Dr. Thomas Madden

The state, however, the royal governments and the state in Western Europe considered heresy to be a capital offense.

And the reason is not hard to see.

Kings base their authority that they are king by the grace of God.

Their authority is given to them in coronations that are done by the church.

And therefore, if you say that the church is completely wrong,

And then you are attacking their authority, and that's treason.

And so also people didn't want heretics around them because they knew it was seen as a disease.

And they didn't want that around them.

So in medieval Europe, up until about 1000, the normal thing, if somebody found a heretic, is they would bring them to the local lord who would sit in his seat of judgment.

He's illiterate and doesn't know the faith that well himself.

I mean, if someone comes to him and says, hey, this guy stole my pig.

then he'll have a reasonable idea of what to do.

But if he comes and says, you know, this guy has this view on the Blessed Sacrament, he's not going to really know what's the right answer.

In most cases, when a heretic was brought before them, these lords, local lords, would just listen to what was being said.

And then, just to be on the safe side, they would usually just burn them at the stake.

Because, you know, you don't want a heretic around, for sure.

So, the problem of heresy continued to grow into the 12th century.

And in 1184, Pope Lucius finally set up an institution in which he said, okay, from now on, we don't want people who are accused of heresy just going in front of judges, state judges, who have no training in theology or even Roman laws of evidence.

We want to have an actual inquiry using Roman law

and done by knowledgeable jurists and theologians who can then ask these people.