Read Online EXECUTIONERS (True Crime) by Anne Williams, Phil Clarke, Liz Hardy - Free Book Online Page B
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would crush and splinter bones, rendering hands and feet permanently mutilated.
Once the physical, mental and spiritual ordeals were exhausted, the verdict against the accused would be determined. However, this could still mean a lengthy stay in prison as the inquisition preferred to stockpile the cases for one mass sentencing. This religious reckoning called a sermo generalis would be scheduled on a Sunday, or traditional feast day, in order to attract the bigger crowds and would be a ceremonial event full of pomp and circumstance. The Church would want to take full advantage of such an affair which celebrated orthodox Christianity and denounced its captured heretical opponents. Amid the self-congratulatory glamour of the sermo generalis was the real business of the verdicts. Prisoners would finally be made aware of their charges before the crowds and the punishments were promptly assigned. These could often be fairly minor penalties such as enforced pilgrimages to demonstrate a renewed devotion to Christianity. Further confiscation of assets could be imposed, an unconvincing representation of the Mendicant rejection of worldly possessions. Some would escape with excommunication, others with imprisonment. And then there was the ultimate punishment for heresy – the stake. This was given to two groups considered the worst examples in the eyes of the Church; those who consistently chose an unorthodox path and those who remained unashamed of their non-conformist beliefs.
While the Inquisition was responsible for convicting the heretic, the completion of the sentence was outside the jurisdiction of this ecclesiastical body. Those who had been convicted as repeat offenders or unrepentant heretics and were therefore prescribed capital punishment, would be subject to relictus culiae saeculari and handed over to the secular court for execution within five days. This appears to have removed the inquisitors from the final act in the life of a condemned heretic, detaching them from responsibility. However, this relinquishing to the state authorities was just an official stance. The Church could not be seen to take the lives of these men and women, heretics or not. They needed to remain suitably disconnected from the burning so as not to further tarnish their reputation and religious values. Yet the Inquisition – as always – still managed to exert control. The civil authorities may well have had the last say in the life of a heretic, but if they failed to follow the inquisitors’ recommendations, the officials involved could find themselves excommunicated. This was far more serious than it sounds, for ecclesiastical law stated that if they were unable to free themselves from the papal ban they would be labelled a heretic.
By 1325, after almost a century of official extirpation, the Inquisition saw the destruction of Catharism, the main threat to the Catholic Church, and so slowly relaxed its persecutory grip over the continent. The number of heretics burnt at the stake by the Papal Inquisition throughout the towns and cities of Europe has never been accurately calculated. The various figures reported show that relatively few heretics succumbed to the flames. At Pamiers, in South-west France between 1318 and 1324 five out of 24 heretics were placed under the control of the civil court to perish on the pyre and likewise, from 1308 to 1323, only 42 out of 930 in the Cathar capital of Toulouse, died at the stake. This confirms the Inquisition’s desire to convert rather than execute in the main. Execution admitted defeat and was a loss for the Church. They wished for a nonconformist to admit their sins and repent, to see the error of his or her ways but a dead man could not confess. A dead man could not have his soul saved or freely understand the power of the one God and the authority that served Him – the Catholic Church. Despite this preference for conversion, favouring the redemption of a wayward soul rather than its
Once the physical, mental and spiritual ordeals were exhausted, the verdict against the accused would be determined. However, this could still mean a lengthy stay in prison as the inquisition preferred to stockpile the cases for one mass sentencing. This religious reckoning called a sermo generalis would be scheduled on a Sunday, or traditional feast day, in order to attract the bigger crowds and would be a ceremonial event full of pomp and circumstance. The Church would want to take full advantage of such an affair which celebrated orthodox Christianity and denounced its captured heretical opponents. Amid the self-congratulatory glamour of the sermo generalis was the real business of the verdicts. Prisoners would finally be made aware of their charges before the crowds and the punishments were promptly assigned. These could often be fairly minor penalties such as enforced pilgrimages to demonstrate a renewed devotion to Christianity. Further confiscation of assets could be imposed, an unconvincing representation of the Mendicant rejection of worldly possessions. Some would escape with excommunication, others with imprisonment. And then there was the ultimate punishment for heresy – the stake. This was given to two groups considered the worst examples in the eyes of the Church; those who consistently chose an unorthodox path and those who remained unashamed of their non-conformist beliefs.
While the Inquisition was responsible for convicting the heretic, the completion of the sentence was outside the jurisdiction of this ecclesiastical body. Those who had been convicted as repeat offenders or unrepentant heretics and were therefore prescribed capital punishment, would be subject to relictus culiae saeculari and handed over to the secular court for execution within five days. This appears to have removed the inquisitors from the final act in the life of a condemned heretic, detaching them from responsibility. However, this relinquishing to the state authorities was just an official stance. The Church could not be seen to take the lives of these men and women, heretics or not. They needed to remain suitably disconnected from the burning so as not to further tarnish their reputation and religious values. Yet the Inquisition – as always – still managed to exert control. The civil authorities may well have had the last say in the life of a heretic, but if they failed to follow the inquisitors’ recommendations, the officials involved could find themselves excommunicated. This was far more serious than it sounds, for ecclesiastical law stated that if they were unable to free themselves from the papal ban they would be labelled a heretic.
By 1325, after almost a century of official extirpation, the Inquisition saw the destruction of Catharism, the main threat to the Catholic Church, and so slowly relaxed its persecutory grip over the continent. The number of heretics burnt at the stake by the Papal Inquisition throughout the towns and cities of Europe has never been accurately calculated. The various figures reported show that relatively few heretics succumbed to the flames. At Pamiers, in South-west France between 1318 and 1324 five out of 24 heretics were placed under the control of the civil court to perish on the pyre and likewise, from 1308 to 1323, only 42 out of 930 in the Cathar capital of Toulouse, died at the stake. This confirms the Inquisition’s desire to convert rather than execute in the main. Execution admitted defeat and was a loss for the Church. They wished for a nonconformist to admit their sins and repent, to see the error of his or her ways but a dead man could not confess. A dead man could not have his soul saved or freely understand the power of the one God and the authority that served Him – the Catholic Church. Despite this preference for conversion, favouring the redemption of a wayward soul rather than its
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