with burning probably the most cruel and yet the most easily
arranged. In 1252, the Church gave torture its seal of approval when Pope Innocent IV
issued a papal bull authorising the setting up of the ‘machinery for systematic
persecution’, the so-called Inquisition, as a way of obtaining confessions to heresy.
Four years later, with licensed secular torturers struggling to keep up with demand,
Pope Alexander IV authorised church officials to use torture too.