The Inquisition was not a Spanish invention, nor was its original purpose to impose religious and social terror. The word "inquisition" simply meant "official judicial inquiry." In this context, the Inquisition referred to the Roman Catholic Church's interrogation of suspected heresy.
At this time, however, the Inquisition had no intention—and indeed no authority—to physically mutilate suspects on trial. The standard punishment for heresy was humiliating penance, such as being forced to make a pilgrimage to a holy site or sew a cross onto one's robe. As long as the punished person corrected their sins and imposed suitable punishment upon themselves, their disgrace was washed away and they would be accepted back into the Church. Only in very rare cases—when heretics refused to admit their errors or continued spreading heretical doctrines—were they handed over to secular governments for trial and punishment.
Bernard Gui was a Dominican Order friar and an inquisitor. Between 1307 and 1324, he found as many as one thousand people guilty of heresy. He also recorded his methods and experience in detail, compiling them into a magnificent 394-page work, The Conduct of Inquiry Concerning Heretical Depravity. The book had five chapters in total. The first three discussed procedural matters, such as how to interrogate suspects and organize a court. The fourth repeated old arguments concerning how papal decrees defined the powers of the Inquisition. The final chapter explained in detail which actions constituted heresy—or at least, which ones did in his view. The most interesting part of this early Church bestseller was its instruction on how inquisitors should question suspected heretics. Just like the tricks commonly used by famous lawyers in modern society, one must never let a witness take the initiative. Questions should be as tricky, strange, and full of traps as possible, so that the slightest