There are few institutions in history that evoke such powerful imagery as the Inquisition. It has come to symbolize the worst excesses of intolerance, persecution, and dogma in the name of an ideal. Although The Inquisition of the Middle Ages delves into the grim aspects of torture and punishment that are the common imagery of the Inquisition, the primary goal is an elucidation of the jurisprudence of the era as it explores the origins, development, structure, and operation of the Inquisitional system up to the mid-thirteenth century.