Inquisitor

“ The chief argument of the Inquisitor to prove the melioration of the Inquisition, was the superior humanity of the Inquisitors. I remarked that I did not doubt the humanity of the existing officers; but what availed humanity in an Inquisitor? He must pronounce sentence according to the laws of the tribunal, which are notorious enough; and a relapsed heretic must be burned in the flames, or confined for life in a dungeon, whether the Inquisitor be humane or not. ”

“ All the cunning fence between judge and culprit, all the fraud, all the torture of body and mind so ruthlessly employed to extort unwilling confessions, were not necessarily used for the mere purpose of securing a victim, for the inquisitor was taught to be as earnest with the recalcitrants against whom he had sufficent testimony as with the cases in which evidence was deficient. ”

“ When an inquisitor visits the towns of the district of his tribunal, he shall not undertake any trial for heresy, or arrest any denounced person, but he shall receive the declarations and send them to the tribunal. ”

“ Yet many reasons led the inquisitor earnestly to desire to secure confession. In numerous cases - indeed, no doubt in a majority - the evidence, while possibly justifying suspicion, was of too loose and undefined a character to justify condemnation, for every idle rumor was taken up, and any flimsy pretext which led to prosecution assumed importance when the inquisitor found himself bound to show that he had not acted unadvisedly, or when he had in prospect fines and confiscations for the benefit of the faith. ”

“ A man against whom there was no evidence to justify conviction and who yet would not confess himself guilty, was kept in prison indefinitely at the discretion of the inquisitor; at length, if the proof against him was only incidental and not direct, and the suspicion was light, he might be mercifully discharged under bail, with orders to stand at the door of the Inquisition from breakfast-time until dinner, and from dinner until supper, until some further testimony should turn up against him, and the inquisitor be able to prove the guilt so confidently assumed. ”

“ It is such a mouth as we can imagine some remorseless inquisitor to have had—that is, not an inquisitor filled with holy zeal for what he mistakenly thought the cause of Christ demanded, but a spleeny, envious, rancorous shaveling, who tortured men from hatred of their superiority to him, and sheer love of inflicting pain. ”

“ The inquisitors shall give the prisoner to understand that it is of great consequence to him to speak the truth. One of the advocates of the holy office shall be appointed to defend him, who shall communicate with him in the presence of an inquisitor, in order to prepare himself to reply in writing to the accusation, after swearing fidelity to the accused, and secrecy to the tribunal, although he had already taken that oath at the time that he was appointed the advocate of the prisoners of the holy office. ”

“ A man would be reported to the inquisitor as of ill-repute for heresy, or his name would occur in the confessions of other prisoners. A secret inquisition would be made and all accessible evidence against him would be collected. He would then be secretly cited to appear at a given time, and bail taken to secure his obedience, or if he were suspected of flight, he would be suddenly arrested and confined until the tribunal was ready to give him a hearing. ”

“ The 4th imports, that as there are not in all the tribunals civilians of sufficient ability to be consulted in the preparation of the definitive sentences, the inquisitors shall send the writings of the trials to the inquisitor-general, in order to be examined by the civilians of the supreme council. ”

“ The civil suits of officials were to be brought in the court of the defendant; if the official was plaintiff, all proceedings before an inquisitor were pronounced invalid and both official and inquisitor were to be punished; even when both parties to a contract agreed to accept the forum of the tribunal, inquisitors were forbidden, under pain of punishment, to entertain the case. Secular officials could arrest familiars caught in the act. ”

“ It is easy to imagine other tricks by which shrewd and experienced inquisitors could save themselves the trouble of admitting the accused to even the nugatory form of defence to which alone he was entitled. As to allowing him to call witnesses in his favor, except to prove enmity of the accusers, it was never thought of in ordinary cases. By a legal fiction, the inquisitor was supposed to look at both sides of the case, and to take care of the defence as well as of the prosecution. ”

“ Bernard Gui, the most experienced inquisitor of his day, concludes his elaborate instructions as to procedure with some general directions as to conduct and character. The inquisitor, he tells us, should be diligent and fervent in his zeal for the truth of religion, for the salvation of souls, and for the extirpation of heresy. Amid troubles and opposing accidents he should grow earnest, without allowing himself to be inflamed with the fury of wrath and indignation. He must not be sluggish of body, for sloth destroys the vigor of action. ”

“ They evidently felt and assumed the responsibility of the decision; and yet the impossibility of deliberate action by so cumbrous a body is seen in their bunching together all the cases of “believing” heretics, condemning them en masse to prison, and leaving it with the inquisitor to determine the character of the imprisonment for each individual. ”

“ The inquisitors shall be assembled to decide if imprisonment should be decreed; in doubtful cases, they shall summon consultors, if they find it necessary [24] .
4th. When the proof is not sufficient to cause the arrest of the denounced person, the inquisitor shall not cite him to appear, or subject him to any examination, because experience has shown, that an heretic who is at liberty will not confess, and this measure only makes him more reserved and attentive in avoiding everything that may increase the suspicions or the proofs brought against him.
5th. ”

“ Considering that every one above the age of seven was liable to the indelible suspicion of heresy by the mere fact of citation, it will be seen what an opportunity lay before the inquisitor and his spies and familiars to practise upon the fears of all, to sell exemptions from arrest, as well as to bargain for liberation. ”

“ We have a specimen of this in letters of the Inquisitor of Narbonne in 1264, granting absolution to Guillem du Puy in consideration of his giving one hundred and fifty livres Tournois to the Inquisition. The magnitude of these sums shows the eagerness of the penitents to escape, and the enormous power of extortion wielded by the inquisitor. If he was a man of integrity he could doubtless resist the temptation, but to the covetous and self-indulgent the opportunity of oppressing the helpless was almost unlimited. ”

“ About 1278 an experienced inquisitor lays down the rule as one generally received, that in places much suspected of heresy every inhabitant must be cited to appear, must be forced to abjure heresy and to tell the truth, and be subjected to a detailed interrogatory about himself and others, in which any lack of frankness will subject him hereafter to the dreadful penalties of relapse. ”

“ It is a noteworthy fact that in long series of interrogations there will frequently be not a single question as to the belief of the party making confession. The whole energy of the inquisitor was directed to obtaining statements of external acts. The upshot of it all necessarily was that almost{433} everything was left to the discretion of the inquisitor, whose temper had more to do with the result than the proof of guilt or its absence. How insignificant were the tokens on which a man’s fate might depend may be understood by a single instance. ”

“ To this appeal the Suprema responded by ordering the inquisitor to send it such evidence as he may gather and to await a reply before taking action. [1081] It is evident that all criminal judges lived in an atmosphere of dread lest at any moment the honest discharge of their functions might precipitate them into a disastrous conflict with the tribunal. It justifies the complaints of the Córtes of 1547 and 1553, the latter of which declared that the inquisitors exceeded their jurisdiction, intervening in many affairs, both civil and criminal, that had no connection with heresy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The inquisitor-general shall have power to examine into the belief of every man, from the highest to the lowest, and all and any officers of all kinds shall assist the inquisitor, at their peril if they neglect or refuse; those who know where heretics are concealed, shall denounce them, or shall suffer as heretics themselves: those who give up heretics to justice shall not be liable to punishment, though they be themselves heretics, if they will for the future conform. ”

“ When we come to consider the details of its history we shall find numerous cases of popular resistance, desperate and isolated struggles, crushed remorselessly before revolt could so extend as to become dangerous. It required, indeed, courage to foolhardiness for any one to raise hand or voice against an inquisitor, no matter how cruel or nefarious were his actions. Under the canon law, any one, from the meanest to the highest, who opposed or impeded in any way the functions of an inquisitor, or gave aid or counsel to those who did so, became at once ipso facto excommunicate. ”

“ At the head of this Council stood the Grand Inquisitor, appointed by the king himself, with numerous subordinate tribunals, protected by armed ‘familiars.’ Their trials were conducted in secret. Persons were tempted or forced by threats to denounce their enemies, their friends, and even their relatives; a system of espionage was resorted to; torture was freely used to extort confessions from the accused; and the most harmless words were often twisted into heterodoxy by the subtle refinements of the Dominican theologians. ”

“ As a rule, the inquisitor or his vicar was extremely well equipped to conduct the interrogatory skilfully and successfully, even against the most redoubtable antagonists. They possessed, moreover, a rich repository of ready-made devices in the treatises written by the great masters of the inquisitorial art. ”

“ When the inquisitors receive important information in defence of the prisoner, he shall be brought before the tribunal accompanied by his advocate; they shall inform him that the proofs of all the circumstances which might mitigate his crime have been received, and that they can conclude the trial, unless any other demand occurs on their part, in which case they will do everything which may be permitted for the prisoner. If he declares that he has nothing more to say, the fiscal may give in his conclusions. ”

“ The true inquisitor is a creature of policy, not a man of blood by taste. ”

“ If the proof of the first crime is increased, it will be sufficient to inform the prisoner of the circumstances.
28. In the interval between the proof and the publication, the prisoner may demand audiences, through the jailer, which the Inquisitors must grant without delay, in order [Pg 225] to profit by the inclination of the accused, which may change from day to day.
29-32. Order the Inquisitor to cause the ratification of the witnesses; the manner in which this is to take place, and the publication of their depositions. ”

“ It is enough to know that the inquisitors used their utmost efforts to stamp out what they deemed heresy, and the tale of their victims is not the gauge of their cruelty but of the number of heretics whom they could discover. Save when pride or cupidity or ambition may have been the impelling motive, the men are not to be blamed, but the teaching which gave them such a conception of the duty so relentlessly performed, and framed a system of procedure which shrouded their acts in darkness and deprived the accused of his legitimate means of defence. ”

“ The first three provide: (I) that of the two inquisitors appointed to each court one shall be a jurist and the other a theologian, and that they shall not proceed other than jointly to decree prison, torture, or publication of witnesses; (II) that the inquisitors shall not permit their officers to bear weapons in those places where the bearing of weapons is forbidden; (III) that no one shall be arrested save upon sufficient proof of his guilt, and that all cases be disposed of with dispatch and not delayed in the hope of discovering increased justification to sentence. ”

“ In these examinations, the Inquisitors have recourse to the meanest artifices, in order to draw from the prisoner a confession of those crimes of which he is accused, making great professions of sympathy, and numerous promises of favour, if he will but yield to their solicitations. By these flattering assurances, they sometimes impose on the unwary; and when they have gained their object, they forget their promises, and treat the unhappy objects of their deception with the utmost rigour. ”