ABSTRACT
From the Middle Ages the judges of faith imposed monetary penalties upon the condemned, sometimes in exchange for a lighter physical or spiritual punishment. The imposition of fines and other forms of monetary penalties, along with the total or partial confiscation of property of heretics and its transferal to the inquisitors – who usually then assigned it to uses which were not a part of traditional of ecclesiastical usage – constitutes an exceptional innovation in the history of the Church and of medieval society. Indeed, in the thirteenth century, the inquisitors appointed by the popes inaugurated a process of accumulation of wealth (personal property and real estate) which differed from the classic typology of ecclesiastical income: that is, bequests and donations, payment for services performed by the clergy, and taxes or tithes.
