On Sat, 29 Jun 1996, John Sherry wrote:
> Date: Sat, 29 Jun 1996 04:28:41 -0400
> From: John Sherry <[log in to unmask]>
> To: List <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Inquisitorial Practice...
>
> On 28th June, Tom Izbicki wrote:
>
> > ... would the inquisitors' practice grow out of the older tradition of
> public punishment for sins,
> > then taking on a life of its own?
The following material is off the point of my query and is reasonably
well known. One thing which does need to be said is that inquisitors,
according to Nicholas Eymeric, were judges delegate, a common device for
extending papal power to regions far from Rome in the 12th century. My
question was a follow-up on the previous one and concerned such public
practices as come to be tied to the auto-da-fe.
tom izbicki
>
> I always understood that inquisitorial practice developed as a response to
> a need for an investigative procedure that placed less rigorous
> constraints on the investigators than those associated with ordo iuris. The
> conditions governing the making of accusations and the presentation of
> evidence were sufficiently rigorous to make succesful prosecution difficult
> in some cases - in cases of concubinage, for example, which might be very
> widely known but which were often difficult to prosecute under the strict
> conditions that governed the making of accusations and the presentation of
> evidence. The changes in investigative practice associated with the
> inquisition mean that crimes known by "public repute" (rather than by
> direct and individual witness) became more accessible to investigation. In
> particular, the possibility was created of amassing evidence as a body of
> fragmented reports, none of which might amount to a "proof" on their own
> but all of which, taken as a whole and properly interpreted, could provide
> strong indications of guilt. Where the indications were strong enough, the
> clincher - confession by the accused - would be sought, if necessary by
> means of torture. I don't know how traditions of "public punishment" feed
> into all of this, but traditions of "common knowledge" (notorium, fama
> etc.) were certainly important to it. (The whole business becomes suspect,
> of course, when "common knowledge" is little more than an accumulation of
> vicious and superstitious twaddle - "everybody knows" that Mad Meg flies
> off of an evening to sate her evil lusts with the Devil, etc. - but that
> is, as they say, another story).
>
> JS.
>
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