I've lately formed the opinion that it's the Pope who starts the mass inquisitions as an indication of his attitude to events - primarily from an Aragon Late campaign with MTW VI. I have tried to initiate mass inquisitions in my own heretical provinces and those of enemy factions by plonking them down etc. without success.

1. Does the Pope give florins for successful inquisitions?
Inquisitors and Grand Inquisitors are available straight away with Aragon Late. As is my habit, to get them started I fried a few of my low piety commoners. Three times in a row the Pope gave me 1000 florins for services to the church on the turn a heretic burned ... errr ... an immortal soul was saved. I started to wonder if he liked inquisitions. (Later, and following successful Aragonese crusades to North Africa, the Pope's assassins kept getting caught in Aragonese Border Forted Navarre. Besides the 1 unit TM garrison only a Spanish emissary sat there, trying to deter Aragonese aggression. I gained the impression that he was the assassination target. Was the Pope trying to help Aragon or to provoke war? I'd seen him refuse a Spanish offer of an alliance - the Spanish emissary had passed within Aragonese view).

2. Does the Pope try to deter aggression against catholic factions he favours?
A little later in the same campaign the emergent Burgundians attacked Aragonese Toulouse. The counter attack took Burgundy, and an English Inquisitor sitting in Toulouse started a mass inquisition. Rather than continuing to destroy the Burgundians, in Ile de France, Champagne and Flanders, I left a small garrison in Burgundy, and withdrew the army back to Toulouse. The mass inquisition stopped. (On the same turn the Polish accepted an alliance they'd previously refused, declaring that they were "glad diplomacy had prevailed").

Later again I moved a large army into Burgundy, intending now to remove the Burgundians. The mass inquisition started again in Toulouse, and, the Pope called for a crusade against the Egyptians. Curious, I moved the army back to Toulouse, and the same turn the mass inquisition stopped - i.e. there was only 1 turn of mass inquisition.

The same occurred when I prepared to attack the the English in Aquitaine, a Papal ally, but not when I attacked the remaining French in Anjou - not a Papal ally. I've noticed also that the Pope will regularly hold mass inquisitions in Naples if the Sicilians have taken it.

There's more anecdotal stuff, but this is enough for one post. I now believe the Pope uses mass inquisitions as an indication of his attitude to events.

Has anyone else noticed similar?