ABSTRACT
The Catholic Church in the Middle Ages was a totalitarian organization. It had a defined and comprehensive body of doctrine, an organized hierarchy, established rituals and a clear view of its authority and responsibility. Any divergence from these fundamentals constituted a challenge to the divinely ordained world order and could not therefore be tolerated. It was heresy, defined in the thirteenth century by Bishop Robert Grosseteste as ‘an opinion chosen by human perception, contrary to holy scripture, publicly avowed and obstinately defended’. Heresy was therefore specifically to be recognized as the product of fallible human choice and public defiance of the will of God, expressed in the Bible and interpreted by the legitimately appointed authorities.
