INQUISITORIAL PENALTIES
Acquittals being virtually unknown,[415] nearly every case brought
before the Holy Office involved the sentence of one penalty or another.
The word ‘penalty’ is not technically exact. Strictly speaking, the
Inquisition was concerned not with crimes and punishments, but with
spiritual errors and penances.[416] Thus, when the tribunal consigned
some one to prison, its formula ran that the man in question shall
betake himself to prison and there penance himself on a diet of bread
and water. No confessor will regard the mere expression of contrition
as sufficient in itself; nor will the genuine penitent be satisfied.
Penance is the outward and visible sign of sincere repentance, and
an earnest of future amendment of life. All the penalties inflicted
by the Inquisition had this expiatory character.[417] Some of them
were of quite a trivial description. The penitent ‘suspect’ might
simply be enjoined to hear Mass on so many Sundays and festivals,
or—if his commercial practice suggested unsoundness of doctrine on
the subject of interest—to undertake not to exact usury in the future
or to promise to restore ill-gotten gains.[418] But, as a rule, the
penance was a much more serious matter. One of the most frequent was
that of pilgrimages.[419] These were of various kinds. In the earlier
days of the Inquisition the penitent[420] was often sent to Palestine
on crusade against the infidel. But after the failure of St. Louis’
expedition and the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the crusade ceased
to find a place among inquisitorial penances. Ordinary pilgrimages
were classified as _greater_ or _less_. The former took the penitent
out of his own country and involved long travelling; the latter were
to shrines in his own country. Thus for a Frenchman Rome, the shrine
of St. Thomas at Canterbury, Cologne, St. James of Compostella,
Constantinople would come under the first category; Paris, Boulogne,
Bordeaux, Vienne under the latter. The undertaking of the longer
journeys might be a most severe imposition. The penitent had to abandon
his work and set out upon travels which might well occupy many months
and even years. He probably had to endure much real suffering, fatigue,
and privation. In the case of the crusade, and probably in other
pilgrimages as well, there was an element of personal danger. In the
pilgrim’s absence what happened to his family and dependents? In many
instances one supposes that on his return after a long absence he must
have found his occupation gone. Those condemned to make pilgrimages
received from the inquisitor letters which explained their itinerary
and might give instructions as to certain additional penances they
had to undergo, while they at the same time served as safe-conducts,
of which there might be much need in localities where popular feeling
was strong against heretics. Pilgrims were required to bring back with
them written attestations, signed by the chaplains at shrines they
were ordered to visit, in proof that they had actually carried out the
prescribed programme.[421]
The penance of pilgrimage was often united with two others—scourging
and the wearing of crosses, or other marks on the clothing, indicative
of the penitent heretic. Flagellation by itself was regarded as one
of the lightest of penances. The Councils of Tarragona (1242) and of
Narbonne (1243) fixed it as the penance to be undergone by those who
voluntarily made confession during the term of grace—that is, by the
least culpable of all possible kinds of heretic. The custom was for
the flogging to be inflicted in public and in ceremonious fashion. The
penitent was obliged to present himself on the appointed days stripped
to the waist, and to bring the rod with him. As a general rule the
day appointed was Sunday, and the priest performed the operation of
scourging upon the penitent between the reading of the Epistle and of
the Gospel during Mass. Whether the operation was painful or not is
disputed. One commentator supposes that it was no light matter and that
the penitent was soundly whipped; another argues that, as the whipping
was done at the altar by inexperienced hands and the sufferer was in a
position to cry out and resist during divine service, the humiliation
was the most severe part of the penance.[422] One may perhaps conclude
that the severity of the flagellation depended very much upon the
intention of the inquisitors and the strength of arm of the ministering
priest. Sometimes the sufferer might have to submit to the scourging in
processions through the streets or in every house in which he had been
seen in company with heretics; or, in the case of the pilgrim, at the
various shrines visited. Such repeated floggings may or may not have
been very painful, but even in days when they would not produce such a
sense of shame as now, they must have been very humiliating.
In this respect the wearing of crosses was even worse. The origin of
this penance was that during his missionary labours St. Dominic had
ordered penitents to wear two small crosses, sewn on the breast of
their clothing in token of contrition. The Inquisition adopted the
practice and it was very frequently inflicted, being prescribed, like
flagellation, for those who voluntarily made confession of heresy.
Next to imprisonment this penance figures most often in the sentences
of Bernard Gui; it was rather less extensively used latterly. The small
marks which St. Dominic had required became under the Inquisition very
large ones—as a rule two-and-a-half palms in height, two in breadth.
They were saffron in colour and had to be worn one on the breast, the
other on the back. Other symbols besides crosses were sometimes used.
Thus false witnesses had to wear the symbol of red tongues, prisoners
liberated on bail hammers, sorcerers the representation of demons.
The wearing of distinguishing marks was designed to be, and was felt
to be, a less tolerable penalty than flogging. The shameful garb had
to be worn continuously indoors and out, exposing the wearer at all
times to the jeers, if not the fanatical hostility, of the crowd. The
penance was enjoined sometimes for an indefinite period, and so long
as he had to wear it, it would be difficult for the penitent to obtain
employment. It is plain that evasion was frequently attempted. The
Council of Béziers (1233) prescribed confiscation of goods for those
who either refused to wear the crosses or tried to conceal them.[423]
The Council of Valence (1248) went further and decreed that evasion
should be regarded as a sign of impenitent heresy. But evidently the
hardships attendant upon this penance were so great that the Church
felt it must do something to mitigate their severity, and the Council
of Béziers (1246) commanded that penitents wearing crosses should
not be subjected to ridicule or excluded from the transaction of
business.[424]
There were penalties of a pecuniary nature—the exaction of fines, the
confiscation of property. In earlier days, when it was yet thought
of as contrary to the principles of their origin that the Friars
should receive money on any pretext, it was felt to be repugnant
that inquisitors, being friars, should exact fines. On the other
hand, from of old it had been regarded as a normal and praiseworthy
form of showing genuine contrition to give alms; and it would have
been surprising had this sort of penance been found absent from
Inquisitorial practice. From the time of the Council of Béziers (1246)
onwards, it seems to have been recognized that the exaction of a fine
was a perfectly legitimate form of penance, the proceeds to be used
for the maintenance of inquisitorial prisons and similar necessary
expenses. Eymeric laid it down that this penance should be used
‘decently and in such a way as not to give offence to the laity.’[425]
A broader interpretation came to be made of the ‘pious’ purposes for
which the proceeds of fines might properly be utilized; they might
even include public work of general utility, such as the building
of bridges.[426] In moderation, the payment of a fine was a form of
penance much more easily borne than those already mentioned; and if the
money was used for such objects as the erection of a church or chapel
or hospital, the maintenance of the poor or other such philanthropic
work, it seems an eminently justifiable sort of penalty.
It had, however, one serious drawback—namely, that the profits might
be used for ends much less worthy, for the personal enrichment of
the judges, and might be a temptation to extortion. Innocent IV,
who in 1245 had directed that fines must be utilized solely for the
building and upkeep of prisons, is found in 1249 strongly inveighing
against inquisitors for the enormity of their exactions, and in 1251
prohibiting the imposition of fines where any other form of penance
would serve. Despite this injunction, the penance was still employed;
but the papal pronouncement is evidence, not only of the obvious
temptation to extortion, but also of the fact of inquisitors’ yielding
to it.
A fine was the customary penalty for such a minor offence as the
thoughtless utterance of blasphemous words; it was also frequently
exacted in commutation of other forms of penance, as for example that
of pilgrimage, when the penitent was too old or infirm to perform it,
or again in the case of a young girl not fit to undergo the ardours
of a journey across Europe.[427] So also when the death of a heretic
left his prescribed penance uncompleted, the rule was that his heirs
had to make compensation in the form of money, which might be heavy in
amount.[428] The provocation to extortion in both these instances is
obvious. The accounts of the Inquisition were unchecked, except by the
papal camera, and there was no public opinion able, or as a rule any
authority desirous, to prevent abuse.[429]
A more serious matter than the exaction of fines was the confiscation
of property. This, strictly speaking, was not a penalty, and
technically also the Inquisition was not responsible. The goods of
the heretic were simply sequestrated by the State automatically. So
it had been in the case of the Manichæans under the Roman empire. It
should, however, be noted that if the children of a heretic were not
themselves heretics, they were able to succeed to his estate. It was
otherwise in the case of crimes, and in particular of treason, which
involved the complete, unconditional confiscation of the delinquent’s
estate. As the mediæval Church very plausibly reasoned that heresy was
a crime analogous to _majestas_, only more heinous as being treason
against the King of Kings, the inference was obvious that heresy
involved confiscation. In his Decree of 1184, following the example of
Alexander III in 1163, who had enjoined on secular princes the duty of
imprisoning heretics and taking their property, Lucius III again
declared confiscation of property to be appropriate to heresy, but
sought to obtain the benefit for the Church. The practice as to the
sharing of the spoils of confiscation varied in different countries.
Invariably, as soon as anyone had been declared a heretic by the
Inquisition, the State at once sequestrated his property.[430] In the
south of France indeed the confiscation took place even before—as
soon as the suspect had been arrested or cited. If the prisoner
recanted or, in the latter case, if the suspect were found guiltless,
the property was then restored. Innocent III’s fulmination regarding
confiscation had been vague in its terminology. What constituted
the degree of criminality punishable by confiscation? Did the term
‘heretics’ mean only the obdurate, those who had to be handed over
to the State, or did it include ‘fautors’? The interpretation seems
to have varied. But the most common interpretation was that all
those whose offence was sufficiently heinous as to be ‘penanced’ by
imprisonment, the contumacious who failed to answer to citation and
all those in whose houses heretics were found, were liable to the
confiscation of their property. This seizing of estate before the
termination of judicial proceedings was obviously a heavy hardship, not
only upon the accused, but more especially upon his family. In France
the rules regarding confiscation were carried out most remorselessly.
Even before the accused had been found guilty his wife and children
might find themselves turned adrift, dependent upon a charity which
it was dangerous to extend to those even indirectly connected with
heresy.[431] In France, also, the whole of the confiscated property,
once the royal power was strong enough to insist upon this, went to
the State. Confiscation meant the entire loss of property, movable
and immovable, but there were certain exceptions. A wife could claim
to retain her dowry, but only on condition that she had not been
cognizant of her husband’s heresy when she married him.
Elsewhere it was otherwise. In _Ad extirpanda_, Innocent IV laid
down the rule that the proceeds were to be divided into three equal
portions, a third to go to the local authorities, a third to the
officials of the Inquisition, a third to bishop and inquisitor.[432]
Latterly, in Italy, a different tripartite division was made, the
third which had originally gone to bishop and inquisitor having to
be paid to the pope. The question of distribution was complicated by
feudal considerations, the feudal lord being able to put forward a
claim to any forfeited possessions of his vassal. But, however much the
allocation of these revenues might vary, it was always understood that
they were to be utilized for the prosecution of the war against heresy,
and in particular the defraying of the expenses of the Inquisition.
The secular princes no doubt played their part. They had every
inducement to do so. It is always good policy, if not to stimulate,
at all events to preserve, the goose that lays the golden eggs.[433]
But, neither with regard to the action of the secular princes nor of
the Inquisition, is it desirable to over-estimate the significance of
the pecuniary penances and penalties suffered by the heretic. It is
no doubt true that their importance used to be under-estimated, when
the tendency was to rivet attention on the stake and torture-chamber
in dealing with the Inquisition. It is also true that the opportunity
of reaping mercenary profit from the prosecution of heresy was an
encouragement to cupidity. It is only in human nature that it should be
so. It may be true to say that ‘persecution, as a steady and continuous
policy, rested, after all, upon confiscation.’[434] But that is not
necessarily to say more than that the Inquisition had to meet its
expenses in some way or other; and it was not unnatural to put to those
expenses the proceeds of pecuniary penalties imposed directly by, or
indirectly resulting from, the sentences of the tribunal. Confiscation
was a very customary expedient in the Middle Ages, and once granted
the Church’s reasonable analogy, on its own premises, between heresy
and treason, it was an inevitable accompaniment of inquisitorial
practice. That extortion and avarice were likely to be excited by
the scheme is true; but to suggest avarice as a prime motive in the
prosecution of heresy is quite to overshoot the mark.[435] The Church
did not embark upon the destruction of Catharism because it coveted
the wealth of Cathari, but because it felt it must preserve itself
against a movement, which it regarded as anti-religious, anti-social
and immoral.[436] In the second place, it must be remembered that the
majority of mediæval heretical sects consisted of poor men. Only rarely
was a rich man a heretic, and Fraticelli, Beguines, Dolcinists and most
of the later sects, ardently persecuted by the Inquisition as they
were, were certainly not worth pursuing from the point of view of the
material profit to be derived thereby. Eymeric, lamenting the dearth
of heretics of substance in Spain in his day to help the tribunal to
pay its way, deals cursorily with the subject of confiscation as one
scarcely affecting the inquisitor at all.[437]
The most severe of the inquisitorial penances was that of imprisonment:
but it is a _penance_. The idea is that, left in solitude, where he
is out of reach of heretical contamination and has time to reflect on
his offence, where in the simple life sustained on bread and water
there are no worldly distractions, the penitent may be enabled by the
aid of ghostly counsel to make a sincere return to the bosom of the
Church. Bernard de Caux used this penance frequently; it would appear
that he enjoined it upon all who did not voluntarily surrender within
the time of grace.[438] This was the ruling laid down by the Council of
Narbonne (1244), which ruthlessly declared that no arguments of mercy
against the infliction were to be considered, such as the dependence of
his family upon the heretic, nor illness, nor old age. The Council of
Béziers, two years later, reiterated this principle, but recommended
lenience where the penance might involve death to dependents.
Imprisonment was also frequently the penalty for failure to carry out
penances previously imposed. In the sentences of Bernard de Caux a
large percentage are for perpetual imprisonment. In Languedoc, to meet
the necessities of the battle with Catharism, the Council of Narbonne
ruled that imprisonment should always be for life. The tribunal did not
at the time possess the resources to render the execution of this order
practicable. At a later period it appears to have been carried out.
There were different degrees in the severity of the imprisonment. The
most lenient form, known as _murus largus_, allowed of the prisoner’s
leaving his cell, taking exercise in the corridors and holding
conversation with other prisoners, similarly privileged, possibly also
with friends from outside the prison. Much less desirable was the lot
of the penitent consigned to _murus strictus_. Placed in a cell of the
smallest size and worst description, dark and unsavoury, in some cases
chained by both hands and feet, he was not permitted ever to leave his
cell. This severer form of imprisonment was reserved for those whose
offence had been especially conspicuous and therefore especially
scandalous and dangerous to the faith and for those whose confessions
had not been wholly satisfactory, complete and open.[439]
Mediæval prisons were all of them apt to be horrible places, and it
does not appear that those used by the Inquisition were more noisome
than others. That they were terrible enough we know: as for example
from the report, as to the conditions in the _Cour de l’Inquisition_
in Carcassonne, made by the papal commissioners in 1305.[440] From
other evidence it appears that harsh severity was laid down as a rule
for the treatment by gaolers of their charges.[441] And, as a general
rule, there was little supervision of the prisons, and their inmates
had small chance of redress against ill-treatment. Only the strong
ventilation of an alert public opinion can find its way into the dark
recesses of prison life: there was no public opinion in the Middle Ages
interested in the wrongs of the heretic. It does not appear that there
was separate accommodation provided for those awaiting trial apart from
the condemned. It is only right to add, however, that the Inquisition
sanctioned the giving of presents of food and drink, clothing and cash
from outside friends to the prisoners, so that they were not wholly
dependent upon the diet of bread and water, which was all that the
prisons provided.
The Inquisition was apt to find itself in difficulties with regard to
the funds necessary for the maintenance of its prisoners. The prisons
the tribunal itself built were of the cheapest, and consequently of the
most insanitary, description. In France there were few specifically
inquisitorial prisons, those belonging to the secular and episcopal
authorities being utilized. Prior to the absorption of Languedoc
into the French monarchy at the Peace of Paris, the cost of building
and maintaining prisons in that country had been borne partly by the
bishops, partly by the holders of confiscated property.[442] Probably
after 1230 the lot of heretic prisoners in Languedoc sensibly improved.
In Italy the Inquisition seems to have been able to meet such expenses
out of the proceeds of confiscation.
A penalty frequently met with in the early days of the Inquisition is
that of banishment. Originally used in the Roman empire by the civil
authority against Arians, Nestorians, Manichæans, it was ordered by the
Council of Rheims in 1157 against heretics, incorporated in the Assize
of Clarendon, in the edict of Verona, and in those of Alfonso II and
Pedro II of Aragon. On the surface it appeared an excellent method of
ridding a country of the contamination of heresy. But to banish from
one country was merely to introduce the virus of the scourge into
another. The effect was simply to spread the epidemic. In the second
place, banishment was a confession of failure, as it gave no promise
of amendment upon the part of the individual: which was ever the
inquisitor’s object. Hence he preferred imprisonment of the heretic to
his banishment, holding him fast to getting rid of him.
Heresy, being regarded as essentially anti-social, involved exclusion
from civil rights. The heretic could hold no office in Church and
State, could hold no title or honour of any kind. If a father, his
natural authority over his children was rendered invalid; if a husband,
he no longer had legal authority over his wife; if a king, he forfeited
the obedience of his subjects; if a baron, the vassalage of his
tenants. He could not succeed to property or, having it, leave it by
will. His debtors need pay him nothing. The incapacity to hold office
in the State affected not only the offender himself, but descendants
of the second generation in the paternal, the first generation in the
maternal, line.[443]
The idea of the taint of heresy is apparent in another penalty which
the inquisitor was competent to inflict—the destruction of houses
which had harboured heretical inmates or been the scene of heretical
meetings.[444] This penalty is less a punishment than a symbolical act,
expressive of the Church’s horror of heresy; an attempt to blot out the
very memory of the offence. This practice, sanctioned in Roman law, was
enjoined by the Assize of Clarendon, by the Emperor Henry VI in the
edict of Prato of 1195, by Frederick II in 1232. It was consecrated by
the Church in the days of Innocent III. Innocent IV actually demanded
the demolition, not only of the house in which the heretic had been
found, but also of neighbouring houses, if they belonged to the same
property; a stringent rule modified by Alexander IV. The houses must
never be rebuilt, and more, the places where they had stood must remain
unused for other building. There was just one saving clause: the stones
of the demolished houses might be used for pious purposes.[445] Had
these regulations been literally carried out, it is obvious that whole
towns might have been devastated and remained waste. But it is evident
that the rules were not fulfilled to the letter. They were made to
apply in Languedoc to houses in which definite heretical acts had taken
place, such as the Catharan heretication. Even so, the secular arm
was not disposed to approve of a penalty which not only did material
damage, but diminished the yield of confiscations. Both France and
Germany protested; and eventually the inquisitors agreed to issue
licences to build on the sites of the demolished houses.[446]
So far we have dealt, on the whole, with penalties incurred by those
who, in the end, became reconciled to the Church—those who confessed,
performed their penance in token of contrition and promised amendment.
But there were also those who did not become reconciled. They fall
under three headings—the contumacious, the impenitent, the relapsed.
As regards the first, the Inquisition adopted the rule of Roman law. If
the accused, being cited three times or given one peremptory summons to
appear, failed to do so, he was reckoned as contumacious. The penalty
was excommunication and forfeiture of goods. This sentence would be
annulled in the event of the accused’s surrendering himself to the
tribunal within the space of a year from the date of the citation.[447]
Otherwise, he was liable, on falling into the hands of the Inquisition,
as an excommunicate, to be handed over to the secular arm.
With the stubborn impenitent, resisting up to the last all efforts of
the Church to bring him back to her bosom, there was obviously nothing
to be done. But the inquisitor, to whom relaxation to the secular arm
was an admission of defeat, left no means untried, of persuasion,
admonition, force, to avoid such failure. His reluctance to hand over
the heretic as a hopeless recalcitrant, was in most cases perfectly
genuine. Even after the sentence of relaxation had been pronounced,
indeed after the culprit had actually been handed over, the slightest
sign of willingness to repent might suffice to save the victim.[448]
Eymeric mentions one case in which a heretic, consigned to the flames
at Barcelona, being scorched on one side, cried out in his agony that
he would recant, and was at once removed from the fire.[449]
The relapsed were those who, having once erred and been received back
into communion, sinned in the same way again. These were incorrigible.
Their former repentance had manifestly been a mere sham, and the
outrage cried to heaven. Repetition of the sin of heresy could not
be suffered.[450] Accordingly the relapsed were the only class of
offenders coming before the Holy Office who could not save themselves
by penitence. Relapse came to involve relaxation automatically. But
it had not been so at first, perpetual imprisonment being the penalty
originally enjoined, for example by the Councils of Tarragona and
Béziers. By 1258, however, relaxation had come to be recognized as the
sole possible reward for relapse.[451]
Relaxation to the secular arm meant death, and death by burning.
The inquisitor himself, who did not and could not pronounce a death
sentence, knew, on the other hand, that a sentence of relaxation was
tantamount to one of death.
It is true that he made use of a formula,[452] expressing a desire
that lenience might be shown to the victim; and that some apologists
have based upon this the contention that the ecclesiastical tribunal
was in no way responsible for the death penalty; urging, on the one
hand, that the desire that the relaxed heretic might not suffer either
death or mutilation was perfectly genuine, on the other that the lay
authority was entirely independent in the matter, pronouncing and
executing its own sentence, based on a decision of its own, not the
Inquisition’s relaxation; and that, should it decide to spare the life
of the heretic, the Church would make no complaint, but quite the
contrary.[453]
The theory cannot be accepted. The attitude of Gregory IX and
Innocent IV towards Frederick II’s Constitutions, and the bulls, _Cum
adversus haereticam_ and _Ad extirpanda_, are really decisive in the
matter.[454] But there is additional clear proof that the formula of
leniency was an empty formula, intended merely to preserve technical
conformity with the Canon.[455] In the first place, what appropriate
punishment for the contumacious, the impenitent, the relapsed could
there be short of death? Even the contrite heretic, received back
into the fold, may have to undergo so severe a penance as perpetual
imprisonment. If the Church metes out to the contrite punishment as
severe as the impenitent has to face, she is putting a premium upon
impenitence. The simple fact that perpetual imprisonment is numbered
among the penances inflicted by the Inquisition is proof positive that
the Inquisition desired and anticipated from the secular arm the death
penalty for those relaxed to it. For careless as to the ultimate fate
of the impenitent the Church cannot possibly be. She cannot be willing
that he should go free to rejoice in the triumph of his obduracy among
confederates and to spread contagion among the faithful. Shall he be
banished by the secular authority? To what end? Banishment only means
the spread of infection. Shall he, then, be imprisoned by the secular
authority? Again, to what end? The Inquisition can imprison as well as
the State. It is a strange obtuseness that does not see that the whole
attitude of the Inquisition to the heretic points logically, and indeed
inevitably, to death as the fate of the obdurate. The tribunal had been
created, and it existed, to the end that heresy might be exterminated.
To have failed to secure that those who to the last resisted all
its most strenuous efforts to obtain confession and reconciliation
must expect a worse fate than those who proved compliant would have
stultified its very existence.
As a matter of fact, the Church saw to it, that the penalty meted
out by the secular arm to the relaxed was death. Hardly ever did the
secular ruler show any reluctance to inflict it. But if he forbore, he
would probably be excommunicated.[456] Ever after the Fourth Council of
the Lateran the Church made it incumbent upon the lay power to carry
out the imperial edicts against heresy. The formula of mercy, then,
may be called either a ‘legal fiction’ or bluntly, a ‘hypocrisy’: it
was never intended to be taken literally.[457] The scrupulous regard
of the Church for regularity in accordance with the Canon showed
susceptibility to decorum; as a repudiation of moral responsibility it
would have been contemptible.
But the mediæval Church did not repudiate such responsibility, as some
of its modern apologists have sought to do. Had it disapproved of the
penalty of death for the obdurate heretic, it both could and would have
said so. Nay, more. It possessed the authority and practical power
to have prevented it. To doubt that is to attribute to the mediæval
Church infinitely less influence than it actually possessed. A papacy,
claiming and at times exercising authority in matters temporal as well
as spiritual, could have brought pressure to bear upon the secular
power in a matter peculiarly the Church’s concern. The fact that it
never made any attempt to do so is proof that it never desired to.
As a matter of fact, the Church in the Middle Ages felt no such
squeamishness, as is natural in these modern days of religious
toleration, regarding the drastic punishment of errors _in intellectu_.
Once granted the point of view that heresy is a more heinous offence
than coining—to use St. Thomas’ analogy—or than treason, to use a
commoner and more forcible comparison, and the penalty of death for
heresy appears not shocking and horrible, but something eminently
just and proper. We may take St. Thomas as representative of the
best thought of the Church on the subject in the Middle Ages. Later
inquisitors were quite unequivocal in their language. ‘Pertinax
non tantum est relaxandus, sed etiam vivus a saeculari potestate
conburendus.’[458] Simancas, likewise, has no qualms. The best human
law demands the burning of the heretic; in this according with the
divine law. Christ is quoted in proof. ‘Igne igitur extirpanda est
haeretica pubis: ne nobis Deus irascitur, si haereticos dimittimus
impunitos.’[459] A favourite line of argument was that adopted by
Ludovico à Paramo, in comparing the Church to the ark of Noah. As God
utterly destroyed the unbelievers outside the Ark by a deluge, so now
does he destroy the heretic.[460] It is modern humanitarianism, not
Inquisitorial authorities, that seeks to disclaim moral responsibility
for the stake.
The outward and visible sign of the Church’s approval was its
participation in the ceremony of execution. This took place
frequently as part of a great and elaborate function known as the
_sermo generalis_ or ‘act of faith’—the _auto-da-fé_ of the Spanish
Inquisition. There could be a _sermo generalis_ without an execution. A
burning was not the essential feature of the ceremony. The _auto_ had
humble beginnings. In the early days of the Inquisition in Toulouse
there might be one every week or so. In rapid, business-like fashion
the sentences against heretics were pronounced in the presence of
the civil and ecclesiastical officers. But in course of time the
proceedings came to be much more elaborate, the object being to impress
the popular mind. The _sermo generalis_ usually took place on a Sunday
and inside a church, a platform being erected upon which the culprits
were placed. The ceremony, which started in the early morning, began
with a sermon appropriate to the occasion, preached by an inquisitor.
After this an indulgence was announced for all who had come to take
part in the solemnity; the civil magistrates took an oath of fidelity,
and excommunication was fulminated against all who had in any way
thwarted the Inquisition in the pursuance of its labours. Next the
confessions of the penitents were read, followed by the recital of
the form of abjuration, which they repeated word by word. It does not
appear that they wore any such distinctive garb as was customary in the
Spanish Inquisition of later days. The inquisitor then absolved the
penitents from the excommunication which their heresy had incurred,
the formal sentences were read out, first in Latin, then in the
vulgar tongue; after which the culprits were brought forward in order
corresponding with the degree of their guilt, beginning with the least
guilty and ending with the impenitent and relapsed. For the disposal
of the latter adjournment was made to another place, where they were
handed over to the lay authorities. The victims destined to pay the
last penalty were not at once executed. It was not seemly that the
execution should take place on a Sunday, and they were given another
night to make their peace with God. The following day they were brought
to the stake, accompanied by ghostly comforters, who would earnestly
exhort them to penitence, seeing that, except in the case of the
relapsed, reconciliation was possible up to the last moment. They were
forbidden to exhort the victims to quiet submission for fear that this
might suggest that they were doing something to expedite the punishment
in store for the heretics.[461]
This would have been an irregularity. Yet so implicitly did the Church
believe in death for the obstinate heretic, that she pursued his body
even after death.
For death did not terminate heresy; and it was evidently felt to be
obnoxious that anyone who had been a heretic, even though his heresy
had never been detected during life, should pass beyond the reach of
ecclesiastical justice. Notwithstanding the pronouncement of Ivo of
Chartres that the powers of the Church extended only to the present
world, by the middle of the thirteenth century it seems to have been
generally recognized that the corpses of all persons, whose heresy was
discovered only after their demise, were to be dug up and disposed of
in accordance with the degree of their guilt.[462] In 1209 a synod at
Paris caused the body of Amaury de Bène to be flung to the dogs, and
in 1237 the bodies of certain heretic nobles were carried through the
streets of Toulouse and solemnly burnt.[463] The practice seems to
have been partly due to a popular feeling that it was a dreadful and
scandalous thing that a heretic should be buried in consecrated ground,
partly to a desire on the part of the inquisitors to demonstrate their
implacable zeal and unlimited power.[464]
All inquisitorial sentences, with the single exception of death—which,
strictly speaking, was not an inquisitorial sentence at all—could be,
and frequently were, commuted. Thus for imprisonment is substituted the
wearing of crosses in view of the penitent’s having given information
about a plot against the inquisitor’s life. The procuring of the
capture of other heretics is similarly rewarded.[465] Commutation to
a lighter penance is allowed to a woman, because she has a number of
small children; to a man, because he has a wife and family dependent
upon him.[466] Such unconditional remitments were rare; temporary
alleviations were more frequent.[467] Penitents might be allowed to
leave prison, for periods varying from a few weeks to two years, on
account of child-birth or illness.[468] A husband and wife, both in
prison for heresy, might be allowed access to one another.[469]
A right of appeal existed, from the bishop to the metropolitan,
from the inquisitor to the Pope. The papacy was at first averse to
receiving appeals in cases of heresy, Lucius III in 1185 declaring
that he would have none of them.[470] When, however, the Inquisition
was established, the right was acknowledged. But it was at best of
doubtful and partial utility. It was a condition that the appeal must
be lodged before the sentence was pronounced. In other words there
could be no appeal against a decision of the tribunal. It was valid
only as against an alleged injustice in procedure.[471] A complaint
on the latter ground could easily be rectified by the inquisitors
themselves by the simple device of starting the process anew and
carefully avoiding the irregularity of which complaint was made. If the
inquisitors regarded the appeal as frivolous, they could dismiss it. It
is clear that they regarded all appeals as a nuisance, an unwarrantable
embarrassment.[472] The most successful appeals lodged against the
tribunal were those brought by powerful nobles and influential
towns.[473] For the ordinary person, devoid of influence, the right of
appeal offered small hope of deliverance.
We have valuable evidence as to the comparative frequency of the
various penances prescribed by the Inquisition. The practice of
different inquisitors varied, as was inevitable, when so much was
left to the arbitrary decision of the individual judge. But a general
computation is possible. Imprisonment, confiscation of property, the
wearing of crosses are the sentences that occur most frequently. No
inquisitor in the Middle Ages was more vigorous and efficient than
Bernard Gui. In a collection of sentences extending over a period
of seventeen years, 1308-23, there are 307 of imprisonment, 143 of
wearing crosses, 69 of exhumation, 9 of pilgrimages without the wearing
of crosses, 40 of condemnation of fugitives as contumacious, 45 of
relaxation to the secular arm; _i.e._ only 45 sentences of relaxation
out of 613.[474] Another veritable ‘hammer of heretics,’ Bernard de
Caux, has left voluminous records of his cases between the years 1246
and 1248. There are a large number of sentences of life imprisonment;
not a single mention of relaxation.[475] This is very remarkable,
as it seems highly unlikely that Bernard de Caux never came across
an impenitent in the course of his duties, and the suggestion is at
least plausible that the records are incomplete, being only entries
of sentences of imprisonment.[476] But the clear indication of the
evidence is that the number of cases of relaxation must have been
comparatively small in the aggregate and very small in comparison with
other sentences.
This may appear strange to those whose sole idea of the Inquisition is
that of a court mainly concerned with the burning of heretics. Such a
conception rests upon a misunderstanding of the object and function of
the tribunal. It did not aim at making great holocausts of victims;
it desired only to make a few examples. Except in Languedoc, where
the heretics were in a majority and powerful, a few examples always
sufficed. It sought not vengeance, which was a synonym for failure,
but reconciliation, which meant success. More characteristic of the
Inquisition than its sentences of relaxation, with their attendant
horrible consequence, in reality more effective and perhaps more
terrible, was its whole method of procedure, its use of torture, moral
as well as physical, the agony of the rack and the nervous strain of
prolonged and tortuous examination, its utilization of the humiliation
of the cross-wearing, of the dull and hopeless misery of harsh and
lengthy imprisonment, by which the spirit of the victim was broken and
the purity of the faith preserved.