Exercises on Inquisition in the Middle Ages

The Court of the Inquisition was created in 1231 by Pope Gregory IX with the aim of investigating and fighting heresies. The main heretical sect present in Europe at this time was:

a) Buddhism

b) Masdeism

c) Pelagianism

d) Catharism

e) Shinto

(UFJF) Carefully read the following excerpt, through which the author demonstrates aspects of the reality experienced by part of the population of Western Europe, in the early Modern Age:" His name was Domenico Scandella, known as Menocchio. He was born in 1532 (...), in Montereale, a small village in the Fruili hills (...). He was married and had seven children; another four had died (... ). On September 28, 1583 Menocchio was denounced to the Holy Office, on the charge of having uttered heretical and utterly impious words about Christ." (GINZBURG, C. "The Cheese and the Worms"). Now, read the statements below and then mark the CORRECT alternative.

I. The excerpt above points to the Inquisition's role as a means of judging and punishing those suspected of spreading religious ideas and practices contrary to the Catholic faith.

II. In addition to the great transformations that Europe was going through, with the development of urban life and commercial institutions, large contingents of the population lived under terrible living conditions, perceptible in the demographic variations of the family institution.

III. During this period, large contingents of peasants migrated to urban areas and entered factory work, undergoing long working hours and low wages.

a) All are correct.

b) All are incorrect.

c) Only I and II are correct.

d) Only I and III are correct.

e) Only II and III are correct.

In serious cases, only the culprit is handed over to the secular arm, which means that he incurs civil penalties, such as imprisonment or death; for, in any case, the ecclesiastical court has no right to pronounce such penalties itself. In fact, according to the statement of authors, of whatever tendency, who studied the Inquisition through the texts, it only made, according to the expression of Lea, a Protestant writer, translated into French by Salomon Reinach, 'few victims'. Out of nine hundred and thirty convictions produced by the inquisitor Bernard Gui during his career, forty-two in all led to the death penalty. (PERNOUD, Régine. Light on the Middle Ages . trans. António Manuel de Almeida Gonçalves. Mem Martins:Publications Europe – America, 1997. p. 90.)

In the excerpt above, historian Regine Pernoud argues that the Inquisition, in the Middle Ages, did not apply capital punishment to those accused of serious crimes. This prerogative belonged to the “secular arm”, that is, to the civil authority. Based on this argument, it is possible to say that:

a) The Church was completely subject to civil authority.

b) The inquisitors were also part of the secular arm, some of them being the executioners of the condemned.

c) The Tribunal of the Inquisition had no legal effect, acting arbitrarily and being corrected by the “secular arm”.

d) The Court of the Inquisition cannot be compared with modern political regimes, perpetrators of genocide.

e) The civil authority was completely subject to the Church.

(UFMG) In January 1592, Brás Dias, a mameluco, born in the city of Bahia, confessed before the Mesa da Santa Inquisition that, for four or five years, walking through the sertão, he had been part of the , along with the gentiles, of a sect called Sanctity, which operated on the farm of Fernão Cabral, in Jaguaripe. The sect was led by an Indian named Antônio, who had been raised by the Jesuits in the missions. Among other things, this Antônio, who was married, baptized his own children, using two lighted candles and a dish of water, and they called themselves with the names of Jesus and Santa Maria. In the cults, celebrated at the foot of crosses placed on the ground in piles of stone, they howled and behaved like monkeys, without rules or order, committing various heretical slips. (Text based on transcribed documents by VAINFAS, Ronaldo [Org.] "Confissões da Bahia". São Paulo:Companhia da Letras, 1997.) This testimony demonstrates that:

a) the indigenous missionaries trained in the Jesuit reductions perfectly reproduced Catholic rites throughout the Colony.

b) the action of the parish priests, in the sprawling backlands of the Colony, led the Indians to internalize the Catholic dogmas learned from the Jesuits.

c) popular religiosity in the Colony was characterized by syncretism and more easily assimilated the external aspects of Catholic worship.

d) the indigenous people freely accepted the rules and orthodoxy of the precepts of Catholic worship, being willing to imitate them even in the wildest sertão.

e) the indigenous people had already been brought into contact with Christianity through the preaching of bishops from the so-called Apostolic Era.

Letter D

Catharism, or heresy of the Cathars (a term that means “pure”), had a great presence in Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, attracting thousands of adherents. Catharism was heir to the Gnostic sects of early Christianity and its wide reach spurred the institution of the Inquisitio haereticae pravitatis , that is, the Court of the Inquisition.

Letter C

Contrary to what topic III states, at the beginning of the Modern Age, Europe did not have factory work and long working hours in its urban centers. This reality was only present at the turn of the 18th century to the 19th century.

Letter D

The Court of Inquisition, contrary to popular belief, did not execute millions (or even hundreds of thousands) of people throughout its existence. The Inquisition had legal force and well-designed investigative criteria. When serious crimes were suspected, the fate of the accused was decided by the civil authority, that is, by representatives of the kingdoms linked to the Holy Roman Empire who applied execution, such as death at the stake. No clergyman was authorized to perform such an act.

Letter C

The Inquisition arrived in Brazil, in the Colonial period, in 1591, a year before the account presented in the passage in question. The investigations of the inquisitors in Brazil fit in with the process of evangelization undertaken by the Jesuits many decades earlier. The convergence between the precepts of Catholic doctrine and elements of indigenous and African beliefs ended up composing a syncretic scenario that was difficult to rectify and control.