01x01 - Le parfait inquisiteur

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The Inquisition was established
at the beginning of the world.

The first inquisition began
when God cried out,

"Adam!

Adam! Where are you hiding?"

LUIS DE PÁRAMO,
INQUISITOR OF SICILY 1598

God flushed out Adam and Eve

who were hiding in shame
at their nakedness.

He asked Adam questions
to which he knew the answers,

forced him to confess
and denounce Eve and the serpent,

then punished them,

not by putting them
to death himself,

but by banishing them from paradise.

That's one version of the story,

but there are many others.

According to Catholic propaganda,

inquisitors were pious
and merciful men

who risked their lives
hunting down heretics.

For 19th-century anticlericalists,

they were depraved
and corrupt monsters

who preyed on beautiful young women.

Between these two extremes

lies the long history
of a unique invention:

a police of souls, both secret

and spectacular, that spread fear
in the name of faith

and practised a pedagogy of terror

the effects of which
can still be seen today.



MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS 1970

- Trouble at t'mill.
- Oh, no! What sort of trouble?

One on't cross beams gone
owt askew on't treddle.

Pardon?

One on't cross beams gone
owt askew on't treddle.

I don't understand
what you're saying.

Well, what on earth does that mean?

I don't know! Mr. Wentworth
just told me to come in here

and say that there was trouble
at the mill, that's all.

I didn't expect
a kind of Spanish Inquisition!

Nobody expects
the Spanish Inquisition!

Our chief weapon is surprise!

Surprise and fear,
fear and surprise.

Our two weapons are
fear and surprise.

And ruthless efficiency!

Our three weapons
are fear and surprise

and ruthless efficiency

and an almost fanatical devotion
to the Pope.

Our four... no...

Amongst our weaponry

are such elements as fear,
surpr...I'll come in again.

"Inquisition",

a grand word
that simply means investigation,

like those still carried out today

by police forces worldwide.

But it's also the name
of a special tribunal,

born in Europe, which for centuries

had full power
to prosecute and punish

those who believed
or thought differently.

This is Palazzo Chiaramonte Steri:

the former Inquisition prison
in Palermo.

On the cell walls

are marks left by prisoners

who were held here
over hundreds of years.

A quote from Dante:

"Abandon all hope,
ye who enter here."

"Saint George, celestial warrior,

you who saved the maiden,
deliver us from this tomb."

A profusion of Christs, angels,

saints and holy women.

These walls belong
to the Christian world.

It all began with the founding
of the Christian Church

in the first century AD.

Since then,
an unbroken line of popes

has proclaimed the Roman Church
the sole keeper of truth,

guardian of dogma

and interpreter of sacred texts,

which it has evolved
over the centuries

according to its needs.

Christianity is the
worship of Christ,

son of God, born of a virgin,
himself both man and God,

the Messiah, come to bring salvation
that is yet to arrive.

So many mysteries
that escape simple reason,

as one of the earliest
theologians said,

"I believe because it is absurd."

There was no Christian dogma

before Christianity allied itself
with the Roman state.

But from the moment

Christianity allied itself
with the Roman Empire,

when the Roman emperor,
Constantine I,

presided over councils

and the first ecumenical Council
of Nicaea in 325,

the Church had to give its view

on a number of things.

How does the Trinity work?

How can a father and son

be on the same level,

when theoretically the
father comes before the son?

Then there was
the question of Christ's

humanity and divinity.

So again, debate.

Some of these councils
were accepted,

while others were rejected,

the minority,
which were defined as heretical.

So, as Christian dogma developed,

heresy emerged as a by-product.

There are the Pneumatomachi,

who fight against the Spirit,

proclaiming that only
the Father and Son

are God, not the Holy Spirit.

The Pepuzites who have merged
with the Quintillians.

The Artotyrites
and the Priscillianists

whose horrible and sordid heresies
are well known

and who consecrated milk
instead of wine during mass,

while the Aquarians
did the same with water.

The Messalians,
also called Euchites,

proclaimed that one
must always pray.

The Anthropomorphites proclaimed

that God had human form,

and the Audians
that wealthy bishops were damned.

The Montanists, for whom Christ

had appeared in the form of a woman.

Who were the Barachites?

I don't know.

Saccophores - is that correct?

Elsewhere, we see sacrophores,
saccophares or saccopaths.

But perhaps these are the siphores

who didn't baptise in the name of
the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In that case,
the saccophores or siphores

would merely be Bonosians.

NICHOLAS EYMERICH INQUISITOR

So you are Nicholas Eymerich.

I am no longer Inquisitor General.

The inquisitor Nicolas Eymerich,
hero of this video game,

owes his fame
to the Manual for Inquisitors,

which he wrote around 1380

and which remained in use
until the 19th century.

The manual is a practical guide,

designed to help any inquisitor
carry out his work.

In it, after a colourful survey

of the most ancient heresies,

Eymerich provides a broader,
more modern definition.

The word heresy comes, from
the Latin verb "eligo", "to elect".

The heretic is an elector.

The heretic elects,

because he refuses the true doctrine

and chooses as true
a false and perverse doctrine.

For it is not for us to choose

according to our free will,

but to follow
what is put to us by God.

Isidore suggests another meaning.

Heresy comes from
the verb "hercisor",

"to share",

"to divide".

The heretic cuts himself off
from communal life

by stubbornly adhering
to a doctrine rejected

by those he was living with before.

In the 12th century,

the Church was one of
the great powers of feudal Europe.

It was increasingly powerful
and increasingly wealthy,

but also under increasing attack

from ordinary believers

for its earthly possessions,
its pomp, its corruption.

Dissident groups emerged,

such as the Waldensians,
named after Peter Waldo,

a Lyon merchant who,
though not a priest,

claimed the right to preach publicly

and a return to evangelical poverty.

Heresy takes the form
of disobedience

to papal authority, so we have

the Waldensians, the Humiliati,
other groups that disobey.

They disobey, for example,

regarding preaching.

The Pope forbids unauthorised
preaching by laypeople.

Waldo and the Humiliati
decide to break this rule.

There's a specific document,
the Ad Abolendam

of Lucius III in 1184,

and they become heretics
ipso facto for disobeying.

But there's one heresy that worries
papal authority more than any other,

which is the Cathar heresy,

the heresy of the "good men",
the dualist heresy.

For the Cathars, the earthly world
is the devil's world,

the devil is the
prince of this world.

So all civil
and ecclesiastical authorities,

the empire, the Church,
all institutions are of the devil.

This is Fanjeaux,
a village in Languedoc.

In 1207, Dominic de Guzmán,

the future Saint Dominic,

founder of the Dominican Order,

came to confront
the heretics of Languedoc

in a sort of public debate
in the village church.

You can still see there today

a relic bearing witness
to the event:

a simple beam.

According to legend, after each
side presented their arguments,

they decided by throwing
their writings into the fire.

The heretics' writings burned,

while Dominic's leaped
from the flames with such vigour

they left a mark on a ceiling beam.

The official Church presented
these heretics

as followers of a counter-Church,

with its own clergy and bishops.

But in Languedoc,
they were simply called

good men or good women,

hermit-like figures, laypeople
whose exemplary behaviour

contrasted
with the clergy's corruption.

These are people
not ordained by the Church,

who are not priests.

JULIEN THÉRY HISTORIAN

But they have a form of holiness
that everyone recognises.

They're considered able
to mediate with God,

to provide spiritual services,

to give good counsel.

Even that they can,
by laying on hands

as the apostles do,
bless and transmit charisma.

The Church decides
it won't tolerate this.

By the end of the 12th century,

it becomes the major sin, in a way,

the major act of disobedience,
because it makes the Church

something that isn't indispensable.

It's a mortal threat to the Church.

The heretic ceases to be described

with plant metaphors,

the bad plant that bears no fruit

or the ravenous wolf,

but becomes likened
to the social subversive,

a stealer of souls,
a sacrilegious thief,

a forger:
heretics are forgers of the faith.

And if counterfeiters
are burned at the stake,

all the more reason to burn

those forging the faith: heretics.

Heretics were burned
from the 12th century onwards,

but these sporadic burnings
weren't yet the Inquisition.

For it to emerge,

there had to be a complete upheaval
in how justice was administered.

Up until then,
for someone to be prosecuted,

they had to be accused
by someone of equal rank.

And if the accused
was found innocent,

the accuser would face
the penalty instead.

The complement

to this accusatorial procedure
was the ordeal,

the judgement of God,

a physical trial
imposed on the accused,

such as trial by water.

The accused was chained
and thrown into a river.

If he sank,
he was innocent, but would drown.

If he managed to float,
he was guilty,

as he'd been helped by the devil.

But at the beginning
of the 13th century,

these procedures
where justice was rendered by God

and local communities

were replaced
by a more rational approach:

the inquisitorial procedure.

The inquisitorial procedure
is something familiar to us,

and we are very much its inheritors,

particularly European
judicial systems

and especially
the French judicial system.

This inquisitorial procedure

is simply a search for truth
through investigation,

which is undertaken,

not by one or other of the parties
opposing each other in court,

but by what we might call the State.

The creation
of the inquisitorial procedure

led to the creation of
the public prosecutor's office.

There had to be a third party

to assess whether
to prosecute or not.

It was about maintaining
a higher order,

that of the general interest,
if you will.

"Utilitas publica",
they said, public utility.

The first institution
to develop this function

was the Church.

Because in the Middle Ages,
public utility

meant first and foremost
common salvation,

maintaining God's law in society.

In 1233 Pope Gregory IX adopted
the inquisitorial procedure

for prosecuting heresy,

but in a radicalised version that
stripped the accused of all rights.

For the Pope, this exceptional
justice was justified

by the sheer scale of the crime,

as heretics were Satan worshippers

who presided in person

over the initiation of newcomers.

When a novice is presented
before the assembly of the wicked

for the first time,
a toad appears to him.

Some kiss him on the bottom,

others on the mouth,

sucking his tongue
and absorbing his saliva.

After this kiss,

any remnant
of Catholic faith remaining

in the novice's heart disappears.

Against such heretics,

if the earth could rise up,

if the stars could reveal
the iniquity of these criminals,

so that not only men,

but also the elements unite
to destroy them,

sweep them from the face of the
earth sparing neither sex nor age,

it would not be
sufficient punishment

or worthy of their crimes.

The Pope didn't create
the Inquisition as an institution,

but directly appointed inquisitors

who answered only to him.

The very first was the German
Dominican Conrad of Marburg,

who operated in the Mainz region

where, with the assistance
of local lords,

he burned heretics by the thousand,

without any form of trial.

He was ruthless and hasty,
says the chronicle,

accusing in the morning
and burning that same evening:

the Inquisition reduced
to its simplest form.

Languedoc was the other major centre

of alleged heresies,

which a crusade called
the "Albigensian Crusade",

launched by the Pope in 1207,

sought to eradicate,
at the cost of thousands of lives.

After the massacres,
the new inquisitors

would take over.

Dominican friars
and bishops of Toulouse

shared the task,

improvising as they went along.

One day in 1238,
they were about to sit down to eat

when someone came to warn them
that an old heretic woman

was dying a few houses away.

Immediately,
they went and told this old woman:

"Look,

His Lordship the Bishop
is coming to see you."

The Bishop sat beside her

and the woman, believing it was
the heretic bishop visiting her,

spoke freely of her faith.

Then the Bishop said,
"You are a heretic,

it's the heretics'
faith you are confessing.

Renounce all this,

for I am your Bishop of Toulouse,

and I preach
the Roman Catholic faith,

and I order you to believe."

MEMOIRS OF THE DOMINICAN GUILLAUME
DE PÉLHISSON

But she persisted
in her heretical obstinacy.

And so the bishop condemned her
as a heretic,

and the bailiff had her carried
to the count's field,

with the bed she was lying on,

and had her burned immediately.

The inquisitor bishop commanded,

and the bailiff,
a civil magistrate, ex*cuted.

From these chaotic beginnings,

inquisitors had full authority
to investigate, judge and condemn.

An extraordinary power

that society had to accept
or face excommunication.

Excommunication,

exclusion from the community
of the faithful,

was a formidable weapon
used by the Church

against its opponents.

Excommunicated:
Emperor Frederick II,

the German monk Luther,

Queen Elizabeth I of England,

Emperor Napoleon I.

But also, in the 16th century,
anyone who stole a book

from the University
of Salamanca library,

or in the 1950s,

members and sympathisers

of the Italian Communist Party,
for whom this film,

produced by the Vatican,
was intended.

Excommunication doesn't
affect material facts.

It concerns the conscience.

Even if nothing seems changed,

even amongst a thousand people,
the excommunicated is alone.

He's a dead branch
cut from the trunk.

He is struck in his spirit,

in what is truly alive
and eternal in man.

It's on his daughter's
first communion day

that this Italian
Communist Party voter

realises the consequences
of his excommunication.

Excommunicated,

he cannot accompany her.

The Church and its sacraments
are denied to him.

The excommunicated in the
Middle Ages faced far worse

than a little girl's heartbreak.

Their entire social life
was shattered.

Baptisms, weddings and
Christian burials were denied them.

Excommunication made them outcasts.

A godsend for inquisitors.

I am a heretic.

No one knows,
because I'm a heretic within myself.

I've conceived a curious doctrine
on the non-existence of the Trinity,

the non-virginity of Mary, etc.

But what happens?

No one knows, or only a few do,

and it's not public knowledge
that causes scandal.

How do I

somehow drive the
machinery of justice

to what is hidden,

because it's within the individual

or because it's limited
to a small community?

By saying that heresy is punished

by the mere fact of manifesting
itself through excommunication.

What does this mean?

That a tribunal doesn't need

to declare me heretical
for me to be a heretic.

I am a heretic
and therefore excommunicated

with the harshest excommunication
simply for being heretical.

So if I go to a confessor and say,

"I was a heretic,
absolve me, I have repented",

the confessor
cannot absolve the heretic.

The heretic must go
before a penitentiary

authorised to lift
the excommunication

that covers heresy
by the mere fact it exists.

These penitentiaries
were the inquisitors

who, to trigger
their investigation process,

invented an ingenious mechanism:

the time of grace,
which the inquisitor would decree

as soon as he arrived
in a town or village.

About thirty days' reprieve

where he would be ready to forgive,
but conditionally.

We, inquisitors
of heretical depravity,

having learnt
that the serpents of heresy

wish to spread their venom
in this land,

to devastate souls

as foxes devastated
the Lord's vineyards;

we, whose bowels tremble
with fear and disgust

at the thought that heresy's venom
has already poisoned many souls,

we order everyone

to denounce any heretic
or person known as such,

anyone suspected of heresy
or who doesn't live like others,

or avoids contact with believers.

The time of grace was a period when

a person could
go before the inquisitor

as if he were a confessor
able to lift excommunication.

But all this had to be offset
by self-denunciation,

by denunciation and abjuration,

and so a shift took place
from the hidden,

from the matter of sin,
to the matter of crime

and the widespread extension
of denunciation procedures

that created a surveillance society.

Because if I know of a neighbour

who is a heretic
or supporter of heretics,

out of fear of excommunication,

I will denounce him secretly
before the inquisitor magistrate.

NOTICE TO THE POPULATION

A SUPPORTER OF COLLABORATION

Denunciation for good cause.

This practice had
a bright future ahead of it.

To denounce

is not to harm one's neighbour,
as is claimed.

On the contrary, it is to want
the salvation of their soul

to denounce those infected by error

and bound by its chains,

so that

they don't sink further
into corruption

and neither corrupt
nor contaminate others

with their errors.

Inquisitors loved using grand words.

But in 13th-century Languedoc,

most of the accused
were what we'd call today

mere sympathisers.

Like the two Albi residents

prosecuted simply for bringing food

to heretics hiding in a dovecote.

A form of clandestine sociability.

Through those
it considered mere accomplices,

the inquiry sought to flush
out the real heretics.

But their crime was a crime
without a body, a crime of thought.

How could it be proved?

This was the crux
of the inquisitorial procedure.

The interrogation must
be conducted to avoid

suggesting to the accused
what you want,

so as not to show them how to evade

dangerous questions.

THE INQUISITORS' MANUAL
NICOLAS EYMERICH - 1380

In civil law it's said
not to ask the accused,

"Did you k*ll so-and-so?",
but rather, "What did you do?"

In matters of heresy,
the same approach is used:

the accused must remain
ignorant of the charges.

Questions are asked progressively,

moving from the general
to the specific

before finally reaching
the actual charge.

Based on the accused's responses,

the inquisitor directs
his own questions

to appear to arrive quite naturally

at the real question.

Eymerich also specified
that the accused must be seated

on a particularly
uncomfortable stool.

This was the most astonishing part
of his manual.

A series of instructions

on how to break down the accused.

Inquisition: a user's guide.

The manuals are an internal source
on the Inquisition,

precisely because this is a work
written by an inquisitor

for other inquisitors.

And, without malice,

it informs us
of the inquisitors' strategies.

And very often, this too is there,

the inquisitor is warned
against the heretic's cunning.

The heretic is normally depicted
as the fox,

the little foxes
that ravage the Lord's vineyard.

But foxes are also cunning,
they're crafty.

So the inquisitor must never

let himself be deceived by heretics.

He must be merciful, certainly,

but inflexible, especially
with those he deems untruthful.

The tricks used by heretics
to deceive inquisitors.

The first trick:

equivocation.

You ask the accused,

"Do you believe
in one holy Catholic Church?"

He replies,
"I believe in a holy Church",

meaning the community

of his accomplices
they call "Church"

and not our Church.

Second trick:

add a condition.

The accused is asked,

"Do you believe marriage
is a sacrament?"

He replies,

"If God wills it, I believe so",

implying that God does not will it.

Third trick:

turn the question around.

They say to the heretic,

"We believe that the Holy Spirit
proceeds from the Father and Son."

He replies,

"I believe so too", implying

"I believe that you believe it,
but I don't believe it myself."

Fourth trick:

feigning surprise.

Fifth trick: deflection.

Sixth trick:
answering beside the point.

Seventh trick:

self-justification.

Eighth trick:

feigning sudden physical weakness.

Ninth trick:

feigning madness or stupidity.

They laugh when answering,

mixing their responses
with impertinent,

comic or foolish words
to hide their errors.

Tenth trick:

affecting an air of sanctity.

Their mouths are
full of humble words,

and they have the appearance
of holiness,

like whitened and gilded sepulchres
containing corpses.

For within, they are full of pride,

lust, gluttony,

envy and vanity.

Those who know them
are well aware of this.

The tricks listed by Eymerich -

were they really devised
by heretics?

Or did he simply invent them?

We'll never know.

What we do know

is that the inquisitor
always had the final word,

like Humpty Dumpty

in Alice in Wonderland.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND
NORMAN Z. MCLEOD - 1933

When I use a word, it means
what I choose it to mean -

neither more or less.

The question is

whether you can make words
mean different things.

The question is which is
to be the master - that's all.

I am an inquisitor,
therefore acting in bad faith.

NICOLAS EYMERICH - 1392

To the heretics' cunning

inquisitors responded in kind.

The inquisitor leafs
through the accused's file

and tells him,
"It's clear you're lying

and that I am right."

The trick consists of
making him believe

that the file truly incriminates him

and that he appears genuinely
convicted of heresy.

The investigating inquisitor
could use any means

to break the suspect.

We picked up the Canadian.

He denies everything.

He's lying.

But we can't prove anything on him.

That makes you the pigeon, Dolly.

It's a tough rap, Dolly.

And it's all yours.

He's lying. I'm not going to take
the rap for anyone.

Why should you, Dolly?

We want the guy
you got the stuff from.

Who is he, Dolly?

I've got to get out of here.
You can't do this to me.

We're not doing it.

We want the man at the head
of this operation.

If you happen to be in the way,

it's too bad.

The accused denies it,

the inquisitor tells him,
"Of course, you're somewhat guilty.

But those who led you astray
are far more so.

Don't burden yourself
with another's sin.

Tell me who led you astray
and I can free you at once."

We return to the Palazzo
Chiaramonte Steri in Palermo.

Like in all the world's prisons,

days, months and years
were counted here.

FREE US

FREE US

IMPRISONED SOUL

COURAGE

The inquisitor tends to detain

the most prominent heretics longer.

For as long as these
heretics are held,

their believers and accomplices
denounce each other,

in doubt and fear of being denounced

by those who are imprisoned.

The first strange thing
is that inquisitors

could keep the accused in prison
as long as they wanted.

THE INQUISITORS' MANUAL
NICOLAS EYMERICH - 1380

Whereas in secular justice,

there were time limits
you were supposed to adhere to.

The second strange thing

is that inquisitorial remand
was secret,

as they put it.

The accused would be in a cell

with no contact
with the outside world.

He would know nothing
about the progress of his case.

He would know nothing
of his future fate.

He would know nothing
of any informants

who may have denounced him.

In short, he was left to stew.

It's been proven

that when you leave someone
in complete isolation

under these conditions,
you simply wait,

and the person breaks
down psychologically.

Once they're psychologically broken,

the inquisitor appears,
"My son, rejoice,

you are saved, you'll see.

Come, weep on my shoulder."

And at that moment,

you can do whatever
you want with that person.

THEY BLESS US WITH THEIR MOUTHS,
THEY CURSE US WITH THEIR HEARTS

I WAS TORTURED ON 30TH AUGUST 1645
AND AGAIN ON 17TH SEPTEMBER

The Inquisition mainly
used the strappado,

where the victim would be hoisted up
and dropped suddenly,

causing dislocation
of the shoulders.

To control the intensity
of the t*rture,

different weights would be attached
to the victim's feet.

A confession obtained merely
at the sight of the t*rture chamber

was considered spontaneous.

One obtained after t*rture
was deemed voluntary.

Heretics must be tortured

as one tortures
thieves and brigands,

for they are truly thieves
and murderers of souls,

and thieves of God's sacraments
and the Christian faith.

They must be tortured
so they confess their errors

and denounce other
heretics they know.

Just as thieves
denounce their accomplices

and confess the crimes
they've committed.

If the accused confesses nothing
under t*rture,

he will be considered innocent.

In 1936 the n*zi jurist

Carl Schmitt published in
Goebbels' newspaper Der Angriff

a eulogy for the Inquisition,

"the most humane of institutions"
in his view,

as people were only found guilty
if they confessed.

It all lies in this "if".

Inquisitorial trials were twofold.

On one side, a criminal trial,

on the other, a trial of repentance.

In the trial of repentance,
confession is crucial.

To repent is first to confess.

To confess about oneself and others.

In criminal proceedings,
confession is vital

because the Inquisition
prosecutes beliefs

and beliefs leave
no material traces.

So, not only to identify
the guilty party,

but even to establish
the corpus delicti,

confession is indispensable.

Before the senate
of the state court in Prague

on 22nd November,
proceedings began against

the leadership
of an anti-state conspiracy centre.

This is Prague, November 1952.

After a year of prison and t*rture,

Rudolf Slansky,
former general secretary

of the Czechoslovak Communist Party,

and his co-defendants
publicly confessed

to the entirely fabricated crimes
they were accused of.

Do you plead guilty to all

- four counts of the indictment?
- Yes.

- First point: espionage.
- Yes.

- High treason.
- Yes.

- Sabotage.
- Yes.

- Disclosure of military secrets.
- Yes.

Now tell us how you confess

your guilt, not in detail,
but generally.

I want to confess
my guilt above all.

Speak clearly into the microphone.

I acted as an enemy
of the Communist Party

of Czechoslovakia
and People's Democratic

Czechoslovakia. I created
an anti-state conspiracy centre

which I directed for years.

The confession demanded
by the party or Church

is this total submission.

If confessions are incomplete,

regarding criminal procedure,

no problem, it's enough to convict.

But for the repentance trial,

it's insufficient.

If one repents, one confesses all.

"A clean breast",
as the English say.

Hence the importance
of pressing the accused,

of squeezing the sponge
right to the end.

Because if he conceals something,

it means he doesn't repent.

And if he doesn't repent,
it means they can proceed

down the criminal route, handing
him over to the secular authorities,

who can put heretics to death.

By outsourcing execution
to civil authorities,

the Inquisition
could keep its hands clean.

However, the stake was reserved
for obstinate heretics,

those who refused to submit.

Those who repented

got away with imprisonment,

a relative mercy.

One could be locked up for life
in inhuman conditions:

in chains, on bread and water.

Finally, at the bottom of the scale,
the foot soldiers,

simple heretical sympathisers,
by far the most numerous.

They were condemned
to wear shameful garments

adorned with a St Andrew's cross,

displaying their sins
to the faithful.

All punishments

came with the confiscation
of goods and fines

that funded
the inquisitorial machine

and the construction of monuments
showing all the Church's power.

This is Albi Cathedral.

This is how the inquisitor bishop

Bernard de Castanet
viewed relations with his city.

This is the fresco
of the Last Judgement.

The Church controls all of time,

the promise of future punishments

and the indelible memory
of past sins.

Here is the other face of terror.

After the fires of hell,

the cold precision of Bernard
de Castanet's heretic registers.

Perhaps the most important

and the newest feature
of the Inquisition

was the use of written records.

Inquisitors kept files,

what we would call files today

in the form
of handwritten registers,

but with tools

that allowed them to find
information very quickly.

They made intensive use of indexes,

marginal notes

that allowed them,
by flicking through

the register, to find a name.

They classified data in every way.

They organised depositions
by village, for example.

This is what gave the Inquisition
the ability

to break community solidarity,

to burst into local dynamics

from the outside.

The inquisitor,

because he archived
all the contents of testimonies,

all the contents of depositions,
names, dates,

circumstances,

and referred back to them over time,

he knew certain things
that the people he was interrogating

didn't necessarily know he knew.

The Inquisition was
a bureaucratic power.

It's the power of those
who keep the records.

The inquisitor notes by hand,
in a small notebook,

an aide-memoire of denunciations:

THE INQUISITORS' MANUAL
NICOLAS EYMERICH - 1380

Diocese of X,

So-and-so... born in...

residing in...

profession... has denounced this
person... born in... residing in..."

for claiming, for example,
that in the sacrament of the altar,

the blood of Christ
is not truly present.

He shall keep this register safe,
lest he lose it,

without altering its contents
in any way.

What can't be found today
may be discovered tomorrow.

These techniques for searching

and cross-referencing information

were new at the time.

And in a way, the generalised
surveillance society

we face today,

the society of total traceability,
begins there.

The Inquisition was able to control
individual behaviour

long-term.

You could be punished,
sentenced to life imprisonment,

because you attended
a "hereticatio",

a ceremony around a
heretical perfectus,



The transmission
and protection of archives

was one of the Inquisition's
main priorities.

They were also the favourite target
of the persecuted

and cost the lives
of 12 Toulouse inquisitors

passing through Avignonet
in the Lauragais in 1242.

In the village church, a painting
recalls their martyrdom.

They were massacred
in a single night by heretics

who seized their records.

The great figures
of the bloodied inquisitors

ascend to heaven,
while the m*rder itself

is reduced to a small vignette
at the bottom of the painting.

A way of diminishing
the importance of the revolts

provoked by inquisitorial
innovations.

The inquisitors came
with a general plan to bring

local society into line.

They didn't want to repress
for the sake of it.

They wanted to impose
widespread obedience

to the Church,
on societies deemed rebellious

and which had to be subdued.
It was psychological warfare.

It wasn't so much
about condemning everyone

as encouraging obedience.

One way to shock, as it were,

was to condemn the dead.

Attacking the dead
is obviously attacking

the very foundation of communities.

We know that community unity

rests on ancestors,

on the memory and respect
owed to ancestors.

Digging up ancestors

is a terrible symbolic as*ault.

And it was often this
that triggered riots

against inquisitors
during their first incursions.

In Cahors,

the inquisitor brothers
condemned some of the dead

whom they had exhumed,
dragged through the city and burned.

They also condemned
the late Humbert de Castelnau,

but his son stole him
from the cemetery

and he was not found.

A year later, in Toulouse,

good Christians were
also exhumed by mistake.

The city was stirred
and greatly agitated,

and the consuls proclaimed,
on pain of death

and confiscation of goods,
a ban on anyone

giving, selling or lending anything

to the preaching brothers
or the Bishop of Toulouse.

Like the towns of Languedoc,

the great Italian cities,
prizing their independence,

put up resistance.

In Parma, in 1280,

the Dominican inquisitors' convent
was burnt down,

then Bologna revolted

when a suspected Cathar
called Bon Pierro

was condemned to the stake
by the inquisitor Guido de Vicenza.

What triggered the revolt in Bologna

was the violation of something
the crowd saw as important.

Bompietro had repented before
mounting the pyre and the inquisitor

decided to deny him the Eucharist,

which was a way of reconciling him
with God despite physical death.

This was perceived

as an enormous attack
on Christian piety.

The inquisitors,
already accused of corruption,

of greed,
of excessive attention to money,

of staging trials
to strip their opponents of goods,

and of essentially doing politics,

were then also accused
of harming something

profound for a Christian:
reconciliation with God.

The denial of the sacrament
to Bompietro

was seen as an offence
and provoked an uprising

which we know
a lot of details about,

something very rare
for the Middle Ages,

thanks to the fact
that those who had revolted

were then subjected
to a trial in turn.

Some rebels said that
actually it was the inquisitor

himself who created the heretic,
that the heretic didn't exist.

They said the inquisitor here
was the devil himself.

Another rebel said the
inquisitor was the Antichrist,

the Antichrist come
to destroy the world.

Another rebel said
the simoniac inquisitor

went to the Curia
to buy himself an office

for two thousand silver marks.

They said the friars
should be the ones to burn,

they should be the ones put to

the stake as was done in Parma,

their convent should be destroyed.

Against these sporadic
and isolated revolts,

the Church deployed
an overarching strategy

across the continent.

In this convent in Krakow,

Polish worshippers

can pray before the
martyrs of Avignonet

who died 1,700 kilometres away.

And later, even further afield,

their portraits would adorn
the walls of a Peruvian convent.

Even today, Saint Peter of Verona
is venerated.

He was another martyred inquisitor,

hacked to death by machete in 1252.

Behind the tomb,

the Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio
in Milan

preserves the relic
of the martyr's shattered skull.

Meanwhile,
in the neighbouring town of Seveso,

another church displays
the m*rder weapon.

Assuming it's the right one.

Canonised very quickly
after his m*rder,

Saint Peter of Verona
became a favourite figure

of inquisitorial propaganda,

which was skilled at turning
executioners into victims.

His image,

endlessly reproduced,
became the moving public face

of the extraordinary court,

the hidden face of which
was Nicolas Eymerich's manual.

But by the 14th century,

the great anticlerical heresies
had practically been eradicated.

The inquisitorial machine
seemed to have fulfilled its task

and having only just been
established, was already useless.

The death of the sheep
is the life of the lion,

and the destruction of grass
is the life of the sheep.

ZAUBERFORMELN NICOLAS
EYMERICH - 1396

Without disputes,

why would there be judges?

The increase in litigation

leads to more judges and doctors.

When and how
was the patience of martyrs

revealed,

if not when they were persecuted
by tyrants?

Therefore,

when can the glory
of inquisitors be shown,

if not through the
malice of heretics?

The true faith of faithful doctors

shows only when heretics multiply.

But what happens when
there is a shortage of heretics?