inquisition

I enjoy dramatic stories much as the next person, but historical drama, even historical fiction, needs to stay close to the truth.

​“Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Grosseteste, defined heresy as ‘an opinion chosen by human perception, created by human reason, founded on the Scriptures, contrary to the teachings of the Church, publicly avowed, and obstinately defended.’ The fault was in the obstinate adherence rather than theological error, which could be corrected; and by referencing scripture, Grosseteste excludes Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christians from the definition of heretic.” Wikipedia

Why this subject for my blog? The publishing world loves the Inquisition. However, the real reason I bring it up is that Microsoft made me an offer: enter for a chance to win A Plague Tale: Requiem custom PC with blah, blah, blah.

“A Plague Tale: Requiem is an upcoming action-adventure stealth video game sequel to A Plague Tale: Innocence (2019), and follows siblings Amicia and Hugo de Rune who must look for a cure to Hugo’s blood disease in Southern France while fleeing from soldiers of the Inquisition and hordes of rats that are spreading the black plague.” Wikipedia

Historians estimate that the total number of people killed each year under the Inquisition, spread out over 100 years in multiple countries, was 45.

Joe Ketzer directs my attention to auto-da-fé (Portuguese for “act of faith”). If one googles the Spanish Inquisition, one is told that it lasted about two hundred years and 32,000 people were killed. Further research on Wikipedia reveals, “However, after extensive examinations of archival records, modern scholars provide lower estimates, indicating that fewer than 10,000 were actually executed during the whole history of the Spanish Inquisition, perhaps around 3,000.” 3,000/200 = 15.