Medieval Inquisition

Throughout medieval times, variables such as wealth, gender roles and the growing concern of witchcraft challenged the authority of the Church. Because each of these themes are unique to their circumstances and elicited different if not similar responses from both those involved and those observing, it is relevant to detect and understand why these different events took place, and what became of the people who drove these actions. In chapters four, five and six of Deane’s A History of Medieval Heresy and Inquisition, each of these themes respectively was discussed in detail. The first of the previously mentioned concepts that challenged the authority of the Church is wealth. This was problematic as a good Christian was thought to have few worldly possessions and pride, however once in power, the men of the church had an abundance of these. “Ironically, however, the very appeal of the message and it’s embodiment in the ragged, austere, holy friars brought them into positions of authority and privilege with the institutional church” (pg. 101). As seen earlier the Church had struggled with maintaining authority in regards to people who branched out and used impoverishment as a means of claiming piety.…

A good example of this would be the Medieval Inquisition, which occurred from 1487-1834, mainly in Italy. During the Medieval Inquisition, in an attempt to “purify” the church, priests would travel throughout small Italian towns and call a town meeting. These meetings were labeled as optional, but it would create suspicious towards your loyalty to the Catholic Church if you did not attend. During these meetings, the priests would give the townsfolk an opportunity to confess their sins. If…

The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, established in fifteen-forty-two by Pope Paul III (the pontifical incumbent who was also responsible for the authorization of the Jesuit Order), was the primary institution to maintain and implement Papal bulls, in addition to their function of administering legalistic ramifications upon deviants of Catholic orthodoxy within the Papal States, and ostensibly exhibiting proper procedure to Catholic states in the process of…

Medieval Europe as a society greatly shunned deviations from cultural norms or established religious orthodoxy. From this denouncement, persecution of minority groups was commonplace, and possibly even a defining trait of European society at the time. Notably, mistreatment of Jewish communities and supposed Christian heresies were the more common forms of religious persecution. Furthermore, even Christians could be subject to persecution, if certain individuals were accused of breaking ethical…

III. Heresy “Even today,” writes Burnham, “Langeudoc’s best-known products – besides wine – are heretics, and dominant in both contemporary and historical accounts are the Cathars.” The “Cathar” heresy has continued to dominate the scene in the study of medieval heresy whether one elects to believe in their existence or not. There is no doubt to any of the scholars under examination here that heresy was real to the Latin Christian intellectuals who charged many souls to being heretics. Indeed,…

It was a warm June day in Rome. Francesco Niccolini, a Tuscan ambassador, and Galileo Galilei, an aging mathematician, sat in the Villa Medici awaiting their call to the Holy Office. It had been months since the beginning of his trial with the Roman Inquisition and Galileo was ready to be finished with the ordeal. He had been ill since the first session of his interrogation back in April and his condition had continued to worsen. Niccolini had already been informed of the old man’s sentence,…

Those monsters. Those hypocrites. Those ungodly, corrupt, monstrous hypocrites. I had a town. I had a congregation. I had a community. They took that all away. The Inquisition massacred my town. What does massacring innocents show about the Catholic Church? Does it show that they are moral? Certainly not. Does it counter the accusations of corruption rife throughout the church? Not but in forever silencing the voices of the accusers. I am a servant of God. That fact will never change. I may have…

contrapposto style. At face value, this image appears to have no religious connotations other than what can be inferred from the colors of the cloth and the presence of the putto. There are no outright religious symbols in this painting. Additionally, the main figure is nude. Based on this knowledge, it can be inferred that, given the time period, Velazquez likely endured criticism from the Roman Inquisition. This piece features no emphasis on the morals, teachings, or iconography of the…

Enlightenment period, when Europeans began to evaluate the consequences of oppression caused by the Roman Catholic Church. Among these Europeans was a rebellious intellectual, Voltaire, who openly criticized the religious system in his literature. An example of his work is “Candide,” a story that portrays characters who hold positions in the church as immoral and disreputable. Through the use of religious antagonists in “Candide,” Voltaire reveals the hypocritical character of those who follow…

their future, they tend to ask themselves, “What can I do better this time, that I or others failed to accomplish back then?”. This is what the members of the Party asked themselves when they developed the ideology of their new totalitarian government. They developed this ideology as they looked upon the failures of past totalitarian governments and wondered how those failures could have been altered for better results. Just before Winston Smith is tortured, O’Brien explains why previous…