24, history student, Catholic convert, northwesterner, nerd. I like: The X-Files, 30 Rock, Spaced, Arrested Development, medieval history, art and iconography, ecclesiastical architecture, children's literature, Catholic novels, and all kinds of books.

badwolfcomplex:

The Inquisition was spread over six centuries and half a continent. […] [The Spanish Inquisition] became a creature of the state and was effectively out of the control of Church authorities. […]

In any event, there is considerable dispute, even among honest historians, regarding how many deaths occurred under the Spanish Inquisition, and this is no place to settle that squabble. It is enough to note that responsible estimates vary, some historians asserting fewer than three thousand death sentences were handed down during three centuries, others putting the figure higher. As a point of comparison, Sir James Stephens, in his History of English Criminal Law, notes there were eight hundred executions a year during the early post-Reformation period in England, where the Inquisition never operated. One could also refer to the burning of alleged witches, a practice almost unknown in Catholic countries. (Goethe, in his Italienische Reise, attributed the lack of belief in witches to Catholics’ use of the confessional.) In Britain thirty thousand went to the stake for witchcraft; in Protestant Germany the figure was one hundred thousand. Such statistics do not make the Spanish executions right, but they perhaps indicate that severity in punishment was not due to Catholicism as such, but must be attributed to the general character of the times.

Catholicism and Fundamentalism (Ignatius, 1988), chapter 23.

My favorite Inquisition fact from Church history classes is that, in at least some places and times, it was well-known that an Inquisition trial was a fair trial. People arrested for secular crimes would start spouting heresy on purpose so they would be handed over to Inquisition authorities instead.

Click here for more Inquisition information.

demonagerie: British Library, Add MS 11695, detail of f. 147v. Beatus of Liébana, Commentary on the Apocalypse. 1091-1109

View in High Quality →

demonagerie:

British Library, Add MS 11695, detail of f. 147v. Beatus of Liébana, Commentary on the Apocalypse. 1091-1109

♥ Feb 12th at 7PM / via: medieval / op: demonagerie / tagged: medieval. medieval art. / reblog / 634 notes
it looked like winespilled and fanned outover the tiles of the cathedral.the O of your mouthwas a window. it made menervous just to look into it.I saw some wordscaught in the poolsof your cheeks.there were birdsresting in the bedsof your molars.this room is hollow,your eyes are stillwide open. ‘St Thomas Becket,’ Hey Hey! It’s Your Feast Day!(photograph by me; anonymous late medieval young Regensburg lady)

View in High Quality →

it looked like wine
spilled and fanned out
over the tiles of the cathedral.

the O of your mouth
was a window. it made me
nervous just to look into it.

I saw some words
caught in the pools
of your cheeks.

there were birds
resting in the beds
of your molars.

this room is hollow,
your eyes are still
wide open.

‘St Thomas Becket,’ Hey Hey! It’s Your Feast Day!
(photograph by me; anonymous late medieval young Regensburg lady)

ashtun:

thegoldeneternity:

David Stephenson, Heavenly Vaults.

Vaulted Ceilings!

groin vaults

be still my heart

(Doppelkapelle, Kaiserburg - Nuremberg, Germany)

(The “Doppelkapelle” in the Kaiserburg in Nuremberg, Germany, c. 1200, with a late Gothic crucifix) Romanesque churches hold my heart.

View in High Quality →

(The “Doppelkapelle” in the Kaiserburg in Nuremberg, Germany, c. 1200, with a late Gothic crucifix)

Romanesque churches hold my heart.

phantomeyesandsummerskies: Medieval church. #medieval, #church, #buildings, #architecture, #paintings, #stone #prague (Taken with Instagram at St. George’s Basilica) I never did go to Prague…

View in High Quality →

phantomeyesandsummerskies:

Medieval church. #medieval, #church, #buildings, #architecture, #paintings, #stone #prague (Taken with Instagram at St. George’s Basilica)

I never did go to Prague…

awful photos of the lovely woodcut illustrations in my copy of The Ballad of the White Horse

“King Arthur was delighted to see his old friends again, and to hear of Pellinore’s engagement. He was the first knight he had taken a fancy to, when he was a small boy in the Forest Sauvage, and he decided to give the dear fellow a marriage of unexampled splendour. “The cathedral of Carlion was booked for it, and no trouble was spared that a good time should be had by all. The pontifical nuptial high mass was celebrated by such a galaxy of cardinals and bishops and nuncios that there seemed to be no part of the immense church which was not teeming with violet and scarlet and incense and little boys ringing silver bells. Sometimes a boy would rush at a bishop and ring a bell at him. Sometimes a nuncio would pounce on a cardinal and cense him all over. It was like a battle of flowers. Thousands of candles blazed before the gorgeous altars. In every direction the blunt, accustomed, holy fingers were spreading little tablecloths, or holding up books, or blessing each other thoroughly, or soaking each other with Holy Water, or reverently displaying God to the people. The music was heavenly, both Gregorian and Ambrosian, and the church was packed. There were monks and friars and abbots of every description, standing about in sandals among the knights, whose armor flashed by candlelight. There was even a Franciscan bishop, wearing grey, with a red hat. The copes and mitres were almost all of solid gold cloth crusted with diamonds, and there was such a putting of them on and taking of them off that the whole cathedral rustled. As for the Latin, it was talked at such a speed that the rafters rang with genitive plurals — and there was such a prelatical issuing of admonitions, exhortations, and benedictions that it was a wonder the whole congregation did not go to heaven on the spot. Even the Pope, who was as keen as anybody that the thing should go with a swing, had kindly sent a number of indulgences for everybody he could think of.” - The Once and Future King, T.H. White

View in High Quality →

“King Arthur was delighted to see his old friends again, and to hear of Pellinore’s engagement. He was the first knight he had taken a fancy to, when he was a small boy in the Forest Sauvage, and he decided to give the dear fellow a marriage of unexampled splendour.

“The cathedral of Carlion was booked for it, and no trouble was spared that a good time should be had by all. The pontifical nuptial high mass was celebrated by such a galaxy of cardinals and bishops and nuncios that there seemed to be no part of the immense church which was not teeming with violet and scarlet and incense and little boys ringing silver bells. Sometimes a boy would rush at a bishop and ring a bell at him. Sometimes a nuncio would pounce on a cardinal and cense him all over. It was like a battle of flowers. Thousands of candles blazed before the gorgeous altars. In every direction the blunt, accustomed, holy fingers were spreading little tablecloths, or holding up books, or blessing each other thoroughly, or soaking each other with Holy Water, or reverently displaying God to the people. The music was heavenly, both Gregorian and Ambrosian, and the church was packed. There were monks and friars and abbots of every description, standing about in sandals among the knights, whose armor flashed by candlelight. There was even a Franciscan bishop, wearing grey, with a red hat. The copes and mitres were almost all of solid gold cloth crusted with diamonds, and there was such a putting of them on and taking of them off that the whole cathedral rustled. As for the Latin, it was talked at such a speed that the rafters rang with genitive plurals — and there was such a prelatical issuing of admonitions, exhortations, and benedictions that it was a wonder the whole congregation did not go to heaven on the spot. Even the Pope, who was as keen as anybody that the thing should go with a swing, had kindly sent a number of indulgences for everybody he could think of.”

- The Once and Future King, T.H. White