History lessons: what is the Inquisition. What is the Inquisition? Reasons history and essence of the Inquisition

Are you here: Special units

1. Introduction

1 Methods of the Inquisition

2 Trials of scientists

2.1 Nicolaus Copernicus

2.2 Galileo Galilei

2.3 Giordano Bruno

3 Myths about the Great Inquisition

Conclusion

Bibliography

1. Introduction

In the XII-XIII centuries. in Europe, commodity-money relations were further developed, the growth of cities continued, education and the associated free-thinking spread. This process was accompanied by the struggle of the peasantry and burghers against the feudal lords, which took the ideological form of heresies. All this caused the first serious crisis of Catholicism. The Church overcame it through organizational transformations and ideological renewal. Mendicant monastic orders were established, the teaching of Thomas Aquinas about the harmony of faith and reason was adopted as an official doctrine.

To combat heresies, the Catholic Church created a special judicial institution - the Inquisition (from Latin - "search").

It is worth noting that the term Inquisition has existed for a long time, but until the XIII century. did not have a subsequent special meaning, and the church did not yet use it to designate that branch of its activity, which was aimed at persecuting heretics.

The activities of the Inquisition began in the last quarter of the 12th century. In 1184, Pope Lucius III ordered all bishops to search for heretics in places infected with heresy, personally or through persons authorized by them, and, after establishing guilt, hand them over to the secular authorities for the execution of the corresponding punishment. This kind of episcopal courts are called inquisitorial.

The main task of the Inquisition was to determine whether the accused was guilty of heresy.

Since the end of the 15th century, when ideas about the massive presence of witches who have concluded an agreement with evil spirits among the ordinary population begin to spread in Europe, the processes of witches begin to enter into its competence. At the same time, the overwhelming number of judgments about witches was passed by the secular courts of Catholic and Protestant countries in the 16th and 17th centuries. While the Inquisition did persecute witches, virtually every secular government did the same. Towards the end of the 16th century, Roman inquisitors began to express serious doubts in most cases of accusations of witchcraft. Also, since 1451, Pope Nicholas V transferred cases of Jewish pogroms to the competence of the Inquisition. The Inquisition was supposed not only to punish the rioters, but also to act preemptively, preventing violence.

Catholic lawyers attached great importance to honest confession. In addition to the usual interrogations, torture of a suspect was used, as in the secular courts of that time. In the event that the suspect did not die during the investigation, but confessed to his deed and repented, the case materials were transferred to the court. The Inquisition did not allow extrajudicial reprisals.

Some well-known scientists were put on trial by the Inquisition, which will be discussed further.

2.1 Methods of the Inquisition

The Inquisition has operated in almost all Catholic countries for centuries.

The Inquisition is characterized by: secret investigation, the use of informers and false witnesses, the use of torture, confiscation of the property of convicts, the extension of conviction to relatives and descendants up to the third generation, complete arbitrariness in relation to those under investigation. All these methods were also applied to women and children.

The convict was clothed in shameful clothes (sanbenito), he had to go through a painful auto-da-fe procedure. Public abdication, fines, flogging, imprisonment, and burning at the stake were used as punishments. The total number of victims of the Inquisition is estimated at hundreds of thousands, those under investigation - in the millions.

Several periods can be distinguished in the history of the Inquisition: the initial (13-15 centuries), when the Inquisition mainly persecuted popular sectarian movements directed against the feudal order (Cathars, flagellants, etc.); the inquisition during the Renaissance (16-17 centuries), when terror was directed primarily against the champions of humanism, opponents of the papacy, scientists, cultural figures, science; the Inquisition of the Enlightenment (18th century), when the enlighteners and supporters of the French Revolution were persecuted.

During the conquest of America, the Spanish crown transferred the activities of the Inquisition overseas, where it strengthened the power of the colonialists, persecuting the rebellious. The successes of humanism, science and the Reformation, which undermined the foundations of papal influence, prompted Pope Paul III to establish in 1542 "the sacred congregation of the Roman and Ecumenical Inquisition, its sacred court." Among the victims of the papal inquisition were Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei and many other prominent thinkers and scholars of the past.

.2 Trials of scientists

There was a time when ministers and defenders of religion, without far-flung roundabout, simply rejected scientific truths on the sole ground that they contradicted religious doctrine. The earth cannot be round, because in this case, antipodes would have to live on its opposite side, and the Bible does not say anything about this (Augustine the Blessed). It cannot revolve around the Sun, because in the Bible, Joshua ordered the sun to stop, not the earth (Joshua 10:12). There can be no spots on the Sun, for otherwise it would not be a perfect creation of God. Animals and plants cannot evolve, because the creator created each species separately.

Rejecting the objective truths discovered in the course of the development of science, the clergy, for greater persuasiveness, persecuted and persecuted the brilliant people who gave these truths to humanity, tortured them in the dungeons of the Inquisition, burned them alive at the stake.

Possessing in those distant times enormous spiritual (and often secular) power, the church controlled the activities of scientists and forbade them to engage in research that could obviously shake the religious picture of the world.

So in 1163 Pope Alexander III issued a bull banning studying physics or the laws of nature ... Less than a century later, the effect of this bull was experienced by Roger Bacon, who served in the prison of the Inquisition for more than ten years and was released from it shortly before his death. A century later, Pope Benefit VIII prohibited the dissection of corpses. And already in 1317 Pope John XXII issued a bull, which forbade alchemy. In fact, she was recognized as illegal occupations and chemistry as one of them seven devilish arts ... Those who ignored the prohibitions were punished, persecuted and executed. In the XIII century. the Catholic Church created the Inquisition - a tribunal for reprisals against heretics, to whom scientists were equated.

The Christian doctrine gave the first crack in 1543 with the publication of the famous work of Copernicus On the Reversal of the Heavenly Circles ... The question of the shape of the Earth, its place in the solar system and at the previous stage gave the church some trouble, with which it, however, coped quite easily. When in the XIV Peter D'Abano and Cecco D'Ascoli defended the doctrine of the sphericity of the Earth, the second of them was burned at the stake of the Inquisition, and the first escaped the same fate only as a result of natural death. But back to Copernicus and his heliocentric system. The theory of the great Polish astronomer dealt a blow to the foundations of Christian teaching. She denied the Ptolemy system, which was in close agreement with the biblical myth of Joshua, who stopped the sun. The ideologues of Catholicism and Protestantism greeted Copernicus's book with selective curses. So Luther wrote: The audience listens to the voice of the new astrologer, who is trying to prove that the Earth rotates, and not the heavens or the firmament, not the Sun and the Moon ...

Chronologically, Giordano Bruno became the first victim among the champions of the Copernican doctrine. The inquisitors imprisoned the philosopher and scientist in prison, tortured him for eight years, forcing him to refuse heresies , but, not having achieved their goal, they burned at the stake in 1600. Indeed, Copernicanism was not the only reason for his persecution. A set of all accusations of heresy that could be imputed to any enemy of the Catholic Church was brought against Bruno: condemnation of the church and its ministers, disbelief in the holy trinity, denial of the eternity of hellish torments, recognition of the plurality of inhabited worlds, etc.

Soon the epic of the struggle of the church against Galileo began, which lasted from 1616 until his death in 1642. After the publication of the book Dialogue about the two main systems of the world - Ptolemaic and Copernican (1632), the Inquisition subjected her expertise ... The conclusion was that this teaching stupid and absurd in a philosophical and heretical in a formal sense, since it clearly contradicts the sayings of holy scripture in many of its places, both in the meaning of the words of the scripture and in the general interpretation of the holy fathers and learned theologians ... After that, Galileo was twice summoned to Rome for interrogation before the tribunal of the Inquisition. The nature and tone of the interrogations showed the scientist that he was facing the fate of Giordano Bruno. On pain of death, the Inquisition forced the seventy-year-old sick Galileo to renounce his convictions in writing and repent before the court.

In 1558, the great scientist and physician M. Servet was sent to the fire, who discovered the small circle of blood circulation. At the beginning of the 17th century. The theological faculty of the University of Paris issued an immediately enacted decree on the expulsion from Paris of the geologists de Clave, Bitot and de Villon and on the destruction of their writings. In the middle of the 18th century. repression fell upon the learned Buffon. He had no choice but to publicly proclaim: I declare that I had no intention of contradicting the text of scripture, that I believe most firmly in everything that the Bible says about the creation of the world in relation to both time and fact itself; I refuse everything that is said in my book regarding the formation of the Earth, and in general everything that may turn out to be contrary to the story of Moses ... Back in the middle of the 18th century. the mathematician and astronomer Boskovich had to resort to these tricks: ... full of respect for the Holy Scriptures and the decree of the Holy Inquisition, I consider the Earth motionless; however, for the sake of simplicity, I will reason as if it were moving ... In Italy in the second half of the 16th century. I. Porta, who was engaged in research in the field of meteorology, optics and chemistry, was summoned to Pope Paul III, who ordered him to stop his witchcraft activity and dissolve the society of naturalists organized by him. In 1624, a similar society, created in Paris, was also banned as a result of the intervention of the theological faculty of the Sorbonne. The Church opposed the Accademia del Linchei in Rome, she managed to force the Accademia del Cimento in Florence to cease to exist 10 years after its inception.

Let us consider in more detail such great scientists as N. Copernicus, Galileo and J. Bruno.

medieval inquisition church science

2.2.1 Nicolaus Copernicus

The Polish astronomer, the creator of the heliocentric system of the world, made a revolution in natural science, abandoning the doctrine of the central position of the Earth, accepted for many centuries. He explained the visible movements of the celestial bodies by the rotation of the Earth around the axis and the rotation of the planets around the Sun.

He expounded his teaching in the essay "On the Conversions of the Heavenly Spheres" (1543), prohibited by the Catholic Church from 1616 to 1828. The story of Copernicus's discovery serves as a vivid illustration of how difficult it is for Man to comprehend the natural world around him, how imperfect and conservative human thinking is in comprehending seemingly so obvious phenomena, and how aggressive and cruel people are in defending their delusions.

Copernicus's model of the world was a colossal step forward and a crushing blow to archaic authorities. The reduction of the Earth to the level of an ordinary planet definitely prepared (contrary to Aristotle) Newtonian combination of earthly and heavenly natural laws.

The Catholic Church, engaged in the struggle against the Reformation, initially reacted condescendingly to the new astronomy, especially since the leaders of the Protestants (Martin Luther, Melanchthon) reacted sharply to it with hostility. This was also due to the fact that the observations of the Sun and the Moon contained in the book of Copernicus were useful for the forthcoming reform of the calendar. Pope Clement VII even listened sympathetically to a lecture on the heliocentric approach by the scientist Cardinal Wigmanstadt. Although some bishops even then came out with fierce criticism of heliocentrism as a dangerous god-repugnant heresy.

In 1616, under Pope Paul V, the Catholic Church officially banned the adherence and defense of Copernicus's theory as a heliocentric system of the world, since such an interpretation is contrary to Scripture, although the heliocentric model could still be used to calculate the motion of the planets. At the request of the Inquisition, the Theological Commission of Experts considered two provisions that incorporated the essence of Copernicus' teachings and delivered the following verdict:

Assumption I: The sun is the center of the universe and, therefore, is motionless. Everyone believes that this statement is absurd and absurd from a philosophical point of view, and besides, it is formally heretical, since its expressions in many respects contradict Holy Scripture, according to the literal meaning of the words, as well as the usual interpretation and understanding of the Fathers of the Church and teachers of theology.

Assumption II: The Earth is not the center of the universe, it is not motionless and moves as an integral (body) and, moreover, makes a daily circulation. All believe that this position deserves the same philosophical condemnation; from the point of view of theological truth, it is at least erroneous in faith.

Contrary to popular belief, the very book of Copernicus "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" was formally banned by the Inquisition for only 4 years, but was censored. In 1616, it was added to the Roman Index of Prohibited Books with the mark “until correction”. The required censorship amendments, which had to be made to the owners of the book for further use, were made public in 1620.

.2.2 Galileo Galilei

Galileo, perhaps more than any other individual, is responsible for the birth of modern science. The famous dispute with the Catholic Church was central to Galileo's philosophy, for he was one of the first to declare that man has the hope of understanding how the world works, and, moreover, that this can be achieved by observing our real world.

Galileo from the very beginning believed in the theory of Copernicus (that the planets revolve around the sun), but he began to publicly support it only when he found its confirmation. Galileo wrote his works on the theory of Copernicus in Italian (and not in accepted academic Latin), and soon his ideas spread far beyond the universities. This did not improve the adherents of the teachings of Aristotle, who united against Galileo, trying to force the Catholic Church to anathematize the teachings of Copernicus.

Excited by what was happening, Galileo went to Rome to consult with church authorities. He stated that the purpose of the Bible does not include any kind of coverage of scientific theories and that those passages in the Bible that conflict with common sense should be taken as an allegory. But, fearing a scandal that could interfere with her fight against the Protestants, the Church turned to repressive measures. In 1616, Copernicus's teachings were declared "false and erroneous," and Galileo was forever forbidden to defend or adhere to this doctrine. Galileo gave up.

In 1623, one of Galileo's old friends became Pope. Galileo immediately began to seek the abolition of the decree of 1616. He failed, but managed to get permission to write a book discussing both the theory of Aristotle and the theory of Copernicus. He was given two conditions: he had no right to accept either side and had to conclude that a person would never be able to find out how the world works, because God knows how to cause the same effects in ways that are not accessible to the imagination of a person who cannot impose limits on God's omnipotence.

Galileo's book "Dialogue on the Two Major Systems of the World" was completed and published in 1632 with the full approval of the censorship and was immediately noted throughout Europe as a literary and philosophical masterpiece. Soon, however, the Pope realized that this book was perceived as a convincing support for Copernicus' theory, and regretted allowing it to be published. The Pope declared that, despite the official blessing of the censorship, Galileo nevertheless violated the decree of 1616. Galileo was brought before the Inquisition's court and was sentenced to life house arrest and a public renunciation of the Copernican teachings. Galileo had to submit again.

Remaining a devoted Catholic, Galileo did not hesitate in his faith in the independence of science. Four years before his death, in 1642, while still under house arrest, he secretly sent the manuscript of his second major book, Two New Sciences, to a Dutch publishing house. It was this work, more than his support for Copernicus, that gave birth to modern science.

Giordano Bruno

Jorda ?but bru ?but (Italian Giordano Bruno; real name Filippo, nickname - Bruno Nolanets; 1548, Nola near Naples - February 17, 1600, Rome) - Italian Dominican monk, philosopher and poet, representative of pantheism.

As a Catholic monk, Giordano Bruno developed Neoplatonism in the spirit of Renaissance naturalism, trying to give in this vein a philosophical interpretation of Copernicus' teachings.

Bruno expressed a number of guesses that were ahead of the era and were justified only by subsequent astronomical discoveries: that the stars are distant suns, that there were planets unknown in his time within our solar system, that in the Universe there are countless bodies similar to ours. The sun. Bruno was not the first to think about the multiplicity of worlds and the infinity of the Universe: before him, such ideas belonged to the ancient atomists, Epicureans, Nicholas of Cusansky.

He was condemned by the Catholic Church as a heretic and sentenced by the secular court of Rome to death by burning. In 1889, almost three centuries later, a monument was erected in his honor at the site of Giordano Bruno's execution.

In 1591, Bruno accepted an invitation from the young Venetian aristocrat Giovanni Mocenigo to teach the art of memory and moved to Venice. However, soon the relationship between Bruno and Mocenigo soured. On May 23, 1592, Mocenigo sent his first denunciation to Bruno to the Venetian inquisitor, in which he wrote:

I, Giovanni Mocenigo, report out of my debt of conscience and by order of my confessor that I heard from Giordano Bruno many times when I talked with him in my home that the world is eternal and there are endless worlds ... that Christ performed imaginary miracles and was a magician, that Christ was dying not willingly and, as best he could, tried to avoid death; that there is no retribution for sins; that souls, created by nature, pass from one living being to another. He talked about his intention to become the founder of a new sect called "New Philosophy." He said that the Virgin Mary could not give birth; monks dishonor the world; that they are all donkeys; that we have no proof of whether our faith has merit before God.

May and 26 May 1592 Mocenigo sent new denunciations against Bruno, after which the philosopher was arrested and imprisoned. On September 17, Rome received a demand from Venice to extradite Bruno for trial in Rome. The public influence of the accused, the number and nature of the heresies of which he was suspected, were so great that the Venetian Inquisition did not dare to end this process itself.

February 1593 Bruno was transported to Rome. He spent six years in Roman prisons, refusing to admit his natural-philosophical and metaphysical convictions were a mistake.

On January 1600, Pope Clement VIII approved the decision of the congregation and ordered the transfer of Brother Giordano into the hands of the secular authorities.

February, the Inquisition Tribunal, by its verdict, recognized Bruno as "an unrepentant, stubborn and unyielding heretic." Bruno was defrocked and excommunicated. He was handed over to the court of the governor of Rome, instructing to subject him to "the most merciful punishment and without the shedding of blood," which meant the requirement to be burned alive.

In response to the verdict, Bruno said to the judges: "Probably, you pass my verdict with greater fear than I listen to," and repeated several times, "Burning does not mean refuting!"

By decision of a secular court on February 17, 1600, Bruno was burnt to death in Rome on the Square of Flowers (Italian: Campo dei Fiori). The executioners brought Bruno to the place of execution with a gag in his mouth, tied him to a pole in the center of the fire with an iron chain and pulled him with a wet rope, which, under the influence of fire, pulled together and cut into the body. Bruno's last words were: "I am dying a martyr willingly and I know that my soul will ascend to heaven with its last breath."

All of Giordano Bruno's works were entered in 1603 in the Catholic Index of Forbidden Books and were there until its last edition in 1948.

June 1889 in Rome, a monument was solemnly unveiled on the same Square of Flowers, where the Inquisition put him to death about 300 years ago. The statue depicts Bruno in full growth. At the bottom of the pedestal there is an inscription: "Giordano Bruno - from the century that he foresaw, at the place where the fire was lit".

On the 400th anniversary of Bruno's death, Cardinal Angelo Sodano called Bruno's execution "a sad episode", but nevertheless pointed to the loyalty of the actions of the inquisitors, who, in his words, "did everything possible to save his life." The head of the Roman Catholic Church also refused to consider the issue of his rehabilitation, considering the actions of the inquisitors to be justified.

Myths about the Great Inquisition

The Inquisition methodically persecuted and destroyed scientists, in every possible way opposing science. The main symbol of this myth is Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake for his beliefs. It turns out that, firstly, the scientist conducted propaganda against the church, and, secondly, it is difficult to name him and scientists, since he studied the advantage of occult sciences. Giordano Bruno, being, by the way, a monk of the Dominican order, while reasoning about the transmigration of souls, was clearly a target for the Inquisition. In addition, the circumstances developed against Bruno, which led to a sad end. After the execution of the scientist, the inquisitors began to look suspiciously at the theory of Copernicus, as Giordano Bruno skillfully linked it with the occult. The activities of Copernicus did not raise any questions, no one forced him to renounce his theory. The example of Galileo is widely known, but more famous scientists who suffered from the Inquisition for their scientific work are not remembered. In parallel with the church courts in Europe, universities coexisted peacefully, so it would be unfair to accuse the Inquisition of obscurantism.

The Church introduced a law that the earth is flat and that it does not turn, punishing those who disagree. It is believed that it was the church that approved the dogma that the earth is flat. However, this is not true. The author of this idea (it is also called geocentric) was Ptolemy, which at the time of its creation was quite scientific. By the way, the creator of the theory himself outlined current research in the field of sphere geometry. Ptolemy's theory gained widespread acceptance over time, but not at all because of its advancement by the church. After all, the Bible does not say anything at all either about the shape of our planet, or about the trajectories of celestial bodies.

Conclusion

The struggle of religions against science is a phenomenon characteristic of all confessions. In this regard, the fate of the largest book depository of antiquity - the Library of Alexandria, which has concentrated hundreds of thousands of valuable manuscripts, is noteworthy. It was defeated by fanatics of early Christianity, and a century later, in 642, Muslim fanatics were finally destroyed.

Science and religion could not find a "common language" for a long time. For a long time, religious leaders could not accept the decisions of science as a weighty argument; rather, they were even afraid that a new force had appeared. Science could practically explain many natural phenomena or the world around us (the structure of the universe, stars, planets, laws of physics).

In this dispute, the Inquisition acted as a "shield" from scientific innovations, believing that discoveries could undermine the authority of the church, find a refutation of the existence of God.

The measures taken by the Inquisition were very brutal, but not as effective as scientists continued to work, although they understood that they would have to pay for the possibility of discoveries and new knowledge at the cost of their good name, or, moreover, at the cost of their own lives.

Bibliography

1.Stephen Hawking: A Brief History of Time. From the big bang to black holes. - SPB .; Amphora; year 2001;

Origin of the term

The ecclesiastical tribunal, which was entrusted with the "detection, punishment and prevention of heresies", was established in southern France by Gregory IX in 1229. This institution reached its climax in 1478, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, with the approval of Pope Sixtus IV, established the Spanish Inquisition.

The Congregation of the Sacred Chancellery was established in 1542, replacing the "Great Roman Inquisition", and in 1917 it was also transferred the functions of the abolished Congregation of the Index.

Goals and means

Torture applied to those accused of heresy. Engraving 1508.

The main task of the Inquisition was to determine whether the accused was guilty of heresy.

IX. In the early days of the Inquisition, there was no prosecutor who was required to prosecute suspects; this formality of legal proceedings was carried out verbally by the inquisitor after hearing witnesses; the consciousness of the accused served as an accusation and a response. If the accused pleaded guilty to one heresy, he vainly assured that he was not guilty in relation to others; he was not allowed to defend himself because the crime for which he was being tried had already been proven. He was only asked whether he was inclined to make a renunciation of the heresy of which he had pleaded guilty. If he agreed, then he was reconciled with the Church, imposing canonical penance on him simultaneously with some other punishment. Otherwise, he was declared a stubborn heretic, and he was betrayed into the hands of the secular authorities with a copy of the verdict.

The death penalty, like confiscation, was a measure that, in theory, the Inquisition did not apply. Her business was to use every effort to bring the heretic back into the fold of the Church; if he persisted, or if his conversion was feigned, she had nothing more to do with him. As not a Catholic, he was not subject to the jurisdiction of the Church, which he rejected, and the Church was forced to declare him a heretic and deprive him of her patronage. The original sentence was only a simple condemnation of heresy and was accompanied by excommunication or a declaration that the guilty party was no longer considered to be within the jurisdiction of the Church; sometimes it was added that he was being handed over to the secular court, that he was released - a terrible expression that meant that the direct intervention of the Church in his fate had already ended. With the passage of time, the sentences became more lengthy; A remark often already begins to come across, explaining that the Church can no longer do anything to atone for the sins of the guilty, and his transfer into the hands of secular power is accompanied by the following significant words: debita animadversione puniendum, that is, "let him be punished according to his deserts." The hypocritical treatment, in which the Inquisition implored the secular authorities to spare the life and body of the fallen, is not found in ancient sentences and has never been formulated precisely.

Inquisitor Pegna does not hesitate to admit that this appeal to mercy was an empty formality, and explains that they resorted to it only for the purpose that it would not seem that the inquisitors would agree to the shedding of blood, as this would be a violation of canonical rules. But at the same time, the Church was vigilant to ensure that its resolution was not misinterpreted. She taught that there can be no question of any condescension if the heretic does not repent and testifies to his sincerity by betraying all his like-minded people. The inexorable logic of St. Thomas Aquinas clearly established that the secular government could not but put the heretics to death, and that only because of her boundless love, the Church could turn to heretics twice with words of conviction before handing them over to the secular authorities for a well-deserved punishment. The inquisitors themselves did not hide this in the least and constantly taught that the heretic they had condemned should be put to death; this is evident, among other things, from the fact that they refrained from pronouncing their sentence on him within the confines of the church fence, which would have been desecrated by the death penalty, but pronounced it in the square where the last action of the auto-da-fe took place. One of their 13th century doctors, quoted in the 14th century by Bernard Guy, argues this: “The purpose of the Inquisition is to destroy heresy; heresy cannot be destroyed without the destruction of the heretics; and heretics cannot be destroyed unless the defenders and supporters of heresy are also destroyed, and this can be achieved in two ways: by converting them to the true Catholic faith or by turning their flesh to ashes after they are handed over to the secular authorities. "

The main historical stages

Chronologically, the history of the Inquisition can be divided into three stages:

pre-Dominican (persecution of heretics until the XII century);
Dominican (since the Cathedral of Toulouse in 1229);

In the first period, the trial of heretics was part of the functions of episcopal authority, and their persecution was temporary and accidental; in the second, permanent inquisition tribunals are created under the special jurisdiction of Dominican monks; in the 3rd, the inquisitional system is closely linked with the interests of monarchical centralization in Spain and the claims of its sovereigns to political and religious supremacy in Europe, first serving as an instrument of struggle against the Moors and Jews, and then, together with the Jesuit Order, being the fighting force of the Catholic reaction of the 16th century against Protestantism.

Persecution of heretics until the 12th century

The embryos of the Inquisition can be found even in the first centuries of Christianity - in the duty of deacons to seek out and correct errors in the faith, in the judicial power of bishops over heretics. The episcopal court was simple and not distinguished by cruelty; the most severe punishment at that time was excommunication.

Since the recognition of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire, civilians have also joined the ecclesiastical punishments. In 316, Constantine the Great issued an edict ordering the Donatists to confiscate their property. The threat of death was first pronounced by Theodosius the Great in 382 in relation to the Manicheans, and in 385 it was carried out over the Priscillians.

In Charlemagne's capitulations, there are ordinances that oblige bishops to monitor the morals and correct confession of faith in their dioceses, and to eradicate pagan customs on the Saxon borders. In 844, Charles the Bald ordered the bishops to establish the people in the faith through sermons, to investigate and correct their errors (“ut populi errata inquirant et corrigant”).

In the 9th and 10th centuries. bishops achieve a high degree of power; in the XI century, during the persecution of the patarens in Italy, their activities are distinguished by great energy. Already in this era, the church more readily turns to violent measures against heretics than to means of exhortation. The most severe punishments for heretics already at that time were confiscation of property and burning at the stake. This is how Anna Comnena describes in the "Alexiada" the burning at the stake of Bogomil Basil in 1118, speaking of the emperor that he made a decision "new, unusual in character, unheard of in his courage."

Dominican period

The word "Inquisition", in a technical sense, was used for the first time at the Cathedral of Tours in 1163 (English) Russian , and at the Council of Toulouse in 1229, the apostolic legate “mandavit inquisitionem fieri contra haereticos suspectatos de haeretica pravitate”.

In Germany, the Inquisition was initially directed against the Steding tribe, who defended their independence from the Archbishop of Bremen, Here it met with a general protest. The first inquisitor of Germany was Konrad of Marburg; in 1233 he was killed during a popular uprising, and the following year his two chief assistants suffered the same fate. On this occasion, the Worms Chronicle says: "in this way, with God's help, Germany was freed from the vile and unheard-of judgment." Later, Pope Urban V, with the support of Emperor Charles IV, again appointed two Dominicans to Germany as inquisitors; however, even after that, the Inquisition did not develop here. The last traces of it were destroyed by the reformation. The Inquisition even penetrated England to fight against the teachings of Wycliffe and his followers; but here its significance was negligible.

Of the Slavic states, the Inquisition existed only in Poland, and even then for a very short time. In general, this institution took more or less deep roots only in Spain, Portugal and Italy, where Catholicism had a deep influence on the minds and character of the population.

Spanish Inquisition

The Spanish Inquisition, which emerged in the 13th century as an echo of modern events in southern France, revives with renewed vigor at the end of the 15th century, receives a new organization and acquires enormous political significance. Spain represented the most favorable conditions for the development of the Inquisition. The centuries-old struggle with the Moors contributed to the development of religious fanaticism among the people, which the Dominicans who settled here successfully took advantage of. There were many non-Christians, namely Jews and Moors, in the areas reclaimed from the Moors by the Christian kings of the Iberian Peninsula. The Moors and the Jews who assimilated their education were the most enlightened, productive and prosperous elements of the population. Their wealth inspired the envy of the people and presented a temptation to the government. Already at the end of the XIV century, a large number of Jews and Moors were forced to accept Christianity (see Marrans and Moriscos), but many even after that continued to secretly profess the religion of the fathers.

The systematic persecution of these suspicious Christians by the Inquisition begins with the unification of Castile and Aragon into one monarchy, under Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand the Catholic, who reorganized the inquisitorial system. The motive for the reorganization was not so much religious fanaticism as the desire to use the Inquisition to strengthen the state unity of Spain and increase state revenues by confiscating the property of convicts. The soul of the new Inquisition in Spain was Isabella's confessor, the Dominican Torquemada. In 1478, a bull was received from Sixtus IV, allowing the "Catholic kings" to establish a new Inquisition, and in 1480 its first tribunal was established in Seville; he opened his activity at the beginning of the next year, and by the end of it he could already boast of the legend of the execution of 298 heretics. The result was a general panic and a series of complaints about the actions of the tribunal, addressed to the pope, mainly from the bishops. In response to these complaints, Sixtus IV in 1483 ordered the inquisitors to adhere to the same rigor towards heretics, and entrusted the consideration of appeals against the actions of the Inquisition to the Archbishop of Seville, Iñigo Manriquez. A few months later, he appointed a great gene. Inquisitor of Castile and Aragon Torquemado, who completed the transformation of the Spanish Inquisition.

The Inquisitorial Tribunal initially consisted of a chairman, 2 legal assessors and 3 royal advisers. This organization soon turned out to be insufficient and instead of it a whole system of inquisitorial institutions was created: the central inquisitorial council (so-called Consejo de la suprema) and 4 local tribunals, the number of which was later increased to 10. The property confiscated from heretics constituted a fund of which raised funds for the maintenance of the inquisitorial tribunals and which, at the same time, served as a source of enrichment for the papal and royal treasury. In 1484, Torquemada appointed a general congress of all members of the Spanish Inquisitional Tribunals in Seville, and a code was developed here (first 28 decrees; 11 were added later), regulating the inquisition process.

Since then, the work of cleansing Spain of heretics and non-Christians began to advance rapidly, especially after 1492, when Torquemada succeeded in getting the Catholic kings to expel all Jews from Spain. The results of the extermination activities of the Spanish Inquisition under Torquemada, in the period from 1481 to 1498, are expressed in the following figures: about 8,800 people were burned at the stake; 90,000 people were subject to confiscation of property and church punishment; in addition, images, in the form of effigies or portraits, of 6,500 people who escaped execution by flight or death were burned. In Castile, the Inquisition was popular with the fanatical crowd that gladly gathered at the auto da-fé, and Torquemada was held in high esteem until his death. But in Aragon, the actions of the Inquisition repeatedly provoked outbursts of popular indignation; during one of them, Pedro Arbuez, the president of the Inquisitorial Court in Zaragoza, who was not inferior in cruelty to Torquemada, was killed in a church in the city of Torquemada's successors, Diego Desa and especially Jimenez, the archbishop of Toledo and Isabella's confessor, finished the work of the religious unification of Spain.

Several years after the conquest of Granada, the Moors were persecuted for their faith, despite the provision of religious freedom for them by the terms of the 1492 surrender treaty. In 1502, they were ordered to either be baptized or leave Spain. Some of the Moors left their homeland, the majority were baptized; however, the baptized Moors (Moriscos) did not escape persecution and were finally expelled from Spain by Philip III in 1609. The expulsion of Jews, Moors and Moriscos, who made up more than 3 million of the population, and, moreover, the most educated, hardworking and wealthy, entailed incalculable losses for Spanish agriculture, industry and trade, which did not prevent Spain from becoming the richest country, creating a powerful fleet and colonizing large open spaces in the New World.

Jimenez destroyed the last remnants of the episcopal opposition. The Spanish Inquisition infiltrated the Netherlands and Portugal and served as a model for the Italian and French inquisitors. In the Netherlands, it was installed by Charles V in 1522 and was the reason for the falling away of the northern Netherlands from Spain under Philip II. In Portugal, the Inquisition was introduced in 1536 and from here it spread to the Portuguese colonies in the East Indies, where Goa was its center.

Inquisition in the Russian Empire

In the Russian Empire, an organization with a similar name, the Order of Proto-Inquisitorial Affairs, was created in 1711 by decree of Peter I to supervise bishops in their ecclesiastical economic and judicial activities in matters of little importance. The spiritual inquisitors included representatives of the black and white clergy. All of them were subordinate to the provincial inquisitors of the cities where the bishops' houses were located. The provincial inquisitors were subordinate to the Moscow proto-inquisitor. Paphnutius, Archimandrite of the Danilov Monastery in Moscow, was appointed the first Moscow proto-inquisitor. In turn, he obeyed the Synod. Before sending his denunciation, the spiritual inquisitor had to notify the higher authorities of the accused by him or the local bishop. If the case ended in a fine, after its appointment and payment, half of the money was due to the informer. In 1724, the Order of Proto-Inquisitorial Affairs ceased to exist, but the positions of inquisitors were abolished only on January 25, 1727.

Other countries

On the model of the Spanish inquisition system, in 1542 a "congregation of the Holy Inquisition" was established in Rome, the authority of which was unconditionally recognized in the Duchies of Milan and Tuscany; in the Kingdom of Naples and the Republic of Venice, its actions were subject to government control. In France, Henry II tried to establish the Inquisition on the same model, and Francis II, in 1559, transferred the functions of the Inquisition Court to Parliament, where a special department was formed for this, the so-called. chambres ardentes (chamber of fire).

The actions of the Inquisitional Tribunal were clothed with strict secrecy. There was a system of espionage and denunciations. As soon as the accused or suspect was brought to trial by the Inquisition, a preliminary interrogation began, the results of which were presented to the tribunal. If the latter found the case to be subject to his jurisdiction, which usually happened, then the informers and witnesses were again questioned and their testimony, along with all the evidence; were submitted to the Dominican theologians, the so-called qualifiers of the Holy Inquisition.

If the qualifiers spoke out against the accused, he was immediately taken to a secret prison, after which all communication between the prisoner and the outside world ceased. This was followed by the first three audiences, during which the inquisitors, without announcing the points of accusation to the defendant, tried to confuse him in the answers by means of questions and by cunning to siphon off his consciousness in the crimes against him. In the case of consciousness, he was placed in the category of "repentant" and could count on the leniency of the court; in the case of persistent denial of guilt, the accused, at the request of the prosecutor, was brought into the torture chamber. After the torture, the tortured victim was again brought into the audience room and only now was she introduced to the charges, to which they demanded an answer. The accused was asked whether he wanted to defend himself or not, and, if the answer was yes, he was asked to choose his own defense counsel from the list of persons drawn up by his own prosecutors. It is clear that the defense under such conditions was nothing more than a gross mockery of the victim of the tribunal. At the end of the process, which often lasted several months, the qualifiers were invited again and gave their final opinion on the case, almost always - not in favor of the defendant.

Then came the verdict, which could be appealed to the Supreme Inquisitional Tribunal or to the Pope. However, the success of the appeals was unlikely. "Suprema" as a rule did not overturn the sentences of the inquisitorial courts, and for the success of the appeal to Rome, the intercession of wealthy friends was necessary, since the convict, whose property was confiscated, no longer had significant sums of money. If the sentence was canceled, the prisoner was released, but without any remuneration for the torture, humiliation and losses experienced; otherwise, sanbenito and auto-da-fe were in store for him.

Even the sovereigns were in awe of the Inquisition. Even such persons as the Spanish Archbishop Carranza, Cardinal Cesare Borgia, and others could not escape her persecution.

The influence of the Inquisition on the intellectual development of Europe in the 16th century becomes especially disastrous, when it, together with the Jesuit order, managed to take possession of the censorship of books. In the 17th century, the number of her victims decreases significantly. XVIII century with his ideas of religious tolerance was a time of further decline and finally the complete abolition of the Inquisition in many European states: torture is completely eliminated from the inquisition process in Spain, and the number of executions is reduced to 2 - 3, or even less, per year. In Spain, the Inquisition was destroyed by decree of Joseph Bonaparte on December 4, 1808. According to the statistics collected in Loriente's work, it turns out that 341,021 people were persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition from 1481 to 1809; of which 31,912 were personally burned, 17,659 - in effigie, 291,460 were imprisoned and other punishments. In Portugal, the Inquisition was severely limited to the ministry of Pombal, and under John VI (1818 - 26) it was completely destroyed. In France, it was destroyed in 1772, in Tuscany and Parma - in 1769, in Sicily - in 1782, in Rome - in 1809. In 1814 the Inquisition was re-established in Spain by Ferdinand Vll; destroyed for the second time by the Cortes in 1820, it is revived again for a while, until finally, in 1834, it is abolished forever; her property is used to pay off the state debt. In Sardinia, the Inquisition lasted until 1840, in Tuscany until 1852; in Rome, the Inquisition was restored by Pius VII in 1814 (existed until 1908)

Major historical dates

Victims of the Inquisition. Criticism

In his book Tales of Witchcraft and Magic (1852), Thomas Wright, Corresponding Member of the National Institute of France, states:

Of the multitudes of people who died for witchcraft at the stake in Germany during the first half of the seventeenth century, there were many whose crime was their adherence to the religion of Luther.<…>and the petty princes were not opposed to seizing any opportunity to replenish their chests ... the most persecuted were those with significant fortunes ... In Bamberg, as in Würzburg, the bishop was a sovereign prince in his domain. The prince-bishop, John George II, who ruled Bamberg ... after several unsuccessful attempts to uproot Lutheranism, glorified his rule with a series of bloody witch trials that disgraced the chronicles of this city ... We can get some idea of the deeds of his worthy agent (Frederick Ferner, Bishop of Bamberg) according to the most reliable sources that between 1625 and 1630. at least 900 trials took place in two courts of Bamberg and Zeil; and in an article published by the authorities in Bamberg in 1659, it is reported that the number of persons whom Bishop John George had burnt at the stake for witchcraft had reached 600.

Also Thomas Wright gives a list (document) of the victims of twenty-nine burnings. In this list, people professing Lutheranism were designated as "strangers." As a result, the victims of these burnings were:

“Alien” men and women, that is, Protestants - 28.
Citizens, wealthy people - 100.
Boys, girls and small children - 34.

Among the witches were little girls from seven to ten years old, and twenty-seven of them were sentenced and burned. The number of those brought to trial with this terrible legal proceeding was so great that the judges did not delve much into the essence of the case, and it became a common occurrence that they did not even bother to write down the names of the accused, but designated them as the accused No.; 1, 2, 3, etc.

Thomas Wright, Tales of Witchcraft and Magic

Literature

Pre-revolutionary research

V. Velichkina. Essays on the History of the Inquisition (1906).
N.N. Gusev. Tales of the Inquisition (1906).
N. Ya. Kadmin. The Philosophy of Murder (1913; reprinted 2005).
A. Lebedev. Secrets of the Inquisition (1912).
N. Osokin. History of the Albigensians and Their Time (1869-1872).
M.N. Pokrovsky. Medieval heresies and the Inquisition (in the Book for reading on the history of the Middle Ages, ed. By PG Vinogradov, issue 2, 1897).
M.I.Semevsky. Word and deed. Secret search of Peter I (1884; reprinted, 1991, 2001).
J. Kantorovich. Medieval Witch Trials (1899)

Literature of the Soviet and post-Soviet period

N.V. Budur. The Inquisition: Geniuses and Villains (2006).
M. Ya. Vygodsky. Galileo and the Inquisition (1934).
S.V. Gordeev. History of Religions: Major World Religions, Ancient Ceremonies, Religious Wars, Christian Bible, Witches and the Inquisition (2005).
I.R. Grigulevich.

The Inquisition is a tribunal of the Catholic Church that carried out investigative, judicial and punitive functions; has a long history. Its emergence is associated with the struggle against heretics - those who preached religious views that did not meet the dogmas established by the church. The first known heretic to be burned at the stake for his convictions in 1124 was Peter of Bruy, who demanded the abolition of the church hierarchy. No "legal" basis has yet been provided for this act. It began to take shape at the end of the 12th - first third of the 13th centuries.

In 1184, Pope Lucius III convened a council in Verona, the decisions of which obliged the clergy to collect information about heretics and to search for them. According to the papal bull, the bones of previously deceased heretics, as desecrating Christian cemeteries, were subject to exhumation and burning, and property inherited by someone close to them was confiscated. This was a kind of prelude to the emergence of the institution of the Inquisition. The generally accepted date of its creation is 1229, when the church hierarchs, at their council in Toulouse, announced the creation of a tribunal of the Inquisition, intended for the search, trial and punishment of heretics. In 1231 and 1233. Three bulls of Pope Gregory IX followed, obliging all Catholics to implement the decision of the Toulouse council.

Church punitive organs appeared in Italy (with the exception of the Kingdom of Naples), Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Germany, in the Portuguese colony of Goa, and after the discovery of the New World - in Mexico, Brazil and Peru.

After the invention of printing by Johannes Gutenberg in the middle of the 15th century. the tribunals of the Inquisition actually assumed the functions of censors. Year after year the list of prohibited books was replenished and by 1785 it amounted to more than 5 thousand titles. Among them are books by French and English educators, the Encyclopedia by Denis Diderot, and others.

The most influential and brutal inquisition was in Spain. In essence, the idea of the Inquisition and the inquisitors was formed under the influence of information about the persecution and reprisals against heretics associated with the name of Thomas de Torquemada, with his life and work. These are the darkest pages in the history of the Inquisition. The personality of Torquemada, described by historians, theologians, psychiatrists, is of interest to this day.

Thomas de Torquemada was born in 1420. His childhood and adolescence left no evidence of serious emotional upheavals and mental deviations. During his school years, he served as an example of decency not only for classmates, but even for teachers. After becoming a monk of the Dominican order, he was distinguished by an impeccable attitude to the traditions of the order and the monastic way of life, and he thoroughly performed religious rituals. The order, founded in 1215 by the Spanish monk Domingo de Guzman (Latinized name Dominic) and approved by the papal bull on December 22, 1216, was the main pillar of the papacy in the fight against heresy.

Torquemada's deep piety did not go unnoticed. Rumor about her reached Queen Isabella, and she more than once offered him to lead large parishes. He invariably responded with a polite refusal. However, when Isabella wished to have him as her confessor, Torquemada considered it a great honor. In all likelihood, he managed to infect the queen with his religious fanaticism. His influence on the life of the royal court was significant. In 1483, having received the title of Grand Inquisitor, he practically headed the Spanish Catholic tribunal.

The verdict of the secret court of the Inquisition could be a public abdication, a fine, imprisonment and, finally, burning at the stake - the church has applied it for 7 centuries. The last execution took place in Valencia in 1826. The burning is usually associated with the auto-da-fe - the solemn announcement of the verdict of the Inquisition, as well as the execution of it. This analogy is quite legitimate, since all other forms of punishment were handed down by the Inquisition in a more everyday manner.

In Spain, Torquemada much more often than the inquisitors of other countries resorted to at least: in 15 years, on his order, 10,200 people were burned. 6,800 people sentenced to death in absentia can also be considered the victims of Torquemada. In addition, 97,321 people were subjected to various punishments. First of all, the persecuted were baptized Jews - Marrans, accused of adherence to Judaism, as well as Muslims who converted to Christianity - Moriscos, suspected of secretly practicing Islam. In 1492 Torquemada persuaded the Spanish kings Isabella and Ferdinand to expel all Jews from the country.

This "genius of evil" died a natural death, although, being the Grand Inquisitor, he was constantly shaking for his life. On his table there was always a rhino horn, with the help of which, according to the belief of that era, it was possible to detect and neutralize poison. When he moved around the country, he was accompanied by 50 horsemen and 200 infantrymen.

Unfortunately, Torquemada did not take with him to the grave the barbaric methods of fighting dissidents.

The 16th century was the century of the birth of modern science. The most inquisitive minds devoted their lives to comprehending the facts, comprehending the laws of the universe, questioning the established scholastic dogmas for centuries. Everyday and moral ideas of a person were renewed.

A critical attitude to the so-called unshakable truths led to discoveries that radically change the old worldview. The Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) stated that the Earth, along with other planets, revolves around the Sun. In the preface to the book "On the Conversions of the Heavenly Spheres," the scientist wrote that for 36 years he did not dare to publish this work. The work was published in 1543, a few days before the death of the author. The great astronomer infringed on one of the main tenets of church teaching, arguing that the Earth is not the center of the Universe. The book was banned by the Inquisition until 1828.

If Copernicus escaped persecution only because the publication of the book coincided with his death, then the fate of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was tragic. In his youth, he became a monk of the Dominican order. Bruno did not hide his convictions and aroused the discontent of the holy fathers. Forced to leave the monastery, he led a wandering lifestyle. Persecuted, he fled from his native Italy to Switzerland, then lived in France and England, where he studied science. He outlined his ideas in the essay "On infinity, the universe and the worlds" (1584). Bruno argued that space is infinite; it is filled with self-luminous opaque bodies, many of which are inhabited. Each of these provisions contradicted the fundamental principles of the Catholic Church.

While lecturing on cosmology at Oxford University, Bruno had fierce discussions with local theologians and scholastics. In the auditoriums of the Sorbonne, the strength of his arguments was tested by the French scholastics. He lived in Germany for 5 years. A number of his works were published there, which caused a new outburst of rage of the Italian Inquisition, ready to do anything in order to get the most dangerous, in her opinion, heretic.

At the instigation of the church, the Venetian patrician Mocenigo invited Giordano Bruno as a home teacher of philosophy and ... betrayed the Inquisition. The scientist was imprisoned in dungeons. For 8 years, the Catholic tribunal unsuccessfully sought the public renunciation of Giordano Bruno from his scientific works. Finally came the verdict: to punish "as mercifully as possible, without shedding blood." This hypocritical formulation meant being burned at the stake. A bonfire was blazing. After listening to the judges, Giordano Bruno said: "Perhaps you pronounce this sentence with greater fear than I listen to." On February 16, 1600 in Rome, in the Piazza di Flowers, he stoically died.

The same fate almost befell another Italian scientist - astronomer, physicist, mechanic Galileo Galilei (1564 -1642). The telescope he created in 1609 made it possible to obtain objective evidence of the validity of the conclusions of Copernicus and Bruno. The very first observations of the starry sky showed the complete absurdity of the church's statements. In the Pleiades constellation alone, Galileo counted at least 40 stars that had been invisible until then. How naive the works of theologians looked now, explaining the appearance of stars in the evening sky only by the need to shine on people! .. The results of new observations more and more embittered the Inquisition. Mountains on the Moon, spots on the Sun, four satellites of Jupiter, the dissimilarity of Saturn to other planets have been discovered. In response, the church accuses Galileo of blasphemy and fraud, presenting the scientist's conclusions as a consequence of optical deception.

The massacre of Giordano Bruno was a serious warning. When, in 1616, a congregation of 11 Dominicans and Jesuits declared Copernicus's doctrine to be heretical, Galileo was privately instructed to distance himself from these views. Formally, the scientist obeyed the requirements of the Inquisition.

In 1623, the papal throne was occupied by Galileo's friend Cardinal Barberini, who was known as the patron saint of arts and sciences. He took the name Urban VIII. Not without his support, in 1632 Galileo published "Dialogue on the two main systems of the world - Ptolemaic and Copernican" - a kind of encyclopedia of astronomical views. But even closeness to the Pope did not protect Galileo. In February 1633, Dialogue was banned by the Roman Catholic court, its author was declared a "prisoner of the Inquisition" and remained so for 9 years until his death. Incidentally, it was only in 1992 that the Vatican acquitted Galileo Galilei.

Society was hard to cleanse itself of the infection of the Inquisition. Depending on historical, economic, national and many other reasons, the countries of Europe at different times were exempted from the tribunals of the church. Already in the XVI century. under the influence of the Reformation, they ceased to exist in Germany and France. In Portugal, the Inquisition operated until 1826, in Spain until 1834. In Italy, its activities were banned only in 1870.

Formally, the Inquisition, called the Congregation of the Holy Chancellery, existed until 1965, when its services were reorganized into the Congregation for the Doctrine, which continues to fight for the purity of the faith, but by other, not medieval means.

THE GREAT INQUISITOR

In the middle of the 17th century. German poet Friedrich von Logan, discussing the nature of sin, remarked: "The human - to fall into sin, the devil - to persist in it, the Christian - to hate it, the divine - to forgive." If we proceed from common sense, Thomas de Torquemade (circa 1420-1498) was inherent only in the "devilish". After all, everything he did in the name of protecting religion was a huge, endless sin against the Renaissance man, before his desire for knowledge.

The arsenal of tortures invented by the Inquisition over several centuries of its existence is terrible: burning at the stake, torture with a wheel, torture with water, immuring into walls. Torkemada used them much more often than other inquisitors.

Torquemada's inflamed imagination first invented opponents who trembled at the mere mention of his name, and then throughout his life the inquisitor himself felt fear of the inevitable revenge of his victims.

Wherever he left his monastery cell, he was accompanied by a devoted bodyguard. The constant lack of confidence in their own safety sometimes forced Torkemada to leave the not so reliable shelter and take refuge in the palace. For some time he found shelter in the chambers of the most guarded building in Spain, but fear did not leave the inquisitor for a moment. Then he embarked on multi-day trips around the country.

But is it possible to hide from the omnipresent ghosts? They waited for him in the olive grove, and behind every orange tree, and even made their way to the temples. Day and night they watched him, always ready to settle accounts with him.

It seems psychiatrists call this condition melancholic epilepsy. All-consuming anxiety evokes hatred, despair, anger in the patient, can suddenly push him to murder, suicide, theft, arson of his home. The closest relatives, friends, the first comer can become its victims. That was how Torkemada was.

Outwardly always gloomy, overly exalted, abstaining from food for a long time and zealous in repentance during sleepless nights, the Grand Inquisitor was merciless not only towards heretics, but also towards himself. Contemporaries were struck by his impulsiveness, the unpredictability of his actions.

Once, in the midst of the struggle for the liberation of Granada from the Arabs (80s of the 15th century), a group of wealthy Jews decided to hand over 300 thousand ducats to Isabella and Ferdinand for this purpose. Torkemada suddenly burst into the audience hall. Not paying attention to the monarchs, not apologizing, not observing any norms of palace etiquette, he pulled a crucifix from under his cassock and shouted: “Judas Iscariot betrayed his Teacher for 30 pieces of silver, and Your Majesties are going to sell Christ for 300 thousand. Here it is, take it and sell it! " With these words, Torquemada threw the crucifix on the table and quickly left the hall ... The kings were shocked.

Church history has seen many cases of extreme fanaticism. How much sadism emanated, for example, from the Inquisition during the burning of Miguel Servetus (Latinized name Servetus), a Spanish physician and author of several works that questioned the theologians' reasoning about the Holy Trinity. In 1553 he was arrested by order of the High Inquisitor of Lyons. He managed to escape, but in Geneva the heretic was again captured by agents of the Inquisition and sentenced by order of John Calvin to be burned at the stake. For two hours he was roasted over low heat, and, despite the unfortunate man's desperate requests to plant more wood for Christ's sake, the executioners continued to stretch their own pleasure, enjoying the victim's convulsions. However, even this barbaric act cannot be compared with the cruelty of Torquemada.

Torquemada's phenomenon is one-dimensional: cruelty, cruelty, and again cruelty. The inquisitor did not leave behind him any treatises, sermons, or any notes to evaluate his literary abilities and theological views. There are several testimonies of contemporaries who noted the undoubted literary gift of Torkemada, somehow manifested in his youth. But, apparently, he was not destined to develop, since the inquisitor's brain, having fallen into the power of one idea, worked only in one direction. Intellectual requests were simply alien to the Inquisitor.

Moreover, Torquemada became an implacable opponent of the printed word, seeing in the books primarily heresy. Following people, he often sent books to the fire, surpassing all inquisitors in this respect.

Indeed, Diogenes was right: "Villains submit to their passions, like slaves to masters."

To the top of the page

Additional Information

Introduction

The term "inquisition" comes from lat. inquisitio meaning research. The term was widespread in the legal field even before the emergence of medieval church institutions with this name, and meant the clarification of the circumstances of the case, investigation, usually by interrogation, often with the use of force. Over time, the Inquisition began to be understood as spiritual judgments over anti-Christian heresies.

History of creation

Earlier, Christianity and the Christian Church suffered both from an external enemy - the Roman emperors, and from internal strife based on theological differences: different interpretations of sacred texts, on the recognition or non-recognition of certain texts as sacred, and so on.

A reflection of one of the stages of the internal struggle was, apparently, the "Jerusalem Council", mentioned in chapter 15 of the Acts of the Holy Apostles, as well as many cases when the Apostle Paul defended his own apostolic ministry, urged Christians to fear false shepherds or anything contrary to what he preached he.

Similar calls are contained in the Epistles of John and in the Epistle to the Jews, as well as in the Revelation of John the Theologian.

Starting from the II century, Christian authorities (bishops and local synods), using the above sources, denounced some theologians as heretics, and defined the doctrine of Christianity more clearly, trying to avoid mistakes and discrepancies. In this regard, Orthodoxy (Greek - the correct point of view) began to be opposed to heresy (Greek - choice; it is understood that it is wrong).

A special ecclesiastical court of the Catholic Church called "Inquisition" was created in 1215 by Pope Innocent III.

The ecclesiastical tribunal, which was entrusted with the "detection, punishment and prevention of heresies", was established in southern France by Gregory IX in 1229.

This institution reached its climax in 1478, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, with the approval of Pope Sixtus IV, established the Spanish Inquisition.

In 1908 it was renamed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The work of this institution was built in strict accordance with the legislation then in force in Catholic countries.

Goals and means

The main task of the Inquisition was to determine whether the accused was guilty of heresy.

Since the end of the 15th century, when ideas about the massive presence of witches who concluded an agreement with evil spirits among the ordinary population begin to spread in Europe, the processes of witches begin to enter into its competence.

At the same time, the overwhelming number of judgments about witches was passed by the secular courts of Catholic and Protestant countries in the 16th and 17th centuries.

While the Inquisition did persecute witches, virtually every secular government did the same.

Towards the end of the 16th century, Roman inquisitors began to express serious doubts in most cases of accusations of witchcraft.

Also, since 1451, Pope Nicholas V transferred cases of Jewish pogroms to the competence of the Inquisition. The Inquisition was supposed not only to punish the rioters, but also to act preemptively, preventing violence.

The Inquisition did not allow extrajudicial reprisals. In addition to the usual interrogations, torture of a suspect was used, as in the secular courts of that time. Catholic lawyers attached great importance to honest confession. In the event that the suspect did not die during the investigation, but confessed to his deed and repented, the case materials were transferred to the court.

Judicial procedure

The inquisitor questioned the witnesses in the presence of a secretary and two priests, who were instructed to observe that the testimony was correctly recorded, or at least be present when it was given, in order to listen to it in full during the reading.

This reading took place in the presence of witnesses who were asked if they would confess what had now been read to them. If a crime or suspicion of heresy was proved during the preliminary investigation, then the agreed person was arrested and imprisoned in a church prison, if there was no Dominican monastery in the city, which usually replaced it. After the arrest, the defendant was interrogated, and a case was immediately started against him according to the rules, and a comparison of his answers with the testimony of the preliminary investigation was made.

In the early days of the Inquisition, there was no prosecutor who was required to prosecute suspects; this formality of legal proceedings was carried out verbally by the inquisitor after hearing witnesses; the consciousness of the accused served as an accusation and a response. If the accused pleaded guilty to one heresy, he vainly assured that he was not guilty in relation to others; he was not allowed to defend himself because the crime for which he was being tried had already been proven. He was only asked whether he was inclined to make a renunciation of the heresy of which he had pleaded guilty. If he agreed, then he was reconciled with the Church, imposing canonical penance on him simultaneously with some other punishment. Otherwise, he was declared a stubborn heretic, and he was betrayed into the hands of the secular authorities with a copy of the verdict.

The death penalty, like confiscation, was a measure that, in theory, the Inquisition did not apply. Her business was to use every effort to bring the heretic back into the fold of the Church; if he persisted, or if his conversion was feigned, she had nothing more to do with him. As not a Catholic, he was not subject to the jurisdiction of the Church, which he rejected, and the Church was forced to declare him a heretic and deprive him of her patronage. The original sentence was only a simple condemnation of heresy and was accompanied by excommunication or a declaration that the guilty party was no longer considered to be within the jurisdiction of the Church; sometimes it was added that he was being handed over to the secular court, that he was released - a terrible expression that meant that the direct intervention of the Church in his fate had already ended. With the passage of time, the sentences became more lengthy; A remark often already begins to come across, explaining that the Church can no longer do anything to atone for the sins of the guilty, and his transfer into the hands of secular power is accompanied by the following significant words: debita animadversione puniendum, that is, "let him be punished according to his deserts."

The hypocritical treatment, in which the Inquisition implored the secular authorities to spare the life and body of the fallen, is not found in ancient sentences and has never been formulated precisely.

Inquisitor Pegna does not hesitate to admit that this appeal to mercy was an empty formality, and explains that they resorted to it only for the purpose that it would not seem that the inquisitors would agree to the shedding of blood, as this would be a violation of canonical rules. But at the same time, the Church was vigilant to ensure that its resolution was not misinterpreted. She taught that there can be no question of any condescension if the heretic does not repent and testifies to his sincerity by betraying all his like-minded people. The inexorable logic of St. Thomas Aquinas clearly established that the secular government could not but put the heretics to death, and that only because of her boundless love, the Church could turn to heretics twice with words of conviction before handing them over to the secular authorities for a well-deserved punishment. The inquisitors themselves did not hide this in the least and constantly taught that the heretic they had condemned should be put to death; this is evident, among other things, from the fact that they refrained from pronouncing their sentence on him within the confines of the church fence, which would have been desecrated by the death penalty, but pronounced it in the square where the last action of the auto-da-fe took place. One of their 13th century doctors, quoted in the 14th century by Bernard Guy, argues this: “The purpose of the Inquisition is to destroy heresy; heresy cannot be destroyed without the destruction of the heretics; and heretics cannot be destroyed unless the defenders and supporters of heresy are also destroyed, and this can be achieved in two ways: by converting them to the true Catholic faith or by turning their flesh to ashes after they are handed over to the secular authorities. "

The main historical stages

Chronologically, the history of the Inquisition can be divided into three stages:

1) pre-Dominican (persecution of heretics until the 12th century)

2) Dominican (since the Toulouse Cathedral in 1229)

3) the Spanish Inquisition.

The Inquisition in the Middle Ages in a nutshell

against Protestantism.

Persecution of heretics until the 12th century

We find the embryos of the Inquisition in the first centuries of Christianity - in the duty of deacons to seek out and correct errors in the faith, in the judicial power of bishops over heretics. The episcopal court was simple and not distinguished by cruelty; the most severe punishment at that time was excommunication.

In Charlemagne's capitulations, there are ordinances that oblige bishops to monitor the morals and correct confession of faith in their dioceses, and to eradicate pagan customs on the Saxon borders. In 844 Charles the Bald ordered the bishops to establish the people in the faith through sermons, to investigate and correct their errors.

Activities of the Inquisition in different countries of Europe

Despite the seemingly omnipresence of inquisitorial tribunals in Medieval Europe, its effect was unequal in different European countries. First of all, it should be noted that the most violent activity of the Inquisition was observed in the southern countries: Italy, France and the Iberian Peninsula. At the same time, as we move northward, its activity and significance noticeably weaken. Although the popes made attempts to send brothers-inquisitors to the Scandinavian countries, history has not preserved any traces of their real activities in these lands. As we move east to the Slavic lands, the influence of the Inquisition also diminishes.

The reasons for such an uneven spread of the Inquisition across Europe are the subject of a separate historical study. Here we will indicate only the main ones. First, the Inquisition was most active where it was most needed: in the south of France, in the Christian lands of the Pyrenees and in Italy. These lands (mainly in the south of France and the Pyrenees) had an extremely mixed population - from white European Catholics to black Muslim Arabs. The first consequence of this mixture of cultures and religions was the exceptional tolerance of the secular authorities and fertile ground for the emergence of all kinds of heretical sects and movements. At the same time, in these lands, for the same reason, there was the most depraved, corrupted and indifferent to the works of faith, the clergy. In Italy, there was a permanent struggle for investiture, and the cities very early received great autonomy and became hotbeds of free thought and enlightenment. The second reason for the wider spread of the Inquisition in the southern lands was purely material. The proceeds from fines and confiscations were divided between the spiritual and secular authorities, and a considerable share fell for the Inquisition. And the southern lands have always been rich, unlike the northern ones.

In the northern camps, the Inquisition felt less confident. On the one hand, the harsh climate was less conducive to heretical reflections, and more to work on daily bread. After, under the blows of the popes, the Hohenstaufens left the political and historical arena, on the lands of Germany they forgot about the autocracy of the emperor. Many appanage rulers in the struggle for personal influence did not always pay much attention to the issues of preserving the purity of the faith, and without their support the inquisitors could not do so much. In England, the nobility, outraged by the shameful submission of John the Landless to the will of the Roman high priest in 1215, demanded a "Charter of Liberties" and undivided autocracy in England also ended.

As for the eastern lands of Europe, these lands were only theoretically under the spiritual authority of Rome. Here the influence of Orthodoxy was strongly felt, and later a real threat arose from the Ottoman Empire. In addition, in the Slavic lands there were many autocratic rulers, on whose rivalry, of course, Rome could play, but in the end it could not rely on any of them in protecting the purity of the Catholic faith. For the indicated political reasons, all the tortures of the papacy (including the crusades) to establish Catholicism on the Slavic lands and to instill the institution of the Inquisition to defend it were ultimately not crowned with noticeable success.

Inquisition in Germany

By 1235, heresies were spreading rapidly in Germany, and the fanatic Konrad of Marburg was appointed papal inquisitor there. He energetically got down to business in such a way that now just a thoughtless statement or communication with someone who was suspected of heresy was enough to appear before the papal inquisitor. The brutal persecution caused a wave of popular indignation and Konrad and his assistants were killed.

Pope Gregory IX was furious and made every effort to ensure that the murderers of his loyal servants were severely punished. However, a blow was dealt to the positions of the Inquisition, and although it continued to formally exist, in Germany it did not become a real force. Pope Urban V, dissatisfied with the situation in Germany, sent the Dominicans there. Fearing excommunication from the church, the emperor received the new inquisitors with honor and introduced censorship of the press. In the XV-XVI centuries. the influence of the Inquisition was further undermined. The time has come for such outstanding thinkers as Johann Wessel and, most importantly, Martin Luther. He continued his sermons, and after his death in 1546, his followers formed strong opposition to the Catholic Church. The Inquisition in Germany has lost all power.

Inquisition in France

In France, thanks to the victory in the Albigensian Wars, the Inquisition had a more solid position. And yet, when the papal inquisitor, Guillaume Horno, appeared there, supported by Pope Gregory IX, his cruelty made people so angry that he and his assistants were killed, like Conrad in Germany. However, the popes were determined to establish an Inquisition in France, and a long struggle began between popes and French kings for supremacy in this country.

It culminated under King Philip IV the Fair, who took the throne in 1285. He sought to limit the power and influence of the church in his kingdom. The king announced his desire to reform church legislation, and as a result, a message was sent to Rome stating that the pope was deprived of the right to interfere in the secular affairs of the state. After the death of Pope Boniface VIII, Philip became the most powerful man in Europe. Moreover, the new pope, Clement V, moved the residence from Rome to Avignon, which, although it was a papal possession, was in France, under the control of the king. This period (about 60 years) was nicknamed “the Avignon captivity of the popes”. So King Philip established the power of the French kings over the popes and made the Inquisition an obedient instrument for achieving their goals. The most striking illustration of this is the well-known case of the Templars, when the "pocket pope" of the French king confirmed all the decisions of the Inquisitional tribunal he needed to destroy the Templar order and the appropriation of all the order's riches by the French crown.

In 1334, Philip VI confirmed the privileges of the Inquisition, on condition that it fulfills the will of the French crown. Violent persecution of heretics and those suspected of heresy continued. Under Francis I, there was a bloody massacre with the Waldensians, but before there were executions of heretics. In 1534-1535. in Paris, 24 people were burned, and many others did not expect a better fate. For all that, Francis I himself was not a moralist. His atrocities were dictated by political considerations, in other cases, the persecution of dissidents was not so frequent. His persecution of the Waldensians was particularly unpleasant.

All these persecutions and murders in France are heinous and criminal, but they were not committed by the Inquisition.

Inquisition in the Middle Ages

The "Chamber of Fire" (a special court under Henry II) was established by the state. Since the time of Philip the Fair's struggle with the papacy, the Sacred Chamber of the Inquisition no longer had a strong position in France.

Inquisition in Italy

Venice refused to establish an Inquisition, and fugitives from other states began to flock there. Soon the pope demanded an end to this, and the authorities of Venice considered it good not to go into conflict. True, there the Inquisition obeyed the city laws, and the property confiscated from heretics went to the city treasury, and this weakened the zeal of the inquisitors. Charles of Anjou, capturing Naples, created the Inquisition there, but made it clear that there it would be under the control of the state, which also limited the influence of the papacy.

However, in Italy the Inquisition had more solid roots and lasted longer than in France. Even in 1448 a crusade was organized against the heretics. But he was unsuccessful, and the Waldensians continued to thrive in the mountainous regions. The Inquisition in Italy was, nevertheless, weakened due to opposition from the population, due to escapes from areas controlled by it, as well as due to the position of secular rulers, such as in Naples or Venice.

Inquisition in the Pyrenees

During the Reconquista, several Christian kingdoms were formed on the Iberian Peninsula. But the Inquisition acted and developed in each of them in different ways.

The kingdoms of Castile and Leon, which occupied most of the Iberian Peninsula, hardly experienced the brunt of the medieval Inquisition. These states enjoyed greater independence from Rome than other European countries at that time. The codes of Alphonse the Wise from 1255 and 1265 reckon with the Inquisition and streamline the relationship between the Church and secular authorities with the help of secular law. Heresy was within the jurisdiction of spiritual courts, but Alphonse believed that caring for the purity of the faith was the responsibility of the state, and the business of the Church was only to determine the guilt of the accused. Canon law in Castile was not applied and the provincial of the Dominican order could not appoint an inquisitor here.

In Portugal, before 1418, there is also no information about any significant activity of the Inquisition. When an independent Dominican province was formed in Portugal in 1418, all provincials, according to the bull of Boniface XI, became inquisitors general. A number of these inquisitors continued until 1531, when a new state inquisition was founded.

The most active inquisition manifested itself in Aragon, where by the middle of the XIII century the Waldensians were the most active heretics. In 1226, James II forbade heretics from entering the state. The king's confessor Raimund de Penaforte persuaded him in 1228 to ask Pope Gregory IX to send inquisitors to the country in order to cleanse it of heresy. But there was still no talk of a papal inquisition. Dominican inquisitors appear in Aragon at the insistence of Gregory IX in 1237: Viscount Castelbo, bishop of Urgell, gave the Inquisition complete freedom of action in their lands. In 1238, the Aragon Inquisition was officially founded. Mendicant monks were ordered to vigorously investigate heresy, applying papal statutes and seeking help from secular authorities when necessary.

In 1242, the cathedral in Tarragona published a code defining the attitude of the Church towards heretics, which was used for a long time not only in Spain, but also in France. By 1262, Urban VI finally transferred the Inquisition in Aragon to the jurisdiction of the provincial of the Dominican order. However, the Aragonese Inquisition managed to defend its independence. In 1351, the provincial of Aragon received from Clement VI the right to appoint and dismiss inquisitors.

The final stage of the formation of the Inquisition in the Pyrenees is associated with the unification of lands under the rule of Ferdinand the Catholic and his wife Isabella. With the beginning of their reign from the middle of the 15th century, not the papal, but the Spanish Inquisition began to operate here, which served exclusively the religious and political interests of the Spanish crown. Under Isabella and Ferdinand, order was restored in the country. They managed to end anarchy. They say that Isabella, as a woman of great piety, made a vow to her confessor Torquemada that if she came to power, she would devote herself to eradicating heresies in the country. She was soon reminded of this vow. Catholic princes believed that it was impossible to unite the country if all subjects did not adhere to the same faith. They wanted to achieve this peacefully, and if it doesn’t work out, then by violence.

INQUISITION

lat. inquisitio - search) In the Catholic Church in the XIII-XIX centuries. a judicial and police institution for the fight against heresies. The proceedings were conducted in secret, with the use of torture. Heretics were usually sentenced to be burned at the stake.

Source: Glossary of terms on the history of the state and law of foreign countries

INQUISITION

from lat. inquisitio - search) - in the Roman Catholic Church in the XIII-XIX centuries. special courts of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, independent of the bodies and institutions of secular power. Basically, they fought against dissent (heresies). The inquisition process took shape, torture was widely used as the most important source of evidence. Convicts were often sentenced to be burned at the stake.

Source: Comprehensive Dictionary of Law

INQUISITION

lat. inquisitio investigation, search), the forensic police institution of the Catholic Church, created in the XIII century. to combat heresies. Organizationally, it took shape during the reign of Pope Gregory IX, who in 1232 entrusted the persecution of heresy to the Dominican monastic order. Since the XIII century. the fanatical activity of I. became widespread in a number of countries of Western Europe. The proceedings were conducted secretly and completely arbitrarily by special inquisitorial tribunals. Members of the Inquisitional Tribunals, who had personal immunity and immunity from local secular and ecclesiastical authorities, received unlimited powers, punishing not only for “heretical” offenses, but also for “heretical” thoughts and moods, for patronizing heretics and communicating with them, etc. The main means of obtaining a "confession" of heresy was cruel and sophisticated torture. The resulting "confession" - the "queen of proofs" - was enough to pass a guilty verdict. The only way for the accused to avoid the death penalty was to confess all charges and repentance: the repentant was usually sentenced in this case to life imprisonment and confiscation of property. Those who refused to confess to heresy or renounce it after the pronouncement of the verdict were handed over to the secular authorities for public burning, which was preferred to other types of execution due to the church's hypocritical declaration of its unwillingness to shed blood. In the case of the escape of the suspect, the image of the fugitive was burned, in the case of the posthumous process - the remains of the deceased, and the property of the heirs was confiscated. The confiscation of property, which was an inevitable consequence of the imprisonment or execution of the defendant, was one of the incentives for the intensified activity of I., since it gave huge funds into the hands of the papacy, I. herself, and claimed her share of secular power. India was especially rampant in Spain, where it was destroyed only in 1834, while in other Catholic countries it was liquidated by bourgeois revolutions as early as the 18th century.

The history of mankind contains many sad events, the cruelty of which still amazes contemporaries. Unfortunately, many of them are associated with religious views. The most striking example is the Holy Inquisition, which operated during the Middle Ages. What is the Inquisition and why these pages are considered dark in the history of the church - the answers to these questions can be found in this article.

The history of the Christian church is full of references to various councils - meetings of the clergy, at which they affirmed the dogmas of the faith and criticized heretics.

It was the fight against heresy and near-religious movements, which were considered false by the clergy, and led the leadership of the church to the understanding that it, as an organization, needed an organ of faith that would deal with issues of defining heresy and punishing its spread.

This is how the Holy Inquisition appeared - the body of the Roman Catholic Church, which was engaged in identifying and punishing religious crimes against the faith. The date of its foundation is considered to be 1215, when Pope Innocent III created a special court called the "Inquisition".

Later, the Inquisition appeared in France (1229), Spain (1478) and other European countries.

The founders and active supporters of the movement are:

Pope Innocent III;
Gregory IX;
Spanish King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella;
Pope Sixtus IV
Thomas Torquemada.

Thanks to the sanctions of the popes and the assistance of royalty, the Congregation flourished in 1483, and at the same time its first codex came out. In 1542, the body of faith was somewhat modified and began to be called the Congregation of the Sacred Chancellery, while all local and world authorities were subordinate to it. The essence of the Inquisition soon changed - it became not just a governing body, but the highest theological authority, and without its conclusions and permissions, Catholics could not decide questions of faith or the approval of theological canons.

It's important to know! The history of the Inquisition is remarkable in that for the entire period of its existence, only monks from the Dominican order were appointed to the post of senior leaders.

A special heyday of the work of the Inquisition came in the 1400s, when the body of faith had unlimited power and began to persecute with all its cruelty people whose faith, according to investigators, was not pure or sinless. The censorship of books began, Jews were persecuted, women who were suspected of witchcraft were burned, churches ceased to be a place for sinners, but became a punishing finger from which it was impossible to hide.

The history of the Inquisition is divided into three stages:

XIII-XV centuries - the fight against the spreading popular sectarian movements;
the Renaissance - the fight against cultural and scientific figures;
the era of the Enlightenment - confrontation with the supporters of the French Revolution.

The Inquisition was abolished as an investigative body in the late 18th - early 19th centuries, first in Italy, and then everywhere. With the rise of Protestantism, Catholics lost their influence and could not act in this way. By 1908, the Inquisition was transformed and renamed the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and operated strictly within the framework of the law. Today it is an organ within the church, which is ruled by a cardinal and deals with matters of faith and morality. Thus, we briefly reviewed the history of the Holy Inquisition.

Inquisition

Causes of occurrence

In the 13th century, the Roman Catholic Church was in serious crisis. Various heretical teachings spread, people began to leave the bosom of the church, and a split began to appear in the organ itself.

The previous crusades not only did not bring the papacy the expected success and glory, but caused a number of condemnations and a decline in their authority among the people.

The outflow of people and their transition to other denominations negatively affected the welfare of the papacy and caused alarm.

Pope Innocent III headed the crumbling body of faith and realized that the church needed an internal reorganization and the peaceful spread of its influence. He convened the IV Lateran Council, which adopted 70 canons, among which were canons on heretics. This event is considered the beginning of the creation and operation of the Holy Inquisition.

Thus, the reasons for its creation were:

Dissemination of heretical teachings.
The fall of the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.
The origin and spread of Protestantism.
The outflow of people and the fall in the income of the church.

It is worth noting that Pope Innocent III himself actively advocated the peaceful spread of the Christian faith and the resolution of conflicts.

Goals

The main task of the Inquisition is considered to be the fight against all kinds of heresies that arose everywhere. However, instead of teaching the people, the leaders of the organ and the church tried to forcibly instill in people faith in God and force them to turn to the true path.

For this, the monks used violence, tortured people and could put them to death. Most often, heretics were deprived of their lives through burning.

In addition, the monks had to fight witchcraft. What it is and how to deal with it, told the famous document "Hammer of Witches" by Heinrich Kramer, a German Dominican monk.

Historians today claim that most of the women and men who were tortured and burned as witches and sorcerers at that time were innocent. But the Congregation considered the fight against witchcraft to be one of its main directions.

With the spread of Protestantism, Catholics began to persecute followers of this faith, as they considered them heretics.

Thus, a number of main goals can be distinguished:

Strengthening the authority of the Catholic Church and its widespread dissemination.
Destruction of heretical currents and their distributors.
Forced repentance of people who were seen in witchcraft, or their execution;
Persecution of Protestants.
Destruction of heretical books and their distributors;
Conversion of Jews to the Catholic faith.

The papacy may have initially pursued positive goals, but the unrestricted power of the Congregation, which was given to it everywhere, negatively influenced the leaders of the organ and lit the so-called "fires of the Inquisition" - mass and regular burnings and executions of people.

Useful video: what is the Inquisition?

Judicial procedures

The congregation issued a document called the "Act of Faith", which outlined the need to bring anyone suspected of heresy to trial. Most of the accused came to trial only on the basis of someone's denunciation or rumor.

Anyone who refused to testify against the accused or denounce those around him could be excommunicated.

Heresy was understood as all Jewish traditions, witchcraft, witchcraft and others, different from the official dogmas of the church, positions and trends. In Spain, Jews were also particularly severely persecuted, who refused to abandon their traditions of Judaism and convert to the Catholic faith.

When a man was denounced, he was soon seized and sent to prison, where he awaited trial. Before him, the arrested person had not only to answer all the questions of the investigators, but also to name people who could speak in his defense at the trial, which was usually headed by the chief monk in the region, who made the final decision on the fate of the accused. For heretics, they usually practiced converting by force with confiscation of property or voluntarily.

If the judge was not satisfied with the answers of the arrested person and his witnesses, then he made a decision on torture. In the arsenal of the executioner there were many tools with which he pulled out a confession in performing actions or pronouncing words that were regarded as heretical. The aim of the investigators was a frank confession, and for his sake the arrested person was stretched on a rack, broken bones, pulled out nails or tortured with fire and water.

The Court of the Inquisition banned Copernicus's work "On the Circulation of the Celestial Spheres"

It should be mentioned that cruel torture was not always resorted to, but its presence in the judicial system still speaks of its failure. Usually, the arrested person sooner or later confessed to heresy, only to end the torture, and he was returned to the court, where the judge decided on the execution. Usually it was committed by burning or hanging, but sometimes quartering or other terrible death could be prescribed for especially serious criminals.

It's important to know! The Holy Inquisition also operated on the territory of the Russian Empire, although not for long, from 1711 to 1721.

The church tried to justify its actions and multiple manifestations of cruelty by quotations from the Holy Scriptures and the works of famous theological authorities, such as Thomas Aquinas, which spoke of the right and need to punish people not only with spiritual, but also with bodily punishment if they oppose the church and lead immoral Lifestyle.

Victims of the Inquisition

Among them, most of all were women and children, who were most often suspected of witchcraft. Children under the age of 14 were usually punished with lashes to beat out all the impurities, but women were usually executed or sent out of the country.

One of the smallest victims is a 9-year-old girl from Rintel, accused in 1689 of having intercourse with the devil. She was flogged and at the same time forced to watch her grandmother burned.

Another brutal case occurred in 1595, when the farmer Volker Dirksen and his daughter were accused of destroying livestock in the form of wolf lags. Under severe torture, they confessed, and they were sentenced to be burned, and their three sons (from 8 to 14 years old) were pardoned and only punished with flogging.

But after that, the judge regretted not having burned the entire family, and the royal lawyer George Mackenzie said "It all depends on our whim," which gives an idea of the court procedures of the church at that time.

Despite the numerous articles on the Web, which describe the horrors and list millions of victims, the total number of victims is still not so large - there are about 40,000 of them over 400 years of vigorous activity of the Inquisition. This is confirmed by numerous historical documents of that time.

Useful video: the church's fight against heresy

Output

The fires of the Inquisition burned all over the world, especially in Europe, where the Catholic Church was particularly strong. Today, representatives of the clergy regret those pages of church history, but their presence and memory of this prevents the return of those dark times.

Indeed, you read my judgment with more fear than I hear it. "- Giordano Bruno to his inquisitors in 1600 BC.

(Inquisitio haereticae pravitatis), or the Holy Inquisition, or the Holy Tribunal (sanctum officium) - the institution of the Roman Catholic Church, which had the purpose of finding, judging and punishing heretics. The term Inquisition has existed for a long time, but until the XIII century. did not have a later special meaning, and the church had not yet used it to mean that branch of its activity, which was aimed at persecuting heretics.

The rise of the Inquisition.
In the XII century. The Catholic Church faced the growth of oppositional religious movements in Western Europe, primarily Albigensianism (Cathars). To combat them, the papacy has entrusted the bishops with the obligation to identify and judge "heretics" and then hand them over for punishment to secular authorities ("episcopal inquisition"); this order was fixed in the decrees of the Second (1139) and Third (1212) Lateran Councils, the bulls of Lucius III (1184) and Innocent III (1199). For the first time these regulations were applied during the Albigensian Wars (1209-1229). In 1220 they were recognized by the German emperor Frederick II, in 1226 - by the French king Louis VIII. From 1226-1227, the highest punishment for "crimes against the faith" in Germany and Italy was burning at the stake.

However, the "episcopal inquisition" proved to be ineffective: the bishops were dependent on the secular authorities, and the territory subordinate to them was small, which allowed the "heretic" to easily hide in the neighboring diocese. Therefore, in 1231 Gregory IX, referring cases of heresy to the sphere of canon law, created for their investigation a permanent organ of ecclesiastical justice - the Inquisition. Initially directed against the Cathars and Waldenses, it soon turned against other "heretical" sects - the Beguins, Fraticelli, Spirituals, and then against the "sorcerers", "witches" and blasphemers.

In 1231 the Inquisition was introduced in Aragon, in 1233 - in France, in 1235 - in Central, in 1237 - in Northern and Southern Italy.

Inquisition system.

Inquisitors were recruited from members of monastic orders, primarily Dominicans, and were directly subordinate to the Pope. At the beginning of the 14th century. Clement V set an age limit for them at forty years old. Initially, each tribunal was headed by two judges with equal rights, and from the beginning of the 14th century. - by only one judge. From the 14th century. they consisted of legal consultants (qualifiers) who determined the "heretical" statements of the accused. In addition to them, the number of employees of the tribunal included a notary who certified the testimony, attesting witnesses who were present during interrogations, a prosecutor, a doctor who monitored the state of health of the accused during torture, and the executioner. Inquisitors received an annual salary or part of the property confiscated from the "heretics" (in Italy, one third). In their activities, they were guided by both papal decrees and special manuals: in the early period, the most popular was the Practice of the Inquisition by Bernard Guy (1324), in the late Middle Ages - the Hammer of the Witches J. Sprenger and G. Institoris (1487).

There were two types of inquisitional procedure - general and individual investigation: in the first case, the entire population of a given area was interviewed, in the second, a call was made to a certain person through the priest. If the summoned did not appear, he was subjected to excommunication. The one who appeared swore an oath to tell sincerely everything that he knew about the "heresy." The very course of the proceedings was kept in deep secrecy. Torture authorized by Innocent IV was widely used (1252). Their cruelty sometimes caused condemnation even among the secular authorities, for example, Philip IV the Handsome (1297). The accused was not given the names of the witnesses; they could even be excommunicated, thieves, murderers and perjurers, whose testimony was never accepted in secular courts. He was denied the opportunity to have a lawyer. The only chance for the condemned was to appeal to the Holy See, although formally it was forbidden by the bull of 1231. A person who had once been convicted by the Inquisition could be brought to justice again at any time. Even death did not stop the investigation procedure: if the deceased was found guilty, his ashes were removed from the grave and burned.

The system of punishments was established by Bull 1213, decrees of the Third Lateran Council and Bull 1231. Those convicted by the Inquisition were transferred to civilian authorities and subjected to secular punishments. A “heretic” who “repented” already during the trial was entitled to life imprisonment, which the Inquisitorial Tribunal had the right to reduce; this type of punishment was an innovation for the penitentiary system of the medieval West. The prisoners were kept in cramped cells with a hole in the ceiling, they ate only bread and water, sometimes they were shackled and chained. In the late Middle Ages, imprisonment was sometimes replaced by hard labor in galleys or in workhouses. A stubborn "heretic" or again "fallen into heresy" was sentenced to be burned at the stake. Conviction often entailed the confiscation of property in favor of the secular authorities, who reimbursed the expenses of the inquisitorial tribunal; hence the special interest of the Inquisition in wealthy people.

For those who confessed to the Inquisition Tribunal during the "period of mercy" (15-30 days, counting from the moment the judges arrived in a particular locality), allotted to collect information (denunciations, self-incriminations, etc.) about crimes against faith, church punishments were applied. These included interdict (a ban on worship in a given area), excommunication and various types of penance - strict fasting, lengthy prayers, scourging during mass and religious processions, pilgrimage, donations for charitable deeds; the one who had time to repent wore a special "penitential" shirt (sanbenito).

Inquisition since the 13th century to our time.

The 13th century was the culmination of the Inquisition. The epicenter of its activity in France was the Languedoc, where the Cathars and Waldenses were persecuted with extraordinary cruelty; in 1244, after the capture of the last stronghold of the Albigensians of Montsegur, 200 people were sent to the fire. In Central and Northern France in the 1230s, Robert Lebugre acted on a special scale; in 1235 in Mont-Saint-Aim, he arranged the burning of 183 people. (in 1239 he was condemned by the Pope to life imprisonment). In 1245, the Vatican granted the inquisitors the right of "mutual forgiveness of sins" and freed them from the obligation to obey the leadership of their orders.

The Inquisition often encountered resistance from the local population: in 1233, the first inquisitor of Germany, Konrad of Marburg, was killed (this led to an almost complete cessation of the activities of the tribunals in German lands), in 1242 - members of the tribunal in Toulouse, in 1252 - inquisitor of Northern Italy Pierre of Verona; in 1240 the inhabitants of Carcassonne and Narbonne revolted against the inquisitors.

In the middle of the 13th century, fearing the growing power of the Inquisition, which became the fiefdom of the Dominicans, the papacy tried to put its activities under stricter control. In 1248 Innocent IV subordinated the inquisitors to the Bishop of Azhansky, and in 1254 transferred the tribunals in Central Italy and Savoy to the hands of the Franciscans, leaving only Liguria and Lombardy to the Dominicans. But under Alexander IV (1254-1261), the Dominicans took revenge; in the second half of the 13th century. they actually ceased to reckon with the papal legates and turned the Inquisition into an independent organization. The post of Inquisitor General, through which the popes supervised her activities, remained vacant for many years.

Numerous complaints about the arbitrariness of the tribunals forced Clement V to reform the Inquisition. On his initiative, the Vienne Council of 1312 obliged the inquisitors to coordinate the judicial procedure (especially the use of torture) and sentences with the local bishops. In 1321, John XXII further restricted their powers. The Inquisition gradually fell into decay: judges periodically recalled, their sentences were often cashed. In 1458 the inhabitants of Lyons even arrested the president of the tribunal. In a number of countries (Venice, France, Poland), the Inquisition came under state control. Philip IV the Handsome in 1307-1314 used it as a tool to defeat the wealthy and influential Templar order; with its help, the German emperor Sigismund dealt with Jan Huss in 1415, and the British in 1431 with Jeanne d'Arc. The functions of the Inquisition were transferred into the hands of secular courts, both ordinary and extraordinary: in France, for example, in the second half of the 16th century. about "heresies" were considered both by parliaments (courts), and specially created for this purpose "chambers of fire" (chambres ardentes).

At the end of the 15th century. the inquisition has experienced its rebirth. In 1478, under Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, it was established in Spain and for three and a half centuries was an instrument of royal absolutism. The Spanish Inquisition, created by T. Torkvemada, became famous for its special cruelty; Its main target was the recently converted to Christianity Jews (Maranas) and Muslims (Moriscos), many of whom secretly continued to profess the old religion. According to official data, in 1481-1808 in Spain at the auto-da-fe (public execution of "heretics") almost 32 thousand people died; 291.5 thousand were subjected to other punishments (life imprisonment, hard labor, confiscation of property, pillory). The introduction of the Inquisition in the Spanish Netherlands was one of the reasons for the Dutch revolution of 1566-1609. From 1519 this institution operated in the Spanish colonies of Central and South America.

At the end of the 15th century. the inquisition has acquired particular importance in Germany; here, in addition to "heresies", she actively fought against "witchcraft" ("witch hunt"). However, in the 1520s, in the German principalities, where the Reformation won, this institution was done away with forever. In 1536, the Inquisition was established in Portugal, where the persecution of the "new Christians" (Jews who converted to Catholicism) began. In 1561, the Portuguese crown introduced it to their Indian dominions; there she took up the eradication of the local "false teaching" that combined the features of Christianity and Hinduism.

The successes of the Reformation prompted the papacy to transform the inquisitorial system towards greater centralization. In 1542, Paul III established the permanent Holy Congregation of the Roman and Ecumenical Inquisition (Holy Chancellery) to oversee the activities of local tribunals, although in reality its jurisdiction extended only to Italy (except Venice). The office was headed by the pope himself and consisted first of five and then ten cardinals-inquisitors; an advisory council of specialists in canon law functioned under her. She also exercised papal censorship, publishing the Index of Forbidden Books from 1559. The most famous victims of the papal inquisition were Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei.

Starting from the Age of Enlightenment, the Inquisition began to lose its position. In Portugal, her rights were significantly curtailed: S. de Pombal, the first minister of King Jose I (1750-1777), in 1771 deprived her of the right of censorship and eliminated the auto-da-fe, in 1774 he forbade the use of torture. In 1808 Napoleon I completely abolished the Inquisition in Italy, Spain and Portugal that he had captured. In 1813, the Cadiz Cortes (parliament) abolished it in the Spanish colonies. However, after the fall of the Napoleonic Empire in 1814, it was rebuilt in both Southern Europe and Latin America. In 1816, Pope Pius VII prohibited the use of torture. After the revolution of 1820, the institution of the Inquisition finally ceased to exist in Portugal; in 1821 he was abandoned by the Latin American countries that had freed themselves from Spanish rule. The last executed by the verdict of the inquisitorial court was the Spanish teacher K. Ripoll (Valencia; 1826). In 1834, the Inquisition was liquidated in Spain. In 1835, Pope Gregory XVI officially abolished all local inquisitorial tribunals, but retained the Sacred Chancellery, whose activities from that time were limited to excommunication and the publication of the Index.

By the time of the Second Vatican Council 1962-1965, the Holy Office remained only an odious relic of the past. In 1966, Pope Paul VI actually abolished it, transforming it into the "Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith" (Latin Sacra congregatio Romanae et universalis Inquisitionis seu Sancti Officii) with purely censorship functions; The index has been canceled.

The Apostolic Constitution of John Paul II Pastor Bonus of June 28, 1988 states: The duty due to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is to promote and preserve the doctrine of faith and morality throughout the Catholic world: for this reason, everything that in any way touches such matters faith is within her competence.

In a landmark act, John Paul II (1978-2005) reevaluated the historical role of the Inquisition. On his initiative, Galileo was rehabilitated in 1992, Copernicus in 1993, and the archives of the Holy Chancellery were opened in 1998. In March 2000, on behalf of the church, John Paul II brought repentance for the "sins of intolerance" and the crimes of the Inquisition.

Water torture

Water torture was usually resorted to in cases where the torture on the end was unsuccessful. The victim was forced to swallow water, which dripped slowly onto a piece of silk or other fine cloth inserted into her mouth. Under pressure, he gradually sank deeper and deeper into the victim's throat, causing sensations that arise in a drowning person. In another version, the victim's face was covered with a thin cloth and water was slowly poured onto it, which, getting into the mouth and nostrils, made it difficult or stopped breathing almost until suffocation. In another variant, the victim was either plugged the nostrils with tampons, or squeezed the nose with the fingers, and water was slowly poured into the open mouth. From the incredible efforts to swallow at least a little air, the victim's blood vessels often burst. In general, the more water was “pumped” into the victim, the more cruel the torture became.

Holy hunters

In 1215, by the decree of Pope Innocent III, a special ecclesiastical court was established - the Inquisition (from the Latin inquisitio - investigation), and it is with it that the phrase "witch hunt" is associated in the mass consciousness. It should be noted that although many "witch" trials were indeed carried out by the Inquisition, most of them are on the conscience of secular courts. In addition, the witch-hunt was widespread not only in Catholic, but also in Protestant countries, where there was no Inquisition at all. By the way, initially the Inquisition was created to combat heresy, and only gradually witchcraft began to fall under the concept of heresy.

There are varying accounts of how many people were killed during the witch hunt. According to some data - about two tens of thousands, according to others - more than one hundred thousand. Modern historians are leaning towards an average figure of about 40 thousand. The population of some regions of Europe, for example, the outskirts of Cologne, as a result of the active struggle against witchcraft, significantly decreased, the fighters against heresy did not spare children, who could also be accused of serving the devil.

One of the tasks of witch hunters was to look for signs by which it would be easy to identify a sorcerer or a sorcerer. The water test was considered a reliable test for witchcraft: a tied suspect was thrown into a lake, pond, or river.

Anyone who was lucky not to drown was considered a sorcerer and was subjected to the death penalty. The water test used in Ancient Babylon was more humane: the Babylonians dropped charges if "the river cleans this man and he remains unharmed."

It was widely believed that on the body of everyone involved in witchcraft there is a special mark that is insensitive to pain. This mark was searched for with needles. The description of such "devilish signs", as well as the fact that witches were usually kept in separate prisons and avoided their touch, led some historians to believe that the persecution and extermination of lepers was actually behind the witch hunt.

In the XV-XVII centuries, Western Europe, represented by the Catholic and Protestant churches, began their bloody hunt, which went down in history as a "witch hunt". Both churches seemed to have gone crazy, recognizing witches in almost all women: she went out for a walk at night - a witch, collecting herbs - a witch, treating people - doubly a witch. Even the purest soul and body girls and women fell under the classification of witches.

For example, in 1629, nineteen-year-old Barbara Gobel was burned at the stake. The executioner's list said about her: "The most holy virgin of Wurzburg." It is not clear what caused this manic desire for "cleansing". Of course, Protestants and Catholics did not consider themselves to be beasts, as a sign of this - all potential witches were subjected to simple tests, which, in the end, no one was able to pass. The first test is whether the suspect has a pet: a cat, a crow, a snake. Even if neither a snake nor a raven was found in the house, many had a cat or a cat. Of course, it also happened that the "witch" does not even have a snake or a raven, but even a cat; then a beetle in a dung heap, a cockroach under the table, or the most ordinary moth will come down. The second test is the presence of the "witch's mark". This procedure was carried out as follows: the woman was completely undressed and examined. A large birthmark, nipples larger than the GOS of that time - a witch. If the sign is not found on the body, then it is inside, the commission was guided by such "iron logic"; the prisoner was tied to a chair and examined as they say "from the inside": they saw something unusual - a witch. But those who passed this test are also "servants of Satan". Yes, their body is too ideal for a simple woman: Satan rewarded them with such a body for his carnal pleasures - the reasoning of the Inquisition. As you can see, the potential witch was such, regardless of the results of the test. The witch is revealed, captured - what's next? Shackles, chains, dungeon - this is the near future for the elect by the church. Let's try to look a little further. Torture - there are two options: denial and death by mutilation, or agreement in everything and death at the stake. The choice of "tools of truth" was great.

Some of them had enough pulled out nails and teeth to confess during interrogation, others - broken legs and arms. But there were desperate women who wanted to prove their innocence. It is here that sadism, perversion and cruelty of the almighty's servants reveal themselves. The prisoners were twisted between two logs, starting from the legs, "squeezing" them like towels, boiled in resin and oil, imprisoned in an "iron maiden" and drained blood to the last drop, poured lead down their throats. This is just a small fraction of the horrors that happened in the torture chambers, which are usually located directly under the monasteries. The majority, or rather almost all of the victims of the Inquisition, did not live to see the day of their execution. The Inquisition claimed more than two hundred thousand lives.

The Orthodox Church also did not stand aside from this exciting hunt. In ancient Russia, Vedic processes arose already in the 11th century, soon after the establishment of Christianity. Church authorities were investigating these cases. In the oldest legal monument, "The Charter of Prince Vladimir on Church Courts," witchcraft, sorcery and sorcery are referred to the number of cases that were examined and judged by the Orthodox Church. In the monument of the XII century. "The Word about the Evil Dusekh", compiled by Metropolitan Kirill, also speaks of the need to punish witches and sorcerers by the church court. The chronicle notes that in 1024 in the Suzdal land, the Magi were captured and<лихие бабы>and put to death by burning.

They were accused of being the culprits of the crop failure that befell the Suzdal land. In 1071, the Magi were executed in Novgorod for publicly condemning the Christian faith. The Rostovites did the same in 1091. In Novgorod, after interrogation and torture, they burned four "wizards" in 1227. According to the chronicle, the execution took place at the bishop's court at the insistence of the Novgorod Archbishop Anthony. The clergy supported among the people the belief that sorcerers and witches are capable of acts hostile to Christianity, and demanded a cruel reprisal against them. In the teachings of the unknown author, "Kako Zhiti for Christians," the civil authorities were called upon to hunt down sorcerers and sorcerers and give them over to "all-endless torment", that is, death, under fear of church curse. "You must not spare those who have done evil before God," the author of the lecture argued, proving that those who saw the execution "would fear God." and death. Metropolitan John believed that cruelty would frighten others not to perform "magic" actions and would turn the people away from sorcerers and sorcerers.

An ardent supporter of the bloody persecution of sorcerers and witches was also the famous preacher who lived in the 13th century, the Vladimir Bishop Serapion, a contemporary of the first trials against witches in the west (the first trial arose in Toulouse in 1275, when Angela Labaret was burned on charges of carnal relations with the devil), “And when you want to cleanse the city of wicked people,” Serapion wrote in his sermon, addressing the prince, “I rejoice at this. murder, some by imprisonment, and others by imprisonment "The bishops were looking for sorcerers and witches, they were brought to the episcopal court for investigation, and then handed over to the secular authorities for punishment by death. Following the example of its Catholic comrades-in-arms, the Orthodox Inquisition developed in the 13th century. and methods of recognizing witches and sorcerers by fire, cold water, by weighing, piercing warts, etc. At first, the clergy considered those who did not drown in water and remained on its surface to be sorcerers or sorcerers. But then, after making sure that most of the accused could not swim and quickly drowned, they changed their tactics: they began to recognize those who could not stay on the water guilty. To discern the truth, the test of cold water, which was dripped onto the heads of the accused, was also widely used, following the example of the Spanish inquisitors. Supporting faith in the devil and his power, representatives of the Orthodox Church declared any doubt about the reality of the devil to be heretical. They persecuted not only those accused of having intercourse with evil spirits, but also those who expressed doubts about its existence, the existence of witches and sorcerers who acted with the help of devilish powers. The victims of Orthodox inquisitors were mainly women. According to church ideas, women easily entered into intercourse with the devil. Women were accused of spoiling the weather, crops, that they were the culprit of crop failure and hunger. Metropolitan Photius of Kiev developed in 1411 a system of measures to combat witches. In his letter to the clergy, this inquisitor proposed to excommunicate all who would resort to the help of witches and sorcerers. 4. In the same year, at the instigation of the clergy, 12 witches, "prophetic wives" were burned in Pskov, they were accused of sorcery.

In 1444, on charges of sorcery in Mozhaisk, boyar Andrei Dmitrovich and his wife were publicly burned.

At all times, while the witch hunt was going on, there were people protesting against it. Among them were priests and secular scientists, for example, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes.

Gradually, their voices grew louder, and their morals gradually softened. Torture and cruel executions were used less and less, and in the enlightened 18th century, with rare exceptions, the witch-hunt in Europe gradually faded away. Surprisingly, the fact is that executions of people suspected of witchcraft continue to this day. For example, in May 2008, 11 alleged sorcerers were burned in Kenya, and in January 2009, a campaign to combat witches began in the Gambia. Additional information - Although the scale of the witch hunt is amazing, it should be noted that the risk of being its victim was ten times less than the likelihood of death from the plague, which claimed millions of human lives. - The brutal torture used in medieval Europe against suspected witchcraft was also used in ordinary criminal practice. - It is believed that the peak of the witch-hunt falls on the Middle Ages, but a truly large-scale persecution of sorcerers and sorcerers unfolded in the Renaissance.

Moreover, the witch-hunt was supported by such a great church reformer and rebel as Martin Luther. It is to this fighter against indulgences that the phrase belongs: “Sorcerers and witches are the essence of evil devilish offspring, they steal milk, bring bad weather, send damage to people, take away the strength in their legs, torture children in the cradle ... force people to love and intercourse, and the intrigues of the devil are innumerable. " - Since the word "witch" in Russian is feminine, it is often believed that the victims of the witch hunt were mainly women. Indeed, in many countries the number of women accused reached 80-85%. But in a number of countries, for example, in Estonia, more than half of those accused of witchcraft were men, and in Iceland there was only one executed witch for 9 executed sorcerers.

Editor's Choice

What the myth says about five centuries

Based on Hesiod's poem "Works and Days". The immortal gods living on the bright Olympus created the first human race to be happy; it was...

Where was Gilgamesh. Myths and legends. About everything that has seen

A brave, fearless demigod named Gilgamesh became famous for his own exploits, love for women and the ability to be friends with men ...

Daedalus and Icarus in ancient times

A long time ago, a remarkable sculptor, painter, builder and inventor lived in the Greek city of Athens. His name was Daedalus. Let's talk about...

List of characters of ancient Greek mythology Mythical characters of ancient Greece

Before talking about the Heroes of Greece, it is necessary to determine who they are and how they differ from Genghis Khan, Napoleon and other heroes, ...

Heroes of Ancient Myths Ancient Heroes

Before talking about the Heroes of Greece, it is necessary to determine who they are and how they differ from Genghis Khan, Napoleon and other heroes, ...