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I suspect you are getting into some myth-making yourself here. The inquisition was not originally focused on witch-hunting, it was focused on heretics - people

by goto11 6y ago

I suspect you are getting into some myth-making yourself here. The inquisition was not originally focused on witch-hunting, it was focused on heretics - people challenging or denying the the doctrines of the Church. Bernardo Gui and The Name of the Rose is 14th century, while the large scale witch-hunts only started in the 15th century with the publishing of "Malleus Maleficarum". > The truth is that Inquisition aim was exactly opposite: to stop chasing and burning innocent woman (and man) by all kind of petty lords and civil "courts" who used witchcraft accusation to get rid of opponents. I suspect you made that up, given the anachronisms in your account. Do you have any legitimate source which confirm this narrative? Bernard Gui was certainly an educated man, and he is described as as such in Name of The Rose. He also was responsible for a lot of torture and death, persecution of Judaism and so on. You can consider this "decent" or not pending on your personal values. The Name of the Rose Eco actually has a reasonable good treatment of the philosophy behind the heretic movement and the inquisition, despite the book being fiction.

samuel 6y ago
You are right about the heretics part. But he has a point in the sense that the Catholic Church mostly fought against witch hunts, look https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alonso_de_Salazar_Fr%C3%ADas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alonso_de_Salazar_Fr%C3%ADas Alonso de Salazar Frías has been given the epithet "The Witches’ Advocate"[1] by historians, for his role in establishing the conviction, within the Spanish Inquisition, that accusations against supposed witches were more often rooted in dreams and fantasy than in reality, and the inquisitorial policy that witch accusations and confessions should only be given credence where there was firm, independent, corroborating evidence. He was probably the most influential figure in ensuring that those accused of witchcraft were generally not put to death in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Spain. The Spanish Inquisition was one of the first institutions in Europe to rule against the death penalty for supposed witches. Its Instructions of 1614, which embodied Salazar's ideas, were influential throughout Catholic Europe.
- goto11 6y ago
  > the Catholic Church mostly fought against witch hunts You should probably read about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum. The Catholic church was the cause of the which hunts, despite the moderating voices existing inside the church.

by goto11 6y ago

samuel 6y ago

You are right about the heretics part. But he has a point in the sense that the Catholic Church mostly fought against witch hunts, look https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alonso_de_Salazar_Fr%C3%ADas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alonso_de_Salazar_Fr%C3%ADas Alonso de Salazar Frías has been given the epithet "The Witches’ Advocate"[1] by historians, for his role in establishing the conviction, within the Spanish Inquisition, that accusations against supposed witches were more often rooted in dreams and fantasy than in reality, and the inquisitorial policy that witch accusations and confessions should only be given credence where there was firm, independent, corroborating evidence. He was probably the most influential figure in ensuring that those accused of witchcraft were generally not put to death in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Spain. The Spanish Inquisition was one of the first institutions in Europe to rule against the death penalty for supposed witches. Its Instructions of 1614, which embodied Salazar's ideas, were influential throughout Catholic Europe.

goto11 6y ago
> the Catholic Church mostly fought against witch hunts You should probably read about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum. The Catholic church was the cause of the which hunts, despite the moderating voices existing inside the church.