Final answer:
The Inquisition was designed to eliminate heresy and enforce religious homogeneity in Western Europe, using processes like torture and execution, while also creating economic incentives for inquisitors through the seizure of condemned individuals' properties.
Step-by-step explanation:
The institutions and processes of the Inquisition were designed to establish and maintain religious homogeneity within Western Europe. This was primarily accomplished through the persecution of individuals deemed heretics by the Catholic Church. Instituted in the 1230s by Pope Gregory IX, the Inquisition was tasked with identifying and eliminating heresy. By 1252, Pope Innocent IV authorized the use of torture to elicit confessions from suspected heretics. With inquisitors having the power to seize lands and property of the condemned, there was an economic incentive to continue this persecution.
Throughout its duration, the Inquisition expanded its reach, notably in Spain where it not only persecuted heretics but also sought to oversee the morals and beliefs of those who had converted to Catholicism from Judaism and Islam. This enforcement of religious conformity was part of broader centralization efforts within Christendom, where monarchs and other authorities wielded the Inquisition as a tool to consolidate power and suppress challenges to their rule, even as the doctrine of papal infallibility had yet to be established until 1868.