The Office of Inquisition and Medieval Heresy

In 1979, in a study of the ‘inquisitors of heretical depravity” and their work against heresy in medieval Germany, I urged rethinking of the term ‘the Inquisition” and the concept behind it. There is no clear evidence, I argued, that people in medieval Europe used either inquisitio or officium inquisitionis with reference to an agency or institution. The former term was used for specific trials following inquisitorial procedure, while the latter was essentially parallel to officium predicationis , and referred to the office or function of an individual inquisitor, not to an institutional structure. Furthermore, I argued that there is no reason to suppose there actually was an institution in medieval Europe to which the term ‘the Inquisition” might meaningfully be assigned. Heresy inquisitors during the Middle Ages were not held together by a structure of inquisitorial authority, which could ensure vigorous action, procedural regularity, or interaction of members. ‘In these circumstances”, I tentatively concluded, ‘it would perhaps be advisable to avoid speaking of even papal inquisitors as if they formed a suprapersonal agency, or an Inquisition

Agency (philosophy · Ancient history · Heresy · Institution · Jurisdiction · Middle Ages · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Classics · Historical, Literary, and Cultural Studies · History · Law · Medieval Literature and History · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

• Tolerantia

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• The Saturnine History of Jews and Witches

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• Medieval Inquisitorial Procedure

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• The Friars Preachers

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• Modeling systems of sentencing in early inquisition trials

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• Gender Bias in Medieval Inquisitions and its Place in Shaping Knowledge about the Heterodox

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• The Women and the Inquisitor

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• Out of the Margins

  Open Access•David S Peterson•Renaissance Quarterly•2000

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• The Inquisitorial Office in the Sixteenth-Century Habsburg Low Countries

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• The war against heresy in medieval Europe

  Open Access•R I Moore•Historical Research•2008

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• The Heretic Saint

  Open Access•Barbara Newman•Church History•2005

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• Die Anfänge der Inquisition im Mittelalter

  Peter Segl•Die Anfänge der Inquisition Im…•1993

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• The Inquisitors of Languedoc and the Medieval Technology of Power

  James Given•The American Historical Review•1989

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• Continuity and Discontinuity in Church History

  F Forrester Church, Flora Church et al.•Continuity and Discontinuity in…•1979

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• The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe

  Hans Sebald, Brian P Levack et al.•The American Historical Review•1988

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• The Formation of a Persecuting Society

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• Ad Terrorem Multorum. Die Anfänge Der Inquisition in Frankreich

  Von Lothar Kolmer•Die Anfänge der Inquisition Im…•1993

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• Pathways to medieval peasants

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• Economy and Society

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• Trent 1475

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• Trent 1475

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• The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe

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• Repression of Heresy in Medieval Germany

  Thomas Renna, Richard Kieckhefer•The American Historical Review•1980

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• Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages

  Open Access•Frank Barlow•History•1971

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• Studies in Mediaeval Culture

  Loren C Mackinney, Charles Homer Haskins•The American Historical Review•1931

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• The World of the Witches

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• Montaillou

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• Studies in Mediaeval Culture

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• Inquisition and the Prosecution of Heresy

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• A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages

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• Europe's Inner Demons

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• Economy and Society

  Open Access•Gianfranco Poggi•Sociology•1969

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