Secure Your Copy A History Of The Inquisition Of The Middle Ages (CompleteVolume 1, 2 And 3) Conceived By Henry Charles Lea Compiled As Multimedia Book

No doubt outdated by modern scholarship and the language is flowery by today's standards, but it's a great overview of the heresies and the Church's reaction over time.
Will keep as a reference, Although I liked this book it was a difficult read, It was thoroughly researched and contained interesting details surrounding the Inquisition, However, the vocabulary is Victorian and required frequent appeals to a dictionary in order to decipher the archaisms, The book also assumed a substantive knowledge of medieval and renaissance history,

I would suggest reading only Volumes I and III but for history scholars the book is an excellent source for information prior to recent revelations from the Vatican.
The writing style is absolutely gorgeous!!!!! I loved this, But I love history. When thinking of the inquisition most people think burning of witches but there was mostly persecution against peaceful gnostics and even jews, I read the abridgement by M, Nicholson. My three is harsh, I could be convinced to give it four, And then I would say that four is being kind,

This is a work originally published in, On the positive side, the research that went into this history probably has

only rarely been improved upon, Lea draws almost exclusively from primary sources and he cites these with religious discipline,

He organizes his work systematically rather than narratively, This is likely a function of his era, Being a prodigious publisher, Lea certainly knew what his reading audience wanted, So, instead of telling the story or stories of the Inquisition, he broke down the institution by themes and analyzed these in turn, This has the effect of providing a thorough examination of the topics, However, it is cumbersome. The many pages provided on the sentence of confiscation are undeniably valuable, for example, but they are also just boring,

This approach also can be somewhat dizzying as the reader is constantly rewinding and fastforwarding through the centuries of the Middle Ages, often in the same excruciatingly long paragraph.


I love history and books like these play an important role as repositories of detail, It is this detail that holds the drama of good storytelling accountable to fact, All too often, traditional historians have felt that you cannot be a servant of both story and detail, Lea has chosen the latter unapologetically, This is commendable, but then again, you can't give apage encyclopedia entry a "must read" style review, A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages Complete Volume, Volumeand Volume

VOLUME I ORIGIN AND ORGANIZATION OF THE INQUISITION
CHAPTER I THE CHURCH
CHAPTER II HERESY
CHAPTER III THE CATHARI
CHAPTER IV THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES
CHAPTER V PERSECUTION
CHAPTER VI THE MENDICANT ORDERS
CHAPTER VII THE INQUISITION FOUNDED
CHAPTER VIII ORGANIZATION
CHAPTER IX THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS
CHAPTER X EVIDENCE
CHAPTER XI THE DEFENCE
CHAPTER XII THE SENTENCE
CHAPTER XIII CONFISCATION
CHAPTER XIV THE STAKE

VOLUME II THE INQUISITION IN THE SEVERAL LANDS OF CHRISTENDOM
CHAPTER I LANGUEDOC
CHAPTER II FRANCE
CHAPTER III THE SPANISH PENINSULA
CHAPTER IV ITALY
CHAPTER V THE SLAVIC CATHARI
CHAPTER VI GERMANY
CHAPTER VII BOHEMIA
CHAPTER VIII THE HUSSITES

VOLUME III SPECIAL FIELDS OF INQUISITORIAL ACTIVITY
CHAPTER I THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS
CHAPTER II GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.

CHAPTER III THE FRATICELLI
CHAPTER IV POLITICAL HERESY UTILIZED BY THE CHURCH
CHAPTER V POLITICAL HERESY UTILIZED BY THE STATE
CHAPTER VI SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS
CHAPTER VII WITCHCRAFT
CHAPTER VIII INTELLECT AND FAITH
CHAPTER IX CONCLUSION.