inquisitor

1 a questioner who is excessively harsh [syn: interrogator]

2 an official of the ecclesiastical court of the Inquisition

English

Noun

1. A person who inquires, especially searchingly or ruthlessly.
2. An official of the ecclesiastical court of the Inquisition.

Derived terms

• Grand Inquisitor

This article is about the religious office in historic Christianity. For other uses, see Inquisitor (disambiguation).

An inquisitor was an official in an Inquisition, an organisation or program intended to eliminate heresy and other things frowned on by the Roman Catholic Church. Literally, an inquisitor is one who "searches out" or "inquires" (Latin inquirere < quaerere, "to seek").

The chief inquisitor of an Inquisition was often called the Grand Inquisitor.

Prominent inquisitors

Some of the more well-known inquisitors throughout history include:

• Arnaut Catalan
• Bernard Gui
• Diego Deza
• Fabio Chigi (later Pope Alexander VII)
• Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros
• Francisco Peña
• Konrad von Marburg
• Pedro de Arbués
• Tomás de Torquemada
• Nicolau Aymerich author of Directorium Inquisitorum
• Sebastien Michaelis

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