No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

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Place the medieval techniques alongside those laid out in modern handbooks, such as Human Intelligence Collector Operations, the U.S. Army interrogation manual, and the inquisitors' practices seem very up-to-date

The inquisitors were shrewd students of human nature. Like Gui, Eymerich was well aware that those being questioned would employ a range of stratagems to deflect the interrogator. In his manual, he lays out 10 ways in which heretics seek to "hide their errors." They include "equivocation," "redirecting the question," "feigning astonishment," "twisting the meaning of words," "changing the subject," "feigning illness," and "feigning stupidity." For its part, the Army interrogation manual provides a "Source and Information Reliability Matrix" to assess the same kinds of behavior. It warns interrogators to be wary of subjects who show signs of "reporting information that is self-serving," who give "repeated answers with exact wording and details," and who demonstrate a "failure to answer the question asked."

A history of torture and interrogation in the Middle Ages, and how it compares to the standards applied in "The Global War on Terror".

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