'Familia inquisitionis': a study of inquisitors' entourage (13th-14th century).

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The 13th and 14th century Medieval Inquisition in Italy and France has left many records about the inquiries undertaken, and inspired chroniclers and polemicists to write about the deeds and misdeeds of this very exceptional tribunal. However, very little specific material has been left on the 'familia inquisitionis', the group of people who, to various extents, helped inquisitors on their day-to-day management of the tribunal, run their houses and their jails, supported enquiries as professional officers, collaborators and spies. Official documentation (papal documents, episcopal letters, canon law and manuals) does not refer to them. Jailers, notaries, servants, spies and several supporters have thus drifted into historical oblivion. Yet, inquisitorial sources do provide glimpses of this 'family', which is accounted for especially in the expenses books.While the most recent historiography has focussed on the connections between the Inquisition tribunal and the milieu within which it operated, re-visiting and investigating the relationship between political patterns and ecclesiological agendas at a local level, very little light has been shed on another aspect of the interaction between inquisitors and their environment.This study will aim at a reconstruction of the patterns of co-operation between inquisitors and local communities. This will be seen not so much as a stark opposition (Inquisition versus local communities/authorities/communal structures), but as a mutual exchange. Inquisitors were often relatively local or familiar to the places where they operated, and to some degree were part of such groupings. Equally, local communities 'used' the Inquisition as a generator of income, a powerful way to solve disputes, a source of support.Among the aspect that will be investigated are: - the extent to which the world of these ecclesiastical officials relied on professional support provided by the notaries, and at the same time the advantages notaries obtained professionally and in terms of personal prestige by being employed by the tribunal over a length of time;- whether or not historians can talk about a systematic management of the 'familia' throughout the areas regulated by the tribunal (with specific emphasis on France and Italy);- the existence of strategies to handle conversion of suspects and their re-integration into the orthodox society;- the management of possessions obtained through confiscation;- the existence of a support network or financial support for the collaborators and spies;- the extent of corruption as a general practice (corruption of both the inquisitors and of their employees).