Definition
Qujesta (also encountered as questa or quaesta) is a historical ecclesiastical term referring to an indulgence or remission of penance sold by the pope or church authorities. In the medieval and early modern canonical framework, an indulgence represented a remission of the temporal punishment due to sin after absolution — the spiritual debt remaining even when guilt had been forgiven. When indulgences were offered for monetary payment, the transaction was described by terms including qujesta. The practice was a significant feature of late medieval church administration and became a central grievance of Protestant reformers in the sixteenth century.
Common Confusion
Qujesta should not be confused with the broader concept of simony, which covers the buying or selling of spiritual offices, sacraments, or ecclesiastical preferments generally. Qujesta describes specifically the sale of indulgences — remissions of penance — rather than the purchase of a church position or sacramental act. The two practices were related and often condemned together in reform literature, but they are distinct legal and canonical categories.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in historical ecclesiastical law sources and is not in active use in any modern legal system. Researchers encountering it should expect to find it in canonical texts, records of church councils, and documents touching on the administration of penance and indulgences in medieval and early modern Europe. The variant spellings (qujesta, questa, quaesta) reflect the inconsistent transliteration of Latin and Italian ecclesiastical terminology into English legal dictionaries of the nineteenth century — the form in Black's 2nd Edition Supplemental is an artifact of that period's orthographic inconsistency and should not be treated as a fixed spelling when searching historical records.
The term connects most directly to the broader legal history of canon law, the jurisdictional disputes between ecclesiastical and secular courts over matters of penance and church revenue, and the reform movements that eventually produced significant changes to both church governance and, in England and elsewhere, the relationship between church courts and civil authority. Researchers working on the English Reformation, the history of ecclesiastical courts, or the canon law background to statutes targeting church abuses will want to read this term alongside related canonical vocabulary.
Black's Supplemental placement of this term signals that it was considered sufficiently relevant to legal practice — particularly to understanding historical ecclesiastical records and disputes — to warrant inclusion, even if it was already archaic by the time of that edition.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) Supplemental defines qujesta simply as "An indulgence or remission of penance, sold by the pope." The entry is minimal, serving as a glossary marker rather than a substantive legal analysis. No additional definition or commentary is offered. The brevity reflects the term's status as a historical reference item rather than an operative legal concept at the time of publication. No major English legal dictionaries of the period appear to have given it fuller treatment; the term's natural home was canonical rather than common law reference works, and its appearance in Black's reflects the nineteenth-century tradition of including ecclesiastical and civil law vocabulary alongside common law terms for the benefit of practitioners working with historical records and church court materials.
Jurisdictional Note
Qujesta has no application in any modern civil or common law jurisdiction. Its relevance is confined to historical canon law and ecclesiastical court records, most directly those of the Roman Catholic Church prior to the Council of Trent (1545–1563), which substantially reformed indulgence practice.