The inner lives of medieval inquisitors / Karen Sullivan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sullivan, Karen, 1964-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Catholic Church--Clergy--Psychology.

Catholic Church.

Catholic Church--Clergy--Biography.

Inquisition--Europe--History.

Inquisition.

Christian heresies--History--Middle Ages, 600-1500.

Christian heresies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (310 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

There have been numerous studies in recent decades of the medieval inquisitions, most emphasizing larger social and political circumstances and neglecting the role of the inquisitors themselves. In this volume, Karen Sullivan sheds much-needed light on these individuals and reveals that they had choices-both the choice of whether to play a part in the orthodox repression of heresy and, more frequently, the choice of whether to approach heretics with zeal or with charity. In successive chapters on key figures in the Middle Ages-Bernard of Clairvaux, Dominic Guzmán, Conrad of Marburg, Peter of Verona, Bernard Gui, Bernard Délicieux, and Nicholas Eymerich-Sullivan shows that it is possible to discern each inquisitor making personal, moral choices as to what course of action he would take. All medieval clerics recognized that the church should first attempt to correct heretics through repeated admonitions and that, if these admonitions failed, it should then move toward excluding them from society. Yet more charitable clerics preferred to wait for conversion, while zealous clerics preferred not to delay too long before sending heretics to the stake. By considering not the external prosecution of heretics during the Middles Ages, but the internal motivations of the preachers and inquisitors who pursued them, as represented in their writings and in those of their peers, The Inner Lives of Medieval Inquisitors explores how it is that the most idealistic of purposes can lead to the justification of such dark ends.

Contents:

Bernard of Clairvaux: the chimera of his age

Dominic Guzman: preacher and disputant

Conrad of Marburg: zealot of the faith

Peter of Verona: martyr of the faith

Bernard Gui: the inquisitor as performer

Bernard Deliceux: the scourge of inquisitors

Nicholas Eymerich: toward the Spanish inquisition.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9786613066244

9781283066242

1283066246

9780226781662

0226781666

OCLC:

712016226