Alberto Cadili's Problematische Prozesse addresses the opposition and criticism of inquisitors of heresy in medieval Italy through the concept of "praxis of decision-making" (Entscheidungspraxis). The book is a product of a large DFG project "Cultures of Decision-Making", hosted at the University of Münster in 2015-2019.

In the academic study of history, it sometimes happens that several monographs or other major studies on the same or closely related topics are published in the span of a few years. Often, the scholars involved have been unaware of each other. It perhaps reflects the fact that a field has matured to a point where it invites such contributions.

It is the case with Cadili's topic, where decades of meticulous scholarship and source editions on Italian inquisitions of heresy have paved the way for books with more general arguments. In 2019, Jill Moore published her book on the organisation of the Italian inquisition (which Cadili acknowledges), and in the same year came out Janine L. Peterson's Suspect Saints and Holy Heretics, which has a significant overlap with Cadili's study (which he does not acknowledge). More recently, the DISSINET project at Masaryk University Brno has analysed the inquisition in Bologna from a quantitative perspective.[1] Problematische Prozesse must be reviewed against this field.

Cadili approaches the criticism of the inquisitors of heresy from the perspective of decision-making (Entscheiden), defined as a process starting from the recognition of a situation requiring decision, followed by the actual practices of decision-making and ending in the announcement of the decision, which in the case of inquisition of heresy was often a public declaration (27-28). More precisely, Cadili proposes that in thirteenth-century Italy, competing cultures of decision-making emerged, and that a deeper understanding of the clash between the mendicant inquisitors and Italian cities and communes can be gained by analysing these cultures of decision-making (13, 36).

This problem is studied in four chapters. Chapter 1 addresses ecclesiological, legal and procedural foundations of the inquisition of heresy, which Cadili calls resources of decision-making. The chapter relies on previous scholarship on the application of the inquisition process to prosecute heresy, as well as textual and communicative aspects of the inquisition of heresy.

The actual analysis begins in Chapter 2 that explores various critical narratives directed at inquisitors by the inhabitants of Central and Northern Italian cities. A major source is the well-known civic tumult against the Dominican inquisitors in Bologna in 1299, but Cadili also discusses other cases previously treated in isolated studies.

Chapter 3 on the inquisitors and their resistance in Italian communes again builds upon earlier scholarship, especially in its first subchapters. Therefore, I was surprised that Cadili has completely missed the opportunity to discuss with Janine Peterson's book that not only covers many of the same cases as Cadili, but addresses the very same phenomenon, criticism of the inquisitors and their decisions, through concepts such as "oppositional inquisitorial culture". In addition, Cadili's study would have benefited from consulting Sascha Ragg's comprehensive book on the secular heresy legislation of the High Middle Ages [2], especially for the overview on the implementation of papal decrees in the Italian cities (202-221).

These omissions are all the more surprising, as one of Cadili's strengths is to master the extensive historiography on heresy and inquisition in medieval Italy. The author knows and acknowledges the work of the previous generations of scholars, which is a trademark of a serious historian. In addition to copious secondary literature, Cadili uses a wide range of published and unpublished original sources from canon law and manuals to inquisition depositions and inquiries into malpractices of the inquisitors.

Finally, Chapter 4 expands the view to the Apostolic Chamber's inquiries on the abuses of the inquisitors in March of Ancona in the mid-fourteenth century, including an edition against the inquisitor Pietro da Penna San Giovanni in 1346-1347. The chapter is the most original in the book, but it was already published as an article in Italian in 2017.

The book is solid historical scholarship by an expert researcher. Unfortunately, it has a major weakness:  the research problem and its relation to the material at hand. At first glance, the competing cultures of decision-making seem like a promising way to approach the conflicts surrounding the Italian inquisition of heresy, and I had high hopes for the book. However, it soon became clear that the criticism of the inquisitors was rarely directed at their procedure but rather at the results and the moral character of the inquisitors (24, 126). Only in rare cases, such as that of Ser Paolo Trintinelli in Bologna (136-139), can Cadili reach medieval debates about the decision-making process.

This imbalance of the research problem and the original sources means that the book lacks focus. There are excursuses that contribute little to the main question, and the analysis of the sources is often detached from the problem of decision-making. Or rather, decision-making does not function as an analytical concept that deepens our understanding of the cases studied. It is illustrative that Cadili's book lacks a concluding chapter that would tie up the discussion. The volume simply ends with the reprinted edition of Pietro da Penna San Giovanni's process.

The volume fails to sell its main argument to the reader. At the same time, Problematische Prozesse is too specialised and theory-heavy to work as a general presentation or course book on the criticism of the medieval inquisition in Italy. That being said, there is much good historical analysis in the book, along with detailed references to original sources and prior scholarship. However, after reading the book, I was less convinced than before that the conflicts between mendicant inquisitors, bishops and cities were derived from competing cultures of decision-making.

Notes:

[1] Jill Moore: Inquisition and Its Organisation in Italy, 1250-1350 (Heresy and Inquisition in the Middle Ages; 8), York 2019; Janine Larmon Peterson: Suspect Saints and Holy Heretics: Disputed Sanctity and Communal Identity in Late Medieval Italy, Ithaca 2019; David Zbíral / Katia Riccardo / Tomáš Hampejs / Zoltán Brys: Gender, Kinship, and Other Social Predictors of Incrimination in the Inquisition Register of Bologna (1291-1310): Results from an Exponential Random Graph Model, in: PLOS One 20, no. 2 (2025): e0315467. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0315467; Katia Riccardo / David Zbíral / Zoltán Brys: Occupation, Socioeconomic Status, and Dissidence in Bologna around 1300, in: Reti Medievali Rivista 26, no. 2 (2025), 267-301, https://doi.org/10.6093/1593-2214/11619.

[2] Sascha Ragg: Ketzer und Recht. Die weltliche Ketzergesetzgebung des Hochmittelalters unter dem Einfluss des römischen und kanonischen Rechts, Wiesbaden 2006.

Reima Välimäki