Dictionary of Heretics, Dissidents, and Inquisitors in the Mediterranean World
Edizioni CLORI | Firenze | ISBN 978-8894241600 | DOI 10.5281/zenodo.1309444
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Abjuration is the act of recanting one’s errors by the heretic after condemnation by the inquisitorial tribunal. The established procedure provided for three types of abjuration that could be imposed on the condemned: de levi or de vehementi suspicione, depending on whether the presumption of heresy was light or grave, and de formali, in cases where heresy was fully ascertained. Generally, in the first case abjuration took place in a semi-private form, in the presence of the inquisitor, the notary, and two witnesses; in the second and third cases it was performed in public (in church, or less frequently in a public square).
During the sixteenth century, the variant of secret (or private) abjuration also spread. Similar to the de levi abjuration, it differed significantly in that it was not preceded by any trial. This type of procedure was generally granted in cases of voluntary appearances and when bishops and/or inquisitors with a more “conciliatory” attitude toward heresy were present in the territory—often themselves under suspicion (for example, in Modena under Bishops Giovanni Morone and Egidio Foscarari, and in Ferrara during the inquisitorship of Girolamo Papino).
Bibliography
- Italo Mereu, Storia dell'intolleranza in Europa. Sospettare e punire: l'Inquisizione come modello di violenza legale, Bompiani, Milan 1988.
- Giovanni Romeo, L’Inquisizione nell’Italia moderna, Laterza, Rome-Bari 2002.
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et tamen e summo, quasi fulmen, deicit ictos
invidia inter dum contemptim in Tartara taetra
invidia quoniam ceu fulmine summa vaporant
plerumque et quae sunt aliis magis edita cumque
[Lucretius, "De rerum natura", lib. V]