Inquisition: An Overview
The inquisition was one of the worst moments of European history. It could have thrown Europe back into the dark ages if it was left unchecked.
The inquisition historically is divided into two periods. The first is in the middle ages and is when it was first created and controlled by mid-evil bishops. During this period the inquisition was fairly small because bishops could only run it on a small scale. They were not able to expand the death and destruction of non-Christian people and their properties to a state level. However, between the years 1478 and 1542 the inquisition became transformed into a state level bureaucracy. There was a huge difference between the mid-evil and renaissance inquisition. In the mid-evil one there was a small scale of the death and large communities remained relatively untouched. But, in the renaissance inquisition whole cities were wiped out in the name of G-d. Now that the program was run by the actual leaders of countries it could spread everywhere. Nothing was able to stop the inquisition from killing millions. Yet, the biggest difference between the mid-evil and the renaissance inquisition was who they went after. The mid-evil one only went after Christians who were deemed heretics by the Church. They were mainly the Cathars of South France. While, the renaissance inquisition’s goal was to destroy every non-Christians, especially the Jews in Spain. Queen Isabella of Spain was especially adamant about destroying the Jewish and Muslim population in Spain. There the inquisition was at its worst and nobody could trust anybody else. The amount of deaths were enormous. After the 1500’s the inquisition cooled down dramatically but it was never officially destroyed until the late 1800’s.
By: Josh Leyenson