THE JURISPRUDENCE OF THE HOLY OFFICE--THE AUDIENCE OF TORMENT
Eymeric’s cold-blooded directions for leading an accused who refused
to confess into contradictions that should justify his being put to
torture have already been considered.
The inquisitors could not proceed to employ the question--as the
torture was euphemistically called--save under certain circumstances
prescribed by law; and the strict letter of the law, as you have seen,
and as you shall see further, was a thing inviolable to these very
subtle judges.
These circumstances, as expounded by Eymeric in his “Directorium,”[107]
are (_a_) the inconsistence of the accused’s replies upon matters of
detail whilst denying the main fact; (_b_) the existence of semi-plenal
proof of his offence.
This semi-plenal proof is considered forthcoming--
(_a_) When an accused is “reputed” to be a heretic and there
is but one witness against him who can depone to having seen
or heard him do or say that which is against the Faith. (Two
witnesses were by law required to establish his guilt.)
(_b_) When in the absence of witnesses there are grounds for
vehement or violent suspicion.
(_c_) When there is no evil “reputation” attaching to the
accused, but one witness against him and _grounds_ for
vehement or violent suspicion--_i.e._ not actual suspicion but
indications of it; a suspicion of suspicion, as it were. The
distinction is most elusively fine.
The scholiast Pegna adds in his commentaries that this combination
of “reputation” (or grounds for suspicion) and one witness is not
necessary to justify submitting the accused to the question--
(_a_) When to evil reputation are added evil morals, which
lead easily to heresy--thus those who are incontinent and
very greatly addicted to women persuade themselves that this
incontinence is not in itself a sin. (Such an opinion if
proclaimed would amount to heresy, therefore one who acts as if
he held it lays himself open to suspicion of heresy.)
(_b_) When the accused who has incurred evil reputation shall
have fled. (The circumstance of his flight is accepted as
evidence of evil conscience.)[108]
Eymeric further enjoins that the question shall be employed only when
all other means of obtaining the truth shall have failed, and he
recommends the use of exhortation, gentleness, and ruse to draw the
truth from the prisoner.[109]
He observes that, after all, not even the torture can be depended upon
always to extract the truth. There are weak men who under the first
torments confess even what they have not done; and there are others so
stubborn and vigorous that they can suffer the greatest pains; there
are those who having already undergone torture are able to endure it
with greater fortitude, knowing how to adapt themselves to it; and
there are others still who, by having recourse to sorcery, remain
almost insensible to the pain and would die before divulging anything.
These last, he warns inquisitors, use passages from the Gospel
curiously inscribed upon virgin parchment, intermingling in these
the names of angels that are unknown, designs of circles, and magic
characters. These charms they bear about their bodies.
“I don’t yet know,” he confesses, “what remedies are available against
these sorceries; but it will be well to strip and closely to examine
the patient before putting him to the question.”
He recommends that when the accused has been sentenced to torture, and
whilst the executioners are making ready to perform it, the inquisitor
should continually endeavour to induce the accused to confess. The
torturers should strip him with precipitation, but with a sorrowful air
and almost as if troubled for him (_quasi turbati_). When stripped, he
should be taken aside and once more exhorted to confess. His life may
be promised him, provided that the crime of which he is accused is not
such as to make it forfeit.
If all proves vain the inquisitor shall proceed to the question,
beginning by interrogating him upon the more trivial matters of which
he is accused, as he would naturally acknowledge these more readily
(and when acknowledged they can be made the stepping-stones to more),
the notary being at hand to write down all that is asked and answered.
If he persists in his denials he is to be shown further implements of
torture, and assured that he will have to undergo them all unless he
speaks the truth.
If he still denies, the question may be _continued_ on the second or
third day, but not _repeated_.
Here again we have them observing the letter and flagrantly violating
the spirit of the law. Torture must not be repeated because it is by
law forbidden to put an accused to the question more than once, unless
in the meantime fresh evidence has been forthcoming; but it is not
forbidden to continue it--not forbidden because those who formulated
that law never dreamt of such a quibble being raised.
It is almost incredible that men should juggle with words in this way.
But here is the passage itself:
“Ad continuandum non ad iterandum, quia iterari non debent, nisi novis
supervenientibus indiciis, sed continuari non prohibentur.”
Lest they should be in danger of having to repeat the torture, they
took care to suspend it as soon as the patient was at the limit of
his endurance, and merely resumed or continued it two or three days
later, to suspend again and continue again as often as they might deem
necessary.
That it can have made no difference to the wretched patient whether
they described the procedure by one verb or the other does not appear
to have weighed with them. There was a difference--an important verbal
difference.
* * * * *
Upon this point the apologist Garcia Rodrigo, in his “Historia
Verdadera de la Inquisicion,” very daringly draws attention to the
meekness of the courts of the Inquisition as compared with the civil
tribunals. He contrasts the methods of the two, and to make out a case
in favour of the former, to prove to us that those who preached a
gospel of mercy knew also how to practise mercy, he tells us, rather
disingenuously, that whilst in civil courts a prisoner might be ordered
three times to the torture, in the courts of the Inquisition this
could not be imposed upon him more than once--_its rules forbidding
repetition_.
He does not consider it worth while to add that the “Directorium” in
which he found that rule points out, as we have seen, how it may be
circumvented
It is much easier to set up a case for the other side, to show that the
greater mercy in the matter of torture was practised by the secular
courts. In these, for instance, a nobleman was immune from torture.
Not so in the courts of the Inquisition, which proceeded, no doubt,
upon the grounds that all are equals in the sight of God. No exception
was made there in favour of any man. And in Aragon, where the torture
was never applied in civil trials, it was none the less resorted to by
the inquisitors.
* * * * *
When the accused shall have endured torture without confessing, the
inquisitors may order his release by sentence, stating that after
careful examination they are unable to find anything against him on
the score of the crime of which he is accused--which, of course, is no
acquittal, since he may at any time be re-arrested and put upon his
trial once more.
In his commentaries Pegna tells us[110] that there are five degrees
of torture. He does not mention them in detail, saying that they
are sufficiently well known to all. These five degrees are given in
Limborch.[111]
The first four are not so much torture as terror--or mental torture; it
is only in the fifth degree that this becomes physical. The conception
is of an almost fiendish subtlety; and yet its aim, we must believe,
was merciful, since they accounted it more merciful to torture and
terrify the mind than to bruise the flesh.
Eymeric’s directions are the basis of this, although Eymeric himself
does not break up the procedure into degrees. These are:
(1) The threat of torture.
(2) Being conducted to the torture-chamber and shown the implements and
their functions.
(3) Stripping and preparing for the ordeal.
(4) Laying and binding upon the engine.
(5) The actual torture.
The actual torture was of various kinds, any of which the inquisitor
might employ as he considered most suitable and effective, but Pegna
admonishes him not to resort to unusual ones. Marsilius, the scholiast
informs us, mentions fourteen different varieties, and adds that he had
imagined others, such as that of depriving a prisoner of sleep. In this
he appears to have received the approval of other authors, but he does
not receive Pegna’s. Even the scholiast is shocked at an ecclesiastic’s
fertility of invention in this branch, and confesses that such
researches are better suited to executioners than theologians.
It must be admitted that the records show none of that fiendish
invention which is so widely believed to have been exercised. The cruel
subtleties of the inquisitors were spiritual rather than physical,
and we have just seen Pegna’s censure of an inquisitor who gave his
attention to the devising of novel and ingenious torments.
It is very clear, from the records we have, that the Holy Office must
have been content to depend upon the engines already in existence,
or, rather, upon a limited number of the most efficacious. There
were exceptions, of course. The torture of fire--which consisted in
toasting the feet of the patient after anointing them with fat--appears
upon rare occasions to have been employed; and a barbarous piece of
supererogative cruelty was practised at a great Auto de Fé held at
Valladolid in 1636: ten Jews convicted of having whipped a crucifix
were made to stand with one hand nailed to an arm of a St. Andrew’s
cross whilst sentence of death was being read to them.
As a rule, however, both in torturing and in punishing the inquisitors
avoided novelties. For the question they usually resorted to one of
three methods: the rack; the _garrucha_, which is the torture of the
hoist, the _tratta di corda_ of the Italians; and the _escalera_, or
_potro_, or ladder, or water torture.
The inquisitors attended in person--as prescribed by Torquemada--to
question the patient, accompanied by their notary, who wrote down in
fullest detail an account of the proceedings.
The hoist was the simplest of all engines; it consisted of no more
than a rope running through a pulley attached to the ceiling of the
torture-chamber.
The patient’s wrists were pinioned behind him, and one end of the rope
was attached to them. Slowly then the executioners drew upon the other
end, gradually raising the patient’s arms behind him as far as they
would go, backwards and upwards, and continuing until they brought him
to tip-toe and then slowly off the ground altogether, so that the whole
weight of his body was thrown upon his straining arms.
At this point he was again questioned and desired to confess the truth.
If he refused to speak, or if he spoke to no such purpose as his
questioners desired, he was hoisted towards the ceiling, then allowed
to drop a few feet, his fall being suddenly arrested by a jerk that
almost threw his arms out of their sockets. Again was the question put,
and if he continued stubborn he was given a further drop, and so on
until he had come to the ground once more, or until he had confessed.
If he reached the ground without confessing, weights were now attached
to his feet, thus increasing the severity of the torture, which was
resumed. And so it continued. The weights were increased, the drops
were lengthened--or else he might be left hanging--until confession was
extracted, or until with dislocated shoulders the patient had reached
the limit of his endurance.[112]
In the latter case the torture might be suspended, as we have seen,
to be continued two or three days later, when the prisoner should
sufficiently have recovered.
The notary made a scrupulous record of the _audiencia_--the weights
attached, the number of hoists endured, the questions asked and the
answers delivered.
The potro, or water-torture, was more complex, far more cruel, and
appears to have been greatly favoured by the Holy Office.
The patient was placed upon a short narrow engine, in the shape of a
ladder, and this was slanted a little so that his head was below the
level of his feet, for reasons that will soon be apparent. His head
was now secured by a metal or leather band which held it rigidly in
position, whilst his arms and legs were lashed to the sides of the
ladder so tightly that any movement on his part must cause the whipcord
to cut into his flesh.
In addition to these bindings garrotes were applied to his thighs and
legs and arms. This was a length of cord tied firmly about a limb--upon
occasion round the whole torso over the arms; a stick was thrust
between the cord and the flesh, and by twisting this stick a tourniquet
was formed; first strangury, then the most agonizing pain was thus
occasioned, whilst if the twisting was carried far enough the cords
would sink through nerve and sinew until they reached the bone.
The mouth of the patient was now distended and held so by a prong
of iron--called a _bostezo_. His nostrils were plugged, and a long
strip of linen was placed across his jaws, and carried deep into his
throat by the weight of water poured into his gaping mouth. Down this
_toca_--as the strip was called--water continued to be slowly poured.
As this water filtered through the cloth, the patient was subjected to
all the torments of suffocation, the more cruel because he was driven
by his instincts to make futile efforts to ease his condition. He would
constantly exert himself to swallow the water, hoping thus to clear the
way for a little air to pass into his bursting lungs. A little would
and did pass in--just enough to keep him alive and conscious, but not
enough to mitigate the horrible sufferings of asphyxiation, for the
cloth was always wet and constantly charged with water.
From time to time the _toca_ was brought up, and the gasping wretch
would be invited to confess. Further to combat stubbornness on his
part, and also, it would seem, to revive him when he was failing, the
executioners would give an agonizing turn or two to the garrotes upon
his--or her--limbs; for the Holy Office did not discriminate between
the sexes in these matters.
To prevent the vomiting which any form of torture might produce, and
the _potro_ in particular, the inquisitors, with their never-failing
attention to detail, provided that no patient should be given
food for eight hours before the question was applied. The notary
present at this _audiencia de tormento_ was required to set down, in
addition to questions asked and answers returned, the fullest details
of the torture applied, and particularly how many jars of water
were administered, these being the measure of the severity of the
ordeal.[113]
The rack is too well-known to need describing here, having in its time
been used in all European countries. Cruel as it was, it was perhaps
one of the least cruel engines of torture that have been employed.
* * * * *
It was required by law that any confession extracted under torture
should afterwards be ratified by the prisoner. This was one of the
prescriptions of Alfonso XI in the Partidas code. It recognizes that
a man might be driven by pain to say that which is not true, and
therefore it forbids the courts to accept as evidence what might be
declared under torture.
Therefore on one of the three days after the question had been
applied--as soon, presumably, as the prisoner was sufficiently
recovered to attend--the prisoner was brought once more into the
audience-chamber.
His confession, reduced to writing by the notary, was placed before
him, and he was invited to sign it--the act being necessary to convert
that confession into admissible evidence. If he signed, the proceedings
now ran swiftly and uninterruptedly to their end. If he refused to
sign, repudiating the statements made, the inquisitors proceeded upon
the lines laid down by Torquemada in Article XV of his “Instructions”
to meet the case.
* * * * *
Pegna warns inquisitors against delinquents who feign madness to avoid
the torture. They should not, he says, delay on that account, for the
torture may be the best means of ascertaining whether the madness is
real or simulated.[114]
Finally let it be added upon this gruesome subject that it was not
only the accused who was liable to be put to the question. A witness
suspected of falsehood, or one who had lapsed into contradictions
in the course of his evidence, might be put to torture _in caput
alienum_.[115]