The Inner Lives of Medieval Inquisitors
Karen Sullivan
UChicago, 2011
272.2092 S949i
In successive chapters on key figures in the Middle Ages—Bernard of Clairvaux, Dominic Guzmán, Conrad of Marburg, Peter of Verona, Bernard Gui, Bernard Délicieux, and Nicholas Eymerich—Sullivan shows that it is possible to discern each inquisitor making personal, moral choices as to what course of action he would take. All medieval clerics recognized that the church should first attempt to correct heretics through repeated admonitions and that, if these admonitions failed, it should then move toward excluding them from society. Yet more charitable clerics preferred to wait for conversion, while zealous clerics preferred not to delay too long before sending heretics to the stake. By considering not the external prosecution of heretics during the Middles Ages, but the internal motivations of the preachers and inquisitors who pursued them, as represented in their writings and in those of their peers, The Inner Lives of Medieval Inquisitors explores how it is that the most idealistic of purposes can lead to the justification of such dark ends. -publisher
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Half-Opened Door, the Lowered Hood, the Smile: Béatris de Planissoles and the Heretics of Montaillou
2. A Garden of Holy Companionship: The Secrecy of the "Manichaeans" and Cathars
3. A Garden, Locked and Fortified: Heresy, Secrecy, and Troubadour Lyric
4. The Stoning of Lady Guirauda: The Singularity of Noble Heretics
5. The Ropes Cutting into Iseut's Wrists: Heresy, Singularity, and the Romance of Tristan
6. Proteus Teaching in the Fields: The Duplicity of the Waldensians
7. The Heretic in the Poultry Yard: Heresy, Duplicity, and Medieval Comic Tales
Conclusion
Selected Bibliography
Index
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Half-Opened Door, the Lowered Hood, the Smile: Béatris de Planissoles and the Heretics of Montaillou
2. A Garden of Holy Companionship: The Secrecy of the "Manichaeans" and Cathars
3. A Garden, Locked and Fortified: Heresy, Secrecy, and Troubadour Lyric
4. The Stoning of Lady Guirauda: The Singularity of Noble Heretics
5. The Ropes Cutting into Iseut's Wrists: Heresy, Singularity, and the Romance of Tristan
6. Proteus Teaching in the Fields: The Duplicity of the Waldensians
7. The Heretic in the Poultry Yard: Heresy, Duplicity, and Medieval Comic Tales
Conclusion
Selected Bibliography
Index
Karen Sullivan is professor of literature at Bard College. She is the author of The Interrogation of Joan of Arc, and Truth and the Heretic: Crises of Knowledge in Medieval French Literature, winner of the Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Studies of the Modern Language Association, and published by the University of Chicago Press.