Philippus Van Limborch et son Histoire de l’Inquisition

Abstract

Philippus Van Limborch and his History of Inquisition (1692). The History of Inquisition by Philippus Van Limborch, published in 1692 in Amsterdam is a fascinating piece of work concerning the history of Jews and Waldensians. The author was a teacher at the Remontrant seminary in Amsterdam an d belonged to the Armenian church of erasmian influence, expelled from the dutch Protestant church at the Dordrecht synod in 1619. Van Limborch was interested in the history of Inquisition, first because of the fact that there were numerous sephardic Jews in Amsterdam, and also because he hated any thype of religion prosectuion. The Remontrant ideal of tolerance urged him to work on a history of the Inquisition from the Middle Ages up to the end of the XVIIIth century, publishing Inquisitor Bernard Gui’s sentences delivered in Toulouse from 1307 to 1323. Van Limborch was particularly interested in the Waldensian case, because of similarities between their communities and the dutch mennonites, which were also very similar to the Remontrant Communities.