The Inquisition Francisco Bethencourt Summary

A global history?
For his comparative analysis Francisco Bethencourt combines the method of Marc Bloch which consisted of “comparing structurally similar institutions” and Marcel Détienne who “compared the apparently incomparable through time and space”. This is a fruitful method because the three inquisitions share similar points, for example the doctrine, but differed in multiple ways such as the constitution and the political and social context (p. 2). In the sixteenth century, the inquisitions were indeed perceived by the populations as different institutions, the concept of “The Inquisition” was a perception that only became standardized later (p. 442). As is shown in this exemple, Bethencourt pays a lot of attention to representations

This shows again how Bethencourt has largely been inspired by Bourdieu and Geertz. The decline of the Inquisition was a long drawn-out process and the author uses the importance of the use of rituals in this process because they concealed the loss of power (p.133). The major analysis of rituals, however, is carried out in chapter seven about the autos-da-fés. Here, the detailed writing of the author is a plus-point because these rituals of public penance involved very detailed consecutive acts which turned trials into theater pieces; both large crows of commoners and kings assisted the event. The inquisitors handed the criminals over to the secular law system because executions were forbidden by canon law. Autos-da-fés has been stereotyped in political and religious debate as gruesome events but in fact the focus lay on the repentance of the criminal, on his or her re-education. The crowd implored them to do this and torture such as burning of hair or clothes was used for this purpose. Repenting meant that the criminal was strangled before burning, which was a less painful death. However, the execution was ambiguous; it had the purpose of frightening people but it also meant a victory for the