INQUISITION, THE. The Inquisition (Inquisitio hmreticae pravitatis), also called the " Holy Office " (Sanctum Officium), is the name of a spiritual tribunal in the Roman Catholic Church whose duty it has been to detect, repress, and punish heretics. In the ancient Church this was one of the duties of the bishops. Under the Roman Emperors Theodosius and Justinian there were special officials, " inquisitors," to prosecute before the civil tribunals persons who opposed the national creed. In the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries the sects known as the Cathari, the Waldenses (q.v.), and the Albigenses (q.v.) were thought to be a danger both to Church and State. Legates were empowered therefore by several Councils to check the abuse, and in 1215 the bishops were urged by the Fourth Lateran Council to take special measures. These consisted in part in binding parishioners by oath to inform against heretics. The measures taken by Innocent III. were approved and improved by the Council of Toulouse (1228).
Gregory IX. in 1232 and 1233 "appointed the Dominicans a standing commission of inquisitors in Austria, Ger many, Aragon, Lombardy, and Southern France" (Schaff Herzog). In 124S Innocent IV. instituted a special tribunal, the Inquisition, to deal with the matter; and In his bull Ad exstirpanda of 1252 he enacted that to extract a confession from a suspected person, use must be made of torture, if necessary. Persons found guilty were punished by confiscation of property, " loss of civil and ecclesiastical privileges, rigorous confinement, and death, either by a simple execution, or by incarceration and the flames " (Schaff-Herzog). The Inquisition was intro duced into Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Portugal and the Netherlands. It could not establish itself in England, Sweden, Norway, or Denmark. It was abolished first in France. See, further, the following article.