The Name of the Rose - Nobody expects the Inquisition

[Burned Dwarf]

Hi folks,

I almost posted this after session 3, and after the discussion in session 4 I've decided to add it for those interested.

One of the best historians on the subject of the Inquisition (or more properly inquisitions, since there were several varieties) is Prof. Thomas F. Madden of Saint Louis University. He did one of the Modern Scholar Series courses (also available on Audible) on Heaven or Heresy: A History of the Inquisition. It's well worth the time.

It's probably been a decade since I listen to the course, but I still remember a number of surprising takeaways:

• Heresy was a civil crime in almost all countries in Europe, under the theory (previously held by the Greeks and Romans) that if you offend God (or the gods) then catastrophes will follow (famine, earthquake, flood, etc.). However, the local civil authority might not know whether your specific believe was actually heretical. So you could be burned at the stake by amateurs for a perfectly orthodox, but obscure, belief.
• Most inquisitors thought of themselves as spiritual doctors, thought they were doing good, and therefore wrote everything down. So we actually know who was accused of what, what the procedure was, and what the punishment was. As is turns out, a lot fewer people were executed (and then by the civil authorities) than is commonly believed. The records are actually incredibly good for the time period. And the most common punishments were much less severe than execution.
• The most common contemporary complaint about inquisitors was not that they were too harsh or unfair, but that they were too lenient! The most of the horrible tales we have about the Inquisition are from the Enlightenment or from Victorian novelists who always needed a good villain.
• The Spanish Inquisition is something of a special case. It happened at the height of Spain's power and influence, so the Crown had much more control over it than in most of the rest of Europe. And it's focus on conversos (Muslims and Jews how had converted to Christianity, but privately retained old beliefs and practices) which were a particular concern during and after the Reconquista. Therefore, the inquisitors referenced in The Name of the Rose are not associated with the Spanish Inquisition.

As a result, if the local cattle kept dying, and the local magistrate looked around and fixed on you as someone to blame because of some odd belief or practice you had, the best thing that could happen to you would be the arrive of a genuine Papal Inquisitor. Then at least you had a good chance of determining whether your foible was actually heresy, and if so, you would probably be given a chance to repent and do penance. And you would be given what was probably the best due process available anywhere at the time.

 

[Bruce N H]

Very interesting. I've always had a very uninformed view of the inquisition, as much shaped by Gestapo interrogators in WWII movies as by any actual medieval history. And, of course, there's always Monty Python and Mel Brooks.

 

[Halstein]

The Portuguese and Spanish Inquisitions were the main reason for the low number of executions for witch-craft in those countries. Often the accusations were dismissed, because they couldn't be proved.