Two Inquisitors

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I propose to look at two inquisitors, Bernard Gui, who worked in Languedoc in the early 14th century, and Peter Zwicker, who worked in German-speaking areas in the 1390s. They were both successful at their job - Gui was one of a group that destroyed the major heretical sect of southern France (Catharism), while Zwicker virtually eliminated the major sect of northern and central Europe (Waldensianism). Quite a lot of evidence survives about both men. There is a lot from their inquisitions - from Gui's work there survives a book containing extracts made from the records of question and answer (depositions), while still extant are two manuscripts containing the depositoions themselves, made by about 200 people he questioned. And there are other things they wrote - Gui wrote a lot of histories, as also a treatise on how to carry out inquisition, while Zwicker wrote a long theological treatise pointing out why heretics were wrong, and also left an anthology of forms to be used in inquisition. There is some straightforward new research here. In neither case has any scholar systematically read in conjunction the inquisition records and the literary output. There are myriads of connections, and each man will be known better through this work. Secondly, I want to get closer to the individual realities of these men through controlled and systematic comparison. What is in common and what is different is ideal for such an exercise. In turn, a deep and multi-dimensional picture of thesre two men - two of the most active and significant of all medieval inquisitors - enables us to examine more subtly and deloicately not only what inquisitors did but also how they saw things. We are very dependent on churchmen, especially inquisitors, for our view of those religious movements that were branded 'heretical sects'. Inquisitors' and polemical theologians' accounts of these sects used to be branded as utterly misleading, because of prejudice, commonplaces about the wickedness of heretics, and the use of leading questions in trials (allied to torture) producing utterly unreliable material in inquisition records. This line can be taken to excess. Study of Gui and Zwicker will show that some inquisitors were pretty good policemen, and that their records were a subtle mixture of the usual police problem (policeman's vocabulary, lies and evasions), the use of lists of questions, their own personalities (Gui's pedantical historian's outlook, the former schoolmaster Zwicker's preoccupation with levels of IQ), and 'reality'. Beyond this, there is a big problem with one sect (Waldensianism) which has been pre-occuping historians. 'Waldensians' were found all over Europe, from southern Italy to the Baltic, and 'Waldensians' constituted the one sect that outlived the middle ages - those surviving in Piedmont in the early 16th century became a Protestant Churchs. However, were the 'Waldensians' questioned in different parts of Europe really the same thing? Gui questioned many French-speaking 'Waldensians' from Burgundy, while Zwicker questioned many German-speaking ones, especially in Austria and northern Germany. Controlled comparison of these two inquisitors will supply the most effective possible context for a delicate investigation of what can be said about whether these were or were not the same group.