Terme de Glossaire

Inquisition

A special ecclesiastical tribunal created by the papacy to fight against heresy through means of a special procedure, the inquisition (inquisitio). Instituted in 1199 by Pope Innocent III to get the better of the Catharist movement in south-west France, the Inquisition was primarily active from the 13th to the 16th centuries in Christian Europe (apart from England). The inquisitional process (interrogation, torture, punishments, ranging from flagellation to the stake) was initially confided to the Dominican order and was particularly used in the 16th century against Muslims and Jews.

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