head of a man in the midst of fire and enveloped in flames. The other
parts of the garment were covered with forked flames shooting upwards,
as a token that the heretic would actually be burnt alive. Grotesque
figures of demons were also represented upon the san-benito and upon
the coroza as well.
At the church whither the cortége repaired, chanting prayers on
its way, ten white tapers were alight in silver candlesticks upon
the high altar, which was hung in black; to the right, there was a
kind of raised dais for the Inquisitor and his councillors; to the
left, another such a one for the king and his court. Facing the high
altar was a scaffolding covered with black cloth upon which the
_reconciled_ stood to make their abjurations upon missals which
had been opened and arranged beforehand.
After the reconciliation of these latter, the impenitent heretics were
handed over to the secular power, together with the prisoners who had
been guilty of ordinary misdemeanour. The Auto-da-fé was then over, and
the Inquisitors withdrew. An historian, in giving a detailed account
of a trial before the tribunals of the Inquisition, tells us that the
civil punishment was not inflicted until the day after the Auto-da-fé.
Nor was it always the case that it was followed by execution, for
Llorente cites that of February 12th, 1486, at Toledo, when there were
seven hundred and fifty heretics brought up for punishment, not one of
whom was put to death, though they had to do public penance. At another
great Auto-da-fé, also held at Toledo in April of the same year, out
of nine hundred repentant or condemned persons none underwent the
extreme penalty. A third, on the 1st of May, comprised seven hundred
and fifty persons; and at a fourth, on the 10th of December, there
were nine hundred and fifty, but in both these instances no blood was
shed. Out of a total of three thousand three hundred persons who had
to do penance for transgressing the rules of the Church at this epoch,
Llorente states that only twenty-seven were put to death. It must be
remembered that the Spanish Inquisition, in conformity with the royal
decree, had to try not only heretics, but those accused of unnatural
crimes, brigands, lay or clerical seducers, blasphemers, persons guilty
of sacrilege, usurers, and even murderers and rebels. In addition to
this, those who supplied the enemy with horses and stores in time of
war, together with the then frequent cases of sorcery, magic, and
other similar frauds, were also brought within the jurisdiction of the
tribunals of the Inquisition. Thus the twenty-seven individuals who
were executed in 1486 may have been made up of malefactors of every
class.
The political aim of the kings of Spain was attained, for the
maintenance of religious unity preserved the kingdom from the bloody
catastrophes which at that period spread desolation throughout France
and England. This is admitted even by Voltaire, in his “Essai sur
l’Histoire Générale.” While deploring the horrors of the Inquisition,
he says, “In Spain there were none of those bloody revolutions,
conspiracies, or cruel reprisals which disgraced every other European
nation. Neither Count Olivarès nor the Duke of Lerma sent their enemies
to the scaffold, and sovereigns were never assassinated as in France,
nor did they suffer beneath the headsman’s axe, as in England.”
[Illustration: Fig. 338.--Philip II., King of Spain.--From the
work of Cesare Vecellio: 8vo, 1590.]
The Inquisition was less successful in the Netherlands, for the
Protestant cause made great progress in Holland during the reign of
Charles V. The nobility and the upper clergy, indignant at the rigorous
measures adopted by Philip II. (Fig. 338) in his efforts to put down
heresy, countenanced the general uprising against the Spaniards.
Emboldened thereby, the Protestants flew to arms, the churches were
burnt, the priests and monks were massacred, and the Catholic form of
worship suppressed in many localities. Philip dispatched thither the
notorious Duke of Alva, who, on assuming the command, instituted the
_council of troubles_, which the people nicknamed the _council
of blood_. The religious question resolved itself into a struggle
for national independence. A bitter war resulted in the definite
separation of the United Provinces, which afterwards became the kingdom
of Holland. Belgium, created an independent province, was handed over
with hereditary rights to Archduke Albert and his wife Isabella,
daughter of Philip II.
[Illustration: Fig. 339.--Cruelties committed by the Gueux, in
Holland. A. Master John Jerome, of Edam, and other Catholics of
Hoorn, being put to the torture, at Scagen, in Northern Holland.
Those who survive the first tortures are tied down upon their
backs, a large cauldron turned upside down is placed upon their
naked stomachs, with a number of large dormice underneath. A
fire is lighted upon the top of the cauldron which enrages the
dormice; and as they are unable to creep under the edges of the
cauldron, they burrow into the entrails of the victim. B. Ursula
Talèse, a nun of Haarlem, having refused to renounce her faith
when made to stand beneath the gibbet upon which her father
had been hung, is thrown into the water and drowned. C. Her
sister, bewailing her fate and that of her father, also refuses
to change her creed, and her skull is beaten in with a large
stone.--Fac-simile of an Engraving on Copper in the “Theatrum
Crudelitatum nostri Temporis” (4to, Antwerp, 1587); with a
translation of the explanations given.]
The United Provinces were no sooner constituted than, notwithstanding
the Protestant principle of the liberty of free inquiry, they obeyed
that instinct which impels all governments to religious unity--Spain
was outdone in the refinement of punishments which they invented to use
against the Catholics who refused to change their faith (Fig. 339).
Nor was it against the Catholics only that the Protestant Inquisition
exercised its rigorous authority. In countries where Calvinists and
Lutherans were brought into juxtaposition, religious persecution broke
out between the various reformed Churches, always, too, under the
instinctive influence that religious unity was necessary to ensure
the stability of the State. A distinguished writer, Menzel, in his
“New History of the Germans since the Reformation,” gives some very
interesting details concerning this internecine struggle. At the end
of the sixteenth century, when, at the death of the Elector of Saxony,
Christian I., on September 25th, 1591, the government of Saxony fell
into the hands of Duke William of Altenburg, who was a rigid Lutheran,
the Calvinist party in Germany thought that the golden age was about
to return. Chancellor Crell, who in Christian’s lifetime had treated
the Lutherans with slight show of mercy, was cast into prison, together
with Gunderman, a Leipsic preacher. After five months’ incarceration,
the latter signed the “Formula of Concord,” in order that he might
be able to visit his wife, whom he had left _enceinte_, but he
had no sooner appended his signature than he was told that she had
hung herself in a fit of despair. The unfortunate man went out of his
mind. Other preachers were treated with almost equal severity; and at
Leipsic, in 1593, the Lutheran party set fire to the houses of the
Calvinists, who had to fly from the city to escape assassination.
Such was also the case in Silesia. Upon the 22nd of September, 1601,
Chancellor Crell was condemned to death, after having been kept ten
years in prison, and he was beheaded on the 10th of October.
At Brunswick, in 1603, the Lutheran preachers excommunicated the
captain of the burghers, one Brabant; in 1604 it was rumoured that
he had made a pact with the devil, and that the latter had been seen
following them in the form of a crow. Brabant tried to escape, but
broke his leg in the attempt. Brought back to Brunswick amidst the
hootings of the populace, who regarded him as a traitor and a magician,
he was three times put to the most cruel torture, to terminate which
he avowed himself guilty of all the crimes laid to his charge. His
companions in misfortune were treated with equal cruelty. While Zachary
Druseman was suspended by the arms in the torture-chamber, his judges
went off to their supper. The victim implored the executioner, by the
wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ, to let him down for a single moment
and loosen the screws which were crushing his feet, but the latter
replied that he must wait until the judges returned. When they came in
an hour afterwards, completely intoxicated, Druseman was dead. Menzel
goes on to tell us that on St. Michael’s Day the Lutheran preachers, at
the request of the town council, undertook to justify from the pulpit
the executions which had been incessantly going on, and that on the 9th
of December a thanksgiving service was held in all the churches, in
front of which the gibbets and scaffolds were still displayed.
[Illustration: Fig. 340.--Tortures inflicted upon Catholics
by the Huguenots in the South of France.--Thirty Catholics,
imprisoned at Augoulême, in the house of a burgher of the name
of Papin, are tortured in various ways:--A. Some, deprived of
food, are chained together in pairs, so that, becoming delirious
through hunger, they may tear each other to pieces. B. Some are
dragged naked along a tightly-drawn rope, which acts like a saw,
cutting the body in two. C. Several are attached to stakes, and
fires lighted a short distance behind them, so that their bodies
may burn slowly.--Fac-simile of an Engraving on copper in the
“Theatrum Crudelitatum nostri Temporis” (4to, Antwerp, 1587);
with a translation of the explanations given.]
In the southern provinces of France, where the party of the Reformation
acquired the upper hand, excesses were committed which were as much
reprobated by the more enlightened of the Protestants as by the
Catholics. The town of Angoulême in particular was the scene of many
such cruelties (Fig. 340).
The dominant party was everywhere guilty of extreme intolerance, but
nowhere was the persecution carried on upon so large a scale as in
unhappy England. Protestant writers cannot find expressions strong
enough to characterize the unheard-of violence to which Henry VIII. had
recourse with a view to establish religious unity in his kingdom.
[Illustration: Fig. 341.--Punishments decreed by Henry VIII.
against the Catholics.--A. John Fisher, Cardinal-Bishop of
Rochester, eighty years of age, condemned to death on the 17th
of June, 1535, is beheaded on the 22nd of the same month. B.
Chancellor Thomas More is also beheaded on the 9th of July, 1535.
C. The Countess of Salisbury, made to answer for the accusations
brought against her son, who had left the country, after being
condemned to death, is beheaded.--Fac-simile of a Copper-plate in
the “Theatrum Crudelitatum nostri Temporis” (Antwerp, 1587); with
a translation of the explanations given.]
Cobbett, in his “History of the English Reformation,” says, “Previous
to this reign of bloodshed not more than three persons on the average
were tried in each county at the annual assizes, but now there were
as many as sixty thousand persons in prison at a time. In a word, the
Court of Henry was a regular slaughter-house of human flesh.”
Henry VIII., from the very fact of his having broken with the principle
of authority in religious matters, found himself driven to an excess
of severity, feeling that it was by terror alone that he could put
down resistance; and, as the example of those who are placed high
in authority exercises a decisive influence upon the masses, the
king singled out for attack those who stood highest on the roll
of magistrates and bishops--the Chancellor, Thomas More, and his
illustrious friend Fisher, Bishop of Rochester (Fig. 341). They were
both cited to appear before the King’s Council, and the Chancellor
was condemned to die. More was passionately attached to his daughter
Margaret, who, when the trial was over, threw herself upon her father’s
neck, exclaiming, amidst her sobs, “My father, are you who are innocent
to die?” To which, embracing her for the last time, and giving her his
blessing, he replied, “Would you have me die guilty?” When he reached
the foot of the scaffold he called upon the populace to witness that
he died in the faith of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church.
The executioner asked for his forgiveness, and More, embracing him,
rejoined, “You are rendering me the greatest service that can be
done to a Christian!” He met his death with joy, and his head was
exposed for a fortnight upon London Bridge. His friend, the Bishop of
Rochester, had been sent to the block a few weeks before (Fig. 341).
[Illustration: Fig. 342.--Michael Servetus (born at Villanueva,
Arragon, in 1509) burnt alive by order of Calvin, at Geneva, in
1553.--After a Copper-plate in the “Historia Michaelis Serveti:”
4to, Helmstadii, 1727.]
Switzerland suffered as much as England, for the Inquisition set up
by Calvin at Geneva defied all description. While Calvin, as it is
reported, was allowed to stigmatize those who differed from him as
rogues, dogs, and scoundrels, their emperor vermin, and their fathers
and mothers imps of Satan, the peasants who used rough language to
their cattle were thrown into prison. Three children were publicly
whipped because they had stolen away from the meeting-house to go and
eat cakes. The registers of the town record that in the course of sixty
years one hundred and fifty persons were burnt alive as sorcerers.
Another crime punishable with death was “to speak ill of Calvin,” who
made no secret of his feelings upon this point, as may be gathered from
the following sentence in a letter he sent to one of his partisans:
“Do not fail to purge the country of the fanatic scoundrels who go
about exhorting the people to withstand us, who blacken our conduct,
and who try to depict our creed as an empty dream. Such monsters
ought to be put down.” On these grounds, the poet Gruet was put to
the torture and beheaded “for having spoken ill of Calvin.” Michael
Servetus, who practised medicine, astrology, and theology, ventured
to contradict the teaching of the Reformer, especially in reference
to the doctrine of the Trinity. Calvin wrote to Farel, under date of
February 13th, 1546, the following letter, the original of which may
still be seen in the National Library of Paris: “Servetus wrote to
me the other day, and sent with his letter a large book filled with
his vain and arrogant reveries, saying that I should find it full of
wonderful and hitherto unknown subjects. He promises to come and meet
me here, if I wish, but I do not care to enter into any arrangement,
for, if he comes and I have my own way, I shall not let him escape
with his life.” The unfortunate Servetus was obliged to repair thither
under the following circumstances. He had clandestinely published at
Vienne (Dauphiny) his book entitled “Christianismi Restitutio” (“The
Restoration of Christianity”). Of this book Calvin procured a copy,
which, he forwarded to the Cardinal-Archbishop of Lyons. Servetus,
thanks to Calvin’s denunciations, was arrested and thrown into the
ecclesiastical prison of Vienne, as this book contained many obnoxious
statements tainted with heresy. It happened that the prisoner, a better
doctor than he was theologian, had formerly saved the life of the only
daughter of the bailiff of that town, and the gaoler received orders
to favour his escape, which was effected without difficulty. Servetus
unfortunately took refuge at Geneva. Calvin’s spies discovered him
there; he was imprisoned on the 13th of August, 1553, and on the 26th
of October, after a lengthened examination, during which he defended
himself energetically against the accusations of impiety and atheism,
he was condemned to be burnt alive. The sentence was carried out on
the following day (Fig. 342). Calvin witnessed the execution from
his window, and was soon after congratulated on what he had done by
the Cantons of Zurich, Schaffhausen, Basle, and Berne. The learned
Melancthon wrote to him, “Your magistrates have acted in accordance
with right and justice in having this blasphemer put to death.” These
acts of cruelty and vengeance, nevertheless, have excited the just
indignation of several Protestant historians, who deplore the loss to
Geneva of her ancient liberties and franchises. “For more than eight
hundred years,” says Fazy, “the harmony between the cause of the people
and that of religion had placed Geneva in the van of civilisation. Its
laws were mild, acts of violence were rare, confiscation was unknown,
and nowhere do we find any traces of people being persecuted for their
opinions.”
[Illustration: Fig. 343.--Ornament from the “Historia Testamenti”
of Pierre Comestor.--MS. dated 1229. Library of M. Ambroise
Firmin-Didot.]
BURIALS AND FUNERAL CEREMONIES.
Embalming and Incineration of Bodies amongst the
Ancients.--Interment brought into practice by Christianity.--The
Wrapping of the Dead in Shrouds.--The Direction in which
the Bodies were laid.--Absolution Crosses.--Funeral
Furniture.--Coffins and Sarcophagi in the Middle Ages.--Funereal
Sculpture and Architecture, from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth
Century.--The Catacombs at Rome.--Charnel-houses in the
Churches.--Public Cemeteries.--The Cemetery of the Innocents,
Paris.--Lanterns for the Dead.--Funerals of the Kings and Queens
of France.--The Rolls of the Dead.--Consoling Thought of the
Resurrection and of Eternal Life.
In the most remote epoch of the world’s history we find that the dead
were treated with respect, not to say worshipped; for a natural,
sentiment leads savage as well as civilised man to pay the last tribute
of affection to the bodies of those for whom he once felt affection,
esteem, or fear. Such is the moral principle of the various modes
of burial which have been successively practised, viz., embalming,
incineration, and interment. Many ancient nations, and especially the
Egyptians, who sought to preserve the human body for an indefinite
length of time, embalmed their dead with extreme care, or rather, we
should say, with wonderful art.
The Greeks generally burnt their dead and collected their ashes in
urns; with the Romans the custom of burning was usual, at least amongst
the rich, and lasted long after the establishment of Christianity,
which dogmatically enjoined the interment of the dead, though this mode
of sepulture had before been confined to slaves, suicides, and the poor.
The Christians introduced at the same time the old Jewish custom of
swathing the dead body in a winding-sheet, which was bound up with
long bands soaked in resinous and perfumed oil, after the fashion of
the Egyptians. Embalming was, moreover, prescribed and authorised by
divine legislation. It is said in Genesis that it took forty days to
embalm the body of Jacob, and in the sixteenth chapter of St. Mark we
read, “And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the
mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might
come and anoint Him.”
All the bas-reliefs of the fifth and sixth centuries, upon which figure
bodies prepared for burial, represent a regular mummy swathed in bands;
and this mode of wrapping the body, which seems to imply that it had
first been embalmed, was still in use at the end of the eighth century.
After this epoch we do not possess sufficiently accurate data to say
what was the general practice. We know, however, that for a certain
length of time the dead were sewn up in leather prepared from the
skins of stags or oxen. The _cervicorium_, or stag-hide, was a
kind of shroud specially used for warriors, if we may believe the war
ballads. Precious tissues were used at that time for the winding-sheets
of ecclesiastical persons; and in a tomb of the tenth century, in the
vault of St. Germain des Prés, in Paris, a skeleton was found which
was enveloped in a piece of cloth, tied at the neck and the feet with
short narrow bands. The dead bodies of the lower classes were buried in
shrouds made of some common material.
Before burial, the hands were always folded across the breast. This was
customary in the East throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, and the
doctors of the Greek Church attached so much importance to it that,
according to an author of the thirteenth century, they made it a great
reproach to the Latins that they neglected to observe this Christian
law.
[Illustration: Fig. 344.--Christ victorious over Death; with the
following Inscription:--
“Hic residens solio Christus jam victor in alto
Mortem calce premit, colligat atque fodit.
Dumque salutiferam vult mors extinguere vitam,
Infelix hamo deperit illa suo.”
Fac-simile of a Miniature from the “Choir Book” of the Cathedral
at Worms.--Manuscript of the Eighth or Ninth Century, in the
Library of the Arsenal, Paris.]
The direction in which the body was to be buried was, moreover,
particularly specified. Thus it was enjoined that it should be laid
upon the back “with the head to the west, the feet towards the east,”
says the ancient writer John Beleth. Another liturgical writer scarcely
less famous, William Durand, Bishop of Mende, adds, in his “Rationale
Divinorum Officiorum,” that the body, when placed in this position,
seems to be engaged in prayer, and ready to rise when the first
rays of the sun shine forth. It must not be supposed, however, that
this particular direction of the body (_capite versus occidentem
et pedibus versus orientem_) was rigorously adhered to by the
Christians alone, for it is found to have been observed during the
second and third centuries, which were assuredly not Christian. The
custom of burying the dead, introduced by Christianity, was adopted in
Italy long before the Roman provinces were converted to the new faith.
Subsequent to the reign of the Antonines, who by edict authorised the
burial of the dead, there are numerous instances of pagan burials
being conducted in conformity with, this edict, especially in Gaul.
[Illustration: Fig. 345.--The Harvest of Souls: God the Father
receiving the souls in his lap.--Miniature in the “Dialogues
of St. Gregory,” a Manuscript of the Twelfth Century, in the
Burgundian Library, Brussels.]
[Illustration: Fig. 346.--Celtic Burial.--The body, bent double,
with the head between the knees, and with two vases at the feet,
is placed in a grotto or natural cave.]
[Illustration: Fig. 347.--Mode of Burial among the Franks.--The
body, laid in the grave, is surrounded with arms, implements,
and various articles for use: the sword or the _scrama sax_
under the right armpit, the knife or poignard upon the breast,
the hatchet at the knee, the _framée_ or the lance at the
feet, comb, bracelet, &c. It is thought that the vase in red or
black clay, which is often found under the feet of the skeleton,
had a symbolic meaning. This grave was discovered during
excavations made in Paris.]
At a much later period the principle relating to the direction in which
bodies were laid fell into disuse at Christian burials. The persons
attached to the ecclesiastical edifices were buried with their feet
towards the west, and sometimes towards the south. There was another
exception: the body was not always laid upon its back, but in certain
cases it was placed upon its side, or even with the face downwards.
Pepin the Short was buried with his face downwards; Hugh Capet,
in accordance with his wishes, was also thus interred beneath the
rain-spout which was above the porch of St. Denis Cathedral, in order
that his sins might be washed out. This was termed _adens_ burial
(upon the teeth, _ad dentes_).