Editing Medieval Inquisition (section)

==Inquisition procedure==
The papal inquisition developed a number of procedures to discover and prosecute heretics. These codes and procedures detailed how an inquisitorial court was to function. If the accused renounced their heresy and returned to the Church, forgiveness was granted and a penance was imposed. If the accused upheld their heresy, they were [[excommunicated]] and turned over to secular authorities. The penalties for heresy, though not as severe as the secular courts of Europe at the time, were codified within the ecclesiastic courts as well (e.g. confiscation of property, turning heretics over to the secular courts for punishment).{{sfn|Peters|1988|pp=58–67}} Additionally, the various "key terms" of the inquisitorial courts were defined at this time, including, for example, "heretics," “believers," “those suspect of heresy," “those simply suspected," “those vehemently suspected," and "those most vehemently suspected".{{sfn|Peters|1988|p=63}}

===Investigation===
The townspeople would be gathered in a public place. The inquisitors would provide an opportunity for anyone to step forward and denounce themselves in exchange for leniency. Legally, there had to be at least two witnesses, although conscientious judges rarely contented themselves with that number.<ref name=blotzer/>

===Trial===
At the beginning of the trial, defendants were invited to name those who had "mortal hatred" against them. If the accusers were among those named, the defendant was set free and the charges dismissed; the accusers would face life imprisonment. This option was meant to keep the inquisition from becoming involved in local grudges. Early legal consultations on conducting inquisition stress that it is better that the guilty go free than that the innocent be punished. Gregory IX urged Conrad of Marburg: "''ut puniatur sic temeritas perversorum quod innocentiae puritas non laedatur''" – i.e., "not to punish the wicked so as to hurt the innocent".<ref name=blotzer/>

There was no personal confrontation of witnesses, neither was there any cross-examination. Witnesses for the defense hardly ever appeared, as they would almost infallibly be suspected of being heretics or favorable to heresy. At any stage of the trial the accused could appeal to Rome.<ref name=blotzer/>

===Torture===
Like the inquisitorial process itself, torture was an ancient Roman legal practice commonly used in secular courts. 

On May 15, 1252, [[Pope Innocent IV]] issued a [[papal bull]] entitled ''[[Ad extirpanda]]'', which authorized the limited use of torture by inquisitors. Much of the brutality commonly associated with the Inquisition was actually previously common in secular courts, but prohibited under the Inquisition, including torture methods that resulted in bloodshed, miscarriages, mutilation or death. Also, torture could be performed only once, and for a limited duration.

In preparation for the Jubilee in 2000, the Vatican opened the archives of the Holy Office (the modern successor to the Inquisition) to a team of 30 scholars from around the world. According to the governor general of the [[Order of the Holy Sepulchre]], recent studies "seem to indicate" that "torture and the death penalty were not applied with the pitiless rigor" often ascribed to the Inquisition.<ref name="nyt1998">{{Cite news|last=Stanley|first=Alessandra|date=1998-10-31|title=Vatican Is Investigating the Inquisition, in Secret|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/31/world/vatican-is-investigating-the-inquisition-in-secret.html|access-date=2020-06-23|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=2016-11-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161130184609/http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/31/world/vatican-is-investigating-the-inquisition-in-secret.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Other methods such as threats and imprisonment seem to have proven more effective.

===Punishment===
A council in Tours in 1164, presided over by [[Pope Alexander III]], ordered the confiscation of a heretic's goods. Of 5,400 people interrogated in Toulouse between 1245 and 1246, 184 received penitential yellow crosses (used to mark repentant Cathars), 23 were imprisoned for life, and none were sent to the stake.<ref>{{cite book |last=Pegg |first=Mark Gregory |title=The Corruption of Angels: The Great Inquisition of 1245–1246 |page=[https://archive.org/details/corruptionofange00pegg/page/126 126] |location=Princeton, NJ |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-691-00656-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/corruptionofange00pegg |url-access=registration }}</ref>

The most extreme penalty available in antiheretical proceedings was reserved for relapsed or stubborn heretics. The unrepentant and apostates could be "relaxed" to secular authority, however, opening the convicted to the possibility of various corporal punishments, up to and including being burned at the stake. Execution was neither performed by the Church, nor was it a sentence available to the officials involved in the inquisition, who, as clerics, were forbidden to kill. The accused also faced the possibility that his or her property might be confiscated. In some cases, accusers may have been motivated by a desire to take the property of the accused, though this is a difficult assertion to prove in the majority of areas where the inquisition was active, as the inquisition had several layers of oversight built into its framework in a specific attempt to limit prosecutorial misconduct.

The inquisitors generally preferred not to hand over heretics to the secular arm for execution if they could persuade the heretic to repent: ''Ecclesia non novit sanguinem (The Church knows not Blood)''. For example, of the 900 guilty verdicts levied against 636 individuals by the Dominican friar and inquisitor [[Bernard Gui]], no more than 45 resulted in execution.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Dane|first=Joseph A.|date=1989|title=Inquisitorial Hermeneutics and the Manual of Bernard Gui|url=http://muse.jhu.edu/content/crossref/journals/tenso/v004/4.2.dane.html|journal=Tenso|language=en|volume=4|issue=2|pages=62|doi=10.1353/ten.1989.0005|s2cid=191612140|issn=1944-0146}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Given|first=James|title=The Inquisitors of Languedoc and the Medieval Technology of Power|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=94|pages=353|doi=10.1086/ahr/94.2.336|year=1989|doi-access=free}}</ref>