Righteous Persecution examines the long-controversial involvement of the Order of Preachers, or Dominicans, with inquisitions into heresy in medieval Europe. From their origin in the thirteenth century, the Dominicans were devoted to a ministry of preaching, teaching, and pastoral care, to "save souls" particularly tempted by the Christian heresies popular in western Europe. Many persons then, and scholars in our own time, have asked how members of a pastoral order modeled on Christ and the apostles could engage themselves so enthusiastically in the repressive persecution that constituted heresy inquisitions: the arrest, interrogation, torture, punishment, and sometimes execution of those who deviated in belief from Roman Christianity.
Drawing on an extraordinarily wide base of ecclesiastical documents, Christine Caldwell Ames recounts how Dominican inquisitors and their supporters crafted and promoted explicitly Christian meanings for their inquisitorial persecution. Inquisitors' conviction that the sin of heresy constituted the graver danger to the Christian soul and to the church at large led to the belief that bringing the individual to repentance-even through the harshest means-was indeed a pious way to carry out their pastoral task. However, the resistance and criticism that inquisition generated in medieval communities also prompted Dominicans to consider further how this new marriage of persecution and holiness was compatible with authoritative Christian texts, exemplars, and traditions. Dominican inquisitors persecuted not despite their faith but rather because of it, as they formed a medieval Christianity that permitted-or demanded-persecution.
Righteous Persecution deviates from recent scholarship that has deemphasized religious belief as a motive for inquisition and illuminates a powerful instance of the way Christianity was itself vulnerable in a context of persecution, violence, and intolerance.

Inquisitors from the Order of Preachers, or Dominicans, crafted and promoted Christian meanings for their persecution of heresy in medieval Europe. With a mixture of existing religious beliefs, new interpretations, and responses to criticism, Dominicans shaped a medieval Christianity that permitted-or demanded-inquisitorial repression.

About the Author
Christine Caldwell Ames teaches history at the University of South Carolina.

Reviews
"This rich, exhaustive, and highly focused study sets a new standard for thoroughness among scholars seeking to comprehend the inner logic and workings of religious persecution in medieval Christendom." * Speculum *
"I know of no other book that so systematically reviews the question of how Dominicans themselves thought about the relationship of interrogation and torture, truth and pain, persecution and divinity. There are few topics more vital-especially at present-than a study into the relationship of religion and violence. Righteous Persecution is an important and lasting contribution to scholarship." * Mark Gregory Pegg, Washington University *



Book Information
ISBN 9780812241334
Author Christine Caldwell Ames
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint University of Pennsylvania Press
Publisher University of Pennsylvania Press