Ecclesia non sitit sanguinem
According to the legal principle ecclesia non sitit sanguinem ( Latin : the church does not thirst for blood ), clergymen were not allowed to take part in measures of ( secular ) criminal justice in the Middle Ages .
It is an early Christian principle, which expressed the negative attitude of the church towards the death penalty (which is probably due to the commandment You shall not kill ) and excluded injuries to the body by clergy. However, at the time of the Inquisition , and occasionally in the context of the witch hunt , the principle was circumvented by giving people who had been found seriously guilty by ecclesiastical courts to the secular jurisdiction ( secular arm ), which had the right to execute the blood judiciary , which included the execution of the death penalty according to secular laws and judgments.
Originally, the principle may have said that the Christian religion should not be spread through violence.