Henry Charles Lea

“ It could find no words too strong to describe the wickedness of the New Christians, whose invincible adherence to their errors showed that punishment and not pardon was the only means to be employed; in place of mitigating the laws they should be sharpened, as heresy was steadily increasing, and to ask for the Roman procedure was scandalous, and in itself worthy of punishment. The regent was told that he had no power to overthrow the laws and he was threatened, on the one hand, with an uprising of the people, and, on the other, with an appeal to the pope. ”

“ Then for three hours he was exposed to the extremity of torment, the blood dripping to the floor from his lacerated flesh, but, amid his shrieks and groans, nothing more could be extracted from him than “God suffered more; I am here to serve his pleasure” and an offer that, if they would give him a Bible, he would prove them all to be demons. If torture meant anything as a test, this proved his insanity to be real, but two days later a consulta de fe unanimously voted his relaxation as an impenitente negativo. Still the Suprema was not satisfied ”

“ While thus there had been little tendency to Protestantism among natives, since the inconsiderable outbreaks of 1558, foreigners furnished an ample field of labor. Spain had a reputation for wealth which rendered it attractive to the stranger; its people held in contempt the arts and crafts in which Frenchmen and Flemings and Italians were adepts, and its internal peace seemed to offer a refuge to those whose industries were precarious in the incessant clash of arms through which the old order of things gave way to the new. ”

“ Whatever other punishment might be visited on suspicion, abjuration of heresy in general, and especially of the heresy suspected, was indispensable. This could be administered either in the audience-chamber, or in a public auto de fe, and was an impressive ceremony. In the face of a cross and with his hand on the gospels, the culprit swore that he accepted the Catholic faith and detested and anathematized every species of heresy, and especially that of which he was suspect. He pledged himself always to keep the faith of the Church and to be obedient to the pope and the papal decrees. ”

“ With us the device of the jury has relieved the judge of the responsibility resting upon him in other systems of jurisprudence. That responsibility had to be met; a decision had to be reached, even in the most doubtful cases and, where evidence was defective and conflicting, the use of torture as an expedient to obtain a confession, or, by its endurance, to indicate innocence, has seemed, until modern times, after the disuse of compurgation and the judgements of God, to be the only means of relieving the judicial conscience. ”

“ This speculation in human agony was all the more undisguised and lucrative that Portugal was a comparatively feeble kingdom, which could be treated with much less ceremony than Spain, and João III a man of wholly different type from Ferdinand or Charles V, while his invincible determination to have an Inquisition in his realm prolonged the struggle and rendered especially productive the game of inclining to either side by turns. ”

“ Then Talavera, with his chaplain and a few unarmed servants, went to the plaza Bib-el-Bonut, where the Moors kissed the hem of his garments as of old. Tendilla followed and promised pardon if they should lay down their arms, as it should be understood that they were not in revolt, but had only sought to maintain the capitulations, which should be strictly observed in future. The city became quiet; those who had slain the alguazil were surrendered, and four of them were hanged; the Moors cast aside their arms and returned to work. ”

“ Some, such as relaxation, confiscation, fines, scourging, the galleys, reconciliation and abjuration, were within the power of the tribunal. Others, like imprisonment, the sanbenito, exile and reclusion, depended to a greater or less degree on the will or the fears of the penitent. Theoretically, as we have seen, punishment was regarded as penance, voluntarily accepted by the penitent for the salvation of his soul, but the Inquisition, unlike the father confessor, did not rely wholly on the penitential ardor of the sinner. ”

“ The Spanish Inquisition naturally inherited compurgation among the other traditions of the institution. When conviction could not be had by evidence or torture, and yet the suspicion was too grave to justify acquittal, it could sentence the accused to undergo compurgation. ”

“ Yet by the middle of the century, when Simancas wrote, compurgation was becoming obsolete. He denounces it as blind, perilous and deceitful, and says that it especially should not be forced upon those of Jewish or Moorish descent, for it is equivalent to sending them on the direct road to the stake, since no one could help thinking ill of them, or at least doubting their innocence. Besides, nearly all men are now so corrupt, and Christian charity is so cold, that scarce any one can be found who will purge another, or who will not have an evil suspicion and interpret matters for the worst. ”

“ Thus, between the state and the Inquisition, whether working in unison or at cross-purposes, the intellectual development which, in the sixteenth century, promised to render Spanish literature and learning the most illustrious in Europe, was stunted and starved into atrophy, the arts and sciences were neglected, commercial and industrial progress was rendered impossible, and the character which Spain acquired among the nations was tersely expressed in the current saying that Africa began at the Pyrenees. ”

“ A writer, in 1724, giving an account of the autos celebrated in Seville since 1719, is vastly more concerned with enumerating the names of officials and familiars, with describing the ceremonial and dilating upon the crimson velvet chairs and cushions and canopies embroidered in gold and silver and the diamond badges worn by the functionaries, than with the real work of the tribunal, grim and cruel though it continued to be. ”

“ One wrong always breeds another. The disregard of compacts and the violent methods of conversion inevitably rendered them objects of suspicion, and an edict of September 1, 1501 prohibited the new converts from bearing or possessing arms, publicly or secretly, under penalty, for a first offence, of confiscation and two months’ imprisonment and of death for a second—an edict which was repeated in 1511 and again in 1515. ”

“ Thus Simancas tells us that we should not be surprised to see heretics sometimes carried rejoicing to the stake. This is not true alacrity but madness, not patience but fierceness, and there is wide difference between barbarous fierceness and the modest constancy of the true martyr. Then there are those who, by certain arts, so benumb the body that it does not feel torments; there are also those who deprive the mind of sense, so that they meet death without fear, but that gentleness and placidity, that sublime humility and humble sublimity, we see only in the martyrs of Christ. ”

“ Whatever we may think of João’s blind fanaticism, we cannot wonder at his objection to admitting in his kingdom an emissary who came to set him at defiance and to upset all his most cherished plans. On the other hand, a letter in December, from the spokesman of the New Christians to their Roman agent, remitting to him two thousand cruzados, depicts their agonized anxiety for the coming of the nuncio; it will be their salvation and his absence is their destruction; it is useless to spend money on briefs when there is no one to enforce them. ”

“ All that Gonzalo Bravo can say, in the Instructions of 1662, is that its proper regulation determines the just decision of cases, and the verification of truth; the discretion and prudence of the judges must look to this, tempered by the customary compassion of the Holy Office, in such way that it shall neither exceed nor fall short. How this discretion was exercised depended wholly on the temper of the tribunal. One authority tells us that torture should never be prolonged more than half an hour, but the cases are numerous in which it lasted for two and even three hours. ”

“ IN the infliction of punishment, the Inquisition differed from secular courts in one important respect. Public law provided for impenitent heresy death by fire and confiscation, and visited on the penitent and on descendants certain disabilities, but apart from these, in its extensive field of jurisdiction over penitent heresy, suspected heresy and other offences, the Inquisition had full discretion and was bound by no rules. It was the only tribunal known to the civilized world which prescribed penalties and modified them at its will. ”

“ Even to call a man a Jew was an offence justiciable by the Inquisition, for when, in 1646, Padre Boil, a royal preacher, in a sermon stigmatized as a Jew Fray Enríquez, of his own Mercenarian Order, the tribunal of Toledo promptly sent for him and, after detaining him for six months, sentenced him to two years’ exile from the court, during which he was forbidden to preach. ”

“ The first of these was pertinacity—the obstinacy which led the heretic or apostate to avow and defend his errors, and to resist the well-meant effort of his judges to save his soul by inducing conversion. This heroic temper, which preferred martyrdom to denying what it believed to be the truth, was not common, but the annals of the Inquisition are illustrated by cases of unknown and forgotten victims, whose persistence through torment and persuasion, to the fiery death at the brasero, ennobles human nature, whether they were Moslems or Jews, Protestants or Mystics. ”

“ By this time, prosecution of the dead had shrunk to an inconsiderable part of inquisitorial business, and this may possibly account for other ameliorations in procedure. The preliminary necessity of sufficing proof was insisted upon; pains were to be taken to ascertain whether there were descendants, so as to cite them in person; no one who appeared as a defender was to be refused, even though he might be a prisoner on trial, who could empower a representative; if no defender appeared, the inquisitor was to appoint a skilful and sufficient person, who was not an official of the tribunal. ”

“ It was the wise traditional policy of incorporating the conquered population in the state, on an equal footing with other subjects, and trusting to time to merge them all into a common mass, holding one faith and owing allegiance to one country. ”

“ Punishment retained enough of the character of penance to justify the theologian in treating its non-performance as a proof that repentance had been feigned, and that the offender had relapsed into heresy, the penalty for which, under the canons, was death by fire without trial. ”

“ It is true that the rebellion of Granada showed that there was no such eagerness to invade Spain as was apprehended, but, on the other hand if, with the aid of five or six hundred Moors and Turks, the insurgents{386} had taxed to the utmost the power of the kingdom, what was the prospect if a powerful fleet, holding command of the sea, should land a heavy force of trained and well-armed fighting men? ”

“ And we order that, on the day of the auto, an effigy representing his person shall be placed on the scaffold, with a mitre of condemnation and a sanbenito bearing on one side the insignia of the condemned and on the other a placard with his name, which effigy, after the reading of this our sentence, shall be delivered to the secular arm and justice, and his bones shall be disinterred, if they can be distinguished from those of faithful Christians, and be delivered to the said justice to be publicly burnt, in detestation of such great and grievous crimes. ”

“ As for their plea that they leave the secret prison broken in health and stripped of their property, that they have no chance to learn trades and must support their families by trading, the answer is that only through the mercy of the Holy Office do they escape burning, and they should be thankful that their lives are spared; their poverty is a trifling penalty for their crimes, and their children only share the punishment of paternal heresy. ”