The Prosecution Of Heresy

A series of studies on the judicial processes by which the Inquisition combatted Protestantism, witchcraft and occultism.

Six hundred years ago, the Czech priest Jan Hus (1371-1415) traveled out of Bohemia, never to return. After a five-year legal ordeal that took place in Prague, in the papal curia, and finally in southern Germany, the case of Jan Hus was heard by one of the largest and most magnificent church gatherings in medieval history: the Council of Constance. Before a huge audience, Hus was burned alive as a stubborn and disobedient heretic. His trial sparked intense reactions and opinions ranging from satisfaction to accusations of judicial murder. Thomas A. Fudge offers the first English-language examination of the indictment, relevant canon law, and questions of procedural legality. In the modern world, there is instinctive sympathy for a man burned alive for his convictions, and it is presumed that any court that sanctioned such an action must have been irregular. Was Hus guilty of heresy? Were his doctrinal convictions contrary to established ideas espoused by the Latin Church? Was his trial legal? Despite its historical significance and the controversy it provoked, the trial of Jan Hus has never before been the subject of a thorough legal analysis or assessed against prevailing canonical legislation and procedural law in the later Middle Ages. The Trial of Jan Hus shows how this popular and successful priest became a criminal suspect and a convicted felon, and why he was publicly executed, providing critical insight into what may have been the most significant heresy trial of the Middle Ages.

Heresy was the most feared crime in the medieval moral universe. By examining the drafting, publicizing, and implementing of new laws against heresy in the 14th and 15th centuries, this text presents a general study of inquisition in medieval England.

Six hundred years ago, the Czech priest Jan Hus (1371-1415) traveled out of Bohemia, never to return. After a five-year legal ordeal that took place in Prague, in the papal curia, and finally in southern Germany, the case of Jan Hus was heard by one of the largest and most magnificent church gatherings in medieval history: the Council of Constance. Hus was burned alive as a stubborn and disobedient heretic before a huge audience. His trial sparked intense reactions and opinions ranging from satisfaction to condemnations of judicial murder. Thomas A. Fudge offers the first English-language examination of the indictment, relevant canon law, and questions of procedural legality concerning Jan Hus and the Holy See. In the modern world, there is instinctive sympathy for a man burned alive for his convictions, and it is presumed that any court sanctioning such action must have been irregular. Was Hus guilty of heresy? Were his doctrinal convictions contrary to established ideas espoused by the Latin Church? Was his trial legal? Despite its historical significance and the strong reactions it provoked, the trial of Jan Hus has never before been the subject of a thorough legal analysis or assessed against prevailing canonical legislation and procedural law in the later Middle Ages. The Trial of Jan Hus shows how this popular and successful priest became a criminal suspect and a convicted felon, and why he was publicly executed, providing critical insight into what may be characterized as the most significant heresy trial of the Middle Ages.

During the Counter-Reformation, inquisition manual authors working in Italian lands adapted the Catholic Church's traditional tactics of inquisitorial procedure, which had been formulated in the medieval period, to the prosecution of philo-Protestants. Through a comparison of the texts of four such authors to contemporary inquisition processes, Jane K. Wickersham situates the Roman inquisition's prosecution of philo-Protestants within the larger framework of the complex religious upheavals of the sixteenth century. Identifying the critical role played by ritual practice in discovering and prosecuting heretical subjects, Wickersham uncovers two core reasons for its use: first, as a practical means of prosecuting a variety of philo-Protestant beliefs, and second, as an approach firmly grounded within the Catholic Church's history of prosecuting heresy. Finally, Rituals of Prosecution provides an in-depth examination of the inquisitorial processes of urban residents from humble socio-economic backgrounds, providing new insight into how the prosecution of ordinary people was conducted in the early modern era.

Inquisition was the new form of criminal procedure that was developed by the lawyer - Pope Innocent III and given definitive form at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. It has since developed a notoriety which has obscured the reality of the procedure. In contrast to the old Roman system of relying on volunteer accuser-prosecutor, who would be punished in case of acquittal, the inquisitorial judge himself served as investigator, accuser, prosecutor and final judge. A probable-cause requirement and other safeguards were put in place to protect the rights of the defendant, but as time went on some of these defences were modified, abused or ignored, but in all cases appeal and redress were at least theoretically possible. Unlike continental practice, in England inquisitorial procedure was mainly limited to local church courts, while on the secular side native procedures developed, most notably the jury. Private accusers, however, were still to be seen, illustrated here in the studies on appeals of sexual rape.

A synthesis of the latest scholarship on the institutions dedicated to the repression of heresy in the medieval and early modern Catholic Church.