Inquisitor: From the 12th century, officials of the Roman Catholic Church were appointed to seek-out and suppress heresy, witchcraft and perceived vices.
Pope Innocent III’s anti-Cathar, Albigensian Crusade, the bloodthirsty genocide beginning in 1208 in the Languedoc of France, where up to 1,000,000 Cathars were massacred, was an event which consolidated the Churches resolve and helped establish the Medieval Inquisition.
From the 13th centaury, the Inquisition was made the responsibility of the Dominican Order of monks, (or the Black Friars, from their black robes). These feared Inquisitors were dispatched across Europe and had supreme authority, being cruel and ruthless sadists finding any justification to implement torture and executions, particularly by burning.