1. Introduction

The Inquisition is an ecclesiastical judicial institution that existed in the Middle Ages and early Modern times, which investigated and suppressed crimes against faith and morality, including heresy, witchcraft, blasphemy and other violations of canon law. The Inquisition as a measure of punishment is a system of judicial prosecution in the Catholic Church. It combined elements of criminal procedure and political tools, having a significant impact on the development of legal systems. Within the framework of this institution, various punishments were applied, although the Inquisition itself did not impose death sentences — it was done by the secular authorities. The purpose of the Inquisition was not only to punish, but also to return a person to the bosom of the church through repentance.

2. Material and methods

The Inquisition in the Middle Ages was a special system of ecclesiastical courts, the purpose of which was not so much to punish the guilty as to return him to the true faith. As noted in E. S. Mirsanova’s study, if the accused repented of his sin, he returned to the bosom of the church, and penance was imposed on him, whereas execution meant that the inquisitor had failed in his task [6]. He (the inquisitor), during his detour (of course, the inquisitor was usually at his «headquarters», but from time to time he made detours, stopping at various Dominican and Franciscan monasteries), informed the spiritual authorities of his arrival in a Few days so that they would gather the people at the appointed time, promising indulgences those who showed up, and the rest were threatened with excommunication from the church. The inquisitor addressed the audience with a speech about the purity of the faith and demanded that within six or ten days all residents come to him and tell him everything they know about those guilty of heresy or suspected of it. Those who disobeyed this order were subjected to excommunication, which could only be lifted by the inquisitor, while others were given an indulgence for three years. In addition, the inquisitor appointed a so-called «period of mercy», which lasted from fifteen to thirty days, during which every heretic who voluntarily appeared received leniency if he confessed his errors, renounced them and betrayed other such heretics. Such leniency was either complete or implied only the abolition of harsh punishments such as death, imprisonment, confiscation, and exile. Penance was imposed on him, and he himself was perceived as a sinful person who wanted to receive repentance. At the same time, the death sentence could not be pronounced on someone who had not confessed to the crime [1], and the truth must come from the lips of the defendant himself. It should be noted that in modern criminal proceedings, the testimony of the accused is also recognized as evidence. Nevertheless, according to part 2 of Article 77 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, self-incriminating testimony is not sufficient in itself and must be supported by other evidence.

The fight against dissent has been waged for more than seven centuries by the forces of the «Holy Department for the Investigation of Heretical Sinfulness» («Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis Sanctum Officium»). Modern dictionaries define the Inquisition as a judicial and investigative body created to identify the enemies of the Church, convince and re-educate them, and in case of incorrigibility, excommunicate them in accordance with the instructions of the New Testament. The means of identifying heretical enemies were extremely cruel and humiliating, which led to the further use of the term «inquisition» as a synonym for torture, cruelty and bullying. It is noteworthy that the religious, legal and ideological foundations of this policy towards dissidents very harmoniously explained the need for an ongoing investigation and correction of the current situation [7].

The Inquisition’s punishment system included several levels. Relatively mild measures included penance: reading prayers, visiting temples, fasting, donations, pilgrimages, which required walking to holy places (Rome, «Compostela», Canterbury, Cologne) and could take several years, generally what a confessor could impose on a penitent. Strangely enough, they included flagellation, or rather it was one of the conditions of penance, it was often implied when the accused was assigned a pilgrimage or a visit to churches. In the early days of the Inquisition, a pilgrimage to Palestine as crusaders was appointed. The practice of penance dates back to the Ancient Church. Initially, it could only be imposed by a bishop, but later the practice of penance by priests also spread. A special form of punishment was the wearing of crosses — two large saffron—colored stripes (in Italy, made of red cloth), which was initially imposed for a period of one to six years, and then became life, with the condition that the inquisitor could remove it. At first glance, it seems that such penance was quite merciful, however, the penitents tried their best to get rid of these signs of shame. The Inquisition understood that the situation of the penitents was terrible, so it tried to help them in one way or another. For example, some were allowed to remove crosses while traveling, and young girls were allowed to get married [8]. There were more severe and shameful penances, such as wearing yellow crosses on clothes. Imprisonment existed in two forms: the milder («murus largus») resembled life in a monastic community, while the harsh («murus strictus») was comparable to being buried alive [9]. Fines, although controversial (since the inquisitors were monks of mendicant orders who kept a vow of poverty), became a common punishment, and the money went to the expenses of the Inquisition. For execution, the accused was handed over to the secular authorities, the same rule applied for the confiscation of property. Confiscation of property was applied only to the property of the heretic himself (the dowry of the wife was not touched, unless, of course, she was not a heretic herself), and in France, the confiscated property went to the state, unless the priest was not a heretic (since the state had no right to take property from the church, yes, strangely enough, it could be, since there were defenders and supporters of heresy, except for the heretics themselves), and the bull of Pope Innocent IV «Ad extirpanda», issued on May 15, 1252, divided the confiscated property into three parts: the first third to the city authorities, the second third — The Holy Chamber, while the third was removed to a place that only the bishop and the inquisitors knew about, these funds could be spent, if necessary, on suppressing heresy [6].

The most terrible punishment is the death penalty by burning, which is exactly what the Inquisition became famous for. It was applied primarily to unrepentant heretics (who recognized heresy, but did not renounce it even under torture), of whom there were not many – usually the inquisitors’ persuasions were enough for the accused to repent, as well as to «returning» heretics who once repented, but fell into heresy again [2]. The need to burn them arose from the fact that many of them hoped to renounce heresy again in words in order to avoid punishment. Such people were deprived of the right to repent during the execution.

When a heretic who had not repented or returned to heresy was handed over to the secular authorities, the following was indicated: «We are releasing you from our church forum and handing you over to the secular authorities. But we implore the secular court to pass sentence in such a way as to avoid bloodshed or death threats.» It is worth noting in this case that we have already mentioned the fact that the Inquisition understood the gravity and horror of the situation of the penitents and the accused and tried to help them in one way or another [10]. However, this form made sense before the official decree of Innocent IV to apply the death penalty as a punishment for heresy. After him, it was pronounced, most likely following custom.

          However, despite the kind of mercy mentioned earlier, the fight was still tough. So how did the inquisitors themselves justify the need for such a tough fight against the opposition? In the Middle Ages, religion was the foundation of the worldview, the pillar of the world order, and state stability. Consequently, doubt or denial of the church’s authority threatened the System as a whole [11]. Therefore, the great goal of preserving Order required exceptional measures. Freedom of thought has been making its way for a long time and painfully: in a number of countries, the Inquisition destroyed dissidents, in other countries there were civil wars due to differences of opinion (the struggle of Catholics and Protestants in England and Germany).

The burning had primarily a symbolic meaning, and often the accused were burned after death [13].

There weren’t many death sentences. And often death bonfires were lit from time to time to maintain a kind of horror among the population. In addition, as already mentioned, execution was not the main goal of the Inquisition, and many adherents of heretical movements considered such a death to be martyrdom and were perceived by their followers as saints. Thus, it turned out that the Inquisition, by imposing death sentences, to some extent contributed to the spread of heresy and partly contradicted itself, despite the fact that much, of course, depended on the activities of a particular inquisitor. The statistics of the inquisitor of Toulouse Bernard Guy for 1308-1322 show that out of the total number of convicts, 40 people (mostly returned heretics) were burned alive, 67 remains of the deceased were dug up and burned, 300 were sentenced to imprisonment, 138 to wearing crosses, 16 to pilgrimages [6]. The scale of the late Spanish Inquisition from 1481 to 1808, which was a kind of phenomenon, was much larger: 34,658 people were burned alive, 18,049 images of missing people were burned, 288,214 were sentenced to hard labor and imprisonment [6].

          An important procedural feature of inquisitorial punishment was that the church did not formally sentence to death but only revealed the fact of heresy. The decision on the state’s punishment of heretics convicted by the ecclesiastical court was made in 1215 at the 12th Ecumenical (Lutheran) Council [7,3]. In the witchcraft heresy, both spiritual and secular crimes merge, and therefore witchcraft is recognized as equally dangerous by both the church and the state, since socially dangerous consequences infringe, among other things, on the interests protected by secular law, and a secular judge considering a case of witchcraft simultaneously serves the cause of the church and the state. At the same time, the Diocesan Court was limited in the imposition of punishments, and for the imposition of the death penalty, in particular related to the deprivation of a convicted person’s life, the case was transferred to the secular authorities [1]. Before being handed over to the secular authorities, the bishop, through the rite of deposition and the successive removal of church vestments, removed the spiritual dignity from the convict [12]. Subsequently, the judge or, on his instructions, a notary or a cleric pronounces the verdict. It must contain the circumstances of the original crime, information about the renunciation and subsequent purification, as well as an indication of the re-entry into heresy, listing the circumstances of the new crime. The inquisitor then recited the formula we mentioned earlier. The order in which punishment should be specifically «city» (inflicted by secular authorities), and not so much church, was also supported at the Great Moscow Council of 1667 [7].

The inquisitorial process was significantly different from modern legal systems. He did not separate the concepts of «suspicion» and «accusation» and various forms of suspicion (mild, severe, severe) were regarded as independent crimes, entailing appropriate penalties [1]. The volume of evidence determined the final qualification of the crime and, as a result, the punishment imposed — unlike in the modern process, where the nature of the charge does not correlate with the volume of evidence actually obtained. There were very few acquittals — sometimes not one in a thousand or even two thousand cases [3]. I.R. Grigulevich says: «Once the inquisition machine was launched, it could not idle without undermining itself. She demanded more and more blood, which was supplied to her by heretics, both genuine and fabricated by herself.» This pattern, like any other, is peremptorily manifested in public life, since, as is well known, the laws of nature have no mercy. The basic element of inquisitorial proceedings was secrecy, and the inquisitorial court was in the nature of a duel between the judge and the accused [4]. To bring to justice, it was often enough for one person to accuse another of belonging to heresy, and anonymous denunciations were welcome, and informers could receive part of the convict’s fortune. The norms of ancient Russian criminal law and criminal procedure, for example, stipulated that in order to proclaim a lawful decision, the testimony of «reliable witnesses» was required, showing «from eye to eye according to the Gospel word: «Before two or three witnesses, let every verb become.» In law enforcement, secrecy and arbitrariness are inextricably linked, because «who can consider themselves protected from slander when it is armed with the impenetrable shield of tyranny – secrecy?» Secret witnesses, being an invention of the Inquisition, do not fit into the general concept of justice, as they contradict its very essence. No one could refuse to act as a witness. Those who were hesitant or unwilling were placed in a dungeon, where torture was applied to witnesses more often than to the accused. There was a prejudice that the use of torture eliminated any doubt about the sincerity of the witness testifying. Given the fact that fear-based denunciation became epidemic, and the truthfulness of denunciations often had no basis in fact, and already in 1244 and 1246 the cathedrals in Narbonne and Beziers forbade the inquisitors to announce the names of witnesses, and Pope Boniface VIII introduced into canon law an article on the silence of the names of witnesses [14]. The Inquisition’s concern for the safety of witnesses reached a peak at a time when the inquisitor could, if he found it necessary, keep the testimony itself secret from the accused. Torture was legalized by the bull «Ad extirpanda» of 1252, although initially only secular authorities had the right to use it, four years later Alexander IV eliminated these rules, allowing inquisitors to omit each other’s sins and torture suspects themselves, and in 1262 Urban IV confirmed this permission. A confession obtained under torture was not legitimate, so torture was rarely mentioned in the documents of the Inquisition. The purpose of the torture was not to obtain a confession, but to bring the accused to such a state that he could make a confession later [6]. In modern Russian practice, the secrecy of a witness in many cases is dictated not by the desire to protect the witness, but by the desire to protect the prosecution (to deprive protection and the possibility of high-quality interrogation) [4].

At the same time, some elements of the inquisition process, as noted by D.B. Chernyshev, have been preserved in modern criminal proceedings: assessment of evidence based on internal conviction and conscience (Article 17 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation), the institution of disqualification of witnesses, responsibility for false testimony, the participation of a defense lawyer, the form of a court verdict (introductory, descriptive, motivational and resolute parts) and the procedure for its issuance [1, pp. 5, 12, 14]. However, such fundamental principles as the independence of judges, the presumption of innocence, respect for personal honor and dignity, and the right to appeal against procedural actions and decisions were absent in the Inquisition process [1, pp. 2, 13]. And principles such as the adversarial nature of the parties and the right of the accused to a defense, although present, were expressed in a much more limited form. The general accusatory orientation of the Inquisitorial process also distances it from modernity. Without taking into account the religious orientation of the trial and the controversial subject of the investigation in modern conditions and evaluating it from an external, procedural point of view, one can note a similar goal to the present – the establishment of the truth, the protection of the innocent from false accusations.

The Orthodox Inquisition in Russia represents a special page in the history of the Inquisition. The process of spreading Orthodoxy was characterized by lynching individuals who did not want to accept the Orthodox faith, were oppositional or led a lifestyle that did not correspond to Orthodox teaching. The Orthodox Inquisition practically did not differ from the practice of such reprisals against non-believers in Europe [5]. Despite the fact that this inquisition openly existed in Russia for a relatively short period of time and was not as pronounced as in Europe, a large number of people were infringed upon, ruined and destroyed during it. Witchcraft trials arose in Russia already in the XI century, the investigation was carried out by the church authorities. Prince Vladimir’s «Statute of Ecclesiastical Courts» referred witchcraft, sorcery, and sorcery to cases that the Orthodox Church tried and judged. In the 13th century, the Orthodox Inquisition developed methods for recognizing witches by fire, cold water, weighing, piercing warts, and all sorts of similar things. The Orthodox Church carried out its inquisitorial activities through judicial bodies at the disposal of diocesan bishops, through the patriarchal court and church councils [15]. She also had special bodies created to investigate cases against religion and the church — the Order of Spiritual Affairs, the Order of Inquisitorial Affairs (with a proto—inquisitor at the head), the Novokrestenskaya Office and the Schismatic Office (existed until 1764), and since 1744 — the spiritual consistories [5]. At the insistence of the church, secular investigative bodies, such as the Detective Order, the Secret Chancellery, and the Preobrazhensky Order, also handled cases of crimes against the faith. The Conciliar Code of 1649, prepared with the assistance of church representatives and with their blessing, put crimes against the church and religion in the first place, which proves the increased importance of protecting church principles for the state, and ordered the blasphemer to «execute, burn» [5, p. 4].

In modern Russia, according to A.M. Smirnov, inquisitorial methods are being resuscitated: Federal Law No. 136-FZ of 06/29/2013 «On Amendments to Article 148 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation in order to counteract insulting religious beliefs and feelings of citizens» is called a «legal » weapon» in the intensive care unit of the Russian Inquisition the Orthodox Church» [5].

3. Results and discussions

During the research:

— the Inquisition has been analyzed as a legal phenomenon from the historical, legal, procedural, statistical, philosophical and comparative legal points of view;

— the origin and chronology of the events of the Inquisition were considered, as well as geographical distribution, including the Orthodox Inquisition in Russia;

— the purpose of the Inquisition has been studied and revealed;

— the procedural features have been revealed;

— measures and types of punishments have been studied and described in detail;

— the interaction of church and state has been studied;

— the historical context of the Inquisition theme has been touched upon;

— the impact on secular (criminal) legal proceedings has been reviewed and studied.

4. Conclusion

The right to think freely was condemned as dissent, the unacceptability of the other, the other, the refusal to recognize someone else’s identity resulted in the actual destruction of dissenters, which contradicts the Christian and universal idea of humanism. The legal proceedings of the «holy Inquisition» were extremely unfair, deceitful, and its decisions were often predictable. The essence of this phenomenon contradicts not only basic Christian principles, but also natural law. The whole process was aimed not so much at an objective and impartial trial, but rather at outright accusation and condemnation, often without serious grounds. The use of torture by Inquisitorial courts, on the contrary, is not criminalistic in nature and has nothing to do with obtaining evidence of the defendant’s guilt or with the desire to convict an innocent person. It has an exclusively religious nature, based on a false understanding of the value of saving the human soul for a modern person, but quite logical for people with mystical thinking of that era.

In 2000, John Paul II publicly apologized for the past mistakes and transgressions of the people of the Church. However, as the collected materials show, the Inquisition as a measure of punishment within the framework of law has left a deep mark on the history of legal systems, both through elements perceived by the modern criminal process and through practices that were rejected as incompatible with justice.