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Author | Nicholas Eymerich |
---|---|
Original title | Directorium Inquisitorum |
Language | Latin |
Publication place | Spain |
The Directorium Inquisitorum is Nicholas Eymerich's most prominent and enduring work, written in Latin and consisting of approximately 800 pages, which he had composed as early as 1376. Eymerich had written an earlier treatise on sorcery, perhaps as early as 1359, which he extensively reworked into the Directorium Inqusitorum. In compiling the book, Eymerich used many of the magic texts he had previously confiscated from accused sorcerers. It can also be considered as an assessment of a century and a half of official Inquisition in the "albigensian" country.
The Dominican friar Nicholas Eymerich was appointed Inquisitor General of Aragon in 1357. As he directed much of his efforts to the apparent errors of members of the clergy, he often found his investigations blocked by the court, curia, or papacy. King Peter IV of Aragon had him removed from office at the general chapter held at Perpignan in 1360. [1]
In lieu of being elected the Vicar General of the Dominicans in Aragon in 1362 however, Eymerich was again Inquisitor General. For a time King Peter IV of Aragon prevented Eymerich from serving as inquisitor. Finally in 1376 he drove him from the kingdom and Eymerich fled to the papal court of Pope Gregory XI in Avignon. There he wrote the Directorium Inquisitorum. It was further amplified by Spanish canonist Francis Peña in 1578. According to Karen Sullivan, they viewed the accused "as a soul deciding for itself whether it is to be united with God or forever alienated from him". [2]
Eymerich appears to have been familiar with Bernard Gui's earlier Liber sententiarum and other inquisitorial treatises. [3] The Directorium Inquisitorum includes definitions of various types of heresies, discussion of questions of jurisdiction, and proper trial procedure. [4] The book was used as a manual for inquisitors, and gave practical advice on how to conduct inquiries. [3] It also described various means an accused heretic might use to dissemble, such as equivocation or the pretense of insanity. [5]
Witchcraft, which was a marginal issue for early inquisitors, assumed more importance in the later edition. [2] On the subject of magic, it discusses various types and techniques of divination and draws a distinction between practices deemed heretical and non-heretical. [4]
He quotes Pope Innocent V in saying that in order to receive aid from a demon, a person must enter into some form of pact with the demon. Eymerich then extrapolates on this postulate to demonstrate that any agreement with a demon is a heresy. Eymerich was among the first to condemn all forms of demonic conjuration as heresy. Previously, the common belief had been that even a saint might make a demonic pact as exemplified by the story of Saint Theophilus, who made a pact with the devil to gain an ecclesiastical position.
In addition to describing common magical practices, Eymerich also described means of extracting a confession which included primitive psychological manipulation as well as outright torture. Regarding torture, Eymerich said, "Quaestiones sunt fallaces et inefficaces" meaning, "Torture is deceptive and ineffectual." However, Eymerich was the first inquisitor to get around the Church's prohibition against torturing a subject twice. He interpreted the directive very liberally, permitting a separate instance of torture for a separate charge of heresy.
The Directorium Inquisitorum was to become the definitive handbook of procedure for the Spanish Inquisition until into the seventeenth century. It saw numerous printings, including a run at Barcelona in 1503 and one in Rome in 1578. The Directorium Inquisitorum was one of the primary forerunners of the better known Malleus Maleficarum .
The Inquisition was a medieval Catholic judicial procedure where the ecclesiastical judges could initiate, investigate and try cases, and later a name for various State-organized tribunals whose aim was to combat heresy, apostasy, blasphemy, witchcraft, and other dangers, using this procedure. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, but convictions of unrepentant heresy were handed over to the secular courts for the application of local law, which generally resulted in execution or life imprisonment. If the accused was known to be lying, a single short application of non-maiming torture was allowed, to corroborate evidence.
The Medieval Inquisition was a series of Inquisitions from around 1184, including the Episcopal Inquisition (1184–1230s) and later the Papal Inquisition (1230s). The Medieval Inquisition was established in response to movements considered apostate or heretical to Roman Catholicism, in particular Catharism and Waldensians in Southern France and Northern Italy. These were the first movements of many inquisitions that would follow.
The Malleus Maleficarum, usually translated as the Hammer of Witches, is the best known treatise about witchcraft. It was written by the German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer and first published in the German city of Speyer in 1486. Some describe it as the compendium of literature in demonology of the 15th century. Kramer presented his own views as the Roman Catholic Church's position.
The Roman Inquisition, formally Suprema Congregatio Sanctae Romanae et Universalis Inquisitionis, was a system of partisan tribunals developed by the Holy See of the Catholic Church, during the second half of the 16th century, responsible for prosecuting individuals accused of a wide array of crimes according to Catholic law and doctrine, relating to Catholic religious life or alternative religious or secular beliefs. It was established in 1542 by the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Paul III. In the period after the Medieval Inquisition, it was one of three different manifestations of the wider Catholic Inquisition, the other two being the Spanish Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition.
Heinrich Kramer, also known under the Latinized name Henricus Institor, was a German churchman and inquisitor. With his widely distributed book Malleus Maleficarum (1487), which describes witchcraft and endorses detailed processes for the extermination of witches, he was instrumental in establishing the period of witch trials in the early modern period. Professor Malcolm Gaskill has described Kramer as a "superstitious psychopath."
Tomás de Torquemada, also anglicized as Thomas of Torquemada, was a Castilian Dominican friar and first Grand Inquisitor of the Tribunal of the Holy Office. The Spanish Inquisition was a group of ecclesiastical prelates created in 1478 and charged with the somewhat ill-defined task of "upholding Catholic religious orthodoxy" within the lands of the newly formed union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon. The lands of this newly formed royal union are now known as the Kingdom of Spain.
An inquisitor was an official in an inquisition – an organization or program intended to eliminate heresy and other things contrary to the doctrine or teachings of the Catholic faith. Literally, an inquisitor is one who "searches out" or "inquires".
Konrad von Marburg was a medieval German Catholic priest, inquisitor and nobleman. He is perhaps best known as the spiritual director of Elizabeth of Hungary.
Bernard Gui, also known as Bernardo Gui or Bernardus Guidonis, was a Limousin Dominican friar, Bishop of Lodève, and a papal inquisitor during the later stages of the Medieval Inquisition.
The Portuguese Inquisition, officially known as the General Council of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Portugal, was formally established in Portugal in 1536 at the request of King John III. Although King Manuel I had asked for the installation of the Inquisition in 1515 to fulfill the commitment of his marriage with Maria of Aragon, it was only after his death that Pope Paul III acquiesced. In the period after the Medieval Inquisition, it was one of three different manifestations of the wider Christian Inquisition, along with the Spanish Inquisition and Roman Inquisition. The Goa Inquisition was an extension of the Portuguese Inquisition in colonial-era Portuguese India. The Portuguese Inquisition was terminated in 1821.
Nicholas Eymerich was a Roman Catholic theologian in Medieval Catalonia and Inquisitor General of the Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon in the later half of the 14th century. He is best known for authoring the Directorium Inquisitorum, that mostly summarized previous texts and mores.
The Aix-en-Provence possessions were a series of alleged cases of demonic possession occurring among the Ursuline nuns of Aix-en-Provence in 1611. Father Louis Gaufridi was accused and convicted of causing the possession by a pact with the devil, and he was tortured by strappado and his bones dislocated. He was then executed on April 1611 by strangulation and his body burned. This case provided the legal precedent for the conviction and execution of Urbain Grandier at Loudun more than 20 years later. This event led to possessions spreading to other convents and a witch burning in 1611.
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. It began toward the end of the Reconquista and was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and to replace the Medieval Inquisition, which was under papal control. It became the most substantive of the three different manifestations of the wider Catholic Inquisition, along with the Roman Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition.
In the early modern period, from about 1400 to 1775, about 100,000 people were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe and British America. Between 40,000 and 60,000 were executed, almost all in Europe. The witch-hunts were particularly severe in parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Prosecutions for witchcraft reached a high point from 1560 to 1630, during the Counter-Reformation and the European wars of religion. Among the lower classes, accusations of witchcraft were usually made by neighbors, and women made formal accusations as much as men did. Magical healers or 'cunning folk' were sometimes prosecuted for witchcraft, but seem to have made up a minority of the accused. Roughly 80% of those convicted were women, most of them over the age of 40. In some regions, convicted witches were burnt at the stake, the traditional punishment for religious heresy.
The Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition is the hypothesis of the existence of a series of myths and fabrications about the Spanish Inquisition used as propaganda against the Spanish Empire in a time of strong military, commercial and political rivalry between European powers, starting in the 16th century. According to its advocates, Protestant propaganda depicted inquisitions of Catholic monarchs as the epitome of human barbarity with fantastic scenes of tortures, witch hunting and evil friars. Proponents of the theory see it as part of the Spanish Black Legend propaganda, as well as of anti-Catholic propaganda, and one of the most recurrent black legend themes.
Vox in Rama is a decretal sent by Pope Gregory IX in June 1233 condemning the heresy of Luciferianism said to be rife in Germany, and authorizing the preaching of a crusade against it. Copies of the letter were sent to Emperor Frederick II, King Henry (VII) of Germany, Archbishop Siegfried III of Mainz, his suffragans, Bishop Conrad II of Hildesheim and the preacher Konrad von Marburg. The copies are dated to 11, 13 and 14 June.
Throughout the era of the European witch trials in the Early Modern period, from the 15th to the 18th century, there were protests against both the belief in witches and the trials. Even those protestors who believed in witchcraft were typically sceptical about its actual occurrence.
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The Venetian Inquisition, formally the Holy Office, was the tribunal established jointly by the Venetian government and the Catholic Church to repress heresy throughout the Republic of Venice. The inquisition also intervened in cases of sacrilege, apostasy, prohibited books, superstition, and witchcraft. It was established in the 16th-century and was abolished in 1797.
France was one of the first countries where the papal inquisition was established in the 13th century. This ecclesiastical judicial institution was created to combat heresies. The southern region of France, Languedoc, was the primary center of inquisition activity in Europe until the mid-14th century. Most of the preserved sources concerning the inquisition originate from this region. However, the history of the French Inquisition spans until the end of the 17th century and also encompasses other areas of the country.