Christianity claims that a heretic is a person whose views, opinions and statements are different from the dogmas of the church. Today, unlike the Middle Ages, he will not be burned for this at the stake and will not be exposed to exposing torture. However, in the Middle Ages, everything was different! We’ll talk about this.
Branded for life
In the Middle Ages, people's consciousness was very meager. They willingly believed in witches, dragons, sorcerers, and other evil spirits. Science was not as advanced as it is today. The medieval church with its views and ideas was much different from today. Each person who had his own outlook on the structure of this world, and also was in some way disagree with the priests of the Middle Ages, involuntarily received the stigma "heretic". And no one cared what social status he was endowed with - nobleman, genius, scientist, healer or clairvoyant!
Clergymen, hiding behind their position, constantly referred to the fact that only their interpretation of the Holy Scripture, only their opinions on this subject, were the only true and correct! Hiding behind the Lord God and the "Holy Inquisition", these people destroyed a huge number of those who disagree with them. Indeed, in the Middle Ages there was a strict rule that a heretic is almost always a man sentenced to death! The heretic label in the vast majority of cases meant burning on bonfires or hanging on the gallows of the Inquisition. Remember how many geniuses were then burned at the stake!
Information about when the first heretic appeared, however, the most famous of them is Giordano Bruno. This is a medieval astronomer scientist. He calculated that our planet is round, and not flat, as it was then commonly believed. However, the society did not share his views, moreover, his discovery aroused the anger of the clergy, for which the scientist was subjected to burning at the stake! Sometimes heretics were not executed, but simply tortured. Let's find out in what cases this happened.
Why were heretics tortured?
If the inquisitors agreed that threats, persuasion and cunning did not affect the accused, then it was necessary to resort to violence. It was believed that physical torture and torment more clearly enlightens the mind of a dissident. At that time, there was a whole list of tortures legitimized by the Inquisition.
The centuries-old torture of heretics was the clearest evidence of the weakness of the medieval church in front of its ideological opponents. Priests could not win the Word of God. The easiest way to do this was by force of power and coercion!
The heretic is our benefactor!
Yes ... It was a terrible time ... A time of eternal hunting for dissidents and witches! However, despite all the hardships, it is the heretic who is the “engine” of medieval progress! Imagine, if they were not, what would our world be today? Yes, we would still ride on wooden rattling horse-drawn carts, candles in candelabra would still burn in our houses, and we would write with goose feathers on parchment! Horrible! It is to heretics that we - modern people - owe all the existing benefits of civilization!