A Dark History The Popes – Brenda Ralph Lewis

The persecutions did not stop there. The efforts of inquisitors in Toulouse and Narbonne were encouraged by such popes as John XXII, who issued a series of papal bulls exhorting them to increase their witch hunts, treat witchcraft as heresy and condemn suspects accordingly. Pope John was one of the most superstitious of pontiffs. He believed his enemies were using sorcery to kill him, and in 1317, he ordered them to be tortured into confessing. Three years later, John told the inquisitor at Carcassonne, which lay in Cathar country, to pursue sorcerers and magicians and anyone who tried to raise demons or made wax images for the purpose of inducing sickness or death.

As a result of John XXII’s encouragement, 1000 suspects were arrested in Toulouse and Carcassonne by1350 and 600 of them were burnt at the stake. Activities like these, and the fervour that drove them, were still going strong in Jean Bodin’s time more than two centuries later. Bodin died in 1596, but even after that, there was plenty of mileage left in the pursuit of suspects in both the Catholic and the Protestant countries of Europe.

This was the case even though, in 1623, Pope Gregory had spoken the last word on the subject from the Vatican in an ordinance entitled Omnipotentis Dei (The Omnipotence of God). Gregory, a reformer by nature, ordered that sadistic punishments should be reduced, if not abandoned altogether, and that the death penalty be limited to those who were ‘proved to have entered into a compact with the Devil and to have committed murder with his assistance’. It took a very long time for the witch hunters to get the message.

It was as if witch hunting and burning had taken on a ghastly life all its own that even papal injunctions could not halt. If anything, the parameters of guilt had been extended beyond witches and sorcerers to a new class of heretics, including fortune tellers, necromancers, enchanters and most lurid of all, werewolves. Nevertheless, witches still accounted for the majority of victims burnt at the stake or imprisoned. In Germany, where King Maximilian I became an enthusiastic witch hunter after succeeding to the throne of Bavaria in 1597, up to 2000 witches were burnt in the small town of Riezler, and as many again in Augsburg and Freising.

AKG Images; Alamy; Art Archive; Art-Tech/John Batchelor; Bridgeman Art Library; Cody Images; Corbis; De Agostini Picture Library; Getty Images; Heritage Image Partnership; iStockphoto; Library of Congress; Mary Evans Picture Library; Photos12.com; Photos.com; Public Domain; Ronald Grant Archive; Science Photo Library; TopFoto All rights reserved. With the exception of quoting brief passages for the purpose of review no part of this publication may be reproduced without prior written permission from the publisher.

The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. All recommendations are made without any guarantee on the part of the author or publisher, who also disclaim any liability incurred in connection with the use of this data or specific details. 1kitap1.com/en www.amberbooks.co.uk 1kitap1.com/en CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 THE CADAVER SYNOD, THE RULE OF THE HARLOTS, AND OTHER VATICAN SCANDALS CHAPTER 2 GENOCIDE: THE CATHARS, PART I CHAPTER 3 GENOCIDE: THE CATHARS, PART II CHAPTER 4 POPES AND WITCHES CHAPTER 5 THE BORGIAS CHAPTER 6 THE GALILEO AFFAIR CHAPTER 7 THE PRISONER OF THE VATICAN, PART I CHAPTER 8 THE PRISONER OF THE VATICAN, PART II CHAPTER 9 THE POPE AND THE NAZIS INDEX AND PICTURE CREDITS 1kitap1.com/en The Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican City (pictured), constructed between 1506 and 1626, is one of the holiest sites in Christendom.

1kitap1.com/en T INTRODUCTION The Pope in Rome holds the oldest elected office in the world. In the nearly 2,000 years it has existed, the papacy has helped forge the history of Europe, and has also reflected both the best and the worst of that history. Several popes schemed, murdered, bribed, thieved and fornicated, while others committed atrocities so appalling that even their own contemporaries were shocked.

his was especially true of the darkest days of the papacy’s dark history when Christendom was gripped by a hysterical fear of witchcraft or any dissent from the path of ‘true’ religion as ordained by the popes and the Catholic church. Some of the most heinous crimes ever committed in the name of religion – all of them with papal sanction – occurred during the five centuries or so during which a ferocious struggle raged over Europe to eliminate ‘error’: any belief, practice or opinion that deviated from the official papal line.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: e5d86c5d0efdaeea
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 24,518,365 bytes (23.383 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9781908696328
• Pages: 381
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 388.02 minutes
• Total Words: 77,604
• Total Characters: 463,128
• Average Words per Page: 203.69
• Average Characters per Page: 1215.56

Most Frequent Words

pope (559), rome (251), pius (201), papal (192), one (179), church (168), vatican (144), years (142), made (137), galileo (133), even (133), inquisition (128), time (126), john (111), also (106), italy (104), death (102), first (100), raymond (100), two (94), cathars (93), king (93), against (93), catholic (90), new (88), war (85), alexander (84), way (81), another (81), world (80), iii (79), popes (78), cardinal (77), french (74), though (73), himself (72), witches (71), borgia (71), france (70), end (70), came (70), many (69), power (69), make (68), much (68), cathar (68), like (67), long (67), became (66), holy (65), city (64), never (64), set (64), later (63), italian (63), innocent (63), heresy (61), heretics (60), inquisitors (59), jews (58), cesare (58), life (57), back (57), men (57), now (56), died (56), gregory (56), carcassonne (56), around (55), great (55), formosus (54), took (54), europe (53), known (53), still (53), last (53), man (52), however (52), soon (52), family (51), people (51), god (50), xii (50), old (50), germany (50), papacy (49), went (49), roger (49), well (48), stephen (48), far (48), believed (47), century (47), marozia (47), torture (47), languedoc (47), book (46), place (46), army (46), pope’s (46).

PDF Download