I'm studying for my Medieval Civilizations final and I've just reached the section about the process of Episcopal Inquisition as set up by Pope Innocent III. Basically the idea was for the Christian Bishops to root out "heretics" (anyone who practiced a religion that was different than Christianity), especially the leaders of these "heretics" and get a confession out of them, a confession that there was only one true God and one true religion, that of Christianity and the Christian God. How did they get this confession? They used TORTURE, but a certain type of torture called "Judicial Torture" in which rules were applied. The torture device of choice was the rack in which the victim's body was stretched, but according to Judicial Torture the person could only be stretched for a certain amount of time and at certain tensions. If the person confessed they were guilty and if they could endure the torture without confessing they were deemed innocent. That makes a lot of sense because we all know those that truly believe in their religion will easily give in and say that their religion is wrong. So, through this method of Episcopal Inquisition, the Christians only rooted out the weak followers of the "heretical" religions that go contra to Christianity, while leaving the truly zealous heretics in place... smart...
and for your amusemement/disgust, I have included 2 other types of torture (in addition to the rack) used during these Episcopal Inquisitions:
1) Put a person on a barrel and put a funnel in their mouth, pour water in. Once the belly has become distended, they hit it with a rod of some sort. Only for a prescribed number of strokes, of course, but it still hurt like a bitch.
2)The Lift - tie their hands behind their back, loop a rope around their hands, then start lifting their arms til they're off the ground - The shoulders are dislocated. Also, fire was applied under the arms.
And I thought that God was supposed to be the only true Judge according to the Bible...
