Inquisition

by Edward Peters

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520066308
• ISBN13: 9780520066304
• Release Date: April 1989
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 362 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Did the "Inquisition" exist as we thought it did?

The author brings out some interesting points. Such as did the Inquisition exist in the way it is most thought of? "There was never, except in polemic and fiction, 'The Inquisition', a single all-powerful, horrific tribunal, whose agents worked everywhere to thwart religious truth, intellectual freedom, and political liberty. That is 'The Inquisition' of folklore, martyrology artwork, and post-Enlightenment fiction."

The Spanish Inquisition--a Monstrous Exaggeration

Peters has provided an invaluable analysis of the Inquisition. For the longest time, the Inquisition (especially the Spanish Inquisition) has been a mainstay of rationalistic mythology in its attacks on Christianity. No wonder that the numbers of its victims had been bloated a thousandfold, and that several reviewers have attacked this book as a whitewash of the Inquisition. (And never mind the fact that far more people were killed by atheists (such as the Jacobins during the French Revolution, and especially the Communists of the 20th century) than by all the Inquisitions and all religious wars combined). Peter's book is aptly summarized by the following quotation (p. 87): "...The Spanish Inquisition, in spite of wildly inflated claims of the numbers of its victims, acted with considerable restraint in inflicting the death penalty, far more restraint than was demonstrated in secular tribunals elsewhere in Europe that dealt with the same kinds of offenses. The best estimate is that around 3,000 death sentences were carried out in Spain by Inquisitorial verdict between 1550 and 1800, a far smaller number than in comparable secular courts." Need any more be said?

Well-researched and readable

I won't go into more detail about the book except to confirm the positive reviews below about the book's accuracy and thoroughness. I do want to note, for the benefit of those who might take "Jean Plaidy" as any kind of serious source, that Jean Plaidy is one of several pseudonyms used by Eleanor Hibbert, a mid-century pop British historical novelist who cranked out dozens upon dozens of novels, had no academic credentials and whose "historical fiction" is widely regarded as far more fiction than history. Might as well cite Danielle Steel.

Far from a whitewash

Edward Peters' book "Inquisition" is the furthest thing from a whitewash. Peters marshals facts neatly, cleanly, and readably, seperating the facts from the fictions. Tracing the notion of inquistion from its linguistic roots (inquire, inquest) all the way to the parodies of Monty Python and Mel Brooks, he shows how what we think of as THE INQUISITION is a composite of some historical fact and a lot of (truth to tell) whitewash and propoganda.One of Peters' central arguments revolves around the printing press. The moveable type printing press was developed in /northern/ Europe and, as the Protestant Reformation spread, so did the printing press -- primarily into Protestant lands. Spain, the largest empire in Europe at the time, was also ardently Catholic. The printing press was therefor enlisted as a propoganda tool. Many lurid pamphlets, of at best questionable veracity, were spread by Protestants to show the levels of evil, the depravity to which the Spanish had sunk; Peters also points out how several of these same charges had been levelled against other groups both prior to Spain's rise and then later against new foes, but due to the new power of the written word, and the rise in literacy, the charges truly struck home.On the other hand Peters does not shrink from the vile acts of the inquistion, Spanish or otherwise. He points to the origins of what we now collectively recognize as "The Inquisition" during the 12th century, citings boths its powers and its limits. He shows the later abuses, especially in Spain and the New World, including torture, forced conversions, endless imprisonments, and the rest. He also is meticulous in pointing out the comparative small numbers of people these horrors were visited upon, as the inquisitions (yes, plural) tended to keep fairly tight records.The last part of the book is probably the most interesting, because here Peters deals with the /idea/ of The Inquisition. Based on the pamphlets of the 16th and 17th centuries, later writers grab up what has become a stock image. The Gothic writers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries drive these fictionalized visions even deeper into the collective set of themes of European literature. By the end of the 19th century and certainly in the 20th and 21st centuries, it is nearly impossible to erradicate the /vision/ of the Inquisition (NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquistion!) from the reality of the times.No one wants a return of the inquistion. Conversely, its excesses have been decried to the point of shrillness and amplified to a degree of groteque improbability. Peters work is the single most solid, credible and even-handed works on the topic to date. Unlike many other works that rely on secondary sources or the oft-repeated pamphlets of the Protestant north, Peters looks into papal records, notes from both sides, histories, diaries, letters, and all the minutiae that go into making a true historical and historilogical work. On top over everythi

Convincing, especially after reading Wm Walsh

My introduction to the notion that most of us believe a lot of exaggerations and falsehoods about "the Inquisition" was William Walsh's book, "Characters of the Inquisition." Walsh was an ardent Catholic and a great admirer of Queen Isabella. As a novice reader on the Inquisition, I had little way to gauge how serious might be his bias. Then, along came Edward Peters! His book is hardly a whitewash of the goal of a confessional state (everybody believes in the same religion or you leave), nor of the methods used in Spain and other places to try to enforce this. But it does give us 20th Century folks a clearer picture of 15th and 16th Century thinking that heresy was treason, and treason then like today was a serious crime against the state. After giving facts of the inquisitions, Peters uses the second half of the book to describe how the facts of the inquisitions got exaggerated and embellished with falsehoods over the centuries, eventually becoming what he calls the "Myth of the Inquisition." After reading Peters, I can even more enthusiastically recommend Walsh. --- One chapter I would have like to have seen in Peters is a review of inquisitions done by Protestants in Geneva, Germany, and England, including the Witch Hunts. It would be good to have something to compare to the Spanish, Portuguese, Romans and Venetians.