1. Religious courts That tried heretics
The In Quisition
Religious courts That tried heretics

2. Beginnings
The Inquisition began in 1184, a holy Ecclesiastical court created to stamp out heresy. The last official Inquisitionary Court was in the 1830s.
The Courts could be established by a papal decree, or with the request of a monarch or local clergy official.
Heresy is any act the is seen to be against the Catholic Church and its dogma as a whole.

3. The First Heretics
For A thousand years, the Church had stamped out heresy without big, public affairs.
With the Cathars, however, they felt the need to make a statement.
The Cathars were the first group to get the official Episcopal Trial, or Inquisition, that would also include torture and the death penalty.
Depiction of the Cathars being killed by French Catholic soldiers.

4. The CAthars
Walled City of Carcassone, the last holdout of the Cathars.
The Cathars were from Southern France, in the Languedoc region.
Expulsion of the Cathars from Carcassone

5. The Cathars So what was it about the Cathars that made them heretics?
They were also knows as the Albigensians
They were Gnostics, Dualists, rejected the Sacraments, believed in reincarnation, that women could be spiritual leaders, that priests were not the only to understand scripture and commune with G-d, They didn’t believe that Jesus was ever human, they rejected taking Oaths, tended to be vegetarians, rejected, marriage, sex, and wealth.

6. Cathars
Like the earliest Christians, Cathars recognised no priesthood.  They did however distinguish between ordinary believers (Credentes) and a smaller, inner circle of leaders initiated in secret knowledge, known at the time as boni homines, Bonneshommes or "Goodmen" , now generally referred to as the Elect or as Parfaits. m

7. Cathars
When the Cathars began preaching that the Catholic Church was corrupt and believed in the wrong G-d, Pope Innocent had to take action.
First he demanded that the local feudal lord, Raymond VI of Toulouse, do something, and he refused. Raymond was excommunicated, and his lands placed under interdict.
Pope Innocent III excommunicating Cathars.

8. Escalation of the conflict
After Raymond was excommunicated, the Clergyman who excommunicated him, Pierre de Castelnau, was assassinated in this church, St. Gilles. This is when the Crusade, called the Albigensian Crusade, officially begins.
The Albigensian Crusades lasted for 20 years, and as many as 200,000 Cathars were killed, and as many as 600,000 others in the process.
At Béziers, When asked how to distinguish the Cathars from the Catholics, Arnaud Amalric, the Catholic Abbot in charge of the Pope’s forces, said,  "Kill them all! God will know his own.“ 20,000 Cathars were killed, many in their nightclothes.

9. Other Major efforts of the Inquisition
The Inquisition also had three other major initiatives.
Finding Witches
Getting rid of Jews and Muslims in Spain and Portugal
Stamping out heretical writings in Rome

10. Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions
Spanish Inquisition
Follows hundred years of persecution and forced conversions of Jews and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula.
Under the Muslim occupation of Spain, religions like Judaism and Christianity were tolerated, and Spain (Portugal was part of Spain) was a cosmopolitan, intellectual place.

11. Al-Andalus or Iberia
Cordoba was the intellectual center of the Mediterranean and was the site of great medical studies, Jewish Philosophy, Mathematics, Astronomy and Chemistry
Because the Muslim Caliphate was religiously tolerant, many Jews Immigrated To Iberia at this time.

12. Decline of Al Andalus
As the Muslims began to weaken in Iberia, the House of Trastamara rose in power.
They were the royal family from Castile and Léon, expanding into Aragon and Navarre.
Over time they became the ruling family of Spain and Portugal.

13. Reconquista begins
As Spain and Portugal slowly regained control of their lands, they began to rededicate themselves to Christianity as a state religion.
They first started showing their new position in the 1380s, when Anti-Semitic sermons were delivered regularly by an archdeacon in Seville. He agitated the Catholics, commanding them to attack Jews and destroy their Synagogues. ( The Jews had three large synagogues and 20 smaller ones in Seville at the time. )
At least 4,000 Jews were killed and all the Synagogues were destroyed.

14. Conversions begin
Starting in 1391, Jews and Muslims began converting to protect themselves in Spain.
These people were called conversos, and even though they had made this change, they were treated as lower class Christians and nicknamed Moriscos and Marronos.
Eventually, Spanish rulers became suspicious that the Conversos were still practicing their faiths at home, and began the Spanish Inquisition .

15. Auto da Fe
The preferred method of dealing with these Judaizers , Moriscos, or fake Christians was a public trial and sentencing, generally a public burning.

17. King João II of Portugal didn’t open his country’s border because he had a kind heart. He was preparing for a war against the Moors and he needed money. He therefore granted permanent residence to some 600 Jewish families who were able to pay a fee of one hundred cruzados. Some thirty craftsmen whose skills could be used in the upcoming campaign were also admitted. The rest — about 100,000 souls — were allowed into the country on the condition that they pay a “transit fee” and leave Portugal within eight months. If they didn’t leave, they would become the king’s slaves