In spite of popular opposition the government entered resolutely

on reform by abolishing capital punishment for any crime, civil or

political. Following the example set by many European countries, they

also adopted the metric system, organising consolidated funds and, what

was a very important reform, abolishing the royal gifts of lands to

support a title. In 1864, a treaty of delimitation which had been in

progress for several years was definitely drawn up with Spain. New roads

were marked out and furrowed the kingdom in every direction, making

Lisbon the centre for all roads having direct communication with the

province. Aqueducts were constructed; towns made sanitary; hospitals,

almshouses, model dwellings rose in the large industrial centres. Newly

made canals allowed these towns to transport their goods seawards

without unnecessary costly relading. The smallest boroughs were provided

with schools, etc. But all these works, useful, it is true, and almost

necessary, made a large hole in the state coffers. Fontes Pereira de

Mello tried to overcome this by getting votes for the modification and

increase of old taxes of every kind, even of the yearly land tax, also

the amending of indirect taxation. These reforms were the cause of

new troubles in Oporto, but they were suppressed without recourse to

arms. Lisbon and several other towns followed Oporto’s example, and the

government, fearing lest troubles there should insensibly assume serious

proportions and lead to civil war, yielded to the people’s will and

withdrew the new taxes (1867).

In 1868, a fresh insurrection broke out in Spain and was necessarily

felt in Portugal. It was an immediate question of conferring the Spanish

crown so as to fuse the two peoples, a union which would have taken the

title of the Iberian Union. But the Portuguese, remembering what their

ancestors had suffered under the Spanish yoke, feared lest this union

should lead to the surrender of Portugal to Spain, and profited by the

anniversary of the coming to the throne of João IV (of the illustrious

house of Braganza) in 1640, to make strong resistance against Spain. In

view of this excitement, the Spaniards abandoned their first idea, not

being willing to expose themselves any more to the vindictiveness of a

people not able to forget oppression dating nearly four centuries back.

One of the wisest and most humane reforms, and one which adds most

to the glory of Luiz I, was the entire abolition of slavery in every

colony. But, by a curious and sad coincidence, as if in answer to the

royal benefit, about five hundred Portuguese were pitilessly massacred

by natives on the Zambesi. On this news being announced, an army corps

embarked immediately to avenge the honour of the flag.[h]

[Sidenote: [1864-1899 A.D.]]

The history of Portugal for the years 1863-1866, as far as its connection

with the rest of Europe is concerned, presents almost empty pages--which,

however, was not precisely a misfortune to the country. We read in

November, 1864, of differences between the government and the pope which

ended in the recall from Rome of the Portuguese ambassador, who did not

return thither until two years later; of the opening and closing of

the sessions of the cortes, of elections, of satisfactory finances,

of the modification and change of ministries. It was already something

remarkable that the great state question was raised at the birth of a

prince in August, 1865, that the papal nuncio would not permit King

Victor Emmanuel, the father of the young mother, who was in a sense

under a ban, to officiate as godfather, and that the royal child was not

admitted to the privilege of baptism until after Napoleon III had added

to his many rôles that of being sponsor to the Portuguese prince.[b]

In 1866 Dom Miguel died, after having stood at the head of the

absolutists calling themselves the Party of the Faith, and sojourning at

various European courts. He had been lampooned by the liberal press, but

was given a magnificent funeral.

The old and stormy Saldanha threatened a _pronunciamento_ in 1870, and

succeeded in ousting from court the king’s favourite, the duke of Loulé.

He was appeased by supplanting Loulé as minister, but after four months

was gracefully disposed of on the pretext of the embassy to England,

where he died in 1876. The ministry of Pereira de Mello lasted for three

years, 1883-1886, in which year there was danger of collision with the

French Republic in view of the marriage of Luiz’s heir to the daughter of

the comte de Paris. The ceding of a portion of the Lower Congo territory

to Belgium in 1885, the definition of German and Portuguese spheres of

influence in Africa, the cession of the island of Macao by China, the

building of a railroad in Angola marked colonial affairs. In 1889 there

was alarm over the encroachments of England on Portuguese influence

in Africa, and Major Serpa Pinto invaded territory on the Shiré river

claimed by England. The British government demanded reparation and sent

to Portugal a fleet which, January 11th, 1890, induced Portugal to

withdraw from the Shiré region under protest.

CARLOS I BECOMES KING (1889 A.D.)

This surrender provoked outbreaks at Lisbon and Oporto; the ministry

of José de Castro resigned, and the republicans, stimulated by the

Brazilian success in establishing a republic the year before, turned

the anti-British demonstration into a republican agitation. King Carlos

had succeeded his father when King Luiz died of typhoid fever, October

19th, 1889. The new king assumed to side with the popular feeling and

refused the order of the Garter which Queen Victoria had just offered

him. The republican movement overshot itself, and, after various arrests

were made, the elections were strongly for the government. August

20th, an agreement with England had been reached, after a vain appeal

to international arbitration. The terms were again distasteful to the

public and the cortes refused to accept them. Passages at arms took

place between the Portuguese and the British in Nika (Manica), which by

the terms of the August agreement were Portuguese. But the terms had

been declined and the Portuguese were defeated. A military revolt was

suppressed in January, 1891, and the republican press suppressed. The

terms of the August agreement were now accepted and a treaty with Great

Britain was signed May 28th, 1891.

Financial affairs had now reached a crisis after wrecking so many

cabinets. In May, 1892, the government finally declared itself bankrupt.

Still relief did not come and Oliveira Martins, after failing as minister

to establish a sound financial condition, gave way to Ferreira, who

yielded to Hintze-Ribeiro, who lasted from 1894 to 1897, and returned in

1899.

In 1895 a reform of the constitution of the cortes was achieved, the

lower chamber was reduced from 170 to 145, the upper house was to be

constituted of ninety members chosen by the king, the royal princes,

and twelve bishops; the right of suffrage was based on the ability to

read and write and the minimum payment of 500 reis (50 cents) in taxes.

Domestic servants, government employees, and soldiers are, however,

forbidden to vote. This same year the king visited England, accepted

the order of the Garter, and began the cultivation of that British

friendship which its liberal construction of the limits of neutrality

during the South African War served to strengthen--at least in England,

though violently attacked in Portugal. In 1900 the Delagoa Bay Railroad

dispute with England was decided in Portugal’s favour by Switzerland as

arbitrator.[a]

PORTUGUESE LITERATURE

[Sidenote: [1812-1900 A.D.]]

The country of Camoens and João de Barros has never lost its love for

letters, and the Portuguese people have always possessed a poetic strain.

If in the eighteenth century poetry reached the level of too Parnassian

trifles, it redeemed itself after the war under the impulse of Francisco

Manoel do Nascimento, and with still finer taste under the influence

of Almo da Garot, and of Castilho, followed by a good number of lyric

and dramatic poets and romancers. J. B. Gomes (died 1812), by his sole

tragedy _The New Iñes de Castro_, has taken a place among the most

remarkable of dramatists. Other authors have written for the theatre; for

example, Vasconcellos, Reis Quita, Biester, Pimentet, and perhaps the

first of them all is Almeida Garrett (died 1854).

Bulhão Pato has made a name among the poets as well as T. A. Gonzaga,

João de Lemos, Antonio Pereira da Cunha, and Ribeiro, the minister.

Like King Diniz of old and Philip of Lancaster, King Pedro IV was a

poet. He has written verse destined to be set to music and he has given

the country the “Constitution Hymn.” Dominic Buontempo founded the

Philharmonic Academy at Lisbon, and the composer Marcos Portugal is known

throughout all Europe.

Alexandre Herculano (died 1878), erudite and _littérateur_, rivalled the

work of the Benedictines in his _Portugalica Monumenta Historica_; but he

did not please the clergy, for he wrote of the Inquisition in Portugal

and the Concordat of February 21st, 1857. In the _Harp of the Believer_

he has told in verse of the eternal strife between doubt and faith.

Science, letters, and art have had illustrious representatives in José

Ribeira, Antonio de Almeida (died 1839), Gaetan de Amaral, Antonio de

Carmo, Velho de Barbosa, Costa de Macedo who has aroused much discussion

by his opinions, Francisco Alexandre Lobo, de Carvalho, Manoel Coelho

da Rocha. In geography, the viscount of Santarem (died 1856), Brito

Capello, Robert Irens, Serpa Pinto, and Otto Schutt, count among African

explorers.[g]

[Sidenote: [1897 A.D.]]

The present king of Portugal, Carlos I, born in 1863, has shown a decided

determination to seek the peace his country so much needs. He has shown

also a real interest in science and letters and since the five hundredth

anniversary of Prince Henry the Navigator celebrated in March, 1894, he

has shown a lively concern for deep-sea soundings and exploration. He

has made personal studies and both published their results and shown

them at an oceanographic exhibition which he opened in 1897. The world

is too well mapped to offer such prizes as once lay hidden in the Sea

of Darkness, but there is a peculiar fitness in the present monarch’s

interest in that ocean across which his great predecessor showed the path

that led Portugal to greatness, and through Portugal turned the whole

world to exploration.[a]

FOOTNOTES

[184] [Partisans of the liberal constitution of 1838.]

[185] [This insurrection was called the War of Maria da Fonte or

“Patuleia” and was ended through foreign influence, by the Convention of

Granada, June 29th, 1847.]

[186] [“Dom Pedro V, although only sixteen, showed as soon as he ascended

the throne a subtlety of spirit, a greatness of soul, and so precocious

an intelligence that his people augured the most happy destiny for the

country, and in its joy gave him the surname of ‘El Esperanzo,’ their

hopes in him being so great. But a short time after (1861) the young

prince in his turn also died, smitten in the flower of his age, in the

midst of unfinished works.”--SILVERCRUYS.[h]]

[Illustration: A PORTUGUESE PEASANT]

[Illustration]

APPENDIX A. THE INQUISITION[187]

The Inquisition was a judicial police organisation instituted

by the Roman church with the concurrence of temporal rulers

for the purposes of suppressing heresy and blasphemy.... It

has left an odious memory--and not without reason. Anyone

who denies that atrocities were committed by the Inquisition

must indeed be blinded by a foolish and prejudiced desire to

apologise for the deeds of history. But why is it against

the Inquisition that the indignation inspired to-day by

the memory of early religious persecutions is particularly

directed? Thousands of human beings were burned for their faith

before the Inquisition existed.... There is one circumstance,

however, among others, which explains and justifies the

general sentiment, and that is that the Inquisition pretended

to be--and was--a regular judicial organisation. The worst

excesses are forgotten when they are not systematic. It is the

long-continued travesties of justice perpetrated in the service

of fanaticism or for reasons of state that arouse the more

lasting resentment. Therefore it is that, whatever be their

number, the victims of the Roman Inquisition weigh so heavy in

the scales of history.--From the article “L’INQUISITION,” by C.

V. Langlois, in _La Grande Revue_ (Paris, 1901).

All the gods have been addicted to jealousy. Their worshippers have

accordingly usually felt and often acted towards heretics with the

characteristic ruthlessness of the most merciless of passions.

Egypt was not free from religious reigns of terror, nor yet India, nor

China, and even the genial creeds of Greece brought the mildly unorthodox

Socrates to his death. Rome was comparatively tolerant of alien religions

for political convenience, but there were laws against foreign rites in

Rome; the prætor Hispalus was banished for worshipping Jupiter Sabasius,

and the temples of Isis and Serapis were thrown down after they had been

erected in the city. Augustus and Tiberius proscribed Egyptian and Jewish

worship in Rome, the latter sending four thousand Jews to Sardinia.

The hideous sufferings of the early Christians and the martyrdoms they

underwent in the arenas are well known.

When at length the victims became the victors and the emperor Constantine

was persuaded to Christianity, the same intolerant zeal from which the

Christians had suffered now turned the tables on the pagans. At this time

the Christians had not developed an idolatry of their own such as later

brought on the terrors of the war of the image-breakers, so they heaped

contempt upon the objects of worship revered by the pagans. The Jews

were as usual the first and the worst sufferers. Then, again, as usual,

the bitterest of all punishments were spent upon those who differed only

slightly in doctrine. Constantine tried confiscation and exile on the

Donatists, in 316 A.D.; he branded Arius as an infamous outlaw and had

his writings burned.[a]

All the laws of Constantine were subsequently renewed by his successors,

and applied with more or less rigour to the different heretical sects. By

an edict published in January, 381 A.D., Theodosius the Great deprives

heretics of all their churches, and annuls all edicts to the contrary

into which preceding emperors had been surprised. In this edict he

condemns by name the Photinians, Arians, and Eunomians; he recommends

the Nicene Creed, and prohibits all assemblies of heretics within the

walls of cities; adding, moreover, that if they attempted to cause any

disturbance, they should be even banished from the cities.

In the same year he published a much more severe law against the

Manichæans; he declared them infamous; deprived them totally of the

power of making a will, or even of succeeding to their paternal or

maternal property; and ordered all such property to be confiscated,

except in the case of children, who were qualified, if they embraced

a more holy religion, to inherit their father’s or mother’s property.

Another law of Theodosius treats still more rigorously those Manichæans

who disguised themselves under the names of Encratites, Saccophori, and

Hydroparastates; he subjected them to capital punishment. To insure the

execution of this law the emperor orders the prefect of the prætorium to

appoint inquisitors, charged to discover heretics and to inform against

them.

This is the first time that the name of an inquisitor against heretics

occurs; but the Inquisition itself was of older standing, for we have

already seen Constantine institute one precisely similar against the

Arians and the other heretics of his time. These severe measures were

provoked by the abominable doctrine of the Manichæans, which had drawn

down on them, from the very origin of their sect, the severity of even

the pagan emperors.[c]

When the Arians secured an emperor of their creed they enforced on the

Athanasians a heavy usury of exile, punishment, torture, and even death,

till the emperor Julian was driven to exclaim, according to Ammianus,[h]

“Even beasts are not so cruel to men as the generality of Christians to

each other.”

This work is not the place for an account of all the heresies that have

complicated Christianity without cessation. The great feud of iconoclasm

has already been described and the major disagreements between the Greek

and Roman churches have been recounted in the history of the papacy,

where it was also shown how the growth of papal supremacy brought about a

constant duel with the kings and the emperor.[a]

Whilst the hierarchy, unmindful of its spiritual calling, was entangling

itself in ceaseless warfare, in order to bring all secular power

under its sway; whilst the system of ecclesiastical doctrines, with

its progressive development, was enclosing the reason with bonds ever

narrowing; whilst the means of salvation held out by the church were

at the same time ever more and more losing their spiritual character

and their moral power, by the one-sided speculations of the schoolmen,

and also sinking to a lifeless mechanism in their administration by a

coarse priesthood which had lost all respect for morality; lastly, while

this tortuous church system, despairing of any spiritual influence,

was endeavouring to win consideration for itself by continual acts of

external aggression; it could not but be that the rebellious against the

church, who in earlier times came forward but one by one, should now be

growing more numerous and more powerful.

The earlier divisions in the church employed themselves for the most

part only in speculations of the understanding; and even for this very

reason the church always succeeded, as soon as she could adopt strong

measures, in bringing back the recusants, for the interest taken in a

moral conception of nearly equivalent meaning seldom remained for many

generations unconquered by persecution. But there lay at the root of the

opposition to the church, which now began to feel its way forward, a

living moral interest, which felt itself injured by the whole condition

of the church; and even for this very reason this opposition was rather

strengthened than weakened by the bloodshed resorted to as a means to

destroy it. It stood always unconquered, although the opposing parties

differed widely from each other in the peculiarities of their systems,

and modified them in many ways.

THE CATHARI

At the same time that two frantic enthusiasts, Tanchelm, who wandered

about from 1115 to 1124 in the Netherlands, and Eudes de Stella or

Eon, who roved till 1148 in Brittany, perplexed the minds of men, two

ecclesiastics in southern France, the priest, Pierre de Bruis or Bruys

(from 1104-1124, Petrobrusiani) and Henry, formerly a monk of Cluny and

deacon (from 1116-1148, Henriciani), declaimed zealously against the

mechanical organisation of the church and the immorality of the clergy.

But besides these, the Manichæans who trace their origin to the period of

time before this were continually on the increase. The most common names

for them now, were in Germany _Cathari_ or _Ketzer_, in Italy _Paterini_,

in France _Publicani_, though many other names were in use; not only

did they make their appearance permanently in most distant quarters of

France, but they also planted themselves in the neighbouring countries.

The Cathari reached England in the year 1159; they were, however, quickly

exterminated.

But the headquarters of the Cathari were those countries in which at that

time, along with civic freedom, civilisation, and education, discontent

at the wanton and avaricious clergy had grown up in a remarkable manner;

such were southern France and northern Italy. In southern France, where

Toulouse was their central point, the interest awakened by Pierre de

Bruis and Henry worked for their advantage. The synodal decrees issued

against them remained without effect, for almost all the barons of

this country protected them, and so their numbers here received a very

considerable increase. The bishops of the district vainly endeavoured in

the council at Lombers (1165) to bring back these _bonos homines_, as

they were here usually called, to the church; little more effect was

produced by the cardinal-legate Peter of St. Chrysogonus in Toulouse

(1178), and the severe decree of Alexander III, in the Third Lateran

Council (1179). Against Roger II, viscount of Béziers, Carcassone, Albi,

and Rasez, who protected the Cathari, the cardinal-legate Henry, abbot

of Clairvaux, already headed a crusading army (in 1181), but he could

produce no lasting effect. [See the history of the Crusades.] In the

beginning of the thirteenth century the greater part of the daughters of

the nobility were brought up in the educational establishments of the

Perfectæ, who lived together in monastic style.

[Illustration: TESTING THE BOOK OF THE TRUE GOSPEL BY FIRE. THE BOOK IS

REMOVED, UNSCORCHED, FROM THE FLAMES

(From a sixteenth century cut in the Louvre)]

THE WALDENSES

From the scriptural and reforming turn of mind which had been spread

by means of Pierre de Bruis and Henry, along with the sect of the

Cathari, in southern France, there arose from the year 1170 the party of

the Waldenses [or Vaudois]:[188] free from all speculative enthusiasm

they consecrated all their energies to realise once again apostolic

Christendom, with all its simplicity and all its inward devotion. About

that year began the founder of the sect, Peter Waldo or Waldensis from

Lyons, with several companions, to preach the Gospel in the manner of

the apostles. At first they had so little intention of separating from

the church that, when the archbishop of Lyons forbade them to preach,

they petitioned the pope Alexander III in 1179 for his permission. But

when Lucius III (in 1184) pronounced sentence of excommunication against

them, then they thought they must obey God rather than man, and withdrew

from a church which cursed that which seemed to them a call from heaven.

At first the only question at issue between them and the Roman church

was on the exclusive right of the clergy to preach; and they spread

themselves more easily in those countries where the deficiency of the

church was exposed plainly enough for the conviction of all, but where

many still felt themselves not less repulsed by the Catharism, which was

set up in opposition; for instance in France, particularly the southern

parts, down as far as Aragon, and in northern Italy, particularly in

Milan. And in every place where they came fresh zeal went forth from them

among the people, to learn to understand Holy Scripture for themselves.

The earlier measures taken against the heretics in southern France had

caused so little hindrance to their extension that they constituted the

dominant party at the end of the twelfth century in many parts of this

country. For this reason Innocent III, immediately after his accession

to the see in 1198, was induced to send legates thither armed with the

most unlimited powers for the suppression of heretics. After they had

produced, by forcible measures, effects more apparent than real, Diego,

bishop of Osma, with Dominic, the subprior of his cathedral, persuaded

them in the year 1206 to adopt a more apostolic way of proceeding. Now

the two legates, the Cistercians Peter of Castelnau and Raoul, with these

two Spaniards, wandered barefoot from place to place and held conferences

with the heretics on the disputed points (1206 and 1207). When however

all this continued without effect, they returned again to the old method

with tenfold cruelty.

CRUSADE AGAINST THE ALBIGENSES

Raymond VI. count of Toulouse, though outwardly a Catholic, had fallen

out with the ambitious legate Peter of Castelnau. So when the latter

in 1208 was murdered by an unknown hand, the monks threw the blame on

the count; and Innocent III seized this opportunity to have a crusade

preached against him by Arnold, abbot of Citeaux; for which national

jealousy and the allurements of the delicious south procured great

popularity in northern France. In order to avert the threatening danger,

Raymond sought for reconciliation. Innocent granted this with a view to

weaken the resistance of the victims by division. When, in June, 1209,

the count submitted to the most humiliating conditions which Milo the

papal legate prescribed to him, and even took the cross himself from his

hands, he only effected the delay of the blow destined for himself, that

it might strike with so much the greater certainty.

The crusading army assembled against the Albigenses, with the frantic

Arnold[189] as papal legate at its head, first marched upon the domain

of Raymond Roger, viscount of Béziers (1209). After the fall of Béziers

and Carcassonne, the devastated land was conquered. But among the noble

crusaders only Simon de Montfort was willing to receive the spoil from

the legate. Next they turned against Raymond of Toulouse, who had been

spared till now. Extravagant demands, which he could not satisfy, formed

the pretext for excommunicating and attacking him (1211). The pope

himself was no longer able to check his own instruments; the crusade was

preached with fresh ardour; the territory of the count was conquered

by Simon de Montfort, and formally adjudged to him by a council at

Montpellier in 1215 for his own possession.

Innocent III did not only confirm this grant at the great Lateran Council

in this same year, but also held up the principle of the method of

procedure hitherto adopted against these countries, as a precedent in

similar cases. Then at length Raymond sought for help in the attachment

of his former subjects, and after Simon’s death (1218) he made a

considerable advance in the reconquest of his country, although the pope,

without ceasing, used every means of resistance. When, after the death

of Raymond VI (1222), Raymond VII regained his whole ancestral heritage,

and had even forced his enemy Amaury, son of Simon, to a complete

surrender, then Honorius III, elsewhere so mild, still thought it due

to the papal honour to hate the father in the son, however guiltless.

He stirred up Louis VIII, king of France, to conquer Toulouse for

himself in a new crusade. Hostilities began on the 6th of June, 1226,

but they were greatly crippled by the death of Louis VIII on the 18th

of November of the same year; at length Raymond obtained peace on the

hardest conditions, by which a part of his domain passed into the power

of France, and the annexation of the rest to this kingdom was furthered.

THE INQUISITION ESTABLISHED

The unhappiness of this country was accomplished by the horrors of

the Inquisition which now rose up.[190] In order to perpetuate the

work of blood begun by the papal legate in a permanent institution,

the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 made it the chief business of the

episcopal synodal tribunals to search out and punish heretics; and the

Council of Toulouse (1229) achieved the organisation of this episcopal

Inquisition. However, soon after it was in fact almost annihilated; for

in 1232 and 1233 Gregory IX appointed the Dominicans to be the standing

papal inquisitors, and forthwith they began their hideous work in the

countries tainted with heresy. In order that the church may not seem

to soil herself with blood, the secular princes must serve the office

as executioner. Louis IX in 1228, Frederick II in 1232, the ill-fated

Raymond VII in 1233, each passed the requisite laws.

That the new Inquisition might strike more of the guilty, a way of

proceeding was prescribed for it, to which of necessity many of the

guiltless must fall victims. Thus armed, this monster raged with most

frightful fury in southern France, where the heretics had only learned

from former events to keep themselves more secret. Germany for a short

space of time (1231-1233) was taught to know the Inquisition in its

maddest rage in Conrad of Marburg, and in the Dominican monk Conrad Dorso

who came to Strasburg; and at the same time acquired the most fearful

experience of the abuse of the new laws against heretics in the crusade

on the Stedinger, the lovers of freedom, in 1234. But by these events

so universal a resistance against every Inquisition was aroused, that

Germany for a long time after remained free from this monster.

In the twelfth century the executions of heretics were for the most

part the handiwork of the irritated populace, and even found much

opposition among the clergy. However, the theory of religion, which in

the thirteenth century was especially flexible, in this case also adapted

itself to the practice of the church by the vindication of the new laws

against heresy.

Another no less evil result of this period, so fraught with outrage,

was that the laity were entirely forbidden Holy Scripture, so that the

possession of a translation of the Bible was forthwith accounted a token

of heresy, and only translations prepared for the purpose of supporting

the Romish church were tolerated.

The regulations which were adopted against the heretics, and the cruel

manner in which their so-called conversion was pursued, could only

produce exactly the contrary effect to that they had in view upon their

convictions. This, however, they did accomplish, that the persecuted

persons, filled with exaggerated hatred and horror of the church, spread

themselves with the greatest secrecy over other countries also. Thus

in the thirteenth century public feeling was roused ever more and more

against Rome, against the clergy, and against the abuses of the church,

and from time to time there rose a stirring sense of the necessity of

a reformation to counteract them. On comparison of the morals of the

clergy with those of the heretics, the advantage is decidedly in favour

of the latter; so it cannot seem strange if in the thirteenth century we

find the earlier parties more widely spread than before, and fresh sects

springing up alongside of them. Yet the number of new names of heretics

in this period is far greater than that of new parties.

[Illustration: COSTUME OF A PERSON CONDEMNED TO BE BURNED, BUT WHO

CONFESSED BEFORE HIS CONDEMNATION

(From _Historia Inquisitionis, 1592_)]

The Cathari, or as they are now more commonly called the Albigenses

or Bulgarians, did not only maintain their ground in southern France,

but increased in number chiefly in upper Italy, where the political

distraction of the country was advantageous to them, and where Milan

continued to be their principal abode. But they spread themselves also

into the rest of Italy as far as Spain, and throughout Germany; they were

very numerous in Bosnia and the adjoining countries, often the prevailing

party, and they maintained in all lands a close connection with each

other.

When the persecutions began, the Waldenses were standing so near the

Catholic church that a reconciliation seemed to be by no means difficult.

But the horrors of the persecution had no further effect on the Waldenses

than to confirm them more and more in their anti-hierarchical system,

and to place their doctrine and ecclesiastical constitution on a more

independent footing. The more plainly their departure from church

teaching could vindicate itself as a purification of the church, the

more easy acceptation they found with the thoughtful of their time. As

early as in the thirteenth century they showed themselves in the valleys

of Piedmont, in which they have maintained themselves until now. Still,

not only did they spread in other countries, as for instance as far as

Germany, but also put in circulation among numbers, who did not come

over to their society, ideas unfavourable to the prevailing faith of the

church.

Besides the old sects, new ones were engendered in the thirteenth

century. The pantheistic system introduced by Amalric of Bène, after

the persecution it underwent in Paris in the year 1210, only spread

more widely than before. In the course of the thirteenth century its

disciples might be found in different places; at the end of this century

they were already so numerous among the Beghards on the Rhine that the

people understood them only to be meant by the name of Beghards, although

they called themselves brothers and sisters of the Free Spirit. In the

beginning of the fourteenth century they made their appearance also in

Italy.

Other sects pass quickly in review before us. As the universal discontent

of the advancing tyranny of the hierarchy aroused isolated resistances

in England and in France, so the ill usage of the Hohenstaufen family

gave rise to a sect in Halle in Swabia (about 1248), which declared

the hierarchy to be abolished in consequence of its moral corruption

of the entire purpose of the church. After the extermination of the

Hohenstaufen family the detestation caused by this deed of the hierarchy

was maintained for centuries by the expectation that one time an emperor

Frederick would wreak vengeance in blood on the papacy. This expectation

also found place among the manifold superstitions, chiefly borrowed from

the Fratricelli, with which the apostolic brothers from 1260 to 1307

disquieted the north of Italy.[d]

The statutes of the Council of Toulouse (1229), framed after the

successful termination of the war against the Albigenses, in order to

absolutely extirpate every lingering vestige of heresy, form the code of

persecution, which not merely aimed at suppressing all public teaching

but the more secluded and secret freedom of thought. It was a system

which penetrated into the most intimate sanctuary of domestic life; and

made delation not merely a merit and a duty, but an obligation also,

enforced by tremendous penalties.

The archbishops, bishops, and exempt abbots were to appoint in every

parish one priest, and three or more lay inquisitors, to search all

houses and buildings, in order to detect heretics, and to denounce them

to the archbishop or bishop, the lord, or his bailiff, so as to insure

their apprehension. The lords were to make the same inquisition in every

part of their estates. Whoever was convicted of harbouring a heretic

forfeited the land to his lord, and was reduced to personal slavery. If

he was guilty of such concealment from negligence, not from intention,

he received proportionate punishment. Every house in which a heretic was

found was to be razed to the ground, the farm confiscated. The bailiff

who should not be active in detecting heretics was to lose his office,

and be incapacitated from holding it in future. Heretics, however, were

not to be judged but by the bishop or some ecclesiastical person.

Anyone might seize a heretic on the lands of another. Heretics who

recanted were to be removed from their homes, and settled in Catholic

cities; to wear two crosses of a different colour from their dress, one

on the right side, one on the left. They were incapable of any public

function unless reconciled by the pope or by his legate. Those who

recanted from fear of death were to be immured forever. All persons,

males of the age of fourteen, females of twelve, were to take an oath of

abjuration of heresy, and of their Catholic faith; if absent, and not

appearing within fifteen days, they were held suspected of heresy. All

persons were to confess, and communicate three times a year, or were in

like manner under suspicion of heresy. No layman was permitted to have

any book of the Old or New Testament, especially in a translation, unless

perhaps the Psalter, with a breviary, or the Hours of the Virgin. No one

suspected of heresy could practise as a physician. Care was to be taken

that no heretic had access to sick or dying persons. All wills were to

be made in the presence of a priest. No office of trust was to be held

by one in evil fame as a heretic. Those were in evil fame who were so

by common report, or so declared by good and grave witnesses before the

bishop.

But statutes of persecution always require new statutes rising above each

other in regular gradations of rigour and cruelty. The legate found the

canons of Toulouse to be eluded or inefficient. He summoned a council

at Melun, attended by the archbishop of Narbonne and other prelates.

The unhappy count of Toulouse was compelled to frame the edicts of this

council into laws for his dominions. The first provision showed that

persecution had wrought despair. It was directed against those who had

murdered, or should murder, or conceal the murderers of persecutors of

heretics. A reward of one mark was set on the head of every heretic, to

be paid by the town, or village, or district to the captor.

It was evident that the heretics had now begun to seek concealment in

cabins, in caves, and rocks, and forests; not merely was every house

in which one should be seized to be razed to the ground, but all

suspected caves or hiding-places were to be blocked up; with a penalty of

twenty-five livres of Toulouse to the lord on whose estate such houses

or places of concealment of evil report should be found. Those who did

not assist in the capture of heretics were liable to punishment. If any

one was detected after death to have been a heretic, his property was

confiscated. Those who had made over their estates in trust, before they

became heretics, nevertheless forfeited such estates. Those who attempted

to elude the law by moving about, under pretence of trade or pilgrimage,

were ordered to render an account of their absence. A council at

Béziers (1233) enforced upon the clergy, under pain of suspension or of

deprivation, the denunciation of all who should not attend divine service

in their churches on the appointed days, especially those suspected of

heresy.[g]

METHOD OF PROCEDURE WITH A SUSPECT

The method of proceeding in the courts of the Inquisition was at first

simple, and not materially different from that in the ordinary courts.

But gradually the Dominicans, guided by experience, rendered it far

more complex; and so shaped their proceedings that the mode of trying

heretical causes (if the phrase be allowable) became altogether different

from that usually practised in judicial proceedings. For these good

friars, being wholly unskilled in forensic affairs, and acquainted with

no other tribunal than that which in the Romish church is called the

penitentiary tribunal, regulated these new courts of the Inquisition, as

far as possible, according to the plan of those religious proceedings.

And hence arose that strange system of jurisprudence, bearing in many

respects the most striking features of injustice and wrong. Whoever duly

considers this history of their origin will be able to account for many

things that seem unsuitable, absurd, and contrary to justice, in the mode

of proceeding against offenders in the courts of the Inquisition.[e]

When the Inquisition discovered a transgressor of their laws, either by

common report, or by their spies, or by an informer, he was cited three

times to appear before them; and if he did not appear, he was forthwith

condemned. It was safest to appear on the first citation; because the

longer a man delayed the more guilty he would be; and the Inquisition

had their spies, and a thousand concealed ways for getting an absconding

heretic in their power.

When a supposed heretic was once in the hands of the Inquisition, no one

dared to inquire after him, or write to him, or intercede for him. When

everything belonging to the person seized was in their hands, then the

process began; and it was protracted in the most tedious manner.

[Illustration: COSTUME OF A CONDEMNED PERSON WHO CONFESSED, AFTER

CONVICTION

(From _Historia Inquisitionis, 1592_)]

After many days, or perhaps months, which the accused dragged out in

a loathsome dungeon, the keeper of the prison asked him, as it were

accidentally, if he wished to have a hearing. When he appeared before

his judges, they inquired, just as if they knew nothing about him, who

he was, and what he wanted. If he wished to be informed what offence he

had committed, he was admonished to confess his faults himself. If he

confessed nothing, time was given him for reflection, and he was remanded

to prison. If, after a long time allowed him, he still confessed nothing,

he must swear to answer truly to all the questions put to him. If he

would not swear, he was condemned without further process. If he swore

to give answer, he was questioned in regard to his whole life, without

making known to him his offence. He was, however, promised a pardon if he

would truly confess his offences; an artifice this, by which his judges

often learned more than they knew before against him.

At last the charges against him were presented to him in writing, and

counsel also was assigned him, who, however, only advised him to confess

fully his faults. The accuser and informer against him were not made

known to him, but the real charges against him were put into his hands.

He was allowed time for his defence; but his accuser, and the witnesses

against him, he could know only by conjecture. Sometimes he was so

fortunate as to discover who they were; but rarely were they presented

before him, and confronted with him.

If his answers did not satisfy the judges, or if the allegations against

him were not adequately proved, resort was had to torture. Each of these

tortures was continued as long as, in the judgment of the physician of

the Inquisition, the man was able to endure them. He might now confess

what he would, but still the torture would be repeated, first to discover

the object and motives of the acknowledged offence, and then to make him

expose his accomplices.

If, when tortured, he confessed nothing, many snares were laid to elicit

from him unconsciously his offence. The conclusion was that the accused,

when he seemed to have satisfied the judges, was condemned, according to

the measure of his offence, to death, or to perpetual imprisonment, or to

the galleys, or to be scourged; and he was delivered over to the civil

authorities, who were intreated to spare his life, as the church never

thirsted for blood; but yet they would experience persecution if they did

not carry the decisions of the court into execution.

What an infernal device is the Inquisition! What innocent person could

escape destruction, if an inquisitor were disposed to destroy him? A

heretic, even if he had been acquitted by the pope himself, might still

be condemned to die by the Inquisition. An equivocal promise of pardon

might be given to induce him to make confession, but the promise must

not be fulfilled when the object of it was obtained. Even death did not

free a person from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition; for a deceased

heretic must be burned in effigy. Would not every feeling of humanity be

outraged by following such horrid principles? The inquisitorial judges

did not deny that by such proceedings many innocent persons unavoidably

perished, along with the guilty; but this did not trouble them. “Better,”

they said, “that a hundred innocent persons should be cut off and go to

paradise, than let one heretic escape, who might poison many souls and

plunge them into endless perdition.”[f]

JOHN FOXE ON THE EVILS OF THE INQUISITION

“The abuse of this Inquisition is most execrable. If any word shall pass

out of the mouth of any, which may be taken in evil part; yea, though

no word be spoken, yet if they bear any grudge or evil will against the

party, incontinent they command him to be taken, and put in a horrible

prison, and then find out crimes against him at leisure, and in the

meantime no man living is so hardy as once to open his mouth for him. If

the father speak one word for his child, he is also taken and cast into

prison as a favourer of heretics; neither is it permitted to any person

to enter in to the prisoner; but there he is alone, in a place where he

cannot see so much as the ground where he is, and is not suffered either

to read or write, but there endureth in darkness palpable, in horrors

infinite, in fear miserable, wrestling with the assaults of death.

“By this it may be esteemed what trouble and sorrow, what pensive sighs

and cogitations they sustain, who are not thoroughly instructed in holy

doctrine. Add, moreover, to these distresses and horrors of the prison,

the injuries, threats, whippings, and scourgings, irons, tortures, and

racks which they endure. Sometimes also they are brought out, and showed

forth in some higher place to the people, as a spectacle of rebuke and

infamy. And thus are they detained there, some many years, and murdered

by long torments, and whole days together treated much more cruelly,

out of all comparison, than if they were in the hangman’s hands to be

slain at once. During all this time, what is done in the process no

person knoweth, but only the holy fathers and the tormentors, who are

sworn to execute the torments. All this is done in secret, and (as

great mysteries) pass not the hands of these holy ones. And after all

these torments so many years endured in the prison, if any man shall

be saved, it must be by guessing; for all the proceedings of the court

of that execrable Inquisition are open to no man, but all is done in

hugger-mugger and in close corners, by ambages, by covert ways, and

secret counsels. The accuser is secret, the crime secret, the witness

secret, whatsoever is done is secret, neither is the poor prisoner ever

advised of anything. If he can guess who accused him, whereof and

wherefore, he may be pardoned peradventure of his life; but this is

very seldom, and yet he shall not incontinent be set at liberty before

he hath long time endured infinite torments; and this is called their

“penitence,” and so is he let go; and yet not so but that he is enjoined,

before he pass the inquisitor’s hands, that he shall wear a garment of

yellow colours for a note of public infamy to him and his whole race.

And if he cannot guess right, showing to the inquisitors by whom he was

accused, whereof, and wherefore (as is before touched), incontinent

the horrible sentence of condemnation is pronounced against him, that

he shall be burned for an obstinate heretic. And yet the sentence is

not executed by and by, but after he hath endured imprisonment in some

heinous prison.”[j]

HOW A PENITENT WAS TREATED

[Illustration: COSTUME OF A CONDEMNED PERSON WHO HAD NOT CONFESSED

(From _Historia Inquisitionis, 1592_)]

It was a peculiar horror of the Inquisition that while almost anyone

might be haled before it, even on an anonymous complaint, hardly anyone

ever escaped certain penalties. If the fate of the wretch was heavy,

who, being innocent of heresy would not confess his guilt and therefore

was tortured until he confessed imaginary guilt, and was then burned to

death, hardly less was the misery of the victim who repented or recanted

and was freed from the death penalty. The penalty for recantation can

hardly be more plainly stated than an actual order quoted by Llorente,[k]

giving the punishment awarded by St. Dominic himself to a repentant

heretic even before the actual organisation of the Inquisition.[a]

“To all faithful Christians to whom these presents may come. Friar

Dominic, canon of Osma, the least of the preachers, greeting in Christ.

By the authority of the lord abbot of Cister (Citeaux), legate of the

apostolic see (whose power we exercise) we have reconciled the bearer of

these presents, Poncio Roger, converted from the sect of the heretics by

the grace of God; and we have enjoined him in virtue of the sworn promise

which he has made to comply with our precepts that on three Sunday

festivals he be led, stripped, by a priest, who shall scourge him from

the gates of the city to those of the church.

“We further lay upon him, by way of penance, that he abstain from eating

flesh meat, eggs, cheese, and other foods derived from animals, forever.

Save only on the day of the resurrection, of Pentecost, and of the Lord’s

nativity, on which days we command him to partake thereof as a mark of

his detestation of his former error. He shall observe four Lents in the

year, abstaining from fish, and shall forever fast and abstain from fish,

oil, and wine three days in the week, save only when physical infirmities

or the labours of his station require a dispensation. He shall wear

religious garments both in shape and colour, with two small crosses sewn

on each side of his breast. He shall hear mass every day when occasion

serves, and on feast days he shall assist at vespers in the church. Every

day he shall recite the Hours for the day and night, and shall repeat

the prayer ‘Our Father’ seven times during the day, ten times in the

night, and twenty times at midnight. He shall observe chastity, and shall

present this letter one day, in the morning, every month, in the town of

Cereri to his parish priest, whom we enjoin to watch over the conduct

of Poncio, who shall faithfully observe all that is here expressed

until the lord legate shall manifest his will. And should Poncio fail

in his observance we command that he be held perjured, heretic, and

excommunicated, and be separated from the company of the faithful.”[k]

THE HISTORY OF TORTURE

If the above document gives a foreshadowing of the rigours of the

Inquisition towards those whose only error was a temporary wavering of

opinion, what can be expected as the fate of those who persisted in their

error, or denied it in spite of witnesses?--surely some distinguished

form of punishment. Death was not enough, for thus the heretic instantly

escaped the clutches of the disciplinarians. Torture was the resource.

Before taking up this blackest subject on the page of human history, it

is desirable to trace briefly its evolution, for torture was by no means

the invention or monopoly of the Inquisition, though it has come to be

thought so in the popular mind.

It is only justice to the church and to the zealots of that time to

emphasise the fact that when the inquisitors sought a tool for special

punishment, they found it ready at hand, made familiar and natural by the

civil law of the day. Furthermore torture was a venerable institution.

The Greeks used torture for cross-examining slaves and at times

nonresidents and even free citizens; the Romans under the republic

practised it on slaves, and under the empire on citizens; the man accused

of treason was always liable to it, as well as those whose testimony was

open to the charge of confusion or inconsistency. Even in Cicero’s time

there was a grim machinery for the purpose. Torture in England though not

legal was practised, as it was on the continent, and in Scotland where

it had the best civil sanction. Even in the United States there is one

instance of torture, but that was during the Salem witchcraft insanity,

though, like the inquisitorial processes, it was conducted by the church

and civil government, and like so many of the inquisitorial punishments

was due to an accusation of sorcery. The belief in witchcraft, now

obsolete among even the common people, was once supported by a papal bull

and by Sprenger’s[l] tremendous work, called _The Hammer of Witches_,

which Henry C. Lea[n] calls “the most portentous monument of superstition

which the world has produced.”

The civil powers had then used torture from time immemorial. The people

were as used to it in that day as we of to-day are to certain torments

of animals cooked alive or otherwise worried to death. The crime of

treason was specifically devoted to torture. As heresy was in the days

of temporal church power distinctly a crime of treason, the secular

authorities were ordered to punish it. In fact the church took the stand

that it was simply hunting for justice, and when it found the accused

innocent, it technically “intervened” in his behalf and “stayed the arm

of the law.”[191]

But while using these facts to prevent us from thinking of the

inquisitors as men of diabolical invention unlike their kind or their

time in manner of thought or action, and while giving these facts their

due weight in palliation of the personal offences of the inquisitors

against fundamental principles of justice and mercy, we must not forget

that, though the church took the idea of torture from the civil law and

compelled the civil officials to administer it, yet the church enlarged

the methods of torment and the causes for its use; the church forced upon

the law and upon the monarchs many extremes of cruelty to which they were

reluctant and against which they often mutinied.

And finally, seeing that the best men of the time were supposed to enter

the church, and that the church appointed as inquisitors only its most

exemplary members,[192] the defence of the Inquisition by some of its

apologists on the ground of its origin in the customs of the period,

really amounts to the astounding implication that the best men of the

church were only a little worse than the average of their time.

It is stupefying to reflect on the character of the torments which crowds

of people once watched for hours with joy, and which the supposedly best

and gentlest spirits, the church fathers, inflicted day after day with

all the fascination of ingenuity put to its utmost test. Such torments we

of to-day can neither approve nor permit, and can hardly read of without

nausea. None the less, lest we forget the horrors to which the doctrine

of religious intolerance can drive mankind, and lest we lose the lesson

of all history that no excess of punishment ever yet stopped the human

hunger for liberty of thought and action, it will be well to place here a

few of the more authentic instances of inquisitorial outrage.

We may well begin with the description from contemporaries, such as

the history of Gonsalvius Montanus[o] or Gonzalez de Montés, a Spanish

Protestant, who narrowly escaped death, whose friend was martyred, and

who published a book on the Inquisition at Heidelberg in 1597. He is

quoted with others in the history of Limborch,[b] which was published in

1692, and based almost solely on the church’s own accounts.[a]

_A Contemporary Account of the Preliminaries to Torture_

The place of torture in the Spanish Inquisition is generally an

underground and very dark room, to which one enters through several

doors. There is a tribunal erected in it, where the inquisitor,

inspector, and secretary sit. When the candles are lighted, and the

person to be tortured is brought in, the executioner, who was waiting for

the other, makes an astonishing and dreadful appearance. He is covered

all over with a black linen garment down to his feet, and tied close to

his body. His head and face are all hid with a long black cowl, only

two little holes being left in it for him to see through. All this is

intended to strike the miserable wretch with greater terror in mind and

body, when he sees himself going to be tortured by the hands of one who

thus looks like the very devil.[o]

Whilst the officers are getting things ready for the torture, the bishop

and inquisitor by themselves, and other good men zealous for the faith,

endeavour to persuade the person to be tortured freely to confess the

truth, and if he will not, they order the officers to strip him, who do

it in an instant. Clergymen however must not be tortured by a lay officer

or torturer unless they cannot find any clergymen who know how to do it,

or are willing, because it would be in vain for the judges to order any

clergyman or monk to the torture, if there was nobody to inflict it; and

therefore in such a case it is usual to torture them by lay officers.

Whilst the person to be tortured is stripping, he is persuaded to confess

the truth. If he refuses it, he is taken aside by certain good men, and

urged to confess, and told by them that if he confesses, he will not

be put to death, but only be made to swear that he will not return to

the heresy he hath abjured. The inquisitor and bishop promise the same,

unless the person be a relapse.

If he is persuaded neither by threatenings nor promises to confess his

crime, he is tortured either more lightly or grievously, according as

his crime requires, and frequently interrogated during the torture, upon

those articles for which he is put to it, beginning with the lesser

ones, because they think he will sooner confess the lesser matters

than the greater. According to the directions of Royas,[u] one of the

Spanish inquisitors: “The criminals are with great care and diligence

to be admonished by the inquisitors, and especially when they are under

torture, that they should not by any means bear false witness against

themselves or others, through fear of punishment or torments, but speak

the truth only. Nor may the inquisitors promise pardon or forgiveness of

the offence, to compel the criminals to confess crimes which they have

not committed, out of their great zeal to inquire out the truth. And such

a false confession the accused person may safely revoke.”

The inquisitors themselves must interrogate the criminals during their

torture, nor can they commit this business to others, unless they are

engaged in other important affairs, in which case they may depute certain

good and skilful men for the purpose. Although in other nations criminals

are publicly tortured, yet in Spain it is forbidden by the royal law

for any to be present whilst they are torturing, besides the judges,

secretaries, and torturers. The inquisitors must also choose proper

torturers, born of ancient Christians, who must be bound by oath by no

means to discover their secrets, nor to report anything that is said.

The judges also usually protest that if the criminal should happen to

die under his torture, or by reason of it, or should suffer the loss of

any of his limbs, it is not to be imputed to them, but to the criminal

himself, who will not plainly confess the truth before he is tortured. A

heretic may not only be interrogated concerning himself, but in general

also concerning his companions and accomplices in his crime, his teachers

and his disciples, for he ought to discover them, though he be not

interrogated; but when he is interrogated concerning them, he is much

more obliged to discover them than his accomplices in any other the most

grievous crimes.

A person also suspected of heresy, and fully convicted, may be tortured

upon another account, _i.e._, to discover his companions and accomplices

in the crime. This must be done when he hesitates, or it is half fully

proved at least that he was actually present with them, or he hath

such companions and accomplices in his crime; for in this case he is

not tortured as a criminal, but as a witness. But he who makes full

confession of himself is not tortured upon a different account; whereas

if he be a negative, he may be tortured upon another account, to discover

his accomplices and other heretics, though he be full convicted himself,

and it be half fully proved that he hath such accomplices. The reason of

the difference in these cases is this, because he who confesses against

himself would certainly much rather confess against other heretics if he

knew them. But it is otherwise when the criminal is a negative.

Whilst these things are doing, the notary writes everything down in the

process, as what tortures were inflicted, concerning what matters the

prisoner was interrogated, and what he answered. If by these tortures

they cannot draw from him a confession, they show him other kind of

tortures and tell him he must undergo all of them, unless he confesses

the truth. If neither by this means they can extort the truth, they may,

to terrify him and engage him to confess, assign the second or third day

to continue, not to repeat, the torture, till he hath undergone all those

kinds of them to which he is condemned.

The degrees of tortures formerly used were five, which were inflicted in

their turn, and are described by Julius Clarus[v] [member of the council

to Philip II of Spain]. “Know therefore,” says he, “that there are five

degrees of torture, viz., first, the being threatened to be tortured;

secondly, being carried to the place of torture; thirdly, by stripping

and binding; fourthly, the being hoisted upon the rack; fifthly,

squassation.”

The stripping is performed without any regard to humanity or honour,

not only to men, but to women and virgins, though the most virtuous and

chaste, of whom they have sometimes many in their prison. For they cause

them to be stripped, even to their very shifts, which they afterwards

take off, forgive the expression, and then put on them straight linen

drawers, and then make their arms naked quite up to their shoulders.

As to squassation, it is thus performed: the prisoner hath his hands

bound behind his back, and weights tied to his feet, and then he is drawn

up on high till his head reaches the very pulley. He is kept hanging in

this manner for some time, that by the greatness of the weight hanging

at his feet all his joints and limbs may be dreadfully stretched, and

on a sudden he is let down with a jerk, by the slacking the rope, but

kept from coming quite to the ground, by which terrible shake his arms

and legs are all disjointed, whereby he is put to the most exquisite

pain; the shock which he receives by the sudden stop of the fall, and

the weight at his feet stretching his whole body more intensely and

cruelly.[b]

The inquisitors sometimes shamefully and rashly proceed to the torture

of innocent persons, as will evidently appear by one instance, not

to mention more, given us by Gonsalvius.[o] “They apprehended in the

Inquisition at Seville a noble lady, Joan Bohorquia, the wife of Francis

Varquius, a very eminent man, and lord of Higuera, and daughter of Peter

Garsia Xeresius, a wealthy citizen of Seville. The occasion of her

imprisonment was that her sister, Mary Bohorquia, a young lady of eminent

piety, who was afterwards burned for her pious confession, had declared

in her torture that she had several times conversed with her sister

concerning her own doctrine. When she was first imprisoned, she was about

six months gone with child, upon which account she was not so straightly

confined, nor used with that cruelty which the other prisoners were

treated with, out of regard to the infant she carried in her.

“Eight days after her delivery, they took the child from her, and on the

fifteenth shut her close up, and made her undergo the fate of the other

prisoners, and began to manage her with their usual arts and rigour.

In so dreadful a calamity she had only this comfort, that a certain

pious young woman, who was afterwards burned for her religion by the

inquisitors, was allowed her for her companion. This young creature was,

on a certain day, carried out to her torture, and being returned from

it into her jail, she was so shaken, and had all her limbs so miserably

disjointed, that when she laid upon her bed of rushes it rather increased

her misery than gave her rest, so that she could not turn herself

without the most excessive pain. In this condition, as Bohorquia had it

not in her power to show her any, or but very little outward kindness,

she endeavoured to comfort her mind with great tenderness. The girl had

scarce begun to recover from her torture, when Bohorquia was carried out

to the same exercise, and was tortured with such diabolical cruelty upon

the rack, that the rope pierced and cut into the very bones in several

places, and in this manner she was brought back to prison, just ready to

expire, the blood immediately running out of her mouth in great plenty.

Undoubtedly they had burst her bowels, insomuch that the eighth day after

her torture she died.

“And when, after all, they could not procure sufficient evidence to

condemn her, though sought after and procured by all their inquisitorial

arts, yet as the accused person was born in that place, where they

were obliged to give some account of the affair to the people, and

indeed could not by any means dissemble it, in the first act of triumph

appointed her death, they commanded her sentence to be pronounced in

these words: ‘Because this lady died in prison (without doubt suppressing

the causes of it), and was found to be innocent upon inspecting and

diligently examining her cause, therefore the holy tribunal pronounces

her free from all charges brought against her by the fiscal, and

absolving her from any further process, doth restore her both as to her

innocence and reputation, and commands all her effects, which had been

confiscated, to be restored to those to whom they of right belonged,’

etc. And thus, after they had murdered her by torture with savage

cruelty, they pronounced her innocent!”[o]

LIMBORCH’S ACCOUNT OF THE FATE OF A JEW

The method of torturing and the degree of tortures used in the Spanish

Inquisition will be well understood from the history of Isaac Orobio, a

Jew, and doctor of physic, who was accused to the Inquisition as a Jew

by a certain Moor, his servant, who had by his order before this been

whipped for thieving; and four years after this he was again accused by

a certain enemy of his for another fact, which would have proved him a

Jew. But Orobio obstinately denied that he was one. I will here give

the account of his torture, as I had it from his own mouth. After three

whole years which he had been in jail, and several examinations, and the

discovery of the crimes to him of which he was accused, in order to his

confession and his constant denial of them, he was at length carried

out of his jail, and through several turnings brought to the place of

torture. This was towards the evening.

It was a large underground room, arched, and the walls covered with black

hangings. The candlesticks were fastened to the wall, and the whole room

enlightened with candles placed in them. At one end of it there was an

enclosed place like a closet, where the inquisitor and notary sat at a

table, so that the place seemed to him as the very mansion of death,

everything appearing so terrible and awful. Here the inquisitor again

admonished him to confess the truth before his torments began.

When he answered he had told the truth, the inquisitor gravely protested

that, since he was so obstinate as to suffer the torture, the Holy

Office would be innocent, if he should shed his blood, or even expire

in his torments. When he had said this, he put a linen garment over his

body, and drew it so very close on each side, as almost squeezed him to

death. When he was almost dying, they slackened at once the sides of the

garment, and after he began to breathe again, the sudden alteration put

him to the most grievous anguish and pain. When he had overcome this

torture, the same admonition was repeated, that he would confess the

truth in order to prevent further torment.

And as he persisted in his denial, they tied his thumbs so very tightly

with small cords as made the extremities of them greatly swell, and

caused the blood to spurt out from under his nails. After this he was

placed with his back against a wall and fixed upon a little bench. Into

the wall were fastened little iron pulleys, through which there were

ropes drawn, and tied round his body in several places, and especially

his arms and legs. The executioner drawing these ropes with great

violence, fastened his body with them to the wall so that his hands and

feet, and especially his fingers and toes being bound so straightly with

them, put him to the most exquisite pain, and seemed to him just as

though he had been dissolving in flames. In the midst of these torments

the torturer, of a sudden, drew the bench from under him, so that the

miserable wretch hung by the cords without anything to support him, and

by the weight of his body drew the knots yet much closer.

After this a new kind of torture succeeded. There was an instrument

like a small ladder, made of two upright pieces of wood and five cross

ones sharpened before. This the torturer placed over against him, and

by a certain proper motion struck it with great violence against both

his shins, so that he received upon each of them at once five violent

strokes, which put him to such intolerable anguish that he fainted away.

After he came to himself, they inflicted on him the last torture.

The torturer tied ropes about Orobio’s wrists and then put those ropes

about his own back, which was covered with leather, to prevent his

hurting himself. Then falling backwards and putting his feet up against

the wall, he drew them with all his might till they cut through Orobio’s

flesh, even to the very bones; and this torture was repeated thrice,

the ropes being tied about his arms about the distance of two fingers’

breadth from the former wound, and drawn with the same violence.

But it happened that, as the ropes were drawing the second time, they

slid into the first wound, which caused so great an effusion of blood

that he seemed to be dying. Upon this the physician and surgeon, who are

always ready, were sent for out of a neighbouring apartment to ask their

advice whether the torture could be continued without danger of death,

lest the ecclesiastical judges should be guilty of an irregularity if the

criminal should die in his torments.

They, who were far from being enemies to Orobio, answered that he had

strength enough to endure the rest of the torture, and hereby preserved

him from having the tortures he had already endured repeated on him,

because his sentence was that he should suffer them all at one time,

one after another. So that if at any time they are forced to leave off

through fear of death, all the tortures, even those already suffered,

must be successively inflicted to satisfy the sentence. Upon this the

torture was repeated the third time, and then it ended. After this he

was bound up in his own clothes and carried back to his prison, and was

scarce healed of his wounds in seventy days. And, inasmuch as he made no

confession under his torture, he was condemned, not as one convicted,

but suspected of Judaism, to wear for two whole years the infamous habit

called _sambenito_, and it was further decreed that after that term he

should suffer perpetual banishment from the kingdom of Seville.

OTHER FORMS OF TORTURE

Gonsalvius[o] tells us of another kind of torture. There is a wooden

bench, which they call “the wooden horse,” made hollow like a trough, so

as to contain a man lying on his back at full length, about the middle

of which there is a round bar laid across, upon which the back of the

person is placed, so that he lies upon the bar instead of being let into

the bottom of the trough, with his feet much higher than his head. As he

is lying in this posture, his arms, thighs, and shins are tied round with

small cords or strings, which being drawn with screws at proper distance

from each other, cut into the very bones, so as to be no longer discerned.

_The Tormento di Toca_

Besides this, the torturer throws over his mouth and nostrils a thin

cloth, so that he is scarce able to breathe through them, and in the

meanwhile a small stream of water like a thread, not drop by drop,

falls from on high upon the mouth of the person lying in this miserable

condition and so easily sinks down the thin cloth to the bottom of his

throat, so that there is no possibility of breathing, his mouth being

stopped with water and his nostrils with the cloth, so that the poor

wretch is in the same agony as persons ready to die, and breathing out

their last. When this cloth is drawn out of his throat, as it often is,

that he may answer to the questions, it is all wet with water and blood,

and is like pulling his bowels through his mouth.

_The Chafing-dish; The Water-cure_

There is also another kind of torture peculiar to this tribunal, which

they call the fire. They order a large iron chafing-dish full of lighted

charcoal to be brought in and held close to the soles of the tortured

person’s feet, greased over with lard, so that the heat of the fire may

more quickly pierce through them.

This is inquisition by torture, when there is only half full proof of

their crime. However, at other times torments are sometimes inflicted

upon persons condemned to death, as a punishment preceding that of

death. Of this we have a remarkable instance in William Lithgow,[w] an

Englishman, who, as he tells us in his travels, was taken up as a spy in

Malaga, and was exposed to the most cruel torments upon the Wooden Horse.

But when nothing could be extorted from him, he was delivered to the

Inquisition as an heretic. He was condemned, in the beginning of Lent, to

suffer the night following eleven most cruel torments, and after Easter

to be carried privately to Grenada, there to be buried at midnight, and

his ashes to be scattered into the air; when night came on his fetters

were taken off, then he was stripped naked, put upon his knees, and

his head lifted up by force; after which, opening his mouth with iron

instruments, they filled his belly with water till it came out of his

jaws. Then they tied a rope hard about his neck, and in this condition

rolled him seven times the whole length of the room, till he almost quite

strangled. After this they tied a small cord about both his great toes,

and hung him up thereby with his head down, letting him remain in this

condition till all the water discharged itself out of his mouth, so that

he was laid on the ground as just dead, and had his irons put on him

again. But beyond all expectation, and by a very singular accident, he

was delivered out of jail, escaped death, and fortunately sailed home to

England.[b]

Details of another revolting case are quoted by Limborch from an official

contemporary document, which may best be reproduced here in its original

form.[a]

THE PROCEEDINGS AGAINST AN ENGLISHWOMAN

Elizabeth Vasconcellos, now in the city of Lisbon, doth, on

the 10th day of December, _anno_ 1706, in the presence of John

Milner, Esq., her majesty’s consul-general of Portugal, and

Joseph Willcocks, minister of the English factory at Lisbon,

declare and testify:

That she was born at Arlington, in the county of Devon, and

a daughter of John Chester, Esq., bred up in the church of

England; and in the eleventh year of her age her uncle, David

Morgan, of Cork, intending to go and settle in Jamaica as a

physician, by her father’s consent, he having several children,

took her with him to provide for her.

In 1685, they went in an English ship, and near the island they

were attacked by two Turkish ships; in the fight her uncle was

killed, but the ship got clear into Madeira, and she, though

left destitute, was entertained by Mr. Bedford, a merchant,

with whom, and other English, she lived as a servant till 1696.

In that year she was married by the chaplain of an English

man-of-war to Cordoza de Vasconcellos, a physician of that

island, and lived with him eight years, and never in the least

conformed to the Romish church.

In 1704, her husband being gone on a voyage to Brazil, she fell

dangerously ill, and, being light-headed, a priest gave her

the sacrament, as she was told afterwards, for she remembered

nothing of it. It pleased God she recovered, and then they

told her she had changed her religion, and must conform to the

Romish church, which she denied and refused to conform; and

thereupon, by the bishop of that island, she was imprisoned

nine months, and then sent prisoner to the Inquisition at

Lisbon, where she arrived the 19th of December, 1705. The

secretary of the house took her effects, in all above £500; she

was then sworn, that that was all she was worth, and then put

into a straight dark room, about five feet square, and there

kept nine months and fifteen days.

That the first nine days she had only bread and water, and a

wet straw bed to lie on. On the ninth day, being examined, she

owned herself a Protestant, and would so continue; she was

told she had conformed to the Romish church, and must persist

in it or burn, she was then remanded to her room; and after a

month’s time brought out again, and persisting in her answer

as to her religion, they bound her hands behind her, stripped

her back naked, and lashed her with a whip of knotted cords a

considerable time, and told her afterwards that she must kneel

down to the court, and give thanks for their merciful usage of

her, which she positively refused to do.

After fifteen days she was again brought forth and examined,

and a crucifix being set before her, she was commanded to bow

down to it and worship it, which she refusing to do, they told

her that she must expect to be condemned to the flames, and be

burned with the Jews, at the next _auto da fé_, which was nigh

at hand. Upon this she was remanded to her prison again for

thirty days, and being then brought out, a red hot iron was got

ready, and brought to her in a chafing-dish of burning coals,

and her breast being laid open, the executioner, with one end

of the red hot iron, which was about the bigness of a large

seal, burned her to the bone in three several places, on the

right side, one hard by the other, and then sent her to her

prison, without any plaster, or other application, to heal the

sores, which were very painful to her.

A month after this she had another severe whipping, as before;

and in the beginning of August she was brought before the

table, a great number of inquisitors being present, and was

questioned, whether she would profess the Romish religion or

burn. She replied, she had always been a Protestant, and was a

subject of the queen of England, who was able to protect her,

and she doubted not would do it, were her condition known to

the English residing in Lisbon; but as she knew nothing of

that, her resolution was to continue a Protestant, though she

were to burn for it. To this they answered that her being the

queen of England’s subject signified nothing in the dominions

of the king of Portugal; that the English residing in Lisbon

were heretics, and would certainly be damned; and that it was

the mercy of that tribunal to endeavour to rescue her out of

the flames of hell, but if her resolution were to burn rather

than profess the Romish religion, they would give her a trial

of it beforehand.

Accordingly the officers were ordered to seat her in a fixed

chair, and to bind her arms and her legs, that she could make

no resistance, nor motion, and the physician being placed by

her, to direct the court how far they might torture her without

hazard of life, her left foot was made bare, and an iron

slipper, red hot, being immediately brought in, her foot was

fastened into it, which continued on burning her to the bone,

till such time as by extremity of pain she fainted away, and

the physician declaring her life was in danger, they took it

off, and ordered her again to her prison.

On the 19th of August she was again brought out, and whipped

after a cruel manner, and her back was all over torn, and

being threatened with more and greater tortures, and, on the

other hand, being promised to be set at liberty if she would

subscribe such a paper as they should give her, though she

could have undergone death, yet not being able to endure a

life of so much misery, she consented to subscribe, as they

would have her, and accordingly, as she was directed wrote

at the bottom of a large paper, which contained she knew not

what; after which they advised her to avoid the company of all

English heretics, and not restoring to her anything of all the

plate, goods, or money she brought in with her, and engaging

her by oath to keep secret all that had been done to her,

turned her out of doors, destitute of all relief, but what she

received from the help and compassion of charitable Christians.

The above said Elizabeth Vasconcellos did solemnly affirm and

declare the above written deposition to be true, the day and

year above written.

JOHN MILNER,

JOSEPH WILLCOCKS.

Lisbon, January 8th, 1707, N.S.

(A copy examined from the original, by J. BLISSE.)[b]

INQUISITORIAL DOCUMENTS

That the above affidavit is not a mere party document is only too plainly

proved by the very manual of procedure, the Cartilla of the Inquisition

at Seville, which W. H. Rule[y] has translated. It was meant for the

guidance of all the Spanish inquisitors, and its business-like calm is

not its least horrible feature, as is this insistence upon a full report

of the torture and its results:[a]

_How the Record was Kept_

“If the criminal is under age, the guardian must be present at

pronouncing sentence, in order that he may appeal if he wishes; but he

must not be present at the torture.

“All that the criminal says has to be set down, and the questions that

were put to him, and his answers, without omitting anything, and how they

ordered him to be stripped, and his arms to be bound, and the rounds of

cord that are put on him, and how they ordered him to be placed on a

rack, and to bind his legs, head, and arms, and how he was bound, and how

they ordered the garrotes to be put on, and how they were put on, and how

compressed, declaring if it was on leg, thigh, or shin, or arms, etc.,

and what was said to him at each of these operations.

“If the torture is of pulley, it must be entered how the irons were put;

and the weight or weights, and how he was hoisted, and how many times,

and how long he was up each time. If it is of rack, it shall be said how

the toca[193] was put on him, and how many pitchers of water were thrown

over him, and how much each contained.”[y]

_The Proper Form of Torture for Women_

Even more ghastly is the blank form for convenience in recording the

various steps. The following from the same manual, as translated by

Rule,[y] corroborates the testimony of Elizabeth Vasconcellos quoted

above, inasmuch as it prescribes the gentler forms of discipline to be

used when the errant one was a woman. There is something peculiarly

terrible in the very omission of a special name and the consequent

thought of the number of wretches whose vain words and torments were thus

recorded.[a]

“She was told to tell the truth, or orders would be given to strip her.

She said, etc. She was commanded to be stripped naked.

“She was told to tell the truth, or orders would be given to cut off her

hair. She said, etc.

“Orders were given to cut off her hair; and when it was taken off, she

was examined by the doctor and surgeon, who said there was not any

objection to her being put to the torture.

“She was told to tell the truth, or she would be commanded to mount the

rack. She said, etc.

“She was commanded to mount, and she said, etc.

“She was told to tell the truth, or her body should be bound. She said,

etc. She was ordered to be bound.

“She was told to tell the truth, or, if not, they would order her right

foot to be made fast for the trampazo.[194] She said, etc. They commanded

it to be made fast.

“She was told to tell the truth, or they would command her left foot to

be made fast for the trampazo. She said, etc. They commanded it to be

made fast. She said, etc. It was ordered to be done.

“She was told to tell the truth, or they would order the binding of the

right arm to be stretched. She said, etc. It was commanded to be done.

And the same with the left arm. It was ordered to be executed.

“She was told to tell the truth, or they would order the fleshy part of

her right arm to be made fast for the garrote. She said, etc. It was

ordered to be made fast.

“And by the said lord inquisitor it was repeated to her many times that

she should tell the truth, and not let herself be brought into so great

torment; and the physician and surgeon were called in, who said, etc. And

the criminal, etc. And orders were given to make it fast.

“She was told to tell the truth, or they would order the first turn of

mancuerda. She said, etc. It was commanded to be done.

“She was told to tell the truth, or they would command the garrote to be

applied again to the right arm. She said, etc. It was ordered to be done.

“She was told to tell the truth, or they would order the second turn of

mancuerda. She said, etc. It was commanded to be done.

“She was told to tell the truth, or they would order the garrote to be

applied again to the left arm. She said, etc. It was ordered to be done.

“She was told to tell the truth, or they would order the third turn of

mancuerda. She said, etc. It was commanded to be done.

“She was told to tell the truth, or they would order the trampazo to be

laid on the right foot. She said, etc. It was commanded to be done.

“For women you do not go beyond this.”[y]

LATER HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN

It would be gratuitously harrowing to multiply such instances of

human misery, and we may return to the chronicle of the progress of

the Inquisition, leading up to its culmination in Spain and Portugal,

instances of whose severity have already been quoted. It is a pitiful

chronicle, and one that the humanitarian might well wish to pass over in

silence; but one which the historian cannot altogether ignore.[a]

The notion of heresy was enlarged so as to comprehend not only the

slightest deviation from the creed of the church, but also usury,

sorcery, contempt of the cross and clergy, dealings with Jews, etc.

The people in many places rose up against the inquisitors, as in Albi,

and Narbonne (1234), and Toulouse; and in France, where the Inquisition

had first been put in force, it was first abolished.[195] The Jesuits

sought to restore the Inquisition in Bavaria (1599), and during the

Thirty Years’ War found an occasional victim; but Maria Theresa abolished

it in her kingdom, and it soon afterwards disappeared in Germany. It had

no hold in England, Sweden, Norway, or Denmark; but in Spain, Portugal,

and the Netherlands it enjoyed a luxuriant growth.[z]

The tribunal, after having been successively adopted in Italy and

Germany, was introduced into Aragon, where, in 1242, additional

provisions were framed by the Council of Tarragona, on the basis of those

of 1233, which may properly be considered as the primitive instructions

of the Holy Office in Spain.

This “ancient” Inquisition, as it is termed, bore the same odious

peculiarities in its leading features as the modern; the same

impenetrable secrecy in its proceedings, the same insidious modes of

accusation, a similar use of torture, and similar penalties for the

offender. A sort of manual, drawn up by Eymerich,[p] an Aragonese

inquisitor of the fourteenth century, for the instruction of the

judges of the Holy Office, prescribes all those ambiguous forms of

interrogation by which the unwary and perhaps innocent victim might be

circumvented. The arm of persecution, however, fell with sufficient

heaviness, especially during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,

on the unfortunate Albigenses, who, from the proximity and political

relations of Aragon and Provence, had become numerous in the former

kingdom. The persecution appears, however, to have been chiefly confined

to this unfortunate sect, and there is no evidence that the Holy Office,

notwithstanding papal briefs to that effect, was fully organised in

Castile before the reign of Isabella. This is perhaps imputable to the

paucity of heretics in that kingdom. It cannot, at any rate, be charged

to any lukewarmness in its sovereigns; since they, from the time of

St. Ferdinand, who heaped the fagots on the blazing pile with his own

hands, down to that of John II, Isabella’s father, who hunted the unhappy

heretics of Biscay like so many wild beasts among the mountains, had ever

evinced a lively zeal for the orthodox faith.

By the middle of the fifteenth century, the Albigensian heresy had been

nearly extirpated by the Inquisition of Aragon; so that this infernal

engine might have been suffered to sleep undisturbed from want of

sufficient fuel to keep it in motion, when new and ample materials were

discovered in the unfortunate race of Israel, on whom the sins of their

fathers have been so unsparingly visited by every nation in Christendom

among whom they have sojourned, almost to the present century.

Under the Visigothic empire the Jews multiplied exceedingly in Spain,

and were permitted to acquire considerable power and wealth. But no

sooner had their Arian masters embraced the orthodox faith than they

began to testify their zeal by pouring on the Jews the most pitiless

storm of persecution. One of their laws alone condemned the whole race to

slavery; and Montesquieu[aa] remarks, without much exaggeration, that to

the Gothic code may be traced all the maxims of the Modern Inquisition,

the monks of the fifteenth century only copying, in reference to the

Israelites, the bishops of the seventh.

_State of the Jews in Spain_

After the Saracenic invasion, which the Jews, perhaps with reason, are

accused of having facilitated, they resided in the conquered cities and

were permitted to mingle with the Arabs on nearly equal terms. The Jews

accordingly, under these favourable auspices, not only accumulated wealth

with their usual diligence, but gradually rose to the highest civil

dignities, and made great advances in various departments of letters.

The ancient Castilians of the same period, very different from their

Gothic ancestors, seem to have conceded to the Israelites somewhat of

the feelings of respect which were extorted from them by the superior

civilisation of the Spanish Arabs. We find eminent Jews residing in the

courts of the Christian princes, directing their studies, attending them

as physicians, or more frequently administering their finances. For this

last vocation they seem to have had a natural aptitude; and, indeed,

the correspondence which they maintained with the different countries

of Europe by means of their own countrymen, who acted as the brokers

of almost every people among whom they were scattered during the Middle

Ages, afforded them peculiar facilities both in politics and commerce. We

meet with Jewish scholars and statesmen attached to the courts of Alfonso

X, Alfonso XI, Pedro the Cruel, Henry (Enrique) II, and other princes.

Their astronomical science recommended them in a special manner to

Alfonso el Sabio, who employed them in the construction of his celebrated

tables. James I of Aragon condescended to receive instruction from them

in ethics; and in the fifteenth century we notice Juan (John) II of

Castile employing a Jewish secretary in the compilation of a national

_Cancionero_.

But all this royal patronage proved incompetent to protect the Jews

when their flourishing fortunes had risen to a sufficient height to

excite popular envy, augmented as it was by that profuse ostentation of

equipage and apparel for which this singular people, notwithstanding

their avarice, have usually shown a predilection. Stories were circulated

of their contempt for the Catholic worship, their desecration of its

most holy symbols, and of their crucifixion, or other sacrifice, of

Christian children at the celebration of their own passover. With these

foolish calumnies, the more probable charge of usury and extortion was

industriously preferred against them; till at length, towards the close

of the fourteenth century, the fanatical populace, stimulated in many

instances by the no less fanatical clergy, and perhaps encouraged by the

numerous class of debtors to the Jews, who found this a convenient mode

of settling their accounts, made a fierce assault on this unfortunate

people in Castile and Aragon, breaking into their houses, violating

their most private sanctuaries, scattering their costly collections and

furniture, and consigning the wretched proprietors to indiscriminate

massacre, without regard to sex or age.

_“Conversion” of the Jews_

[Illustration: A JEW OF THE MIDDLE AGES]

In this crisis the only remedy left to the Jews was a real or feigned

conversion to Christianity. St. Vincent Ferrier, a Dominican of Valencia,

performed such a quantity of miracles, in furtherance of this purpose,

as might have excited the envy of any saint in the calendar; and these,

aided by his eloquence, are said to have changed the hearts of no less

than thirty-five thousand of the race of Israel, which doubtless must be

reckoned the greatest miracle of all.

The legislative enactments of this period, and still more under Juan II

during the first half of the fifteenth century, were uncommonly severe

upon the Jews. While they were prohibited from mingling freely with the

Christians, and from exercising the professions for which they were best

qualified, their residence was restricted within certain prescribed

limits of the cities which they inhabited; and they were not only

debarred from their usual luxury of ornament in dress, but were held up

to public scorn, as it were, by some peculiar badge or emblem embroidered

on their garments.

Such was the condition of the Spanish Jews at the accession of Ferdinand

and Isabella. The “new Christians,” or “converts,” as those who had

renounced the faith of their fathers were denominated, were occasionally

preferred to high ecclesiastical dignities, which they illustrated by

their integrity and learning. They were intrusted with municipal offices

in the various cities of Castile; and as their wealth furnished an

obvious resource for repairing, by way of marriage, the decayed fortunes

of the nobility, there was scarcely a family of rank in the land whose

blood had not been contaminated, at some period or other, by mixture with

the _mala sangre_, as it came afterwards to be termed, of the house of

Judah; an ignominious stain, which no time has been deemed sufficient

wholly to purge away.

Notwithstanding the show of prosperity enjoyed by the converted Jews,

their situation was far from secure. Their proselytism had been too

sudden to be generally sincere; and as the task of dissimulation was

too irksome to be permanently endured, they gradually became less

circumspect, and exhibited the scandalous spectacle of apostates

returning to wallow in the ancient mire of Judaism. The clergy,

especially the Dominicans, who seem to have inherited the quick scent

for heresy which distinguished their frantic founder, were not slow in

sounding the alarm; and the superstitious populace, easily roused to acts

of violence in the name of religion, began to exhibit the most tumultuous

movements, and actually massacred the constable of Castile in an attempt

to suppress them at Jaen, the year preceding the accession of Isabella.

After this period the complaints against the Jewish heresy became still

more clamorous, and the throne was repeatedly beset with petitions to

devise some effectual means for its extirpation (1478).

It is easy to discern, in the medley of credulity and superstition, the

secret envy entertained by the Castilians of the superior skill and

industry of their Hebrew brethren, and of the superior riches which these

qualities secured to them; and it is impossible not to suspect that the

zeal of the most orthodox was considerably sharpened by worldly motives.

Be that as it may, the cry against the Jewish abominations now became

general. Among those most active in raising it were Alfonso de Ojeda, a

Dominican, prior of the monastery of St. Paul in Seville, and Diego de

Merlo, assistant of that city, who should not be defrauded of the meed of

glory to which they are justly entitled by their exertions for the new

establishment of the Modern Inquisition. These persons, after urging on

the sovereigns the alarming extent to which the Jewish leprosy prevailed

in Andalusia, loudly called for the introduction of the Holy Office, as

the only effectual means of healing it. In this they were vigorously

supported by Niccolo Franco, the papal nuncio then residing at the

court of Castile. Ferdinand listened with complacency to a scheme which

promised an ample source of revenue in the confiscations it involved.

But it was not so easy to vanquish Isabella’s aversion to such repugnant

measures.

_Queen Isabella persuaded to Persecution_

Well had it been for the land if the queen’s conscience had always

been intrusted to the keeping of persons of such exemplary piety as

her confessor, Talavera. Unfortunately, in her early days, during

the lifetime of her brother Henry, that charge was committed to a

Dominican monk, Thomas (Tomas) de Torquemada, a native of Old Castile,

subsequently raised to the rank of prior of Santa Cruz in Segovia, and

condemned to infamous immortality by the signal part which he performed

in the tragedy of the Inquisition. This man, who concealed more pride

under his monastic weeds than might have furnished forth a convent of

his order, was one of that class with whom zeal passes for religion,

and who testify their zeal by a fiery persecution of those whose creed

differs from their own; who compensate for their abstinence from sensual

indulgence by giving scope to those deadlier vices of the heart, pride,

bigotry, and intolerance, which are no less opposed to virtue and are far

more extensively mischievous to society. This personage had earnestly

laboured to infuse into Isabella’s young mind, to which his situation as

her confessor gave him such ready access, the same spirit of fanaticism

that glowed in his own. Fortunately this was greatly counteracted by her

sound understanding and natural kindness of heart. Torquemada urged her,

or indeed, as is stated by some, extorted a promise that, “should she

ever come to the throne, she would devote herself to the extirpation of

heresy, for the glory of God and the exaltation of the Catholic faith.”

The time was now arrived when this promise was to be discharged.

It is due to Isabella’s fame to state thus much in palliation of the

unfortunate error into which she was led by her misguided zeal; an

error so grave that, like a vein in some noble piece of statuary, it

gives a sinister expression to her otherwise unblemished character.

It was not until the queen had endured the repeated importunities of

the clergy, particularly of those reverend persons in whom she most

confided, seconded by the arguments of Ferdinand, that she consented to

solicit from the pope a bull for the introduction of the Holy Office

into Castile. Sixtus IV, who at that time filled the pontifical chair,

easily discerning the sources of wealth and influence which this measure

opened to the court of Rome, readily complied with the petition of

the sovereigns, and expedited a bull bearing date November 1st, 1478,

authorising them to appoint two or three ecclesiastics, inquisitors for

the detection and suppression of heresy throughout their dominions.

The queen, however, still averse to violent measures, suspended the

operation of the ordinance, until a more lenient policy had been first

tried. By her command, accordingly, the archbishop of Seville, Cardinal

Mendoza, drew up a catechism exhibiting the different points of the

Catholic faith, and instructed the clergy throughout his diocese to

spare no pains in illuminating the benighted Israelites, by means of

friendly exhortation and a candid exposition of the true principles of

Christianity. How far the spirit of these injunctions was complied with,

amid the excitement then prevailing, may be reasonably doubted. There

could be little doubt, however, that a report, made two years later by a

commission of ecclesiastics with Alfonso de Ojeda at its head, respecting

the progress of the reformation, would be necessarily unfavourable to the

Jews.

In consequence of this report the papal provisions were enforced by the

nomination, on the 17th of September, 1480, of two Dominican monks as

inquisitors, with two other ecclesiastics, the one as assessor and the

other as procurator-fiscal, with instructions to proceed at once to

Seville and enter on the duties of their office. Orders were also issued

to the authorities of the city to support the inquisitors by all the aid

in their power. But the new institution proved so distasteful to them in

its origin that they refused any co-operation with its ministers, and

during the first years it can scarcely be said to have obtained a footing

in any other places in Andalusia than those belonging to the crown.

_The Inquisition of 1481_

On the 2nd of January, 1481, the court commenced operations by the

publication of an edict, followed by several others, requiring all

persons to aid in apprehending and accusing all such as they might know

or suspect to be guilty of heresy, and holding out the illusory promise

of absolution to such as should confess their errors within a limited

period. As every mode of accusation, even anonymous, was invited,

the number of victims multiplied so fast that the tribunal found it

convenient to remove its sittings from the convent of St. Paul, within

the city, to the spacious fortress of Triana, in the suburbs.

The presumptive proofs by which the charge of Judaism was established

against the accused are so curious that a few of them may deserve notice.

It was considered good evidence of the fact, if the prisoner wore better

clothes or cleaner linen on the Jewish Sabbath than on other days of

the week; if he had no fire in his house the preceding evening; if he

sat at table with Jews, or ate the meat of animals slaughtered by their

hands, or drank a certain beverage held in much estimation by them; if he

washed a corpse in warm water, or when dying turned his face to the wall;

or, finally, if he gave Hebrew names to his children--a provision most

whimsically cruelly, since, by a law of Henry II, he was prohibited under

severe penalties from giving them Christian names. He must have found it

difficult to extricate himself from the horns of this dilemma.

On the sixth day of January six convicts suffered at the stake. Seventeen

more were executed in March, and a still greater number in the month

following; and by the 4th of November in the same year no less than 298

individuals had been sacrificed in the _autos da fé_ of Seville. Besides

these, the mouldering remains of many, who had been tried and convicted,

after their death, were torn up from their graves, with a hyena-like

ferocity which has disgraced no other court, Christian or pagan, and

condemned to the common funeral pile. This was prepared on a spacious

stone scaffold, erected in the suburbs of the city, with the statues of

four prophets attached to the corners, to which the unhappy sufferers

were bound for the sacrifice. This monument of fanaticism continued to

disgrace Seville till 1810, when it was removed in order to make room

for the construction of a battery against the French. The sword of

justice was observed, in particular, to strike at the wealthy, the least

pardonable offenders in times of proscription.

The plague which desolated Seville this year, sweeping off fifteen

thousand inhabitants, as if in token of the wrath of heaven at these

enormities, did not palsy for a moment the arm of the Inquisition, which,

adjourning to Aracena, continued as indefatigable as before. A similar

persecution went forward in other parts of the province of Andalusia;

so that within the same year, 1481, the number of the sufferers was

computed at two thousand burned alive, a still greater number in effigy,

and seventeen thousand “reconciled”; a term which must not be understood

by the reader to signify anything like a pardon or amnesty, but only

the commutation of a capital sentence for inferior penalties, as fines,

civil incapacity, very generally total confiscation of property, and not

infrequently imprisonment for life.[196]

The Jews were astounded by the bolt which had fallen so unexpectedly

upon them. Some succeeded in making their escape to Granada, others

to France, Germany, or Italy, where they appealed from the decisions

of the Holy Office to the sovereign pontiff.[197] Sixtus IV appears

for a moment to have been touched with something like compunction, for

he rebuked the intemperate zeal of the inquisitors, and even menaced

them with deprivation. But these feelings, it would seem, were but

transient; for in 1483 we find the same pontiff quieting the scruples of

Isabella respecting the appropriation of the confiscated property, and

encouraging both sovereigns to proceed in the great work of purification

by an audacious reference to the example of Jesus Christ, who, says he,

consolidated his kingdom on earth by the destruction of idolatry.

_The Spanish or “Modern” Inquisition established_

In the course of the same year he expedited two briefs, appointing Thomas

de Torquemada inquisitor-general of Castile and Aragon, and clothing

him with full powers to frame a new constitution for the Holy Office

(August 2nd and October 17th, 1483). This was the origin of that terrible

tribunal, the Spanish or Modern Inquisition, familiar to most readers

whether of history or romance, which for three centuries extended its

iron sway over the dominions of Spain and Portugal.

Edicts were ordered to be published annually, on the first two Sundays

in Lent, throughout the churches, enjoining it as a sacred duty on all

who knew or suspected another to be guilty of heresy to lodge information

against him before the Holy Office; and the ministers of religion were

instructed to refuse absolution to such as hesitated to comply with this,

although the suspected person might stand in the relation of parent,

child, husband, or wife. All accusations, anonymous as well as signed,

were admitted; it being only necessary to specify the names of the

witnesses, whose testimony was taken down in writing by a secretary, and

afterwards read to them, which, unless the inaccuracies were so gross as

to force themselves upon their attention, they seldom failed to confirm.

Not the least odious feature of the whole was the connection established

between the condemnation of the accused and the interests of his judges;

since the confiscations, which were the uniform penalties of heresy,

were not permitted to flow into the royal exchequer until they had first

discharged the expenses, whether in the shape of salaries or otherwise,

incident to the Holy Office. The most humane provisions were constantly

evaded in practice; and the toils for ensnaring the victim were so

ingeniously multiplied that few, very few, were permitted to escape

without some censure. Not more than one person, says Llorente, in one

or perhaps two thousand processes, previous to the time of Philip III,

received entire absolution. So that it came to be proverbial that all who

were not roasted were at least singed:

“_Devant l’Inquisition, quand on vient à jubé,_

_Si l’on ne sort rôti, l’on sort au moins flambé._”

_The “Auto da fé”_

The last scene in this dismal tragedy was the “act of faith” (_auto

da fé_),[198] the most imposing spectacle, probably, which has been

witnessed since the ancient Roman triumph, and which, as intimated by

a Spanish writer, was intended, somewhat profanely, to represent the

terrors of the Day of Judgment. The proudest grandees of the land, on

this occasion, putting on the sable livery of familiars of the Holy

Office and bearing aloft its banners, condescended to act as the escort

of its ministers; while the ceremony was not unfrequently countenanced by

the royal presence. It should be stated, however, that neither of these

acts of condescension--or, more properly, humiliation--was witnessed

until a period posterior to Isabella’s reign. The effect was further

heightened by the concourse of ecclesiastics in their sacerdotal robes,

and pompous ceremonial which was intended to consecrate, as it were,

this bloody sacrifice by the authority of a religion which has expressly

declared that it desires mercy and not sacrifice.[199]

The most important actors in the scene were the unfortunate convicts, who

were now disgorged for the first time from the dungeons of the tribunal.

They were clad in coarse woollen garments, styled _san benitos_, brought

close round the neck and descending like a frock down to the knees.

These were of yellow colour, embroidered with a scarlet cross, and well

garnished with figures of devils and flames of fire, which, typical

of the heretic’s destiny hereafter, served to make him more odious in

the eyes of the superstitious multitude.[200] The greater part of the

sufferers were condemned to be “reconciled,” the manifold meanings of

which soft phrase have been already explained. Those who were to be

“relaxed,” as it was called, were delivered over, as impenitent heretics,

to the secular arm, in order to expiate their offence by the most painful

of deaths, with the consciousness, still more painful, that they were to

leave behind them names branded with infamy, and families involved in

irretrievable ruin.[201]

It is remarkable that a system so monstrous as that of the Inquisition,

presenting the most effectual barrier, probably, that was ever opposed to

the progress of knowledge, should have been revived at the close of the

fifteenth century, when the light of civilisation was rapidly advancing

over every part of Europe. It is more remarkable that it should have

occurred in Spain, at this time under a government which had displayed

great religious independence on more than one occasion, and which had

paid uniform regard to the rights of its subjects and pursued a generous

policy in reference to their intellectual culture. Where, we are tempted

to ask, when we behold the persecution of an innocent, industrious people

for the crime of adhesion to the faith of their ancestors--where was the

charity which led the old Castilian to reverence valour and virtue in an

infidel, though an enemy, where the chivalrous self-devotion which led

an Aragonese monarch, three centuries before, to give away his life in

defence of the persecuted sectaries of Provence, where the independent

spirit which prompted the Castilian nobles, during the very last reign,

to reject with scorn the purposed interference of the pope himself in

their concerns, that they were now reduced to bow their necks to a few

frantic priests, the members of an order which, in Spain at least, was

quite as conspicuous for ignorance as intolerance? True, indeed, the

Castilians, and the Aragonese subsequently still more, gave such evidence

of their aversion to the institution, that it can hardly be believed

the clergy would have succeeded in fastening it upon them, had they not

availed themselves of the popular prejudices against the Jews.[202]

Providence, however, permitted that the sufferings thus heaped on the

heads of this unfortunate people should be requited in full measure to

the nation that inflicted them. The fires of the Inquisition, which were

lighted exclusively for the Jews, were destined eventually to consume

their oppressors. They were still more deeply avenged in the moral

influence of this tribunal, which, eating like a pestilent canker into

the heart of the monarchy at the very time when it was exhibiting a most

goodly promise, left it at length a bare and sapless trunk.

_Torquemada and his Successors_

Notwithstanding the persecutions under Torquemada were confined almost

wholly to the Jews, his activity was such as to furnish abundant

precedent, in regard to forms of proceeding, for his successors; if,

indeed, the word forms may be applied to the conduct of trials so summary

that the tribunal of Toledo alone, under the superintendence of two

inquisitors, disposed of 3,327 processes in little more than a year. The

number of convicts was greatly swelled by the blunders of the Dominican

monks, who acted as qualificators or interpreters of what constituted

heresy, and whose ignorance led them frequently to condemn, as heterodox,

propositions actually derived from the fathers of the church. The

prisoners for life, alone, became so numerous that it was necessary to

assign them their own houses as the places of their incarceration.

The data for an accurate calculation of the number of victims sacrificed

by the Inquisition during this reign are not very satisfactory. From such

as exist, however, Llorente has been led to the most frightful results.

In this enormous sum of human misery is not included the multitude of

orphans, who, from the confiscation of their paternal inheritance, were

turned over to indigence and vice.[203] Many of the reconciled were

afterwards sentenced as relapsed; and the curate of Los Palacios[cc]

expresses the charitable wish that “the whole accursed race of Jews, male

and female, of twenty years of age and upwards, might be purified with

fire and fagot!”[204]

The vast apparatus of the Inquisition involved so heavy an expenditure,

that a very small sum comparatively, found its way into the exchequer,

to counterbalance the great detriment resulting to the state from the

sacrifice of the most active and skilful part of its population. All

temporal interests, however, were held light in comparison with the

purgation of the land from heresy; and such augmentations as the revenue

did receive, we are assured, were conscientiously devoted “to pious

purposes and the Moorish war”![205]

[Illustration: TORQUEMADA]

The Roman see is charged with duplicity, characteristic of Alexander

VI, in making a gainful traffic by the sale of dispensations from the

penalties incurred by such as fell under the ban of the Inquisition,

provided they were rich enough to pay for them, and afterwards revoking

them, at the instance of the Castilian court. Meanwhile, the odium

excited by the unsparing rigour of Torquemada raised up so many

accusations against him that he was thrice compelled to send an agent to

Rome to defend his cause before the pontiff; until, at length, Alexander

VI, in 1494, moved by these reiterated complaints, appointed four

coadjutors, out of a pretended regard to the infirmities of his age, to

share with him the burdens of his office.

This personage, who is entitled to so high a rank among those who have

been the authors of unmixed evil to their species, was permitted to reach

a very old age, and to die quietly in his bed. Yet he lived in such

constant apprehension of assassination that he is said to have kept a

reputed unicorn’s horn always on his table, which was imagined to have

the power of detecting and neutralising poisons; while, for the more

complete protection of his person, he was allowed an escort of fifty

horse and two hundred foot in his progresses through the kingdom.

This man’s zeal was of such an extravagant character that it may almost

shelter itself under the name of insanity. His history may be thought

to prove that of all human infirmities, or rather vices, there is none

productive of more extensive mischief to society than fanaticism. The

opposite principle of atheism, which refuses to recognise the most

important sanctions to virtue, does not necessarily imply any destitution

of just moral perceptions, that is, of a power of discriminating between

right and wrong, in its disciples. But fanaticism is so far subversive of

the most established principles of morality, that, under the dangerous

maxim, “For the advancement of the faith, all means are lawful,” which

Tasso has rightly, though perhaps undesignedly, derived from the spirits

of hell, it not only excuses, but enjoins the commission of the most

revolting crimes as a sacred duty. The more repugnant, indeed, such

crimes may be to natural feeling or public sentiment, the greater their

merit, from the sacrifice which the commission of them involves. Many a

bloody page of history attests the fact that fanaticism armed with power

is the sorest evil which can befall a nation.[m]

Under Charles I (the emperor Charles V) the cortes sought for a

modification of the laws of the Inquisition; but under Philip II the

flames burned brightly again, at first in Seville and Valladolid (1559

_seq._). But by the end of the seventeenth century all vestiges of the

Reformation were effaced, and the activity of the Inquisition became

limited to the destruction of prohibited books, of which an Index had

been prepared in 1558. Under Charles III, in 1770, an edict was passed,

securing an accused party from arbitrary imprisonment; and other

regulations were passed, curtailing the powers of the Inquisition, until,

in 1808, Joseph Bonaparte abolished it entirely. In 1814 Ferdinand VII

restored it; but the popular rage in 1820 destroyed the inquisitor’s

palace at Madrid, and the cortes again abolished it. But in 1825, by the

efforts of the clergy, another inquisitorial commission was appointed.

It continued till 1834, when it was finally abolished, and its property

applied to the payment of the public debt. But it may be a long while

before the country will revive from the effects of the court which, in

the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, extinguished her active literary

life and placed this nation, so richly endowed, almost outside of the

circle of European civilisation. Spain, it is true, remained free from

heresies and religious wars; but her rest was the rest of the grave, so

far as religious vitality was concerned.

The fortunes of the Inquisition in Portugal were similar to those which

it had in Spain. In the reign of John VI (1818-1826) it was finally

abolished. The last relics of the Italian Inquisition disappeared at

the unification of the nation. The Congregation of the Inquisition at

Rome, appointed by Sixtus V in 1587, is all that remains of it. In its

day it likewise had crushed out the Reformation, and had raged the most

fearfully in Venice; but there its activity seems to have ceased in 1781,

and in 1808 Napoleon abolished it. Restored under Pius VII in 1814, it

directed its energies to prevent the diffusion of the Italian Bible, and

to check the introduction of evangelical truth.

In the Netherlands, where the Inquisition was first introduced in the

thirteenth century, it became a terrible weapon in the time of the

Reformation. In 1521, Charles V passed a rigorous edict against heretics,

and appointed Franz van der Hulst inquisitor-general. In 1525 three

inquisitors-general were appointed, in 1537 the number was increased to

four, and in 1545 one was appointed for each of the provinces. According

to Grotius, a hundred thousand victims died under Charles V; according

to the prince of Orange, fifty thousand. Both computations are probably

too large. Under Philip II the inquisitors developed the most zeal; and

the duke of Alva, in 1567, appointed the Bloody Council, which proceeded

with unheard-of cruelty against those whose wealth excited their avarice,

or whose heresy aroused their suspicion. In 1573 Alva was recalled; and

three years later the provinces concluded the League of Ghent, whose

fifth article abolished the edicts against heresy.[z]

Torture lasted as late as 1817 in Spain, where Van Halen suffered it,

notwithstanding the papal bull of 1816; and, according to Mackenna,[t] it

lasted in Spanish America until 1809.

In conclusion it is possible to present a fairly accurate total of the

ruinous sweep of the Inquisition. The historian Llorente[k] accomplished

the seemingly impossible task of unearthing the records. He was a Spanish

priest, and from 1785 was an officer of the Inquisition in its then

milder form. In 1808 he became a Bonapartist, and was concerned in the

suppression of monastic orders. The archives were at his disposal, and he

studied them thoroughly. He fled to France on the Restoration in 1814,

and there brought out his monumental work in French. His life was not

safe even there, and he suffered much persecution. His work has been

convicted of many faults, but not of dishonesty, and his conclusions may

be quoted with a reasonable amount of confidence.[a]

_Llorente’s Computation of the Victims of the Inquisition_

In summing up, it appears that the Spanish Inquisition, during the

first eighteen years of its existence under Torquemada, condemned 8,800

persons to perish in the flames, 6,500, dead or fugitives, to be burned

in effigy; and imposed different pains and penalties upon 90,004 who

were reconciled; making a total of 105,294 victims. I propose to take

each tribunal separately and to place the number of victims as low as

circumstances will permit.

Were I guided by the _autos da fé_ of the Inquisition of Toledo and

Saragossa I might triple the number of victims, for in eight years alone

6,341 were punished by the inquisitors of Seville, which is at the rate

of 792 a year, not including the many victims of other _autos da fé_

which I have found mentioned, but of which I cannot find the reports.

Saragossa shows almost similar results, and if the same is assumed of

the other tribunals the total would be twice as much again as by my

reckoning. But I do not wish to give anyone grounds for saying that I

have tried to exaggerate the evil.

The second general inquisitor was Diego Deza, a Dominican, tutor to

the prince of Asturias, Don Juan, bishop of Zamora, Salamanca, Jaen,

Palencia, and finally archbishop of Seville. He held the office from

the beginning of 1499 to the end of 1506, when he resigned it by order

of king Ferdinand V, regent of Castile. In his time there were the same

twelve tribunals in the peninsula as in the time of his predecessor;

therefore I reckon only 208 burned, 104 burned in effigy, and 4,057

subjected to penances, making a total of 4,369 victims a year. This

number, multiplied by eight makes the number of victims in his time,

1,664 of the first class, 832 of the second class, and 32,456 of the

third class; a total of 34,952 victims.

The third general inquisitor was the cardinal-archbishop Francisco

Ximenes de Cisneros, a Franciscan. He held the office from the year 1507

until the 8th of November, 1517, when he died. During that time there

was a separate office of general inquisitor of Aragon which was first

held by Juan Enguera, a Dominican, bishop of Vique. He died in 1513 and

was succeeded by Luis Mercader, a Carthusian, who upon his death on

the 1st of June, 1516, was succeeded by Cardinal Adriano de Florencio,

then dean of Lobania, tutor of Charles V, afterwards bishop of Tortosa,

and ultimately sovereign pontiff (Adrian VI). In 1513 Cardinal Ximenes

de Cisneros created a tribunal of the Inquisition for the bishopric

of Cuenca and its districts, separating them from the jurisdiction of

Murcia in 1516; another for the fortress of Oran in Africa, and another

for America in the island of Cuba. We will leave the two last out of our

calculations, as well as those of Caller in the island of Sardinia, and

of Palermo in Sicily.

The twelve former tribunals of the peninsula produced, according to the

inscription in Seville, with the modification adopted, 208 burned, 104

burned in effigy, 4,057 subjected to penances, a year, making from the

year, 1507 to 1513 inclusive a total of 1,456 of the first class, 728 of

the second class, and 28,399 of the third class.

The tribunal of Cuenca was established in 1514, and according to my

method of computation I assign to it 200 of the first class, 200 of the

second, and 1,700 of the third, which added to the 208, 104, and 4,057

of the other twelve tribunals gives a total for that year of 408, 304,

and 5,757. In 1515, the tribunal of Cuenca is counted as one of the old

tribunals, with only 16 of the first class, 8 of the second, and 312

of the third, which added to the total of the other tribunals amounts

to 224, 112, and 4,369. In 1516 and 1517, the result is similar. The

total of the eleven years during which Ximenes de Cisneros was general

inquisitor is 2,536 burned, 1,368 burned in effigy, and 47,263 penitents,

51,167 in all.

Cardinal Adriano, bishop of Tortosa, was the fourth general inquisitor.

He was appointed at the beginning of March, 1518, and though he was

elected pope on the 9th of January, 1522, he had no successor as head of

the Holy Office until the end of 1522; for Adriano issued the bulls on

the 10th of September of that year, fourteen days before his death. For

this reason the number of tribunals in the peninsula was not increased

for six years, but in America one was established at Puerto Rico for the

West Indies in 1519.

According to the inscription in the castle of Triana, in the thirteen

tribunals of our continent there were every year 224 persons burned, 112

burned in effigy, and 4,369 subjected to penances; consequently the total

for the six years was 1,344 of the first class, 672 of the second class,

and 26,214 of the third class; 28,230 victims in all.

The fifth general inquisitor was Cardinal Alfonso Manrique, successively

bishop of Badajoz and of Cordova, and archbishop of Seville. In 1524,

he ordered the inscription which has guided our calculations for the

preceding years to be placed in the castle of Triana in Seville. In

this same year the tribunal of Granada, which had been established the

year before, began to exercise its functions. Although the number of

those punished as Judaical heretics was diminished, there was no lack

of victims, their places being supplied by the Mohammedan Moriscoes,

Lutherans, and Sodomites, whose punishment, and that of other criminals,

was confided to the inquisitors by Pope Clement VII. Manrique died on the

28th of September, 1538, having established tribunals of the Inquisition

in Canaria, Jaen, and Granada, and two in America for Tierrafirme (Terra

Firma) and the West Indies. It is calculated that the yearly victims

would be about 10 burned, 5 burned in effigy, and 50 subjected to

penances, a total of 65 victims. There were thirteen tribunals in the

peninsula, two in the adjacent islands, and multiplying by the fifteen

years of Manrique’s ministry there were 2,250 of the first class, 1,125

of the second class, and 11,250 of the third class, a total of 14,625

victims.

[Llorente continues thus his record from inquisitor to inquisitor through

the centuries. We shall omit these till we reach the last years of the

Holy Office.]

Fortieth, Felipe Beltran, bishop of Salamanca, was general inquisitor

after Quintano, in 1774. He exercised this function until he died, which

appears to me to have been about 1783. In his time there were 2 burned,

none burned in effigy, 16 condemned to public penances, and very many

in secret without infamy or confiscation. My departure from Madrid for

Valencia on the 10th of August, 1812, since which I never returned to

court, prevented me from completing this catalogue with the exact dates,

but the substance of my narrative is most exact. The last victim who

perished in the flames was a _beata_ of Seville, on the 7th of November,

1781. She was condemned for having a compact and illicit personal

intercourse with the devil, and for impenitent denial of the offence,

according to the trial. Her life would have been spared had she pleaded

guilty to the crimes of which she was accused.

Forty-first, Augustin Rubin de Cevallos, bishop of Jaen, knight of the

grand cross of the royal Spanish order of Charles III. He immediately

succeeded Beltran and was general inquisitor from 1784 until 1792, when

he died. No one was burned in person nor in effigy in his time; 14 were

condemned to public penances, and many in secret but without infamy or

confiscation. Forty-second, Manuel Abad-y-la-Sierra, bishop of Astorga,

archbishop of Selimbra and general inquisitor, appointed in 1792. He

resigned in 1794 by order of Charles IV. In his time 16 were condemned

to public and many to private penances; no one was burned. Forty-third,

Francisco Antonio de Lorenzana, cardinal-archbishop of Toledo, was

appointed general inquisitor in 1794, and resigned by order of Charles

IV in 1797. In his time 14 were condemned to public and many to private

penances; no one was burned.