The Inquisition

[traillius]

Yes, the inquisition happened. But what many people lie about is that it was done by church officials. Some church officials may have happened to be involved. But the series of events referred to collectively as the inquisition is nothing more or less than secular government power run amok. That this was done in the name of religion is inconsequential. What matters is that it was just a way to gain power and money, and rid the government of its enemies. It would have been equally bad, and in fact has been surpassed, by governments acting without the claim of religious motivation ( The holocaust, anyone? ).

 

[Tridentinum]

The Inquisition was necessary and a good thing. Yes it was abused by secular authorities. Yes I am politically incorrect.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

Yes, the inquisition happened. But what many people lie about is that it was done by church officials. Some church officials may have happened to be involved. But the series of events referred to collectively as the inquisition is nothing more or less than secular government power run amok. That this was done in the name of religion is inconsequential. What matters is that it was just a way to gain power and money, and rid the government of its enemies. It would have been equally bad, and in fact has been surpassed, by governments acting without the claim of religious motivation ( The holocaust, anyone? ).

At the low end the Spanish Inquisition was estimated at ~2000 and at the high end it is estimated at ~5000 over ~350 years so from almost six a year (that’s like one in a million) to a little over fourteen (one in four hundred thousand) a year. Contrast this with Henry VIII and his 72,000… by hangings and the chopping block!

 

[Tridentinum]

At the low end the Spanish Inquisition was estimated at ~2000 and at the high end it is estimated at ~5000 over ~350 years so from almost six a year (that’s like one in a million) to a little over fourteen (one in four hundred thousand) a year. Contrast this with Henry VIII and his 72,000… by hangings and the chopping block!

The majority of the deaths were in the first 50 years of the Spanish Inquisition.

 

[promethius]

Yes, the inquisition happened. But what many people lie about is that it was done by church officials. Some church officials may have happened to be involved. But the series of events referred to collectively as the inquisition is nothing more or less than secular government power run amok. That this was done in the name of religion is inconsequential. What matters is that it was just a way to gain power and money, and rid the government of its enemies. It would have been equally bad, and in fact has been surpassed, by governments acting without the claim of religious motivation ( The holocaust, anyone? ).

Are we talking about the inquisition as a whole, or the spanish inquisition. If the latter, then your statement is largely correct. If the former, then it is grossly incorrect. By and large, the inquisition in the general sense was the actions taken against the albigensians and cathars in northern Italy, the Holy Roman Empire, and France, and was led almost exclusively by the church (in response to local magistrates who were without justice torturing and executing those accused of heresy).

 

[Contarini]

Yes, the inquisition happened. But what many people lie about is that it was done by church officials.

That’s not a lie.

Much other persecution was done by secular authorities, and you’re right that in Spain the Inquisition was largely dominated by the State (though still run by church officials).

But the Inquisition, by definition, was a church court.

Some church officials may have happened to be involved.

In other words, by your own admission it’s not a lie.

And your language doesn’t reflect reality. They didn’t “happen” to be involved. They were involved by definition. If they weren’t involved, it wasn’t an Inquisition but just a regular civil court.

But the series of events referred to collectively as the inquisition is nothing more or less than secular government power run amok.

Nonsense. You can make a case for this in Spain, but not for the medieval Inquisitions and not for the Roman Inquisition officially established by the Papacy in 1542.

The phenomenon of the “Inquisition” (except for Spain) was the reverse of what you claim–it was an attempt to take the persecution of heretics out of the hands of the state, while still using the state as an executioner when the death penalty was deemed necessary (which was, generally, much more rarely than when the civil government was in charge of the whole process).

That this was done in the name of religion is inconsequential.

No, it’s not inconsequential at all. You would like it to be, but that doesn’t make it so.

What matters is that it was just a way to gain power and money, and rid the government of its enemies.

You appear to have remarkable insight into the minds and hearts of people who lived centuries ago–insight that escapes professional historians. Where does this insight come from?

It would have been equally bad, and in fact has been surpassed, by governments acting without the claim of religious motivation ( The holocaust, anyone? ).

Certainly.

Whether the Inquisition made religious persecution worse is a matter open to debate, I think. There’s probably no way to know. Persecution done by the civil government directly was much more erratic, as far as I can tell. The Inquisition went about it more methodically. So it’s hard to compare in severity. I think it might be fair to say that you were more likely to get accused of heresy if the Inquisition was on the job, and less likely to get off the hook without recanting, but also less likely to end up dead if you were found guilty. The medieval and Roman Inquisitions, at least, much preferred lesser sentences. The civil governments of the late Middle Ages and the early modern period were generally quite ready to kill people at the slightest provocation.

You don’t find Inquisitors generally behaving like the civil judge who told Michael Sattler, “The hangman will dispute with you.”

So there are some things to be said in favor of the Inquisition, but it can’t be said either that it wasn’t run by the Church or that the Church’s involvement was inconsequential.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

At the low end the Spanish Inquisition was estimated at ~2000 and at the high end it is estimated at ~5000 over ~350 years so from almost six a year (that’s like one in a million) to a little over fourteen (one in four hundred thousand) a year. Contrast this with Henry VIII and his 72,000… by hangings and the chopping block!

Where’s your 72,000 figure coming from? It seems highly unlikely to me. Perhaps it’s accurate if you are counting all the executions for any reason carried out in Henry VIII’s reign, which is obviously not a fair comparison.

Edwin

 

[pilots13]

The majority of the deaths were in the first 50 years of the Spanish Inquisition.

No body expected it.

//sorry, had to…

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

Where’s your 72,000 figure coming from? It seems highly unlikely to me. Perhaps it’s accurate if you are counting all the executions for any reason carried out in Henry VIII’s reign, which is obviously not a fair comparison.

Edwin

Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition

 

[Contarini]

Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition

OK–so that’s the total number of people executed for any reason. You should compare it to the total number of people executed in Spain (though maybe that’s not fair, in turn, because Spain was a more populous country I believe), not just to the victims of the Inquisition.

It’s certainly true that the sixteenth century was a time when the death penalty was used very freely, and that the religious violence of the period needs to be seen against that backdrop.

Edwin

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

OK–so that’s the total number of people executed for any reason. You should compare it to the total number of people executed in Spain (though maybe that’s not fair, in turn, because Spain was a more populous country I believe), not just to the victims of the Inquisition.

It’s certainly true that the sixteenth century was a time when the death penalty was used very freely, and that the religious violence of the period needs to be seen against that backdrop.

Edwin

I can’t find statistics for either deaths due to the Act of Supremacy or an over all execution in comparable amount of time

 

[inkaneer]

Two things saved Europe frpom the spread of Islam. In the East the Crusades and in the West it was the Spanish Inquisition. Spain was invaded by Islamists [the Moors] who took up positions in government while pretending to be christian. When they had what was thought to be the critical mass necessary open warfare ensued. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had a tough time of it, so much so that they could only give Columbus three small ships for his voyages westward. In an effort to cleanse Spain and the Iberian peninsula from the Islamic forces King Ferdinand wanted to pursue a course of ousting the Islamists from their positions in his government as he believed he could not trust them. He appealled to Rome for permission to use Dominicans to root out the problems. The Spanish Inquisition was born. The records of the Spanish Inquisition are still available in the Vatican. There were people sentenced to death by the Inquisition. These were for serious crimes against the state such as anarchy, insurrection, murder, spying, aiding and abetting the enemy, etc. What gets lost in the whole process is that the Spanish Inquisition, while using religious personnel, was charged with upholding civil law. It was a governmental in authority. However, that did not stop the creation of the ‘Black Legend’ by protestants in later years which alleged that the Inquisition was an attempt by the church to force people to be Catholic and to suppress protestantism.

Had it not been for both the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition we all might be bowing down to Mecca today.

 

[jschutzm]

That’s not a lie.

Much other persecution was done by secular authorities, and you’re right that in Spain the Inquisition was largely dominated by the State (though still run by church officials).

But the Inquisition, by definition, was a church court.

Sounds like a largely semantic argument. An inquisition doesn’t have to be a religious court.
And I think in answering the over-exaggerated claims of some people who attempt to justify not trusting Catholicism as a whole, based primarily on the Inquisitions ( or at least that’s their smoke screen) I think making the distinction between a court ran by religious personnel and being ran by “The Church” is an important distinction to make.

What further muddies the water is that separation between church and state was, let’s just say, ‘much less defined’ back then. You had Kings being instilled by Popes and Kings using their influence to get certain people appointed Bishops or Priests.

So it makes it extremely hard to draw a line in the sand. And all the time I see people bring in their own biases (myself included) into interpreting the historical facts.

If I borrow from someone and put on their anti-theist hat for a moment, or from a family member… their Protestant hat – I can easily see how I can take the facts and draw a very anti-Catholic interpretation or summary of those facts.

This is also before concepts like “fair trial” and “right to representation”
So I’ve also heard it argued in the Church’s defense that her involvement often times amounted to arguing FOR due process and a fair trial. So the church at least tried to make sure each person had their day in court and was not merely lynched by a mob or killed by the King’s men.

And this was a shade better then heretics and political opponents often times got.

But the whole thing was messy and hard to make heads or tails of it, especially without our cultural and religious biases not entering into it.
Even professional historians are not without their own biases.

 

[Contarini]

I can’t find statistics for either deaths due to the Act of Supremacy or an over all execution in comparable amount of time

If in the latter case you mean Spain (or any other country), I’m not sure that there are such statistics, though there may be. I honestly don’t know if Henry was more bloodthirsty than other rulers of his day–he tends to have that reputation, certainly, but I’m not sure if the evidence bears it out or not.

As for deaths due to the Act of Supremacy, in Henry’s reign–most directly the victims were More, Fisher, and the Carthusian monks. (The Maid of Kent and her supporters don’t technically count by the parameters you laid down, since they were executed some months before the Act was passed.) Of course there were also the rebels of the “Pilgrimage of Grace.”

Certainly only a very small fraction of the 72,000.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

P.,S.

Here’s a list from wikipedia that is considerably more extensive, with over 100 names. It seems reasonable to me, but I haven’t checked its accuracy beyond the instances I already knew about.

 

[Tridentinum]

Persecution under Elizabeth I was far worse than the Inquisition.

 

[Tridentinum]

Yes, the inquisition happened. But what many people lie about is that it was done by church officials.

It was done by church officials. That was precisely the point, to have a court system run by clergy who were experts in theology.

Some church officials may have happened to be involved. But the series of events referred to collectively as the inquisition is nothing more or less than secular government power run amok.

The Spanish Inquisition was run by the State, the Medieval Inquisition and the Roman Inquisition were run by the Church.

 

[NotWorthy]

Two things saved Europe frpom the spread of Islam. In the East the Crusades and in the West it was the Spanish Inquisition.

Had it not been for both the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition we all might be bowing down to Mecca today.

Although I agree with what you said regarding these two events, you’ve GOT to include the Battle of Lepanto as one of the THREE things that saved Europe from Islam.

At the same time, you can call Martin Luther’s little escapade in Germany as one of the reasons Europe almost became Muslim. The Catholics and Protestants came close to ripping each other apart so badly that the Ottoman Turks could have simply waltzed into Europe.

 

[NotWorthy]

If in the latter case you mean Spain (or any other country), I’m not sure that there are such statistics, though there may be. I honestly don’t know if Henry was more bloodthirsty than other rulers of his day–he tends to have that reputation, certainly, but I’m not sure if the evidence bears it out or not.

As for deaths due to the Act of Supremacy, in Henry’s reign–most directly the victims were More, Fisher, and the Carthusian monks. (The Maid of Kent and her supporters don’t technically count by the parameters you laid down, since they were executed some months before the Act was passed.) Of course there were also the rebels of the “Pilgrimage of Grace.”

Certainly only a very small fraction of the 72,000.

Edwin

That’s true. It’s hard to properly categorize the deaths, let alone properly count the actual executions.

For instance, the Peasant Revolt in Germany cost 130,000 lives (estimated) of the common folk. But one can’t adequately say they were Catholic or Protestant… just that they were peasants who figured that if they can rebel against the authority of the Catholic Church, then what’s stopping them from rebelling against the authority of the nobility.

 

[NotWorthy]

It was done by church officials. That was precisely the point, to have a court system run by clergy who were experts in theology.

The Spanish Inquisition was run by the State, the Medieval Inquisition and the Roman Inquisition were run by the Church.

Yes, the Spanish Inquisition was run by the state. The two biggest abusers of the Spanish Inquisition were originally appointed by Kind Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

In 1480 Ferdinand and Isabella appointed two Dominicans, Miguel Morillo and Juan de San Martin, as the first inquisitors in Seville. By 1482 Sixtus IV received reports of torture, unjustifiable imprisonment, and seizure of executed prisoners’ property. He censured the inquisitors and would have deposed them, but Ferdinand and Isabella intervened.