Inquisition (c1150 - c1900). The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy. The Inquisition started in 12th-century France to combat religious dissent, in particular the Cathars and the Waldensians. Other groups investigated later included the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites and the Beguines. Beginning in the 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order, replacing the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges. The term Medieval Inquisition covers these courts up to mid-15th century. During the Late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, the concept and scope of the Inquisition significantly expanded in response to the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. It expanded to other European countries, resulting in the Spanish Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition. The Spanish and Portuguese operated inquisitorial courts throughout their empires in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions focused particularly on the issue of Jewish anusim and Muslim converts to Catholicism, partly because these minority groups were more numerous in Spain and Portugal than in many other parts of Europe, and partly because they were often considered suspect due to the assumption that they had secretly reverted to their previous religions. With the exception of the Papal States, the institution of the Inquisition was abolished in the early 19th century, after the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the Spanish American wars of independence in the Americas. The institution survived as part of the Roman Curia, but in 1908 it was renamed the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. In 1965 it became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The term Inquisition comes from the Medieval Latin word inquisitio, which referred to any court process that was based on Roman law, which had gradually come back into use during the late medieval period. Today, the English term Inquisition can apply to any one of several institutions that worked against heretics within the judicial system of the Roman Catholic Church. Although the term Inquisition is usually applied to ecclesiastical courts of the Catholic Church, it has several different usages: an ecclesiastical tribunal. the institution of the Catholic Church for combating heresy. a number of historical expurgation movements against heresy, or. the trial of an individual accused of heresy. The Inquisition, as a church-court, had no jurisdiction over Moors and Jews as such. Generally, the Inquisition was concerned only with the heretical behaviour of Catholic adherents or converts. The overwhelming majority of sentences seem to have consisted of penances like wearing a cross sewn on one's clothes, going on pilgrimage, etc. When a suspect was convicted of unrepentant heresy, the inquisitorial tribunal was required by law to hand the person over to the secular authorities for final sentencing, at which point a magistrate would determine the penalty, which was usually burning at the stake although the penalty varied based on local law. The laws were inclusive of proscriptions against certain religious crimes, and the punishments included death by burning, although usually the penalty was banishment or imprisonment for life, which was generally commuted after a few years. Thus the inquisitors generally knew what would be the fate of anyone so remanded, and cannot be considered to have divorced the means of determining guilt from its effects. The 1578 edition of the Directorium Inquisitorum spelled out the purpose of inquisitorial penalties: quoniam punitio non refertur primo & per se in correctionem & bonum eius qui punitur, sed in bonum publicum ut alij terreantur, & a malis committendis avocentur. Before 1100, the Catholic Church suppressed what they believed to be heresy, usually through a system of ecclesiastical proscription or imprisonment, but without using torture, and seldom resorting to executions. Such punishments were opposed by a number of clergymen and theologians, although some countries punished heresy with the death penalty. In the 12th century, to counter the spread of Catharism, prosecution of heretics became more frequent. The Church charged councils composed of bishops and archbishops with establishing inquisitions. The first Inquisition was temporarily established in Languedoc in 1184. The murder of Pope Innocent's papal legate Pierre de Castelnau in 1208 sparked the Albigensian Crusade. The Inquisition was permanently established in 1229, run largely by the Dominicans in Rome and later at Carcassonne in Languedoc.