Groundbreaking essays show the variety and complexity of the roles played by inquisition in medieval England. Inquisition in medieval and early modern England has typically been the subject of historical rather than cultural investigation, and focussed on heresy. Here, however, inquisition is revealed as playing a broader role in medievalEnglish culture, not only in relation to sanctions like excommunication, penance and confession, but also in the fields of exemplarity, rhetoric and poetry. Beyond its specific legal and pastoral applications, inquisitio was a dialogic mode of inquiry, a means of discerning, producing or rewriting truth, and an often adversarial form of invention and literary authority. The essays in this volume cover such topics as the theory and practice ofcanon law, heresy and its prosecution, Middle English pastoralia, political writing and romance. As a result, the collection redefines the nature of inquisition's role within both medieval law and culture, and demonstrates the extent to which it penetrated the late-medieval consciousness, shaping public fame and private selves, sexuality and gender, rhetoric, and literature. Mary C. Flannery is a lecturer in English at the University of Lausanne; Katie L. Walter is a lecturer in English at the University of Sussex. Contributors: Mary C. Flannery, Katie L. Walter, Henry Ansgar Kelly, Edwin Craun, Ian Forrest, Diane Vincent, Jenny Lee, James Wade, Genelle Gertz, Ruth Ahnert, Emily Steiner

With this book, published for the Rationalist Press Association in 1918, Charles T. Gorham made a good structured summary of the Medieval Inquisition action. He dealt in particular with the social aspects of this religious persecution and its consequences on European countries life that were mainly hit by the Holy Office’s zeal. In the bibliographic notes, where Gorham indicated the books he grounded the work draft, we added links that can be freely consulted with the intent to offer a rapid access to those who would go into the argument in more depth. Almost one hundred years later, this new digital edition has been upgraded through the addition of many pictures. “... The present inquiry is not concerned with the truth or falsehood of the Church’s theological basis, but only with its effects. The general conditions of the Middle Ages being what they were, those effects were in a sense inevitable, and the moral condemnation which must be visited upon the medieval Church applies less to individuals than to the system which produced them — a system which was incompatible not only with the rights of individuals, but with the progress of humanity in civilization and happiness ....” (Charles T. Gorham)

James B. Given analyzes the inquisition in one French region in order to develop a sociology of medieval politics. Established in the early thirteenth century to combat widespread popular heresy, inquisitorial tribunals identified, prosecuted, and punished heretics and their supporters. The inquisition in Languedoc was the best documented of these tribunals because the inquisitors aggressively used the developing techniques of writing and record keeping to build cases and extract confessions.Using a Marxist and Foucauldian approach, Given focuses on three inquiries: what techniques of investigation, interrogation, and punishment the inquisitors worked out in the course of their struggle against heresy; how the people of Languedoc responded to the activities of the inquisitors; and what aspects of social organization in Languedoc either facilitated or constrained the work of the inquisitors. Punishments not only inflicted suffering and humiliation on those condemned, he argues, but also served as theatrical instruction for the rest of society about the terrible price of transgression. Through a careful pursuit of these inquires, Given elucidates medieval society's contribution to the modern apparatus of power.

This concise and balanced survey of heresy and inquisition in the Middle Ages examines the dynamic interplay between competing medieval notions of Christian observance, tracing the escalating confrontations between piety, reform, dissent, and Church authority between 1100 and 1500. Jennifer Kolpacoff Deane explores the diverse regional and cultural settings in which key disputes over scripture, sacraments, and spiritual hierarchies erupted, events increasingly shaped by new ecclesiastical ideas and inquisitorial procedures. Incorporating recent research and debates in the field, her analysis brings to life a compelling issue that profoundly influenced the medieval world.

This impressive volume is actually three histories in one: of the legal procedures, personnel, and institutions that shaped the inquisitorial tribunals from Rome to early modern Europe; of the myth of The Inquisition, from its origins with the anti-Hispanists and religious reformers of the sixteenth century to its embodiment in literary and artistic masterpieces of the nineteenth century; and of how the myth itself became the foundation for a "history" of the inquisitions.