Inquisition

[Gottle_of_Geer]

stanley123:

Generally, I would oppose the use of torture to extract confessions. I don;t know why these forms of torture were approved.

Innocent IV approved the use of torture in the practice of the Inquisition in 1252, in the Bull “Ad Extirpanda”.​

they seem to me to be very painful.

• Sawing: Heretics were hung upside-down and sawed apart down the middle, starting at the crotch.
• Disembowelment: Not the nice kind of disembowelment, where a samurai slits you wide open like a fish and you die in moments. No, that’s not good enough for the Inquisition. A small hole is cut in the gut, then the intestines are drawn out slowly and carefully, keeping the victim alive for as much of the process as possible.
• The Stake: Depending on how unrepentant a heretic might be, the process of burning at the stake could vary wildly. For instance, a fairly repentant heretic might be strangled, then burned. An entirely unrepentant heretic could be burned over the course of hours, using green wood or simply by placing them on top of hot coals and leaving them there until well done.

The first two were not employed in Inquisitorial practice in Spain (which based its practice on the 14th-century guide-book of Nicolaus Eymeric). ISTM as though those two are embellishments. The penal code of Charles V isued in 1532, called the Carolina, did provide for certain criminals to have their heads sawn off - and French law provided for certain crimes to be punished by breaking on the wheel; and for regicides to be ripped apart by wild horses - but that’s the closest to sawing apart that I can think of. European codes were quite severe enough, without there being any need to embroider them.​

Disembowelling was a part of the penalty for male traitors in England - thanks to Edward I, who has the distinction of subjecting Dafydd ap Grufydd (the last of the native Welsh princes) to it, in 1283. The last woman burnt for treason died in in 1685, under the last Catholic king, James II & VII.

The SI refounded in the 15th century did use the hoist, water-torture, and rack.

The stake was means of execution, not of torture. In Spain a gagging device called the pear was used, to go in the victim’s mouth so as to avoid any inconvenient dying words.

When William Tyndale was burned at Vilvoorde in 1536, he died very slowly - not because this was intended, but because the executioner had not strangled him properly. Last-moment expressions of desire for reconciliation with the Church were always accepted, at least in Spanish practice - they did not prevent execution; they won the convict a slight lessening of his sentence (unless the executioner was a bungler, as here.)

When the Protestant bishops burned alive under Mary I of England died, bags of gunpowder were hung round their necks to hasten the process - in at least one instance, the gunpowder did not explode, so the execution lasted three-quarters of an hour. (These deaths were not the work of the Inquisition - a statute of 1401 gave jurisdiction over heresy trials to the bishops, not to the Inquisition, which never functioned in England or Scotland; all executions for heresy in both countries were the business of the bishops - which had been the practice of the Church before the Inquisition was founded).

The Venetian Inquisition, at least in the 16th century, drowned its victims - by night, for some reason. ##

 

[stanley123]

## Innocent IV approved the use of torture in the practice of the Inquisition in 1252, in the Bull “Ad Extirpanda”.
The stake was means of execution, not of torture. In Spain a gagging device called the pear was used, to go in the victim’s mouth so as to avoid any inconvenient dying words.

When William Tyndale was burned at Vilvoorde in 1536, he died very slowly - not because this was intended, but because the executioner had not strangled him properly. Last-moment expressions of desire for reconciliation with the Church were always accepted, at least in Spanish practice - they did not prevent execution; they won the convict a slight lessening of his sentence (unless the executioner was a bungler, as here.)

When the Protestant bishops burned alive under Mary I of England died, bags of gunpowder were hung round their necks to hasten the process - in at least one instance, the gunpowder did not explode, so the execution lasted three-quarters of an hour. (These deaths were not the work of the Inquisition - a statute of 1401 gave jurisdiction over heresy trials to the bishops, not to the Inquisition, which never functioned in England or Scotland; all executions for heresy in both countries were the business of the bishops - which had been the practice of the Church before the Inquisition was founded).

The Venetian Inquisition, at least in the 16th century, drowned its victims - by night, for some reason. ##

Generally, i would not be in favor of executing heretics in the way that you have described: either by the stake, or by burning alive. Although it is said that these are not forms of torture, it seems to me that these methods would be quite painful to the Protestant who had to endure them, and in knowing that he faced this type of execution, it would be a form of forced conversion to Catholicism if he were asked to recant his Protestant beliefs. My personal opinion is that I would not be in favor of forcing a Protestant to convert to Roman Catholicism under the threat of execution by burning alive or by placing a stake down his throat.