Power and Knowledge during the First Decades of the Inquisition in Southern France

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24520852
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: History of Europe and America
• Research Institution: Notre Dame Seishin University
• Principal Investigator: TODOROKI KOTARO ノートルダム清心女子大学, 文学部, 准教授 (60399061)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 異端 / 司牧 / 南フランス / カタリ派 / 異端審問

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The Inquisition, which established itself in Southern France from the 1230's to the 1320's, can be seen not just as a means to exterminate heretics, but as a system to exercise pastoral care upon the enemy to the Church. The inquisitors put the highest priority on confession, which derived from the thought of penitential theology that acute repentance constitutes substantial part of the satisfaction of the sin. Even when ample incriminating evidence was already given, for example, suspects who would not acknowoledge their guilt were usually incarcerated even for years just to elicit confessions from them. The penalties or penances inflicted upon the guilty heretics were graded according to their deeds from imprisonment to the wearing of crosses to pilgrimage. What should be stressed is that each of them was not designed just to punish the enemy but to administer specific penances to the special sinners who could and must be reintegrated to the community of the faithful.

Free Research Field

ヨーロッパ中世史