5 Facts Needed to Understand the Medieval Situation

The Inquisition & the Church

Dr. O'Brien delineates five areas where moderns misunderstand medieval Christendom (pp. 7-8):

• The Church is a society, perfect and sovereign, with legislative, judicial and executive powers, charged with the supreme task of disseminating in all its purity the body of divinely revealed religious truth.
• Faith was considered by the people of the Middle Ages (and of today as well) as a gift of God, more precious than all the treasures of the earth. The faith had come down to them in its original integrity because their ancestors had suffered persecution and death rather than modify it or deny it. It was their duty to safeguard its purity so there would be no departure from the teachings of Christ and His Apostles; since it was the key that would open to them the gates of Heaven, no earthly treasure could compensate them for its loss; hence orthodoxy was to be maintained at all costs.
• There existed a moral, spiritual and juridical unity of medieval society wherein Church and State constituted a closely knit polity. Theocratic in structure, the State could not be indifferent about the spiritual welfare of its subjects without being guilty of treason to its supreme Lord and Sovereign-- Almighty God. The spiritual authority was inseparably intertwined with the secular in much the same way as the soul is united with the body: the modern concept of these two authorities operating in separate water-tight compartments would have shocked the medieval mind much as a schizophrenic personality dismays the modern.
• There was a severity of the penal code of those days, in which the use of torture and the stake was common. Counterfeiters were burnt alive; those who gave false weights and measures were scourged or condemned to death; burglars were led to the scaffold; thieves convicted of a relapse were put to death. The whole penal code bristled with vengeance for those who transgressed its laws; even as late as the reign of Henry VIII and of Elizabeth persons were being drawn, disemboweled and quartered; others were being boiled to death. Still more revolting was the torture of the wheel, on which the victim was left with broken bones and limbs to die a lingering death of excruciating pain. John Calvin experienced no scruples in having his theological opponent, Michael Servetus, burned to death. The penalties inflicted by the Inquisition were simply those in current use in their day.
• The modern concept of the secular state, neutral toward all religions and guaranteeing to their adherents equal rights and freedom of conscience and of worship, would have shocked the medieval mind. Few people realize how comparatively recent is the development such as we have in the United States. To view the thought and action of the people of the Middle Ages against the background of today is to misunderstand and misjudge them entirely. It would be like viewing the covered wagon in which the early settlers in America trekked to the West against the background of the airplane travel of today.