Anti-Inquisitorialism to Antimendicantism
This chapter addresses inquisitors and the rise of anti-inquisitorial and antimendicant sentiments. Inquisitors were the ones who had the power to destroy the cult of a regional holy man or woman through an official condemnation of heresy. Since all inquisitors were friars, at times lay observers viewed the mainstream members of the wealthy and powerful mendicant orders as less spiritually worthy than those they prosecuted. Inquisitorial activity in local communities therefore consistently fueled the flames of acrimony. In addition, mendicant inquisitors often clashed with other members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, in particular the secular clergy and the traditional monastic orders. Some of these other clerics viewed the mendicants as upstarts who interfered with their spiritual authority and received seemingly excessive and unwarranted papal favors. The chapter then details the process by which laypeople's anti-inquisitorial attitudes became antimendicant ones, as well as how other clerics' antimendicant views led them to support anti-inquisitorial actions.