Abstract

This text presents a panel of articles aiming to initiate a comparative research by distinct geographical areas on the role that heretics’ assets played in the early stage of a systematic and polycentric form of repression of religious dissent. Through an investigation conducted on published and unpublished sources, profound differences between one context and another can be detected, to the point of confirming a decidedly plural connotation of the Medieval Inquisition, while noting the existence of some common dynamics. In any event, a decisive role of the management of confiscation of heretics’ assets seems to emerge clearly not only in the evolution of the tribunal of faith, but in the development of an increasingly articulated network with civil powers and local contexts.