Documents recording the interrogation of sixteen women and the nature of their unusual spiritual practices, now available in a full edition and, for the first time, a full English translation. In September 1332, in the town of Świdnica, an important economic and communication centre of what was then Silesia, a group of sixteen women stood before the Dominican inquisitor, John of Schwenkenfeld, to testify about the local community of beguines, who called themselves the Hooded Sisters or the Daughters of Odelindis. We are fortunate that the original records of this heresy interrogation have survived, preserved as a notarial instrument drawn up shortly afterwards, eventually transferred to the Papal Curia, and now kept in the Vatican Library. The documents provide unique insights into the everyday life and spirituality of this group of lay women, as they attempted to adopt the ideals of vita apostolica. They lived in the strict poverty they thought necessary for spiritual perfection, and took part in austere ascetic practices, including regular flagellation and a strict diet regime, aiming to mortify sinful flesh and help them achieve mystical union with God. Using this evidence, the authors of this book piece together a sense of who these interrogated beguines were and the nature of their spiritual practices. Were they pious illiterates, or self-trained theologians, keenly interested in debates around the doctrine of such intellectuals as Master Eckhart, John Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas? The book also addresses the nature of their interrogation and the conduct of Friar John of Schwenkenfeld. And it contains a full edition and, for the first time, a full English translation of the documents themselves.

Essays considering how information could be used and abused in the service of heresy and inquisition. The collection, curation, and manipulation of knowledge were fundamental to the operation of inquisition. Its coercive power rested on its ability to control information and to produce authoritative discourses from it - a fact not lost on contemporaries, or on later commentators. Understanding that relationship between inquisition and knowledge has been one of the principal drivers of its long historiography. Inquisitors and their historians have always been preoccupied with the process by which information was gathered and recirculated as knowledge. The tenor of that question has changed over time, but we are still asking how knowledge was made and handed down - to them and to us - and how their sense of what was interesting or useful affected their selection. This volume approaches the theme by looking at heresy and inquisition in the Middle Ages, and also at how they were seen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The contributors consider a wide range of medieval texts, including papal bulls, sermons, polemical treatises and records of interrogations, both increasing our knowledge of medieval heresy and inquisition, and at the same time delineating the twisting of knowledge. This polarity continues in the early modern period, when scholars appeared to advance learning by hunting for medieval manuscripts and publishing them, or ensuring their preservation through copying them; but at the same time, as some of the chapters here show, these were proof texts in the service of Catholic or Protestant polemic. As a whole, the collection provides a clear view of - and invites readers' reflection on - the shading of truth and untruth in medieval and early modern "knowledge" of heresy and inquisition. Contributors: Jessalynn Lea Bird, Harald Bollbuck, Irene Bueno, Jörg Feuchter, Richard Kieckhefer, Pawel Kras, Adam Poznanski, Luc Racaut, Alessandro Sala, Shelagh Sneddon, Michaela Valente, Reima Välimäki

An investigation of two manuals of inquisition reveals much about the practice in action. The Inquisition played a central role in European history. It moulded societies by enforcing religious and intellectual unity; it helped develop the judicial and police techniques which are the basis of those used today; and it helped lay the foundations for the persecution of witches. An understanding of the Inquisition is therefore essential to the late medieval and early modern periods. This book looks at how the philosophy and practice of Inquisition developed in the fourteenth century. It saw the proliferation of heresies defined by the Church (notably the Spiritual Franciscans and Beguines) and the classifcation of many more magical practices as heresy.The consequentialwidening of the Inquisition's role in turn led to it being seen as an essential part of the Church and the guardian of all the Church's doctrinal boundaries; the inclusion of magic in particular also changed the Inquisition's attitude towards suspects, and the use of torture became systematised and regularised. These changes are charted here through close attention to the inquisitorial manuals of Bernard Gui and Nicholas Eymerich, using other sourceswhere available. Gui's and Eymerich's personalities were important factors. Gui was a successful insider, Eymerich a maverick, but Eymerich's work had the greater long-term influence. Through them we can see the Inquisition in action. DEREK HILL gained his PhD from the University of London.

A fresh examination of the Cathar heresy, using the records of inquisitorial tribunals to bring out new details of life at the time.

The beguines began to form in various parts of Europe over eight hundred years ago. Beguines were laywomen, not nuns, and they did not live in monasteries. They practiced a remarkable way of living independently, and they were never a religious order or a formalized movement. But there were common elements that these medieval women shared across Europe, including their visionary spirituality, their unusual business acumen, and their courageous commitment to the poor and sick. Beguines were essentially self-defined, in opposition to the many attempts to control and define them. They lived by themselves or in communities called beguinages, which could be single homes for just a few women or, as in Brugge, Brussels, and Amsterdam, walled-in rows of houses where hundreds of beguines lived together--a village of women within a medieval town or city. Among the beguines were celebrated spiritual writers and mystics, including Mechthild of Magdeburg, Beatrijs of Nazareth, Hadewijch, and Marguerite Porete--who was condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake in Paris in 1310. She was not the only beguine suspected of heresy, and often politics were the driving force behind such charges. The beguines, across the centuries, have left us a great legacy. They invite us to listen to their voices, to seek out their wisdom, to discover them anew.

This volume offers the first comprehensive analysis of wills in late medieval Krakow. It presents the origins of testamentary acts in the Kingdom of Poland and its centre, Krakow, and their subsequent transformation from so called ‘canonical wills’ to ‘communal wills’. Wysmułek discusses the socio-cultural role of wills and sets them in their contemporary legal, social, and economic context. In doing so, he uncovers their influence on property ownership and family relations in the city, as well as on the religious practices of the burghers. Ultimately, this work seeks to change the perception of wills by treating the testamentary act itself as an important agent of historical social change – a ‘tool of power’.

First major survey of the German inquisitor Petrus Zwicker, one of the most significant figures in the repression of heresy. In the final years of the fourteenth century, waves of persecution shattered German-speaking Waldensian communities, with the scale of inquisitions matching or even greater than the better-known trials in southern France. In the middle of the persecution was the influential and enigmatic figure of the Celestine provincial and inquisitor of heresy, Petrus Zwicker (d.after 1404). His surviving texts and inquisition protocols offer a fresh, intriguing picture of the medieval repression of heresy. Zwicker was an accurate and intelligent interrogator with direct access to the Waldensians' sources and knowledge. But although he is one of the most effective inquisitors of the MiddleAges, he was even more important as the author of anti-heretical texts. His Cum dormirent homines became a standard work on Waldensianism in the fifteenth century (and this study attributes another anti-heretical treatise, the Refutatio errorum, to him). With his unique biblicist and pastoral style, Zwicker struck the right note at a moment when the Church was in crisis. His texts spread rapidly, they were preached to the people and translated into German, and helped to build the fear of heresy, anti-clericalism and disobedience in the years of the Great Western Schism. This book is the first full-length study on Zwicker and his significance to the history of heresy and its repression. It offers a meticulous analysis of the sources left by him and teases out new, ground-breaking discoveries from careful examination of previously poorly known manuscripts. Dr REIMA VALIMAKI isa postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Cultural History, University of Turku