Inquisitorial Justice

Early Inquisitorial Justice

The rise of the inquisition in the twelfth century as an alternative to the adversarial system of justice was the Church's direct response to fears that heretics were weakening its bond with and control over its parishioners. Initially, it was used by clerics to help identify individuals they believed to be heretics. Ultimately, the Church adapted the inquisition to include the use of torture as a means to determine the guilt or innocence of suspected heretics.

In an effort to preserve the rights of the accused and lessen the chance that an innocent person would be found guilty, a very high standard of proof was instituted for inquisitions. Church law required complete proof of heresy in order for the accused to be judged guilty and punished. This meant that there had to be testimony from two witnesses in good standing in the community who had seen the accused commit the crime and whose testimony was credible and completely accurate as to the same facts.

Not surprisingly, this standard of proof was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to obtain with regard to crimes of thought such as heresy. After all, how can two witnesses know what a person is thinking? The impracticability of this legal proof, coupled with clerics' growing fear of the spread of heresy, resulted in an inquisition in which a confession by the accused became necessary not only for corroboration of witnesses' evidence but also for conviction. By the mid-thirteenth century, increasing fears of the spread of heresy, real or imagined, drove the Church to use new and innovative techniques to stop it. Interrogations and interviews with accused heretics became more confrontational, ultimately resulting in the use of torture as a means to gain confession.

In the interest of defending the faith against nonbelievers, torture of the accused was fully sanctioned by the Church. In fact, Innocent IV (Pope 1243–1254) oversaw the creation of machinery specifically designed for the torture of prisoners. But torture was not only physical; psychological methods of torture and imprisonment in dungeons were used as well. Regardless of method, [Page 902]torture was implemented for the sole purpose of gaining confession—a confession that had to be given freely and willingly after the accused had been tortured.

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