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Ube ^pantsb SnquteitiorL
BY THE REV. SYDNEY F. SMITH, S.J.
“The Spanish Inquisition” is still an effective cry whenever it
is wished to arouse prejudice against the Catholic Church and
her children. It is true the cry is not quite as effective now
as it was a few decades ago. There has been of late days
much more fusion between Catholics and others in the various
walks of life, and our fellow-countrymen have come to know
us well, both our clergy and our laity, and have been able to
judge for themselves what manner of men we are. They do
not find us to be of harsher temperament than themselves, less
fond of liberty, or less respectful of the due rights of others.
And so when reminded of the Inquisition, although perhaps
accepting the popular account of its cruelties as unquestionable
fact, they prefer.to treat the past as history and judge of the
present by the present.
It is consoling to mark this increasing disposition to give
us credit for wha*- we are. There is certainly no desire any
where among us to have renewed the harsh methods and punish
ments of the Spanish Inquisition. But we will go further and
claim that the Spanish Inquisition itself was never the horrible
thing it is represented in Protestant literature as having been.
Let the reader understand exactly the position we take up.
We are. far from inviting a judgment of acquittal on all its
proceedings. We maintain only that the bad name it has
acquired in popular estimation is due largely to the gross
exaggerations of those who have written against it in an
adverse sense, and to the neglect to view it in relation with
the notions and methods everywhere current in the days of
its existence.
What then are the charges against this tribunal? They
may be summarized as follows. It treated beliefs contrary to
the established creed, even though conscientious, as crimes of
the first magnitude. It punished offenders with the most cruel
punishment of fire, and went so far in its inhumanity as to
B
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make their dying agonies a religious spectacle for the enter
tainment of “ the faithful,” the very Kings, surrounded by
brilliant Courts, presiding over the autos da fex (“acts of
faith”) at which the condemned were delivered to the flames.
In the excess of its thirst for heretical blood it did not hesitate
to sacrifice whole hecatombs in this way: and in order that
the number of victims might not run short, it instituted a
grossly unfair judicial procedure whereby the accused person
had hardly a chance of -rebutting the charges against him.
The names of his accusers, often, his personal enemies, were
concealed from his knowledge, and the services of a skilled
advocate whom he could trust to act in his interests were
denied him. On the other hand, he was submitted to repeated
tortures in loathsome cells, until, unable longer to endure the
agony, he was driven to disregard future consequences and
seek present relief by a confession of guilt, truthful or feigned.
Lastly, to intensify the terror of the tribunal throughout the
country, arrests were made with the utmost secresy, and by
secret officials, called “familiars” of the court. These
mysterious beings would lie in wait for their victim at some
unobserved spot, or they would enter his house stealthily
under the cover of the darkness, and carry him from his very
bed to their underground dungeons. When the family rose
in the morning one cherished member was missing. Wife or
children might suspect what had happened, but there was no
remedy. Probably they would never see him again except
once, and then tied to the burning faggot at some future auto
da ft. It was hardly safe even to mention his name, still less
to express regret at his fate. Nor was this all. Should he be
convicted, as be was morally certain to be, all his goods would
be confiscated, and the family that had been dependent upon
him for its maintenance, would be reduced to poverty, as well
as branded with perpetual disgrace and suspicion.
Here certainly is a terrible indictment. Well may the
people of England shudder at the bare thought of such a system
introduced into their free and happy country. But now what
are the facts ?
It cannot be denied that the doctrine of intolerance was
recognized in those days. It was certainly held to be the
1 The Spanish phrase is auto de ft. Auto daft is Portuguese, from which;
nation therefore we must have originally obtained the word.
�The Spanish Inquisition.
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-duty both of the Church and of the State to treat heresy to
the Catholic faith as a crime commensurate with treason, and
to adopt stringent measures against its propagation. This was
a doctrine unquestioned in those days among all parties. Pro
testants and Catholics alike, in the countries where they had
the upper hand, proscribed and punished their opponents. It
did not occur to either side that any other course was rational.
Surely, they would have said, truth and error are not on
-equal terms. Truth has rights : it demands to be upheld and
promoted. Error has no rights : and is to be repressed and
•destroyed.
Our Protestant readers will here urge, that although this is
true, yet there is this difference between Protestantism and
■Catholicism, that, whilst the former now recognizes the sacred
■rights of religious liberty, the latter continues to be as intolerant
-as ever, and is always itching to persecute. In a certain sense
no doubt it is true that Catholics are still and always will be
intolerant of error, for their religion is founded on the conviction
-that God’s revelation is not a mere matter of subjective per■suasion, but an external fact attested by certain and convincing
proofs. No sane person would claim that virtue and vice
•ought to have equal toleration in the community, and the
attitude of manifest truth to manifest error does not differ,
in the abstract, in this respect from the attitude of manifest
virtue to manifest vice. If Protestants are, in the abstract,
advocates of universal toleration, this is because they do not
believe in any objective certainty of religious truth. Creed,
■for them, is matter of opinion, not of certain knowledge.
But although the two parties are necessarily divided in
theory, when we compare the same two parties in their practice,
the balance of intolerance, at least in the present day, and
indeed in the past also, would seem to be on the side of
Protestants : not indeed of Protestants generally, but of that
-class of Protestants—Exeter Hall Protestants as they used to
be called—who are so fond of flinging the Inquisition in our
faces. In old days each party assumed that its opponents
were not only in error, but in conscious error. Persecution
was supposed and expected to have the effect of making them
follow their consciences, not resist them. Nowadays we have
■come to realize more clearly how differently minds are con
stituted and how possible it is, in the medley of opposing
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creeds, not to perceive which out of them all is the truth.
This realization is general, and is certainly strongly felt by
Catholics, who are also moved by other similar considerations
to feel a great dislike for all attempts to coerce religious beliefs.
The realization seems to be less marked among Protestants of
the class just indicated. Consider, for instance, how often
when a man becomes convinced of the duty to turn Catholic,
Protestant relations and others have no scruples at all in
opposing temporal obstacles of the severest kind in his way.
And with this contrast the very great reluctance shown by
Catholic priests to receive converts into the Church until they
have been well instructed and thoroughly realize what they are
about.
These remarks have seemed to be necessary in order toremove a prejudice which might otherwise interfere with a
fair hearing of the considerations we have to offer in defence,
or rather in extenuation, of the Inquisition. It ought now
to be clear that the intolerance shown by this tribunal involves
no reflexion on the Catholic Church. Viewed historically, it
was intolerance accepted by the age as an obvious duty and
accepted by Protestants and Catholics alike. Viewed as a
basis of anticipation concerning the future, it cannot be con
sidered to forebode any likelihood of future similar “ persecu
tion ” of Protestants by Catholics, should the latter, which
does not seem likely, return once more to power.
We shall have to confine our attention to the Spanish
Inquisition established in the fifteenth century. The Inquisi
tion itself originated as far back as the twelfth century in.
Southern France, but nowhere and at no time did these
Inquisitorial courts indulge in the multitudinous capital con
victions chargeable to the later Inquisition in Spain. It is
this Spanish Inquisition which has occasioned the popular
outcry against the institution, although most Protestants
imagine that it was quite as bad in the other Catholic
countries. The Roman Inquisition is still existent. As it
does not fall within the scope of our subject-matter we must
be content to say that all along it was noted for its comparative
mildness, and that at the present day its work is to examine
and condemn books and propositions at variance with the
Catholic faith.
The Jews had in ancient days been far more numerous
�The Spanish Inquisition.
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and influential in Spain than in any other country, and were
even credited with a policy of Judaizing the entire Peninsula.
They were accordingly much disliked by the Christian popula
tions, who sought to protect themselves by frequent and
stringent repressive laws, ecclesiastical and civil, directed
against the enemy. It may be mentioned here incidentally
that the Popes, such as Alexander II., the friend of Hildebrand,
and Honorius III., are found several times interposing and
protesting against the cruel treatment to which the Jews
became thus subjected. The race, however, evinced its wellknown vitality, and in the fourteenth century had acquired
important privileges for the preservation of the status of its
members, as well as their admission into some of the primary
offices of the Government. The results of the persecution
through which they had lived had been, on the other hand,
most pernicious in producing a class of Jews who were such
at heart, although by open profession they had become
Christians. These were in league with the open adherents
of their national creed, and were the more dangerous because
their machinations against the Catholic religion were carried
on in the dark. The extent of the evil may be realized some
what when it is said that not a few of these secret Jews had
risen to high ecclesiastical dignities, some even to bishoprics.
These and the like advantages of position, obtained by inter
marriage with noble families and the possession of great wealth,
they were unquestionably using, in the latter part of the
fifteenth century, with the determined policy of meeting
Judaism on the ruins of Spanish Catholicity and nationality.
Here was a very serious danger for the rulers of the country
to take into consideration, and they had the clamorous demands
of their terrified Christian subjects to urge them on to action.
The crisis came when Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of
Castile were the reigning monarchs. They met it by estab
lishing the “Spanish Inquisition.” It is called by this special
name because of its distinctive character. But the older
Inquisition had existed in Spain, and had still a staff of
officials in the Kingdom of Aragon, not, however, in Castile;
although Castile, much more than Aragon, was to be the home
of the renewed Inquisition now about to commence its harsh
career.
In 1478 (or possibly in 1480) the Sovereigns obtained a
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Bull from Sixtus IV. to establish a tribunal for searching out
heretics.
In virtue of its authorization, the tribunal waserected at Seville for the entire Kingdom of Castile, and twoDominicans, Miguel Morillo and Juan Martin, were by royal
appointment placed over it as royal inquisitors. After a
preliminary season allowed for efforts to gain back the hereticsby preaching and persuasion, the work of the tribunal com
menced in 1481. It began then, as it invariably began its
sessions in any part of the country, by proclaiming a period
of grace of sixty or more days, a period often prolonged. All
who came forward during such periods and confessed their
heresy, even if it were relapse, were reconciled without incurring
any severe penance. It is important, now that we have toconsider its doings, to remember that the Inquisition never
proceeded against the unconverted Jews, but only against
those who after having received Baptism had relapsed, openly
or secretly, into Judaism. Such persons were called Maranos.
In 1483, the famous Torquemada, Prior of the Dominican
convent of Segovia, was appointed Grand Inquisitor over the
whole of Castile, and shortly after the single court at Seville
was supplemented by three others at Cordova, Juan, and
Villa-Real (afterwards changed to Toledo). Torquemada held
office till 1498, when he was succeeded by Diego de Deza,
who in turn gave place to the Franciscan Cardinal Ximenez
in 1507.
About twenty years later, the Inquisition, continuing to
be employed against the Maranos, found another sphere for
its activity in the Moriscos of Granada. In 1480 war broke
out between the Spanish monarchs and the Moors, who
having been at one time the dominating race throughout
nearly the whole of Spain, still maintained possession of the
Kingdom of Granada in the south-east of the Peninsula. The
Spaniards conquered after a war of ten years’ continuance,
the Moors receiving for the time very favourable conditions,,
which among other things included freedom to retain their
national worship. The conquerors did not, however, understand
these terms to prevent them from sending Catholic mission
aries to preach to their new subjects, and encouraging con
versions by the offer of temporal advantages. We are not
maintaining that this was a judicious measure. Indeed, ex
perience proved that it was not, that it led to conversions
�The Spanish Inquisition.
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which were far from solid in their character. The immediate
effect of the conversions obtained was to excite the anger of
the unconverted Moors, who began to persecute the Moriscos,
as the converted Moors were called. Eventually the uncon
verted rebelled, but they were subdued, and then were offered
the alternative of either suffering the penalties of treason which
they had incurred, or obtaining pardon by passing over to the
Christian religion and receiving Baptism. One can under
stand how this offer could be well-intentioned if only we bear
in mind what has been indicated already, that the Spaniards
were persuaded that the Moors in resisting the light of
Christianity when set before them were resisting the dictates
of their consciences. The measure was productive of its
natural results, natural as we perceive them to be. Many
conversions followed, of a more or less imperfectly sincere
kind, and afterwards there were continual attempts to apos
tatize. In fact, the very same difficulty emerged with regard
to the Moors and Moriscos, which had been felt over the Jews
and Maranos; or rather a worse difficulty, because the two
now became fused into one, by the secret sympathy and
combined efforts of the two races involved in the same trouble.
Hence the application of the Inquisition to the Moriscos (not
the Moors) to retain them in the Christian faith. Hefele,
however, tells us that it was never employed so extensively or
with such severity against the Moriscos as against the Maranos.
In 1524 these Moriscos, addressing the newly-appointed Grand
Inquisitor, Manriquez, say: “We have always been treated
justly by your predecessors, and properly protected by them.”
Clement VIII. forbade the confiscation of their property, or
the infliction of capital punishment upon them for apostacy.
We may call the campaign of the Inquisition against the
Maranos and Moriscos the first stage in its history. It lasted
till the middle of the reign of Charles V.
I he second stage of importance began some fifty years
later during the reign of Philip II. At this time there was an
attempt to introduce Protestantism into Spain, which was
resolutely resisted by the Spanish monarchs with the aid of
the Inquisition, and Philip, on this account, is wont to be
specially identified by Protestants with the cruelties of the
tribunal, although they appear to have been less marked in
his reign than in the earbor reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.
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The Spanish Inquisition.
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This second period lasted till the accession of the Bourbons,
when the danger from Protestantism was held to have passed
by. From that time onwards the activity of the tribunal was
much diminished, and was confined, says Balmez, to the
repression of infamous crimes and the exclusion of the
philosophy of Voltaire. By the end of the eighteenth century
the Inquisition was a shadow of its former self, and it was
abolished at the commencement of the present century, first
by the Bonapartist King Joseph, in 1808, and again, after
a short resuscitation on the return of the Bourbons, finally in
1830.
We can now deal with the charges of cruelty against the
Inquisition. These are due largely to the wealth of imagina
tion which seems to characterize anti-Catholic polemical
writers.. They have, however, a basis which might seem trust
worthy in a book on the Inquisition written near the beginning
of this century by one Antonio Llorente. Llorente was a
Spanish priest, who, although probably a Freemason, had
from 1789 to 1793, been Secretary-General to the Inquisition
at Madrid. When Joseph Bonaparte was placed by his brother
on the throne of Spain, and the Spanish people rose with
patriotic ardour against the usurpation, Llorente joined the
small body of anti-patriots called Afrancescados. This is note
worthy, as it reveals the character of the man. On the fall
of Joseph he was naturally banished from Spain and took
up his residence in Paris. There he wrote his History of the
Inquisition, with the aid of the official documents he had
pillaged from its archives at Madrid whilst he was enjoying
the favour of King Joseph. The book is complete in its way;
that is to say, it narrates the history of the tribunal from its
commencement to its abolition, and gives detailed accounts
of the more famous historical processes and autos da fe. It
is apparent, however, on the surface, how the author exaggerates
everything. that tells against the Inquisition, and misconstrues
all that is in its favour, particularly any action taken in regard
to it by the Popes; and one has strong suspicions that he
must be omitting altogether a great deal which would materially
reduce his indictment. But there is one thing full of signifi
cance about this writer. He tells us himself, in his work,
I burnt with his (King Joseph’s) approbation all the criminal
processes, save those which belong to history by their import-
�The Spanish Inquisition.
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ance or celebrity, or by the quality of the person, as that of
Caranza, and of Macanez, and a few others. But I preserved
intact the register of resolutions of Council, royal ordinances,
bulls and briefs from Rome, and all genealogies,” Ac.1 For
such conduct there can be no excuse. As Balmez reasonably
demands, “Was there no place to be found in Madrid to
place them (the proceedings and documents), where they
could be examined by those who, after Llorente, might wish
to write the history of the Inquisition from the original docu
ments!” In consequence of this prudent act of barbarism,
we are constrained to base our examination of the tribunal
almost entirely on the testimony of this biassed witness. Still,
even under these disadvantages, we have the means of rectify
ing the current Protestant notions. We will now consider one
by one the charges against the tribunal enumerated above,
not, however, necessarily taking them in the order there given.
As to the number of the victims, Llorente gives the follow
ing statistics: In the year 1481, 2,000 burnt and 17,000
penanced; in 1482, 88 burnt and 625 penanced; in 1483,
688 burnt and 5,727 penanced; from 148410 1498 (that is,
under Torquemada), 6,024 burnt and 66,654 penanced; from
Torquemada to the suppression of the tribunal, 23,112 burnt
and 201,244 penanced. On Llorente’s authority these alarm
ing numbers are invariably adopted by anti-inquisition writers,
whose readers naturally assume that Llorente took them from
the official records in his possession. In fact, however, they
are mere inferences of a very unreasonable kind from three
very slight statements of ancient writers, one of whom he
grossly misunderstands. Mariana, as misread by Llorente,
is supposed to say that in 1481, the year when the Inquisition
commenced its proceedings, 2,000 persons were burnt at the
stake, and 17,000 others penanced at Seville alone. Another
writer, Bernaldez, is made to say that, also at Seville, from
1482 to 1.189 (in reality, he says, from 1481 to 1488), over
700 were burnt and 5,000 penanced. And an inscription on
the Quemadero (the platform where the condemned were
burnt), at Seville, records that from 1492 to 1524 nearly 1,000
were there burnt, and 20,000 abjured their heresy.
Taking Mariana's supposed statement as it stands, for the
year 1481, Llorente calculates from Bernaldez an annual
1 iv. 145(i*)
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average for the years 1482—1489, and from the Quetnadero
inscription for the entire remainder of the Inquisition's auration, making, that is to say, gradual reductions at intervals
to allow for the known growth of leniency as time ran on.
These figures by themselves refer only to the one court at
Seville. To obtain figures for the other courts, added in course
of time, he multiplies those for Seville, after having with
a show of generosity, first halved them. Can anything be
more untrustworthy than such a computation, assuming, as it
does, that the multiplication of tribunals within the same area
of jurisdiction involves a corresponding multiplication of con
demned persons, and that the number of condemnations has
preserved a calculable average through centuries? Nor is this
the only vice. Mariana does not say 2,000 were burnt at
Seville in 1481. If he did, he would contradict Bernaldez,
since, as we have noticed, Bernaldez includes 1481 in his eight
years. Mariana (1592) is in agreement with Pulgar, an earlier
writer, (1545), who tells us that these 2,000 were burnt during
Torquemada’s entire time (1484—1498), and that, not in Seville
only, but in the various places to which his activity extended.
Mr. Legge, a non-Catholic writer in the Scottish Review
(April, 1891), has adjusted Llorente’s calculations to this
rectified reading of Mariana, and his figures may be set down
with advantage for comparison with those just given. In 1481,
298 burnt and 5,960 penanced; in 1482, 88 burnt and 625
penanced; in 1483, 142 burnt and 2,840 penanced; from
1484 to 1498, 2,000 burnt and 40,000 penanced. That is,
from 1481 to 1498, 2,528 burnt and 49,425 penanced against
Llorente’s 8,800 burnt and 90,006 penanced. From 1498
onwards, having no means at hand of testing them, Mr. Legge
gives a sceptical adhesion to Llorente’s figures. Still, even
Mr. Legge, through not adverting to Llorente’s mistake of a
year in his citation of the. passage in Bernaldez, has not
reduced these initial facts to their true proportion. The year
1481? according to Llorente’s system, being the inaugural year
of the Inquisition, must claim to itself a very large proportion
of the 700 which Bernaldez assigns to the period (1481-8).
This would reduce the annual average for the years following
from Llorente’s (and Mr. Legge’s) 88 to about 40, and would
involve a consequent reduction in the annual average for sub
sequent years at Seville and elsewhere.
�The Spanish Inquisition.
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We have, however, to bear in mind that inferences like
these, deducing the criminal statistics of many districts and
many centuries from one to two slight data appertaining to a
place and time of exceptional severity, are most hazardous.
To what extent this is true, will be the better felt if we make a
similar inference from a few chance criminal statistics referring
to our own country. Hamilton’s History of Quarter Sessions
from Elizabeth to Anne,1 gives us the gaol returns at Exeter for
1598. In this year the total result of the two assizes and four
quarter sessions was the hanging of 74 persons, many for crimes
no greater than sheep-stealing. Starting from these facts Sir
James Stephen2 gathers that, “if the average number of execu
tions in each county were 20, or a little more than a quarter
of the number of capital sentences in Devonshire in 1598, this
would make 800 executions a year in the 40 English counties.”
That is 11,200 in 14 years against Torquemada’s 2,000 (or
6,024), in the same period, and some reduction on 264,000
executions in a period of 330 years, the duration of the Inquisi
tion in Spain, against Llorente’s 23,112 burnt and 201,244
penanced by this tribunal within that time.
Mr. Legge provides, in the article referred to, another
instance very much in point, since it deals with an offence
kindred to heresy. He cites Mr. Mackay’s Curious Super
stitions? for a computation that in Scotland from the passing
of the Act against witches under Queen Mary, an Act due not
of course to her helplessness but to the imperious harshness of
John Knox—from this date to the accession of the King
fames I. 17,000 witches were burnt in Scotland, whilst in
England 40,000 supposed witches perished in this way between
1600 and 1680, 3,000 during the Long Parliament which
undertook its struggle with the Crown in the cause of civil
and religious liberty. It would not do to place too much
trust in these numbers. Mr. Mackay is a popular writer, not
a historian, and sets down without criticism the figures he finds
in ancient authors. It does not seem to occur to him that
such authors are merely making wild guesses and in no sense
relying on accurate statistics.
However, we only require
one illustration of wild statistics to set against another.
Mr. Legge remarks upon these data that, “ even supposing
the figures are, as one would fain hope, grossly exaggerated,
1 P. 31.
* History of the English Criminal I.aw, i. 467.
* i. 237.
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it would appear that the whole number of Inquisition victims
would hardly have afforded the witch-hunters of our own land
sport for 50 years.” Even when we go further and distrust
altogether these inferential statistics, whether in Spain, England,
or elsewhere, there seems little doubt that the judicial waste
of life in England surpassed that in Spain. Witchcraft, it
must be remembered, was an offence which in Spain came
under the cognizance of the Inquisition, as did many other
offences, partaking to a greater or less degree of a religious
character, which did not amount to heresy.
The next charge we have to deal with is the mode of
execution employed by the Inquisition. The punishment of
fire seems to us cruel and revolting. We moderns cannot
tolerate the idea of its infliction on any class of offenders.
But this was not the feeling of our ancestors, who were un
doubtedly, and regrettably, far sterner and harsher than their
descendants, yet are not on that account to be condemned
en masse as a generation of savages. There is plenty of proof
that they had tender hearts like our own. The truth is that
human nature is so one-sided. We moderns fix our attention
on the acuteness of human pain, and perhaps forget somewhat
the gravity of crime. The ancients realized less the throbbings
of pain in the criminal’s body, as indeed they were less im
patient of it in their own, but they realized more the outrage
of his guiltj and aimed by their severities at preventing its
recurrence. Moreover, it would be a great mistake to suppose
that the Inquisition alone is responsible for execution by fire.
Witches were punished at the stake in England, Germany, &c.
and it was not only to ecclesiastical offences that this mode
of death was allotted. It was also the English punishment
for high treason, in the case of a woman, or if she murdered
her husband. In the Carolina, a code drawn up by the
Emperor Charles V. in 1532, and considered to be an inno
vation in the direction of greater leniency towards criminals, it
is the punishment for circulating base coin and other offences.
In France, too, it was in use for certain civil crimes, among
others for poisoning. We have also to remember that ancient
justice knew of harsher modes of death even than the stake.
On the continent there was the revolting punishment of the
wheel, to which the body of the criminal was tied with tight
cords, and where, his bones having been broken by severe
�The Spanish Inquisition
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blows, he was left to linger in his agonies for hours or days, as
the case might be, till death came to release him. This was
■quite a common punishment for simple murder in France till
the time of the Revolution. It was in use in Protestant Prussia
as late as 1841. Nor has England any cause to boast of
-her greater mildness. The punishment for high treason was,
to be drawn on the hurdle from the prison to the gallows,
to be hanged for a while, to be cut down while still living, to
■undergo a shocking mutilation, and to have the bowels torn out
and burnt before the victim’s face. His heart was then pulled
out and cast into the fire, his body quartered and beheaded,
and the parts exposed in five different places to be the food of
the birds. In the time of Henry VIII. an Act was passed
decreeing that poisoning should be accounted high treason,
and punished by boiling to death. And the Chronicler of the
■Grey Friars writes: “This year (1531), was a cook boiled in
a cauldron in Smithfield, for he would have poisoned the
Bishop of Rochester, Fisher, with divers of his servants, and
he was locked in a chain, and pulled up and down with a
gibbet at divers times till he was dead.” From Wriothesley’s
Chronicle we further learn that this punishment was not
deemed unsuitable for a woman. “This yeare (1532), the
17th of March, was boyled in Smithfeild one Margret Davie,
a mayden, which had poysoned 3 householdes,” ucc. In the
Low Countries on the establishment of Protestant ascendency
it was decreed that Balthassar Gerard, the assassin of William
the Silent, should have “his right hand burnt off with a red-hot
•iron, his flesh torn from his bones with pincers in six different
places, that he should be quartered and disembowelled alive,
that his heart should be torn from his bosom and flung in his
face, and finally that his head should be cut off.”1
If the Inquisition is to be condemned so severely for not
■emancipating itself from the ideas of its age in the matter of
harsh punishments, at least it should receive credit for not
having resorted to these refinements of cruelty which were
abounding everywhere around it. It was not even primarily
responsible for the selection of the fire, as its peculiar mode of
-execution. . The assignment of this punishment to heresy
■was the State’s, not the Church’s, choice. The Church
banded the heretic over to the secular arm to be punished
1 Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic, iil 612.
�The Spanish Inquisition.
according to the law of the land. Protestant writers sneer ar
this distinction, but it is real. The Inquisitors , might perhapshave scented heresy in the civil authorities, had they neglectedto punish the condemned heretics, and of course they knew
what the legal civil punishment was. But there is no ground
for supposing they would have opposed themselves violently
to any general scheme for the mitigation of the mode of
punishment.
We must bear in mind also another fact if we are toestimate the large number sent to the stake at their right value
as an index of the disposition, cruel or temperate, of the
Inquisitors. Great efforts up to the last moment were alwaysmade to induce the condemned to acknowledge his errors and.
recant. Llorente himself, in the statistics he gives of several
autos da ft, shows that the proportion of those who recanted
to those who persisted in their heresy was large. When therecantation came after relapse it did not usually procure re
mission of the death-sentence, but it always procured a material
alleviation of its severity. The condemned were in that casefirst strangled, and not till life was extinct were the bodies
committed to the flames.
But, it will be said, how vain to seek to exculpate the
Inquisition from the charge of savagery, when the autos da ftat which the victims perished at the stake in vast numbers at
a time were treated as religious spectacles, appropriate for daysof festal gathering, presided over by ecclesiastics, and sanc
tioned by the presence of the King in full state.
This is doubtless the popular impression of an auto da fe,.
but it is quite erroneous. There was no stake at the auto itself.
These assemblages were unquestionably of a religious nature,,
and were conducted by the Inquisitors. Their purpose, how
ever, was primarily not to punish, but to reconcile. Those who,,
having erred from the faith, had been induced to return.to it,
made their public recantation, or auto da 7? (“act of faith”),,
and having a penance assigned to them, harsh doubtless
according to our ideas, but still not that of death, were
solemnly absolved and reconciled to the Church. It was inview of this that Mass was sung and sermons preached. The“ relaxed ” were those who, though at the auto, could not beinduced to join in it. They were, therefore, after the judgment,,
not. the sentence had been pronounce-d over them, “relaxed,”’
�The Spanish Inquisition.
15
that is, delivered over to the civil power for sentence and
punishment under its arm. The proportion of the “ relaxed ”
to the “penanced” was at all times comparatively small, often
■very small indeed. Llorente1 mentions the five autos held at
Toledo, in i486, as illustrations of the enormous number of
victims, 3,300 in all. Yet out of this large number only 27
were relaxed, and perhaps if he had carried his classification a
step further we should have found that a dozen at the most were
burnt alive. At the two famous autos at Valladolid, in 1559,
famous because the chief of those which dealt with the
Lutherans, out of 71 victims, 26 were relaxed (apparently an
•unusually large proportion), but 2 only of these were burnt
alive. At a public auto at Seville, May 29, 1648, we learn
from the published Relation, that out of 52 condemned only 1
was relaxed in person, and he, recanting, was garrotted before
he was burnt. At the three autos at Seville, in 1721, the
Relations give, out of 130 condemned, 27 relaxed and 5 burnt
alive. The “ relaxation,” or deliverance into the hands of the
civil officials, accomplished, the latter led away their prisoners
either at once, or, more usually, after a day or more's detention
in the civil prisons, to the place of public execution. Here the
ecclesiastics had no place. They could have t jo place (except
■of course that of confessors to the condemned, which is not in
question); for to participate in the infliction of capital punish
ment would have caused them to incur the canonical punish
ment called “irregularity,” which prohibited from performing
the functions of the sacred ministry. At these public execu
tions, the King may at times have been present in person,
as Philip II. was in 1559. But the Relation of the abovementioned auto at Seville (May 29, 1648) happens to mention
the nature of the usual attendance, “ Innumerable boys, the
troublesome attendants of such criminals, followed the cortege
to the Quemadero.” There had assembled “a numerous
multitude on foot, on horse, and in coaches, attracted by the
novelty of the spectacle.” This reminds us of the assemblages
at public executions at Newgate, only that it seems to have
been more respectable, and, one would hope, was more deeply
sensible of the solemnity of an act of public justice.
Another item in the punishment of the condemned to
■which exception has been taken, was the confiscation of their
1 t 338-
�16
The Spanish Inquisition.
goods, an aggravation of the acutest kind to the sufferer, who
thus saw those whom he loved best involved in ruin on his
account, and a gross injustice to them as the crime was
certainly not theirs. To this we may reply that whether
confiscation of goods, in view of its effect on the innocent
offspring, is an improper punishment to inflict or not, is a
question worthy of discussion, and modem opinion appears
to solve it in the negative. The practice was, however-,
universal in former days (there are even some relics of it in
the existing laws of England) in the case of treason and
felony, crimes with which heresy was considered to be
equivalent, and it does not appear why the Inquisition
should be chargeable with its adherence to the accepted,
methods in this particular any more than in that of death by
burning. It should, however, in fairness be borne in mind,,
that the time of grace always allowed and generally extended
before the Inquisition began to hold its sessions in a neighbour
hood, was specially designed to enable the suspected to avoid
confiscation as well as other punishments by timely sub
mission ; also that the sovereigns were wont to restore some
portion to the widows and orphans if innocent; that the
property of the Moriscos was declared not liable to thisconfiscation, but passed on to the heirs; and finally that the
Holy See in its frequent interpositions to secure greaterleniency was particularly insistent in protecting the children
of the condemned heretics, and thereby became implicated
in many disputes with the Spanish sovereigns, who complained
of the consequent loss to the royal exchequer.
We have next to consider the charges against the pro
cedure of the Tribunal: so unfair to the accused, who was
not allowed to have the name of his accusers or even the
exact text of their accusation against him. The fact is, that
the facilities for preparing his defence allowed by the Inquisi
tion to the accused, contrast favourably with those allowed
in the contemporary civil courts of our own country as well
as of the rest of Europe. It has been urged as so hard that
the text of the accusation should be altered before being,
submitted to the accused, and that his accusers should not
be confronted with him. The names of the accusers were
not given, in order that their identity might be concealed,,
but the text was only altered in unessentials so far as was.
�The Spanish Inqicisition.
17
•necessary to preserve this concealment. On the other hand,
in England and elsewhere not the names of the accusers only,
•but the charges made by them, were concealed from the
•prisoner’s knowledge up to the time of his appearance in
•court, so that it was quite impossible for him to prepare a
•carefully thought-out defence. Nor was the English prisoner
allowed an advocate at all in criminal cases, whereas the
prisoner of the Inquisition was allowed and given one. It
is true such an advocate had to be of the number of those in
the service of the Inquisition, or at all events must take its
■oath of secresy. This also was a necessity to preserve the
?secresy about the accusers. But he was under oath to do his
best to set forth any truthful defence the accused might have.
In the English trials, again, the accused was not allowed to
bring forward witnesses on his behalf, whereas in the Inquisi
tion he was, and could even require them to be summoned
.from the most remote regions. Possibly some readers will be
.astonished that such unfairness should be imputed to the
English system, but that it was so may be read in Sir James
-Stephen’s work already referred to.1 The notion current in
•those times was that either the accuser proved his case against
the accused, or he failed to prove it If the latter, a verdict
■of acquittal was already due and rendered witnesses for the
•accused unnecessary; if the former, any witness in the
contrary sense must either be irrelevant or perjured. That
the. truth could emerge out of the conflict of opposing
testimonies thoroughly sifted, did not enter into the minds
•of the English and other civil jurists. It was the merit of
the Inquisition to have grasped in no small degree the rational
.principles now realized.
But why should the names of the accusers have been con
cealed? Could there be any ground for veiling these trials in
■secresy save to press unfairly on the poor victims ? There is
-a great prejudice in our times against secret trials as pressing
•unfairly on the accused, but we have occasional reminders
that an open trial may also have its disadvantages. To pass
■over the question of the injury often done to the reputation
of third parties, it has occasionally been forced on public
attention that crimes cannot be put down, because witnesses
know that by giving evidence they expose themselves to great
1 p- 350c
�18
The Spanish Inquisition.
risks, the accused having powerful friends to execute vengeance
in their behalf. This was exactly the case with the Inquisition.
We have already described the state of affairs in Spain which,
first caused it to be Set in motion. The Maranos and the
Moriscos had great power through their wealth, position, and
secret bonds of alliance with the unconverted Jews and Moors.
These would certainly have endeavoured to neutralize the
efforts of the Holy Office had the trials been open.
Torquemada, in his Statutes of 1484, gives expressly this
defence of secresy: “ It has become notorious that great
damage and danger would accrue to the property and person
of the witnesses, by the publication of their names, asexperience has shown, and still shows, that several of them
have been killed, wounded, or maltreated by heretics.” The
truth about secret trials seems to be that they impose a muchgreater responsibility on the judges. If a judge is unfair, aswe know from history judges have often been, publicity is p
valuable check upon them. But as long as the judge isimpartial, it is quite possible to work a secret trial in such a
manner as to reach a just conclusion, particularly when the
court has the power to “ inquire,” that is, seek out evidence,,
and is not tied to the mere evidence set before it by others.
In the case of inquiries about heresy, there was also this to*
diminish the otherwise greater difficulties of the secret pro
cedure. Past heresy was of comparatively small account if
there was undoubted present orthodoxy, and on this point
evidence of a conclusive kind could be furnished on the spot
by the accused person if only he chose to furnish it. Provision
was of course made by the Inquisition to obviate the chancesof unjust accusations and to give the accused every reasonable
chance of setting forth his defence. They are provisionsobviously dictated by the desire to be impartial and evenclement, as well as efficacious. It would take too much spaceto give them here, but they can be seen in Hefele or morefully in Llorente himself, who, if we separate his facts from>
his insinuations, is a valuable apologist of the institution he
attacks. In the present connexion there is one thing in his.
pages worthy of special note. In the accounts of many
famous processes which he gives, you cannot help feeling:
that the court invariably succeeds in arriving at the truedecision. Llorente’s charge against it is in each case too*
�The Spanish Inquisition.
19.
patently, not that it convicted of heresy those who werenot heretics, but that it did not give real heretics sufficient
chances of slipping through their hands. It is absurd and.
illogical to mix up charges. Whether heresy is a crime or not,
is one point; whether the law is bound to afford guilty persons,
facilities for escaping justice is another. On the former wehave already offered some remarks; as to the latter, one would,
imagine no remarks were needed.
The next charge against the Inquisition is its use of torture.
We are all agreed that the practice is cruel and happily
obsolete. But again, why is the Inquisition to be more blame
worthy than other European courts of the period ? Torturewas everywhere in use whilst it was in use with the Inquisition,
and became obsolete there when it grew into disfavour else
where. It is indeed the boast of English lawyers that it was.
never a part of the English procedure, and this is true of the
ordinary procedure. But it was employed in England never
theless, under the prerogative of the Crown, particularly during,
the Tudor and early Stuart period. “ Under Henry VIII. it
appears to have been in frequent use. Only two cases occurred
under Edward VI., and eight under Mary. The reign of
Elizabeth was its culminating point. In the words of Hallam,
‘ The rack seldom stood idle in the Tower during the latter
part of Elizabeth’s reign.’”1 And we may add incidentally
that while Edward and Mary do not appear to have employed
it in cases of heresy, Elizabeth employed it ordinarily and
ruthlessly against the Catholics. If, too, in England torture
was not employed under the ordinary procedure, Sir James
Stephen tells us2 this was merely because the ordinary pro
cedure had slight scruples about convicting on very insufficient
evidence. Torture was employed by the Inquisition, as by
other courts, in order to extract evidence which could not.
be otherwise verified, and so obtain the certainty, if it existed,
without which no conviction was possible. In short, if we
are to compare the Inquisition with other contemporary courts,
whether in Spam or England or elsewhere, in regard to the
employment of torture, the result must be to award the Inquisi
tion the palm of greater mercy. It limited largely the number
of those who could inflict it, permitted its infliction only when,
the evidence against the prisoner amounted already to a semi
1 Encycl. Brit. s.v. “Torture.”
2 Op. cit. i. 222.
�20
The Spanish Inquisition.
plena probatio (i.e. nearly complete proof), permitted it only
once in each case, and required the presence of the inquisitor
and the ordinary, not, as is popularly thought, to gloat over the
agonies of the sufferer, but to see that the experiment was
■conducted with as much mercy and mildness as was possible
under the conditions. These precautions do not seem to have
•existed in the same degree in England.
In like manner the charge of inhumanity against the
■dungeons of the Inquisition needs only to be dealt with by
the comparative method in order to melt away. Is the story
told, only a century ago, by John Howard and Elizabeth Fry,
.as to the state of English and continental prisons so completely
forgotten? Doubtless the prison cells of the past were in
flagrant opposition to the dictates of humanity, and one can
only marvel that they could last so long without encountering
the protests of the merciful. The Inquisition was naturally
governed in this respect also by contemporary methods, though
analogy would lead us to surmise that here too it was to seme
•extent in advance of its age. One thing at least we may hope,
that it had no dungeon like that into which, under Elizabeth,
Father Sherwood was put in the Tower of London. This we
learn from Jardine, “was a cell below high-water mark and
totally dark; and, as the tide flowed, innumerable rats which
infested the muddy banks of the Thames were driven through
the crevices of the walls into the dungeons.”1 Alarm was the
least part of the torture to the terrified inmates. At times
flesh was torn from the arms and legs of the prisoners during
sleep by these rats. And this was after a century of enlighten
ment had separated a new age from that of Torquemada. We
have Llorente’s unimpeachable testimony for the improvement
that had set in by the commencement of the present century.
At that time he tells us the cells were “ good vaulted chambers
well lighted and dry,” and “ large enough for exercise.” Nor
were chains in use, unless perhaps in an isolated case to
prevent suicide.2 As much could not have been said of the
generality of English prisons at that date.
The last charge relates to the manner of the arrests. That
the Inquisition established an all-embracing system of espionnage
through the agency of secret officials called “ familiars ” is an
^important feature in the Protestant conception of its methods.
1 Cf. Jardine’s Readings on the -use of Torture in England.
2 i. p. 300.
�The Spanish Inquisition.
21
But the 11 familiars ” were not a secret body. They were a»
sort of militia containing a large number, perhaps a majority,
of religious-minded, influential persons. The purpose of
their enrolment as such was not to spy out heresies, but to
constitute an organized fund of physical force in support of
the tribunal against the very considerable power of the heretics
it was endeavouring to over-master. They had a large part
in the conduct of the autos da fe, and apparently the officials,,
apparitors, &c., of the court were of their number. But there
is no ground for thinking them to be mysterious beings with
cat-like tread such as a morbid fancy has depicted them.
Arrests were perhaps at times made in secresy. This is usual
and according to common sense when otherwise an arrest
might be successfully impeded. But that after arrest, no
news of what had happened were allowed to transpire, or a
word of allusion to the occurrence to be made, is absurd. As
soon as an arrest was made, an official of the court was at
once sent to the prisoner’s house to take an inventory of his
possessions. How could this be done and the family remain
in ignorance of what had nappen ed? That all conversation
about the arrests made was xOrbidden seems also altogether
improbable, and at least requires to be established by proof,
not imagination. At the best, there may be this slight ground
for the notion. To manifest sympathy with the heresy, not
the person, of the prisoner, would be to repeat the fault of
which he was suspected, and to incur its liabilities. In all
cases, when a criminal has been carried off by justice, it im
prudent for his accomplices to observe reticence.
No other charge occurs to us demanding notice in a short
pamphlet, but readers who desire fuller information may be
referred to Hefele’s excellent chapters on the subject in hisLife of Cardinal Xinienez. All that now remains for us here
is to correct the notion that the Holy See is responsible for
the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition. It is disputed
among authorities whether the tribunal ought not to be
regarded as a royal rather than a papal court, and BishopHefele is strongly of this view. The inquisitors were, however,
unquestionably ecclesiastics, and drew their jurisdiction from
Papal Bulls. In this sense the court was certainly Papal, but
the appointments were all made by the Crown, and the Crown,,
not the Pope, is responsible for the harshness. The Papal
�:2 2
The Spanish Inquisition.
power of control, though theoretically absolute, was practically
small. The Popes met with constant opposition from the
Spanish monarchs in all their attempts to interpose. They
did, however, interpose frequently, both by protests, by threatsof excommunication, by drawing to themselves appeals, and
sometimes by revising largely in the sense of mercy or even
altogether remitting sentences passed by the tribunal. We are
•dependent for our information concerning this matter on
Llorente, who alone has had access to the Papal Letters. He
.gives us some letters of expostulation written by Sixtus IV.,
and these exhibit this Pope just as we should expect to find
-a Pope, anxious to put down heresy, and therefore granting
the spiritual faculties solicited by the sovereigns for their
nominees, and even exhorting them to zeal in their work; but
at the same time desirous that the zeal should be tempered by
mercy, and deeply incensed when he discovered that the claims
of mercy were so disregarded. It is the voice of genuine
compassion which speaks out in terms like these, “ Since it is
clemency which, as far as is possible to human nature, makes
men equal to God, We ask and entreat the King and Queen
by the tender mercies of our Lord Jesus Christ to imitate Him
whose property it is ever to show mercy and to spare, and so
to spare the citizens of Seville and its diocese,” &c. Nor did
Sixtus stay at words. First he appointed the Archbishop of
Seville as a judge of appeal, and, when this arrangement failed
■of its effect, he allowed the victims to carry appeals to Rome,
where already they had fled in large numbers, hopeful of
obtaining, as they did obtain, either complete absolution or a
large alleviation of their penance from that merciful tribunal.
Surely it is a significant fact that fugitives from the harshness
■of the Spanish Inquisition should have thought of Rome as
the best refuge to which they could flee. Succeeding Popes
are stated by Llorente to have made similar endeavours to
mitigate the extreme severities of the inquisitors. They were,
however, invariably foiled by the Spanish sovereigns, who had
the power in their hands.
Llorente tries to take the edge off these remonstrances of
the Holy See by insinuating that they sprang from the base
motive of cupidity; that the Popes had an eye to the fees they
could extort as the price of their absolutions. But this is mere
insinuation for which there is not a shadow of proof. The
�The Spanish Inquisition.
23
-action of the Popes in regard to the Inquisition is quite in
•keeping with the character that has always been theirs. The
Popes as individuals have had their personal qualities. Some
have been sterner, others milder, in their temperament and
in their rule. But the Holy See has all along stood out
■among the thrones of Christendom conspicuous for its
love of mercy and tenderness towards the erring and the
■suffering.
And not the Holy See only, but the clergy also, if we take
them as a body. As the ministers of Jesus Christ, more entirely
devoted to His service and more exclusively occupied with the
study of His Life, this is what would be expected of them.
And what honest historian of the past, or observer of the
present, can deny that the expectation has been realized ? It
was the clergy, in the wild middle ages, who were the refuge
of the weak and oppressed against the lawless monarchs and
chieftains : it was they who originated charitable institutions
under so many forms. And in our own days, they are engaged
everywhere in exactly the same work. This does not mean,
that the Catholic laity are backward in charitable enterprises.
It means only that the clergy are wont to be the leaders in
such works. Surely then it is reasonable to judge of their part
in the Inquisition by these analogies, and this is all we have
been contending for. The Inquisition belonged to an age
which was far harsher in dealing with crime than our own, and
the clergy are always, necessarily, imbued with the ideas and
feelings that are in the air they breathe. We ought not to be
surprised to find that when they acted as Inquisitors, they
adopted methods prevalent in their age, which to us seem
harsh and revolting. But we should expect also that their
judicial behaviour would in some sort reflect the tender-hearted
ness in all other respects demonstratively characteristic of their
body. In a word, the faults which we deplore in these Inqui
sitors were the faults of their age, which happily has passed
away. The redeeming qualities we discover in them were
the virtues natural to their state. The latter survive, and
we may hope, ripen, and they furnish a guarantee which
should give satisfaction to terrified Protestants, that our
return to power, if so unlikely a thing should be in the near
future, will not bling with it any danger to their lives and
liberties.
�24
The Spanish Inquisition.
It will be convenient to sum up what has been established)
in a few propositions.
1. The intolerance of Catholics consists in this that they
believe our Lord has made His revelation sufficiently clear for'
all men to recognize it if they will. Still, modern Catholics,
have no desire to coerce those who will not recognize it. The
tolerance of Protestants consists in this that they believe every
one must be left to his private judgment in a matter so obscureas the true religion. But they persecute those whose private
judgment recommends them to become Catholics.
2. No one wants back the Spanish Inquisition, but althoughfollowing the notions of its age, it put to death altogether a
very large number of heretics, the English civil courts put todeath many more for lesser crimes—like sheep-stealing.
3. Torture employed by the Inquisition in conformity with
the common law of Spain, but with greater restrictions. Torture
employed in England much more fiercely, in spite of thecommon law of England. The culminating point of its use in.
England was under Elizabeth, who inflicted it ruthlessly on
Catholics.
4. Names of accusers for their security concealed in Spain
from the accused, but the accusation given him and the assist
ance of an advocate. No advocates allowed in English criminal
trials of former days, and accusations not shown to the accused
till he came into court.
5. Inquisition dungeons probably never worse than contem
porary English dungeons, and certainly much better in the
latter days of its existence.
6. The victims of the Inquisition had such a belief in the
humanity of the Popes that they fled to his territory and begged
to have their cases judged there.
�
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The Spanish Inquisition
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Smith, Sydney F. (Sydney Fenn) [1843-1922]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 24 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Date of publication from KVK (OCLC WorldCat).
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Catholic Truth Society
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[1891?]
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RA1544
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Catholic Church
Spanish Inquisition
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Catholic Church
Spanish Inquisition