way, the Vatican commissioned and published this report, but doesn't appear to have actually produced it in the sense you're implying. Rather, it is the record of the proceedings of a major international academic symposium on the subject of the Inquisition. Agostino Borromeo, the editor, is a well-respected expert in the field, a professor at the University of Rome and the president of the Italian Institute for Iberian Studies.

The symposium the report is based on actually took place several years ago, so for many experts the contents of the book will not come as news. However, I'll be curious to consult it when a French or English edition is available.

[Ian Osborne]

Originally posted by ceo_esq
Er... much modern scholarship about the inquisition basically agrees with this new report. There aren't a "zillion historians" who still believe all of the myths associated with the bad reputation of the Inquisition.

Correct. The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300078803/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/104-9915476-7706329?v=glance&s=books&st=*#product-details) advanced the same argument 40 years ago. It could be argued the Inquisition prevented the mob-rule summary 'justice' that was prevelent in western Europe.

[Giz]

"He says that often mannequins were burned to represent those tried in absentia and condemned to death and heretics and witches who repented at the last minute were given some sort of relief when they were strangled before being burnt."

- Very humane!

"In Lichtenstein just 300 people were executed for witchcraft, but this amounted to 10% of the tiny state's population."

- Only 10%!, what on earth are people whining about!? It's just tithing!

I notice (perhaps because they were focusing on the Spanish Inquisition) that they didn't mention the mass auto de fe's used against the Cathars (I think 800 burnt at once was the record), but what the heck, it probably saved all those heretics from being cold at night.

Seriously now, I'd put Inquisition apologists are on the same level as holocaust apologists.

They follow a particular creed and so seem to feel a tribal need to excuse away (or view in a favourable light) the actions of their fellow believers. No matter how vile.

[LW]

Originally posted by Giz

Seriously now, I'd put Inquisition apologists are on the same level as holocaust apologists.

They follow a particular creed and so seem to feel a tribal need to excuse away (or view in a favourable light) the actions of their fellow believers. No matter how vile.

Just for your information in the case that you rank me on the same level as "holocaust apologists".

I'm an atheist, have been such for over 10 years, and before that I was a Lutheran protestant.

I just prefer to put the historical sources before the Reformation era propaganda.

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by LW


Just for your information in the case that you rank me on the same level as "holocaust apologists".

I'm an atheist, have been such for over 10 years, and before that I was a Lutheran protestant.And the eminent Inquisition historian Prof. Henry Kamen, as you probably knew, is Jewish.

[AtheistArchon]

I just prefer to put the historical sources before the Reformation era propaganda.

- Historical sources such as...? Just curious here. I'd like to read up.

[Ian Osborne]

Originally posted by Giz
"In Lichtenstein just 300 people were executed for witchcraft, but this amounted to 10% of the tiny state's population."

- Only 10%!, what on earth are people whining about!? It's just tithing!

But surely Lichtenstein is well outside the juristiction of the Inquisition? This quote, and the sentence that preceeded it about Germany, describes the mob rule and hysteria which (according to Kamen) the Inquisition prevented in Spain.

[Giz]

Originally posted by Ian Osborne


But surely Lichtenstein is well outside the juristiction of the Inquisition? This quote, and the sentence that preceeded it about Germany, describes the mob rule and hysteria which (according to Kamen) the Inquisition prevented in Spain.

There was the Inquisition, first set up by the Dominicans to pruge the remnants of the Cathar heresy (i.e. established in the 1200's), and the Spanish Inquisition (set up after the reconquista was completed in 1492).

The Church didn't have all it's Inquisitors in one basket.

[Darat]

I know it seems like splitting hairs but wasn't it the case that the inquisition didn't execute anyone? I always thought they handed the "guilty" over to the secular authorities to do the actual killing?

[LW]

Originally posted by AtheistArchon

- Historical sources such as...? Just curious here. I'd like to read up.

I suggest starting with Emmanuel LeRoy Ladruie's Montaillou, The Promised Land of Error. (sorry for misquoting the title and author earlier).

It is an account of life in a French village that was the site of one of the last large Inquistion trials against Cathars. The material of the book is taken mostly from the testimonies that inhabitants of the village told to the interrogators.

Now, it has been several years since I last read it, but my recollection is that only one of the accused was executed in the end, a couple died in prison before receiving their sentences, and the rest got off with penintence or no sentence at all. (Just about all inhabitants of the village, several hundreds of them, were involved in the trial).

The one who was executed was a rather strange case, since even though he was nominally a "perfect" meaning that he had supposedly encorporated all Cathar teachings in his life, he came up resembling quite a lot a modern tele-evangelist: he cheated money from his friends, committed adultery, etc. It is rather strange that he chose execution before repenting.

[Jessica Blue]

The Spanish Inquisition...?

I wasn't expecting that.

[Mycroft]

Originally posted by Jessica Blue
The Spanish Inquisition...?

I wasn't expecting that.

Must...resist...pavlovian...training...!

[Jocko]

Originally posted by Mycroft


Must...resist...pavlovian...training...!

I think you mean pythonian training.*








* Diabolical Posting

[Mycroft]

Originally posted by Jocko


I think you mean pythonian training.*








* Diabolical Posting

If you hang around with Python fans for more than an hour, you realize it's the same thing. :)

[repairman]

CAN'T resist



NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise....
Our two weapons are fear and surprise... and ruthless efficiency....
Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...
and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope....
Our four... no...
Amongst our weapons... Amongst our weaponry...
are such elements as fear, surprise...
I'll come in again.

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by Darat
I know it seems like splitting hairs but wasn't it the case that the inquisition didn't execute anyone? I always thought they handed the "guilty" over to the secular authorities to do the actual killing? So far as I know, this is true. The convicted would be handed back to the civil authorities, generally to be dealt with according to the preferences of those civil authorities. Unfortunately, throughout European history, civil authorities have generally been much keener on death sentences than religious authorities have. And particularly in the context of the Spanish Inquisition, which was basically a political tool of the secular authorities, the state had been looking for excuses to eliminate some of these folks from the very beginning.

[Blue Monk]

Well this certainly is an educational forum.

Once again I find to my dismay exactly how little I know about a particular subject.

Goodness how the list grows, hehe.

I am disappointed, however, to learn that the movies are not accurate.