The emergence and existence for many centuries of special papal tribunals (inquisition) is the most shameful and gloomy page in the history of the Catholic Church. For most modern people, the activity of inquisitors is usually associated with the "dark ages" of the early Middle Ages, but it did not stop even during the Renaissance and Modern times. The emergence of the Inquisition was associated with the activities of Dominic Guzman (a trusted employee of Pope Innocent III) and the monastic order he created.
Pope Innocent III
Dominic Guzman, portrait by an unknown artist, National Museum Amsterdam
The first victims of the church tribunals were the Cathars (also known as the Albigensians from the city of Albi), the "heresy" inhabitants of Aquitaine, Languedoc and Provence. The name "Cathars" comes from the Greek word for "pure", but the "apostates" themselves usually called themselves "good people", and their organization - "The Church of Love." In the XII century in the south of France, the Waldensian sect (named after the Lyon merchant Pierre Waldo) also appeared and gained great popularity, which was recognized as heretical at the Verona council in 1184. Common to all such heretical sects was the condemnation of the acquisitiveness of the hierarchs of the official church, the denial of lavish ceremonies and rituals. It is believed that the Teaching of the Cathars came to Western Europe from the East, and is closely related to the Manichean sects and Gnostic teachings. The immediate predecessors and "teachers" of the Cathars were probably the Byzantine Pavlikians and the Bulgarian Bogomils. But, in general, there was no strict "canon" of the teaching of "good people", and some researchers count up to 40 different sects and movements. The common thing was the recognition of the creator god of this World as an evil demon, capturing particles of divine light, which human souls are. The soul, which consists of light, is directed towards God, but his body is drawn to the Devil. Christ is neither God nor man, he is an Angel who appeared to show the only way to salvation through complete detachment from the material world. Cathar preachers were called "weavers" because it was this profession that they most often chose for naturalization in a new place. They could be recognized by their gaunt appearance and pale faces. These were "perfect" teachers, devotees of the faith, whose main commandment was the prohibition to shed anyone's blood. The hierarchs of the Catholic Church sounded the alarm: whole areas of Europe were out of control of Rome because of a sect that preached some not entirely Christian humility and abstinence. The most terrible was the veil of secrecy surrounding the heretics: "Swear and testify perjury, but do not reveal the secret," read the code of honor of the Cathars. Dominic Guzman, a trusted employee of Pope Innocent III, went to Languedoc to strengthen the authority of the Catholic Church by personal example, but "he is not a warrior in the field: Dominic lost the" perfect "competition in asceticism and eloquence. Embittered by the failure, he reported to his patron that a terrible heresy Cathars can only be broken by military force and the invasion of the Crusaders into the Languedoc was decided. This unworthy act did not prevent the canonization of Dominic, but centuries passed and in the poem "The Virgin of Orleans" Voltaire was merciless, describing the hellish torments of the founder of the Dominican order:
… Eternal torment
I incurred what I deserved.
I set up persecutions against the Albigensians, And he was sent into the world not for destruction, And now I am burning for the fact that he himself burned them.
The Languedoc Crusades are better known as the Albigensian Wars. They began in 1209. At first, the issue of reconciliation with the official Catholic Church could still be resolved through cash payments: “voluntarily repentant” paid a fine to the Pope, people forced to “repentance” at the episcopal court were sentenced to confiscation of property, the rest were waiting for a fire. There were never too many people who repented. Dominique Guzman from the beginning of hostilities became an adviser to the military leader of the crusaders Simon de Montfort.
Dominique Guzman and Simon de Montfort
A terrible description of the storming of the Albigensian city of Beziers, which Caesar of Heisterbach left behind, has survived to our time:
“Having learned from the exclamations that the Orthodox were there (in the taken city) along with the heretics, they (the soldiers) said to the abbot (Arnold-Amori, the abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Sito):“What should we do, Father? We do not know how to distinguish the good from the evil.”And now the abbot (as well as others), fearing that the heretics would not pretend to be Orthodox out of fear of death, and later again would not return to their superstition, said, as they say:“Beat them all, for The Lord recognizes his own."
Despite the fact that the forces of the opposing sides were not equal, it was only in March 1244 that the last stronghold of the Cathars fell - Monsegur.
Montsegur
274 "perfect" (they had no right to fight with weapons in their hands) then went to the stake, other defenders of the fortress (which turned out to be about 100 people), the enemies offered to save their lives, recognizing the Holy Trinity, the sacraments and the Pope. Some of them agreed, but some monk ordered to bring a dog and began to offer the Albigensians a knife one by one: in order to prove the truth of the renunciation, they had to hit the animal with them. None of them shed the blood of an innocent creature and all were hanged. After that, the "cleansing" of the rebellious areas from heretics began. In identifying the secret Cathars, the crusaders were assiduously assisted by both Orthodox Catholics and simply dishonest people who, with the help of denunciations, sought to get rid of their enemies or creditors. It is curious that all the thin and poorly dressed people, whom the crusaders often mistaken for itinerant preachers of the Cathars, were then under suspicion. In Spain, for example, five Franciscan monks were executed as a result of such a mistake. This situation required the creation of special commissions that would decide the question of the involvement of a particular person in heresy. Dominic often acted as an "expert" and, in recognition of his merits, Simon de Montfort in 1214 gave him the "income" received from the sack of one of the Albigensian cities. In the same year, wealthy Catholics in Toulouse donated three buildings to him. These gifts became the basis for the creation of a new religious order of Dominican monks (1216). The main type of his activity was the fight against heresy in any of its manifestations, which was expressed, first of all, in the collection of compromising materials on the townspeople. Therefore, in 1235, the Dominicans were expelled from Toulouse (alas, they returned to it two years later) and were forced to seek refuge in other cities in France and Spain. However, even there, the atmosphere of general hostility forced them to settle far beyond the city limits for a long time. Dominic Guzman was canonized in 1234 (thirteen years after his death). According to the testimony of Inquisitor Guillaume Pelisson, on this occasion, the Dominicans of Toulouse held a gala dinner, during which it was reported that one of the women dying nearby had received a "consultum" - the Qatari equivalent of the rite of communion before death. The worthy successors of Saint Dominic immediately interrupted the meal and burned the unfortunate woman in the count's meadow.
At first, the Dominicans were looking for heretics on their own initiative, but already in 1233. Pope Gregory IX issued a bull that officially made them responsible for eradicating heresies. Moreover, the Dominicans were given the power to dismiss suspected clerics. Somewhat later, it was announced the establishment of a permanent tribunal, of which only Dominicans could be members. This decision was the beginning of the official history of the papal Inquisition. The sentences handed down by the inquisitors were not subject to appeal, and their actions were so impudent that they caused legitimate indignation even among local bishops. Their opposition to the actions of the inquisitors was at that time so open that the Council of 1248 in a special epistle threatened the recalcitrant bishops withholding their own churches if they did not agree with the sentences of the Dominicans. Only in 1273 was a compromise found by Pope Gregory X: the inquisitors were ordered to act in cooperation with the local church authorities and there was no more friction between them. The interrogations of the suspects were accompanied by the most sophisticated tortures, during which the executioners were allowed to do everything except shedding blood. However, sometimes blood was still shed, and in 1260 Pope Alexander IV gave the inquisitors permission to absolve each other for any "unforeseen accidents."
As for the legal basis for the activities of the Inquisition, it was the legislation of the Roman Empire: Roman law contained about 60 provisions directed against heresy. Burning, for example, in Rome was the standard punishment for parricide, desecration of the temple, arson, witchcraft, and treason. Therefore, the largest number of burned victims turned out to be on the territory of countries that were previously part of the Roman Empire: in Italy, Spain, Portugal, southern regions of Germany and France. But in England and Scandinavia, the actions of the inquisitors did not receive such a scale, since the laws of these countries were not taken from Roman law. In addition, torture was prohibited in England (this does not mean that it was not used). However, the processes against witches and heretics in this country were somewhat difficult.
How was the activity of the inquisitors carried out in practice? Sometimes inquisitors arrived in a city or a monastery in secret (as described in Umberto Eco's novel "The Name of the Rose"). But more often the population was notified about their visit in advance. After that, secret heretics were given “grace time” (from 15 to 30 days) during which they could repent and return to the bosom of the church. As a punishment, they were promised penance, which usually consisted of a public flogging on Sundays throughout their lives (!). Another form of penance was pilgrimage. A person making the "Small Pilgrimage" was obliged to visit 19 local holy places, in each of which he was whipped with rods. The Great Pilgrimage involved traveling to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostello, or Canterbury. It lasted for several years. During this time, the affairs of the heretic fell into decay and the family was ruined. Another way to earn forgiveness was to participate in the crusades (sinners had to fight from two to eight years). The number of heretics in the crusader armies gradually increased, and the Pope began to fear that the Holy Land would be "infected" by their teachings. Therefore, this practice was soon banned. Fines became another very interesting and attractive (for the inquisitors themselves) form of penance. Later, a bright thought came to the heads of the hierarchs of the Catholic Church that payment for sins can be taken in advance - and numerous "sky merchants" drove along the roads of Europe (as the humanist writers of the Reformation era called the sellers of the notorious indulgences).
Having finished with the "volunteers", the inquisitors began to search for secret heretics. There was no shortage of denunciations: the temptation to settle scores with old enemies was too great. If a person was denounced by two witnesses, he was summoned to an inquisitorial tribunal and, as a rule, was taken into custody. Torture helped win confessions in almost all cases. Neither social position nor national fame saved from the sentence. In France, for example, on charges of dealing with demons, the folk heroine Jeanne d'Arc and her comrade-in-arms, Marshal of France Baron Gilles de Rey (who went into legend under the nickname “Duke Bluebeard”) were executed on charges of dealing with demons. But there were also exceptions to the rule. So the famous astronomer Kepler, after many years of litigation, managed to prove the innocence of his mother, accused of witchcraft. Agrippa of Nestheim, who became the prototype of Dr. Faustus, saved a woman sentenced to be burned at the stake for witchcraft, accusing the inquisitor of heresy: by insisting on the second baptism of the accused, he declared that the inquisitor, by his accusation, denied the great sacrament to which the defendant was subjected, and he was even sentenced to fine.
Henry Agrippa of Nestheim
And Michel Nostradamus, who received a call to the Inquisition, managed to escape from France. He traveled to Lorraine, Italy, Flanders, and when the inquisitors left the city of Bordeaux, he returned to Provence and even received a pension from the parliament of this province.
In Spain, the Inquisition was initially no more active than in other countries of Western Europe. Moreover, in Castile, Leon and Portugal, inquisitors appeared only in 1376 - a century and a half later than in France. The situation changed in 1478 when the queen of Castile Isabella and her husband, the future king of Aragon (from 1479), Ferdinand, established their own inquisition. In February 1482, Tomás de Torquemada, prior of the monastery in Segovia, was appointed Grand Inquisitor of Spain. It was he who became the prototype of the protagonist of the famous "The Parable of the Grand Inquisitor" of the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky. In 1483, he was appointed head of the Supreme Council of the Inquisition (Suprema) - General Inquisitor, and it was he who had the dubious honor of becoming the personification of the Inquisition in its darkest manifestations.
Thomas de Torquemada
The personality of Torquemada is very contradictory: on the one hand, he was a strict vegetarian, refused the rank of cardinal, and wore the rough robes of a Dominican monk all his life. On the other hand, he lived in luxurious palaces and appeared to the people, accompanied by a retinue of 50 horsemen and 250 soldiers. A feature of the Spanish Inquisition was its pronounced anti-Semitic orientation. So, of all those convicted by the Inquisition in Barcelona for the period from 1488 to 1505. 99.3% were "conversos" (forcibly baptized Jews convicted of performing the rites of Judaism) in Valencia between 1484-1530. there were 91.6% of them. The persecution of the Jews had sad consequences for the country's economy, King Ferdinand understood this, but was adamant: “We go for it, despite the obvious harm to ourselves, preferring the salvation of our souls to our own benefit,” he wrote to his courtiers. The baptized descendants of the Moors (Moriscos) were also persecuted. Carlos Fuentes wrote that at the end of the 15th century "Spain drove out sensuality with the Moors and intelligence with the Jews." Science, culture, industrial production fell into decay, and Spain for many centuries turned into one of the most backward countries in Western Europe. The successes of the Spanish Royal Inquisition in the fight against dissidents were so great that in 1542 the Papal Inquisition was reconstructed on its model, which henceforth became known as the "Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Ecumenical Inquisition" or simply - "Sacred Chancellery". The decisive blow to the Spanish Inquisition came in 1808, when the army of Napoleonic Marshal Joachim Murat occupied the country. Times have changed, but the inquisitors have not changed, who found it possible to arrest the secretary of Murat, a well-known philologist and militant atheist. Murat did not understand the humor of this situation and, instead of laughing merrily at the successful joke of the "holy fathers", he sent his dashing cavalrymen to them.
Joachim Murat
In a short theological dispute, the dragoons proved themselves worthy heirs of the great French philosophers: they easily proved to their opponents both the deep fallacy of their position and the absolute uselessness of the existence of their archaic organization. On December 4, 1808, Napoleon signed a decree banning the Inquisition and confiscating its property. In 1814, reinstated on the Spanish throne, Ferdinand VII Bourbon issued a decree on the restoration of the Inquisition, but it looked like an attempt to revive an already decayed corpse.
Ferdinand VII of Bourbon, King of Spain, who tried to revive the Inquisition in 1814
In 1820 the inhabitants of Barcelona and Valencia ransacked the premises of the Inquisition. In other cities, the “holy fathers” also felt very uncomfortable. On July 15, 1834, the royal ban of the Inquisition put an end to this agony.
While the "own" inquisition of the monarchs of Spain hunted the secret Jews and Moriscos, the papal inquisition found a new adversary in Central and Northern Europe. The witches turned out to be the enemy of the church and God, and in some villages and cities of Germany and Austria there were soon almost no women left.
Victor Monsano y Mejorada. Inquisition scene
Until the end of the 15th century, the Catholic Church considered witchcraft to be a deception that the devil sows. But in 1484 the Pope recognized the reality of witchcraft, and the University of Cologne issued a warning in 1491 that any challenge to the existence of witchcraft would lead to the persecution of the Inquisition. Thus, if earlier belief in witchcraft was considered heresy, now such was declared disbelief in it. In 1486 Heinrich Institoris and Jacob Sprenger published The Hammer of Witches, which some researchers call "the most shameful and obscene in the entire history of Western civilization", others - "a guide to sexual psychopathology."
"Hammer of witches"
"Where there are many women, there are many witches." Heinrich Kramer, illustration for The Hammer of the Witches, 1486
In this work, the authors stated that the forces of darkness are helpless in themselves and are capable of doing evil only with the help of an intermediary, which is the witch. On 500 pages, it tells in detail about the manifestations of witchcraft, various ways of establishing contact with the devil, describes copulation with demons, provides formulas and recipes for exorcism, rules that must be followed when dealing with witches. The chronicles of those years are simply overflowing with descriptions of the executions of unfortunate women.
William Russell. Burning witch
So, in 1585 in two German villages after the visit of the inquisitors, one woman remained alive. And in Trier for the period from 1587 to 1593. burned one witch a week. The last victims of the "Hammer of the Witches" were burned in Szegedin (Hungary) in 1739.
Trial of the witch: illustration for the novel by V. Bryusov "The Fiery Angel"
In the 16th century, Protestants destroyed the centuries-old monopoly of the Catholic clergy on the knowledge and interpretation of the sacred texts of the Gospel and the Old Testament. In a number of countries, the Bible was translated into local languages, the rapid development of book printing has sharply lowered the cost of books and made them available to the general population.
- wrote V. Hugo, -
In an effort to prevent the spread of the ideas of the Reformation, the tribunals of the Inquisition introduced a new form of censorship. In 1554, the notorious "Index of Forbidden Books" appeared, which included the works of Erasmus of Rotterdam, Martin Luther, the legend of King Arthur, the Talmud, 30 Bible translations and 11 translations of the New Testament, works on magic, alchemy and astrology. The last complete edition of the Index appeared in the Vatican in 1948. Among the banned authors were Balzac, Voltaire, Hugo, father and son Dumas, Zola, Stendhal, Flaubert and many others. It was only in 1966 that common sense prevailed and the Index of Forbidden Books was abolished.
The eighteenth century brought new concerns to the Inquisition: July 25, 1737.in Florence, a secret conference of the Sacred Chancellery was held, which was attended by the Pope, three cardinals and the inquisitor general. The topic of discussion was the Freemasons: the highest hierarchs of Rome were convinced that Freemasonry was only a cover for a new and extremely dangerous heresy. 9 months later, Pope Clement XII issued the first of a long series of bulls condemning Freemasonry. However, on this front, Catholic Rome expected failures and defeats, all the more offensive because the clergy themselves did not listen to the voice of the leadership. Threats and promises of punishment did not work: in Mainz, the Masonic lodge consisted almost entirely of clergy, in Erfurt the lodge was organized by the future bishop of this city, and in Vienna two royal chaplains, the rector of the theological institution and two priests became active freemasons. Individual Freemasons were arrested by the Inquisition (for example, Casanova and Cagliostro), but this did not affect the general trend of the spread of the "Masonic infection".
The Inquisition, called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, still exists today. Moreover, this department is the most important in the hierarchy of the Vatican and is indicated first in all documents. The official head of the Congregation is the Pope himself, and the highest official (the modern Grand Inquisitor) is the prefect of this department. The head of the Congregation's judicial department and at least two of his assistants are traditionally Dominicans. Modern inquisitors, of course, do not pass death sentences, but non-orthodox Christians are still excommunicated from the church. Father Hering, a German moral theologian, for example, found his trial by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith more humiliating than the four occasions he faced trial during the Third Reich. It may seem incredible, but in order to turn out to be not an orthodox Catholic, today it is enough to openly speak out for birth control (abortion, modern methods of contraception), divorce, criticize the activities of the local bishop or pope (adopted in 1870 the thesis on the infallibility of the Pope has not been canceled), to express doubts about the possibility of resurrection from the dead. Until now, the legitimacy of the Anglican Church has been denied and all the parishioners of which the Vatican considers heretics. Some of the more radical green environmentalists in the 1980s were accused of deifying nature and, therefore, pantheism.
However, time is moving forward, and encouraging trends are noted in the activities of the Vatican. So, in 1989, Pope John Paul II admitted that Galileo was right, the same pope, on behalf of the Catholic Church, publicly repented for the crimes it committed against dissidents (heretics) and Orthodox Christians. There are persistent rumors about the imminent recognition of Giordano Bruno's righteousness. These events give reason to hope that the processes of democratization of the Catholic Church will continue, and the papal Inquisition will really and forever stop its activities.
