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The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. 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, which generally resulted in execution or life imprisonment. The Inquisition had its start in the 12th-century Kingdom of France, with the aim of combating religious deviation, particularly among the Cathars and the Waldensians. The inquisitorial courts from this time until the mid-15th century are together known as the Medieval Inquisition. Other groups investigated during the Medieval Inquisition, which primarily took place in France and Italy, include the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites, and the Beguines. Beginning in the 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order, replacing the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges.
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 Roman Inquisition, formally the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, was a system of partisan tribunals developed by the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church, during the second half of the 16th century, responsible for prosecuting individuals accused of a wide array of crimes according to Roman 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 Roman Catholic Church, Pope Paul III. In the period after the Medieval Inquisition, it was one of three different manifestations of the wider Catholic Inquisition along with the Spanish Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition.
The Reformation was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in particular to papal authority, arising from what were perceived to be errors, abuses, and discrepancies by the Catholic Church. The Reformation was the start of Protestantism and the split of the Western Church into Protestantism and what is now the Roman Catholic Church. It is also considered to be one of the events that signified the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period in Europe.
Pope Paul IV, born Gian Pietro Carafa, C.R. was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 23 May 1555 to his death in August 1559. While serving as papal nuncio in Spain, he developed an anti-Spanish outlook that later coloured his papacy. In response to an invasion of part of the Papal States by Spain during his papacy, he called for a French military intervention. After a defeat of the French and with Spanish troops at the edge of Rome, the Papacy and Spain reached a compromise: French and Spanish forces left the Papal States and the Pope thereafter adopted a neutral stance between France and Spain.
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 that was created in 1478, and which was 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". Inquisitors sought out the social networks that people used to spread heresy. There were accounts where the Inquisition could not tell who was a heretic or devout, and they were killed anyway. One of these accounts was Arnaud Amalric at the storming of Béziers. The abbot was recorded as saying “Kill them. For God knows who are his.” This brought up concern about the role the Inquisition was playing and whether or not it was a truly righteous cause.
Grand Inquisitor was the lead official of the Inquisition. The title usually refers to the chief inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, even after the reunification of the inquisitions. Secretaries-general of the Roman Inquisition were often styled as Grand Inquisitor but the role and functions were different.
Carlos, Prince of Asturias, also known as Don Carlos, was the eldest son and heir apparent of King Philip II of Spain. His mother was Maria Manuela of Portugal, daughter of John III of Portugal. Carlos was mentally unstable and was imprisoned by his father in early 1568, dying after half a year of solitary confinement. His fate was a theme in Spain's Black Legend, and inspired a play by Friedrich Schiller and an opera by Giuseppe Verdi.
Bernard Gui, also known as Bernardo Gui or Bernardus Guidonis, was a Dominican friar, Bishop of Lodève, and a papal inquisitor during the later stages of the Medieval Inquisition.
Spanish Netherlands was the Habsburg Netherlands ruled by the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs from 1556 to 1714. They were a collection of States of the Holy Roman Empire in the Low Countries held in personal union by the Spanish Crown. This region comprised most of the modern states of Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as parts of northern France, the southern Netherlands, and western Germany with the capital being Brussels. The Army of Flanders was given the task of defending the territory.
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 its king, John III. Although 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 historical revision of the Inquisition is a historiographical process that started to emerge in the 1970s, with the opening of formerly closed archives, the development of new historical methodologies, and, in Spain, the death of the ruling dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. New works of historical revisionism changed our knowledge of the history of the Roman and Spanish Inquisitions.
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, commonly known as the Spanish 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 Portuguese Inquisition. The "Spanish Inquisition" may be defined broadly as operating in Spain and in all Spanish colonies and territories, which included the Canary Islands, the Kingdom of Naples, and all Spanish possessions in North, Central, and South America. According to modern estimates, around 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offences during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition, of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed.
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 Revolutionary 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.
An auto-da-fé was the ritual of public penance carried out between the 15th and 19th centuries of condemned heretics and apostates imposed by the Spanish, Portuguese, or Mexican Inquisition as punishment and enforced by civil authorities. Its most extreme form was death by burning.
Censorship in Mexico includes all types of suppression of free speech in Mexico. This includes all efforts to destroy or obscure information and access to it spanning from the nation's colonial Spanish roots to the present. In 2016, Reporters Without Borders ranked Mexico 149 out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index, declaring Mexico to be “the world's most dangerous country for journalists.” Additionally, in 2010 the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported that Mexico was "one of the worst nations in solving crimes against journalists." Under the current Mexican Constitution, both freedom of information and expression are to be protected under the legislation from Article 6, which states that "the expression of ideas shall not be subject to any judicial or administrative investigation, unless it offends good morals, infringes the rights of others, incites to crime, or disturbs the public order," and Article 7 which guarantees that "freedom of writing and publishing writings on any subject is inviolable. No law or authority may establish censorship, require bonds from authors or printers, or restrict the freedom of printing, which shall be limited only by the respect due to private life, morals, and public peace." Mexico is currently a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which gives them the responsibility to uphold these established laws regarding freedom of expression.
Hendrik Frans Karel van Nierop is a historian of early-modern Holland and professor emeritus of the University of Amsterdam.
The Venetian Inquisition, formally the Holy Office, was the tribunal established jointly by the Venetian government and the Roman 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.
The origins of the Eighty Years' War are complicated, and have been a source of disputes amongst historians for centuries.
References
- ↑ Joseph Blötzer, "Inquisition", in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 8 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910). Retrieved 8 December 2019.
- ↑ Van Nierop 2007, p. 83.
- ↑ J. I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: its rise, greatness, and fall (Oxford University Press) 1995, 82.
- ↑ Herman J. Selderhuis and Peter Nissen, "The Sixteenth Century", in Handbook of Dutch Church History (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), p. 189.
- ↑ J. I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: its rise, greatness, and fall (Oxford University Press) 1995, 99 144-6.
- ↑ G. Gielis & V. Soen, "The Inquisitorial Office in the Sixteenth-Century Habsburg Low Countries: A Dynamic Perspective" in The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 66 (1), 2015, p.66. doi:10.1017/s0022046914001286
