page_title: Inquisition
section_title: Definition and purpose
hierarchical_section_title: Inquisition / Definition and purpose
caption_attribution_description: English: Tribunal, Inquisitor's palace in Vittoriosa (Birgu), Malta. Français&#160;: Tribunal, Palais de l'inquisiteur à Vittoriosa (Birgu), Malte.
context_page_description: The Inquisition, in historical ecclesiastical parlance also referred to as the "Holy Inquisition", was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy. The Inquisition started in 12th-century France to combat religious dissent, 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, included 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.
  During the Late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, the scope of the Inquisition grew significantly in response to the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. It expanded to other European countries, resulting in the Spanish Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions focused particularly on the anusim and on Muslim converts to Catholicism.
context_section_description: The term Inquisition comes from the Medieval Latin word "inquisitio", which referred to any court process that was based on Roman law, which had gradually come back into use during the late medieval period.  Today, the English term "Inquisition" can apply to any one of several institutions that worked against heretics (or other offenders against canon law) within the judicial system of the Roman Catholic Church. Although the term Inquisition is usually applied to ecclesiastical courts of the Catholic Church, it refers to a judicial process, not an organization. "Inquisitors" "...were called such because they applied a judicial technique known as inquisitio, which could be translated as "inquiry" or "inquest." In this process, which was already widely used by secular rulers (Henry II used it extensively in England in the twelfth century), an official inquirer called for information on a specific subject from anyone who felt he or she had something to offer."
  The Inquisition, as a church-court, had no jurisdiction over Moors and Jews as such. Generally, the Inquisition was concerned only with the heretical behaviour of Catholic adherents or converts.
  The overwhelming majority of sentences seem to have consisted of penances like wearing a cross sewn on one's clothes, going on pilgrimage, etc. When a suspect was convicted of unrepentant heresy, the inquisitorial tribunal was required by law to hand the person over to secular authorities for final sentencing, at which point a magistrate would determine the penalty, which was usually burning at the stake although the penalty varied based on local law. The laws were inclusive of proscriptions against certain religious crimes (heresy, etc.), and the punishments included death by burning, although usually the penalty was banishment or imprisonment for life, which was generally commuted after a few years. Thus the inquisitors generally knew what would be the fate of anyone so remanded.
  The 1578 edition of the Directorium Inquisitorum (a standard Inquisitorial manual) spelled out the purpose of inquisitorial penalties: ... quoniam punitio non refertur primo & per se in correctionem & bonum eius qui punitur, sed in bonum publicum ut alij terreantur, & a malis committendis avocentur (translation: "... for punishment does not take place primarily and per se for the correction and good of the person punished, but for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit").
caption: Tribunal at the Inquisitor's Palace in Birgu, Malta
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