The
inquisitional documents (specifically edicts and testimonies concerning the conversos) of Cervantes's time reflect these practices.
"Once the identity of the accused individuals was established, they would be seized, thrust into
inquisitional dungeons, interrogated (occasionally under torture), and sentenced to a variety punishments, ranging from terms of penitential service to imprisonment or to 'relaxation,' that is, death," Howard Sachar wrote in his book "Farewell Espana: The World of the Sephardim Remembered."
For from that moment on, and for many years to come, Mariana would be besieged with
Inquisitional assignments.
No, we do not operate the
inquisitional mode of justice as it is practised by the French.
Naturally in those days of Tridentine strictures on imaginative literature and the dangers of
Inquisitional investigation to suspected practitioners of magic, an author could hardly allow the presence of efficacious magic in his works, and Cervantes therefore always weakens or questions its effects within his plots.
(107) The "tres bonetes" Elena mentions is an example of synecdoche that refers to the headwear
Inquisitional authorities wore during tribunal sessions (Garcia SantoTomas 107, n.
In most cases retro-reports can offer only unctuous weasel words of one-sided self-justification, risking (as at Hillsborough) all the confirmation bias and potential for accepting fabricated evidence inherent to
inquisitional methods - not the change of hearts and minds required for genuine reform obliging elected and official leaders to base mutual respect upon sharing, and upholding amongst their subordinates (by example in the first instance), the principles of human rights and public service.
Ultimately, disputational knowledge, based on force_ --the force of authority, physical strength, combative style, etc.-, was succeeded by an
inquisitional knowledge based on testimonies extracted through interrogation.
(19) For example, a 1315 writ of inquisition was made on William de Lillebon, 'a lunatic, whose lands and tenements by reason of his idiotcy [sic] are in our hands', and having died, 'as we are told, we command you diligently to enquire what lands and tenements came to our hands by reason of his idiotcy, etc.' (20) The
inquisitional testimony stated that William was a lunatic.
Defined by Webster's Dictionary as "the use of indiscriminate, often unfounded, accusations, sensationalism,
inquisitional investigative methods, etc., as in the suppression of political opponents portrayed as subversive," the term is now used as a weapon not only by the political Left, but also by far too many on the political Right.
Their topics include illness as divine punishment: the nature and function of the disease-carrier demons in ancient Egyptian magical texts, illness and healing through spell and incantation in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the influence of demons on the human mind according to Athenagoras and Tatian, the melancholy of the necromancer in Arnau de Vilanova's epistle against demonic magic, and healing with demons: preternatural philosophy and superstitious cures in Spanish
inquisitional courts.