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TORQUEMADA AND THE SPANISH INQUISITION
BY RAFAEL SABATINI
PREFACE
The history of Frey Tomas de Torquemada is the history of the
establishment of the Modern Inquisition. It is not so much the history of a man
as of an abstract genius presiding over a gigantic and cruel engine of its own
perfecting. Of this engine we may examine for ourselves today the details of
the complex machinery. Through the records that survive we may observe its
cold, smooth action, and trace in this the awful intelligence of its architect.
But of that architect himself we are permitted to catch no more than an
occasional and fleeting glimpse. It is only in the rarest and briefest moments
that he stands clearly before us, revealed as a man of flesh and blood.
We see him, now
fervidly urging a reluctant queen to do her duty by her God and unsheathe the
sword of persecution, now harshly threatening his sovereigns with the wrath of
Heaven when they are in danger of relenting in the wielding of that same sword.
But in the main he must be studied, not in his actions, but in his
enactments—the emanations of his relentless spirit. In these he is to be seen
devoutly copassing evil in the perfervid quest of good.
Untouched by worldly
ambitions, he seems at once superhuman and less than human. Dauntless amid
execrations, unmoved by plaudits, sublimely disdainful of temporal weal, in
nothing is he so admirable as in the unfaltering self-abnegation with which he
devotes himself to the service of his God, in nothing so terrible and
tragically deplorable as in the actual service which he renders.
“ His history,” says
Prescott, “ may be thought to prove that of all human infirmities there is none
productive of more extensive mischief to society than fanaticism.”
To this day—four
centuries after his passing— Spain still bears the imprint of his pitiless
work, and none may deny the truth of Rosseuw St. Hilaire’s indictment that,
after Philip II, Torquemada was the man who did most harm to the land that gave
him birth.
The materials for
this history have been gathered from the sources cited in the appended
bibliography, to all of which the author acknowledges his profound indebtedness.
In particular, however, are his thanks due—as must be the thanks of all men who
engage in studies of the Spanish Inquisition—to the voluminous, succinct, and
enormously comprehensive works of Juan Antonio Llorente, a historian of
unimpugned honesty and authority, who wrote under circumstances peculiarly
advantageous and with qualifications peculiarly full.
Juan Antonio Llorente
was born at Logroño in 1756, and he was ordained priest in 1779, after a
university course of Roman and Canon law which enabled him to obtain a place
among the lawyers of the Supreme Council of Castile—i.e. the Council of the
Inquisition. Having graduated as a Doctor of
In 1789 he was
appointed Secretary-General to the Holy Office, an appointment which took him
to Madrid, where he was well received by the King, who gave him a canonry of
Calahorra.
A profound student of
sociological questions, with leanings towards rationalism, he provoked a
certain degree of mistrust, and when the Liberal party fell from power and
dragged with it many of those who had held offices of consequence, the young
priest found himself not only deposed, but forced to meet certain minor
charges, which resulted in his being sent into retreat in a convent for a month
as a penance.
Thereafter he
concerned himself with educational matters until the coming of Bonaparte’s
eagles into Spain. When that invasion took place, he hailed the French as the
saviours of his country, and as a consequence found himself a member of the
Assembly of Notables convoked by Murat to reform the Spanish Government. But
most important of all, from our point of view, is the fact that when the
Inquisition was abolished, in 1809, he accepted the charge of going through its
vast archives, and he spent two years and employed a number of amanuenses in
copying or making extracts of all that he considered of account.
He held various
offices of importance under the French Government, so that when this was
finally expelled from Spain, he, too, was forced to go. He
It was a very daring
thing to have done, and, thanks to the royalist and clerical Government, he was
not suffered to remain long unpunished. He was inhibited from hearing
confession or celebrating Mass— practically unfrocked—and forbidden to teach
the Castilian language in private schools. He hit back by publishing “ The
Political Portrait of the Popes,” which earned him orders to leave France
immediately. He set out in December of 1822 to return to Spain, and died a few
days after reaching Madrid, killed by the rigours of the journey at his
advanced age.
Although his “Critical History” displays at times a certain vehemence, in the main it is
concerned with the sober transcription of the musty records he was privileged
to explore.
The Spanish
Inquisition has been the subject of much unrestrained and exaggerated writing,
expressing points of view that are diametrically opposed. From such authors as
Garcia Rodrigo, who laud its work of purification, misrepresent its scope, and
deplore (in our own times) the extinction of that terrible tribunal, it is a
far cry indeed to such writers as Dr. Rule, who dip their pens in the gall of
an intolerance as virulent as that which they attack.
The author has sought
here to hold a course that is unencumbered by religious partisanship, treating
purely as a phase of history the institution for which Torquemada was so
largely responsible. He has not written in the Catholic interest, or the
Protestant interest, or the. Jewish interest, He holds the view
If the Spanish
Inquisition is here shown as a ruthless engine of destruction whose wheels drip
the blood of mangled generations, yet it is very far from being implied that
religious persecution is an offence peculiar to the Church of Rome.
“She persecuted to
the full extent of the power of her clergy, and that power was very great. The
persecution of which every Protestant church was guilty was measured by the
same rule, but clerical influence in Protestant countries was comparatively
weak.”
Thus Lecky, whom we
quote lest any should be tempted to use anything in these pages as a weapon of
unchristian Christian partisanship. Let any such remember that against
Torquemada, who was unfortunately well served by opportunity, may be set the
bloody-minded John Knox, who, fortunately for humanity, was not; let him ponder
the slaughter of Presbyterians, Puritans, and Roman Catholics under Elizabeth ;
let him call to mind the persecutions of the Anabaptists under Edward VI, and the
Anabaptists’ own clamour for the blood of all who were not re-baptized.
CHAPTER
I. EARLY PERSECUTIONS
II. THE INQUISITION CANONICALLY ESTABLISHED
III. THE ORDER OF ST. DOMINIC
IV. ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC
V. THE JEWS IN SPAIN
VI. THE NEW-CHRISTIANS
VII. THE PRIOR OF HOLY CROSS
VIII. THE HOLY OFFICE IN SEVILLE
IX. THE SUPREME COUNCIL
X. THE JURISPRUDENCE
OF THE HOLY OFFICE
THE FIRST “INSTRUCTIONS” OF
THE
JURISPRUDENCE OF THE HOLY OFFICE THE
MODE OF PROCEDURE . .
THE
JURISPRUDENCE OF THE HOLY OFFICE THE
AUDIENCE OF TORMENT . .
THE JURISPRUDENCE OF
THE HOLY OFFICE —THE SECULAR ARM . . .
PEDRO ARBUliS DE Ei’ILA . . .
TORQUEMADA’S
FURTHER “INSTRUCTIONS”
THE INQUISITION IN TOLEDO .
AUTOS DE FE
TORQUEMADA
AND THE JEWS . . .
TIIE
LEGEND OF THE SANTO NINO . .
THE ARREST
OF YUCE FRANCO . .
THE TRIAL
OF YUCE FRANCO . . .
the trial of yuce
franco (continued)
THE TRIAL OF YUCE
FRANCO (concluded)
EPILOGUE TO THE
AFFAIR OF THE SANTO NINO
XXV. THE EDICT OF
BANISHMENT . .
XXVI. THE EXODUS FROM
SPAIN . .
XXVII. THE LAST “
INSTRUCTIONS ” OF TORQUE MADA .....
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER I
EARLY PERSECUTIONS
In an endeavour to trace the Inquisition to its source it is
not necessary to go as far back into antiquity as went Paramo; nor yet is it
possible to agree with him that God Himself was the first inquisitor, that the
first “Act of Faith” was executed upon Adam and Eve, and that their expulsion
from Eden is a proper precedent for the confiscation of the property of heretics.
Nevertheless, it is
necessary to go very far back indeed; for it is in the very dawn of
Christianity that the beginnings of this organization are to be discovered.
There is no more
lamentable lesson to be culled from history than that contained in her
inability to furnish a single instance of a religion accepted with
unquestioning sincerity and fervour which did not, out of those very qualities,
beget intolerance. It would seem that only when a faith has been diluted by
certain general elements of doubt, that only when a certain degree of
indifference has crept into the observance of a prevailing cult, does it become
possible for the members of that cult to bear themselves complacently towards
the members of another. Until this comes to pass, intolerance is the very
breath of religion, and—when
the power is present—this intolerance never fails to express itself in
persecution.
Deplorable as this is
in all religions, in none is it so utterly anomalous as in Christianity, which
is established upon tenets of charity, patience, and forbearance, and which has
for cardinal guidance its Founder’s sublime admonition—“ Love one another ! ”
From the earliest
days of its history, persecution has unfailingly signalized the spread of
Christianity, until to the thoughtful observer Christianity must afford the
grimmest, the saddest—indeed, the most tragic—of all the paradoxes that go to
make up the history of civilized man.
Its benign gospel of
love has been thundered forth in malign hatred ; its divine lesson of patience
and forbearance has been taught in murderous impatience and bloodthirsty
intolerance ; its mild tenets of mercy and compassion have been ferociously
expounded with fire and sword and rack ; its precepts of humility have been
inculcated with a pride and arrogance as harsh as any that the world has known.
It is impossible to
deny that at almost any time in the history of Christianity the enlightened
pagan of the second century would have been justified of his stinging gibe—“Behold how these Christians love one another! ”
It may even be said
of the earliest Christians that it was largely through their own intolerance of
the opinions and beliefs of others that they brought upon themselves the
persecutions to which through three centuries they were intermittently
subjected. Certain it is that they were the first to disturb the toleration
which in polytheistic Rome was accorded to all religions. They might have
pursued their cult unmolested so long as they accorded the same liberty to
others. But by the vehemence with which they denounced false all creeds but
their own, they offended the zealous worshippers of other gods, and so
disturbed the peace of the community ; by denying obedience
The severity dealt
out to them by a state hitherto indifferent—through the agnosticism prevalent
in the ruling classes—to the religious opinions of its citizens, was dictated
by the desire to suppress an element that had become socially perturbative,
rather than by any vindictiveness or intolerance towards this new cult out of
Syria.
Under Claudius we see
the Nazarenes expelled from Rome as disturbers of the public peace ; under Nero
and Domitian we see them, denounced as hostes publici, suffering their first
great persecution. But that persecution on purely religious grounds was
repugnant to the Roman is shown by the conduct of Nerva, who forbade delations
and oppressions on the score of belief, and recalled the Christians who had
been banished. His successor, the just and wise Trajan, provoked perhaps by the
fierce insurrection of the Jews which occurred in his reign, moved against the
Nazarenes at first, but later on afforded them complete toleration. Similarly
were they unmolested by the accomplished Adrian, who, indeed, so far
With the accession of
the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius, who was rendered hostile to the new
doctrine not only by his own stoical convictions, but also because politically
he viewed the Christians with disfavour, came the next great persecution ; and
persecution was their portion thereafter for some sixty years, under four
reigns, until the accession of Alexander Severus in the third decade of the
third century of the Christian era.
Alexander’s mother,
Julia Mannea, is believed to have been instructed in the new doctrine by
Origen, the Alexandrian, although hei conversion to Christianity and her ideas
upon it do not appear to be greatly in advance of those of Adrian, for she is
said to have included an image of Christ in the group of beneficent deities set
up in her lararium-1
1 Possibly the images of the Saviour
prevalent in the third century may have contributed to the apparent fitness of
this. For at this epoch— and for some three hundred years after—these images
embodied the Greek ideas of divinity; they represented Christ as a youth of
superb grace and beauty, and they appear largely to have been founded upon the
conceptions of Orpheus. Indeed, in one representation which has survived, we
see Him as a beardless adolescent, seated upon a mountain, grasping an
instrument with whose music he has charmed the wild beasts assembled below.
Another picture in the catacombs (included in the illustrations of Didron’s
" Iconographie Chrgtienne ”), representing Him as the Good Shepherd,
depicts a vigorous youth, beardless and with short hair, in a tunic descending
to the knees ; His left hand supporting a lamb which is placed across His
shoulders, His right holding a shepherd’s pipe.
That such pictures
were not accepted as portraits by the fathers, but merely as idealistic
representations, is clear from the disputes which arose in the second century
(and were still alive in the eighteenth) on the subject of Christ’s personal
appearance. St. Justin argued that to render His sacrifice more touching He
must have put on the most abject of human shapes; and St. Cyril, also holding
this view, uncompromisingly pronounced Him “the ugliest of the sons of men.”
But others, imbued with the old Greek notions that beauty was in itself a mark
of divinity, protested : " If He is not beautiful, then He is not God.”
St. Augustine
formally states that no knowledge existed in his day
For twenty years the
Christians now knew peace and enjoyed the fullest liberty. Upon that followed a
period of severe oppression, initiated by Decius, continued by Valerian and
Aurelian, and reaching something of a climax under Diocletian, in the dawn of
the fourth century, when the Christians endured the cruellest and most
ferocious of all these persecutions. But the end of their sufferings was at
hand, and with the accession of Constantine in 312 a new era began for
Christianity. Constantine, upheld by the Christians as their saviour, in
admitting the inevitable predominance which the new religion had obtained in
rather less than three hundred years, was compelled to recognize the rights of
its votaries not only to existence but to authority.
Legends surround the
history of this emperor. The most popular relates how, when he was marching
against Maxentius, his rival for the throne, desponding in the consciousness
of his own inferior force, there appeared at sunset a fiery cross in the
heavens with the inscription EN TOTTO NIKA—in this sign you conquer. And it is
claimed that as a consequence
(the fourth century)
of the features of either the Saviour or His Mother : “ Nam et ipsius Dominica;
fades carnis, innumerabilium cogitationum diversitate variatur et fingitur,
quae tamen una erat, qusecumque erat. . . . Neque enim novimus faciem Virginis Maria:. Nec novimus omnino, nec credimus
” (“ De Trinitate,” lib. viii. cap. 4).
It is clear,
therefore, that the two miraculous portraits were not known in St. Augustine’s
time—i.e. the Veronica, or the Holy Face (which is preserved at St. Peter’s,
Rome), and another portrait of similar origin, which it was alleged Christ had,
Himself, impressed upon a cloth and sent to Abgarus, Prince of Edessa (as
related by St. John of Damascus, in the eighth century). To preserve it,
Abgarus glued the cloth upon wood, and thus it came later to Constantinople and
thence to Rome, where it is still believed to be treasured in the Church of St.
Sylvester in Capite.
These portraits, and
still more a letter purporting to have been written to the Roman Senate by
Lentulus (who was pro-consul in Judea before Herod) and believed to have been
forged to combat the generally repugnant theory that Christ was ugly and
deformed (“sine decore et specie ”), supply the materials for the
representations with which we are to-day familiar. That letter contained the
following description :
11 At this time there appeared a man who is
still living and who is gifted with great power. His name is Jesus Christ. His
disciples call him the Son of God; others consider him a mighty prophet. ... He
is tall of
of this portent,
whose injunction he obeyed, he sought instruction in Christianity, was baptized
and made public avowal of that faith. Others maintain that he was reared in
Christianity by his mother, St. Helena —she who made an expedition to the Holy
Land to recover the true cross, and who is said to have built the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem ; whilst others still assert that Constantine did
not receive baptism until at the point of death, and that throughout his life,
whilst undoubtedly favouring Christians, he continued in the pagan religion in
which he had been educated by his father.
The truth probably
lies midway. During the early years of his reign Constantine not only pursued
stature and his
countenance is severe and full of power, so that to look upon him is to love and
to fear him. The hair of his head is of the colour of wine; as far as the roots
of the ears it is dull and straight, but from the ears to the shoulders it is
curled and glossy ; from the shoulders it falls over the back, divided into two
parts, after the manner of the Nazarenes. His brow is pure and level; his
countenance is without blemish and delicately tinted; his expression is gentle
and gracious ; his nose and mouth are of perfect beauty; his beard is copious,
of the colour of his hair, and forked. His eyes are blue and extremely bright.
His face is of marvellous grace and majesty. None has ever seen him laugh, but
rather weeping. Erect of body, he has long, straight hands and beautiful arms.
In speech he is grave and weighty, and sparing of words. He is the most
beautiful of the sons of men (Pulcherrimus vultu inter homines satos).”
It is clear, however,
that there was no knowledge either of this description or of the miraculous
portraits mentioned as late as the fourth and fifth centuries, during which
Christ continued to be represented as the lithe, beardless adolescent. And it
is no doubt by these representations that Michelangelo was inspired to present
Christ in "TheLast Judgment ” in a manner so unusual and startling to
modern eyes.
Similarly there were
no portraits of the Virgin Mary, and it is fairly established that none came
into existence until after the Council of Ephesus, and that some seven pictures
attributed to St. Luke—four of which are in Rome—are the work of an
eleventh-century Florentine painter named Luca.
Whilst on the subject
it may be added that the crucifix, as the emblem of Christianity, was not
introduced until the seventh century, when it was established by the Quinisexte
Council at Constantinople. Its nature rendered its earlier adoption dangerous,
if not impossible ; since—as the familiar Roman gallows—it was liable to
provoke the scorn and derision of the people.
For further
information on this subject see Emeric-David, “ Histoire de la Peinture,” A. N.
Didron, “ Iconographie Chr6tienne,” and Marangoni, “ Istoria della Capella di
Sancta Sanctorum.”
a middle course,
according religious liberty to all sects, but, himself, whilst leaning strongly
towards Christianity, retained his imperial dignity of High-priest of the
polytheistic Roman cult, and the title “ Pontifex Maximus,” which
later—together with so much else of pagan origin—was appropriated by the
Christians and bestowed upon their chief bishop. But in 313-14 he refused to
celebrate the ludi semlares, and in 330 he issued an edict forbidding
temple-worship, whilst the Christian Council of Nicaea, in 325, was held
undoubtedly under his auspices.
From the very moment
that the new religion found itself recognized and invested not only with civil
rights but actually with power, from the very moment that the Christian could
rear his head and go openly and unafraid abroad, from that very moment do we
find him engaging in persecutions against the votaries of other cults—against
pagan, Jew, and heretic. For although Christianity was but in the beginning of
the fourth century of its existence, not only had it spread irresistibly and
mightily in spite of the repressive measures against it, but it was already
beginning to know dismemberment and divisions in its own body. Indeed, it has
been computed that the number of schisms in the fourth century amounted to no
less than ninety.
Of these the most
famous is that of Arius, a priest of Alexandria, who denied that Christ was God
Incarnate, accounting Him no more than divinely inspired, the first and the
highest of the sons of men. Although already denounced by the Synod that met at
Alexandria in 321, so great had been the spread of this doctrine that the
(Ecumenical Council of NicEea was convoked especially to deal with it. It was
then condemned as heretical, and the Articles of Faith were defined and set
down in the Nicene Creed, which is recited to this day.
Other famous heresies
were the Manichsean, the Gnostic, the Adamite, the Severist, and the Donatist;
and to these were
soon to be added, amongst others, the Pelagian and the Priscilliantist.
Perhaps the
Manichseans’ chief claim to celebrity lies in the fact that the great St.
Augustine of Tagaste, when he abandoned the disorders of his youth, entered
Christianity through this sect, which professed a form of it vitiated by
Sun-worship and Buddhism.
The other
heresies—with the exception of the Pelagian—were, in the main, equally
fantastic. The Gnostic heresy, with its many subdivisions, was made up of
mysticism and magic, and founded upon Zoro- astrian notions of dualism, of the
two powers of good and evil, light and darkness. To the power of evil it
attributed all creation save man, whose soul was accounted of divine
substance. The Adamites claimed to be in the state of original innocency of
Adam before the fall; they demanded purity in their followers, rejected
marriage, which they urged could never have come into existence but for sin,
and they expelled from their Church all sinners against their tenets, even as
Adam and Eve had been expelled from Eden. The Severists denied the resurrection
of the flesh, would not accept the acts of the apostles, and carried purity to
fantastic lengths. The Soldiers of Florinus denied the Last Judgment, and held
it as an undeniable truth that the resurrection of the flesh lay entirely in reproduction.
The Pelagians were
the followers of Pelagius, a British monk who settled in Rome towards the year
400, and his heresy at least was founded upon rational grounds. He denied the
doctrine of original sin, maintained that every human being was born in a state
of innocency, and that his perseverance in virtue depended upon himself. He
found numerous followers, and for twenty years the conflict raged between
Pelagians and the Church, until Pope Zosimus declared against them and
banished Pelagius from Rome.
From Constantine
onwards Christianity steadily
maintains her
ascendancy, and her earliest assertion of her power is to bare the sword of
persecution, oblivious of the lofty protests against it which she, herself, had
uttered, the broad and noble advocacy of tolerance which she had urged in the
days of her own affliction. We find Optatus urging the massacre of the
Donatists—who claimed that theirs was the true Church—and Constantine
threatening with the stake any Jew who should affront a Christian and any
Christian who should become a Jew. We find him demolishing the churches of the
Arians and Donatists, banishing their priests and forbidding under pain of
death the propagation of their doctrines.
The power of Christianity
suffered one slight check thereafter, under the tolerant rule of Julian the
Apostate, who reopened the pagan temples and restored the cult of the old gods
; but it rose again to be finally and firmly established under Theodosius in
380.
Now we see the pagan
temples not only closed, but razed to the ground, the images broken and swept
away, their worship, and even private sacrifice, forbidden under pain of
death. From Libanius we may gather something of the desolation which this
spread among the pagan peasant-folk. Residing at a distance from the great
centres where doctrines were being expounded, they found themselves bereft of
the old gods and without knowledge of the new. Their plight is a far more
pathetic one than that of the Arians, Manichseans, Donatists, and all other
heretics against whom there was a similar enactment.
It is now, at this
early date, that for the first time we come across the title “ Inquisitor of
the Faith,” in the first law1 promulgated to render death the
penalty of heresy. It is now that we find the great Augustine ofTagaste—the
mightiest genius that the Church has brought forth—denouncing religious liberty
with the question, “ Quid est enim pejor, mors 1 IX. of the
Theodosian Code.
animae quam libertas
erroris ? ” 1 and strenuously urging the death of heretics on the
ground that it is a merciful measure, since it must result in the saving of
others from the damnation consequent upon their being led into error. Similarly
he applauded those decrees of death against any one pursuing the polytheism
that but a few generations earlier had been the official religion of the Roman
Empire.
It was Augustine—of
whom it has been truly said that “ no man since the days of the Apostles has
infused into the Church a larger measure of his spirit ”—in his enormous
fervour, and with the overwhelming arguments inspired by his stupendous intellect,
who laid down the principles that governed persecution, and were cited in
justification of it for nearly 1.500 years after his day. “ He was,” says
Lecky, “ the most staunch and enthusiastic defender of all those doctrines that
grow out of the habits of mind that lead to persecution.” 2
So far, however much
persecution may have been inspired by the Church, its actual execution had
rested entirely and solely with the civil authorities ; and this aloofness,
indeed, is urged upon the clergy by St. Augustine. But already before the close
of the fourth century we find ecclesiastics themselves directly engaged in
causing the death of heretics.
Priscillian, a
Spanish theologian, was led by St. Paul’s “ Know ye not that ye are the temple
of God ? ” to seek to render himself by purity a worthy dwelling. He preached
from that text a doctrine of stern asceticism, and forbade the marriage of the
clergy. This at the time was optional,3 and by proclaiming it to be
Christ’s
1 Epist.
clxvi.
* 11 History of Rationalism in
Europe,” vol. ii. p. 8.
s The
decretal of Siricius, five years after the execution of Priscillian, strictly
enjoined celibacy on all in holy orders above the rank of a subdeacon, and
dissolved all marriages of the clergy existing at the time. Leo the Great, in
the middle of the fifth century, further extended the rule so as to include the
sub-deacons hitherto excepted. This was largely the cause of the split that
occurred between the Greek and Latin Churches.
law he laid himself
open to a charge of heresy. He was accused of magic and licentiousness,
excommunicated in 380 and burnt alive, together with several of his
companions, by order of two Christian bishops. He has been described as the
first martyr burnt by a Spanish Inquisition.1
It must be added that
the deed excited the pro- foundest indignation on the part of the clergy
against those bishops who had been responsible for it, and St. Martin of Tours
hotly denounced the act. But this indignation was not provoked by the fact that
men had suffered death for heresy, but by the circumstance that ecclesiastics
had procured the execution. For it was part of the pure teaching of the early
Church that under no circumstances—not as judge, soldier, or executioner—should
a Christian render himself the instrument of the death of a fellow- creature ;
and it was partly through their rigid obedience to this precept that the
Christians had first drawn attention to themselves and aroused the resentment
of the Roman government, as we have seen. Now, whilst at no time after the
Church’s accession to power was this teaching observed with any degree of
strictness, yet there were limits to the extent to which it might be neglected,
and that limit, it was considered, had been exceeded by those prelates
responsible for the death of the Priscilliantists.
The point, apparently
trivial at present, has been insisted upon here, in view of the important and
curious part which it was destined to play in the procedure of the
Inquisition.
The Church had now
come to identify herself with the State. She had strengthened her organizations
; she had permeated the State with her influences, until it may almost be said
that the State had lost its capacity for independent existence, and had become
her instrument. The civil laws were based upon her spiritual laws ; the
standard of morality was founded 1 See K. C. H. Bahut, “ Priscillian
et le Priscilliantisme.”
upon her doctrines ; the
development of the arts—of painting, sculpture, literature, and music—became
such as was best adapted for her service, and, cramped thereby into confines
far too narrow, was partly arrested for a time ; sciences and crafts were stimulated
only by her needs and curbed by her principles ; the very recreation of the
people was governed by her spirit.
And yet, whilst
influencing the State in its every ramification so profoundly that State and
Church appeared welded into one disintegrable whole, she kept herself
independent, unfettered, and autonomous. So that when that great Empire of the
West upon which she had seemed to lean was laid in ruins by the invading
barbarians, she continued upright, unshaken by that tremendous cataclysm. She
remained to conquer the barbarian far more subtly and completely than he had
conquered. Her conquest lay in bringing him to look upon her as the natural
inheritor of fallen Rome. Soon she entered upon that splendid heritage,
claiming for her own the world-supremacy that Rome had boasted, and assuming
dominion over the new nations that were building upon the ruins of the
shattered empire.
CHAPTER II
THE INQUISITION
CANONICALLY ESTABLISHED
For some seven centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire
persecutions for heresy were very rare and very slight. This, however, cannot
be attributed to mercy. Although some of the old heresies survived,:
yet they were so sapped of their vitality that they were no longer openly
flaunted in defiance of the mother- Church, but were practised in such
obscurity as, in the main, to escape observation.
Fresh schisms, on the
other hand, do not appear to have sprung up during that spell. Largely this
would be due to the clear formulation of the Catholic theology by the various
oecumenical councils held in the years that followed upon the Christian
emancipation, and by the intellectual breadth of these doctrines, which were
entirely adequate and all-sufficient to the intellectual capacity of the time.
But this state of things could only have endured at the cost of arresting man’s
intellectual progress. A certain restraint and curb undoubtedly was exerted,
but definitely to check the imaginative and reasoning faculties of man has
never been within the power of any creed, and never can be. It was in vain that
the Church sought to coerce thought and to stifle the learning that struck at
her very foundations and discovered the error of the cosmic and historical
conceptions upon which her theology was based; in vain that she entrenched
herself within her doctrines, and adhered rigidly to the form she had adopted.
29
Upon this
uncompromising rigidity of the Catholic Church much censure has been poured.
The present aim is a cold survey of certain features of history, and in such a
task all polemical matters should be avoided. Yet it may be permissible to say
a word here to elucidate rather than to defend an attitude that has been unduly
abused.
It is admitted that
the unyielding policy of the Church was one that militated seriously against
intellectual evolution, and on that account it is to be deplored. But let the
unbiassed mind consider for a moment the alternative. The admission of error is
the commencement of disruption. Where one error is admitted, a thread is drawn
from a weft whose threads are interdependent for the stability of the whole.
Who has yielded once has set up a precedent that will be urged against him to
make him yield again, and yet again, until he shall have yielded all, and,
having nothing left, must suffer an imperceptible effacement.
When all is
considered, there is an indisputable dignity in the attitude of a Church which,
claiming that what she teaches rests not upon human knowledge but upon divine
inspiration, refuses to cede one jot of her doctrines to man’s discoveries ;
holding—and incontestably, so long as the premise is admitted— that however
certain may appear the truths which human subtlety has disclosed, however false
may appear the doctrines to which she owes her being, it still remains that the
former are human and the latter divine of origin. Between the two she proudly
holds that there is no disputing ; that error possible to man is impossible to
divinity; that man’s perception of error in the divine tenets of the Church is
no more than the manifestation of his own liability to err.
The Church of Rome
realized that either she must be entirely, or entirely cease to be. And it is
matter for unprejudiced consideration whether the spectacle of her immobility
is not more dignified than would
have been that of her
yielding up her divinities one by one to the expanding humanities, and thus
gradually undergoing a course of dismemberment which must in the end remove her
last claim to existence. In the attitude she assumed she remained the absolute
mistress of her votaries ; had she departed from it she must have become their
abject servant.
Dr. Rule invites his
readers to notice attentively that “ no Church but that of Rome ever had an
Inquisition.” 1 But he neglects to carry the consideration to its
logical conclusion, and to add that in no Christian Church but that of Rome
could an Inquisition be possible. For it would be impossible to offend
heretically against any Church that accommodates itself to new habits of
thought in a measure as these occur, and gives way step by step before the
onslaught of learning.3
The Church of Rome
presented her immutable formularies, her unchangeable doctrines to the world. “
This,” she announced, “ is my teaching. By this I hold. This you must accept
without reservations, in its entirety, or you are no child of mine.”
With that there could
be no cavil. Had she but added the admission of man’s liberty to accept or
reject her teaching, had she but left man free to confess or not her doctrines
as his conscience and intelligence directed, all would have been well.
Unfortunately she accounted it her duty to go further ; she used coercion and
compulsion to such an extent that she imbued her children with the spirit of
the eighteenth- century Jacobin, exclaiming, “ Be my brother, or I kill you ! ”
Unable by intellectual
means to stem the intellectual secession from her ranks, she had recourse to
1 “ History
of the Inquisition," vol. i. p. 14.
* And yet Dr. Rule’s statement is
perilously akin to a truth untruly told, for the persecuting spirit, which is
the impugnable quality of the Holy Office, has been present in other churches
than that of Rome—vide the Elizabethan persecution of all who were not members
of the Anglican Church.
physical measures,
and revived the fiercely coercive methods of the first centuries.
A serious heretical
outbreak had been occurring in Southern France. There, it would seem, all the
schisms that had disturbed the Church since her foundation were gathered
together—Arians, Mani- chaeans, and Gnostics—to which were added certain more
recent sects, such as the Cathars, the Waldenses, and the Boni Homines, or Good
People.
These new-comers
deserve a word of explanation.
The .Cathars, like
the Gnostics, were dualists ; indeed, their creed was little more than a
development of Gnosticism. They believed that the earth was the only hell or
purgatory, that it was given over to the power of the devil, and that human
bodies were no more than the prisons of the angel spirits that fell with
Lucifer. In heaven their celestial bodies still awaited them, but they could
not resume these until they had worked out their expiation. To accomplish this
a man must die reconciled with God; failing that, another earthly existence
awaited him in the body of man or beast, according to his deserts. It will be
seen that, saving for abundant Christian elements introduced into this faith,
it was little more than a revival of metempsychosis, the oldest and most
fascinating of intelligent beliefs.
The Waldenses, or
Vaudois, with whom were allied the Good People, were the earliest Protestants,
as we understand the term. They claimed for every man the right to interpret
the Bible and to celebrate the sacraments of the Church without the need of
being in holy orders. Further, they denied that the Roman Church was the Church
of Christ.
These sects were
known collectively as the Albigenses, so called because the Council of Lombers,
convoked to pronounce their condemnation, had been held in the Diocese of Albi
in 1165.
Pope Innocent III
made an attempt to convert them ; with this aim in view he sent two monks,
Peter
Photo by
Anderson.
ST, TETER THE MARTYR
PREACHING. From the Painting by Berruguete.
de Castelnau and one
Rodolfe, to restore order amongst them and induce them to return to submission.
But when they murdered one of his legates the Holy Father had recourse to those
other less legitimate measures of combating liberty of conscience. He ordered
the King of France, the nobles and clergy of the kingdom, to assume the
crusader’s cross, and to proceed to the extirpation of the Albigensian
heretics, whom he described as a worse danger to Christendom than the Saracens ;
and he armed them for the fray with the same spiritual weapons that John VIII
had bestowed upon those who went to war in Palestine in the ninth century. Upon
all who might die in the service of the Church he pronounced a plenary
indulgence.
It is not the present
aim to follow the history of the horrible strife that ensued—the massacres,
pillages, burnings that took place in the course of the war between the
Albigenses under Raymond of Toulouse and the Crusaders under Simon de Montfort.
For over twenty years did that war drag on, and in the course of it the
original grounds of the quarrel were forgotten ; it passed into a struggle for
supremacy between North and South, and thus, properly speaking, out of the
history of the Inquisition.1
Now, for all that the
title “ Inquisitor of the Faith” was first bestowed by the Theodosian Code, and
for all that persecutions against heretics and others had been afoot since an
even earlier date than that of Theodosius, Innocent III is to be considered the
founder of the Holy Inquisition as an integral part of the Church. For it is
under his jurisdiction that the faculty of persecuting heretics, which hitherto
had belonged entirely to the secular arm, is now conferred upon the clergy. He
dispatched two Cistercian monks as inquisitors into France and Spain, to engage
in the work of extirpating heretics; and he strictly enjoined all princes,
nobles and prelates to afford every 1 See C. DouaiSi “ Les
H6r6tiques du Midi au XIIIs Si&cle.”
assistance to these emissaries,
and to further them in every way in the work they were sent to do.1
Himself, personally,
Pope Innocent directed his attention to the Paterini—a sect which rebelled
against the celibacy imposed upon the clergy—who were gaining ground in Italy.
He invoked the secular arm to assist him in their apprehension, imprisonment,
and banishment, in seizing their possessions, which were confiscated, and in
razing their houses to the ground.
In 1209 he assembled
a council at Avignon, under the presidency of his legates, wherein by his
directions it was ordained that every bishop should select such of his
subjects, counts, castellans, and knights as might seem to him proper, and
swear them to undertake the extermination of all excommunicated heretics.
“ And to the end that
the bishop may be the better enabled to purge his diocese of heretical pravity,
let him swear one priest and two, three or more laymen of good repute in every
parish to report to the bishop himself, and to the governors of cities or to
the lords and bailiffs of places, the existence of any heretics or abettors of
heresy wherever found, to the end that these may be~ punished according to the
canonical and legal dispensations, in all cases suffering forfeiture of
property. And should the said governors and others be negligent or reluctant in
the execution of this divine service, let their persons be severally
excommunicated, and their territories placed under the interdict of the
Church.” 3
In the year 1215 Pope
Innocent held a further council at the Lateran in which he extended the field
of ecclesiastical activity in persecution. He issued an injunction to all
rulers, “ as they desired to be esteemed faithful, to swear a public oath that
they would labour zealously to exterminate from their dominions all those who
were denounced as heretics by the Church.” 3
1
Eymericus, “ Directorium Inquisitorum,” p. 58.
1 Concilium
Avenionense, a.d. 1209.
3 Eymericus, " Directorium
Inquisitorum,” p. 60.
This injunction was
backed by a bull which menaced with excommunication and forfeiture of
jurisdiction any prince who should fail to extirpate heretics from his
dominions—so that at one stroke the Pope asserted his power to an extent that
denied liberty of conscience to people and independence to princes.
And meanwhile every
heretic against the Holy Catholic and Orthodox Faith, as accepted by the
fathers assembled in the Church of St. John, was excommunicate, and there
followed these provisions :
“When condemned, the
secular powers, or their representatives, being present, they shall be
delivered to these for punishment, the clerics being previously degraded from
their orders. The property of laymen shall be confiscated ; that of clerics
bestowed upon their churches. Persons marked with suspicion only shall, unless
they can clear themselves, be smitten with the sword of anathema, and shunned
by all. If they persist for a year in excommunication, they shall be condemned
as heretics.
“ Secular powers must
be moved or led, or at need compelled by ecclesiastical censure, to make public
oath for the defence of the faith, as they themselves desire to be esteemed
faithful, undertaking to labour with all their power to extirpate from their
dominions those whom the Church shall denounce as heretics.” 1
The excommunication
that was to wait upon disobedience was no empty threat, nor yet was it
concerned alone with the spiritual part of man. The Pope’s anathema imposed the
same penalties upon those against whom it was launched as the Druid’s curse had
imposed of old.2
Persons under the ban
of the Church might hold no office, nor claim any of the ordinary rights of
citizenship, or, indeed, of existence. In sickness 01
1 “
Concilium Lateranense IV,” a.d. 1215.
* See Caesar, “De Bello Gallico,” p
i3„libca vi •,
distress none might show
them charity under pain of incurring the same curse, nor after death should
their bodies be given Christian burial.
By these provisions
and injunctions the Inquisition may be said to have entered upon the second
stage of its evolution, and to have assumed a strictly ecclesiastical
character—in short, to be canonically established.
It was Pope Innocent
III who placed in the hands of the Church this terrible weapon of persecution,
and who, by the awful severity of his own attitude towards liberty of conscience,
of thought, and of expression, afforded to fanaticism and religious intolerance
an example that was to be their merciless guide through centuries to come.
CHAPTER III
THE ORDER OF ST.
DOMINIC
“ If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell
that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven;
and come and follow Me
The contrast between
the condition thus enjoined by the Founder of Christianity and the worldly
position occupied by His Vicar on earth was now fast approaching the climax
which was to become absolute with the era of the Renaissance.
From the simple folk
foregathering in Rome in the middle of the first century to discuss and to
guide one another in the practice of the new doctrine of love and humility,
conveyed by word of mouth from the East, in all its pristine simplicity,
unburdened as yet by theological complexities, unfettered by formularies, it is
a far cry indeed to the proud curial Christians of the Rome of Pope Innocent
III.
The successor of
Peter, the poor fisherman of Galilee, was enthroned with a splendour
outrivalling that of any other earthly potentate. Temporally he was lord of
considerable dominions; spiritually he claimed empire over the entire Christian
world, and maintained his supremacy with the thunderbolts of anathema which he
had forged himself. His glittering court was thronged with rustling, scarlet
prelates, with patricians in cloth of gold and silver, captains in steel,
mincing fops and stately senators. He was arrayed in garments woven of the very
finest fleece, crowned with the triple diadem of white peacock feathers within
37
three flaming
circlets of precious stones. On his coronation kings served him upon the knee
at table ; throughout his reign princes and patricians were his lackeys.
From the steps of the
Lateran on the day of his accession he would fling a handful of money to the
Roman crowd, exclaiming : “ Gold and silver are not for me. What I have I give
to thee.”
Yet his riches were
vast, their sources almost inexhaustible. The luxury in which he lived and
moved was the most sumptuous that wealth could command and art and artifice
produce.
Nor was this
ecclesiastical magnificence confined to Rome and the Papal Court. Gradually it
had come to permeate the entire body clerical until it had affected even the
monastic orders. From the simplicity of their beginnings these orders had
developed into baronial institutions. The fathers presided in noble abbeys over
wide tracts of arable and vineyard which they owned and cultivated, and over
rural districts and parishes, which they governed and taxed as feudal lords
rather than served as priests.
So arrogant and
aristocratic was become the spirit of a clergy whose mission was to preach the
sublimest and most ideal of democratic doctrines, that the Church seemed no
longer within the reach of plebeian and peasant-folk. It was fast becoming an
institution of patricians for patricians.
How long this state
of things might have endured, what results might have attended its endurance,
it were perhaps idle to speculate. That a change was wrought, that provision
was made for the lowly and the poor, is due to the advent of two men as similar
in much as in much else they were dissimilar. They met in Rome at the foot of
the pontifical throne.
Either might have
been the founder of a religion had he not found already in the world an ideal
religion which he could serve. Both were men born into easy circumstances of
life : one, Francesco Bernardone, was
the son of a wealthy
merchant of Assisi ; the other, Domingo de Guzman, of Calahorra, was a nobleman
of Spain.
To-day the Church
includes them in her Calendar as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic. They
are the resplendent twain whom Dante beheld together in his “ Paradise ” :
“L’un fu tutto serafico in ardore,
L’ altro per sapienza in terra fue Di cherubica luce un splendore.” 1
St. Francis—through
the sweetness and tenderness that emanated from his poetic, mystic nature, the
most lovable of all the saints—came from his native Assisi to implore the
Father of Fathers to permit him to band together into an order the barefoot
companions he had already gained, to the end that they should practise Christ’s
injunction of poverty and self-abnegation, and minister to the afflicted.
St. Dominic—and our
concern is more with him— had been chosen for his eloquence and learning to
accompany the Bishop of Osma upon an inquisitorial journey into Southern
France. There he had witnessed the fierce carnage that was toward. He had
preached to the heretics at Toulouse, and the burning, passionate eloquence of
his oratory had made converts of many of those who were prepared to resist the
cruel arguments of fire and steel.
In the ardour of his
zeal he had flung aside his rank and the ease and dignity it afforded him. Like
St. Francis he went barefoot, embracing poverty and self-denial ; yet, less
mystical, less tender, entirely practical where the propagation of the Faith
was concerned, he had exulted in the bloody victories that Simon de Montfort
had won over the heretical Albigenses.
Yet, if he gloried in
the end achieved—conceiving it the supremest of all human ends—he must have
been touched with regret for the means employed,
S "
Paradiso,” C. xi. v. 37-39.
He has been termed a
fierce and cruel zealot. But ferocity and cruelty do not go hand in hand with
such lowly humility as undoubtedly was his. And the very object of his mission
to Rome permits, if it does not point to, a very different conclusion. He went
deploring the bloodshed he had witnessed, however greatly he may have prized
the fruits of it. Inspired by the success that had attended his oratory, he
aimed at providing other and gentler means by which in the first instance to
seek the attainment of the same ends. He went to implore Pope Innocent’s leave
to found an order of preachers who in poverty and lowliness should go abroad to
win back to the Roman fold the sheep that had strayed into heretical pastures.
Pope Innocent
considered the simultaneous requests of both these men—requests which,
springing from the same passionate fervour in both, yet came by different, if
similar, channels to a sort of unity in the end.
He perceived the
services which such men as these might render to the Church, endowed as they
were with the magnetic power of creating followings, of inflaming hearts, and
replenishing the flickering lamp of public zeal.
He detected no
heresy, no irony, in the cult of pauperdom which they would go forth to preach
under the sanction and charter of the luxurious, aristocratic, curial court.
But there existed
another obstacle to his granting them their prayers. So numerous already were
the monastic orders that a Council of the Lateran had decreed that no more
should be created. Favouring these petitioners, however, he was applying
himself to the surmounting of the difficulty when death took him.
Thus the burden of
solving this problem was thrust upon his successor, Honorius III. And it is
said that the new pope was spurred to discover a solution by a dream—which has
been made the subject of a
fresco by Bennozzo
Gozzoli—in which he beheld this saintly pair supporting with their hands the
tottering Lateran.
Since he could not
establish them and their followers as monastic fathers, he had recourse to
creating brotherhoods for them. These brotherhoods he affiliated to the order
of St. Augustine, .the Dominicans as friars-preachers {fratres predicatores)
and the Franciscans as friars-minors (fratres minores).
Thus were launched
these two mendicant orders, which by the enormous following they were so soon
to win, were destined to become one of the greatest means of power of the Roman
Church.
In the lifetime of
their founders the fundamental laws of poverty were observed in all their
intended purity. But soon thereafter, being men under their rough habits, and
susceptible to the ambition that is man’s, upon the acquisition of power
followed the acquisition of wealth. Their founders had accomplished a
renascence of the original spirit of Christianity. But soon this began to
undergo modification, and to respond to worldly influences, until the history
of the friars-mendicant repeats and mirrors the history of Christianity itself.
In a measure as they spread through Christendom, so they acquired convents,
lands, and property as they went. The personal poverty of each brother
remained, it is true ; they still went abroad barefoot and coarsely garbed, “
without staffs or bag, or bread, or money,” as their rule decreed. Individually
they kept the vow of privation ; but considered collectively their poverty “
remained outside the convent gate,” as Gregorovius says, echoing what Dante had
said before him.1
1 * Ma il suo peculio di nuova vivanda E’ fatto ghiotto
si, ch’ esser non puote Che per diversi salti non si spanda;
“ E quanto le sue pecore remote E vagabonde piti da esso vanno,
Piu tornano all’ ovil di latte vote.”
Dante, 11 Paradjso,” C. xi. v. 124-9.
For the service of
the Church the friars-mendicant became a splendid army, and an army, moreover,
whose maintenance made no draught upon the pontifical treasury, since, by
virtue of their mendicancy, the orders were entirely self-supporting. And
whilst both orders, magnificently organized, grew extremely powerful, the
Dominicans became formidable through their control of that Inquisition whose
early stirrings had inspired St. Dominic to his task.
His aim had been to
found a preaching order whose special mission should be the overthrow of heresy
wherever found. The brethren were to combat it, employing their eloquence on
the one hand to induce the heretic to abjure his error, on the other to inflame
the faithful against him, so that terror should accomplish what might not be
possible to persuasion.
It may be that this
mission which they had made specially their own, as their founder ordained,
peculiarly fitted the Dominicans to assume the government of an ecclesiastical
establishment whose aim was identical. It was this order of St. Dominic that
was to erect the grim edifice of the Holy Office, and to develop and assume
entire control of the terrible machinery of the Inquisition. Their persuasion
was to be the ghastly persuasion of the rack; their eloquence was to be the
burning eloquence of the tongues of material flame that should lick their
agonizing victims out of existence. And all for the love of Christ!
Although it might be
difficult to show—as has been attempted—that Domingo de Guzman himself was
actually the first ordained Inquisitor, nevertheless as early as 1224, within
three years of his death, the Inquisition in Italy and elsewhere was already
entirely in the hands of the Dominicans. This is shown by a constitution
promulgated at Padua in February of that year by the Emperor Frederic II. It
contains the following announcement;
“ Be it known to all
that we have received under our special protection the preaching friars of the
order of preachers, sent into our Empire on business of the Faith against
heretics, and likewise all who may lend them assistance—as much in going as in
abiding and returning—save such as are already prescribed ; and it is our wish
that all should give them favour and assistance; wherefore we order our
subjects to receive benignly any of the said friars whenever and wherever they
may arrive, keeping them secure from the enmity of heretics, assisting them in
every way to accomplish their ministry regarding the business of the Faith. . .
. And we do not doubt that you will render homage to God and our Empire by
collaborating with the said friars to deliver our Empire from the new and
unusual infamy of heretical pravity.” 1
The constitution
decreed that heretics when so condemned by the Church and delivered over to the
secular arm should be condignly punished; that if any, through the fear of
death, should desire to return to the faith, he should receive the penance that
might be imposed canonically and be imprisoned for life ; that if in any part
of the Empire heretics should be discovered by the inquisitors or by other
zealous Catholics, the civil powers should be under the obligation of
effecting their arrest at the request of the said inquisitors or other
Catholics, and of holding them in safe custody until excommunicated by the
Church, when they should be burnt; that the same punishment should be suffered
by fautores■—i.e.
those guilty of concealing or defending heretics; that fugitives be sought for,
and that converts from the same heresy be employed to discover them.
Odious as was this
last enactment, there was yet worse contained in the Emperor’s constitution. It
was decreed that “ the sin of lese-MajesU divine being, as it is, greater than
that of lese-Majestd hwnaine, and
1 Limborch,
“ Historia Inquisitionis,” lib. i. cap. iz.
God being the avenger
of the sins of the fathers on the children, to the end that these may not
imitate the sins of those, the descendants of heretics to the second generation
shall be deemed incapable of honours or of holding any public office—excepting
the innocent children who shall denounce the iniquity of their fathers1
The barbarous
provision here given in italics calls for no comment.
Within four years of
issuing that harsh proclamation against all rebels from the sway of Rome,
Frederic himself, in rebellion against the pontiff’s temporal sway, was to feel
the lash of excommunication. But with that we have no concern. After his
reconciliation with the Pope he renewed the constitution of 1224, adding a
provision concerning blasphemers, who, in common with heretics of whatever
sect, should suffer death by fire ; yet if the bishops should desire to save
any such, this could only be done subject to the offender’s being deprived of
his tongue, so that never again should he blaspheme God.
In the year 1227
Ugolino Conti, who had been a friend of Dominic and of Francis, ascended the
papal throne under the style of Gregory IX.
It was this pontiff
who, carrying forward the work that had been undertaken in that direction by
Innocent III, gave the Inquisition a stable form. He definitely placed the
control of it in the hands of the Dominican friars, giving them, where
necessary, the assistance of the Franciscans. But the participation of the
latter in the business of that terrible tribunal is so slight as to be insignificant.
Gregory’s bull, given
in “ Raynaldus,” 2 is one of excommunication against all heretics.
Further, it ordains
that all condemned by the
' Limborch, "
Historia Inquisitionis,” lib. i. cap. 12.
* 1231, N. 14, 16-17.
Church shall be
delivered to the secular arm for punishment, all clerics so delivered being
first degraded from their orders ; that should any wish to abjure his heresy
and return to the Church, penance shall be imposed upon him, and he shall
suffer perpetual imprisonment. Abettors, concealers, and defenders of heretics
are similarly excommunicated ; and if any such shall neglect to procure
absolution within one year, he shall be accounted infamous, and shall be
neither eligible for any public office nor the elector of any other, nor act as
witness, testator, inheritor, nor have power to seek justice when wronged. If a
judge, no proceedings shall be laid before him, and his sentences, where
passed, shall be null and void ; if an advocate, he shall not have faculty to
plead ; if a notary, his deeds shall be void ; if a cleric, he shall be deposed
from his office and benefices.
Similarly, the ban of
excommunication shall fall upon those who hold traffic with any who are excommunicated,
and they shall further be punished with other penalties.
Those who are under
suspicion of heresy, unless they see to it that they overcome the suspicion
either by canonical purgation or otherwise according to the quality of the
person and the motives for the suspicion, shall be excommunicated, and if they
do not give condign satisfaction within one year, they shall be deemed
heretics. Their claims or appeals shall not then be admitted, nor shall judges,
advocates, or notaries exercise their functions in favour of them ; priests
shall refuse to administer the sacraments to them and to admit their alms or
oblations, and so shall the Templars and Hospitallers and other regular orders,
under pain of loss of office, from which naught can save them but a mandate
from the Holy See.
Should any give
Christian burial to one who has died under excommunication, he shall himself
incur excommunication, from which he shall not be delivered until with his own
hands he shall have exhumed the
corpse, and so
disposed that the place may never again be used for sepulture.
Should any know of
the existence of heretics or of any who practise secret conventicles or whose
ways of living are uncommon, they are bound under pain of excommunication to
divulge the same to their confessor or other by whom they believe it will come
to the knowledge of their prelate.
Children of heretics
and of the abettors or concealers of heretics shall be deprived until the
second generation of holding any public office or benefice.
To the provisions of
this bull, additions were made by the civil governor of Rome, as representing
the secular arm whose concern it would be to inflict the punishments regarding
which the Church refrained from being explicit—confining herself to the promise
that they should be “ condign.”
He provided that:
those arrested should be detained in prison until condemned by the Church,
when, after eight days, they should be punished.
Their property should
be confiscated, one-third going to the delator, one-third to the judge who
should pronounce sentence, and one-third to repair the walls of Rome, or
otherwise as might be considered.
The dwellings of
heretics or of any who should consciously have entertained heretics should be
razed to the ground.
If any man should
have knowledge of the existence of heretics and fail to denounce them he should
be fined the sum of 20 livres. Should he lack the means to pay, he was to be
banished until he could find them.
Abettors and
concealers of heretics should for the first offence suffer confiscation of
one-third of their property, to be applied to keeping the walls of Rome in
repair. If the offence were repeated, then they should be banished for ever.
All who were elected
senators must swear before taking office that they would observe all laws
against heretics ; and were any to refuse this oath his acts as
senator would be null
and void and none should be obliged to follow or obey him, whilst those who
might have sworn obedience to him were absolved of their oath. Should a senator
accept this oath but afterwards refuse or neglect to respect its terms, he must
incur the penalties of perjury, suffer a fine of 200 silver marks, to be
applied to the repairing of the walls, and become ineligible for any public
office.
Two years later—in
1233—at a Council held at Beziers, the papal legate, Gaultier of Tournai, elaborated
these canons by the following provisions :
“ All magistrates,
nobles, vassals, and others shall diligently seek to discover, apprehend, and
punish heretics wherever found. Every parish in which a heretic is discovered
shall pay as a penalty for having harboured him one silver mark to the person
who shall have discovered him. All houses in which heretics may have preached
shall be demolished and the property confiscated, and fire shall be set to all
caves and other hiding-places where heretics are alleged to be concealed. All
the property of heretics shall be confiscated, and their children shall
inherit nothing. Their abettors, concealers, or defenders shall be dealt with
in the same manner. Any persons suspected of heresy must make public profession
of faith upon oath, under pain of suffering as heretics ; they shall be
compelled to attend divine service on every feast-day, and all who are reconciled
to the Church shall wear as a distinguishing badge two crosses externally on
their garments—one on the breast, the other on the back— both of yellow cloth,
three fingers in width, the vertical limb measuring 25 hands, the horizontal
one 2 hands.1 If a hood is worn, this must bear a third
cross—all under pain of being deemed heretics and suffering confiscation of
property.” 2
These enactments by
their uncompromising harsh' Or, say, IJ ft. by 11 ft.
* Llorente, " Historia
Critica,” i. p. 135. Raynaldus 1233.
ness abundantly
reveal the extent to which heretics were execrated by the Church in her intolerance
and her firm determination to extirpate them. They also reveal something of the
far-reaching, pitiless, priestly subtlety and craft which were to render so
terrible this tribunal.
The provisions for
the punishment of those who should be moved by Christian charity to succour any
of the persecuted were devised to the end that terror should stifle all such
compassion; whilst the decree that the children of convicted heretics should
suffer disinheritance and become ineligible for any honourable appointment was
calculatedly introduced to forge a further weapon out of parental love. Where a
man might readily, himself, have endured martyrdom for his convictions, he
would be made to pause before including his children in the same sacrifice,
before suffering them to go destitute and branded.
In the eyes of the
Church the end in view could not fail to justify any means that might be
employed. The extirpation of heresy was a consummation so very fervently to be
desired that any steps—almost any sin—would be condonable if conducive to that
end.
It has been argued
that this crusade against heresy was political, a campaign waged by the Church
to protect herself from the onslaught of liberty of thought, which was
threatening her overthrow. Such no doubt had been the case in earlier
centuries; but it was so no longer. Roman Catholicism had grown and spread like
a mighty tree, until her shadow lay across the face of Europe and her roots
were thrust far and wide into the soil. These had taken too firm a hold, they were
too full of vigour, to permit that the withering of an occasional branch should
give her concern for the vitality of the growth itself. She had no such
concern. However abominable, however feral, however unchristian even, may have
been the institution of the Holy Office, it is difficult to
Photo by
Lacoste.
ST. DOMINIC.
From the Painting in
the Prado Gallery, attributed to Miguel Zittcz.
think that the spirit
in which it was founded was other than pure and disinterested.
It may seem bitterly
ironical that men should have been found who in the name of the meek and
compassionate Christ relentlessly racked and burnt their fellow-creatures. It
was—bitterly, deplorably, tragically ironical. But they were not conscious of
the irony. In what they did they were sincere—as sincere as St. Augustine when
he urged the extermination of heretics; and none can call in question his
sincerity or the purity of his motives.
To understand their
attitude it is but necessary to consider the absolute belief that was the
Catholics’ in what Lecky calls “the doctrine of exclusive salvation.” Starting
from the premise that the Church of Rome is the true and only Church of Christ,
they held that no salvation was possible for any man who was not a member of
it. Nor could ignorance—however absolute—of the true faith be urged as an
excuse for error, any more than may ignorance of the law be pleaded in the
worldly courts to-day. Thus, not only did they account irrevocably damned those
who schismatically deserted from the Church, and those who like Jew and Moslem
remained deliberately outside its walls, but similarly—such was man’s
indifferently flattering conception of divine justice and divine
intelligence—the savages who had never so much as heard the name of Christ, and
the very babe who died before his heritage of Original Sin could be washed away
by the baptismal waters. Indeed, fathers of the Church had waged heated wars of
controversy concerning the precise moment at which pre-natal life sets in,
and, consequently, damnation is incurred by the soul of the foetus should it
perish in the womb.
When it is considered
that such doctrines were held dogmatically, it will be realized that in the
sight of the Church—whose business was the salvation of souls—there could be no
sin so intolerable, so execrable, as heresy. It will be realized how it
happened that
the Church could
consider those of her children who were guilty of such crimes as murder, rape,
adultery, and the sin of the Cities of the Plain, with the tolerance of an
indulgent parent, whilst rising up in intolerant wrath to smite the heretic
whose life might be a model of pure conduct. The former were guilty of only the
sins of weak humanity ; and sinners who have the faith may seek forgiveness,
and find it in contrition. But heresy was not merely the worst of sins, as some
have held. In the eyes of the Church it transcended the realm of sin—it was
infinitely worse than sin, because it represented a state that was entirely
hopeless, a state not to be redeemed or mitigated by good actions or purity of
life.
Taking this view of
heresy, the Church accounted it her duty to stamp out this awful
soul-pestilence so as to prevent its spreading ; and she had St. Augustine’s
word for it that it was merciful to be merciless in the attainment of that
object. When viewed, as it were, from within, there is nothing illogical in the
attitude of the Church towards heresy. What is illogical is the conception of
God that is involved in the doctrine of exclusive salvation.
Even if we survey the
case of Galileo—one of the most illustrious prisoners ever arraigned before the
tribunal of the Holy Office—we have no just cause to suppose that, in demanding
his retraction of the theory of the earth’s movement round the sun, the
inquisitors were inspired by any motives beyond the fear lest the spread of a
notion—honestly deemed by them to be an illusion—should disturb man’s faith in
the Biblical teaching with which it was in conflict.
ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC
Llorente
agrees
with the earlier writers on the subject in considering the Spanish Inquisition
as an institution distinct from that which had been established to deal with
the Albigenses and their coevals in heresy. It is distinct only in that it
represents a further development of the organization launched by Innocent III
and perfected by Gregory IX.
Before entering upon
the consideration of this Modern Inquisition—as it is called—it will perhaps be
well to take a survey of the Spain of the Catholic Sovereigns—Ferdinand and
Isabella—in whose reign that tribunal was set up in Castile.
For seven hundred
years, with varying fortune and in varying degree, the Saracen had lorded it in
the Peninsula.
First had come Berber
Tarik, in 711, to overthrow the Visigothic Kingdom of Roderic, to spread the
Moslem dominion as far as the mountains in the north and east and west from sea
to sea. When the Berber tribe, the Syrians, and the Arabs had fallen to
wrangling among themselves, Abdurrahman the Omayyad crossed from Africa to
found the independent amirate, which in the tenth century became the Caliphate
of Cordova.
Meanwhile the
Christians had been consolidating their forces in the mountain fastnesses of
the north to which they had been driven, and under Alfonso I
Si
they founded the
Kingdom of Galicia. Thence, gradually but irresistibly, presenting a bold front
to the Moorish conqueror, they forced their way down into the plains of Leon
and Castile, so that by the following century they had driven the Saracens
south of the Tagus. Following up their advantage, they continued to press them,
intent upon driving them into the sea, and they might have succeeded but for
the coming of Yusuf ben Techufin, who checked the Christian conquest, hurled
them back across the Tagus, and, master of the country to the south of it,
founded there the Empire of the Almoravides.
After these came the
Almohades—the followers of the Mahdi—and the land rang for half a century with
the clash of battle between Cross and Crescent, Castile, Leon, Aragon, and the
new-born Kingdom of Portugal striving side by side to crush the common foe at
Navas de Tolosa.
In 1236 Leon and
Castile—now united into one kingdom—in alliance with Aragon, wrested Cordova
from the Moors ; in 1248 Seville was conquered, and in 1265 Diego of Aragon
drove the Saracen from Murcia, and thereby reduced the Moslem occupation to
Granada and a line of Mediterranean seaboard about Cadiz, in which they
remained until Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, by virtue of their
marriage, had united the two crowns on the death (in 1474) of Henry IV,
Isabella’s brother.
Ferdinand brought,
with Aragon, Sicily, Sardinia, and Naples ; Isabella brought, with Castile,
Leon and the rest of the Spanish territory, saving Granada and that portion of
the coast still in Moorish hands. And thus was founded, by the welding of these
several principalities into one single state, that mighty Kingdom of Spain
which Columbus was so soon to enrich by a new world.
But though founded by
this marriage, this kingdom still required consolidating and subjecting. Genera
tions of misrule in
Castile, culminating in the lax reigns of John II and Henry IV, had permitted
the spread of a lawlessness so utter that its like was not to be found in any
other state at that time. Anarchy was paramount mistress of the land, and
Pulgar has left us a striking picture of the impossible conditions that
prevailed.
“ In those days,” he
writes, “justice suffered, and was not to be done upon the malefactors who
plundered and tyrannized in townships and on the highways. None paid debts who
did not want to do so ; none was restrained from committing any crime, and none
dreamed of obedience or subjection to a superior. What with present and past
wars, people were so accustomed to turbulence that he who did not do violence
to others was held to be a man of no account.
“ Citizens, peasants,
and men of peace were not masters of their own property, nor could they have
recourse to any for redress of the wrongs they suffered at the hands of
governors of fortresses and other thieves and robbers. Every man would gladly
have engaged to give the half of his property if at that price he might have
purchased security and peace for himself and his family. Often there was talk
in towns and villages of forming brotherhoods to remedy all these evils. But a
leader was wanting who should have at heart the justice and tranquillity of the
Kingdom.” 1
The nobility, as may
be conceived—and, indeed, as Pulgar clearly indicates—were not only tainted
with the general lawlessness, but were themselves the chief offenders, each man
a law unto himself, a tyrannical, extortionate ruler of his vassals, lord of
life and death, unscrupulously abusing his power, little better than a highway
robber, caring nothing for the monarchy so long as the monarchy left him undisturbed,
ready to rebel against it should it attempt to curtail his brigandage.
1 Pulgar, “
Chronica,” Part II. cap. li.
To crush these and
other unruly elements in the state, to resolve into order the chaos that had
invaded every quarter of the kingdom, was the task which at the outset the
young Queen perceived awaiting her— a task that must have daunted any mind less
virile, any spirit less vigorous.
And there were other
and more pressing matters demanding her instant attention if she were to retain
her seat upon this almost bankrupt throne of Castile which she had inherited
from her brother.
Alfonso V of Portugal
was in arms, invading her frontiers to dispute, on his niece Juana’s behalf,
Isabella’s right.
Henry IV had left no
legitimate issue, but his wife Juana of Portugal had brought forth in wedlock a
daughter of whom she pretended that he was the father, whilst the King of
Portugal, to serve interests of his own, recognized the girl as his legitimate
niece. Public opinion, however, hesitated so little to proclaim her bastardy
that it had named her La Beltraneja, after Beltran de la Cueva who notoriously
had been her mother’s lover. And what Beltran de la Cueva, himself, thought
about it, may be inferred from the circumstance that in the ensuing struggle he
was found fighting for the honour of Castile under the banner of Queen
Isabella.
The war demanded all
the attention and resources of the Catholic Monarchs, and Isabella’s own share
in these labours was conspicuous. They resulted in the rout of the Portuguese
supporters of the pretender at Toro in 1476. By that victory Isabella was
securely seated upon her throne and became joint ruler with Ferdinand of
Castile and Aragon.
She was twenty-five
years of age at the time, a fair, shapely woman of middle height, with a clear
complexion, eyes between green and blue, and a gracious, winsome countenance
remarkable for its habitual serenity. Such, indeed, was her self-control,
Pulgar tells us, that not only did she carefully conceal
her anger when it was
aroused, but even in childbirth she could “dissemble her feelings, betraying no
sign or expression of the pain to which all women are subject.” He adds that
she was very ceremonious in dress and equipage, that she was deliberate of
gesture, quick-witted, and ready of tongue, and that in the midst of the labour
of government—and very arduous labour, as shall be seen—she found time to learn
Latin, so that she could understand all that was said in that tongue.
“ She was a zealous
Catholic and very charitable, yet in her judgments she inclined rather to
rigour than to mercy. She listened to counsel, but acted chiefly upon her own
opinions. Of a rare fidelity to her word, she never failed to fulfil that to
which she had pledged herself, save where compelled by stress of circumstance.
She was reproached, together with her husband, of being wanting in generosity, because,
seeing the royal patrimony diminished by the alienation of fiefs and castles,
she was always very careful of such concessions.
“ ‘ Kings,’ she was
wont to say, ‘ should preserve with care their dominions, because in alienating
them they lose at once the money necessary to make themselves beloved and the
power to make themselves feared.’ ”1
Such is the portrait
that Pulgar has left us, and considering that he is writing of a sovereign, it
would be no more than reasonable to suspect flattery and that curious,
undiscriminating enthusiasm which never fails to create panegyrists when it is
a question of depicting a prince, however inept, to his contemporaries. But if
Pulgar has erred in this instance, it has been on the side of moderation in his
portrayal of this gifted, high-spirited woman.
Her actions speak
more eloquently of her character than can the pen of any chronicler, and it is
in the deeds of princes that we must seek their true natures,
1 Pulgar, “Cronica,” II. cap. iv.
not in what may have been
written of them in their own day. The deeds of Isabella’s life—with one dark
exception that is the subject of this history—more than bear out all that
Pulgar and others have set down in praise of her.
No sooner had she
overthrown those who came from abroad to dispute her right to the crown than
she turned her attention to the subjugation of those who disputed her authority
at home. In this herculean labour she had the assistance of Alonzo de
Quintanilla, her chancellor, and Juan Ortega, the King’s sacristan. These men
proposed to organize at their own risk one of those brotherhoods which Pulgar
mentions as having been so ardently desired by the country for its protection
from those who preyed upon it. This herman- dad was to act under royal sanction
and guidance, with the object of procuring peace and protection of property in
the kingdom. Isabella readily approved the proposal, and the brotherhood was
immediately founded, a tax to support it being levied upon those in whose
interest it was established, and very willingly paid by them.
Splendidly organized,
this association, half military, half civil, so effectively discharged the
functions for which it was created, that twenty years later—in 1498 —it was
possible to abolish it, and to replace it by a much simpler and less costly
system of police which then sufficed to preserve the order that had been
restored.
Further to subject
the turbulent and insubordinate nobility, Isabella employed methods similar to
those adopted in like case by her neighbour, Louis XI of France. She bestowed
the offices of state upon men of merit without regard to birth, which hitherto
had been accounted the only qualification. The career of the law was thrown
open to the burgher classes, and every office under the crown was made accessible
to lawyers, who thus became the staunch friends of the sovereign.
If the nobles did not
dare to revolt, at least they protested in the strongest terms against these
two innovations that so materially affected and weakened their prestige. They
represented in particular that the institution of the hermandad was the
manifestation of a want of confidence in the “ faithful nobility,” and they
implored that four members of their order should be appointed by the Catholic
Sovereigns to form a council of supreme direction of the affairs of State, as
under the late King Henry IV.
To this the Catholic
Sovereigns replied that the hermandad was a tutelary institution which was very
welcome to the country, and which it was their pleasure to maintain. As for the
offices of State, it was for the sovereigns to appoint such men as they
considered best qualified to hold them. The nobles, they added, were free to
remain at Court or to withdraw to their own domains, as they might see fit ;
but as for the sovereigns, themselves, as long as it should please God to
preserve them in the high position in which He had deigned to place them, it
should be their care not to imitate the monarch who was cited to them as an
example, and not to become puppets in the hands of their “ faithful nobility.”
That answer gave the
nobles pause. It led them to perceive that a change had taken place, and that
the lawless days of Henry IV were at an end. To have made therr> realize
this was something. But there was more to be done before they would understand
that they must submit to the altered conditions, and Isabella pursued the
policy she had adopted with an unswerving directness, as the following story
from Pulgar’s Chronicle bears witness :
A quarrel had broken
out in the Queen’s palace at Valladolid between Don Fadrique Enriquez (son of
the Admiral of Castile) and Don Ramiro de Guzman. Knowledge of it reached the
Queen, and she ordered both disputants to hold themselves under arrest in
their own quarters
until she should provide that judgment be given between them by the Courts.
Fadrique, however, signified his contempt of the royal mandate by disobeying it
and continuing at large. Learning this, Isabella gave the more obedient Guzman
his liberty, and the assurance of her word that he should suffer no harm.
A few days later he
was riding peacefully through the street, secure in the Queen’s safe-conduct,
when he was set upon by three masked horsemen of the household of Fadrique and
severely beaten. No sooner did the Queen hear of this further affront to her
authority than she got to horse, and rode through torrential rain from
Valladolid to the Admiral’s castle at Simancas. In fact, in such haste did she
set out that she rode alone, without waiting for an escort. This, however,
followed presently, but did not come up with her save under the very walls of
the Admiral’s fortress.
She summoned the
Admiral, and commanded him to deliver up his rebellious son to her justice, and
when Don Alonso Enriquez protested that his son was not there, she bade her
followers search the castle from battlements to dungeons. The search, however,
proved fruitless, and Isabella returned empty-handed and indignant to
Valladolid. Arrived there, she took to her bed, and to those who came to seek
news of her health, she replied : “ My body aches with the blows delivered
yesterday against my safe-conduct by Don Fadrique.”
The Admiral,
trembling before the royal wrath, resolved to deliver up his son and cast him
upon the mercy of the Queen. So the Constable of Castile—Fadrique’s
uncle—undertook the office of intercessor. He went with Don Fadrique to Valladolid,
and imploring Isabella to consider that the young man was but in his twentieth
year and that he had sinned through the rashness of youth, begged her to do
upon him the justice she might wish or the mercy that was due.
The Queen, however,
was not to be moved to mercy for offences that set her royal authority in
contempt. She was inexorable. She refused to see the offender, and submitted
him to the indignity of being taken to prison through the streets of the city
by an alcalde. After a spell of confinement there she banished him to Sicily,
prohibiting his return to Spain under pain of severest punishment.
It happened, however,
that Don Ramiro de Guzman did not consider his honour sufficiently avenged by
his enemy’s exile. One night, when the Court was at Medina del Campo, he
ambushed himself in his turn with some followers of his own, and attacked the
Admiral, to return him the blows received from his son. From this indignity the
Admiral was saved by his escort. But when Isabella heard of the affair, she
treated Guzman as a rebel, seized his castles in Leon and Castile, as she would
have seized his person, but that to escape her anger he fled to Portugal for
shelter.1
No less determined
was her conduct in the matter of the Grand-Mastership of Santiago.
There were in Spain
three reiigio-military orders : the Knights of Alcantara, the celibate Knights
of Calatrava—who were the successors of the Knights Templars—and the Knights of
Santiago. This last order had been founded for the purpose of affording
protection to the pilgrims who came into Spain to visit the shrine at
Compostella of St. James the Apostle, who is alleged to have been the first to
bear the message of Christianity into the Iberian Peninsula.2 These
pilgrimages, chiefly from France, were a great source of revenue to the
country, and it became of importance to ensure their immunity from the predatory
hordes that infested the highways. Further,
1 Pulgar, “
Cronica,” II. cap c.
* The Jesuit Mariana
is among those who doubt the story of St. James’s visit to Spain and the
presence of his body at Compostella, but he considers that "it is not
desirable to disturb with such disputes the devotion of the people.”—“Hist.
General de Espana.”
the Knights of
Santiago had found employment for their arms in the crusade waged on Spanish
soil against the Moors, in token whereof they wore the Crusader’s cross in red
upon their white cloaks. They acquired great power and wealth, possessing
castles and convents in every part of Spain, so that the office of Grand Master
of the Order was one of great weight and importance—too great, in the opinion
of Isabella, to be in the hands of a subject.
This opinion she
boldly manifested in 1476, when the death of Don Rodrigo Manrique left
theofficevacant. She took horse, as was her custom, and rode to Huete, where
the Chapter of the Order was assembled upon the business of the necessary
election, and she frankly urged that to an office so exalted it was not fitting
that any but the King should be elected.
The proposal was not
received with satisfaction. Ferdinand was an Aragonese, and despite the union
of the two kingdoms which must be completed when he should succeed to the
throne of Aragon, he was still looked upon as a foreigner by the Castilians.
Under Isabella’s insistence, however, a compromise was effected. The Chapter
consented to elect Ferdinand to the office of Grand-Master on condition that he
should nominate a gentleman of Castile to act as his deputy for the discharge
of the duties of the position. This was done, and Alonso de Cardenas—a loyal
servant of the Sovereigns—was chosen as the royal deputy. Thus Isabella
established it that the appointment of Grand-Master of the Order of Santiago
should be a royal prerogative.
Even more strikingly
than in either of the instances cited does the Queen’s resolute, spirited
nature manifest itself in her manner of dealing with a revolt that took place
in Segovia at the commencement of her reign.
During the war with
Portugal the Catholic Sovereigns had entrusted their eldest daughter, the
Princess Isabella, to the care of Andrds de Cabrera, the Seneschal
of the Castle of
Segovia, and his wife, Beatriz de Bobadilla.
Cabrera, a man of
stern and rigid equity, had occasion to depose his lieutenant, Alonso
Maldonado, from his office, conferring this upon his own brother- in-law, Pedro
de Bobadilla. Maldonado conspired to avenge himself. He begged Bobadilla’s
permission to remove some stones that were in the castle, upon the pretext that
he required them for his own house, and he sent some men of his own to fetch
them. These men, who were secretly armed, having gained admission, stabbed the
sentry and seized the person of Bobadilla, whilst Maldonado, with other of his
people, took possession of the castle itself. The inmates of the Alcazar,
hearing the uproar, fled to the Homenaje Tower, taking with them the Infanta,
who was five years of age at the time. Fortified in this, they defied Maldonado
when he attacked it. Finding it impregnable, the rebel ordered Bobadilla to be
brought forward, and threatened the besieged that unless they admitted him he
would put the prisoner to death.
To this threat
Cabrera’s dignified reply was that Maldonado must do as he pleased, but the
gates would not be opened to him.
By this time a
multitude of the townspeople had gathered there, alarmed by the disturbance and
armed for any emergency. To these Maldonado cunningly represented that what he
was about was being done in their interests against the overbearing tyranny of
the Governor, and he invited them to join hands with him in the cause of
liberty to complete the work he had so excellently begun. The populace largely
took sides with him, so that Segovia was flung into a state of war. There was
constant fighting in the streets, and the gates were in the hands of the
rebels, with the exception of that of St. John, which was held for Cabrera.
It is believed that
it was Maria de Bobadilla herself who, stealing undetected from the Alcazar,
escaped
from Segovia and bore
to the Queen the news of what was taking place, and the consequent peril of the
royal child.
Upon learning this,
Isabella instantly repaired to Segovia. The leaders of the rebellion had news
of her approach, but dared not carry their insubordination to the length of
closing the gates against her. They went so far, however, as to ride out to
meet her and to attempt to deny admittance to her followers ; and her
counsellors, seeing the humour of the populace, urged her to be prudent and to
accede to their wishes. But her proud spirit flared up under that cautious
advice.
“ Learn,” she cried,
“ that I am Queen of Castile, that this city is mine, and that no conditions
are to be imposed upon me before I enter it. I shall enter, then, and with me
all those whom I may judge necessary for my service.”
With that she ordered
her escort forward, and entered the city by a gate that was held by her
partisans, and so won through to the Alcazar.
Thither flocked the
infuriated mob, and thundered at the gates, demanding admission.
The Queen,
notwithstanding the remonstrances of the Cardinal of Spain and the Count of
Benavente, who were with her, ordered the gates to be thrown open and as many
admitted as the place would hold. The populace surged into the courtyard,
clamouring for the Seneschal. To meet them came the slight, fair young queen,
alone and fearless, and when in their astonishment they had fallen silent—
“ People of Segovia,”
she calmly addressed them, “ what do you seek ? ”
Dominated by her
serenity, awed by her majesty, their fury fell from them. Humbly now they urged
their grievance against Cabrera, accusing him of oppression, and imploring of
the Queen’s grace his demission.
Instantly she
promised them that their request
should be granted ;
whereupon the revulsion was complete, and the mob that but a few moments
earlier had been yelling threats and execrations now raised their voices
loyally to acclaim her.
She commanded them to
return to their homes and their labours, and to leave the administration of
justice in her hands, sending her their ambassadors to prefer their complaint
against Cabrera, which she would investigate.
As she commanded so
it was done, and when she had examined the accusations against the Seneschal
and satisfied herself that they were groundless, she announced him free from
guilt and reinstated him in his office, the conquered people bowing
submissively to her ruling.1
In 1477 Isabella
moved into Andalusia, in which province, as elsewhere, law and order had ceased
to exist. She entered Seville with the proclaimed intention of demanding an
account of the guilty. But at the very rumour of her approach and the business
upon which she came, some thousands of the inhabitants whose consciences were
uneasy made haste to depart the city.
Alarmed by this
depopulation, the Sevillans implored the Queen to sheathe the sword of
justice, representing that after the bloody affrays that for years had been
afflicting the district there was scarcely a family in which some member was
not answerable to the law.
Isabella, gentle and
merciful by nature—which renders her association with the Inquisition the more
deplorable—lent an ear to these representations, and granted an amnesty for all
crimes committed since the death of Henry IV. But she was not so lenient with
those who had prostituted the justice which they administered in her name.
Informed of the judges who were making a trade and extortion of their judg-
1 Colmenares, “ Historia de Segovia,” cap. xxxiv, §§ xii
and xiii; Pulgar, " Cronica,” II. cap. lix.
ments, she punished
them by deposition, and herself fixed the scale of legal costs to be observed
in future.
Finding a mass of
impending law-suits which the misrule of the past years had put upon the
province, she directed her attention to clearing up this Augean stable. Every
Friday, attended by her Council, she sat in the great hall of the Alcazar of
Seville to hear the plaints of the most humble of her subjects ; and so
earnestly and vigorously did she go to work that in two months she had disposed
of litigations that might have dragged on for years.
Upon her accession
she had found the royal treasury exhausted by the inept administration of the
last two reigns and the prodigal, reckless grants that Henry IV and Juan II had
made to the nobles. This condition of things had seriously embarrassed the
Catholic Sovereigns, and they had been driven to various expedients to raise
the requisite funds for the war with Portugal. Now that the war was at an end,
they found themselves without the means necessary to maintain the royal state.
Isabella made a close
investigation of the grants that had been made by her brother and father, and she
cancelled all those that were the fruit of caprice and wantonness, restoring to
the Crown the revenues that had been recklessly alienated and the taxes that
the country had hitherto paid to none but the bandits who oppressed it.
Similarly she found
the public credit entirely ruined. Under the late king such had been the
laxity, that in three years no less than 150 public mints had been authorized,
and this permitted such abases that a point had been reached where it almost
seemed that every Spaniard minted his own money, or that, as Rosseeuw St.
Hilaire puts it, “coining was the country’s chief industry.”
She reduced the
number of mints to five, and exercised the severest control over their output,
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POPE INNOCENT III.
AND ST. DOMINIC. From a Fresco in the Church of the Sacro Speco, Subiaco.
thereby liberating
trade from the fear of fraud that had been stifling it. An increased and
steadily increasing prosperity was the almost immediate result of this wise
measure.
Having restored order
in the country, she turned her attention to the Court, applied herself to the
purification of its morals, and set about converting it from the disgusting
licence that had prevailed in her brother’s time.
Herself of a rigid
chastity, she exacted the same purity of conduct in all the women who
approached her, and she submitted the noble damsels brought up at her Court to
the very strictest surveillance. Loving the King very sincerely, she was
notoriously inclined to jealousy : let him but look too assiduously upon any
lady of her train, and Isabella found a way to remove her from the Court. She
saw to it that the pages who were in waiting upon her should be given a good
education, that thus they might avoid the idleness which unfailingly leads to
waste of character and to immorality. Finally, according to Bernaldez,1
she extended her moral reforms to the convents, which were no less in need of
them than the Court, and she corrected and punished the great depravity that
was permeating all conventual orders.2
There is no
chronicler of her reign who does not dilate upon her great piety. Bernaldez
compares her to St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine,3
1 Cap. cc.
Bernaldez was the parish priest of Palacios at the time of the Queen’s death.
He has left us a rather intimate history of the Catholic Sovereigns, fairly
rich in vivid detail.
1 “ Hizo corrigir y castigar la gran disolucion y
dishonestidad que habian en sus reinos cuando comenzo de reinar entre los
frailes y monjas de todas las ordenes, y fizo encerrar las monjas de muchos
monasterios que vivian muy dishonestas, asi en Castilla como en los reynos de
Aragon y Cataluna.”—Bernaldez, “Historia
de los Reyes Catolicos,” cap. cc.
3 St.
Helena’s memory was prominently before the public attention just then, owing to
the discovery in Rome of a silver box containing what was alleged to be the
label that had been hung upon the Cross. Its recovery from the Holy Land was,
of course, attributed to St. Helena, and it was supposed that it had been
brought by her to Rome.
and describes her as
very devoted to the Holy Faith and very obedient to Holy Church. Bernaldez, of
course, was writing after the establishment of the Inquisition, of which he, in
common with other contemporary and subsequent chroniclers, very warmly
approved ; and he may have been very largely influenced by consideration of
the support which she had unfortunately lent to its introduction into Castile.
But that her piety was extreme and sincere we infer from the moment that we see
her, after the battle of Toro, which definitely gave her the crown, going
barefoot to church to a service of thanksgiving.
Yet, however ardent
her piety, it would not carry her the length of recognizing in the Pope the
temporal over-lord of Castile.
From the thirteenth
century the power of the Church had been increasing in Spain under the dogma of
the spiritual sovereignty of Rome over all the Catholic churches of the world.
The clergy had amassed enormous wealth with that facility so peculiarly their
own when the occasion is afforded them, and to this end they had abused the
reckless, foolish liberality of Isabella’s predecessors.
Lucius Marinaeus
informs us that the incomes of the four archbishoprics—Toledo, Santiago,
Seville, and Granada—amounted to 134,000 ducats,1 whilst those of
the twenty bishoprics came to some 250,000 ducats.
Surrounded as she was
by priestly counsellors whom she respected, she nevertheless manifested plainly
her impatience of the clerical usurpation of the rights of the Crown. The chief
of these abuses was no doubt that practised by the Pontiff himself, in
conferring upon foreigners the highest and richest benefices of the Church of
Spain, ignoring that it was the prerogative of the Crown to name the bishops
1 The ducat
was worth ys. 6d. of our present money, with fully five times the purchasing
power of that sum; so that, roughly, this would be equivalent to-day to
£200,000.
—always subject to
papal confirmation. That Isabella, devout and priest-surrounded as she was,
should have dared to oppose the Holy See and the terrible Pope Sixtus IV, as
fearlessly as she had opposed her predatory nobles, is perhaps the highest
proof that history can yield of her strength of character.
Her smouldering
indignation flared out when the Pope, ignoring her nomination of her chaplain,
Alonzo de Burgos, to the vacant bishopric of Cuenca, appointed his own nephew,
Raffaele Riario, Cardinal of San Sisto, to that vacant see.
Twice already had she
sought the pontiff’s confirmation of nominees of her own for other benefices—
the Archbishopric of Saragoza and the Bishopric of Tarragona—and on each
occasion her nominee had been set aside in favour of a creature of the Pope’s.
But this third contemptuous disregard of her prerogative was more than her
patience could endure. The Catholic Sovereigns refused to ratify the appointment
of Riario, and begged the Pope—submissively at first—to cancel it.
But the harsh,
overbearing Sixtus returned an answer characteristic of his arrogant nature. It
was his, he announced, to distribute at his pleasure all the benefices of
Christendom; and he condescended to explain that the power which it had pleased
God to confer upon him on earth could not be limited by any will but his own,
and that it was governed only by the interests of the Catholic Faith, of which
he was the sole arbiter.
But his stubbornness
met a stubbornness as great. The Catholic Sovereigns replied by withdrawing
their ambassador from the Papal Court, and issuing an injunction to all Spanish
subjects to leave Rome.
Matters were becoming
strained ; an open rupture impended between Spain and the Vatican. But the
Sovereigns had notified the Pope that it was their intention to summon a
general council of the Church
to settle the matter
in dispute, and no Pope of those days could contemplate with equanimity a
general council assembled for the purpose of sitting in judgment upon his
decrees. Whatever the result, since at these councils the papal authority was
questioned, it must follow that thereafter that authority would be impaired.
Therefore this was the stock threat employed to bring a recalcitrant pontiff
to a reasonable frame of mind.
It made Sixtus
realize the strength of purpose that was opposed to him ; and, knowing as he
did that this resoluteness backed an undeniable right which he had violated, he
perceived that he dared carry insistence no further. So, despite his earlier
assertion that the power which he held from God could be limited by no will but
his own and governed by no consideration but that of the interests of the
Faith, he gave way completely.
The three royal
nominees were duly confirmed in the vacant sees, and Sixtus gave an undertaking
that in future he would make no appointments to the benefices of Spain save of
such ecclesiastics as the Catholic Sovereigns should nominate.1
It is to be added
that in acting upon this signal victory which she had won, Isabella used the
faculty it gave her with such pious wisdom, sincerity, and discretion that had
the Pope but followed her example in the appointment of dignitaries, it would
have contributed to the greater honour and glory of the Church. For she
sternly opposed the granting of benefices upon any grounds but those of
absolute merit.
Having won her way in
this, she was the better able to curb the predatory habits of her clergy by
edicts that limited their power to proper clerical confines.
“ It is amazing,”
comments Pulgar, “ that a woman should have been able, single-handed and in so
little
1 Salazar de Mendoza, " Cronica del Gran Cardenal,”
I. cap. lii.
time, by her judgment
and perseverance to accomplish what many men and great kings had been unable to
do in many years.”
“ Properly to judge
the notable improvements,” says Rosseeuw St. Hilaire,1 “which this
reign effected in industry and agriculture, it would be necessary to follow
year by year the table of ordinances issued by the Catholic Sovereigns. It
would be seen that in many things the genius of the founders of the Castilian
Monarchy forestalled the work of centuries. The happy results of these reforms
were soon experienced everywhere : the highways were purged of malefactors,
new roads of communication were opened up, rivers were bridged, consular
tribunals established in commercial centres, consulates created in Flanders,
England, France, and Italy ; with maritime commerce expanding daily and in a
measure with the progress of industry, new buildings sprang up in every city,
and the population rapidly increased. All announced a new era of regeneration
in Castile. Contemporary writers, struck by these prodigies, exalt with one
voice this glorious reign which opens new destinies to Spain.”
It is certain that in
no other country in Europe at this date were the laws so well maintained and
the rights of the individual so well protected. Justice was rigorously done,
there were no longer arbitrary imprisonments and sequestrations, whilst the
unequal and capricious taxation of the past was abolished for all time.
“Such,” says
Marinaeus, “was the strict justice meted out to each in this happy reign that
all men, nobles and knights, traders and husbandmen, rich and poor, masters and
servants, were treated alike and received equally their share of it.”
Where so much was
good, where so much stout
1 “Histoire d’Espagne,” tom. v. p. 432.
service was done to
the cause of progress and civilization, it is the more deplorable to find in
this reign the one evil thing that is now to be considered—so evil that it must
be held to counterbalance and stultify all the excellences of Isabella’s sway.
The particular praise
which so far we have heard their contemporaries bestowing upon the Catholic
Sovereigns, is a praise which every man in every age must echo.
But there was praise
as loud upon another score, as universally uttered by every contemporary and
many subsequent historians, some no doubt because they were sincere in the deadly
bigotry that inspired it, others because they did not dare to express
themselves in different terms.
“ By her,” cries
Bernaldez, as a climax to his summing-up of her many virtues and wise
provisions, “ was burnt and destroyed the most evil and abominable Mosaic,
Talmudic, Jewish heresy.”
And Mariana, the
historian, accounts the introduction of the Inquisition into Spain the most
glorious feature of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. He is setting it above
all the moral splendours of that day when he exclaims :
“ Still better and
happier fortune for Spain was the establishment in Castile at about this time
of a new and holy tribunal of severe and grave judges for the purpose of
inquiring into and punishing heretical pravity and apostasy. . . .” 1
It would be unjust to
suppose that there is a man to be found to-day in the Church of Rome, of which
the Spanish Inquisition was a deplorable and integral part, who can turn with
us in other than regret to consider this black shadow that lies across one of
the brightest pages of history.
1 “ Historia General de Espana,” lib. xxiv. cap. xvii
CHAPTER V
THE JEWS IN SPAIN
You have seen the
Catholic Sovereigns instilling order into that distracted land of Spain,
enforcing submissiveness to the law, instituting a system of police for the
repression of brigandage, curtailing the depredations of the nobles, checking
the abuses and usurpations of the clergy, restoring public credit, and
generally quelling all the elements of unrest that had afflicted the State.
But one gravely
disturbing element still remained in the bitter rancour prevailing between
Christian and Jew.
“ Some clerics and
many laymen,” says Pulgar,1 “ informed the Sovereigns that there
were in the Kingdom many Christians of Jewish extraction who were Judaizing2
again and holding Jewish rites in their houses, and who neither believed the
Catholic Faith nor performed the Catholic duties. They implored the Sovereigns,
as they were Christian princes, to punish that detestable error, because if
left unpunished it might so spread that our Holy Catholic Faith must receive
great harm.”
Exactly to realize
the position at the time, and the force behind the arguments employed to induce
1 “
Chronica de los Reyes Catholicos,” Pt. II. cap. lxxvi. a To Judaize
(Judaizar) was to embrace the Mosaic law, and the term was applied particularly
to the relapse of those who had been converted to Christianity.
the Catholic
Sovereigns to complete the ordering of the kingdom by the repression of the
re-Judaizing, or apostasy, of the New-Christians—as the baptized Jews and their
descendants were termed—it is necessary to take at least a brief retrospective
survey of the history of the Israelites in Spain.
At what period the
Jews first appeared in the peninsula it is not easy to determine with accuracy.
Salazar de Mendoza
and other ancient historians, who base their writings upon the work of Tomds
Tamayo de Vargas, put forward views upon this subject that are curious rather
than important.
They assert that the
Kingdom of Spain was founded by Tubal, the son of Japhet, who had Europe for
his portion when the division was made among the sons of Noah. Hence it was
called Tubalia, and later on Sepharad by the Jews, and Hesperida by the Greeks.
They hold that the first Jews in the Iberian Peninsula were probably those who
came with Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Chaldea, and that he brought with him, in
addition to Chaldeans and Persians, ten tribes of Israel, who peopled Toledo,1
and built there the most beautiful synagogue that had been theirs since the
temple of Solomon. This synagogue, Mendoza states, afterwards became the
Convent of Santa Maria la Blanca (a statement which the architecture of Santa
Maria la Blanca very flatly contradicts). He further informs us that they built
another synagogue at Zamora, and that those who worshipped there always prided
themselves—his point of view, of course, is narrowly Christian—that to them had
been addressed St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews.
They founded a
university at Lucena (n§ar Cordova), and schools where the law was taught, so
that the holy Jewish religion spread rapidly, and was observed throughout Spain
until the coming of
1 Toledo,
Mendoza tells us, was founded by Hercules, who sailed to Spain in the ship
Argo.
Our Lord into the
world. Then, in 37 a.d., the
Apostle St. James came to preach the new gospel in Iberia, “ so that Spain was
the first land after Judea to receive the holy law of grace.” Following the
writings of Vargas, he goes so far as to say: “and although to many it has seemed
apocryphal that the Toledo Jews wrote to denounce the Passion of Our Lord, the
assertion is not without good foundation.” 1
Amador de los Rios is
probably correct in his opinion that the Jews made their first appearance in
Spain during the Visigothic dominion, after the fall of Jerusalem; and scarcely
had they settled in the peninsula when they began to experience the bitterness
of persecution. But after they had been delivered from this by the Saracen
invaders, to whom by race and creed they were fairly sympathetic, they
enjoyed—alike under Moslem and Christian rule—a season of prosperity in Spain,
which endured until the close of the thirteenth century. And this notwithstanding
the undercurrent of mutual contempt and hatred, of Christian for Jew and Jew
for Christian, that was invincible in an age of strong religious feeling.
To the Christian
every Jew he encountered was his natural and hereditary enemy, a descendant of
those who had crucified the Saviour ; therefore he was
1 Tomas
Tamayo de Vargas maintains that the Jews in Toledo at the time of the
Crucifixion sent a letter of warning and disapproval to their brethren in
Jerusalem. This letter—which it is alleged was translated into Castilian when
Toledo fell into the hands of Alfonso VI—the historian quotes. Amador de los
Rios, in his able and exhaustive history of the Jews in Spain, pronounces the
document to have been manufactured to impose upon the credulity of the
ignorant, since to any one acquainted with the growth and development of the
Castilian language a glance is sufficient to prove its apocryphal character.
It is in this letter
that the legend of the Jewish incursion into Spain after the fall of Babylon
has its roots. It concludes with the following statement: “. . . You know that
it is certain your temple must soon be destroyed, for which reason our
forefathers, upon issuing from the Babylonian captivity, would not return to
Jerusalem, but with Pyrrhus for their captain—sent by Cyrus, who gave them many
riches taken from Babylon in the year 69 of the captivity—they came to Toledo
and built here a great aljama.”
an object of
execration, a man upon whom it must be meritorious to avenge the world’s
greatest crime which had been perpetrated by his forbears.
The Jew, on the other
hand, held the Christian in a contempt as thorough. From the standpoint of his
own pure and unadulterated monotheism, he looked scornfully upon a religion
that must appear to him no better than an adaptation of polytheism, developed
upon the doctrines of one whom the Jews had rejected as an impostor who had
attempted to usurp the place of the promised Messiah. To the truly devout Jew
of those days the Christian religion can have been little better than a
blasphemy. Nor was that the only source of his contempt. Looking back upon his
own splendid ancestry, upon the antiquity of his race and the high order of its
culture—the fruit of centuries of intellectual evolution—what but scorn could
he entertain for these Spaniards of yesterday’s hatching, who were just
emerging from the slough of barbarism ?
It is clear that
mutual esteem between the races was out of all question in an age of strong
religious prejudices. Toleration, however, was possible, and the Jew applied
himself to win it. To this end he employed at once the vices and the virtues of
the unfortunate, which centuries of tribulation had rendered inherent in him.
Armed with a stoicism
that was almost pitiful, he donned a mask of indifference to confront expressed
hatred and contempt; to violence he opposed cunning and the long-suffering
patience that is so peculiarly his own—the patience that is allied with a high
order of intelligence ; the patience which, interpreted into “ an infinite
capacity for taking pains,” has been urged as the definition of genius, and is
the secret of the Jew’s success wherever he is established.
In the cohesion in a
foreign land of this people that cannot keep together as a nation, and in their
extraordinary commercial acuteness, lies the strength
of the Jews. They
grew wealthy by their industry and thrift, until they were in a position to
purchase those privileges which in Christendom are the birthright of every
Christian. Their numbers, too, made it difficult in Spain to treat them with
contumely ; for upon the reasoned estimate of Amador de los Rios 1
there were close upon a million Jews in Castile at the end of the thirteenth
century.
They formed by their
solidarity—as they always do—an imperium in imperio, a state of their own
within the state ; they had their own language and customs; they were governed
by their own laws, which were enforced by their Rabbis and chiefs, and they
pursued their own religion unmolested, for even the observation of the Sabbath
was respected by the Castilians. Thus they came to create for themselves in a foreign
country a simulacrum of their own native land.
It is true that they
were afflicted from time to time by sporadic, local persecutions ; but in the
main they enjoyed a tolerance and religious liberty which the poor harried
Albigenses beyond the Pyrenees might well have envied. For the Church, which
had already established the Inquisition, was very far—for reasons that shall be
considered in the next chapter—from instigating any persecution of the Children
of Israel. Thus, Honorius III, whilst carrying forward the policy of Innocent
III, and enjoining the extirpation of heretics in Southern France and
elsewhere, confirmed (November 7, 1217) the privileges accorded to the Jews by
his predecessors upon the throne of St. Peter. These were that no Jew should be
constrained to receive baptism ; that should he incline to embrace the
Christian Faith he must be received in it with love and benevolence ; that his
feasts and religious ceremonies must be respected by Christians; that the
whipping or stoning of Jews be forbidden and punished ; that their
burial-places be held sacred.
1 “Historia de los Judios en Espana,” vol. i. pp. 28, 29.
And when King
Ferdinand III—afterwards canonized—wrested Seville from the Moors (1224), he
made^over one of the best districts of the city to the Jews, and gave them the
four mosques contained in it that they might convert them into synagogues.
The only restraint
placed upon them by the law was that they must refrain, under pain of death,
from attempting to proselytize among Christians, and that they must show
respect for the Christian religion.
These were the
halcyon days of Hebrew prosperity in Spain. Their distinguished abilities were
recognized, and they won to many positions of importance in the government.
The finances of the kingdom were in their control, and Castile prospered under
their ableadministrationofitscommerce. Alfonso VI11, in whose reign it is
estimated there were 12,000 Jews in Toledo alone, employed a Jew as his
treasurer, and did not disdain to take a Jewess for his mistress—an interesting
little fact in view of the law that was so soon to be promulgated on that
subject.
Hardly less than
their value to the nation’s commerce were their services to science, art, and
literature. They excelled particularly in medicine and chemistry, and the most
skilful doctors and surgeons of the Middle Ages were men of their race.
In the middle of the
thirteenth century a change unfortunately set in, and this external harmony so
laboriously established was disturbed by an excrescence of the real feelings
that had never ceased to underlie it. Largely the Jews were themselves to
blame. Deluded by the religious liberty that was conceded them, by the
dignities to which men of their faith had climbed, and by the prosperity which
they had attained, they failed to perceive that their accumulated wealth was in
itself a menace to their safety.
Embqldened by the
consideration shown them, they committed the imprudence of giving a free rein
to their Oriental taste for splendour; they surrounded
themselves with
luxury, and permitted themselves an ostentatious magnificence in their raiment
and equipages, and thus proclaimed the wealth they had been amassing through
generations of comparative obscurity.
Had they confined
themselves to this strictly personal display all might yet have been well. But
being dressed and housed in princely fashion, they put on princely ways. They
grew haughty and arrogant with the horrible arrogance of wealth. They allowed
their disdain of the less affluent Christians to transpire in their
contemptuous bearing towards them, and being unchecked in this it was but
another step to abuse the privileges which they enjoyed.
Their parade of
wealth had provoked envy—the most dangerous and maleficent of the passions
implanted in the human heart. Their arrogance and cavalier bearing stirred that
envy into activity.
Questions arose
touching the sources of their wealth. It was propounded against them that their
usurious practices had ruined many of the Christians whom they now dared to
spurn. And although usury had been sanctioned and it had been proclaimed lawful
for them to charge a rate of interest as high as 40 per centum, it was suddenly
remembered that usury had in all times been uncompromisingly condemned by the
Church—and by the term usury the Church then understood any interest, however
slight, paid upon borrowed money.
Fanaticism began to
stir uneasily in its slumber, and presently, under the spur of greed, it roused
itself and reared its horrid head. Public feeling against the Israelites was
increased by the fact that they had practically acquired control of the
ever-unpopular offices for the collection of taxes.
The populace grew
menacing. Evil tales concerning them were put about, and they were accused,
among other ritual abominations, of practising human sacrifices.
Whether there was any
real ground for the accusation is one of those historical mysteries that
baffle the student. On the one hand it seems impossible to collect sufficient
data to establish any single one of the many specific accusations made ; whilst
on the other hand, in view of the persistence with which the charge crops up in
different countries and at different epochs,1 it would be
presumptuous to dismiss it as groundless.
The first official
recognition of the accusation is to be found in the code known as the Partidas,
promulgated by Alfonso XI (1256-1263), which contains the following clause:
“ As we hear that in
some places the Jews on Good Friday make a mocking commemoration of the Passion
of Our Lord Jesus Christ, stealing boys and crucifying them, or making waxen
images and crucifying these when boys are not procurable, we order that should
it become known that hereafter, in any part of our realm, such a thing is done,
all those whom it is ascertained are connected with the deed shall be arrested
and brought before the King. And when he shall have satisfied himself of the
truth of the charge he shall have them put to death, as many as they may be.”2
Llorente mentions
four specific cases of ritual murder, to which he appears to attach credit:
1250.—A choir-boy of
the Metropolitan Church of Zaragoza, named Domingo de Val, crucified by Jews. H
e was afterwards canonized and worshipped at Zaragoza as a martyr.
1452.—A boy crucified
by Jews at Valladolid.
1454.—A boy from the
lordship of the Marquess of Almarza, near Zamora, crucified. His heart was
afterwards burnt and the ashes were consumed in wine by the Jews who attended
the ceremony. The body
1 A case is
at present before the Russian law courts, arising out of a charge of this
nature urged by an officer of police.
! Rios, “ Hist, de los Judios,” i. cap. x.
was afterwards
discovered by a dog, and this led to the arrest of the culprits and their conviction.
1468.—At Sepulveda,
in the Bishopric of Segovia, a boy was taken on the Thursday of Holy Week, and
on Good Friday he was crowned with thorns, whipped, and finally crucified. The
Bishop, D. Juan Arias, having received intelligence of this crime, instituted
an inquiry which resulted in the arrest of several men, who, being convicted,
were put to death.
Llorente gives as his
authority for the third and fourth cases the “ Fortalicium Fidei” of Espina—by
no means an authority to be unquestioningly accepted. For the second he
mentions no authority whatever; whilst for fuller information upon the first he
refers his readers to the “ Historia de Santo Domingo de Val,” which is of no
more authority than most works of this class.1 But the canonization
of this victim gives rise to thought ; for it was never the way of the Church
of Rome to proceed recklessly and without due evidence in such matters. Even if
it were, however, it would be necessary in this case to show a motive for such
recklessness. The only motive possible would be the desire to create
justification for a persecution of the Jews. But, as has been said—and as shall
presently be made abundantly clear—it never was the aim of the Church of Rome
to engage in such persecution or to incite to it.
The famous case of
the crucifixion of the “ Holy Infant ” of La Gardia, whose trial was directed
by Torquemada himself, shall be considered in its proper place.
As is well known, the
practice of human sacrifice is an extremely old one; and it has been associated
in varying forms with many widely different cults. The earliest absolutely
historical instance of Jews resorting to it is probably that quoted by Dr. J.
G. Frazer (in “The Golden Bough”) from the “Historia
1 See also Torrejoncillo’s " Centinela contra
Judios.”
Ecclesiastica ” of
Socrates. The scholiast relates how in 416, at Imnestar in Syria, a company of
Jews during one of their festivals fell to deriding Christians and their
Christ. At the height of their frenzy they seized a boy, bound him to a cross,
and hung him up. A brawl was the result, and the authorities intervened to make
the Jews pay dearly for their crime.
Amador de los Rios,
in dealing with the spread of this charge against the Spanish Hebrews in the
thirteenth century, attributes it to the subject’s having been made the theme
of an exceedingly dramatic narrative poem in the “ Milagros de Nuestra Senora ”
by Gonzalo de Berceo. At the same time he does not go so far as to urge that
the story upon which the ballad was founded may not have had its roots in fact.
On the contrary, he suggests that such may have been the case, and having
chronicled the persistence of the accusation, he refrains from expressing any
definite opinion on the subject, hesitating either to accept, or to dismiss as
idle calumnies, these charges of ritual murder.
From the able
arguments that have been put forward on this same subject by Frazer and Wend-
land, it is to be concluded that in any case the Christians were mistaken in
assuming that these alleged crucifixions held at the Feast of Purim— whether of
human beings or of effigies—were intended as a mockery of the Passion of the
Redeemer. Their origin is a far more ancient one, involving a rite of which the
Sacrifice of Golgotha may itself have been an individual celebration—the
commemoration of the hanging of Haman—which, again, was the continuation of a
ritual practised by the Babylonians and acquired from them by the Jews during
their captivity.1
1 Whatever
may be the truth of this matter of ritual
1 This
engrossing subject is exhaustively treated with great force and suggestiveness
by J. G. Frazer in 11 The Golden Bough,’’ bk. iii, cap. iii.,
and also by P. Wendland in “ Jesus als Saturnalien-Konig.”
Photo by
Lacuste.
ISABELLA THE
CATHOLIC.
From a Painting in
the Prado Gallery, attributed to Miguel Zittoz,
So]
murder, there is no
doubt that these rumours were diligently spread to inflame the popular mind
against the Jews.
Fanatical
monks—ignoring the papal injunctions of forbearance and toleration towards the
Children of Israel—went forth through Castile preaching the iniquity of the
Jews and God’s wrath to fall upon the land that harboured them. Thus incited,
and perceiving profit in the business, the faithful rose to destroy them.
Massacres and pillages were the inevitable result, although as a rule the
authorities were prompt to intervene and repress the populace’s combined
fanaticism and quest for plunder.
But when in 1342 the
Black Death spread over Europe, the Dominicans and others renewed their
denunciations, and led men to believe the Jews responsible for the pestilence
that afflicted the land. In Germany they were ruthlessly given to choose
between death and baptism, and they suffered horribly until Pope Clement VI
stepped in to save them. He besought the Emperor to restrain his murderers ;
and finding that his pleadings lacked effect, he launched the thunderbolts of
excommunication against all who should continue to engage in the persecution of
the Jews.
Stricken with terror
before that awful menace of the Church, the faithful paused in the carnage, and
the voice of denunciation fell silent.
Thus, for a season,
they won a little measure of peace. But throughout the fourteenth century
spurts of persecution broke out here and there, and massacres took place in
Castile, Aragon, and Navarre. The authorities, too, with the precedent of the
Partidas before them, whilst not going the length of sanctioning, or even
permitting violence where they could repress it, yet practised upon the Jews
the most flagrant and cruel injustices. Of these the worst instance is that of
the tax of 20,000 gold dobles levied upon the
aljamas of Toledo by
Henry II on his accession in 1369. To realize this sum he ordered the public
sale not only of the property of the Jews, but actually of their persons into
slavery, as is to be seen by his decree.1
The persecutions with
which they were visited were chiefly procured by the monks, who went abroad
preaching against them, fomenting the hatred of the Christians against a people
who were largely their creditors. Even where the religious incentive was
insufficient, the easy way of wiping out debts which this gratification of
their piety afforded proved irresistible to a people whose flagrant
immorality—in every sense of the term—went hand in hand with their perfervid
devoutness.
These persecutions,
as we have said, the authorities made haste to quell. But there arose presently
a rabid fanatic who proved altogether irrepressible. His name was Hernando
Martinez. He was a Dominican friar, and Canon of Ecija. Of his sincerity there
can be no doubt; and their sincerity is the most terrible thing about such men,
blinding them to the point of utter madness. He was ready to suffer any
martyrdom sooner than be silent in a cause in which he considered it his sacred
duty to give tongue. About this sacred duty he went forth, screaming his
denunciations of the Jews, frenziedly inciting the mob to rise up and destroy
this accursed race, these enemies of God, these crucifiers of the Saviour.
Indeed, he could not have shown a more fierce and frothing hatred of them had
they been the very men who at the throne of Pilate had clamoured for the blood
of Christ—and for whose pardon the gentle Redeemer had prayed in His expiring
moments : a matter this which escaped the attention of the Archdeacon of Ecija,
being—like many another—too full of piety to find room for Christianity in his
soul.
1 The decree is quoted by Amador de los Rios in “ Historia
de I03 Judios de Espafta y Portugal,” vol. ii. p. 571.
Appeals against him
were made to the Archbishop of Seville, whose official, or representative, he
was. He was ordered by his Archbishop to desist, and when in flagrant
disobedience to his superior he continued to preach his gospel of blood and
hatred, appeals were made to the King,, and even to the Pope; and by King and
Pope was he commanded to cease his inflammatory sermons.
But he defied them
all alike. In his fanatical fury he carried his contumacy so far as to call in
question the papal authority, and to declare illicit the sanction given by the
popes for the erection and preservation of synagogues. This was perilously akin
to heresy. Men had been sent to the stake for less, and Hernando Martinez must
have been utterly mad if he conceived that the Church would permit him to
continue the diffusion of such doctrines.
He was brought before
the episcopal court to answer for his words. He answered defiantly—told them
that the breath of God was in him, and that it was not for men to stop his
mouth.
Thereupon Don Pedro
Barroso—the archbishop— ordered that he should stand his trial for contumacy
and heresy, and meanwhile suspended him from all jurisdiction and all duties as
archiepiscopal official.
It happened, however,
that Barroso died shortly thereafter, before the trial could take place ; and
Martinez contrived to get himself elected by the Chapter to the position of one
of the provisors of the diocese pending the appointment of a successor to
Barroso. Thus he resumed his power and the faculty to preach ; and he used it
so ruthlessly that in December of 1390 several synagogues in Seville were laid
in ruins by the mob acting in obedience to his incitement.
The Jews appealed to
the King for protection, and the authorities, now thoroughly roused, ordered
that Martinez be deposed from his office and forbidden to preach, and that the
demolished synagogues be rebuilt
by the Chapter which
had made itself responsible by electing him.
But Martinez, ever
defiant, disregarded both King and Chapter. He pursued his bloodthirsty
mission, stirring up a populace that was but too ready to perceive—through his
arguments—a way to perform an act that must be pleasing to God whilst enriching
itself at the same time. What populace could have been proof against such
reasoning ?
Finally, in the
summer of 1391, the whole country was ablaze with fanatical persecution. The
fierce flames broke out first in Seville, under the assiduous fanning of the
deposed archdeacon.
Three years before,
in view of the harm that it was urged the Jews were doing to religion by their
free intermingling with Christians, King John I had ordered them to live apart
in districts appointed for them, which came to be known as Juderias (Jewries or
ghettos). It was commanded that the Christians should not enter these, and that
for purposes of trade the Jews should come to the public markets and there
erect tents, but they must own no house or domicile beyond the precincts of the
Juderias, and they must withdraw to these at nightfall.
Into the Juderia of
Seville the mob now penetrated, wrought by Martinez to a pitch of frenzy almost
equal to his own. They went armed, and they put the place to sack and
slaughter, butchering its every tenant without discrimination or pity for age
or sex. The number of the slain has been estimated at some four thousand, men,
women, and children.1
From Seville the
conflagration spread to the other cities of Spain, and what had happened there
happened in Burgos, Valencia, Toledo, and Cordova, and further in Aragon,
Cataluna, and Navarre, whilst the streets of Barcelona are said to have run
with the blood of immolated Jews.
Into the Jewry of
every town went the infuriated
1 See Ortiz de Zuftiga, 11 Anales de Sevilla,’’
under auo 1391.
mob to force
Christ—as these Christians understood Him—upon the inhabitants ; to offer the
terror- stricken Jews the choice between steel and water— death and baptism.
So mighty and violent
was the outbreak that the authorities were powerless to quell it, and where
they attempted to do so with any degree of determination they were themselves
caught in the fury of the populace. Nor did the slaughter cease until the
Christians were glutted, and some fifty thousand Jews had perished.
The churches were now
filled with Jews who came clamouring for baptism, having perceived that through
its waters lay the way to temporal as well as to spiritual life, and having in
most cases—in the abject state of terror to which they had been reduced —more concern
for the former than for the latter. Llorente estimates the number of baptized
at over a million, and this number was considerably swelled by the conversions
effected by St. Vincent Ferrer, who came forth upon his mission to the Jews in
the early years of the fifteenth century, and who induced thousands to enter
the fold of Christianity by his eloquence and by the marvels which it is said
he wrought.
The fury of the mob
having spent itself, peace was gradually restored, and little by little those
Jews who had remained faithful to their religion and yet survived began to come
forth from their hiding-places, to assemble, and, with the amazing, invincible
patience and pertinacity of their race, to build up once more the edifice that
had been demolished.
But if the sword of
persecution was sheathed, the spirit that had guided it was still abroad, and
the Jews were made to experience further repressive measures. Under decrees of
1412-13 they lost most of the few privileges that the late king had left them.
It was ordained by
these that henceforth no
Jew should occupy the
position of a judge even in a Hebrew court, nor should any Jew be permitted to
bear witness. All synagogues were to be closed or converted into Christian
temples, with the exception of one in every town in which Jews should be
established. They were forbidden to continue the practice of the professions of
medicine, surgery, and chemistry, in which they had specialised with such good
results to the community. They were no longer to occupy the offices of
tax-collectors, and all commerce with Christians was forbidden them. They must
neither buy nor sell in trade with Christians, nor eat with them, nor use their
baths, nor send their children to the same schools. The ghetto was ordered to
be walled round, so as to be enclosed and cut off from the rest of the city,
and they were forbidden to issue from it. Intercourse between a Jew and a
Christian woman was forbidden under pain of death by burning, even though the
woman were a prostitute. They were forbidden to shave, and compelled to allow
their beards and hair to grow, in addition to which they were ordered to wear
as a distinguishing mark a circle of red cloth upon the shoulder of their
gabardines. They were further compelled to hear three sermons annually from a
Christian preacher, whose aim it was to pour abuse and contumely upon them, to
inveigh against their accursed race and creed, to assure them of the certainty
of the damnation that awaited them, and to exalt before them the excellences of
the Catholic religion (based, be it remembered, that we may fully savour the
irony, upon Faith, Hope, and Charity).1
When King John I had
established the Juderias in 1388, curtailing at the same time the privileges
which until then the Jews had enjoyed—at least by paying for them—there had
been many who, finding the restraint imposed upon them altogether intolerable,
had abandoned the faith of their fathers and embraced
1 See
Rosseeuw St. Hilaire, 11 Hist. d’Espagne,” liv. xix. chap. 1.
Christianity. Those
who held the affairs of this world in esteem had sought baptism, and whilst
many in doing so had entirely broken with the past—and often, as is the way of
converts, become zealots in their observance of the faith embraced—many others,
whilst outwardly complying with the obligations of the Christian religion,
continued in secret to observe the law of Moses and their Jewish rites.
Similarly these further decrees against their liberty had the effect of causing
still more numerous conversions to Christianity.
These converts were
termed “ New-Christians ” by the Spaniards. By those of their own race who had
remained faithful they were called “ marranos ” —a contemptuous epithet derived
from Maran-atha, (“The Lord is coming”), but supposed by the Christians to signify
“ accursed.” It came into general use before very long.
These New-Christians,
as a consequence of their conversion, gained not merely the privileges recently
lost to them as Jews, but found themselves upon a footing of absolute equality
with the Old-Christians ; every profession was open to them, and by applying
themselves to these with all their energy and intelligence, they found
themselves before very long in possession of some of the highest offices in the
land.
But in the meanwhile
the rigour of the decrees of 1412 came to be considerably relaxed; a degree of
liberty and of intermingling with Christians was permitted to the Jews, and
many of the offices which they had occupied of old came once more under their
control, chiefly those concerned with commerce and finance and the farming of
the taxes. Under the deplorable rule of Henry IV the nobles, whose slave he
was, demanded that he should “ expel from his service and States the Jews who,
exploiting public misery, have contrived to return to the appointments of
tax-gatherers.”
The weak King agreed,
but neglected to execute
his promise; it was
presently forgotten, and the Jewish section of the community was allowed to
continue under the conditions of ease we have described. Under these conditions
was it found by Ferdinand and Isabella upon their accession, nor does it appear
that they paid any particular attention to it until invited to do so by the “
clerics and laymen ” who, as Pulgar1 tells us, represented to them
that in the re-Judaizings that were taking place was matter for their
jurisdiction.
1 “
Chronica,” II. cap. lxxvi.
THE NEW-CHRISTIANS
It must clearly be understood that so far the Inquisition,
which for some three centuries already had been very active in Italy and
Southern France, had not reached Castile.
Even as recently as
1474, when Pope Sixtus IV had ordered the Dominicans to set up the Inquisition
in Spain, and whilst in obedience to that command inquisitors were appointed
inAragon, Valencia, Cataluna, and Navarre, it was not held necessary to make
any appointment in Castile, where no heresy of any account could be perceived.
Trials of such offences against the Faith as might occur were conducted by the
bishops, who were fully empowered to deal with them ; and such offences being
rare, the necessity for a special tribunal did not suggest itself, nor did the
Pope press the matter, desirous though he might be to see the Inquisition
universally established.
There was, of course,
a large Hebrew population, and also a considerable number of Moslems, in the
peninsula. But these did not come within the jurisdiction of any
ecclesiastical court. The Inquisition itself could take no cognizance of them,
as they did not offend against the Faith.
Explanation is
perhaps necessary. We touch here upon a point on which the religious
persecution known as the Inquisition compares favourably with any other
religious persecution in history, and in common justice this point should
not—as but too frequently has been
the case—be obscured.
There is too little to be urged in favour of this tribunal so terribly
inequitable in its practices that we can afford to slur over the one feature of
its constitution that is invested with a degree of equity.
Whatever may have
been the case in the course of civil and popular persecutions, whatever may
have been done by a frenzied populace at the instigation of odd fanatical
preachers acting without the authority of their superiors in giving rein to the
fierce bigotry they had nurtured in their souls, the Church herself, it must be
clearly understood, neither urged nor sanctioned the persecution of those born
into any religion that was not in itself a heresy of the Roman Faith. The
tribunal of the Inquisition was established solely—and moved solely—to deal
with those who apostatized or seceded from the ranks of the Roman Church,
precisely as an army deals with deserting soldiers. Fanatical, horribly narrow,
cruelly bigoted as was the spirit of the Inquisition, yet the inquisitors
confined their prosecutions to apostates, to the adulterers of a faith whose
purity and incorruptibility they had made it their mission to maintain.
If the Church
repressed liberty of conscience, if she stifled rationalism and crushed
independence of thought, she did so only where her own children were concerned
—those who had been born into the Catholic Faith or who had embraced it in
conversion. With those born into any other independent religion she had no
concern. To J ew, Moslem, Buddhist, and Pagan, and to the savages of the New
World, when it came presently to be discovered, she accorded the fullest
religious freedom.
To appreciate this,
it is but necessary to consider such enactments as those of Honorius III for
the protection of the Jews, of Clement VI, who threatened their persecutors
with excommunication, and the action of Pope and Archbishop in the case of the
inflammatory sermons of Hernando Martinez. It is sufficient
9i
to consider that when
the Jews were driven out of Spain—as shall presently be seen—they actually
found a refuge in Rome itself, and were received with kindliness by Pope
Alexander VI (Roderigo Borgia), which in itself is one of the oddest ironies
that ecclesiastical history can offer.
And if this is not
sufficient, let us for a moment consider the immunity and comparative peace
enjoyed by the Jews who dwelt in Rome itself, in their district of Trastevere.
They were a
recognized section of the community in the Papal City. On his coronation
procession each Pope would pause near the Campo de’ Fiori to receive the
company of Jews that came, headed by the Rabbi, to pay homage to their
sovereign—precisely as their ancestors had come to pay homage to the emperor.
To the Vicar of
Christ the Rabbi would now proffer the rolls of the Pentateuch, swathed in a
cloth. The Pope would take them into his hands, to show that he respected the
law contained in them, and would then put them behind him, to signify that this
law now belonged to the past. From behind the Pontiff the Rabbi would receive
back his sacred scriptures, and depart with his escort, usually accompanied by
the jeers, insults, and vituperations of the Roman populace.1
It will be
understood, then, that the Inquisition’s establishment in Spain was not urged
for the purpose of persecuting the Jews. It had no concern with Jews, if we
confine the term purely to its religious meaning, signifying the observers of
the law of Moses. Its concern was entirely with the apostasy of those who,
although of the Jewish race, had become Christians by conversion. By the
subsequent secret re-Judaizings, or return of these New-Christians to the
religion of their fathers (which they had abandoned out of material
considerations), they came within the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, and
rendered themselves liable
1 See Gregorovius, " Geschichte der Stadt Rom,” bk.
ix. cap. ii.
to prosecution as
heretics, a prosecution which could never have overtaken them had they but
continued in their original faith.
There is no denying
that many of those who had been baptized against their will, as the only means
of saving their lives when the fury of the Christian mob was unleashed against
them, had remained Jews at heart, had continued in secret to practise the
Jewish rites, and were exerting themselves to bring back to the fold of Israel
their apostate brethren. Others, however, upon receiving baptism may have
determined to keep the law to which they now pledged themselves and to
persevere honestly in Christianity. Yet many of the old Jewish observances were
become habitual with them : the trained—almost the hereditary —repugnance to
certain meats, the observance of certain feast days, and several minor domestic
laws that are part of the Jewish code, were too deeply implanted in them to be
plucked up by the roots at the first attempt. Time was required in which they
could settle into Christian habits ; two or three generations might be
necessary in some families before these habits came to be perfectly acquired
and the old ones to be entirely obliterated. Had those who urged the Sovereigns
to introduce the Inquisition into Castile, or had the Sovereigns themselves but
perceived this and exercised the necessary and reasonable patience in the
matter, Spain might have been spared the horrors that took root in her soil and
sapped the vigour and intellectual energy of her children, so that in her case
decadence pressed swift and close upon the very heels of supreme achievement.
Execrable as is the
memory of the Inquisition to all the world, to none should be it so execrable
as to Spain, since the evil that it wrought recoiled entirely upon herself.
It was on the
occasion of Isabella’s first visit to Seville—that punitive visit already
mentioned—that
the establishment of
the Holy Office in Spain was first proposed to her. The King was at the time in
Estremadura upon the business of fortifying his frontiers against Portugal.
The proposal came
from Alonso de Ojeda, the Prior of the Dominicans of Seville, a man who enjoyed
great credit and was reputed saintly (“ vir pius ac sanctus,” Paramo calls
him).
Seeing her zeal to
put down lawlessness and to purify and restore order to the country, Ojeda
urged upon her notice the spread of the detestable Judaizing movement that was
toward. He laid stress upon the hypocrisy that had underlain so many of the conversions
of the Jews. He pointed out—with some degree of justice—that these men had made
a mock of the Holy Church, had defiled her sacraments, and had perpetrated the
most abominable sacrilege by their pretended acceptance of the Christian faith.
He urged that not only must this be punished, but that the havoc which these
Judaizers were working among the more faithful New-Christians, and the
proselytizing which they went so far as to attempt among Old- Christians, must
be checked.
To carry out this
urgently-required purification, he implored the Queen to establish the
Inquisition.1
There was a
speciousness, and even a justice, in his arguments which must have impressed
that pious lady. But her piety, intense as it was, did not carry her to the
lengths required of her by her priestly counsellor. The balance of her splendid
mind was singularly true. She perceived that here was matter that called for a
remedy ; but she perceived also the fanaticism inspiring the friar who stood
before her, and realized how his fanaticism must exaggerate the evil.
She was aware also of
the extreme malevolence of which the New-Christians were the object. By their
conversion they might have deflected the religious
1 Pulgar, “
Chronica,” II. cap. lxxvi.
hostility of the
Castilians ; but the more deeply-rooted racial antagonism remained. It not only
remained, but it was quickened by the envy which these New- Christians were
exciting. The energy and intelligence inherent in men of their race were
serving them now, as they had served them before, to their undoing. There were
no offices of eminence in which New-Christians were not to be found ; there
were none in which they did not outnumber the Old-Christians—the pure- blooded
Castilians.
This the Queen knew,
for she was herself surrounded by converts and the descendants of converts.
Several of her counsellors, her three secretaries—one of whom was that
chronicler, Pulgar, whose record of the situation has been quoted—and her very
treasurer were all New-Christians.1
These men Isabella
knew intimately, and esteemed. Judging the New-Christians generally by those in
her immediate service, she was naturally led to discount Ojeda’s imputations
against them. She perceived the source of these imputations, and she must have
taken into consideration the ineradicable bitterness of the popular feeling
against Jews and the intensity of a prejudice which extended—as we have said—to
the New-Christians to such an extent that they continued to be known as “
Judios,” notwithstanding their conversion, so that often in contemporary
chronicles it is difficult to determine to which class the writer is referring.
We have said that, in
spite of conversions, the racial hostility remained. The Christian attitude
1 In “
Claros Varones de Espaiia,” Pulgar says that even in the veins of her sometime
confessor, Frey Juan de Torquemada, Cardinal of San Sisto, there was a strain
of Jewish blood. But the authority is insufficient, and Pulgar, himself a
New-Christian, is perhaps anxious to include as many illustrious men of his day
as possible in the New-Christian ranks. Zurita, on the other hand, says that
the Cardinal’s nephew, Fr. Thomas de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, was of “
clean blood”—de limpia linaje (lib. xx. cap. xlix.). The term “ clean” in this
connection arose out of the popular conception that the blood of a Jew was a
dark-hued fluid, distinguishable from the bright red blood of the Christian.
towards the Hebrew
had not changed in the hundred years that were sped since, under the incitings
of the Archdeacon of Ecija, the mob had risen up and massacred them. They were
the descendants of the crucifiers always.
A vestige of this
feeling lingers to this day in the peninsula. In the vocabulary of the
Portuguese lower orders, and even of the indifferently educated, there is no
such word as “cruel.” “Jew” is the term that has entirely usurped its
functions, and as an injunction against cruelty to man or beast, “ Don’t be a
Jew ! ” (Nao sejajudeu /) is still the only phrase.
No conception of what
was the popular feeling at the time can be conveyed more adequately than by a
translation of the passage from Bernaldez concerning the manners and customs of
the Jews. Bernaldez was a priest, and therefore, to some extent, an educated
man—as in the main his history bears witness—yet a piece of writing so
ludicrously stupid and detestably malicious as this passage can only have
emanated from a mind in which bigotry had destroyed all sense of proportion.
The only historical
value of the passage lies in the deplorable fact that undoubtedly it may be
accepted as a faithful mirror of the prejudice that existed in Isabella’s day.
It runs :
“ Just as heretics
and Jews have always fled from Christian doctrines, so they have always fled
from Christian customs. They are great drinkers and gluttons, who never lose
the Jewish habit of eating garbage of onions and garlic fried in oil, and of
meat stewed in oil, which they use instead of lard ; and oil with meat is a
thing that smells very badly, so that their houses and doorways stink vilely of
that garbage ; and they have the peculiar smell of Jews in consequence of
their food and of the fact that they are not baptized. And although some have
been baptized,
yet the virtue of the
baptism having been annulled by their credulity [i.e. their adherence to their
own faith] and by their Judaizing, they stink like Jews. They will not eat pork
save under compulsion. They eat meat in Lent and on the eve of feast days. . .
. They keep the Passover and the Sabbath as best they can. They send oil to the
synagogues for the lamps. Jews come to preach to them in their houses secretly—
especially to the women, very secretly They have Rabbis to slaughter their
beasts and poultry. They eat unleavened bread in the Jewish season. They
perform all their Jewish rites as much in secret as possible, and women as well
as men seek whenever possible to avoid the sacraments of Holy Church. . . .
They never confess truthfully, and it happened that a priest, once confessing
one of these, cut a fragment of cloth from his garment, saying : ‘ As you have
never sinned, let me have this as a relic to heal the sick.’ . . . Not without
reason did Our Lord call them generatio prava et adultera. They do not believe
that God rewards virginity and chastity, and all their endeavour is to multiply.
And in the days of the strength of this heresy many monasteries were violated
by their merchants and wealthy men, and many professed nuns were ravished and
derided, they not believing in or fearing excommunication, but rather doing
this to vituperate Jesus Christ and the Church. Commonly swindling people by
many wiles and cheats, as in buying and selling, they have no conscience where
Christians are concerned. Never would they undertake agriculture, ploughing or
tilling or raising cattle, nor have they ever taught their children any office
but that of sitting down to earn enough to eat by as little labour as possible.
Many of them have raised up great estates in a few years, not being sparing of
their thieving and usury, maintaining that they earn it from their enemies.
...” 1
1 Bernaldez, " Historia de los Reyes Catholicos,”
cap. xliii: “ Modo de vivir de los Judios.”
SEVILLE
q6] From Colmeaar's ‘'Delices d’Espagne.’
This atrocious tissue
of misrepresentation would be utterly negligible and contemptible were it not
for the fact—as has been said—that it was written in good faith (the good faith
of a bigot) and reflects what was currently believed, fostered by the envy
which is plainly revealed when Bernaldez alludes to the occupations of the
Jews and the New-Christians—all of whom he assumes to be false to the faith
they have embraced.
Isabella must have
been conscious of this feeling, and she must have rated it at its proper value.
She had received in 1474 a very pitiful narrative poem of the New-Christian
Anton Montoro, which painted with terrible vividness a slaughter of the
conversos and implored justice upon the assassins, protesting the innocence of
the New-Christians and the sincerity of their conversions. Her gentle nature
must have been moved to compassion by that lament, and her acute mind must have
perceived the evil passions and the envy that were stirring under the fair
cloak of saintly zeal.
All these
considerations being weighed, she resisted the representations of Ojeda.
But weightier than any
may have been the reflection of the power which the tribunal of the
Inquisition must place in the hands of the clergy. Already and very bravely she
had expressed her resentment of clerical usurpation of royal rights in Spain,
and to repress it she had not hesitated to front the Pope himself. If she
acceded now to Ojeda’s request, she would be permitting the priesthood to set
up a court which, not being subject to any temporal law, must alienate from her
some portion of that sovereignty which so jealously she guarded.
Thus she came to
dismiss the petition of the Dominican, and there can be little doubt when all
the circumstances are considered—as presently they shall be—that in this she
had the entire support of the Cardinal of Spain, Don Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza,
Archbishop of Seville, who was with her at the time.
Ojeda withdrew,
baffled, but by no means resigned. He awaited a more favourable season, what
time he kept the popular feeling in a state of ferment. And no sooner had
Ferdinand come to rejoin his Queen in Seville than the Dominican renewed his
importunities.
He hoped to find an
ally in the King. Moreover he was now supported by Fr. Filippo de’ Barberi, the
Sicilian Inquisitor. The latter had newly arrived in Spain, where he came to
seek at the hands of the Catholic Sovereigns—who were rulers of Sicily—the
confirmation of an ancient decree promulgated in 1223 by the Emperor Frederic
II. By virtue of this decree one-third of the confiscated property of heretics
became the perquisite of the Inquisition ; and it also ordained that the
governors of all districts should afford protection to the inquisitors and
assistance in their work of prosecuting heretics and any Jew who might have
contracted marriage with a Christian.
These privileges the
Sovereigns duly confirmed, accounting it their duty to do so since they related
to the Inquisition as established by Honorius III. But not on that account did
Isabella yet lean towards the introduction of the tribunal into Castile.
It happened, however,
that to the arguments of Ojeda and Barberi were added the persuasions of the
papal legate a latere at the court of Castile—Nicolao Franco, Bishop of
Trevisa—who conceived, no doubt, that the institution of the Inquisition here
would be pleasing to Pope Sixtus IV, since it must increase the authority of
the Church in Spain.
To Ferdinand it is
probable that the suggestion was not without allurement, since it must have
offered him a way at once to gratify the piety that was his, and—out of the
confiscations that must ensue from the prosecution of so very wealthy a section
of the community—to replenish the almost exhausted coffers of the treasury.
When the way of conscience is also the way of profit, there is little
difficulty in following it.
But, after all,
though joint sovereign of Spain and paramount in Aragon, Ferdinand had not in
Castile the power of Isabella. It was her kingdom when all was said, and
although his position there was by no means that of a simple prince-consort,
yet he was bound by law and by policy to remain submissive to her will. In view
of her attitude, he could do little more than add his own to the persuasions of
the three priestly advocates, and amongst them they so pressed Isabella that
she gave way to the extent of a compromise.
She consented that
steps should be taken not only to check the Judaizing of the New-Christians,
but also to effect conversions among the Jews themselves ; and she entrusted
the difficult task of enforcing the observance of the Christian faith and the
Catholic dogmas to the Cardinal of Spain—than whom, from a Christian and
humanitarian point of view, no man of his day could have been more desirable,
which is as much as to say that from the point of view of his Catholic
contemporaries no man could have been less so.
Isabella’s
announcement of her determination in the matter must have come as something of
a shock to Ojeda, who conceived himself on the way to prevail with her. This
concession to his wishes was far from being the concession that he sought,
since it passed over the heads of the preaching friars, who had made such
work—by their own methods—their special mission.
The Queen, however,
had decided, and there was no more to be said. The Cardinal of Spain went about
his task in that sincere Christian spirit and with that zeal for truth and
justice that is associated with his name. He compiled for the purpose of his
mission an instruccidn, which has not survived, but which Ortiz de Zuniga1
and Pulgar 2 inform us was in the form of a catechism.
In this "he
indicates,” says Pulgar, “the duties of
1
"Anales,” lib. xii. ano 1478.
* “ Chronica,” II.
cap. Ixxvii.
the true Christian
from the day of his birth, in the sacrament of baptism as in all other
sacraments which it is his obligation to receive, as well as what he should be
taught, what believe and what perform as a faithful Christian at all times and
on all days until the day of his death.”
Mariana, Zurita, and
other historians, upon the word of Paramo1 and of Salazar de
Mendoza, have ventured to ascribe the establishment of the Inquisition in
Castile to the Cardinal of Spain. Their object in so doing has been to heap
honour and glory upon his name and memory ; for in their opinion he could have
had no greater claim than this to the gratitude and reverence of humanity. But
the justice of a less bigoted age demands that truth shall prevail in this
respect, and that his memory be deprived of that very questionable honour. The
Cardinal’s contemporaries do not justify what Paramo claims for him. And, to
reduce the argument to its lowest plane, it would have been extremely unlikely
that Cardinal Mendoza should advocate the establishment of a court that must
deprive him and the other Spanish bishops of the jurisdiction in causas de F6
hitherto vested in themselves.
The Primate pursued,
then, the task imposed upon him, causing his “ catechism ” to be expounded and
taught by all parish priests in all pulpits and schools.
But however zealous
his methods, they were not the methods desired by Ojeda and the papal legate.
The Dominican, vexed by the turn of events, and determined to return to the
assault as soon as ever occasion offered, cast about him for fresTi arguments
that should prevail with the Sovereigns.
And then there befell
an incident in Seville to supply his fanatical needs and place in his hands the
very weapon that he sought.
1 " De
Origine et Progressu Sanctae Inquisitionis,” lib. ii. tit. ii. cap. iii.
A young nobleman of
the famous house of Guzman had engaged in an amorous intrigue with the daughter
of a New-Christian. In the pursuit of this amour he repaired secretly to her
father’s house on the night of Thursday in Holy Week of that year 1478, and was
admitted by the girl. But the lovers being disturbed by voices in the house,
Guzman was driven to conceal himself. From his concealment he overheard the
conversation of several Judaizers who were being entertained by the father of
his mistress. He heard them vehemently denying the divinity of Christ and as
vehemently blaspheming His name and the Holy Faith.
Having quitted the
house, he went straight to the Prior of the Dominicans to relate what he had
overheard and to denounce the blasphemers.
This young Castilian
is so very interesting a type that a slight digression to consider him more
closely may be permitted. It is of assistance to understand the mental
attitude, the crass complacency of the bigot. He knew that the highest virtue
that a Christian could practise was the virtue of chastity, and, conversely,
that the worst offence against God into which he could fall was that of
unchastity. Or at least he had been taught these things, and he accepted them
in a sub-conscious, automatic sort of way. Yet since the sin was his own, it
gave his consciousness no uneasiness that he should perpetrate it, that he
should slink like a thief into the house of this New-Christian to debauch his
daughter. But let him hear this New- Christian or his friends express opinions
of disbelief in this God whom he believed in and—by his own lights—insulted,
and behold him outraged in all his feelings against those unspeakable fellows.
Behold him running hot-foot to Prior Ojeda to relate with horror the tale of
this vileness that he had overheard, so little concerned about the vileness
through which he himself had acquired his knowledge that he makes no effort to
conceal it. And, apparently, the Dominican,
in a like horror at
the New-Christians’ offence against a God in whom they do not believe, accounts
of little moment the Castilian’s offence against the God in whom he does
believe.
It is a nice illumination
of the contrast between the theory and the practice of Christianity.
Upon the young man’s
information Ojeda instituted an inquiry, and six Judaizers were arrested. They
confessed their guilt, and begged to be reconciled to the Church. As the Inquisition
had not yet been established, with its terrible decree against “ relapsos,” 1
their prayer was granted, after the fulfilment of the penance imposed.2
With the tale of this
“ execrable wickedness ” Ojeda repaired at once to Cordova, whither the Sovereigns
had by now withdrawn. The story would lose nothing in its repetition by this
pious and saintly man, and he was in a position to add to it that the good folk
of Seville were almost in revolt from indignation at that happening in their
midst.
Having shown thus how
urgently it was required, he once more implored the Sovereigns to establish the
Inquisition. And it is not to be doubted that his petition would be backed by
that of the legate Franco, who was at the Court.
Yet Isabella still
showed repugnance, still hesitated to consent to the extreme course advocated.
But at this moment,
according to Llorente,3 another advocate appears upon the scene to
plead the cause of the Faith—a figure in the white habit and black cloak of the
Dominican Brotherhood, a man in his fifty-eighth year, tall and gaunt and
stooping slightly at the shoulders, mild-eyed, of a cast of countenance that is
gentle, noble, and benign.
This is Frey Tomds de
Torquemada, Prior of the
1 The " relapsos ”—of whom we shall
hear more presently—were those who, having been converted to Christianity, were
guilty of relapsing into Judaism.
2 Paramo, “ De Origine,” lib. ii. tit. ii.
cap. iii.; Zuniga, “ Anales,” 1477.
8 “
Anales/' cap. ii. 10.
Dominican Convent of
Holy Cross of Segovia, the nephew of the late illustrious Juan de Torquemada,
Cardinal of San Sisto.
His
influence with the Queen is vast; his eloquence fiery ; his mental energy
compelling. Ojeda looks on, and his hopes grow confident at last. .
THE PRIOR OF HOLY
CROSS
If ever a name held
the omen of a man’s life, that name is Torquemada. To such an extraordinary
degree is it instinct with the suggestion of the machinery of fire and torture
over which he was destined to preside, that it almost seems a fictitious name,
a nom de guerre, a grim invention, compounded of the Latin torque and the
Spanish quemada, to fit the man who was to hold the office of Grand Inquisitor.
It was derived from
the northern town of Torquemada (the Turre Cremata of the Romans), where the
illustrious family had its beginnings. This family first sprang into historical
distinction with the knighting by Alfonso XI of Lope Alonso de Torquemada (Hijodalgo
a los Fueros de Castilla:), and thereafter was maintained in prominence by
several members who held more or less distinguished offices. But the most
illustrious bearer of the name was the cultured Dominican Juan de Torquemada
(Lope Alonso’s great-grandson), who was raised to the purple with the title of
Cardinal of San Sisto. He was one of the most learned, eminent, and respected
theologians of his age, an upholder of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception,
and the most ardent champion since Thomas Aquinas of the doctrine of papal
infallibility. He enriched theological literature by several works, the best
known of which is his “ Meditations.”
Fr. Tomds de
Torquemada was the son of the
I04
Cardinal’s only brother, Pero Fernandez de Torquemada. He was
born at Valladolid in 1420, and after a scholastic career of some distinction—if
Garcia Rodrigo is to be believed in this particular1—he followed in
his uncle’s footsteps, soliciting the habit of the Order of St. Dominic, which
he assumed in the Convent of St. Paul of Valladolid upon completing his studies
of philosophy and divinity, and receiving a doctor’s degree.
He filled with
distinction the chair of canon law and theology, and in the fullness of time
was elected Prior of the Convent of Santa Cruz of Segovia. He so distinguished
himself in the discharge of the duties of this office by his piety, his
learning, and his zeal, that he was repeatedly re-elected, there being at the
time no rule of the order to inhibit it. Such was the austerity of his
character that he never ate meat, or used linen either in his clothing or on
his bed.® He observed the rule of poverty imposed by his order so rigorously
that he was unable to provide his only sister with an endowment suitable to her
station, and could allow her no more than would permit her to live as a nun
under the rule of the tertiary order of St. Dominic.
At what epoch the
Prior of Holy Cross first became the confessor of the Infanta Isabella it is
not now possible to ascertain. Jaime Bleda tells us that in the fulfilment of
this office he had extracted from her, during her youth at the Court of her
brother King Henry IV, a promise that should she ever come to the throne she
would devote her life to the extirpation of heresy from her realm.5
This may be dismissed
as one of those popular
1 11 Historia Verdadera de la Inquisicion,” by D. F. J. G.
Rodrigo, vol. ii. p. hi. This
history is to be read with the greatest caution. It is an attempt to justify
the Inquisition and to combat Llorente’s writings ; in his endeavours to
achieve this object the author is a little reckless and negligent of
exactitude.
1 Paramo, p. 157, and Hernando de Castillo in 11
Historia de Santo Domingo y de su Orden,” part iii. cap. lxxiv.
5 " Coronica de los Moros de Espafla,” p. 879.
fictions that arise
concerning the intimate affairs of princes, for it cannot be said that it is
borne out by the circumstances under consideration.
Isabella’s reluctance
to proceed to extreme—or even vigorous—measures against those of her subjects
accused of Judaizing is admitted by every serious student of her reign, however
opinions may vary as to the motives that swayed her in this course.
There remains,
however, out of Bleda’s anecdote, the fact that Torquemada had been Isabella’s
confessor in early years—which in itself bears out the statement that the
Dominican had achieved distinction. It follows by virtue of his having occupied
this office that he must have acquired over the mind of a woman so devout a
considerable ascendancy where matters connected with the Faith were concerned.
This influence he
came now to exert.
To support it he
brought an indubitable sincerity and disinterestedness of motives; he brought a
reputation for sanctity derived from the rigid purity of his life and the
stern asceticism which he practised —a reputation which could not fail to act
upon the imagination of a woman of Isabella’s pious temperament ; and,
finally, he brought the dominant, masterful personality and the burning
eloquence that were his own.
When all this is
taken into account it is not surprising that the Queen’s resistance, weakened
already by the onslaughts of Ojeda and his associates, the King and the papal
legate, should at last have broken down ; and that under the compelling
persuasion of the Prior of Holy Cross she should reluctantly have consented to
the establishment of the Holy Office in her dominions.
Thus it befell that
by order of the Catholic Sovereigns their Orator at the Pontifical Court, D.
Francisco de Santillana, applied to Sixtus IV for a bull that should empower
Ferdinand and Isabella to set up the
tribunal of the Inquisition
in Castile, to enable them— as Bernaldez puts it—to proceed to the extirpation
of heresy “ by the way of fire ”—por via del fuego.
This bull was duly
granted under date of November 7, 1478.
It gave the
Sovereigns the faculty of electing three bishops or archbishops or other
God-fearing and upright priests, regular or secular, of over forty years of
age, who must be masters or bachelors of divinity and doctors or licentiates of
canon law, to make inquisition throughout the kingdom against heretics,
apostates, and their abettors.
His Holiness accorded
to the men so elected the requisite jurisdiction to proceed according to law
and custom, and he further empowered the Sovereigns to annul such nominations
as they might make and to replace their nominees as they saw fit.1
The
Sovereigns were in Cordova when the bull reached them in the following month of
December. But they did not at once proceed to act upon it. Before doing so,
Isabella made one last effort to repress the Judaizing and apostatizing movement
by the gentler measures concerted with the Cardinal of Spain in 1477. _ _ _
To the task of
continuing with increased vigour the teachings of the “ catechism ” drawn up by
Mendoza she now appointed Diego Alonso de Solis, Bishop of Cadiz, D. Diego de
Merlo, Coadjutor of Seville, and Alonso de Ojeda, to whom these royal orders
must have been a fresh source of disappointment and chagrin.
Torquemada, we must
assume, had withdrawn once more to his convent of Segovia, and perhaps the
removal of his stern influence enabled the Queen to make this last effort to
avoid the course to which he had all but constrained her.
Having concluded
these arrangements, the Sovereigns repaired to Toledo. There, in the spring of
1 Llorente,
“ Anales,” cap. ii. § 14.
the year 1480, the
Cortes assembled to make oath of fealty to the infant Prince of Asturias to
whom Isabella had given birth in June of 1478. Whilst this oath was the chief
motive of the assembly, it was by no means the only business with which it had
to deal. Many other matters received attention ; amongst them the necessity for
remedying the evils arising out of the commerce between Christians and Jews was
seriously considered.
It was decreed that
the old laws concerning the Jews, which lately had been falling into partial
desuetude, should be re-enforced, particularly those which prescribed that all
Jews should wear the distinguishing badge of the circlet of red cloth on the
shoulders of their gabardines; that they should keep strictly to their
Juderias, always retiring to these at nightfall; that walls to enclose these
Juderias should be erected wherever they might still be wanting, and that no
Jew should practise as a doctor, surgeon, apothecary, or innkeeper.
Beyond that, however,
the Cortes did not go; and the institution of the Inquisition to deal with
Judaizers was not so much as mentioned, which circumstance Llorente accepts as
a further proof of the Queen’s antipathy to the Holy Office.
Coming at a time when
the Jews were once more beginning to taste the sweets of freedom, there can be
little doubt that these provisions, which thrust them back into bondage and
ignominy, must have been extremely galling to them. It is possible that these
measures against the men of his race spurred a New- Christian to the rash step
of publishing a pamphlet in which he criticized and censured the royal action
in the matter. Carried away by his feelings, the writer— intentionally or
not—fell into heresy in the course of his writings, to which the Jeronymite
monk, Hernando de Talavera, published a reply.
Rodrigo 1
assumes that this heretical pamphlet put 1 “ Historia Verdadera,”
ii. p. 71
an end to the Queen’s
patience. It may very well have been the case, or at least it may have afforded
Ferdinand and the others who desired the Inquisition a final argument whereby
to overcome what reluctance still lingered with her.
Be that as it may, it
was very soon after this— September 27, 1480—that the Sovereigns, who at the
time were at Medina del Campo, acted at last upon the papal bull which had now
been in their hands for nearly two years, and delegated their faculty of giving
inquisitors to Castile to the Cardinal of Spain and Fr. Tomas de Torquemada.
Mendoza and
Torquemada proceeded at once to carry out the task entrusted to them, and
appointed as inquisitors of the faith for Seville—where Judaizing was
represented to be most flagrant—the Dominican friars Juan de San Martino and
Miguel Morillo. The latter was the Provincial of the Dominicans of Aragon, and
was already a person of experience in such matters, having acted as inquisitor
in Rousillon. To assist them in the discharge of their office, the secular
priest Juan Ruiz de Medina, a doctor of canon law, and Juan Lopez de Barco, one
of the Queen’s chaplains, were appointed, the former to the position of
assessor, the latter to that of fiscal.
It is necessary, in
view of the much that has been written, and although the danger be incurred of
labouring the point, to examine more closely the attitude of the Sovereigns
towards the tribunal which they now sanctioned.
Isabella’s zeal, both
pious and political, urged her, as has been said, to proceed in such a way as
should set a term to the unrest arising out of the public feeling against
Judaizers and apostatizing Moriscoes (baptized Moors). Ferdinand not only
shared her feelings, but pious zeal in him went to the lengths of bigotry, and
he aimed essentially at a political unity that should be inseparably allied and
interwoven with religious unity.
Isabella would have
laboured slowly, preferring, even at the sacrifice of time, to achieve her ends
by gentle means and the exercise of that patience which was so very necessary
if good results were to be obtained. Ferdinand, perhaps less pitiful, perhaps—
to do him full justice—less hopeful of the power of argument and
indoctrination, lending an ear to the priestly assertion “ contra negantes
veritatis nulla est disputatio,” would have proceeded at once to the introduction
into Castile of the stern repressive measures already being exerted in his
native Aragon.
On the score of their
different attitudes the Sovereigns might have found themselves in conflict, but
that in this matter they had a ground of common interest. Both were agreed that
in no case should Spain be brought under the ecclesiastical sway which the
establishment of the usual form of Inquisition must set up. If this were to
be—as usual hitherto—under pontifical control, its officers would be appointed
by the Pope, or, vicariously, by the Dominican provincials, and a proportion of
the confiscations consequent upon conviction would be gathered into the
pontifical coffers.
For all his bigotry
and his desire to see the Holy Office instituted in Castile, Ferdinand was as
averse as Isabella to its introduction in a form that must restore the clerical
usurpations they had been at such pains to repress.
If Isabella admitted
the Inquisition as a last means of quelling the disturbing elements in her
kingdom, it must be an Inquisition on lines entirely different from those which
hitherto had obtained elsewhere. The appointment of its officers must no more
rest with the Pope than the bestowal of Spanish benefices. It must be the
prerogative of the Sovereigns themselves, and it must carry with it the power
to depose and replace, where necessary, such inquisitors as they might appoint.
Further, Rome must have no share in the property confiscated from Spanish
subjects.
the disposal of this
being entirely controlled by the Sovereigns.
It has been argued
that here was the cause of all Isabella’s hesitancy: that greed and statecraft
were the mainsprings of her conduct in the matter, and that humanitarian
considerations had no part in it ; that the bull had been applied for earlier
than has been generally supposed, and that the delay had resulted from the
Pope’s disinclination to grant any such terms as were demanded.
The latter statement
may not be without foundation. But to say deliberately that no humanitarian
considerations governed the Queen’s conduct is to say a great deal more than
the circumstances warrant. To establish this hypothesis it would be necessary
to advance some adequate reason for her reluctance to act upon the bull when
once it was in her hands. For the bull of November 1478 conceded all that the
Sovereigns demanded, all that they desired. Yet Isabella allowed nearly two
years to pass before proceeding to exercise the faculties conferred by it, and
during that time Cardinal Mendoza and his cooperators diligently pursued the
work of effecting conversions by means of his “ catechism.”
The conclusion that
this was dictated by humane considerations on the part of the Queen is the only
one that appears reasonable, nor is any alternative put forward to account for
the delay of nearly two years.
When the Cardinal of
Spain and the Prior of Holy Cross, acting jointly on behalf of the Sovereigns,
appointed the first inquisitors for Castile, they instructed these to set up a
tribunal in Seville, which of all the cities of Spain was the one where
Judaizing was alleged to be most flagrantly conducted.1
1 Mendoza,11 Monarquia de Espana,” iii. p. 336.
Bleda
says that there were 100,000 apostates in that diocese (“ Coronica de los
Moros,”
p. 880).
The Sovereigns issued
on October 9 a command to all loyal subjects to afford the two inquisitors
every assistance they might require on their journey to Seville and all
facilities there for carrying out their mission.
The subjects,
however, were so little loyal on this occasion that upon the arrival of the
inquisitors at Seville, these found a reception of all solemnity awaiting them
and every respect accorded to them, but no assistance. To such an extent was
this withheld that they found it quite impossible to set about the business
upon which they came. They complained of this state of things to the King, and
as a result he sent special orders on December 27 to the Coadjutor of Seville
and the civil authorities of the district, commanding them to lend the
inquisitors every support.
In consequence of
this they were at last enabled to establish their court and proceed to the
business upon which they came.1
The very rumour of
their approach had filled the New-Christians with anxiety, and a glimpse of the
gloomy funereal pageant—the white-robed, black- hooded inquisitors, with their
attendant familiars and barefoot friars, the procession headed by a Dominican
carrying the white cross—on its way to the Convent of St. Paul, where they took
up their quarters, was enough to put to flight some thousands of those who had
cause to fear that they might become the objects of the attention of that
fearful court.
These fugitives
sought refuge in the feudal lordships of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, of the
formidable Rodrigo Ponce de Leon, Marquis of Cadiz, and of the Count of Arcos.
But in all ages it
had been the way of the Inquisition not only to suspect readily, but to allow
suspicion to usurp the place that elsewhere is reserved for proof. And so they
proceeded to construe into evidence of
1 Zuniga,
“Anales,” lib. xii. aflo 1480
guilt this flight of
the timorous, as is shown by the edict they published on January 2 of 1481.
In this—having set
forth their appointment by the Sovereigns, and the terms of the bull under
which such appointment had been made—they announced that, inasmuch as it had
come to their knowledge that many persons had departed out of Seville in fear
of prosecution upon grounds of heretical pravity, they commanded the Marquess
of Cadiz, the Count of Arcos, and the other nobles of the Kingdom of Castile,
that within fifteen days of the publication of this edict they should make an
exact account of the persons of both sexes that had sought refuge in their
lordships or jurisdictions ; that they should arrest all these and bring them
safely to the prison of the Inquisition in Seville, confiscating their property
and placing this together with an inventory in the hands of some person of
trust, to be held by them at the disposal of the inquisitors; that none should
dare to shelter any fugitive, but comply exactly with the terms of this edict
under pain of greater excommunication and the other penalties by law
established against abettors of heretics, amongst which penalties was that of
the annulment of their dignities and offices, their subjects and vassals being
absolved of all vassalage and subjection ; and the inquisitors reserved to
themselves and their superiors the power of absolution from the ecclesiastical
censure incurred by all who might fail to obey the terms of this edict.
THE HOLY OFFICE IN
SEVILLE
The
stern
purpose of the inquisitors and the severity with which they intended to proceed
were plainly revealed by that edict of January 2, 1481. The harsh injustice
that lay in its call upon the authorities to arrest men and women merely
because they had departed from Seville before departure was in any way
forbidden is typical of the flagrantly arbitrary methods of the Inquisition.
That it should have struck terror into the New-Christians who had remained in
Seville, and that it should have moved them to take measures to protect
themselves against a court in which justice seemed little likely to be
observed, and to whose cruel mercies the most innocent might find himself
exposed at any moment, is not surprising—particularly when it is considered how
great was the number of New- Christians who occupied positions of eminence in
Seville.
A group of these
prominent citizens assembled at the invitation of Diego de Susan, one of the
wealthiest and most influential men of Seville, whose fortune was estimated at
ten million maravedis. They came together to consider what measures should be
taken for the defence of themselves, their persons and property, from the
unscrupulous activities of this tribunal, and they determined that if necessary
they would resort to force.
Among those who
entered into this conspiracy were some ecclesiastics, and several who held
office
under the Crown, such
as the Governor of Triana, Juan Fernandez Abolafio, the Captain of Justice and
farmer of the royal customs, his brother Fernandez the licentiate, Bartolom£
Torralba, and the wealthy and well-connected Manuel Sauli.
Susan addressed them.
H e reminded them that they were the principal citizens of Seville, that they
were wealthy not only in property but in the good-will of the people, and that
it but required resolution and solidarity on their part to enable them to
prevail against the inquisitors in the event of these friars making any attempt
upon them.
All concurring, it
was concerted that each of the conspirators should engage himself to provide a
proportion of the men, arms, and money and what else might be necessary for
their purpose.
But Susan to his
undoing had a daughter. This girl, whose beauty was so extraordinary that she
was surnamed la hermosa fembra, had taken a Castilian lover. What motives may
have actuated her, what part the lover may have played in these, does not
transpire. All that is known is that she betrayed the conspiracy to the
inquisitors—“ impiously violating the natural laws engraved by God’s finger
upon the human heart.”
Susan and his
unfortunate confederates were seized as a consequence of that infamous delation
; they were lodged in the cells of the Convent of St. Paul, which meanwhile did
duty as a prison, and brought to trial before the Court of the Holy Office
sitting in the convent.1
1 Bernaldez, cap. xliv.; Garcia Rodrigo, i. cap. xx.;
Amador de los Rios, “ Historia de los Judios,” lib. iii. cap. v.
Amador de los Rios
adds in a foot-note, on the score of this girl: “ Don Reginaldo -Rubino, Bishop
of Tiberiades, informed of the delation and of the state of la Fermosa Fembra,
contrived that she should enter one of the convents of the city to take the
veil. But dominated by her sensual passions, she quitted the convent without
professing, and bore several children. Her beauty having been dissipated by
age, want overtook the unnatural daughter of the millionaire Diego de Susan,
and in the end she died under the protection of a grocer. In her will she
disposed that her skull should be placed over the doorway of the house in which
she had
They were tried for
heresy and apostasy, of course ; since upon no other grounds was it possible
for the Holy Office to deal with them. It is unfortunate that Llorente should
have unearthed no record of this trial—one of the first held by the Inquisition
in Castile—and that nothing should be known of what took place beyond the fact
that Susan, Sauli, Bartolom6 Torralba, and the brothers Fernandez were found
guilty of the alleged offence of apostasy and were delivered up to the secular
arm for punishment.
Garcia Rodrigo has
devoted a couple of pages of his “ Historia Verdadera” to an elaborate piece of
fiction in which he asserts that these men were persistent in their error in
spite of the strenuous efforts made to save them. He invests the fanatical
Ojeda with the character of an angel of mercy, and represents him hovering
round the condemned, exhorting them, almost with tears, to abjure their error,
and he assures us that although the Dominican persevered in his charitable
efforts up to the last moment, all was vain.
There is not a grain
of evidence to support the statement, nor does Garcia Rodrigo pretend to
advance any. As a matter of fact, Bernaldez, the only available authority who
mentions Susan’s end, tells us specifically that he died a Christian. And when
it is considered that Bernaldez is an ardent admirer and champion of the
Inquisition, such a pronouncement from his pen is sufficient to convict the
inquisitors Morillo and San Martin of having proceeded in a manner that was
vindictive and ultra vires. For at this epoch it was not yet decreed that those
who had relapsed (relapsos) should suffer capital punishment unless they
persisted in their apostasy—as Rodrigo, obviously for the purpose of justifying
the inquisitors, unwarrantably asserts did Susan and his confederates.
pursued her evil life
as an example and in punishment of her sins. This house is situated in the
Calle de AtaQd, opposite to its entrance from the direction of the Alcazar, and
there the skull of la Fermosa Fembra has continued until our own times.”
Llorente considers
the blood-lust of the inquisitors established by these merciless convictions,
urging that it is incredible that all the prisoners should have refused to
recant and to submit themselves to penance—even assuming that they were
actually guilty of apostasy as alleged. For when all is considered it must
remain extremely doubtful whether they had Judaized at all, and it is not
improbable—from what we see of the spirit that actuated the inquisitors— that
Morillo and San Martin may have construed the action of those men into an
offence against the Faith for the purpose of bringing them within the
jurisdiction of the Holy Office.
They were condemned
to be the chief actors in the first Auto de F6 that was held in Seville. This
took place on February 6.1
There was about this
Auto comparatively little of that pomp and ceremonial, that ghastly
theatricality that was presently to distinguish these proceedings. But the
essentials were already present.
Susan and his fellows
were led forth barefoot, in the ignominious, yellow penitential sack, a candle
in the hand of each. Hemmed about by halberdiers, they were paraded through the
streets of a city in which they had won the goodwill and respect of all, to be
gazed upon by a people whose eyes must have been filled with horror and dismay.
To head the procession went a black-robed Dominican holding aloft the green
cross of the Inquisition, now swathed in a veil of crape ; behind him, walking
two by two, came the familiars of the Holy Office, members of the Confraternity
of St. Peter the Martyr; next followed the doomed men amid their guards ; and
last came the inquisitors with their attendants and a considerable body of
Dominicans from the Convent of St. Paul, headed by their prior, the fanatical
Ojeda.
1 Llorente says
“January 6,” an obvious mistake considering that the inquisitors published
their first edict on the 2nd of that month, and that Susan’s offence was
subsequent to that publication.
The procession headed
for the Cathedral, where the sufferers were taken to hear Mass and forced to
listen to a sermon framed for the occasion which was preached by Ojeda, and
must have increased the exquisite torment of their protracted agony. Thence
they were conducted—once more processionally—out of the city to the meadows of
Tablada. There they were attached to the stakes that had been erected, fire was
set to the faggots, and thus they perished miserably, to the greater honour and
glory of the Catholic Apostolic Church.1
Ojeda may have looked
with satisfaction upon that holocaust, upon those cruel flames which more than
any man in Spain he had been instrumental in kindling, and which being kindled
would continue to cast their lurid glow over that fair land for close upon four
centuries. It was the first burning that Ojeda witnessed, and it was the last.
His own hour was at hand. His mission, whatever ends it had to serve in the
eternal scheme of things, was completed there on the meadows of Tablada, and he
might now depart. A few days later he lay dead, stricken down by the plague
that was ravaging the south of Spain, and sought him out for one of its first
victims.
And from the pulpits
of Seville the Dominicans thundered forth declarations that this pestilence was
a visitation of God upon an unfaithful city. They never paused to consider that
if that were indeed the case either God’s aim must be singularly untrue since
the shafts of His wrath overtook such faithful servants as Ojeda, or else . . .
But an incapacity to
conduct its reasonings to a logical conclusion, and an utter want of any sense
of proportion, are the main factors in all fanaticism.
Lest they should
themselves be stricken by these bolts of pestilence launched against the
unfaithful, behold next the inquisitors scuttling out of Seville! They go in
quest of more salubrious districts, and,
1 See
Garcia Rodrigo, vol. i. cap. xx.
presumably upon the
assumption that these—since they remain healthy—are escaping divine attention,
the Dominicans zealously proceed to light their fires that they may repair this
heavenly oversight.1
But that villegiatura
of theirs did not take place until they had transacted a deal more of their
horrible business in Seville. Great had been the results of the edict of
January 2. The nobles, not daring to run the risk of the threatened ecclesiastical
censure, proceeded to effect the arrests demanded, and gangs of pinioned
captives were brought daily into the city from the surrounding country
districts where they had sought shelter. And in the city itself the familiars
of the Holy Office were busily effecting the capture of suspects and of those
against whom, either out of bigotry or malice, delations had been made.
So numerous were the
arrests that by the middle of the month of January already the capacity of the
Convent of St. Paul was strained to its utmost, and the inquisitors were
compelled to remove themselves, their tribunal and their prison to the ampler
quarters of the Castle of Triana, accorded to them by the Sovereigns in
response to their request for it.2
The edict of January
2 was soon succeeded by a second one, known as the “ Edict of Grace.” This
exhorted all who were guilty of apostasy to come forward voluntarily within a
term appointed, to confess their sins and be reconciled to the Church. It
assured them that if they did this with real contrition and a firm purpose of
amendment, they should receive absolution and suffer no confiscation of
property. And it concluded with a warning that if they allowed the term of
grace to expire without taking advantage of it, and they should afterwards be
accused by others, they would be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.
1 Bernaldez
tells us (cap. xliv.) that in the town of Aracena alone, where the Inquisitors
sought refuge from the pestilence, they set up a tribunal and burnt twenty-three
persons alive in addition to the number of bodies they exhumed for the purpose.
’ Bernaldez, cap. xliv.; Zuniga, “ Anales,” lib. xii. afio 1481.
Amador de los Rios is
of opinion that Cardinal Mendoza was “ instrumental ” in having this edict
published, in which case it would hardly be too much to assume that he was the
instrument of Isabella in the matter. Nor is it too much to assume that the
inspiration was purely merciful, and that there was no thought in the mind of
either Queen or Cardinal of the edict’s being turned, as it was, to treacherous
account.
The response was
immediate. It is estimated that not less than 20,000 conversos who had been
guilty of Judaizing came forward to avail themselves of its promise of amnesty
and to secure absolution for their infidelity to the religion they had
embraced. They discovered to their horror that they had walked into a trap as
cruel as any that smooth-faced, benign-voiced priestcraft had ever devised.
The inquisitors had
thought well to saddle the promised absolution and immunity from punishment
with a condition which they had not published, a condition which they had
secretly reserved to spring it now upon these self-convicted apostates at their
mercy. They pointed out with infernal subtlety that the edict provided that the
contrition of the selfaccused must be sincere, and that of this sincerity the
penitents must give the only proof possible by disclosing the names of all
Judaizers known to them.
The demand was an
infamy ; for not even under the seal of private confession is a priest
authorized to impose upon a penitent as a condition of absolution that he shall
divulge the name even of an accomplice or a partner in guilt. Yet here it was
demanded of these that they should go much further, and denounce such sinners
as they knew; and the demand was framed in such specious terms—as the only
proof they could offer of the sincerity of their own contrition —that none
dared have taxed the inquisitors with malpractice or with subverting the ends
and purpose of this edict they had been forced to publish.
The wretched
apostates found themselves between
the sword and the
wall. Either they must perpetrate the infamy of betraying those of their race
whom they knew to be Judaizers, or they must submit not only to the cruel death
by fire, but to the destitution of their children as a consequence of the
confiscation of their property. Most of them gave way, and purchased their
reconciliation at the price of betrayal. And there were men like Bernaldez, the
parish priest of Palacios, who applauded this procedure of the Holy Office. “ A
very glorious thing ” (muy hazanosa cosct), he exclaims, “ was the
reconciliation of these people, as thus by their confessions were discovered
all that were Judaizers, and in Seville knowledge was obtained of Judaizers in
Toledo, Cordova, and Burgos.”1
Upon the expiry of
the term of grace a further edict was published by Morillo and San Martin, in
which they now commanded, under pain of mortal sin and greater excommunication,
with its attendant penalties, the discovery of all persons known to be engaged
in Judaizing practices.
And that there should
be no excuse offered by any on the score of ignorance of such practices, these
were published in thirty-seven articles appended to the edict, articles whose
malign comprehensiveness left no man secure.
They set forth the
following signs by which New-Christians guilty of Judaizing might be recognized
:
I. Any who await the
Messiah, or say that he has not yet come, and that he will come to lead them
out of captivity into the promised land.
II. Any who after baptism have returned
expressly to the Mosaic faith.
1 " Historia de los Reyes Catolicos,” cap. xliv.
III. Any who declare that the law of Moses is as
good as that of Jesus Christ and as efficient for salvation.
IV. Any who keep the Sabbath in honour of the
law of Moses—of which the proof is afforded by their assuming clean shirts and
more decent garments than on other days, and clean covers on the table, as well
as by their refraining from lighting fires and from engaging in all work from
Friday evening.
V. Any who strip the
tallow or fat from meats that they are to eat and purify it by washing in
water, bleeding it, or extracting the glandule from the leg of lambs or other
animals slaughtered for food,
VI. Any who cut the
throats of animals or poultry that are intended for food, first testing the
knife on their finger-nail, covering the blood with earth, and uttering certain
words that are customary among Jews.
VII. Any who eat meat in Lent and on other days on
which it is forbidden by Holy Church.
VIII. Any who keep the great fast of the Jews known
by different names, or the fast of Chiphurim or Quipttr in the tenth Hebrew
month—whereof the proof shall be their having gone barefoot during the period
of the said fast, as is the custom of the Jews, their having said Jewish
prayers, or asked pardon one of another, or fathers having laid hands upon the
heads of their children without making the sign of the Cross or saying anything
but “ By God and by me be thou blessed.”
IX and X. Any who
keep the fast of Queen Esther, which is observed by the Jews in memory and
imitation of what they did in captivity in the reign of Ahasuerus, or the fast
of Rebeaso.
XI. Any who shall
keep other fasts peculiar to the Jews, such as those of Monday and Thursday, of
which the proof shall be : their not eating on such days until after the
appearance of the first evening star; their having abstained from meat; their
having washed on the previous day or cut their nails or the points of their
hair, keeping or burning these ; their reciting certain Jewish prayers, raising
or lowering their heads with their faces to the wall, after washing their hands
in water or in earth ; their dressing themselves in sackcloth and girding themselves
with cords or strips of leather.
XII, XIII, and XIV
concern any who keep the Paschal seasons ; which is to be discovered by their
setting up green boughs, inviting to table and sending presents of comestibles,
and the keeping of the feast of candles.
XV to XIX concern any
who observe Hebrew table- customs : whether they bless their viands according
to the Jewish custom, whether they drink “lawful” wine—i.e. wine that has been
pressed by Jews—and eat meat that has been slaughtered by Jews.
XX. Any who recite
the Psalms of David without concluding with the versicle “ Gloria Patri et
Filio et Spiritu Sancto.”
XXI. Any woman who
abstains from going to church for forty days after delivery of child, out of
reverence for the law of Moses.
XXII to XXVI concern
any who circumcise their children, give them Hebrew names, or after baptism
cause their heads to be shaven where anointed with the sacred oil, or any who
cause their children to be washed on the seventh day after birth in a basin in
which, in addition to the water, they have placed gold and silver, pearls,
wheat, barley, and other things.
XXVII. Any who are
married in the Jewish manner.
XXVIII. Any who hold
the Ruaya—which is a valedictory supper before setting out upon a long journey.
XXIX and XXX. Any who
carry Hebrew relics or make burnt-offerings of bread.
XXXI. Any who in articulo mortis have turned
or been turned with their faces to the wall to die in this attitude.
XXXII. Any who wash a corpse in warm water or
shave it according to the Jewish custom, and otherwise dress it for the grave
as is prescribed by the Mosaic law.
XXXIII to XXXVI
concern Jewish expressions of mourning, such as the abstaining from meat, the
spilling of water from the jars in the dwelling of the deceased, etc.
XXXVII. Any who bury
their dead in virgin soil or in a Jewish cemetery.1
Reference has already
been made to the inherent character of many Jewish customs, which even the most
sincere of New-Christians retained despite them-
1 See
Llorente, “ Historia Critica,” tom. i. p. 256 et seq.
selves ; these
customs, being racial rather than religious, were very far from signifying
Judaic apostasy, since they contained nothing that was directly opposed to the
Christian teaching. In the list published by the Seville inquisitors it will be
seen that such customs were deliberately included as evidences of apostasy.
Consider Articles IV,
V, and VII, concerning the assumption of clean linen on Saturdays and the stripping
of fat from beef and mutton, which nowise offend against the Christian faith,
and might well be the perpetuation of customs acquired before baptism was
received.
Even more flagrant is
Article XXXI, which lays it down as evidence of Judaizing that a man shall turn
his face to the wall when at the point of death ; but most flagrant of all is
Article XXVIII, concerning the valedictory meal partaken of before setting out
upon a journey, for it is a custom that at all times has been as much in vogue
among Christians as among men of any other religion.
Clearly not a
New-Christian in Seville was safe from the delations of the malevolent, since
such ridiculously slight grounds of suspicion were set forth by the tribunal.
So extravagant and absurd are some of these articles that one is forced to
agree with Llorente, that in formulating them the inquisitors proceeded with
deliberate malice. He contends that deliberately they cast a wide net that by
their heavy draught they should satisfy the Queen that she had heard no more
thanUhe truth as to the extent to which Judaizing was rampant in Castile, and
the urgent need there was for the introduction of the Inquisition.
Whether in this they
proceeded according to instructions received from Torquemada or Ojeda does not
transpire, but there can be little doubt that the results obtained must have
been in accordance with the wishes of both, since they justified to the Queen
the representations these friars had so insistently made to her.
And the system of
espionage which the inquisitors set up to increase their haul of victims was as
sly and cunning as anything in the history of spying. Conceive the astuteness
of the friar who climbed to the roof of the Convent of St. Paul on Saturday
mornings to observe and note the houses of New-Christians from whose chimneys
no smoke was to be seen issuing, that he might lay the information thus
obtained before the tribunal, which would proceed to arrest the inhabitants
upon a strong suspicion that they were Judaizers who would not desecrate the
Sabbath by lighting fires.1
“ What,” asks
Llorente, “ could be expected of a tribunal that began in this way ?” And he at
once supplies the answer : “That which happened—neither more nor less.”
With the methods of
procedure that obtained in the trials conducted by these inquisitors we need
not just now concern ourselves. For the moment it is enough to say that to the
vices inherent in such a judicial system must be added, in the case of the
first inquisitors of Seville, a zeal—not only to convict, but actually to be
burning heretics—so ferociously excessive as to proclaim that they were
gratifying their hatred of these Jews.
This upon the word of
that sober chronicler Pulgar, who, whilst in general terms approving the
introduction of the Inquisition, as has been seen, denounces in the following
particular terms the practices of Morillo and San Martin : “In the manner in
which they conducted their proceedings they showed that they held those people
in hatred.” 2
The Auto of February
6 was followed by another on March 26, at which seventeen victims ■were burnt
on the fields of Tablada. And now that the fires were lighted, the inquisitors
saw to
1 Fidel Fita in " Boletin de la Real Academia de la
Historia,” xxiii.
p. 37°. ,
s
"Chronica,” part 11. cap. lxxvu.
it that they were
well supplied with human fuel. Burnings followed one another at such a rate
that by the month of November—upon the word of Llorente—298 condemned had been
sent to the flames in the town of Seville alone, whilst 79 others by
reconciling themselves to the Church secured the commutation of their sentence
to one of perpetual imprisonment.
Mariana, the
historian who gave thanks to God for the introduction of the Inquisition into
Castile, informs us with flagrant calm that the number of Judaizers burnt in
the Archbishopric during that year 1481 amounted to 8,000, whilst some 17,000
were submitted to penance.
In addition to those
burnt alive, many who had fled the country were burnt in effigy, having been
tried and found guilty during an absence described as contumacious. And
similarly the court went through the horrible farce of sitting in judgment upon
many who were dead, and, having convicted them, it dug up their bones and flung
these to the flames.
Such was the
prodigious activity of the Holy Offi ce, and to such an extent did its
holocausts promise to continue, that the Governor of Seville ordered the
erection on the fields of Tablada of a permanent platform of stone of vast
proportions known as the Quemadero, or Burning-place. It was adorned by figures
of the four Prophets. At each of its four corners towered one of these colossal
statues of plaster, and Llorente tells us that they were not merely for ornament.
He says that they were hollow and so contrived that a condemned person might be
placed in each and so die by slow fire.1
1 This, however, is a statement in which a
misconception seems obvious. If the statues were of plaster (and it is Llorente
himself who says so) they would not have stood the heat of furnaces placed
beneath them. Moreover, since death in such ovens would have been more
lingering and painful than at the stake, it is difficult to think upon what
possible grounds, where all were equally guilty, any of the condemned
This Quemadero
remained standing, a monument to religious intolerance and fanatical cruelty,
until the soldiers of Napoleon demolished it in the nineteenth century.1
So ruthless were
Morillo and San Martin, and so negligent of equity or even the observance of
the ordinary rules of judicial procedure, that in the end we find the Pope
himself—in January of 1482— addressing a letter of protest to the Sovereigns.
The first edict
commanding the nobles to arrest all those who had fled from Seville had had the
effect of driving many of these fugitive New-Christians farther afield in their
quest for safety. Some had escaped into Portugal, others had crossed the
Mediterranean and sought shelter in Morocco, whilst others still had taken
their courage in both hands and sought sanctuary in Rome itself, at the very
feet of the Pontiff Other fugitives followed presently, when the tribunal had
already inaugurated its terrible work ; and these came clamouring their
grievances and protesting that in spite of their innocence they dared no longer
remain in a State where no New-Christian was safe from the hatred and injustice
shown by the inquisitors to men
should have been
relegated to this further degree of torment, or—conversely—those who died at
the stake should have been spared it. Besides, it is to be remembered that it
was desired, and held desirable, that the victims should Suffer in full view of
the faithful. But the mistake which has crept in can be indicated. What Bernaldez actually says is : " Ficieron facer aquel quemadero en
Tablado con aquellos quatro profetas de yeso EN QUE los quemaban.” The "
en que ” may refer either to the Quemadero generally or to the statues in
particular. But there can be little doubt that it refers to the Quemadero, and
that Llorente was mistaken in assuming it to refer to the statues.
A curious instance of
adapting the shape of a fact so that it will fit the idea to be conveyed is
afforded in this connection by Dr. Rule, who calmly alters the substance of the
statues, translating yeso as “ limestone.”
11 Hist, of the Inquisition,” vol. i. p.
134.
1 Garcia
Rodrigo tells us that the architect of this elaborate altar of intolerance was
a New-Christian of such zeal that he fouud employment in the Holy Office as one
of its receivers, but that being discovered in Judaizing practices he was
himself burnt on the Quemadero he had erected. No authority is furnished for
the story, nor does Llorante mention it, and one is inclined to place it in the
category of fables such as that which relates how the first head to be shorn
off by the guillotine was that of its inventor, Dr. Guillotin.
Photo by
Lacosie.
FERDINAND OF ARAGON
AND THE INFANTE DON JUAN. From the Painting in the Prado Gallery, attributed to
Miguel Zittoz.
of their race.
Therefore they were driven to seek from Christ’s Vicar the protection to which
all Christians and true Catholics were entitled at his hands.
They informed the
Pontiff of the methods that were being pursued ; they set forth how the
inquisitors in their eagerness to secure convictions proceeded entirely upon
their own initiative and without the concurrence of the assessor and diocesan
ordinary, as had been prescribed ; how they were departing from all legal form,
imprisoning unjustly, torturing cruelly and unduly, and falsely stigmatizing
innocent men as formal heretics, thereafter delivering them to the secular arm
for punishment, in addition to confiscating their property so that their
children were left in want and under the brand of infamy.
The Pope gave ear to
these plaints, convinced himself of their truth, and made his protest to
Ferdinand and Isabella. He announced in his brief that he would have deprived
the inquisitors of their office but that he was restrained by consideration for
the Sovereigns who had appointed them ; nevertheless, he was sending them a
brief of admonition, and should they again give cause for complaint he would be
constrained to depose them. In the meantime he revoked the faculty given the
Sovereigns of appointing inquisitors, protesting that when conceding this he
had not sufficiently considered that already there were inquisitors in the
Sovereigns’ dominions and that the General of the Dominicans and the Spanish
provincials of that order had the right to make such appointments. The bull
that he had granted was therefore in opposition to that right, and would never
have been granted had the matter been sufficiently considered.1
1 Paramo, 11
De Origine,” p. 133. Llorente quotes this brief from Lumbreras, adding that the
original is in the royal library. See his " RTemoria Historica,” p. 260.
THE SUPREME COUNCIL
The Sovereigns appear
to have submitted without protest to this papal interference and to the
revocation of the faculty bestowed upon them of nominating the inquisitors in
their kingdom. This submission was hardly to have been expected from their earlier
attitude, but there are two reasons, either or both of which may possibly
account for it.
It will be remembered
that there was a considerable number of New-Christians about the Court and in
immediate attendance upon the Queen, one of whom was her secretary Pulgar. What
view Pulgar took of the Seville proceedings we know, and it is not too much to
assume that his view was the view of all Christians of Jewish extraction. These
New-Christians and others may very well have urged upon the notice of the Sovereigns
the cruelties and injustices that were being practised, drawing their attention
to the decree that made innocent children suffer for the offences of which
their parents had been convicted—a decree which, hideous enough when the
parents were actually guilty, became unspeakably hideous when that guilt was no
more than presumed.
In view of such
representations the Sovereigns may have found the papal rebuke unanswerable and
the Pope’s action justified.
Then, again, they may
have taken into consideration the projected war upon Granada, the last
province of the peninsula remaining in Moorish hands. Funds
were urgently
required for this campaign, and the confiscations that were daily being
effected by the Holy Office were rapidly supplying these—for the early victims
of the Inquisition, as we know, were persons of great wealth and distinction.1
Now the papal brief,
whilst it cancelled the royal prerogative of appointing inquisitors, did not
attempt to divert the course of this stream of confiscated property, nor,
indeed, made any mention of the matter. So that they may have hesitated to
oppose themselves to measures which they recognized as just and which continued
to supply them with the means for what they looked upon as a righteous cmsade.
Bigotry and acquisitiveness
were again joining forces, and, united, they must prove, as ever, irresistible.
But on February n,
1482, the Roman Curia issued another brief addressed to the Sovereigns,
wherein—entirely ignoring what already had been written—it was announced that
the General of the Dominicans, Fr. Alonso de Cebrian, having represented to
the Pope the need to multiply the number of inquisitors in Spain, his Holiness
had resolved to appoint the said Fr. Alonso and seven other Dominicans to
conduct the affairs of the Holy Office in that kingdom, commanding them to
exercise their ministry in conjunction with the diocesan ordinary and in accordance
with the terms set forth in the briefs that were being addressed to them.2
One of the eight
Dominicans mentioned by the Pope was Fr. Tomas de Torquemada, who by now was
become confessor to the King and to the Cardinal of Spain.
This brief, following
so rapidly upon that which revoked the Sovereigns’ power, may have caused
Ferdinand and Isabella to look upon it as the second
1 “. . . e fueron aplicados todos sus bienes para la
Camara del Rey y de la Reyna, los cuales fueron en gran cantidad.”—Pulgar,
“Cronica,” cap. xcv.
' Paramo, " De Origine,” p. 136.
move in an intrigue
whose aim was to strengthen the ecclesiastical arm in Spain to the detriment
the royal authority.
On April 17 Sixtus
sent the promised instructions to the inquisitors of Aragon, Cataluna,
Valencia, and Mallorca. These indicated a procedure in matters of faith so
contrary to common law, that no sooner did the inquisitors attempt to carry
them into execution than there was an uproar which afforded Ferdinand grounds
upon which to indite a protest to the Holy Father.
A reply came in the
following October. Sixtus wrote that the briefs of last April had been drawn up
after conference with several members of the Sacred College ; that these
cardinals were now absent from Rome, but that on their return the matter should
be further considered. Meanwhile, however, in view of the results that had
attended those briefs, he was informing the inquisitors that they were exempt
from acting upon the terms set forth in them and instructing them to proceed,
as formerly, in co-operation with the diocesan ordinaries.
But in the meantime,
for all the Pope’s protest against the excessive severity of the Seville
tribunal, this severity continued so undiminished, not only in Seville but also
in the districts under the jurisdiction of other inquisitors, that there was a
continuous emigration from Spain of the wealthy New-Christian families. Many
of these repaired to Rome to appeal to the Pontifical Courts and to procure
there an absolution which should accord them immunity from the Spanish
tribunals of the Holy Office.
But even when this
absolution was procured a large number of these emigrants never thought of
returning to Spain, considering it wiser to settle in a country in which they
were in less danger of persecution.
Although it is
certain that the Sovereigns can have had no prevision of what actually was to
happen as a consequence—though not in their own day, nor for
some time
afterwards—although they may have been very far from foreseeing that by driving
out these energetic, industrious, intelligent men they were depriving the
country of the financially able, wealth- producing element of the
community—still they did undoubtedly perceive what was immediately before them
; and they began to fear the possibility of their country’s being drained of
its present wealth if these emigrations were to continue.
So Isabella wrote to
the Pope entreating him to establish a court of appeal in Spain, and thus
dispose that proceedings started within the kingdom could there be carried to
their conclusion without the need for these appeals to Rome. To this the Pope
replied in affectionate terms on February 23, 1483, promising to give the
matter every consideration.1
Shortly thereafter he
held a conference of the Spanish Cardinals, the principal of whom in wealth,
importance, and distinction was Roderigo Borgia, Cardinal of Valencia. At this
conference several provisions were agreed upon, and these were embodied in the
briefs dispatched from the Vatican on May 25 following.
The first of these
was to the Sovereigns. It contained a gracious assent to their petition, and
exhorted them to be zealous in this matter of the Faith, reminding them that
Jehu had consolidated his kingdom by the destruction of idolatry, and that the
Sovereigns would meet with the same good fortune, as already God was giving
them many victories over the Moors to reward their piety and the purity of
their faith.
The second was to
Inigo Manrique, Archbishop of Seville (having succeeded in this see to the
Cardinal of Spain, who was now Archbishop of Toledo), appointing him judge of
appeal in Causas de Fd.
The remaining briefs were
addressed to the Archbishop of Toledo and the other Spanish archbishops,
commanding them, to the end that the functions of the 1 See letter
quoted in Appendix to Llorente’s “ Memoria Historica.”
Inquisition should be
discharged with integrity, that in the event of there being in their
ecclesiastical provinces any bishops who were of Jewish descent, they should
suavely admonish these not to intervene in person in the proceedings of the
Holy Office, but to allow themselves to be represented by their principal
officials, provisors, and diocesan vicars-general— always provided that none of
these was of Jewish blood.
This decree was
natural enough, and there was some occasion for it, considering the number of
Spanish families of Jewish consanguinity as a consequence of marriages between
Christians and conversos —many of these marriages having been contracted
between Castilians of good birth and the daughters of wealthy baptized Jews. It
is a decree that entirely contradicts Pulgar’s assertion that Torquemada was of
Jewish extraction.
The appointment of
Manrique as judge of appeal was a very brief one, nor did it work
satisfactorily and accomplish what the Queen desired. In the following August
came another papal brief, stating that, notwithstanding that appointment,
fugitive New-Christians from the Archbishopric of Seville continued to arrive
in Rome and to make their appeals to the Apostolic Courts, protesting that they
dared not address these to the appointed tribunal in Seville, for fear of being
treated with excessive rigour.
Many stated that, by
virtue of the ban against them for having left the city, they were fearful of
being flung into prison unheard. Many, again, had already been tried during
their absence and burnt in effigy, and they were apprehensive that if they
returned their appeals would be refused a hearing, and they would be sent at
once to the flames in execution of the sentence already pronounced against
them.
Therefore the Pope
now ordered Manrique to admit to reconciliation all who might seek it, in
despite of any judgment or sentence already passed upon them.
Had these commands
prevailed, the destruction wrought by the Inquisition would have been considerably
reduced, since none could have suffered but the persistent apostate. The brief,
however, does not appear to have been even dispatched. No sooner was its
merciful decree indited than it was regretted and retracted. Eleven days later
Sixtus wrote to Ferdinand acquainting him with the terms of that brief which
had been intended for Manrique, but explaining that these had not been
sufficiently considered, and that, therefore, he was retaining it whilst fresh
measures were deliberated.
The position must
have been growing intolerable to the Sovereigns, for the Holy Office in Spain,
directed in this fashion from Rome, was governed by unstable and ever-shifting
elements that were eminently disturbing to the State—particularly now that the
Inquisition was growing rapidly in importance. Therefore Isabella wrote again,
imploring the Holy Father to give that institution a settled form. To this the
Pope acceded, perhaps himself aware of the necessity for the thing requested. A
head was necessary for the consolidated institution it was now proposed to
form, and Frey Tomds de Torquemada, from what was known of his life, his
character, and his ability, was judged to be the man to fill this important
office. Accordingly he was recommended to Sixtus by the Sovereigns, and he
received his appointment from the Pope, first as Grand Inquisitor for Castile, and
soon after (by the bull of October 17, 1483) his jurisdiction was extended to
include Aragon ; so that he found himself at the head of the Holy Office in
Spain, and invested with the fullest powers. It was his to elect, depose, and
replace subaltern inquisitors at his will, and the jurisdiction of all those he
appointed was subject to and dependent upon himself.1
Llorente says of him
: “ The result accredited the
1 The bull
of nomination is quoted in full by Paramo, “ De Origine,” P- I37-
election. It seemed
almost impossible that there should be another man so capable of executing the
intentions of King Ferdinand to multiply confiscations, the intentions of the
Roman Curia to propagate its jurisdiction and pecuniary maxims, and the
intentions of the projectors of the Inquisition and its Autos de F6 to inspire
terror.” 1
With his elevation to
that important position—a position whose importance his own energy and determination
were to increase until his power in the land should almost rival that of the Sovereigns
themselves —the Spanish Inquisition enters now upon a new phase. Under the
jurisdiction and control of that stern-souled, mild-eyed ascetic, the entire
character of the Holy Office is transformed.
Immediately upon his
appointment he set about reconstituting it so that it should be in harmony with
the wishes of the Sovereigns. To assist him he appointed as his assessors the
jurisconsults Juan Gutierrez de Lachaves and Tristan de Medina, and he
proceeded to establish four permanent tribunals : one in Seville, under Morillo
and San Martin, whom he left undisturbed in their office, but subject to the
new rules which he laid down for the transaction of affairs ; one in Cordova,
under Pedro Martinez de Barrio and Anton Ruiz Morales, with Fr. Martin de Caso
as assessor ; one in Jaen, under Juan Garcia de Canas and Fr. Juan de Yarza ;
and one in Villa Real,2 which shortly afterwards was transferred to
Toledo, under Francisco Sanchez de la Fuente and Pedro Dias de Costana.
In addition to these
he appointed other inquisitors who, without being attached to any permanent
tribunal, were to proceed wherever he should direct them as occasion arose to
set up temporary courts.
In Toledo,
Valladolid, Avila, Segovia, and other cities there were inquisitors already of
the Pope’s,
1 “ Hist.
Critica,” tom. i. art. i. §. 2.
’ Afterwards Ciudad
Real.
appointing. Some of
these failed to show the complete submission to his orders which Torquemada
demanded, with the result that they were promptly deposed and their places
filled by others whom he nominated. Those who manifested obedience to his rule
he confirmed in their appointments, but usually he sent a nominee of his own to
act in conjunction with them.
Torquemada himself
remained at Court; for now that the Inquisition was established upon its new
footing it became necessary that he should be in constant communication with
the Sovereigns for whom he acted. Consultations were necessary on the score of
the measures to be taken for the administration of what was rapidly become a corporation
of great importance in the realm. From this it presently resulted that to the
four royal councils already in existence for the conduct of the affairs of the
kingdom, a fifth was added especially to deal with inquisitorial matters.
Whether the suggestion emanated from the Sovereigns or from Torquemada, there
are no means of ascertaining, nor does it greatly signify.
This Supreme Council
of the Inquisition was established in 1484. It consisted of three royal
councillors : Alonso Carillo, Bishop of Mazzara, Sancho Velasquez de Cuellar,
and Poncio de Valencia, all doctors of laws, and of Torquemada’s two assessors.
To preside over this “ Suprema ”—as the council came to be called—Torquemada
was appointed, thus enormously increasing the power and influence which already
he wielded.
The three royal
councillors had a definite vote in all matters that appertained to the
jurisdiction of the Sovereigns ; but in all matters of spiritual jurisdiction,
which was vested entirely in the Grand Inquisitor by the papal bull, their
votes were merely consultative— amounting to no more than an expression of
opinion.
It was Torquemada’s
desire that his subordinates should act with absolute uniformity in the
discharge of the duties entrusted to them, and that the courts of
the Holy Office
throughout Spain should one and all be identical in their methods of procedure,
the instruments of his will and the expression of his conceptions. With this
end in view he summoned the inquisitors by him appointed to the Tribunals of
Seville, Cordova, Jaen, and Villa Real to confer with him and his assessors
and the royal councillors.
The assembly took
place in Seville on October 29, and its business was the formulation of the
first instructions of Torquemada for the guidance of all inquisitors.
In the library of the
British Museum there is a vellum-bound copy of the edition of this code, which
was subsequently published at Madrid in 1576.1 It contains, in
addition to Torquemada’s articles of 1484 and subsequent years, others added by
his successors, and there are marginal notes giving the authorship of each. The
work is partly printed, partly in manuscript, and a considerable number of
pages remain in blank, that further instructions may be filled in as the need
occurs. The printed matter is frequently underscored by the pen of one or
another of the inquisitors through whose hands this copy passed during its
active existence.
The twenty-eight
articles compiled by Torquemada at the assembly of 1484, and constituting his
first “ Instructions for the Governance of the Holy Office,” demand a chapter
to themselves.
1 “ Copilacion de las Instrucciones hechas, etc.” Press-mark
C. 61. e. 6.
THE JURISPRUDENCE OB
THE HOLY OFFICE—THE FIRST “INSTRUCTIONS” OF TORQUEMADA
The first manual for
the use of inquisitors was probably written somewhere about 1320. It was the
work of the Dominican friar Bernard Gui— “ Practica Inquisitionis Heretice
Pravitatis—Bernardo Guidonis, Ordinis Fratrum Predicatorum ”—and it summarised
the experience gathered during a hundred years by the inquisitors of Southern
France.
It is divided into
five parts. The first three are directly concerned with procedure, and the
formulae are given for every occasion—citation, arrest, pardon, commutation,
and sentence—with the fullest particulars for the guidance of inquisitors. The
fourth part treats of the powers vested in the tribunal of the Inquisition, and
cites the authorities—i.e. the decrees of pontiffs and of councils. The
fifth part surveys and defines the various heretical sects of Gui’s day, gives
particulars of the doctrines, rites, and ceremonies by which each one may be
known, and lays down methods by which heretical guile may be circumvented in
examination.
The work was used by
French inquisitors in general and those of Toulouse in particular, and it is
more than probable that it inspired Nicolaus Eymeric to compile his voluminous
“Directorium Inquisitorum” towards the middle of the fourteenth century.
Nicolaus Eymeric was
Grand Inquisitor of Aragon, and he prepared his directory, or manual of pro-
139
cedure, as a guide
for his confreres in the business of prosecuting those guilty of heretical
pravity.
The work circulated
freely in its manuscript form, and it was one of the first to be printed in
Barcelona upon the introduction of the printing-press, so that in Torquemada’s
day copies were widely diffused, and were in the hands of all inquisitors in
the world.
The bulk of the “
Directorium” is little more than a compilation. It is divided into three parts.
The first lays down the chief Articles of the Christian Faith; the second is a
collection of the decretals, bulls, .and briefs of the popes upon the subject
of heretics and heresies, and the decision of the various councils held to
determine matters connected with heretics and their abettors, sorcerers,
excommunicates, Jews and infidels ; the third part, which is Eymeric’s own
contribution to the subject, deals with the manner in which trials should be
conducted, and gives a detailed list of the offences that come under the jurisdiction
of the Holy Office.
It may be well before
proceeding further to give a r6sum6 of the grounds upon which the Inquisition
instituted proceedings, as set forth in the “Directorium.”
All heretics in
general are subject to the animadversions of the Holy Office; but there are,
in addition, certain offenders who, whilst not exactly guilty of heresy,
nevertheless render themselves justiciable by the Inquisition. These are :
Blasphemers who in
blaspheming say that which is contrary to the Christian Faith. Thus, he who
says, “ The season is so bad that God Himself could not give us good weather,”
sins upon a matter of faith.
Sorcerers and
Diviners, when in their sorceries they perform that which is in the nature of
heresy— such as re-baptizing infants, burning incense to a skull, etc. But if
they confine their sorceries to foretelling
the future by
chiromancy or palmistry, by drawing the short straw, or consulting the
astrolabe, they are guilty of simple sorcery, and it is for the secular courts
to prosecute them.
Amongst the latter
are to be placed those who administer love-philtres to women.
Devil-worshippers :
Those who invoke devils. These are to be divided into three classes :
(а) Those who worship the devil, sacrificing to
him, prostrating themselves, singing prayers and fasting, burning incense or
lighting candles in his honour.
(б) Those who confine themselves to offering a
Dulie or Hyperdulie cult to Satan, introducing the names of devils into the
litanies.
(c) Those who invoke
the devil by tracing magic figures, placing an infant in a circle, using a
sword, a bed, or a mirror, etc.
In general it is easy
to recognize those who have dealings with devils on account of their ferocious
aspect and terrible air.
The invocation in any
of the three manners cited is always a heresy. But if the devil should only be
asked to do things that are of his office—such as to tempt a woman to the sin
of luxury—provided that this is done without adoration or prayer, but in terms
of command, there are authors who hold that in such cases the person so
proceeding is not guilty of heresy.
Amongst those who
invoke devils are astrologers and alchymists, who when they do not succeed in
making the discoveries they seek never fail to have recourse to the devil,
sacrificing to him and invoking him expressly or tacitly.
Jews and Infidels :
The first when they sin against their religion in any of the articles of faith
that are the same with them as with us—i.e. that are common alike to Jew
and to Christian—or when they
attack dogmas that
are, similarly, common to both creeds.
As for infidels, the
Church and the Pope, and consequently the Inquisition, may punish them when
they sin against the laws of nature—the only laws they know.
Jews and infidels who
attempt to pervert Christians are also regarded as abettors or fantores.
In spite of the
prohibition to succour a heretic, a man would not be regarded as an abettor who
gave food to a heretic dying of hunger, since it is possible that if spared the
latter might yet come to be converted.
Excommunicates
who
remain in excommunication during a whole year, by which are to be understood
not merely those who are excommunicate as heretics, or abettors of heretics,
but excommunicate upon any grounds whatsoever. In fact, the indifference to
excommunication renders them suspect of heresy.
Apostates.—Apostate
Christians who become Jews or Mohammedans (these religions not being heresies),
even though they should have apostatized through fear of death. The fear of
torture or death not being one that can touch a person who is firm in the
Faith, no apostasy is to be excused upon such grounds.1
With the “
Directorium ” of Eymeric before him, Torquemada set to work to draw up the
first articles of his famous code. Additions were to be made to it later, as the
need for such additions came to be shown by experience; but no subsequent
addition was of the importance of these original twenty-eight articles. They
may be said to have given the jurisprudence of the Spanish Inquisition a
settled form, which continued practically unchanged for over three hundred
years after Torquemada’s death.
A survey of these
articles and of the passages from Eymeric that have a bearing upon them,
together with
1 Eymeric,
" Directorium,” pars iii. Qusest. xli. et seq.
some of the annotations
of the scholiast Francesco Pegna,1 should serve to convey some
notion of the jurisprudence of the Holy Office and of the extraordinary spirit
that inspired and governed it—a spirit at once crafty and stupid, subtle and
obvious, saintly and diabolical, consistent in nothing—not even in cruelty, for
in its warped and dreadful way it accounted itself merciful, and not only
represented but believed that its aims were charitable. It practised its abominations
of cruelty out of love for the human race, to save the human race from eternal
damnation ; and whilst it wept on the one hand over the wretched heretic it
flung to the flames, it exulted on the other in the thought that by burning one
who was smitten with the pestilence of heresy it saved perhaps a hundred from
infection and from purging that infection in an eternity of hell-fire.
They are rash who see
hypocrisy in the priestly code that is to follow. Hypocrites there may have
been, there must have been, and many; such a system was a very hotbed of
hypocrisy. Yet the system itself was not hypocritical. It was sincere,
dreadfully, tragically, ardently sincere, with the most hopeless, intolerable,
and stupid of all sincerity—the sincerity of fanaticism, which destroys all
sense of proportion, and distorts man’s intellectual vision until with an easy
conscience he makes of guile and craft and falsehood the principles that shall
enable him to do what he conceives to be his duty by his fellow-man.
The doctrine of
exclusive salvation was the source of' all this evil, j But that doctrine was
firmly and sincerely held. Torquemada or any other inquisitor might have
uttered the words which an inspired poet has caused to fall from the lips of
Philip II. :
“ The blood and sweat
of heretics at the stake Is God’s best dew upon the barren field.”2
1 The
compendious tome including these very ample annotations and commentaries was
published first in Rome, 1585.
1
Tennyson’s “ Queen Mary,” Act V. sc. i.
And he would have
uttered them with a calm and firm conviction, assured that he did no more than
proclaim an obvious truth which might serve him as a guide to do his duty by
man and God. For all that he did he could find a commandment in the Scriptures.
Was burning the proper death for heretics ? He answered the question out of the
very mouth of Christ, as you shall see. Should a heretic’s property be
confiscated ? Eymeric and Paramo point to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from
Eden as a consequence of their disobedience—the first of all heresies— and ask
you what was that but confiscation. Is it proper to impose a garment of shame
upon those convicted of lesser heresies, or upon penitents who are reconciled ?
Paramo will answer you that Adam and Eve wore skins after their fall, and
implies that this is a proper precedent for the infamous sanbenito.
And so on: Moses,
David, John the Baptist, and the gentle Saviour Himself are made to afford
reason for this course and for that, as the need arises, and each reason is
more grotesque than the other, until you are stunned by the blows of these
clumsy arguments. You cease to wonder that the translation of the Bible was
forbidden, that its study was inhibited. If those who were learned in theology
could interpret it so extravagantly, what might not the unlearned achieve ?
But let us pass on to
the consideration of Torquemada’s code.
Article
I
Whenever inquisitors
are appointed to a diocese, city, village, or other place which hitherto has
had no inquisitors, they shall—after having presented the warrants by which
they are empowered to the prelate of the principal church and to the governor
of the district—summon by proclamation all the people and convoke the clergy.
They shall appoint a Sunday or holiday upon which all are to assemble in the
cathedral or principal church to hear a sermon of the Faith.
They shall contrive
that this sermon is delivered by a
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TITLE-PAGE OF THE
FIRST PRINTED EDITION OF THE “INSTRUCTIONS’ OF TORQUEMADA.
Photo by
Donald Macbeth.
good preacher or by
one of the actual inquisitors, as they deem best. Its aim shall be to expound
the capacity in which they are there, their powers, and their intentions.
Upon the conclusion
of this sermon the inquisitors shall order all faithful Christians to come
forward and make oath upon the Cross and the Gospels to favour the Holy Inquisition
and its ministers, and to offer them no impediment directly or indirectly in
the prosecution of their mission.
This oath shall be
specially imposed upon the governors or other justiciaries of the place, and it
shall be witnessed by the notaries of the inquisitors.
Article II
After the conclusion
of the said sermon the inquisitors shall order to be read and published an
admonition with censures against those who are rebellious or who contest the
power of the Holy Office.
Article III
After the conclusion
of the said sermon the inquisitors shall publish an edict granting a term of
grace, of thirty or forty days—as they may deem proper—so that all persons who
have fallen into the sin of heresy or apostasy, who have observed Jewish rites
or any other that are contrary to the Christian Religion, may come forward to
confess their sins, assured that if they do so with a sincere penitence,
divulging all that is known to them or that they remember, not only of their
own sins but also of the sins of others, they shall be received with charity.
They shall be
subjected to a salutary penance, but they shall not suffer death, imprisonment,
or confiscation of their property, nor shall they in any way be mulcted unless
the inquisitors, in consideration of the quality of the penitents and of the
sins they confess, should think well to impose some pecuniary penance upon
them.
Concerning this grace
and mercy that their Highnesses consider well to accord to those who are
reconciled, the Sovereigns order the delivery of letters-patent, bearing the
royal seal, whose tenor shall be included in the published ^ edict.
It is sufficiently
plain, from the terms of this article, that the edict of grace was published by
royal
command, and that it
was not, as Garcia Rodrigo represents it, a merciful dispensation spontaneously
emanating from the Holy Office.
Article IV
Self-delators shall
present their confessions in writing to the inquisitors and their notaries with
two or three witnesses who shall be officers of the Inquisition or other
upright persons.
Upon receipt of this
confession by the inquisitors, let the oath be administered to the penitents in
legal form, not only concerning the matters confessed but concerning others
that may be known to them and upon which they may be questioned. Let them be
asked how long it is since they Judaized or otherwise sinned against the Faith,
and how long it is since they abandoned their false beliefs, repented, and
ceased to observe those ceremonies. Next let them be examined upon the circumstances
of the matters confessed, that the inquisitors may satisfy themselves that
these confessions are true. Especially let them be questioned as to what
prayers they recite, where they recite them, and with whom they have been in
the habit of assembling to hear the law of Moses preached.
Article V
Self-delators who
seek reconciliation to Holy Mother Church shall be required publicly to abjure
their errors, and, penance shall publicly be imposed upon them at the discretion
of the inquisitors, using mercy and kindness as far as it is possible for them
to do so with an easy conscience.
The inquisitors shall
admit none to secret penance and recantation unless his sin shall have been so
secret that none else knows or could know of it save his confessor ; such a one
all inquisitors may reconcile and absolve in secret.
Llorente says that
the admission to secret penance was a source of much gold to the Roman Curia,
as thousands appealed to the Pope offering a secret confession and firm purpose
of amendment if secretly absolved, for which a papal brief was necessary.
A word must here be
said on the score of abjura
tion.
It
was the amende provided by Eymeric1 for those who by their speech or
conduct should have fallen into suspicion of heresy; those, for instance, who
abstained from the sacraments imposed by Mother Church being liable to this
suspicion.
There were three
degrees of suspicion into which a man might fall: light, vehement, and violent.
The abjuration required was practically the same in all three cases, but the
punishment imposed upon the abjurer varied according to the degree. This abjuration
must be publicly made in church before the assembled people, the suspects being
placed—like all penitents or convicts of heresy—upon a raised platform in full
view of the assembled faithful. The inquisitor would read out the Articles of
the Christian Faith, and a list of the principal errors against it, laying
particular stress upon those errors of which the penitents were suspected, and
which they were required to abjure with both hands upon the Gospels, and
according to the formula laid down by Eymeric.
Those who are
suspected lightly (leviter) are admonished that should they again fall into
error they will be abandoned to the secular arm for punishment. With that
admonition, and the imposition of a penance which may take the form of fasts,
prayers, or pilgrimages, they are dismissed.
Those suspected
vehemently (vehementer) are similarly admonished, but in addition they
may be sent to prison for a time, whereafter they must undergo a heavy penance,
such as standing on certain days at the door of the principal church or near
the altar during the celebration of Mass holding a candle— but not wearing a
sanbenito, as, properly speaking, they are not heretics—or they may be sent
upon a pilgrimage.
He who is violently
suspected (violenter) shall be absolved of the excommunication incurred, but as
his crime may not go unpunished, and to the end that
1 See
Eymeric, “ Directorium,” pars iii. p. 315 et seq.
he may suffer less
severely in the next world, he is sentenced to a term of imprisonment,
whereafter he shall be condemned to stand at the church door during the great
feasts of the year wearing the penitential scapulary known as the sanbenito,
that all may be made aware of his infamy.
After passing
sentence, the inquisitor shall admonish the penitent in these terms :
“ My dear
Son, be patient and do not despair ; if we observe in you the signs of
contrition we shall soften your penance ; but beware of departing from what we
have prescribed for you ; should you do so you shall be punished as an
impenitent heretic.”
The punishment for
the impenitent was, of course, the fire.
The inquisitor shall
conclude the ceremony by granting an indulgence of forty days to all who have attended
it and an indulgence of three years to those who shall have taken part in it.
The sentence of
prison, with its bread-and-water diet, might be relaxed ; but never that of the
sanbenito, which is considered by Eymeric—and inquisitors generally—as the most
salutary of penances for him that undergoes it and the most edifying to the
public generally.
The self-delators
admitted by Torquemada to abjuration were treated as suspects of the first
degree— leviter.
Article VI
Inasmuch as heretics
and apostates (although they return to the Catholic Faith and become
reconciled) are infamous at law, and inasmuch as they must perform their
penances with humility and sorrow for having lapsed into error, the inquisitors
shall order them not to hold any public office or ecclesiastical benefice, and
they shall not be lawyers or brokers, apothecaries, surgeons or physicians, nor
shall they wear gold or silver, coral, pearls, precious stones or other
ornaments, nor dress in silk or camlett, nor go on horseback nor carry weapons
all their lives, under pain of being deemed
relapsed (relapsos)
into heresy, as must all be considered who after reconciliation do not carry
out the penances imposed upon them.
This decree was no
more than the revival of the enactment made a century and a half earlier by j
Alfonso XI in the code known as the Partidas, which had mercifully been
allowed to fall into desuetude. It was, Llorente tell us, a considerable source
of wealth to the Roman Curia. Frequent appeals for “ rehabilitation ” were made
in consequence, and accorded under an apostolic brief whose heavy charges the
appellants were required to defray.
Torquemada mercifully
stops short of ordering the self-delators to wear the sanbenito. Even so, however,
by decreeing that they must wear no garments of silk or wool, and therefore
none but the very plainest raiment, unadorned by any precious metal or
jewel—not to mention the prohibition to use weapons or go on horseback—he
imposed upon them a garb that was only some degrees removed from the penitential
sack and served the same purpose of marking them out for infamy.
The wearing of the sanbenito,
too, was a custom that had fallen somewhat into desuetude. But the ascetic
Torquemada was not the man to allow a form of penance accounted so very salutary
to continue neglected. He revived and extended the use of it, adding
innovations of his own, so that it came to be imposed not only upon
condemned heretics, but upon the reconciled—other than self-delators—and upon
suspects, who were required to wear it during the abjuration ceremony.
This odious garment,
its origin and history, shall presently be more fully considered.
Article VII
As the crime of
heresy is a very heinous one, it is desired that the reconciled may realize by
the penances imposed
upon them how gravely
they have offended and sinned against Our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, as it is our
aim to treat them very mercifully and kindly, pardoning them from the pain of
fire and perpetual imprisonment, and leaving them all their property should they,
as has been said, come to confess their errors within the appointed time of
grace, the inquisitors shall, in addition to the penances imposed upon the said
reconciled, order them to bestow as alms a certain portion of their property,
according to the position of the penitent and the gravity of the crimes
confessed. These pecuniary penances shall be applied for the Holy War which the
most serene Sovereigns are making upon the Moors of Granada, enemies of our
Holy Catholic Faith, and to other pious works that may be undertaken. For just
as the said heretics and apostates have offended against Our Lord and His Holy
Faith, so, after re-incorporation in the Church, it is just that they should
bear pecuniary penances for the defence of the Holy Faith.
These pecuniary
penances shall be at the discretion of the inquisitors ; but they shall be
guided by the tariff given them by the Reverend Father Prior of Holy Cross
{i.e. by Torquemada).
It was no
inconsiderable proportion of their property that was required of them, as may
be seen from the penance of “alms” for the war against Granada imposed upon
those who were reconciled in Toledo two years later; one-fifth of their
property being demanded.1
Article VIII
Should any person
guilty of the said crime of heresy fail to present himself within the appointed
period of grace, but come forward voluntarily after its expiry and make his
confession in due form before having been arrested or cited by the inquisitors,
or before the inquisitors shall have received testimony against him, such
person shall be received to abjuration and reconciliation in the same manner as
those who presented themselves during the term of the said edict, and he shall
be submitted to penances at the discretion of the inquisitors. But such penances
shall not be pecuniary
1 See Fidel
Fita in 11 Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia,”
vol. xi. p. 296.
because his property
is confiscate [jo that his admission to abjuration is not quite upon the same
terms'].
But if at the time of
his coming to confess and seek reconciliation, the inquisitors should already
be informed by witnesses of his heresy or apostasy, or should already have
cited him to appear before the Court to answer the charge, in such a case the
inquisitor shall receive the penitent to reconciliation—if he entirely
confesses his own errors and what he knows of the errors of others—and shall
impose upon him heavier penances than upon the former, even up to perpetual
imprisonment should the case demand it
This is merely one of
those quibbles that permeate this jurisprudence. The article in this last
respect is so framed as to make it appear that under such circumstances the
inquisitors would be acting more mercifully than against an accused heretic;
but the latitude of punishment is such that they need display no such
mercy—perpetual imprisonment being the punishment prescribed for any heretic
(who is not “relapsed ”) seeking reconciliation.
But no persons who
shall come to confess after expiry of the period of grace shall be subjected to
pecuniary penances —unless their Highnesses should mercifully condescend to
remit all or portion of the confiscation incurred by those so reconciled.
This last clause
seems rather in the nature of a provision against any merciful weakness on the
Sovereigns’ part.
Article
IX
If any children of
heretics having fallen into the sin of heresy by indoctrination of their
parents, and being under twenty years of age, should come to seek
reconciliation and to confess the errors they know of themselves, their parents
and any other persons, even though they should come after the expiry of the
term of grace, the inquisitors shall receive them kindly, imposing penances
lighter than upon others in like case, and they shall contrive that these
children be tutored in the Faith and the Sacraments of Holy Mother Church, as
they are to be excused upon the grounds of age and education.
They are not,
however, to be excused to the extent of enjoying any of their parents’
property. That is confiscate by virtue of the parents’ heresy ; and by virtue
of that same heresy on the part of their parents these children and their own
children must remain under the ban of infamy, inhibited from wearing gold or
silver, etc., and from holding any office under the crown or any ecclesiastical
benefice. It seems almost ironical to talk of imposing light penances upon
wretches who are automatically subject to such penalties as these. But by that
“ light penance ” Llorente conceives would be meant their wearing a sanbenito
for a couple of years, appearing in it at Mass and being paraded in it in
processions.
Article X
Persons guilty of
heresy and apostasy, by the fact of their having fallen into these sins, incur
the loss of all their property and the administration of it, counting from the
day when first they offended, and their said property is confiscate to their
Highnesses’ treasury. But in the matter of ecclesiastical pains in the case of
those reconciled, the inquisitors in pronouncing upon them shall declare them
to be heretics, apostates, or observers of the rites and ceremonies of the
Jews ; but that since they seek conversion with a pure heart and true faith,
and they are ready to bear the penances that may be imposed, they shall be
absolved and reconciled to Holy Mother Church.
The object of this
article is really to make the act of confiscation retrospective where
necessary, so as to circumvent any who should attempt, by alienation of his
property, to avoid its confiscation. Since the confiscation was incurred upon
the date of the first offence against the Faith, the inquisitors were to trace
any property that might subsequently have been disposed of by the delinquent,
and even should it have gone to the paying of debts or the endowment of a
daughter married to one who was an old and “ clean ” Christian, the Holy Office
must seize and confiscate it to the Royal Treasury.
Article XI
If any heretic or
apostate who shall have been arrested upon information laid against him should
say that he desires reconciliation and confess all his faults, what Jewish ceremonies
he may have observed, and what is known to him of the faults of others,
entirely and without reservations, the inquisitors shall admit him to
reconciliation subject to perpetual imprisonment as by law prescribed. But
should the inquisitors, in conjunction with the diocesan ordinary, in view of
the contrition of the offender and the quality of his confession, think well to
commute this penance to another lighter one, they shall have faculty so to do.
It seems that this
should take place chiefly if the heretic at the first sitting of the court, or
upon his first appearance before it, without awaiting the declaration of his
offences, should announce his desire to confess and abjure ; and such
confession should be made before there is any publication of witnesses or of
the matters urged by them against him.
Article XII
Should the
prosecution o'f an accused have been conducted to the point of the publication
of witnesses and their depositions, but should he then confess his faults and
beg to be admitted to reconciliation, desiring formally to abjure his errors,
the inquisitors shall receive him to the said reconciliation subject to
perpetual imprisonment, to which they shall sentence him—save if in view of his
contrition and other attendant circumstances the inquisitors should have cause
to consider that the reconciliation of such a heretic is simulated ; in such
case they must declare him an impenitent heretic and abandon him to the secular
arm : all of which is left to the conscience of the inquisitors.
“ Abandonment to the
secular arm ” is, as shall presently be considered, the ecclesiastical
equivalent to a sentence of death by fire.
The term “publication
of witnesses” must not be accepted literally. What it really meant will become
clear upon reading Article XVI, which was specially framed by Torquemada to
modify and limit this time-honoured custom of civil and ecclesiastical courts.
Article
XIII
If any of those who
are reconciled during the period of grace or after its expiry should fail to confess
all their own sins and all that they know of the sins of others, especially in
grave cases, and should such omission arise not from forgetfulness but from
malice, as may afterwards be proved by witnesses, since it is clear that the
said reconciled have perjured themselves, and it must be presumed that their
reconciliation was simulated, although they may have been absolved let them be
proceeded against as impenitent heretics as soon as the said fiction and
perjury are discovered.
Similarly if any person
reconciled at the time of the edict of grace or afterwards, shall boast himself
in public in such a manner that this can be proved, saying that he did not
commit the sins to which he confessed, he must be deemed impenitent and a
simulated convert, and the inquisitors shall proceed against him as if he were
not reconciled.
Article
XIV
If any, upon being
denounced and convicted of the sin of heresy, shall deny and persist in his
denial until sentence is passed, and the said crime shall have been proved against
him, although the accused should confess the Catholic Faith and assert that he
has always been and is a Christian, the inquisitors must declare him a heretic
and so sentence him, for juridically the crime is proved, and by refusing to
confess his error the convict does not permit the Church to absolve him and use
him mercifully.
But in such cases the
inquisitors should proceed with great care in their examination of the
witnesses, closely crossquestioning them, gathering information on the score
of their characters, and ascertaining whether there exist motives why they
should depone out of hatred or ill-will towards the prisoner.
Article XV
If the said crime of
heresy or apostasy is half-proven (semiplenamente provado) the inquisitors may
deliberate upon putting the accused to the torture, and if under torture he
should confess his sin, he must ratify his confession on one of the following
three days. If he does so ratify he shall be punished as convicted of heresy;
if he does not ratify, but revokes his confession as the crime is neither fully
proved
nor yet disproved,
the inquisitors must order, on account of the infamy and presumption of guilt
of the accused, that he should publicly abjure his error; or the inquisitors
may repeat the torture.
There is nothing in
this article that may be considered as a departure from or an enlargement upon
any of the rules laid down by Eymeric in his “ Directorium,” as we shall see
when we come to deal with this gruesome subject of torture.
It is urged by
apologists that, when all is said, the torture to which the inquisitors had
recourse, and, similarly, the punishment of death by fire, were not peculiarly
ecclesiastical institutions; that they were the ordinary civil methods of
dealing with offenders, and that in adopting them the Church had simply conformed,
as was her custom, with that which was by law prescribed.
It is quite true that
originally these were the methods by which the secular tribunals proceeded
against those who sinned against the Faith. But it must also be borne in mind
that if the civil authorities so proceeded they implicitly obeyed the bull “ad
extirpanda ” of Sixtus IV, which imposed this duty upon them under pain of
excommunication.
Owing to the
inconvenience that attended this procedure in so far as torture and questions
upon matters of Faith were concerned, it was later accounted desirable that
the inquisitors themselves should take charge of it. They were enjoined, however,
to see to it that there should be no shedding of blood or loss of life, since
it was against the Christian maxims that a priest should be guilty of such
things. So that when by misadventure it happened that blood was shed or a
patient died under the hands of the torturers, the inquisitor conducting the
examination became guilty of an irregularity. For this he must seek absolution
at the hands of a brother cleric ; and the inquisitors were informed—to make
matters easier for them and to spare them anxieties in this matter—
that they had the
right to absolve one another under such circumstances.
But even if we fully
admit that the use of torture— and similarly of fire—had been secular
institutions of which the Church had simply availed herself as the only methods
that commended themselves in such an age, it must still be held against the
inquisitors that these methods were by no means tempered or softened in their
priestly hands.
Article XVI
It being held that
the publication of the names of witnesses who depone upon the crime of heresy
might result in great harm and danger to the persons and property of the said
witnesses—since it is known that many have been wounded and killed by
heretics—it is resolved that the accused shall not be supplied with a copy of
the depositions against him, but that he shall be informed of what is declared
in them, whilst such circumstances as might lead to the identification of the
deponents shall be withheld.
But the inquisitors
must, when proof has been obtained from the examination of the witnesses,
publish these depositions, withholding always the names and such circumstances
as might enable the accused to learn the identity of the witnesses ; and the
inquisitors may give the accused a copy of the publication in such form \i.e.
truncated] if he requires it.
If the accused should
demand the services of an advocate, he shall be supplied. The advocate must
make formal oath that he will faithfully assist the accused, but that if at any
stage of the pleadings he shall realize that justice is not on his side, he
shall at once cease to assist the delinquent and shall inform the inquisitors
of the circumstance.
The accused shall pay
out of his own property, if he have any, the services of the advocate ; if he
have no property, then the advocate shall be paid out of other confiscations,
such being the pleasure of their Highnesses.
It is extremely
doubtful if a more flagrant departure from all the laws of equity would be
possible than that which is embodied in Torquemada’s enactment on the subject
of witnesses.
The notion of an
accused hearing nothing of what is deposed against him, of his not even being
informed of the full extent of such depositions nor yet confronted with his
accusers, is beyond a doubt one of the most monstrously unjust features of this
tribunal. And by taking the fullest advantage of that enactment and reducing
the proceedings to a secrecy such as was never known in any court, the
inquisitors were able to inspire a terror which was even greater than that
occasioned by the fires they fed with human fuel at their frequent Autos.
Torquemada based this
enactment upon the caution laid down by Eymeric on the score of divulging the
names of witnesses. But Eymeric went no further than to say that these names
should be suppressed where a possibility of danger to the delators lay in their
being divulged. The accused, however, might have the full record of the
proceedings read to him, and he might infer for himself who were his accusers.
There was no question in Eymeric of any truncations.
Torquemada’s aim is
perfectly clear. It was not based, as is said in the article, upon concern for
any danger that the delators might incur. For, after all, it shall be made
plain before we conclude the survey of inquisitorial jurisprudence, that the
wounding or even the death of those witnesses would be regarded (professedly,
at least) as an enviable thing; they would be suffering for the
Faith, and thus qualifying for the immortal crown of martyrdom. Rather was
Torquemada’s object to remove all fear that might trammel delators and stifle
delations. The delator must be protected solely to the end that other delators
might come forward with confidence to inform against secret heretics and
apostates, so that the activities of the Holy Office should suffer no
curtailment.
Trasmiera, a later
inquisitor, in the course of an eulogium of secrecy, speaks of it as “the pole
upon which the government of the Inquisition is balanced, calling for the
veneration of the faithful; it facilitates
the delations of
witnesses, and it is the support and foundation of this tribunal ; once
deprived of it, the architecture of the edifice must undoubtedly give way.” 1
The clause relating
to advocates is founded upon the ancient ecclesiastical law which forbade an
advocate to plead for heretics. His being enlisted under the present clause would
clearly serve to increase the peril of the accused.
. Article XVII
The inquisitors
shall, themselves, examine the witnesses, and not leave such examinations to
their notaries or others, unless a witness should be ill or unable to come
before the inquisitor and the inquisitor similarly unable to go to the witness,
in which case he may send the ordinary ecclesiastical judge of the district
with another upright person and a notary to take the depositions.
Article
XVIII
When any person is
put to the torture the inquisitors and the ordinary should be present—or, at
least, some of them.
1 “ Vida de
Arbu6s,” p, 56.
It is interesting to
turn to modem writers who defend this secrecy— such, for instance, as the Rev.
Sidney Smith, S.J., whose good faith there is no cause to doubt. He writes as
follows: “To pass over the question of injury often done to the reputation of
third parties, it has occasionally been forced on public attention that crimes
cannot be put down because witnesses know that by giving evidence they expose
themselves to great risks, the accused having powerful friends to execute
vengeance in their behalf. This was exactly the case with the Inquisition. The
Marranos had great power through their wealth, position, and secret bonds of
alliance with the unconverted Jews. These would certainly have endeavoured to
neutralize the efforts of the Holy Office had the trials been open. Torque-
mada, in his statutes of 1484, gives expressly this defence of secrecy,
etc." —"The Spanish Inquisition,” p. 17, in “Historical Papers.”
The argument is
specious, and it is fundamentally true. But when it is considered that the
delator, so carefully screened from all danger, was protected entirely at the
expense of the accused, it becomes clear that such a procedure must argue a
reckless eagerness to accumulate convictions. It suffices to reflect that,
whilst all the arguments advanced to justify this secrecy could with equal
justice have been urged by the contemporary civil courts of Europe, it is
impossible to point to a single one that had recourse to so inequitable a
measure. The inquisitorial point of view may be appreciated, even with a
certain sympathy, by the extremely tolerant. It cannot be justified.
But when this is for
any reason impossible, then the person entrusted to question should be a
learned and faithful man
(Jiombrt
enttndido y fiel).
Article XIX
The absent accused
shall be cited by public edict affixed to the door of the church of the
district to which he belongs, and after thirty days’ grace the inquisitors may
proceed to try him as contumaciously absent. If there is sufficient evidence of
his guilt, sentence may be passed upon him. Or, if evidence is insufficient, he
may be branded a suspect and commanded —as is due of suspects—to present
himself for canonical purgation. Should he fail to do so within the time
appointed, his guilt must be presumed.
Proceedings against
the absent may be taken in any of the following three ways : .
(1) In accordance with the chapter “Cum
contumatia de hereticis,” citing the accused to appear and defend himself upon
certain matters concerning the Faith and certain sins of heresy, under pain of
excommunication if he does not respond, he shall be denounced as a rebel, and
if he persists in this rebellion for one year he shall be declared a formal
heretic. This is the safest and least rigorous course to adopt.
(2) Should it seem to the inquisitors that a
crime against any absent can be established, let him be cited by edict to come
and prove his innocence within thirty days—or a longer period may be conceded
if such is necessary to permit him to return from wherever he may be known to
be. And he shall be cited at every stage of the proceedings until the passing
of sentence, when, should he still be absent, let him be accused of rebellion,
and should the crime be proved he may be condemned in his absence without
further delay.
(3) If in the course of inquisitorial
proceedings there is presumption of heresy against an absent person (although
the crime is not clearly proved) the inquisitors may summon him by edict
commanding him to appear within a given time to clear himself canonically of
the said error, on the understanding that should he fail to appear, or,
appearing, should fail to clear himself, he shall be deemed convicted and the
inquisitors shall proceed to act as by law prescribed.
The inquisitors,
being learned and discriminating, will belect the course that seems most
certain and is most practic- sale under the particular circumstances of the
case.
Any person condemned
as contumacious became an outlaw, whom it was lawful for any man to kill.
Canonical
Purgation, which
is mentioned in this article, differs considerably from Abjuration, and the difference must be indicated.
It is applicable only
to those who are accused by the public voice—i.e. who have acquired the “
reputation ” of heresy—without yet having been detected in any act or speech
that might cause them to be suspected of heresy in any of the defined degrees
of such suspicion.
It almost amounts to
a distinction without a difference, and is an excellent instance of the almost
laboured equity in which this tribunal indulged in matters of detail whilst
flagrantly outraging equity in the main issues.
For Canonical
Purgation, says Eymeric,J the accused must find a certain number of sureties or
compurgatores, the number required being governed by the gravity of the
(alleged) offence. They must be persons of integrity and of the same station in
life as the accused, with whom they must have been acquainted for some years.
The accused shall make oath upon the Gospels that he has never held or taught
the heresies stated, and the compurgatores shall swear to their belief that
this is the truth. This Purgation must be made in all cities where the accused
has been defamed.
The accused shall be
given a certain time in which to find his comp^lrgatores, and should he fail to
find the number required he shall at once be convicted and condemned as a
heretic.
And Pegna adds, in
his commentary upon this, that any who shall be found guilty of heresy after
having once been in this position is to be regarded as a “ relapso” and
delivered to the secular arm. For this reason he enjoins that Canonical
Purgation should not lightly be ordered, as it is so largely dependent upon the
will of third parties.
1 “ Directorium/’ pars iii. p. 312.
Eymeric adds,
further, that sometimes Canonical Purgation may be ordered to those who are
defamed by the public voice but who are not in the hands of the inquisitors.
Should they refuse to surrender, the inquisitors shall proceed to excommunicate
them, and if they persist in their excommunication for one year they shall be
deemed heretics, and subject to the penalties entailed by such a sentence.
Article
XX
If any writings or
trials should bring to light the heresy of a person deceased, let proceedings
be taken against him —even though forty years shall have elapsed since the
offence— let the fiscal accuse him before the tribunal, and if he should be
found guilty the body must be exhumed.
His children or heirs
may appear to defend him ; but should they fail to appear, or, appearing, fail
to establish his innocence, sentence shall be passed upon him and his property
confiscated.
It will, of course,
be obvious that since no good or useful purpose could be served by instituting
proceedings against the dead, nothing but cupidity can have inspired so
barbarous a decree as this. The avowed object of the Inquisition—and very
loudly and insistently avowed—was the uprooting of heresies to prevent their
spread, and the inquisitors maintained that it was a painful necessity thrust
upon them by their duty to God to destroy those who persisted in heresy, lest
these, by their teaching and example, should contaminate and imperil the souls
of others. Thus the Inquisition justified itself, and removed all doubt as to
the purity of its motives.
But how should this
justification apply to the trial of the dead—even though they should have been
dead for over forty years ?
The provision,
however, was not Torquemada’s own. He followed in the footsteps of earlier
inquisitors. He found his precedent in the 120th question propounded by
Eymeric—“ Confiscatio bonorum haeretici
11
fieri potest post ejus mortem.” In this the author of
the “ Directorium” lays it down that although in civil law legal action against
a criminal ceases with his death, such is not to be the case where heresy is
concerned, on account of the enormity of the crime. (It may seem that, had he
been quite honest, he would have said, “ on account of the profits that may
accrue from the prosecution.”)
Heretics, he pursues,
may be proceeded against after their death, and, if convicted, their property
may be confiscated—and this within forty years of their decease—depriving the
heirs of all enjoyment of it, even though the third generation should be in
possession.
All that Torquemada
did was to extend the term of procedure beyond the forty years to which Eymeric
had limited it.
And to the foregoing
Eymeric adds that, should the heirs at any time have acquired knowledge that
the deceased was a heretic, they shall be censured for having acted in bad
faith and kept the matter secret! By this he actually puts it upon men to come
forward voluntarily and accuse their dead fathers or grandfathers of heretical
practices, to the end that they themselves may be rendered destitute and
infamous to the extent of being incapacitated from holding any public office or
following any honourable profession— and this though they themselves should be
the most faithful of Catholics, untouched by the faintest breath of suspicion !
It is beyond words a
monstrous and inequitable enactment. Yet, like all else, they can justify it.
If there is one thing in which the inquisitors were truly admirable, it is in
the deftness with which they could justify and reconcile with their conscience
the most inhuman practice. They would answer questions as to the lawfulness of
this proceeding by urging that they did it with the greatest reluctance, but
that their duty demanded it to the end that the living should
beware how they failed
in fidelity to the Faith, lest punishment should overtake them in their
descendants after they themselves had passed beyond the reach of human justice.
Thus would they represent the act as salutary and to the advantage of the
Faith. And since there is at least a scintilla of truth in this, who shall say
that they did not tranquillize their consciences and delude themselves that
the confiscations were a mere incident which nowise swayed their judgment ?
That proceedings
against persons deceased were by no means rare is shown by the frequent records
of corpses burnt—one of the purposes for which they were exhumed ; the
other being that they must cease to defile consecrated ground.
Article XXI
The Sovereigns
desiring that inquisition be made alike in the domains of the nobles as in the
lands under the Crown, inquisitors shall proceed to effect these, and shall
require the lords of such domains to make oath to comply with all that the law
ordains, and to lend all assistance to the inquisitors. Should they decline to
do so, they shall be proceeded against as by law established.
Article XXII
Should heretics who
are delivered to the secular arm leave children who are minors and unmarried,
the inquisitors shall provide and ordain that they be cared for and reared by
some persons who will instruct them in our Holy Faith. The inquisitors shall
prepare a memorial of such orphans and the circumstances of each, to the end
that of the royal bounty alms may be provided to the extent necessary, this
being the wish of the Sovereigns when the children are good Christians,
especially in the case of girls, who should receive a dower sufficient to
enable them to marry or enter a convent.
Llorente tells us
that although he went through very many records of old proceedings of the
Inquisition,
in no single instance
did he discover a record of any such provision in favour of , the child of a
condemned heretic.1
Harsh as were the
decrees of the Inquisition in all things, in nothing were they so harsh as in
the enactments concerning the children of heretics. However innocent
themselves of the heresy for which their parents or grandparents might have
suffered, not only must they go destitute, but further they must be prevented
from ever extricating themselves appreciably from that condition, being
inhibited—to the second generation—from holding any office under the Crown, or
any ecclesiastical benefice, and from following any honourable or lucrative
profession. And, as if that were not in itself sufficient, they were further
condemned to wear the outward signs of infamy, to go dressed in serge, without
weapons or ornaments, and never ride on horseback, under pain of worse
befalling them. One of the inevitable results of this barbarous decree was the
extinction of many good Spanish families of Jewish blood in the last decade of
the fifteenth century.
This the inquisitors
understood to be the literal application to practical life of the gentle and
merciful precepts of the sweet Christ in Whose name they acted.
Eymeric and his
commentator Pegna make clear, between them, the inquisitorial point of view.
The author of the “ Directorium ” tells us that commiseration for the children
of heretics who are reduced to mendicity must not be allowed to soften this
severity, since by all laws, human and divine, it is prescribed that the
children must suffer for the sins of the fathers.2
The scholiast
expounds at length the justice of this measure. He says that there have been
authors, such as Hostiensis, who pretend that it lacks the equity of
1 "Historia Critica,” vol. ii. p. 15.
* Pars iii. queest. cxiv. and cxv.
the ancient laws,
which admitted Catholic children to inheritance. But he assures us that they
are wrong in holding such views, that there is no injustice in the provision,
and that it is salutary, since the fear of it is calculated to influence
parents and to turn them—out of love for their offspring—from the great crime
of heresy.
To minds less dulled
by bigotry it must have been clear that by this, as, for that matter, by many
other of their decrees, all that was achieved was to put a premium upon
hypocrisy.
Another consideration
that escaped their notice— being, as they were, capable of perceiving one thing
only at a time—was that if this precious measure was prescribed by all laws,
human and divine, it should have been unavoidable. Yet they themselves provided
the means of avoiding it—as we know—for the child vile enough to lay
information of his parents’ heresy. By what laws, human or divine, did they
dare to encourage such an infamy ? By no law but their own —a law whose chief
aim, it is obvious at every turn, was to swell the number of convictions.
What opinion was held
of children who informed against their parents to avert the awful fate that
awaited them should their parents’ heresy be discovered by others, is apparent
in the case of the daughter of Diego de Susan—who, very possibly, was actuated
by just such motives.
Article XXIII
Should any heretic or
apostate who has been reconciled within the term of grace be relieved by their
Highnesses from the punishment of confiscation of his property, it is to be
understood that such relief applies only to that property which by their own
sin was lost to them. It does not extend to property which the person
reconciled shall have the right to inherit from another who shall have suffered
confiscation. This to the end that a person so pardoned shall not be in better
case than a pure Catholic heir.
Article XXIV
As the King and Queen
in their clemency have ordained that the Christian slaves of heretics shall be
freed, and even when the heretic is reconciled and immune from confiscation,
this immunity shall not extend to his slaves ; these shall be manumitted in any
case, to the greater honour and glory of our Holy Faith.
Article XXV
Inquisitors and assessors
and other officers of the Inquisition, such as fiscal advocates, constables,
notaries, and ushers, must excuse themselves from receiving gifts from any who
may have or may come to have affairs with the Inquisition, or from others on
their behalf; and the Father Prior of Holy Cross orders them not to receive any
such gifts under pain of excommunication, of being deprived of office under the
Inquisition and compelled to make restitution and repay to twice the value of
what they may have received.
Eymeric’s “
Directorium ” permitted the reception of gifts by inquisitors, provided that
these gifts were not too considerable, but he enjoined inquisitors not to show
too much avidity—not, it would seem, on account of the sin that lurks in
avidity, but so as not to give scandal to the laity.1
Article XXVI
Inquisitors shall
endeavour to work harmoniously together ; the honour of the office they hold
demands this, and inconveniences might result from discords amongst them.
Should any inquisitor be acting in the place of the diocesan ordinary, let him
not on that account presume that he enjoys preeminence over his colleagues. If
any difference should arise between inquisitors and they be unable themselves
to adjust it, let them keep the matter secret until they can lay it before the
Prior of Holy Cross, who, as their superior, will decide it as he considers
best.
Article XXVII
Inquisitors shall
endeavour to contrive that their officers treat one another well and dwell in
harmony and honourably.
1 See “
Directorium,” pars iii. p. 387.
Should any officer
commit an excess, let them punish him charitably, and should they be unable to
cause an officer to fulfil his duty, let them advise the Prior of Holy Cross
thereof, and he will at once deprive such a one of his office and make such an
appointment as may seem best for the serviee of Our Lord and their Highnesses.
Article XXVIII
Should any matter
arise for which provision has not been made by this code, the inquisitors shall
proeeed as by law prescribed, it being left to them to dispose as their consciences
show them to be best for the service of God and their Highnesses.
To these twenty-eight
articles Torquemada was to make further additions—in January of the following
year, in October of 1488 and in May of 1498. We shall indicate to them, but for
the moment it is sufficient to say that—saving some of those of 1498—they are
of secondary importance, being mainly in the nature of corollaries upon those
we have dealt with, and chiefly concerned with the internal governance of the
Inquisition rather than with its relations to the outside world.
THE JURISPRUDENCE OF
THE HOLY OFFICE—THE MODE OF PROCEDURE
No complete notion of
the jurisprudence of the Holy Office can be formed without taking a glance at
this tribunal at work and observing the methods upon which it proceeded in its
dealings with those who were arraigned before it.
Its scope has already
been considered, and also the offences that came within its pitiless
jurisdiction at the time of Torquemada’s appointment to the mighty office of
Grand Inquisitor and President of the Suprema. It remains to be added that in
his endeavours to cast an ever-wider net he sought to increase the jurisdiction
of the Inquisition beyond matters immediately concerned with the Faith and to
include certain offences whose connection with it was only constructive.
Whether he succeeded
to the full extent of his aims we do not know. But we do know that he contrived
that bigamy should become the concern of the Holy Office, contending that it
was primarily an offence against the laws of God and a defilement of the
Sacrament of Marriage. Adultery, which is no less an offence against that
sacrament, and which is not punishable by civil law, he passed over; but he
contrived that sodomy should be brought for the first time within inquisitorial
jurisdiction and that those convicted of it should be burnt alive.
Himself a man of the
most rigid chastity, he must
have been moved to
anger by the unchastity so prevalent among the clergy. It was, however, beyond
his power to deal with it without special authority from Rome, and he would
have been bold indeed to have sought such authority at the hands of that
flagrant paterfamilias Giovanni Battista Cibo, who occupied the Chair of St.
Peter with the title of Pope Innocent VIII.
The most scandalous
form of this unchastity was that known as “solicitation”—solicitatio ad
turpia— or the abuse of the confessional for the purpose of seducing female
penitents. 11 was a matter that greatly vexed the Church as a body, since it
placed a terrible weapon in the hands of her enemies and detractors. It was
admittedly rampant, and it is more than probable that it was directly
responsible for the institution of the confessional-box—enforced in the
sixteenth century —which effectively separated confessor from penitent, and
left them to communicate through a grille.
The matter, like all
other offences of the clergy, was entirely within the jurisdiction of the
bishops, who would vigorously have resisted any attempts on the part of Torquemada
to encroach further upon their province. So the Church was left to combat that
evil as best she might; and, with the exception of an odd bishop who assumed a
stern attitude and dealt with it as became his own dignity and the honour of
the priesthood, the utmost lenience appears to have prevailed,1 as
we may judge by the penances imposed upon convicted offenders.
The perils and
temptations to which a priest was exposed in the course of the intimate
communications that must pass between him and his penitents were given full
recognition and allowed full weight in the balance against the offence itself.
Later on, however,
this matter which Torquemada had considered beyond his power was actually
thrust within the jurisdiction of the Inquisition by a Church
* See Lloreute’s " Historic Critics,”
I. cap. xxvjij.
resolved, for the
very sake of its existence, that the evil should cease.
Vexatious as this
crime of “ solicitation ” had always been, it became most urgently and
perilously so after the Reformation, when it provided those who denounced the
confessional with an apparently unanswerable reason for their denunciations. It
was wisely thought that the methods of the Holy Office were best calculated to
deal with it, and the matter was relegated to the inquisitors. The defilement
of the sacrament was the link that connected solicitation with heresy.
Moreover, in some cases there might be heresy of a more positive kind; as when,
for instance, the priest assured the penitent that her consent was not a sin.
And the woman accusing a priest of solicitation before the Holy Office was
always questioned closely upon this particular point.
In the later editions
of the “ Cartilla,” or Manual for the guidance of I nquisitors—all of which
publications were issued by the private press of the Inquisition— are to be
found under the heading “ Causas de Solicitacion ” instructions for the
examination of a woman who denounces a priest upon these grounds.1
Even so, however, it
could not be in the interests of the Church to parade these offenders, and thus
expose the sore places in her own body.
Limborch urges that
delinquents be sent to the galleys, or even delivered to the secular arm. But
1 " Las delaciones sobre solicitacion en el
confessionario se deben recibir con gran cuidado, haciendo que la denunciaute
declare todas las circunstancias siguientes:
" En que dia, hora y en que confessionario, si fu6 antes de la confession
6 despues, 6 ella mediante; si estaba de rodillas y se avia ya persignado, 6 si
simulaba confession, que palabras la dijo el confessor, 6 que acciones ejecut6,
poniendo las palabras como ellas se dixeron ; quantas veces sucedi6, y si
despues la absolvi6, si alguna persona lo pude oir 6 entender, 6 si ella se lo
ha dicho a alguien, y si sabe que el dicho confessor 6 otro aya solicitado a
otras, 6 si ella ha sido solicitada por otro. Y declare la edad y senas
personales del dicho confessor, y tambien en caso de aver pasado tiempo del
delito, porque no lo ha delatado antes al Santo Oficio, y si sabe la residencia
del dicho confessor.”
"Orden de
Procesar,” compiled by Fr. P. Garcia, published by the Press pf the Holy
Office, Valencia, 1736.
for that—as Llorente
points out—it would have been necessary to include them in an Auto de F6, of
which there could be no question on account of the scandal which must ensue in
view of the character of the offence. This is very true, and none can doubt the
desirability of avoiding publicity for such a matter, or suppose that the
Church was in the least blameworthy for so proceeding. At the same time, however
justifiable we may account this secrecy, it is almost impossible to justify the
lenience of the sentences that were passed. It is above all extraordinary that
the usual punishment did not even go so far as to unfrock these offenders. The
inquisitors confined themselves to depriving the convicted priest of the
faculty of hearing confessions in future, and imposed a penance of some years’
residence in the seclusion of a convent.
It is possible,
however, that this punishment was heavier than may at first appear. For—to
their credit be it said—the regulars into whose convent the penanced cleric was
sent undertook that this penance should be anything but easy.
This comes to light
in the course of a case of which Llorente cites the full particulars from the
records he unearthed.1
It is the case of a
Capuchin brother tried in the eighteenth century by the Grand Inquisitor Rubin
de Cevallos ; and as much in the quality and extent of the offence as in the
brazenly ingenious defence set up by the friar, the record reads like one of
the least translatable stories from Boccaccio’s “ Decameron.” He was sentenced
to go into retreat for five years in a convent of his order ; and so great a
dread did that sentence strike into the Capuchin that he besought of the
inquisitors the mercy of being allowed to serve the sentence in one of the
dungeons of the Inquisition. Questioned as to his reasons fora request that
sounded so extraordinary, he protested that he knew too well
* “ Historia Critica,” I. cap.
xxviii,
the burden his
brethren were wont to impose upon a friar penanced as was he.
His petition was
dismissed, the Grand Inquisitor refusing to alter the sentence ; and Llorente
adds that the Capuchin died three years later in the convent to which he was
sent.
How far the crime was
rampant when the Inquisition was entrusted with its prosecution may be
gathered from the statistics given by H. C. Lea.1 It appears from
these that in the city of Toledo alone, during the first thirty-five years that
the matter was in the hands of the Holy Office, fifty-two sentences were passed
upon priests found guilty of “ solicitation,” and it is not to be supposed, as
Lea very shrewdly observes, that delations were forthcoming in more than a proportion
of the cases that occurred, or that more than a proportion of these delations
could lead to conviction—since, to avert scandal as much as possible, no
action would be taken save where the indications of guilt were very clear.
This view is
certainly supported by the injunction of caution and the other instructions in
the Manual under the heading “ Causas de Solicitaciones,” already cited.
Finally on this
subject, Llorente’s statistics show that the offenders were chiefly friars ;
the proportion of secular priests convicted being only one in ten. This does
not, however, signify greater chastity on the part of secular priests. Llorente
offers the obvious explanation—an explanation too obvious to need repeating
here.2
Another offence that
came later to be added to those within the jurisdiction of the Holy Office was
that of usury. But in Torquemada’s day neither this nor solicitation was
allowed to be the concern of the Inquisition.
1 “ History
of the Spanish Inquisition,” vol. iv. p. 135.
* " Historia Critica,” I.
cap. xxvitf,
In its methods of
procedure the tribunal of the Holy Office under the zealous rule of the Prior
of Holy Cross followed closely upon the lines laid down by Eymeric. Indeed in
the “ Cartilla ” or “ Manual ” that was issued later for the use of
inquisitors—of which several editions are in existence to-day—these rules taken
bodily from the “ Directorium ” were incorporated as a supplement to the code
promulgated by Torquemada, consisting of the articles already considered and of
others to be added later.
These methods we will
now consider.
The accused was
brought before the tribunal sitting in the audience-chamber of the Holy
Office—or Holy House (Casa Santa) as the premises of the Inquisition came to be
styled.
The court was
composed of at least one of the inquisitors delegated by Torquemada, the
diocesan ordinary, the fiscal advocate, and a notary to take down all that
might transpire. They were seated about a table upon which stood a tall
crucifix, between two candles, and the Gospels upon which the accused was to
be sworn.
The oath being
administered, the prisoner was asked his name, birthplace, particulars of his
family, and the diocese in which he resided. Next he was vaguely questioned as
to whether he had heard speak of such matters as those upon which he was
accused.1
Pegna warns
inquisitors against being too precise in their questions, lest they should
suggest answers to the accused.3 Another reason for this vagueness
was that being precisely questioned the accused might in his answers confine
himself to the matter of those questions, whilst where the inquiry was
conducted in vague, general terms, he might in his reply betray matters or
persons hitherto unsuspected.
Obviously with the
same end in view, the scholiast
1 Eymeric,
pars iii. p. 286—“ Modus interrogandi reum accustum,”
* “ Directorum,” pars. iii. Schol. xix.
suggests that the
accused be asked whether he knows why he has been arrested, and whom he
suspects of having accused him ; whilst as a means of instantly testing whether
he is an observer of his Catholic duties the inquisitors are instructed to ask
him who is his confessor and when he was last at confession. The answer of one
who was secretly an apostate, or even who had neglected to comply with his
religious duties as prescribed, must necessarily be enormously incriminating.
It would justify violent suspicion of heresy against him, which has already
been considered, together with its consequences.
Pegna further enjoins
inquisitors to be careful that they do not afford the accused any means of
evading their questions, and not to be imposed upon by protestations or tears,
heretics being, he assures them, of an extreme cunning in dissembling their
errors.
Eymeric specifies ten
different methods employed by heretics to trick inquisitors. These are not of
any real importance, nor do they leave us in the least convinced that any such
ruses were actually employed. They are obviously based upon an intimate acquaintance
with priestly guile rather than upon any experience of the craftiness of actual
heretics. They may, in short, be said to be just such ruses as the inquisitors
themselves might employ if they found the tables turned upon themselves and the
heretic sitting in the seat of justice.
He urges the
inquisitors to meet guile with guile : “ ut clavus clavo retundatur.” He
justifies recourse to hypocrisy and even to falsehood, telling the inquisitors
that thus they will be in a position to say: “ Cum essem astutus dolo vos
cepi,” and to the ten evasive methods which he asserts are adopted by heretics,
he bids their paternities oppose ten specified rules by which to capture and
entrap them.
These rules and
Pegna’s commentaries upon them are worth attention for the sake of the intimate
glimpse they afford us of the mediaeval ecclesiastical mind.
The accused is to be
compelled by repeated examinations to return clear and precise answers to the
questions asked.
If the accused
heretic is resolved not to confess his fault, the inquisitor should address him
with great sweetness (blande et mansuete), giving him to understand that all
is already known to the court, speaking as follows :
“ Look now, I pity
you who are so deluded in your credulity, and whose soul is being lost; you are
at fault, but the greater fault lies with him who has instructed you in these
things. Do not, then, take the sin of others upon yourself, and do not make
yourself out a master in matters in which you have been no more than a pupil.
Confess the truth to me, because, as you see, I already know the whole affair.
And so that you may not lose your reputation, and that I may shortly liberate
and pardon you and you may go your ways home, tell me who has led you— you who
knew no evil—into this error.”
By similar kind words
(bona verba), always imperturbable {sine turbatione), let the inquisitor
proceed, assuming the main fact to be true and confining his questions to the
circumstances.
Pegna adds another
formula, which he says was employed by Fr. Ivonet. Thus :
“ Do not fear to
confess all. You will have thought they were good men who taught you so-and-so
; you lent ear to them freely in that belief, etc. . . .You have behaved with
credulous simplicity towards people whom you believed good and of whom you knew
no evil. It might very well happen to much wiser men than you to be so
mistaken.” 1
Thus was the wretch
coaxed to self-betrayal, caressed and stroked by the velvet glove that muffled
and dissembled the iron hand within.
In the case of a
heretic against whom the witnesses have not supplied matter for complete
1 Schol.
xxvii (pars iii.).
conviction, let him
be brought before the inquisitor and let the inquisitor question him at random.
When the accused shall have denied something (iquando negat hoc vel illud) that
has been put to him, let the inquisitor take up the minutes of the preceding
examinations, turn the leaves and say:
“ It is clear that
you conceal the truth; cease to employ dissimulation.”
Thus the accused may
suppose that he is convicted, and that the minutes supply proof against him.
Or let the inquisitor
hold a document in his hand, and when the accused denies, let him feign
astonishment and exclaim :
“ How can you deny
such a thing? Is it not clear to me?” He will then peruse his document anew,
making changes, and then reading once more, let him say, “ I was right! Speak,
then, since you perceive that I know.”
The inquisitor must
be careful not to enter into any details that might betray his ignorance to the
accused. Let him keep to generalities.
If the accused
persists in his denial, the inquisitor may tell him that he is about to set out
upon a journey and that he doesn’t know when he will be returning. Thus :
“ Look now, I pity
you, and I wanted you to tell me the truth, for I am anxious to expedite the
affair and yourself. But since you are obstinate in refusing to confess, I must
leave you in prison and in irons until I return ; and I am sorry, because I do
not know when I shall return.”
If the accused
persists in denial, let the inquisitors multiply examinations and questions ;
then either the accused will confess, or (becoming confused) will contradict
himself. If he contradicts himself that will suffice to put him to torture,
that thus the truth may be extracted from his mouth. But frequent interrogations
should not be employed save with one of extreme stubbornness, because to
frequent questions upon the
same matter it is
easy to obtain variable answers ; there is hardly anybody who would not be
surprised into a contradiction.
Here we have a
glimpse of the extraordinary flexibility of the inquisitorial conscience. The
letter of the law must ever be observed in all proceedings ; but its spirit
must by all means be circumvented where it is expedient to do so. Certain
conditions, presently to be examined, must be present before an accused could
be put to torture. One of these was that under examination he should contradict
himself. This rule they scrupulously observed ; but they had no qualms on the
score of bringing about the requisite condition by a trick—of compelling the
accused to contradict himself by repeated questions upon the same subject. And
Eymeric himself admits that hardly anybody could avoid varying in his answers
under such a test.
It may be
uncharitable to suppose that the last paragraph of this rule is intended as a
hint rather than as the warning it pretends to be. But it is a suspicion which
the further consideration of the inquisitorial conscience must inspire in
every thoughtful mind. It is so much of a piece with the inquisitors’
extraordinary attitude towards the letter of the law to proceed in that way.
If the accused still
persists in denial, the inquisitor should now soften his conduct ; let him
contrive that the prisoner has better food, and that worthy people visit him
and win his confidence; these shall then advise him to confess, promise that
the inquisitor will pardon him (faciet sibi gratiam), and that they
themselves will act as mediators.
The inquisitor
himself may in the end go so far as to join them, and promise to accord grace
(i.e. pardon) to the accused, and grant him this grace in effect, since all is
grace that is done in the conversion of heretics ; penances being themselves
graces and re- 12
medies. When the
accused, having confessed his crime, demands the promised “ grace,” let him be
answered in general terms that he shall receive even more than he could ask, so
that the whole truth may be discovered and the heretic converted1—“and
his soul saved, at least,” adds Pegna.2
Thoroughly to
appreciate the deliberate duplicity here practised, it is necessary to take
into account the double or even treble meaning of the term grace—
“gratia”—employed by Eymeric, and having in Spanish {i.e. its equivalent
“gracia”) precisely the same meanings as in Latin.
Although not so
popularly used in these various meanings, the English term “ grace ” can also
signify (a) the prerogative of mercy exercised as a complete pardon, (b) the
same prerogative exercised to relieve part of the penalty incurred, or (c) a
state of acceptance with God.
The accused was
deliberately led to suppose that “ gratia ” was employed in the sense of a
complete pardon. It remained with the inquisitor to quiet his conscience for
this suggestio falsi by preferring the letter to the spirit of his promise ; he
would enlighten the accused that by “grace” no more was meant than a remission
of part of the penalty incurred (an insignificant remission usually), or even
that all that he had in mind was the grace of divine favour into which his soul
would enter—so that this might be saved at least, as Pegna explains.
Pegna has a good deal
more to say on the same subject, and all of it is extremely interesting.
He propounds the
questions : “ May an inquisitor employ this ruse to discover the truth ? If he
enters into such a promise is he not obliged to keep it ? ” By this latter
question he means, of course, the promise to pardon which the prisoner was given
to understand was made him.
1 “
Directorium,” iii. p. 293.
8 Schol.
xxix. (lib. iii.).
He proceeds to tell
us that Dr. Cuchalon decided the first of these questions by approving the use
of dissimulation, justifying it by the instance of Solomon’s judgment between
the mothers.
It really seems as if
there is nothing that theologians cannot justify by inversion, subversion, or
perversion of some precedent (more or less apocryphal in itself) to suit their
ends.
The scholiast himself
agrees with the reverend doctor, and considers that although jurisconsults may
disapprove of such methods in civil courts, it is quite fit and proper to use
them in the courts of the Holy Office ; explaining that the inquisitor has
ampler powers than the civil judge [which seems to be an extraordinary reason
for justifying his abuse of them].
Thus, Pegna pursues,
in this edifying treatise upon the uses of hypocrisy, provided that the
inquisitor does not promise the offender absolute impunity, he may always
promise him “ grace ” (which by the offender is taken to signify “ absolute
impunity ”) and keep his promise by diminishing somewhat the canonical pains
that depend upon himself.
In actual practice
this would mean that a heretic who has incurred the stake may be promised
pardon if he will confess to the sins of which it is necessary to convict him
before he can be burnt. And when, having confessed and delivered himself into
the hands of the inquisitor, he claims his pardon, he is to be satisfied with
the answer that the pardon meant was pardon for his sins—absolution, that his
soul may be saved when they burn his body.
On the score of the
second question propounded by the scholiast—“ If the inquisitor enters into
such a promise is he not obliged to keep it ? ”—he answers it by telling us
that many theologians do not consider there is any such obligation on the part
of the inquisitor. This attitude they explain by urging that such a fraud is
salutary and for the public good ; and, further, that if it is licit to extract
the truth by torture,
it is surely much
more so to accomplish it by dissimulation—verbis fictis.
This is the general
but by no means the universal opinion, we gather. There are some writers who
are opposed to it. And now the scholiast becomes more extraordinary still. Hear
him :
“ These two divergent
opinions may be reconciled by considering that whatever promises the
inquisitors make, they are not to be understood to apply to anything beyond the
penalties whose rigour the Inquisition has the right to lessen—namely,
canonical penances, and not those by law prescribed.”
He writes this
knowing that these promises are understood by the prisoner to mean something
very different—that the prisoner is desired so to understand them, made so to
understand them.
The honesty of
Pegna’s reasoning is not to be suspected. He is not an apologist of the Holy
Office writing for the world in general, and employing bad arguments perforce
because he must make the best of the only ones available, even though he should
lapse into suspicion of bad faith. He is writing, as a preceptor, for the
private eye of the inquisitor. Therefore we can only conclude that these
learned casuists who plunge into such profundities of thought and pursue such
labyrinthine courses of reasoning had utterly failed to grasp the elementary
moral fact that falsehood does not lie in the word uttered, but in the idea
conveyed.
“ However little,” he
continues, in the course of polishing this gem of casuistry, “ may be the
remission granted by the inquisitor, it will always be sufficient to fulfil his
promise.”
You see what a
stickler he is for the letter of the law. You shall see a good deal more of the
same sort of thing before we have gone much further.
But here the
scholiast begins to labour. His conscience is stirring; possibly a ray of doubt
pene
trates his gloomy
confidence that right is wrong and wrong is right. And so, we fancy, to quiet
these uneasy stirrings comes the last paragraph on this subject :
“ However, for
greater safety of conscience, inquisitors should make no promises save in very
general terms, and never promise more than they can fulfil.”1
There is one more of
Eymeric’s ruses for combating the guile of stubborn heretics :
Let the inquisitor
obtain an accomplice of the accused, or else a person esteemed by the latter
and in the inquisitor’s confidence, and engage him to talk often to the accused
and extract his secret from him. If necessary, let this person pretend to be of
the same heretical sect, to have abjured through fear, and to have declared all
to the inquisitor.
Then one evening,
when the accused shall have gained confidence in this visitor, let the latter
remain until he can say that it is too late to return home and that he will
spend the night in the prison. Let persons be suitably placed to hear the
conversation of the accused and if possible a notary to take down in writing
the confessions of the heretic, who should now be drawn by the spy into
relating all that he has done.
Upon this subject
Pegna moralizes 2 for the benefit of the spy, pointing out how the
latter may go about his very turpid task without involving himself in falsehood
or besmirching in the least the delicate, sensitive soul that we naturally
suppose must animate him.
“ Be it noted that
the spy, simulating friendship and seeking to draw from the accused a
confession of his crime, may very well pretend to be of the sect of
1 See
" Directorium,” iii. Schol. xxix.
* “Directorium,’’iii, Schol. xxvi.
the accused, but”
[mark the warning] “he must not say so, because in saying so he would at least
commit a venial sin, and we know that such must not be committed upon any
grounds whatever.”
Thus the scholiast.
He makes it perfectly clear that a man may simulate friendship for another for
the purpose of betraying that other to his death ; that to make that betrayal
more certain he may even pretend to hold the same religious convictions ; all
this may he do and yet commit no sin—not even a venial sin—so long as he does
not actually clothe his pretence in words. What a store the casuist sets by
words!
It is just such an
argument as Caiaphas might have employed with Judas Iscariot one evening in
Jerusalem.
It is a cherished
thesis with apologists of the Holy Office that in its judicial proceedings it
did neither more nor less than what was being done in its day in the civil
courts ; that if its methods were barbarous—if they shock us now—we are to
remember that they were the perfectly ordinary judicial methods of their time.
But there was no
secular court in Europe in the fifteenth century—steeped as that century was in
dissimulation and bad faith—that would not have scorned to have made such
dishonourable and dishonouring methods as these an acknowledged, regular and
integral part of its procedure.
Pegna himself reveals
the fact, when he finds it necessary further to justify these practices
precisely because they were not in use in the civil courts :
“ Perchance the
authority of Aristoteles—who out of the bosom of Paganism condemned all manner
of dissimulation—may be opposed to us, as well as that of the jurisconsults who
disapprove of artifices of which judges may make use to extract the truth. But
there are two forms of artifice : one addressed
to an evil end, which
must not be permitted; the other aiming at discovering truth, which none could
blame.” 1
When confession has
been obtained it would be idle, Eymeric points out, to grant the delinquent a
defence. “For although in civil courts the confession of a crime does not
suffice without proof, it suffices here.” The reason advanced for this is as
specious as any in the “ Directorium ” : “ Heresy being a sin of the soul,
confession may be the only evidence possible.”
Where an advocate was
granted to conduct the defence of an accused, we have seen in Art. XVI of
Torquemada’s “ Instructions ” that he was under the obligation to relinquish
such defence the moment he realized the guilt of his client, since by canon law
an advocate was forbidden to plead for a heretic in any court, civil or
ecclesiastical, or in any cause whatsoever—whether connected with heresy or
any other matter.
On the subject of
witnesses, it should be added to what already has been said in the previous
chapter that the Inquisition, whilst admitting the testimony of any man, even
though he should be excommunicate or a heretic, so long as such testimony was
adverse to the accused, refused to admit witnesses for the defence who were
themselves tainted with heresy.
Since to bear witness
in defence of a person charged with heresy might result in the witness himself
becoming suspect, it will be understood that witnesses for the defence were not
easily procured by the accused.
1 Schol.
xxvi. lib. iii.
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,”1 are (a) the
inconsistence of the accused’s replies upon matters of detail whilst denying
the main fact; (6) 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.) _ _
(3) When in the absence of witnesses there are
grounds for vehement or violent suspicion.
(f) When there is no
evil “ reputation ” 1 Pars iii. quaest. Ixi.
184
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.) 1
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.2
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
1 Schol. cxviii.; lib. iii.
* " Directorium,” pars
iii. p. 313 et seq.
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
re ease 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 1 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.2
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
1 Schol.
cxviii.; lib. iii.
’, “ Historia
Inquisitionis,” p. 332.
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 super- erogative cruelty was practised at a great Auto de F6 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.1
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.
1 See, inter alia, Melgares Marin, “ Procedimientos de la
Inquisicion,” i. p. 253. This author says that sometimes the patient
would be left hanging for as long as three hours.
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.1
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.
1 See Melgares Marin, “ Procedimientos,” i. p. 256.
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.1
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?
1 Schol.
cxviii. lib. iii.
* “ Directorium,” pars iii. quaest. lxxiii.
THE JURISPRUDENCE OF
THE HOLY OFFICE—THE SECULAR ARM
The
comparatively
light sentences imposed upon those who came forward to abjure heresies which
they were suspected of harbouring, and upon those who submitted to canonical
purgation to cleanse them of “ evil reputation,” have already been considered.
It remains to be seen
how the Holy Office dealt with negativos—i.e. those who persisted in
refusal to confess a first offence of heresy or apostasy after their guilt
had been established to the satisfaction of the court—and with relapsos—i.e.
those who were convicted of having relapsed into error after once having been
penanced and pardoned.
Offenders in either
of these two classes were to be abandoned to the secular arm—the ecclesiastical
euphemism for death by fire. The same fate also awaited impenitent heretics and
contumacious heretics.
He who after having
been convicted by sufficient witnesses persisted in denying his guilt should,
says Eymeric, be abandoned to the secular arm upon the ground that he who
denies a crime which has been proved against him is obviously impenitent.1
The impenitence is by
no means obvious. It is possible, after all, that the accused might deny
because he was innocent and a good Catholic. And whilst, as we shall see, this
possibility is not altogether ignored, yet it is given very secondary
consideration.
1 11
Directorium,” pars ii. qusest. xxxiv.
194
It was the
inquisitor’s business to assume the guilt of any one brought before him.
It is true, however,
that Eymeric urges the inquisitors to proceed very carefully in the
examination of the witnesses against such a man ; he recommends them to give
the accused time in which to resolve himself to confess, and to employ every
possible means to obtain such confession.
He counsels them to
confine the prisoner in an uncomfortable dungeon, fettered hand and foot; there
to visit him frequently and exhort him to confess. Should he ultimately do so,
he is to be treated as a penitent heretic1—in other words he is to
escape the fire but suffer perpetual imprisonment.
The term perpetual
imprisonment, or perpetual immuration, is not to be accepted too literally. It
lay at the discretion of the inquisitors to modify and commute part of such
sentences, and this discretion they exercised so far as the imprisonment was
concerned. But the confiscation of the prisoner’s property and the infamy
attaching to himself, his children, and his grandchildren—by far the heavier
part of the punishment—could not in any way be commuted.
However tardily
confession might come from the negativo, the inquisitors must accept and
recognize it. Even if he were already bound to the stake, and, at last, being
taken with the fear of death, he turned to the friar who never left him until
the faggots were blazing, admitted his guilt and offered to abjure his heresy,
his life would be spared. And this for all that they recognized that a
confession in such extremes was wrung from him by “ the fear of death rather than
any love of truth.”
It must naturally
occur to any one that, conducted in secret as were the examinations of the
witnesses, and no opportunity being afforded the accused of demolishing the
evidence offered against him, since he was rarely informed of its extent, many
a good Catholic, 1 11 Directorium,” iii. p. 338.
or, at least, many a
man innocent of all heretical practices, must have gone to his death as a
negativo. For the methods of the Holy Office opened the door extraordinarily
wide to malevolence; and human nature being such as it is—and such as it was in
the fifteenth century—it is not to be supposed that malevolence never seized
the chance, that it never slunk in through that gaping door to vent itself in
such close and sheltered secrecy—to strike in the back, in the dark, with
almost perfect immunity to itself, at the man who was hated, or envied, or whom
it was desired to supplant.
It was not sufficient
for the prisoner to protest his innocence. He must prove it categorically. An
innocent man might be unable to furnish categorical proof; witnesses for the
defence were extremely difficult to obtain by one who was charged with heresy ;
it was a dangerous thing to testify in favour of such a man ; should his
conviction none the less follow, the witness for the defence might find himself
prosecuted as a befriender, or fautor, of heretics. Yet, even when testimony
for the defence was obtained, the judges leaned upon principle to the side of
the accusers ; and since they considered it their mission to convict rather
than to judge, they would always assume that the accusers were better informed
than the defenders.
Therefore this danger
of death to the innocent existed. The inquisitors themselves did not lose sight
of it, for they lost sight of nothing. But how did they provide for it ? Pegna
has a great deal to say upon the subject. He tells us that some authorities
pretend that when a negativus protests that he staunchly believes all that is
taught by the Roman Catholic Church such a man should not be abandoned to the
secular arm.
But this is an
argument mentioned by the scholiast merely that he may demolish it. It is
indefensible, he says with confidence; and, as indefensible, it is almost
universally rejected.
Torquemada most
certainly did not favour it. He lays it down clearly in Art. XXIV of his first
“ Instrucciones ” that a negativo must be deemed an impenitent heretic, however
much he may protest his Catholicism. The accused will not satisfy the Church,
which demands confession of his fault solely that she may pardon it; and she
cannot pardon it until it is confessed. That is the inquisitorial view of the
matter.
It is evident that
the danger of occasionally burning an innocent man did not perturb the
inquisitorial mind. In fact, Pegna reveals to the full the equanimity with
which it could contemplate such an accident.
“ After all,” says
he, “ should an innocent person be unjustly condemned, he should not complain
of the sentence of the Church, which was founded upon sufficient proof, and
which cannot judge of what is hidden. If false witnesses condemned him, he
should receive the sentence with resignation, and rejoice in dying for the
truth.”1
He is also, we are to
suppose, to rejoice with the same lightheartedness at the prospect of his
children’s destitution and infamy.
Anything, it seems,
is possible to argument, and the craziest argument may be convincing to him who
employs it. Pegna makes this abundantly clear.
An innocent man might
be tempted to save his life by a falsehood, by making the desired confession ;
and many a man may so have escaped burning. This also the scholiast duly
weighs. He propounds the question whether a man convicted by false witnesses is
justified in saving his life by a confession of crimes which he has not
committed.2
He contends that,
reputation being an external good, each is at liberty to sacrifice it to avoid
torments
1 " Sed si fortassis per iniquos testis est
convictus, ferat id aequo
animo ac leetatur
quod pro veritatem patiatur.” " Directorium,” pars iii. Schol. lxvi.
3 Schol.
lxviii. pars iii.
that are hurtful, or
to save his life, which is the most precious of all possessions.
In this contention
the scholiast lacks his usual speciousness. He has entirely overlooked that
whether an innocent man confesses or not, whether he is burnt or sent to
perpetual imprisonment, his reputation is equally blasted. The inquisitors see
to that. His silence is interpreted as impenitence.
But it is evident
that Pegna himself is not quite satisfied with what he urges. He vacillates a
little. Strong swimmer though he is, these swirling waters of casuistry begin
to give him trouble. He seems here to turn in an attempt to regain the shore. “
Who thus accuses himself,” he concludes, “ commits a venial sin against the
love which he owes himself and a falsehood in confessing a crime which he has
not committed. This falsehood is particularly criminal when uttered to a judge
who examines juridically, for it then becomes a mortal sin. And even though it
were no more than venial, it would not be permitted to commit it for the sake
of avoiding death or torture.”
“ Therefore,” he sums
up, “ however hard it may seem for an innocent man condemned as a negativus to
die under such circumstances, his confessor must exhort him not to accuse
himself falsely, reminding him that if he suffers death with resignation he
will obtain the martyr’s immortal crown.”
In short, to burn at
the stake for crimes never committed is a boon, a privilege, a glory to be
enjoyed with a profound gratitude towards the inquisitors who vouchsafed it.
One cannot help a pang of regret at the thought that the scholiast himself
should have been denied that glory.
A person was
considered relapstis—relapsed into heresy—not only if, as in the case of the
self-delator who availed himself of the edict of grace, he had once been
pardoned an avowed heresy, but if he had once abjured a heresy of which he bad
been suspected
either vehemently or
violently. And it was of no account whether the heresy of which he was now
convicted was that particular one of which formerly he had been suspected, or
an entirely fresh one. Moreover, to convict as a relapsed heretic one who had
already abjured, it was sufficient to show that he held intercourse with
heretics.
Further, a person
would be dealt with as relapstis in the event of formal proof appearing that he
had actually committed the heresy which he had abjured as suspect, although his
conduct since abjuration might have been entirely blameless. For it was argued
that these fresh proofs, although acquired after abjuration, revealed the
person’s real guilt, and showed that he had been judged too leniently in being
allowed to abjure merely upon suspicion.1
In fact, it was held
that he had acted in bad faith towards the inquisitors ; that he had neglected to
confess his sin when he was given the opportunity ; that he had attempted to
defraud the treasury of his property, which was due to it by confiscation.
Since he had not made an open and complete confession, it was argued that he
was clearly an impenitent heretic, for whom there could be no mercy—or only a
very slight one, as we shall see.
Canonical purgation
entailed the same sequel as abjuration for one against whom proofs of heresy
were afterwards forthcoming. Thus, to quote an instance given by Pegna : if a
man should be suspected of thinking that heretics should be tolerated, and if
after being canonically purged of the offence against the Faith contained in
that sentiment of which he was suspected, it should be proved against him that
his acts or words had actually expressed that sentiment, he must be considered
a relapsed heretic.
Torquemada further
decreed that any who after reconciliation should fail to fulfil the penance
imposed upon him, or any part of it, must be deemed re-
1 Eymeric,
lib. ii.; quEest. lviii. and Pegna, lib. ii.; Schol. lxiv^
lapsed. The argument,
obviously, was that a neglect of this penance showed a want of proper
contrition, which could only be explained in one way.
A relapsed heretic,
once his guilt was thoroughly established, must be “abandoned to the secular
arm,” and this notwithstanding any repentance he might manifest or any promises
he might make for the future. “ Sine audientia quacumque,” says Eymeric.1
“In effect,” adds his commentator, “it is enough that such people should once
have defrauded the Church by false confession ”2—a statement this,
diametrically opposed to the injunction of the Founder of Christianity on the
score of forgiveness.
All the mercy they
vouchsafed a relapsed heretic who confessed and expressed repentance was the
mercy of being strangled at the stake before his body was burnt.
Eymeric instructs
inquisitors to see that the prisoner is visited and entertained on the subject
of contempt for this world, the miseries of this life and the joys of Paradise.
He should be given to understand that there is no hope of his escaping temporal
death, and he should be induced to put the affairs of his conscience in order.
He is to be accorded the sacraments of Penitence and the Eucharist if he
solicits them with humility. Further, the inquisitor is advised not to visit
him personally, lest the sight of him should excite the sin of anger in the
doomed man, and so turn him from the sentiments of patience and penance which
are to be inspired in him.
It would seem at least
that the inquisitors had no delusions as to the sentiments which the sight of
them inspired in their victims, just as it seems that they were able to endure
these with Christian resignation —perhaps even with that sense of martyrdom of
him who accounts himself misunderstood or misjudged.
After some
days thus employed in preparing the prisoner for death, the inquisitor should
advise the
1 Lib. iii. p. 331. 2 Lib. ii. Schol. lxiv.
secular justices of
the day and hour and place when and where he would abandon to them a heretic.
At the same time an announcement should be made to the people inviting them to
attend, as the inquisitor is to preach a sermon of the Faith, and those who are
present will gain the usual indulgences.1
It is not necessary
at present to enter into particulars of the dread ceremonial, the ghastly,
almost theatrical, solemnities that went to compose the greatest horror that
has sprung from the womb of Christianity : the Auto de F£.
“An Asiatic,” says
Voltaire, “ arriving in Madrid on the day of an Auto de Fe, would doubt whether
here was a festival, a religious celebration, a sacrifice, or a massacre. It is
all of these. They reproach Montezuma with sacrificing human captives to God.
What would he have said had he witnessed an Auto de F6 ? ” 2
Occasion to enter
into these details will occur later. We are more concerned at the moment with
the words of the inquisitors than with their acts, and it is necessary on the
subject of the laws that governed the Auto de F£ to touch upon quite the most
extraordinary of all the quibbles by means of which the Holy Office avoided—in
the letter—committing an irregularity.
Nothing in the whole
of its jurisprudence savours more rankly of hypocrisy than this matter of
abandoning a heretic to the secular arm. It is the very last word in that
science which it is the fashion to call “Jesuitism,” but which we think might
quite as aptly and justly be termed “ Dominicanism.” Yet it would be very rash
to say that these men were prompted by conscious hypocrisy. Such is certainly
not the inference to be drawn from their jurisprudence. Stupidity —the
stupidity of the man of one idea, of the man who is able to perceive but one
thing at a time—was, rather than hypocrisy, responsible for what they did.
1 Eymeric,
lib. iii. p. 331.
2 See “
Essai sur les Mceurs.”
They were imbued with
a passion for formality, for procedure that should be scrupulously correct,
scrupulously in accordance with the letter of the law ; and they justified
their circumvention, their perversion of its spirit, with crazy arguments that
must at least have been convincing to themselves, obfuscated as they were by
the fanaticism that bubbled through their extraordinary intelligences.
We say that these
arguments must have been convincing to themselves, because we find them in
books that were never intended to be perused by any but inquisitors and
ecclesiastics. Since these books were never meant to be placed before the
world, no suspicion can attach to them of having deliberately and hypocritically
resorted to sophistries for the purpose of hoodwinking the lay mind.
It was themselves
they hoodwinked—by the arguments they themselves conceived—and although it is
undeniable that they practised a deception which must provoke the scorn of
every thoughtful man, yet it must be remembered that this deception was the
selfdeception that lies in wait for every fanatic, whatever the subject of his
fanaticism. By staring too long and too intently at one object, that object
itself becomes blurred and indistinct.
“ Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine."
o _
That was the
principle that governed them. Conceive it!
The tenet that a
Christian must not be guilty of shedding blood or causing the death of a
fellow-creature has been touched upon more than once in these pages. It has
been seen how in the very dawn of Christianity the Christian’s refusal to bear
arms in the service of the State gave rise to friction with the Roman authorities,
and, being construed into insubordination, was one of the causes of the
persecutions to which Christians were subjected in the first and second
centuries. As time went on, under stress of the necessities of this world, the
Christian was forced to abandon that fine
and loftily
humanitarian ideal. Soon he had not only abandoned it under pressure of
expediency, but he had forgotten it altogether; so that he donned the cross of
the crusader, and went forth sword in hand, exultantly, to shed the blood of
the infidel in the name of that tender Founder Whose disciple had brought to
Rome the great Message of Forbearance.
But however much it
might be accounted justifiable and even necessary for the Christian layman to
wield the sword, the priest still continued under the prohibition to shed
blood or compass the death of any man. And if a priest lay under such an
injunction, so must a tribunal that was controlled by priests.
Therefore it follows
that not only was it admittedly illicit for the inquisitor to pass a capital
sentence, to send a man to his death, but even to be in any way a party to such
an act.
This was the letter
of the law, and, happen what might, that letter must suffer no violence. Nor
did it. When the accused was found guilty of heresy, when he was impenitent, or
relapsed, the inquisitor was careful that the sentence he passed contained no
single word that could render him responsible for the delinquent’s death. Far
from it. The inquisitors earnestly implored the secular justiciaries to whom
they abandoned him not to do him any hurt whatever.
But consider the
actual formula of the sentence as prescribed by Eymeric. It concluded thus :
“ The Church of God
can do no more for you, since you have already abused its goodness. . . .
Therefore we cast you out from the Church, and we abandon you to the secular
justice, beseeching it none the less, and earnestly, so to moderate its
sentence that it may deal with you without shedding your blood or putting you
in danger of death.”1
1 "Rogamus tamen et efficaciter dictam curiam
ssecularem quod, circa te, citra sanguinis effusionem et mortis periculum sententiam
suam moderetur.’’—" Directorium,” pars iii.—11 Forma
Ferendi Sententiam,” P- 549.
They were careful not
so much as to say that they delivered him to the secular arm; for delivery suggests
activity in a matter in which they must remain absolutely passive. They merely
abandoned him. Pilate-like, they washed their hands of him. If the secular
justiciaries chose to bear him away and burn him at the stake in spite of their
“earnest intercessions ” to the contrary, that was the secular justiciaries’ affair.
Thus was the letter
of the law most scrupulously observed, and the inquisitor displayed in his
intercession on the heretic’s behalf the benignity proper to his sacerdotal
office. His conscience was entirely at peace.
For the rest, he
knew, of course, that there was a bull of Innocent IV, known as “ad
extirpanda,” which compelled the secular justiciaries, under pain of greater
excommunication, and of being themselves prosecuted as heretics and fautores,
to put to death within a term of not more than five days any convicted heretic
taken within their jurisdiction.
Francesco Pegna
recommends inquisitors to be careful not to omit the intercession on the
prisoner’s behalf, lest they should render themselves guilty of an
irregularity. At the same time he raises the interesting question whether an
inquisitor can reconcile this intercession with his conscience—not, as you
might suppose, upon the score of the dissimulation it entails ; but purely on
the ground that it is most strictly forbidden to intercede on behalf of
heretics ; to do so, indeed, is to incur suspicion of being a befriender of
heretics—an offence as punishable as heresy itself.
This question he has
no difficulty in answering. Thus:
“In truth it would
not be permitted to employ ' for a heretic an intercession that would be of any
advantage to him, or which tended to hinder the justice which is to be executed
upon his crime, but only an intercession whose aim it is to relieve
the inquisitor of the
irregularity he might otherwise incur.”
He goes on to say
that when the heretic has been abandoned to the secular justiciaries, the
latter must pronounce their own sentence and conduct him to the place of
execution, permitting him to be accompanied by pious men, who will pray for
him and not leave him until he shall have delivered up his soul. And he reminds
the inquisitors—though it hardly seems necessary—that should the magistrates
delay in putting to death a heretic who has been abandoned to them, they must
be regarded as fautores and themselves prosecuted.
Innocent IV, as we
have seen, allowed the magistrates a term of five days in which to do their
duty in this matter, and in Italy it was usual to take the heretics back to
prison after sentence, and bring them forth again upon a week-day—always within
the prescribed term—to be burnt. In Spain, however, the custom was that the
magistrates having pronounced their own sentence—as soon as the heretic was
abandoned to them—should immediately proceed to execute it.
According to some
authorities the sentence, by which was meant the Auto de F£ generally, should
not take place in church. Pegna agrees with these, but not upon the score of
the desecration of sanctuary, which was their reason. He agrees because in a
large open space higher scaffolds can be erected for the Auto, and greater
multitudes can assemble to witness this uplifting spectacle of the triumph of
the Faith. On the same grounds does he belittle those who maintain that
heretics should not be put to death on Sundays. He considers it quite the best
day of the week, and excellent the Spanish custom that appoints it for the
Auto, “ for,” he says, “ it is good that large multitudes should attend, so
that fear may turn them from evil ways ; the spectacle being one that inspires
the attendance with terror
and presents a fearful image of the last judgment.”
That it is expedient
to put heretics to death no pious authority has ever ventured to dispute. But
there have been differences of opinion on the subject of the means by which
this should be done. The scholiast is entirely on the side of the large
majority that considers fire the proper instrument, and actually cites the
Saviour’s own authority for this : “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth
as a branch that is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire,
and they are burned ” (John xv. 6).
If the accused should
happen to be a cleric, he must be unfrocked and degraded by a bishop before
being arrayed in the hideous sanbenito and abandoned to the secular arm, whilst
those convicted of contumacy were—if still absent at the time of the
sentence—to be burnt in effigy pending their capture, when, without further
trial, they would be burnt alive.
In effigy also were
burnt those convicted after death, these effigies being cast into the flames
together with the remains of the dead man, which were exhumed for the purpose.
Reference has several
times been made here to the sanbenito, which was imposed upon all whom the Holy
Office found guilty of heresy, whether reconciled or abandoned, and also upon
those who were suspected in the degree violenter.
In this garment they
attended the Auto de Fe, and went to execution if they were abandoned ; or they
might be required to wear it for varying periods after reconciliation, and in
some instances for as long as they lived, to advertise their infamy.
It was the perversion
into a garb of shame and disgrace of the penitential garment originally prescribed
by St. Dominic; for whereas once it—or,
rather, that from
which it was derived—had been worn even by princes as an outward mark of contrition
for the sins into which they had fallen, it was now imposed that it might
subject its wearer to opprobrium and contempt.
St. Dominic’s
instructions were that it should be a sackcloth habit, of the kind worn by his
own brotherhood, and that its colour might be at the discretion of the wearer
so long as it was sombre. As it had ever been the custom of the Church to bless
the “sack” or tunic worn by members of religious confraternities or by those
upon whom it had been imposed as a penance, such a garment was called a saco
bendito, which in course of time was contracted into sanbenito, though also
known by its proper Spanish name of zamarra.
When the crusade
against the Albigensian heretics was at its height in Southern France, not only
did the crusaders wear the cross upon their garments, but all faithful
Catholics assumed it for their protection ; for —as on the night of the St.
Bartholomew, some four centuries later—no man’s life was safe if he did not
display that device. St. Dominic desired that the penitent should enjoy the
same protection, but so that his penance should still be proclaimed, he was
ordered to wear two crosses, one on each breast.
Later, when the wars
of religion had ceased, and the general wearing of the cross was abandoned, the
Council of Toulouse decreed, in 1229, that these penitential crosses should be
yellow, whilst the Council of Beziers, four years later, going further into the
matter, ordained that they should be two and a half hands long (vertical) by
two hands wide (horizontal), and that they should be made of cloth of the width
of three fingers. Instead of being worn upon the breast, as hitherto, they were
now placed one on the breast and one on the back, with a third on the hood or veil
if hood or veil were worn.
For abettors of
heresy the following solemn
penance was enjoined
by the Council of Tarragona in 1242 :
“ On All Saints’, on
the First Sunday in Advent, on the feasts of Christmas, the Circumcision, the
Epiphany, St. Mary of February (Purification), St. Mary of March, and all
Sundays in Lent, the penitents shall go to the Cathedral to take part in the
procession. They shall be dressed only in their shirts, barefoot, their arms
crossed, and they shall be whipped in the procession by the bishop or parish
priest. Similarly shall they repair to the Cathedral on Ash Wednesday in their
shirts, barefoot, their arms crossed, and submit to banishment from church for
all Lent ; so that during that season they must remain at the church door and
hear the service thence. On Thursday in Holy Week they shall come to the church
to be reconciled in accordance with the canonical provisions, it being
understood that this penance of remaining out of the church through Lent and of
being whipped in procession on the days appointed shall be performed yearly for
the remainder of the penitents’ lives.”
At first, and down to
Eymeric’s day, the sanbenito preserved its original form—a tunic similar to
that worn by the members of regular orders. But in the fourteenth century it
was altered to a scapulary or tabard, with an opening at the top through which
the head was passed ; it was to be of the full width of the body, and to
descend no lower than the knees, lest it should too closely resemble the
scapulary which the regulars wore in addition to their tunic. Soon after it was
resolved that it should be of yellow sackcloth, and that the crosses should be
red.
Once this stage was
reached, it may be said that the transition from a garment solely of penitence
into a garment chiefly of shame and infamy was complete.
We have said that the
imposition of the sanbenito had been falling into desuetude during the
fifteenth century. But for Torquemada it might indeed have
PROCESSION TO AUTO DE
FE.
208] From Limborch’s “ Historia Inquisitionis,”
become entirely
obsolete. It happened, however, that the Prior of Holy Cross perceived the
virtues of it, the salutary results to be obtained from parading the victims of
the Holy Office in that hideous garb. Therefore he revived it, and strongly
enjoined its use by all offenders save those against whom there was no more
than evil reputation, and who submitted themselves to be purged of this
canonically.
It was not, however,
until the famous Ximenes de Cisneros, who became Grand Inquisitor some ten
years after Torquemada’s death—that the sanbenito attained its full
development, the form which it was to preserve until the extinction of the
Inquisition.
Cisneros substituted
for the ordinary rectangular cross worn on back and breast of the sanbenito an
aspa, or St. Andrew’s cross, and he otherwise disposed that the sanbenito
might proclaim the offence and sentence of its wearer. Three varieties were
devised for those who were abjuring a heresy of which they had incurred
suspicion : the suspect of the degree leviter wore a perfectly plain sanbenito
without any cross or other device ; the suspect vehementer wore upon back and
breast one arm only of the St. Andrew’s cross ; the suspect violenter was made
to wear the full cross.
Those actually
convicted of heresy wore in addition to the sanbenito a tall mitre, or
pyramidal cap, made of cardboard and covered with yellow sackcloth ; and that
their precise condition might be distinguished, the following differentiations
were prescribed : the heretic who repented before the passing of sentence, and
who—not being a relapsed—was not to die by fire, bore upon the breast and back
of his sanbenito and upon the front and back of his coroza, as the mitre
was called, a full St. Andrew’s cross ; the relapsed heretic who had repented
before the Auto bore, in addition to the crosses, the device of a bust
upon burning faggots on the nether part of his sanbenito ; further his
sanbenito and coroza were flecked with
tongues of flame,
which pointed downwards to signify that he was not to die by fire, although his
body was to be burnt. He had deserved the charity of being strangled at the
stake before the faggots were ignited. And this mercy, be it added, the Holy
Office conceded to any heretic who at the eleventh hour confessed his guilt
and desired to make his peace with the Church and die, as it were, upon her
loving bosom. To this end the condemned was accompanied from the Auto to the
stake by two friars, who never ceased to exhort him to make confession, save his
body from the temporal torment of physical fire, and his soul from the eternal
torment of spiritual fire.
Finally, the
impenitent heretic bore the same devices as the relapsed penitent, but in his
case the tongues of flame pointed upwards to show that he was to die by them,
and his sanbenito was further daubed with crude paintings of
devils—horrible, grotesque caricatures—to advertise the spirits ruling
over his soul.
Something should by
now have been gathered of the spirit of the Inquisition as reflected in the
pages of Eymeric and his commentator Pegna in that “ Directorium ” upon which
such copious draught has been made for these chapters upon the Jurisprudence of
the Holy Office. It is worth while, before proceeding, to cite another
author’s views upon Justice and Mercy as understood by the Inquisition, and to
consider an illuminating passage from the pen of Garcia de Trasmiera.
This Trasmiera—to
whom reference has been made already—was an Aragonese, an inquisitor who lived
in the seventeenth century—nearly two hundred years after the epoch with which
we are here concerned. We might go to a score of other sources, from Paramo
downwards, for very similar sentiments, and the only reason for choosing this
particular passage from Trasmiera is that it is almost in the nature of an
epitome.
He seems to summarize
the very arguments with which Torquemada and his delegates convinced themselves
not merely of the righteousness, but of the inevitability—if they were to do
their duty by God and man, and fulfil the destinies for which they had been
sent into this world—of the task to which they had set their hands.
“ These two virtues
of Mercy and Justice,” says the Aragonese writer, with all the authority of an
Evangelist, “are so closely united in God, although we imperfectly judge them
to be opposed, that Divine Wisdom but avails Itself of the one, the more
gloriously to exercise the other. The most proper effect of the Divine Mercy,
none doubts, is the salvation of souls, and who can doubt that what in this
court of the Inquisition appears to be rigour of Justice is really medicine
prescribed by Mercy for the good of the delinquents? Just as it would be a
barbarous judgment to attribute to cruelty on the part of the surgeon the
cautery of fire which he employs to destroy the contagious cancer of the
patient, so it would be crass ignorance to suppose that these laws which appear
to be severities are prescribed for any purpose other than that which governs
the surgeon in curing his patient, or a father in punishing his child. Says the
Holy Ghost: ‘ Who does not use the rod hates the child,’ and elsewhere : ‘ God
punishes whom He loves.’ ”1
Could perversity of
interpretation go further? In Rome, in Torquemada’s day, the Father of
Christianity was granting absolutions, commuting the punishment of hanging to
pecuniary penances where such penances were solicited, and justifying such
commutation by reminding Christianity that God does not desire the death of a
sinner, but rather that lie should live and be converted.
It would seem as if
Inquisitor and Pontiff did not see eye to eye in this matter of Mercy and
Justice. To the credit of the Pontiff be it said.
1 11 Vida de
Arbu6s,” p. 57.
Trasmiera, echoing
the inquisitorial casuistry of centuries, holds that the rigour of Justice is
prescribed by Mercy for the good of the delinquents. The impenitent Judaizer
was sent to the stake. How could that redound to his good in this world or the
next ? We could admit a certain logical consummation of their arguments if the
inquisitors had confined themselves to burning those who repented, or those who
were innocent even; by burning these whilst they were in a state of grace they
would have ensured their salvation by abstracting them from all perils of
future sin. But to burn the impenitent upon such grounds as they themselves
urged, believing, as they did, that just as surely as his mortal part was burnt
there at the stake, just so surely would his immortal part burn through all
eternity in hell—that was, clearly, by their own lights, to perpetrate the
murder of his soul.
PEDRO ARBUES DE EPILA
There
is
no difficulty in believing Llorente’s statement—based upon extracts from
contemporary chronicles—to the effect that the Inquisition was not looked upon
with favour in Castile. It was impossible that a civilized and enlightened
people should view with equanimity the institution of a tribunal whose methods,
however based fundamentally upon those of the civil courts, were in the details
of their practice so opposed to all conceptions of equity.
In no Catholic
country does the cherishing of a fervent faith, in itself, imply respect for
the clergy. Nor, for that matter, does the respect of any religion in itself
signify respect for those who administer it. It appears to do so; it is even
prescribed that it should ; but in point of fact it seldom does, other than
with simple peasant classes. The ministers, after all, are men ; but by virtue
of their office they labour under disadvantages greater than the ordinary
man’s. When they display the failings to which all men are subject, these
failings wear a much graver aspect by virtue of the office they hold and the
greater purity which that office implies. Holiness is looked upon as the
priest’s trade, and it is expected that he should conduct that trade honestly,
as any layman conducts the affairs by which he earns his livelihood. The only
test of honesty in the priest, of whatever denomination, lies in his own
conduct ; and when this falls short of that high standard in which he claims to
deal,
he earns a contempt
akin to that which overtakes the trader who defrauds his creditors. It is
remembered then, to his disadvantage, that under his cassock the cleric is a
man, and so subject to all the faults that are man’s heritage. But it happens
that in addition to these he is subject to other failings that are peculiarly
of the cassock, failings which the world has never been slow to discern in him.
The worst of these is the ecclesiastical arrogance, the sacerdotal pride which
has been manifested by priests of all cults, but which in none is so
intolerable as in the Christian, who expounds a gospel of humility and
self-abnegation. He is akin to a feudal tyrant who grinds the faces of his
serfs whilst he lectures them upon the glories of democracy.
Of such priests Spain
of the fifteenth century had an abundant share. She knew them and mistrusted
them, and hence she mistrusted any organization of theirs which should
transcend the strict limits of their office.
Now, the tribunal of
the Inquisition laid itself peculiarly open to this mistrust in consequence of
the secrecy of its proceedings—a secrecy, as we know, greatly increased by the
enactments of Torquemada. Its trials were not conducted in open court; the
examination of witnesses took place in secret and under the veil of anonymity,
so that the world had no assurance of the honesty of the proceedings. When it
happened that a man was arrested, the world, as a rule, knew him no more until
he came forth, candle in hand, arrayed in a sanbenito to play his tragic part
in an Auto.
By virtue of this
secrecy the Inquisition had invested itself with a power far greater, more
subtle, and farther-reaching than that of any civil court. The. might of the
Grand Inquisitor was almost boundless, and he was unanswerable to any temporal
authority for the arbitrariness with which he exercised it. Rivalling the
sovereign power in much, in much else the Grand Inquisitor's went above and
beyond it, for not even the
King himself could
interfere in matters of the Faith with one who held his office directly from
the Pope.
The net which
Torquemada cast was of the very widest ; the meshes of that net were of the
closest, so that no man, however humble, could account himself safe ; its
threads were of the strongest, so that no man, however powerful, could be sure
of breaking through were he once brought within its scope.
What, then, but
terror could Torquemada and his grim machinery inspire? It is not difficult to
believe the sometime secretary of the Inquisition when he assures us that the Holy
Office was not favourably viewed in Spain. The marvel is that whilst the
Castilians were chilled by awe into inactivity and meek submission, it should
have remained for Aragon, which already had known an inquisition for a century,
to rise up in rebellion.
And yet what may seem
at first glance a reason why Aragon should have submitted to Torquemada’s rule
in matters of the Faith, may be the very reason of its rash and futile
rebellion. Fora hundred years already the court of the Holy Office had been operating
there ; but its operations, never vigorous, had become otiose. In this inactive
form Aragon had suffered it to continue. But of a sudden it was roused from
that lethargy by Torquemada. It was bidden to enforce its stern decrees and
other sterner decrees which he added to those already in existence, and to
follow the course of arbitrary procedure which he laid down. Never welcome in
Aragon, it now became intolerable. The New-Christians, who knew the fate of
their Castilian brethren, went with fear in their countenances, and despair and
its fierce courage in their hearts.
In the spring of 1484
Ferdinand held his Cortes at Tarragona. He was attended on the occasion by
Torquemada, and he seized the opportunity to present to his kingdom the gaunt
Prior of Holy Cross, its pontifically-appointed Grand Inquisitor.
Torquemada’s activity
matched his boundless zeal.
At once he convened a
council composed of the ViceChancellor of Aragon, Alonso de Caballeria—himself
a New-Christian—the Royal Councillor Alonso Carillo, and some doctors of canon
law, that they might decide upon the course to be adopted in Aragon to the end
that the Inquisition might be conducted with absolute uniformity there, as in
Castile. This done, he proceeded to appoint inquisitors to the Archbishopric
of Zaragoza, and his choice fell upon Frey Gaspar Yuglar and Frey Pedro Arbu^s
de Epila, Master of Theology and Canon of the Metropolitan Church of Zaragoza.
After the publication
of the “ Instructions’’ drawn up that same year in Seville, Torquemada further
appointed to the Holy Office of Zaragoza a fiscal advocate, an apparitor,
notaries, and receivers, whereupon that office began immediately to exercise
its functions under the new system.
At once the courage
of despair roused the New- Christians to opposition. Amongst them were many who
held high positions at court, persons of great influence and esteem, and these
immediately determined to send a deputation to the Vatican and another to the
Sovereigns to voice their protests against the institution of this tribunal in
Aragon, and to beseech that it be abolished, or at least curtailed in its
powers and inhibited from proceeding to confiscation, which was contrary to the
law of the land.
This last was a
shrewd request, based no doubt upon the conviction that, deprived of the
confiscations upon which it battened, the tribunal must languish and very soon
return to its former inoperative condition.
Nor were the
conversos the only ones to denounce the procedure of the Holy Office. Zurita
records that many of the principal nobles of Aragon rebelled against it,
protesting that it was against the liberties of the kingdom to confiscate the
property of men who were never allowed to learn the names of those who bore
witness against them.
As well might they
have appealed against death— for death itself was not more irresistible or
inexorable than Torquemada. All the fruit borne by their labours was that those
who had lent their names to the petition were ultimately prosecuted as
hinderers of the Holy Office. But this did not immediately happen.
In the meanwhile
Torquemada’s delegates, Arbues and Yuglar, went about the business entrusted to
them with that imperturbability which the “ Directorium ” enjoins. They
published their edicts, ordered arrests, carried out confiscations, and
proceeded with such thoroughness that it was not long before Zaragoza began to
present the same lurid, ghastly spectacles that were to be witnessed in the
chief cities of Castile.
In the following May
(14.85) they celebrated with great solemnity the first Auto de Fd, penancing
many and burning some. This was followed by a second Auto in June.
The despair and
irritation of the New-Christians mounted higher at these spectacles. It is
believed to have reached its climax with the sudden arrest of Leonardi Eli, one
of the most influential, wealthy, and respected conversos of Zaragoza.
Those who had put the
petition afoot, abandoning now all hope of obtaining any response either from
the Sovereigns or from Rome, met to concert other measures. Their leader was a
man of influence named Juan Pedro Sanchez. He had four brothers in influential
positions at Court, who had lent their services in the matter of the petition
to the Sovereigns.
A meeting took place
in the house of one Luis de Santangel, and Sanchez urged a desperate remedy for
their desperate ills. They must strike terror into their terrorizers. He
proposed no less than the slaughter of the inquisitors, urging with confidence
that if they were slain no others would dare to fill their places. In this he
seems to have underestimated the character of Torquemada.
The proposal was
adopted, an oath of secrecy was
pledged, plans were
laid, measures were taken, and funds were collected to enable these plans to be
executed. Six assassins were chosen, among whom were Juan de Abadia and his
Gascon servant Vidal de Uranso, and Juan de Esperandeu. This last was the son
of a converso then lying in the prisons of the Inquisition, whose property had
already been confiscated ; so that he was driven by the added spur of personal
revenge. There was, too, the further incentive of a sum of five hundred florins
promised by the conspirators to the slayer of Arbu^s, and deposited by them for
that purpose with Juan Pedro Sanchez.1
Several early
attempts to execute this project were baffled by circumstances. It would seem,
moreover, that Arbu^s had received some warning of what was in store for him—or
else he was simply conscious of the general hatred he had incurred—for he
exercised the greatest prudence, took to wearing body armour, and was careful
not to expose himself in any way ; all of which does not suggest in him that
eagerness for the martyr’s crown with which his biographer Trasmiera would have
us believe that he was imbued.
At last, however, the
assassins found their opportunity. Late on the night of September 15 of that
year, 1485, they penetrated into the Metropolitan Church to lie in wait for their
victims when these should come to the midnight office imposed by the rule of
their order.
Juan de Abadia, with
his Gascon servant Uranso and another, entered by the main door. Esperandeu and
his companions gained admittance through the sacristy.
About the pillars of
the vast church, in the gloom that was scarcely relieved by the altar-lamp,
they waited silently, “like bloody wolves,” says Trasmiera, “ for the coming of
that gentle lamb.”
Towards midnight
there was a stir overhead;
1 Llorente,
“ Anales,” vol. i. p. 116.
lights beat faintly
upon the darkness; the canons were assembling for matins in the choir.
A note of the organ
boomed through the silence, and then Arbu^s entered the church from the
cloisters.
It seemed that even
now chance did not favour them, for Arbu£s came alone, and their aim was to
take both the inquisitors.
The dominican was on
his way to join his brethren in the choir. He carried a lantern in one hand and
a long bludgeon in the other. Nor did his precautions end in this. He wore a
shirt of mail under his white habit, and there was a steel lining to his black
velvet skull-cap. He must indeed have gone in fear, that he could not trust
himself to matins save armed at all points.
He crossed the nave
on his way to the staircase leading to the choir. But as he reached the pulpit
on the left he halted and knelt to offer up the prescribed prayer in adoration
of the Sanctissimum Sacramentum. He set the lantern down upon the ground beside
him, and leant his club against a pillar.
Now was the
assassins’ opportunity. He was at their mercy. And although to strike now was
to leave half their task undone, they must have resolved that rather than
postpone the matter again in the hope of slaying both inquisitors, they had
better take the one that was delivered up to them.
The chanting overhead
muffled the sound of their steps as they crept up behind Arbu^s, out of the
blackness into the faint wheel of yellow light cast by his lantern.
Esperandeu was the
first to strike, and he struck clumsily, doing no more than wound the
inquisitor in the left arm. But swift upon that blow followed another from
Uranso—a blow so violent that it smashed part of the steel cap, and, presumably
glancing off, opened a wound in the inquisitor’s neck, which is believed to have
been the real cause of his death.
It did not, however,
at that moment incapacitate him. He staggered up, and turned to the staircase
that led to the choir. But now Esperandeu returned to the assault, and drove at
the Dominican so furiously with his sword that, despite the shirt of mail with
which Arbu6s was protected, the blade went through him from side to side.
The inquisitor fell,
and lay still. The organ ceased abruptly, and the assassins fled.
There was confusion
now in the choir. Down the stairs came the friars with their lanterns, to
discover the unconscious and bleeding inquisitor. They took him up and carried
him to bed. He died forty-eight hours later at midnight on Saturday, September
17, 1485.1
By morning all the
town had heard of the deed, and the effect which it produced was very different
from that for which its perpetrators had hoped. The Old-Christians, some moved
by religious zeal, some by a sense of justice, snatched up weapons and went
forth to the cry of “ To the fire with the conversos ! ”
The populace—an
uncertain quantity, ever ready to be swayed by the first voice that is loud
enough, to follow the first leader who points the way—took up the cry, and soon
Zaragoza was in turmoil. Through every street rang the clamours of the multitude,
which threatened to offer up one of those hecatombs in which fire disputes
with steel the horrid laurel of the day.
The uproar penetrated
to the Palace of Alfonso of Aragon, the seventeen-year-old Archbishop of
Zaragoza. It roused that bastard of Catholic Ferdinand from his slumbers. A
high-spirited lad, he summoned the grandees of the city and the officers of
justice, and rode out at their head to meet and quell the rioters. But only by
a promise that the fullest justice should be done upon the murderers did he
succeed
1 Zurita, " Anales,” lib. xx. cap. lxv.;
Amador de los Rios, 11 Historia Social,” lib. iii. p. 262 ; Garcia
de Trasmiera, “Vida de Pedro ArbuSs.”
in dispersing them
and restoring order to that distracted city.
“Divine Justice,”
says Trasmiera, “permitted the deed, but not its impunity.”
Rash indeed had been
the action of the New- Christians, and terrible was the penalty exacted,
terrible the price they were made to pay for the life they had taken. In
conceiving that they could intimidate by such an act a man of Torquemada’s
mettle, they displayed a lamentable want of judgment, as was speedily proved.
To fill the place of the dead inquisitor, and to set about the stern business
of avenging him, Torquemada instantly dispatched to Zaragoza Fr. Juan Colvera,
Fr. Pedro de Monterubio, and Dr. Alonso de Alarcon. For the greater security of
themselves and their prisoners, these delegates set up their tribunal in the
royal alcazar of the Castle of Aljaferia, and proceeded to institute an active
search for the culprits. Several were seized, amongst whom was Abadia’s
servant, Vidal de Uranso. He was put to the question, and an admission of his
own guilt extracted from him. He was tortured further in the endeavour to wring
from him the names of his associates in the deed, and finally he was promised “
grace ” if he would divulge them.
At this price the
unfortunate Gascon consented to speak, betraying all whom he had known to be in
the plot and all whom he had known to sympathize with it. And Llorente, who saw
the records of the proceedings, tells us that when Uranso claimed the promised
grace, he was benignly answered that he should receive the grace of not having
his hands hacked off—as must the others—before being hanged, drawn, and
quartered.
Amongst those taken
were Juan de Abadia, Juan de Esperandeu, and Luis de Santangel.
Esperandeu and Uranso
suffered together at the Auto'of June 30, i486—the seventh held in Zaragoza
that year. Esperandeu
was dragged through the city on a hurdle, his hands were hacked off on the
steps of the Cathedral, whereafter he was hanged, drawn, and quartered. Five
other conspirators suffered in the same Auto, being abandoned to the secular
arm and burnt alive. Two others, who had escaped, were burnt in effigy, and one
of these was that Juan Pedro Sanchez who had been the leading spirit in the
affair. And together with these living men and the grotesque effigies of straw
arrayed in sanbenito and coroza they burnt the corpse of Juan de Abadia. He had
cheated in part the Justice of the Holy Office. He had committed suicide in
prison by eating a glass lamp.1
Autos succeeded one
another at such a rate now in Zaragoza that no less than fourteen were held in
that year i486; 42 persons were burnt alive, 14 in effigy, and 134 were
penanced in varying degrees from perpetual imprisonment to public whippings.
And to the end that the publicity of these Autos might be increased and the
salutary lesson inculcated by them might be as far-reaching as possible,
Torquemada ordered that a fortnight before the holding of each it should be
announced by public proclamation, with great solemnity and parade of mounted
familiars of the Holy Office— a matter which upon this precedent became
customary throughout Spain.
In his allusion to
these Autos Trasmiera2 advances one of the usual sophistries
employed by the Inquisition to justify its constant claim that its proceedings
were dictated by mercy.
He assures us that it
was a happiness {dieha) for the culprits to die so soon, and he explains that
to have allowed them to live would have shown a greater rigour of justice—“ as
witnesseth Cain, upon whom God placed a sign ordering that none should kill him
since by the prolongation of his life, his nature being what it was, he must
commit more sins, and thus more
1 Llorente, “Anales,” vol. i. p. 181.
1 ‘‘Vida de Arbu6s,” p. 82.
surely deserve
greater degrees of punishment in his eternal damnation.”
It is a priest who
puts forward this blasphemous assertion that God desires the damnation of a
sinner, and suggests that by burning that sinner betimes, God is to be
cheated—at least in part—of His unspeakable purpose. It serves excellently to
show to what desperate shifts of argument men could be urged in the attempt to
justify the practices of the Holy Office.
With precisely the
same degree of authority does he assure us that all the murderers died
penitent—in consequence of the affectionate prayers offered up for them by
Arbu^s in the hour of his death.
Vidal de Uranso’s
confession had yielded up to the inquisitors the names not only of
participators in the murder of Arbu^s, but of those who were believed by the
Gascon to be in sympathy with the deed. By pursuing the methods peculiarly
their own to cause a prosecution to spread like an oil-stain, slowly and surely
covering an ever-widening area, the inquisitors were able to cause the
indictment of many whose connection with the crime was of the remotest, and of
others who, moved by a very Christian pity, had afforded shelter to
New-Christians fleeing in terror before the blind vengeance of the Holy Office.
Among the latter many were prosecuted where there was no proof that the
fugitives they had sheltered were Judaizers or unfaithful. It is believed that
sheer panic had driven many perfectly innocent New-Christians to depart from a
city where no New-Christian might account himself secure. But in consequence of
the clause introduced by the merciless Torquemada into his “ Instructions,” a
man’s flight was in itself a sufficient reason for the presumption of his guilt.
A reign of terror was
established in Zaragoza. The tribunal of that city became one of the busiest in
Spain, and it is computed that altogether some two hundred victims paid in one
way and another for the death of Pedro Arbu^s, so that there was hardly a
family, noble or
simple, that was not plunged into mourning by the Justice of the Faith.
Amongst those against
whom proceedings were instituted were men of the very first importance in the
kingdom. One of these was that Alonso de Caballeria, Vice-Chancellor of Aragon,
who had been prominent in the council summoned by Torquemada to determine the
details of the introduction of the Inquisition into Aragon. Nor did they
confine their attention to New-Christians. Amongst those they summoned to
render to the Holy Office an account of their deeds we find no less a person
than Don Jaime de Navarre, known as the Infante of Navarre or the Infante of
Tudela, the son of the Queen of Navarre, and King Ferdinand’s own nephew.
A fugitive
New-Christian coming to Tudela cast himself upon the mercy of the prince, and
found shelter in Navarre for a few days until he could escape into France. The
inquisitors, whom nothing escaped, had knowledge of this, and such was their
might and arrogance that they did not hesitate to arrest the Infante in the
capital of his mother’s independent kingdom. They haled this prince of the
blood-royal to Zaragoza to stand his trial upon the charge of hindering the
Holy Office. They cast him into prison, and subjected him to the humiliating
penance of being whipped round the Metropolitan Church by two priests in the
presence of his bastard cousin, the seventeen-year old Archbishop, Alfonso of
Aragon. Thereafter he was made to stand penitentially, candle in hand, in view
of all during High Mass, before he could earn absolution of the ecclesiastical
censure he had incurred.
Alonso de Caballeria
is one of the few men in history who was able successfully to defy and
withstand the terrible power of that sacerdotal court.
This Vice-Chancellor
was a man of great ability, the son of a wealthy baptized Hebrew nobleman,
whose name had been
Bonafos, but who had changed this to Caballeria upon receiving baptism, in
accordance with the prevailing custom. He was arrested not only upon the
charge of having given shelter to fugitives, but also upon suspicion of being,
himself, a Judaizer.
Presuming upon his
high position, and also upon the great esteem in which he was held by his king,
Caballeria showed the Inquisition an intrepid countenance. He refused to
recognize the authority of the court and of Torquemada himself, appealing to
the Pope, and including in his appeal a strong complaint of the conduct of the
inquisitors.
.This appeal was of
such a character and the man’s own position was so strong that on August 28, 1488,
Innocent VIII dispatched a brief inhibiting the inquisitors from proceeding
further against the ViceChancellor, and avocating to himself the case. But
such was Torquemada’s arrogance by now that he was no longer to be intimidated
by papal briefs. Under his directions the inquisitors of Zaragoza replied that
the allegations contained in Caballeria’s appeal were false. The Pope, however,
was insistent, and he compelled the Holy Office to bow to his will and supreme
authority. On October 20 of that yeai the minutes of the case were forwarded to
the Vatican As a result of their perusal His Holiness must have absolved
Caballeria, for not only was he delivered of the peril in which he had stood,
but he continued to rise steadily in honour and consequence until he became
Chief Judge and head of the Hermandad of Aragon.1
Llorente informs us 2
that he perused the records of some thirty trials in connection with the Arbues
affair, and that the publication of any one of them
1 Llorente,
"Memoria Historica,” p. 112, and " Historia Critica,” vol. i, P. 205.
* “ Historia Critica, vol. 11. cap. vi.
would suffice to
render the Inquisition detested, were it not sufficiently detested already in
all civilized countries, including Spain.
He mentions, however,
two cases of interest and importance,1 to show how arbitrary was the
spirit of the Inquisition, and how far-reaching its arm.
Juan Pedro Sanchez,
the leader of the affair, having fled to Toulouse, was, as we have seen,
sentenced as contumacious and burnt in of his person.
In Toulouse at this
time there was a student named Antonio Agustin, a member of an illustrious
family of Aragon and a man destined to rise to great dignity and honour. Under
the impulse of fanaticism, and acting in conjunction with several other Spaniards
in Toulouse, he petitioned for the arrest of Sanchez. When this had been
effected, he indited a letter to the inquisitors of Aragon, and forwarded it to
his brother Pedro in Zaragoza for delivery.
Pedro, however, first
discussed the matter with Guillerme Sanchez, brother of the fugitive, and three
friends, and all were opposed to Agustin’s purpose. They decided not to deliver
the letter, and they wrote to Agustin begging him to withdraw his plea against
Sanchez and consent to the fugitive’s being restored to liberty.
Agustin was
persuaded, and replied informing his brother that he had done as they had
requested. Once Pedro Agustin in Zaragoza was assured of this, he delivered the
letters to the inquisitors—though why he should have done so is not by any
means clear. Possibly he conceived that this was the wisest course to pursue,
lest it should afterwards transpire that he had suppressed such a
communication. But from what follows it will be seen how ill-advised he was.
The Holy Office
having received the letters, and supposing Juan Pedro Sanchez still under
arrest in Toulouse, ordered him to be brought to Zaragoza.
1 " Historia Critica,” vol. ii. cap. vi.
effigy pending the
seizure
The courts of
Toulouse replied that he had already been released and that his whereabouts
were now unknown.
, The inquisitors
inquired into the matter with that terrible thoroughness of which they
commanded the means. They controlled the most wonderful police system that the
world has ever seen. A vast civilian army was enrolled in the service of the
Holy Office, as members of the tertiary order of St. Dominic. These were the
lay brothers of the family, and as the position conferred upon those who held
it certain signal benefits, of which immunity from taxation was one,1
it will be understood that their number had to be limited, so very considerable
were the applications for enrolment.
Originally this had
been a penitential order, but very quickly it came to be known as the Militia
Christi, and its members as familiars of the Holy Office—i.e. part of the
family of St. Dominic. ~ They dressed in black, and wore the white cross of St.
Dominic upon their doublets and cloaks, and they were made to join the
Confraternity of St. Peter Martyr. The inquisitors seldom went abroad without
an escort of these armed lay-brothers.
In the ranks of the
Militia .Christi were to be found men of all professions, dignities, and
callings. They formed the secret police of the Inquisition, they were the eyes
and ears of the Holy Office, ubiquitous in every stratum of social life.
Through these agents
the inquisitors were not long in ascertaining what had taken place in the
matter of Juan Pedro Sanchez, and soon the five friends were under arrest and
forced to answer the serious charge of hindering the Holy Office.
They were paraded in
public in the Auto of May 6, 1487, as suspects—leviter—of Judaizing ; they
1 Another
advantage was that any member of this confraternity was entitled to plead
benefit of clergy, so that no civil court could take proceedings against him.
were penanced to
stand in full view of the people, candle in hand and wearing the sanbenito,
during Mass, and they were thereafter disqualified from holding any office or
benefice or pursuing any honourable profession during the good pleasure of the
inquisitors.
As it was, they
escaped lightly. That they were suspected leviter of Judaizing, shows us how
easily that suspicion might be incurred. It was purely constructive in this
instance—an inference to be drawn from the fact that they had befriended a
Judaizer who was under sentence.
The other case is far
more horrible. It shows in operation Torquemada’s decree regarding the children
of heretics, and reveals in the fullest measure its appalling inhumanity.
Another who had fled
to Toulouse, fearing implication in the affair of the murder of Arbu£s, was
one Gaspar de Santa Cruz. It happened that he died there, after having been
sentenced as contumacious and burnt in effigy at Zaragoza. It came to the ears
of the inquisitors that he had been assisted in his flight by his son; and not
content with the heavy punishment of infamy that must fall automatically upon
that son for sins that were not his own, not content with having reduced him to
destitution by confiscating his inheritance and by disqualifying him from
office, benefice, or honourable employment, they now seized his person and
indicted him for hindering.
Arrayed in a yellow
sanbenito, this son, who had discharged by his father the sacrosanct duty which
nature and humanity impose, was exhibited to scorn in an Auto, and further
penanced by being compelled tc come before the court of the Holy Office and
testify to his father’s contumacious flight. Nor did that ghoulish tribunal
count itself satisfied even then. It was further imposed upon him that he must
repair to Toulouse, exhume his father’s remains, and publicly burn them,
returning to Zaragoza with a properly
attested report of
the performance, when he should receive absolution of the censures incurred.
Santa Cruz carried
out that barbarous command, as the only means of saving his liberty and perhaps
his life. For it is certain that had he refused, it would have been argued that
he had rejected the offered means of reconciliation with the Church he had so
grievously offended, and he would have been prosecuted as impenitent ; whilst
had he availed himself of the only alternative and fled, he must have been
sentenced as contumacious and would have gone to the stake if he were ever
taken.
From the hour of his
death Pedro Arbues de Epila was looked upon as a saint and martyr, the notion
being carefully fostered by the members of his order in the minds of the
faithful.
And, as is usual in
such cases, miraculous manifestations of his sanctity are alleged to have
begun in the very hour of his death. Trasmiera tells us that the bells rang of
themselves when he died, and he opines that this serves to approve their use in
a time when Luther and others were condemning them as vain.
The blood of the
inquisitor, we learn from the same source, boiled upon the stones of the church
where it had fallen, and continued to do so for a fortnight afterwards ;
whilst on any of the twelve days immediately following the night of his murder,
a handkerchief pressed to the stones upon which his blood had been shed, when
removed, was found to be blood-stained.
These, says
Trasmiera, were miracles of which all were witnesses. There is much more of the
same kind— including an account of the inquisitor’s apparitions after death, as
testified by Mosen Blanco, to whom the ghost appeared, and with whom it
conversed at length—to be found in Trasmiera’s “ Vida y Muerte del Venerable
Inquisidor, Pedro Arbuds.”
The sword with which
he was slain was preserved
in the Metropolitan
Church of Zaragoza, a relic sanctified by the blood that had embrued it.
He was buried in the
same church, and on the spot where he fell Isabella raised a beautiful monument
to his memory in 1487. Part of its inscription ran: “ Happy Zaragoza! Rejoice
that here is buried he who is the glory of the martyrs.”
He was beatified two
hundred years later by Alexander VII, largely in consequence of the efforts of
the Spanish inquisitors, who perceived what an added prestige it would give
their order if one of its members were worshipped as a martyr. His canonization
followed in the nineteenth century. It was effected by Pope Pius IX, and was
the subject of much derisory comment in the Rome of that day, which had just
broken the shackles of clerical government that had trammelled it for some
fifteen hundred years.
TORQUEMADAS FURTHER
"INSTRUCTIONS”
The
intrepid
but ineffectual resistance offered by- Zaragoza to the Inquisition was emulated
by the principal cities of Aragon ; one and all protested against the
institution of this tribunal under the new form which Torquemada had given it.
But nowhere was
resistance of the least avail against the iron purpose of the Grand Inquisitor,
armed with the entire force of civil justice to constrain the people into
submission to the ecclesiastical will.
Teruel had been thrown
into open revolt by the proposal to appoint inquisitors there ; and so fierce
and determined was the armed resistance, that not until the King’s troops made
their appearance in the streets of that city, in March 1485, were order and
obedience restored.
In Valencia, too,
there was a vigorous opposition led by the nobles, and throughout Cataluna the
resistance was so resolute that it was not until two years later that the
Sovereigns were able to reduce the people to submission.
Barcelona urged an
ancient right to appoint her own inquisitors, and refused persistently and
angrily to recognize the authority of Torquemada or his delegates, in spite of
any bulls that might have been issued by Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII. Nor was
this city’s obstinacy conquered until 1487, after Pope Innocent
231
had issued his second
bull, confirming Torquemada in the office of Grand Inquisitor of Castile, Leon,
Aragon, and Valencia, and further extending his jurisdiction so that it
included all the Spains—in which bull he formally cancelled the ancient rights
of Barcelona to appoint her own inquisitors.
It should be
sufficiently clear from this that, notwithstanding the racial antipathy
between Spaniard and Jew, notwithstanding the religious spirit so very ardent
in the people of Spain, serving to aggravate beyond all reason that hatred of
the Israelite, the Inquisition—as Torquemada understood and controlled it—was
very far from being desired by them. That this grim institution should have
contrived so firmly to establish itself upon Spanish soil and to wield there a
power such as it wielded in no other Catholic country of Europe, was due
entirely to the brothers of St. Dominic and the fanaticism of Torquemada
playing upon the bigotry and acquisitiveness of the Sovereigns.
Assailants of the
Roman Church have urged that the Inquisition was a religious institution.
Defenders of that same Church, in their endeavour to shift so terrible a burden
from her shoulders, have sought to show that the Inquisition was a political
machine. It was neither, and at the same time it was both. But chiefly and
primarily it was just a clerical weapon. And clericalism in the Iberian
Peninsula, pervaded by the spirit of Torquemada, converted that institution
into an instrument far more dreadful and oppressive than was its character in
Italy, or France, or any other Roman Catholic country of the world in which the
Holy Office held jurisdiction.
In Spain it had set
up in the evening of the fifteenth century an absolute reign of terror, depriving
men of all liberty of conscience and of speech and spreading a network of
espionage over the face of the land-
And in the meantime,
practice having brought to light certain shortcomings in the decrees which he
had already issued, Torquemada added a further eleven articles in 1485. In the
main, however, these are concerned with the internal affairs of the Holy Office
rather than with its attitude towards offenders.
Articles I and II
provide for the payment of officers of the Inquisition, and decree that no
officer shall receive gifts of any nature under pain of instant dismissal.
Article III disposes
that the inquisitors shall keep a permanent agent in Rome, who shall be skilled
in the law, so that he may attend to matters appertaining to the Holy Office.
From this it is to be
inferred that appeals to the Vatican continued to be numerous, notwithstanding
the provisions made by the Pope to constitute Torquemada the supreme arbiter
in matters of the Faith.
Articles V to XI are
entirely concerned with details relating to confiscations. These would be of
no particular interest, but that they serve to show how vast by now was the
business of confiscation, since the manner of conducting it and disposing of
confiscated property should demand so many decrees to govern it.
Article IV is the
only one that may be said to concern the actual jurisprudence of the Holy
Office. This is intended not so much to soften the rigour as to remove the
inconveniences that might arise out of Article X of the “ Instructions” of
1484.
By that article it
was decreed that confiscation should be retrospective—i.e. that a heretic’s
property should be confiscate not from the day of the discovery of his heresy,
but from the date of the offence itself. So that any property that might in the
meantime have been alienated—whether in the ordinary way of commerce or
otherwise—must be considered as the property of the Holy Office, and was to be
seized by the Holy Office, no matter into whose hands it might meanwhile have
passed.
Such a decree, as
will be seen, was proving a serious hindrance to trade ; for it became unsafe
to purchase anything from any one, since should either party to the transaction
subsequently be discovered to have fallen into the sin of heresy prior to that
transaction, the other would be stripped of the acquired property, and might
be subjected to the entire loss. Moreover, as proceedings were taken against
the dead, and as there was no limit imposed upon the retrospection allowed to
inquisitors, no man could account himself safe from confiscations incurred
through the sin of some other from whom he or his forbears had acquired the
property.
The vagueness of this
article urgently demanded amending, and this was the purpose of Article IV of
the “ Instructions”of 1485. It decreed that all contracts concluded before 1479
should be accounted valid, although it might come to be discovered against
either of the contracting parties that he was guilty of heresy at the time of
such contract.
This is the only
instance in which we find Torquemada promulgating a decree to soften the rigour
of any previous enactment, and it is very clear that it is a decree dictated
not by clemency but by expediency.
In the event of
fraud, or of any one being a party to a fraud to abuse the privilege conferred
by this article, Torquemada provided that the offender, if reconciled, should
receive a hundred lashes and be branded on the face with a hot iron ; whilst,
if not reconciled—even though he should be a good Catholic —he must suffer
confiscation of all his property.1
To justify the
punishment of branding on the face, the case of Cain is urged as a proper
precedent, and so modern a historian as Garcia Rodrigo does not hesitate to put
this seriously forward.
1 See “ Instrucciones hechas en 1485, etc.,” in the “ Copilacion
de las Instrucciones.”
* “ Historia Verdadera,” vol.
iii. p. 165.
Three years later—in
1488—Torquemada found it necessary to add a further fifteen articles to his “Instructions,”
and we may anticipate a little by briefly surveying their provisions at this
stage.
Complaints to Rome of
the injustices and the excessive rigour of the inquisitors—a constant feature
of Torquemada’s Grand-Inquisitorship—had by that time become so numerous that
the Pope found it necessary to order Torquemada to re-edit what Amador de los
Rios very aptly terms his “ Code of Terror.”1
The chief ground of
these complaints had concerned the delays that so commonly occurred in
bringing an accused to trial. When a prisoner's acquittal ultimately chanced to
take place, it was after a long term of imprisonment for which there was no
compensation or redress ; and when the person so treated was a man of position
and influence, it is natural that he would protest strongly against the
treatment to which he had been subjected before it was discovered that no
charge could be sustained against him. The real reason of these delays must not
be supposed to lie in dilatoriness or sluggishness on the part of the
inquisitors. Indeed, the excessive dispatch with which they conducted the
affairs of their tribunal is a matter to the scandal of which Llorente draws
attention more than once— and particularly in the course of chronicling the
fact that in the year of its introduction into Toledo this court dealt—as we
shall see—with no less than some 3,300 cases, 27 of the accused being burnt and
the remainder penanced in various degrees. He protests with reason that it is
utterly impossible that at such a rate of procedure evidence can properly have
been sifted and any sort of justice done.
Where delays took
place they were the result of the extreme reluctance on the part of the Holy
Office to allow any to go free upon whom its talons had once 1 “
Historia de los Judios,” vol. iii. p. 272.
fastened. Thus, when
even the slight degree or evidence necessary to enable the inquisitors to
convict was lacking, they would delay in the daily hope that such evidence
might be forthcoming, and by repeated examinations they would meanwhile seek to
force the unfortunate prisoner into contradictions that should justify them in
resorting to torture.
In view of the
explicit pontifical command, Torquemada was compelled to amend this state of
things, at least in theory, by decreeing (Article III) that there should be no
delays in proceeding to trial through lack of proof. Where proof was lacking,
the accused should at once be restored to liberty, since he could at any
time—when fresh proof was forthcoming—be rearrested.
Similarly, with a
view of expediting trials, he ordered (Article IV) that since in all the courts
of the Inquisition there were not the necessary lawyers, henceforth, when a
case was completed, the dossier of the proceedings should be sent to the Grand
Inquisitor himself, and he would then submit it to the lawyers of the Suprema,
who would advise upon it.
But he amply made up
for what softening of rigour might be contained in these articles by the
greater severity enjoined in some of the other decrees which he embodied in
these “ Instructions ” of 1488.
Finding that the
inquisitors of Aragon had been departing from certain of his enactments of
1484, diluting them with the weaker rules that had obtained under the old
Inquisition in that kingdom, he commanded that all inquisitors should proceed
in strict obedience to the statutes contained in the past “ Instructions.”
He provided (Article
V) that the inquisitors should themselves visit the prisons once in every
fortnight, but that no outsiders should be permitted to communicate with the
prisoners, save of course the priests who would go to comfort them. To the end
that a
still greater secrecy
should be observed in the trials, he commanded (Article VI) that when the
depositions of the witnesses were being taken none should be present other than
those who were by law absolutely necessary ; and he enjoined (Article VII) the
safe and secret custody of all documents relating to the cases tried.
We are left to gather
that the harshness of his enactment concerning the children of heretics had
been tempered a little by a natural humane pity which did not at all commend itself
to the pitiless Grand Inquisitor ; for we now find him (Article XI) enjoining
inquisitors to take care that the decree forbidding those unfortunates the use
of gold and silver and fine garments, and disqualifying them from honourable
employment, should be rigorously enforced.
He provided (Article
XIII) that all the expenses of the Holy Office—which must have been enormous by
now, considering to what vast proportions he had developed that
organization—should be defrayed out of confiscated property before this was
surrendered to the Royal treasury; and further (Article XV), that all appointed
notaries, fiscals, and constables should discharge their functions in person
and not by deputy.
The most interesting
of these statutes of 1488, in consequence of the information it conveys on the
subject of the activities of the Inquisition and the enormous scale of the
prosecutions upon which it was engaged, is contained in Article XIV. The
prisons of Spain were becoming so crowded, and the expense of maintaining the
prisoners was imposing so heavy a tax upon the Holy Office, that it had become
urgently necessary to make some fresh provision that would relieve this burden.
Therefore, as this article sets forth, Torquemada enjoined the Sovereigns to
order the building in every district of the Inquisition of a quadrangular
enclosure of small houses (casillas) for the residence of those
sentenced to the penance of imprisonment. These houses were to be so contrived
that the penitents might pursue in them their business
or trade and earn
their own livelihood, thus relieving the Inquisition of the heavy expense of
supporting them. Each of these quadrangular penitentiaries—for this is the
origin of the term—was to be equipped with its own chapel.1
1 See 11 Instrucciones hechas en 1488, etc.,”
in “ Copilacion de las Instrucciones.”
THE INQUISITION IN
TOLEDO
Llorente,
the
historian of the Spanish Inquisition, and M. Fidel Fita, the distinguished
contributor to the “ Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia,” both had
access to and both made use of a record left by the licentiate Sebastian de
Orozco, an eyewitness of the establishment of the Inquisition in Toledo. This
has been printed verbatim by M. Fidel Fita.1
The details afforded
by Orozco are so circumstantial that it is worth while to follow them closely,
since they may be said to afford a typical picture of what was happening not
only in the city with which they are concerned, but throughout the whole of
Spain.
It was in
May of the year 1485 that the Inquisition was first set up in Toledo, that
noble city erected upon a rock that rises sheer from the swirling waters of the
Tagus, and is crowned by the royal palace which still bears the Moorish name of
Alcazar. It was transferred thither, by Torquemada’s orders, from Villa Real,
where it had been operating for some months. •
“ To the end that our
Infinite Redeemer Jesus Christ be praised in all that He does, and for the
greater power of His Holy Catholic Faith,” writes Orozco, “ know all who shall
come after us that in the year 1485, in the month of May, the Holy Inquisition
1 “ Boletin
de la Real Academia,” xi p. 296 et seq., which see, and also Llorente, "
Anales,” ii. 110 et seq.
against heretical
pravity was sent to this very noble City of Toledo by our very enlightened
Sovereigns, Don Fernando and Donna Isabella. . . . Of this Inquisition were
administrators Vasco Ramirez de Ribera, Archdeacon of Talavera, and Pedro Dias
de la Costana, Licentiate of Theology, and with them one of the Queen’s
Chaplains as fiscal and prosecutor, and one Juan de Alfaro, a patrician of
Seville, as chief constable (alguazil), and two notaries.”
The licentiate Pedro
Dias de la Costana preached to the people on the third day of Pentecost
(Tuesday, May 24), notifying them of the papal bull under which the inquisitors
were acting and of the power vested in these inquisitors to deal with matters
of heresy ; pronouncing greater excommunication against any who by word or
deed or counsel should dare to oppose the Inquisition in the execution of its duty.
At the conclusion of
his announcement the Gospels and a crucifix were brought, and upon these all
were required to make solemn oath of their desire to serve God and the
Sovereigns, to uphold the Catholic Faith, and to defend and shelter the administrators
of the Holy Inqi sition.
Lastly the licentiate
published the usual edict of grace for self-delators. He summons all Judaizers
to return to the Faith and become reconciled to the Church within a term of
forty days, as set forth by the edict itself, which by his orders was nailed to
the door of the Cathedral.
A week elapsed
without any response to this summons. The conversos of Toledo had been preparing
to resist the introduction of the Inquisition to their city, and under the
guidance of one De la Torre and some others they had already matured their
plans and laid down the lines which this resistance was to take.
The plot
was—according to Orozco, who, you will have gathered, was an ardent partisan of
the Holy Office—that on the feast of Corpus Christi, which fell
that year on June 2,
the conspirators should be armed to lie in wait for the procession, falling
upon it as it was advancing through the streets, and slaying the inquisitors
and their defenders. That done, they were to seize the gates of the city and
hold Toledo against the King.
The fine strategic
position of the city might have lent itself to so daring a scheme, and
presumably the aim of the New-Christians would have been to hold it
rebelliously until accorded terms of capitulation that should guarantee the
immunity of the rebels from all punishment, and the immunity of Toledo itself
from the jurisdiction of the Holy Office. But, on the whole, it was so very
crack-brained a conspiracy that we are more than justified in doubting whether
it ever had any real existence.
“ It pleased our
Redeemer,” says Orozco, “ that this conspiracy was discovered on the eve of
Corpus Christi.” He does not satisfy our curiosity as to how the discovery was
made, and the omission increases our doubts.
The details, we are
told, were derived from several of the plotters who were arrested on that day
by the Corregidor of Toledo, Gomes Manrique. In view of the information thus
obtained, Manrique proceeded to capture De la Torre and four of his friends,
One of these captives, a cobbler named Lope Maurigo, the Corregidor hanged out
of hand on the morning of the festival, before the procession had issued from
the Cathedral. The act may have been intended as a deterrent to any who still
entertained the notion of putting the plot into execution.
The procession passed
off without any disturbances ; and having hanged another of his prisoners
Manrique subjected the remainder to heavy fines, whereby they escaped far more
lightly than if they had been tried by the court of the Holy Office.
Fortunately for themselves, it was deemed that their offence was one that came
within the jurisdiction of the secular courts.
Soon thereafter,
possibly because they now realized that they had nothing left to hope for,
self-delators began to come before the inquisitors to solicit reconciliation.
But when the term of
the edict had expired, it was found that the indefatigable Torquemada had
prepared a second one to supplement it. He ordered the publication of an
entirely fresh measure, commanding that all who knew of any heretics,
apostates, or Judaizers, must, under pain of excommunication and of being
deemed heretics themselves, divulge to the inquisitors the names of such
offenders within a term of sixty days.
There was already in
existence an enactment of the Inquisition, which instead of offering, as in all
times has been done by secular tribunals, a reward for the apprehension of
fugitives from justice, imposed upon those who neglected spontaneously to set
about that catchpoll work when the occasion arose, a fine of 500 ducats in
addition to excommunicating them. But Torquemada’s fresh measure went even
beyond that. Nor did it end with the edict we have mentioned. When the sixty
days expired, he ordered the prolongation of the term by another thirty days—
not only in Toledo, but also in Seville, where he had commanded the publication
of the same edict—and now came the cruellest measure of all. He commanded the
inquisitors to summon the Rabbis of the synagogues and to compel them to swear
according to the Mosaic Law that they would denounce to the inquisitors any
baptized Jew whom they found returning to the Jewish cult, and he made it a
capital offence for any Rabbi to keep such a matter secret.
Not even now did he
consider that he had carried far enough this infamous measure of persecution.
He ordained that the Rabbis should publish in their synagogues an edict of
excommunication by the Mosaic Law against all Jews who should fail to give
information to the inquisitors of any Judaizing whereof they might have
knowledge.
In this decree we
catch a glimpse of the intensity of the fanatical, contemptuous hatred in which
Torquemada held the Israelites. For nothing short of blended hatred and
contempt could have inspired him so to trample upon the feelings of their
priests, and to compel them under pain of death to a course in which they must
immolate their self-respect, violate their consciences, and render themselves
odious in the esteem of every right-thinking Jew.
By this unspeakable
enactment the very Jews themselves were pressed into the secret service of the
Inquisition, and compelled by the fear of spiritual and physical consequences
to turn informers against their brethren.
“ Many,” says Orozco,
who no doubt considered it a measure as laudable as it was fiendishly astute,
“were the men and women who came to bear witness.”
Arrests commenced at
once, and were carried on with an unprecedented activity revealed by the
records of the Autos that were held, which Orozco has preserved for us.
And already fire had
been set to the faggots piled at the stake of Toledo, for the first victims had
soon fallen into the eager hands of the Inquisitors of the Faith.
These were three men
and their three wives, natives of Villa Real, who had fled thence when first
the inquisitors had set up their tribunal there. They reached Valencia safely,
purchased there a yawl, equipped it, and set sail. They were on the seas for
five days, when, of course, “it pleased God to send a contrary wind, which blew
them back into the port from which they had set out”—and thus into the hands of
the benign inquisitors, so solicitous for the salvation of their souls. They
were arrested upon landing, and brought to Toledo, whither the tribunal had
meanwhile been transferred. They were tried; their flight confirmed their
guilt; and so—Christi
nomine
invocato—they were burnt by order of the inquisitors.
As a result of the
self-delations the first great Auto de F6 was held in Toledo on the first
Sunday in Lent (February 12), i486. The reconciled of seven parishes, numbering
some 750 men and women, were taken in procession and submitted to the penance
known as verguenza—or “shame”—which, however humiliating to the Christian, was
so hurtful to the pride of the Jew (and no less to that of the Moor) that he
would almost have preferred death itself. It consisted in being paraded through
the streets, men and women alike, bareheaded, barefooted, and naked to the
waist.
At the head of the
procession, preceded by the white cross, and walking two by two, went a section
of the Confraternity of St. Peter the Martyr—the familiars of the Holy Office—dressed
in black, with the white cross of St. Dominic displayed upon their cloaks.
After them followed the horde of half-naked penitents, cruel physical
discomfort being added to their mental torture, for the weather was so raw and
cold that it had been considered expedient to provide them with sandals, lest
they should have found it impossible to walk.
In his hand each
carried a candle of green wax— unlighted, to signify that as yet the light of
the Faith did not illumine his soul. Anon, when they should have been admitted
to reconciliation and absolution, these candles would be lighted, to signify
that the light of the Faith had once more entered their hearts— light being the
symbol of the Faith, just as “light” and “ faith ” have become almost convertible
terms.
Orozco informs us
that among the penitents were many of the principal citizens of Toledo, many
persons of eminence and honour, who must deeply have felt their shame at being
paraded in this fashion through crowded streets, that they might afford a
salutary
spectacle to the
multitude which had assembled in Toledo from all the surrounding country
districts. To ensure this good attendance the Auto had been proclaimed far and
wide a fortnight before it was held.
The chronicler of
these events tells us that many and loud were the lamentations of these
unfortunates. But it is very plain that their condition did not move his pity,
for he expresses the opinion that their grief was rather at the dishonour they
were suffering than— as it should have been—because they had offended God.
The procession wound
its way through the principal streets of the city, and came at last to the
Cathedral. At the main doors stood two chaplains, who with their thumbs made
the sign of the cross on the brow of each penitent in turn, accompanying the
action by the formula : “ Receive the Sign of the Cross which you denied, and
which, being deluded, you lost.”
Within the Cathedral
two large scaffolds had been erected. The penitents were led to one of these,
where the reverend inquisitors waited to receive them. On the other an altar
had been raised, surmounted by the green cross of the Inquisition, and as soon
as all the penitents were assembled, the crowd of holiday-makers being closely
packed about the scaffolds, Mass was celebrated and a sermon of the Faith was
preached.
This being at an end,
the notary of the Holy Office rose and called over the long roll of the
penitents, each answering to his name and hearing his particular offence read
out to him. Thereafter the penance was announced. They were to be whipped in
procession on each of the following six Fridays, being naked to the waist,
bareheaded and barefooted ; they were to fast on each of those six Fridays, and
they were disqualified for the rest of their lives from holding office,
benefice, or honourable employment, and from using gold, silver, precious
stones, or fine fabrics in their apparel.
They were warned that
if they relapsed into error,
or failed to perform
any part of the penance imposed, they would be deemed impenitent heretics and
abandoned to the secular arm ; and upon that grim warning they were dismissed.
On each of the
following six Fridays of Lent they were taken in procession from the Church of
San Pedro Martir to a different shrine on each occasion, and when at last they
had completed this humiliating penance it was further ordained that they should
give “ alms ” to the extent of one-fifth of the value of their property, to be
applied to the holy war against the infidels of Granada.
Scarcely are the penitents
of this Auto disposed of —the last procession took place on March 23—than the
second Auto was held.
This occurred on the
second Sunday in April, and 486 men and women were penanced on this occasion,
the procedure and the penance imposed being the same.
At Whitsuntide of
that year a sermon of the Faith was preached by the inquisitor Costana,
whereafter an edict was publicly read and nailed to the Cathedral door,
summoning all who had fled to surrender themselves to the Holy Office within
ninety days, under pain of being sentenced as contumaciously absent. Among
those cited there were, we learn, several clerics, including three Jeronymite
friars.
Finally, on the
second Sunday in June—the nth of that month—we have the last Auto within the
period of grace. In this the penitents of four parishes, numbering some 750
persons, were conducted to reconciliation under precisely the same conditions
as had already been observed in the two previous Autos.
AUTOS DE F£
The
Inquisition of Toledo had now to deal with heretics who must be considered
impenitent, since they had not availed themselves of the benign leniency of the
Church and spontaneously sought the reconciliation offered. From this moment
the proceedings assume a far more sinister character.
The first Auto under
these altered conditions was held on August 16, i486. Among the accused brought
up for sentence were twenty men and five women, whose offences doomed them to
be abandoned to the secular arm, and one of these was no less a personage than
the Regidor—or Governor—of Toledo, a Knight-Commander of the Order of Santiago.
They were brought
forth from the prison of the Inquisition at a little before six o’clock on that
summer morning, arrayed in the yellow scinbenito and coroza. Each sanbenito
bore an inscription announcing the name of the wearer and the nature of his
offences against the Faith, and they were smeared in addition with grotesque
red images of dragons and devils. A rope was round the neck of each prisoner,
and his hands were pinioned with the other end of it. In his hands, thus bound,
he carried the unlighted candle of green wax.
Thus they were led in
procession through the streets, the procession being headed as usual by a posse
of familiars of the Confraternity of St. Peter the Martyr—the Soldiers of the
Faith—and preceded
247
now by the green
cross of the Inquisition, which was shrouded in a mourning veil of black crape.
The green cross did
not merely symbolize, by its colour, constancy and eternity, but it was
fashioned as if of freshly-cut boughs, to represent living wood, the emblem of
the true faith in contradistinction to the withered branches that are to be
flung into the fire.1
Following the
Soldiers of the Faith, under a canopy of scarlet and gold, borne by four
acolytes and preceded by a bell-ringer, came the priest who was to celebrate
the Mass, in the crimson chasuble prescribed by the liturgy for these dread
solemnities. He bore the Host, and as he advanced the multitude sank down upon
their knees, beating their breasts to the clang of the bell.
Behind the canopy
walked another posse of familiars, and after these again followed the doomed
prisoners, each attended by two Dominican brothers in their white cassocks and
black cloaks, fervently exhorting those who had not yet confessed to do so even
at this late hour.
The constables of the
Holy Office and the men-at- arms of the secular authorities flanked this
section of the procession, shouldering their glittering halberts.
They were closely
followed by a group of men who bore aloft, swinging from long green poles, the
effigies of those who were to be sentenced as contumaciously absent—horribly
grotesque mannequins of straw with painted faces and bituminous eyes, tricked
out in the sanbenitos and corozas that should have adorned the originals had
not these remained fortunately at large.
Next, mounted upon
mules in trailing funereal trappings, rode the reverend inquisitors, attended
by a group of mounted gentlemen in black, the white cross upon their breasts
announcing them as familiars of the Holy Office, the officers of the tribunal.
1 "Quia si in virido ligno hsec faciunt, in arido
quid fiet?” (Luke xxiii. 31). See Garcia Rodrigo, "Hist. Verdadera,”
i. p. 373.
They were immediately
preceded by the banner of the Inquisition, displaying in an oval medallion upon
a sable ground the green cross between an olive-branch (dexter) and a naked
sword (sinister). The olive-branch, emblem of peace, symbolized the readiness
of the Inquisition to deal mercifully with those who by true repentance and confession
were disposed to reconcile themselves with Holy Mother Church. The mercy of
which so much parade was made might consist, as we know, of strangulation
before burning, or, at best, of perpetual imprisonment, the confiscation of
property, and infamy extending to the children and grandchildren of the
condemned.
The sword, on the
other hand, announced the alternative. Garcia Rodrigo says that it proclaimed
the Inquisition’s tardiness to smite. If so, it is a curious symbol to have
chosen for such a purpose; but in any case the tardiness is hardly perceptible
to the lay vision.
The procession was
closed by the secular justiciary and his alguaziles.
In this order that
grim cortege advanced to the Cathedral Square. Here two great scaffolds were
draped in black for the ceremony—blasphemously called an Act of Faith.
The prisoners were
conducted to one of these scaffolds and accommodated upon the benches that rose
from it in tiers, the highest being always reserved for those who were to be
abandoned to the secular arm—to the end, we suppose, that they should be fully
in the view of the multitude below. Each of the accused sat between two
Dominican friars. The poles bearing the effigies were placed so that they
flanked the benches.
On the other
scaffold, on which an altar had been raised and chairs set for the inquisitors,
these now made their appearance, accompanied by the notaries and fiscal and
attended by their familiars.
The shrouded green
cross was placed upon the
altar, the tapers
were lighted, the thurible kindled, and as a cloud of incense ascended and
spread its sweetly pungent odour the Mass began.
At the conclusion a
sermon of the Faith was preached, wherein the sins of the accused were denounced,
and those who had incurred the penalty of being abandoned to the secular arm
were exhorted fervently to repent and make their peace with Holy Mother Church
that they might save their souls from the damnation into which, otherwise, it
was the Inquisition’s business to hurry them.
As the preacher
ceased, the notaries of the Holy Office of Toledo proceeded to the business of
reading out the crime of each accused, dwelling in detail upon the particular
form which his Judaizing was known to have taken. As the name of each was
called, he was brought forward, and placed upon a stool,1 whilst the
reading of the lengthy sentence took place.
It requires no great
imaginative effort to form a mental picture of these proceedings, and of the
poor livid wretch, horror-stricken and bathed in the sweat of abject terror which
that long-drawn agony must have extorted from the stoutest, sitting there,
perhaps half-dazed already by the merciful hand of Nature, in the glaring
August sun, under the stare of a thousand eyes, some pitiful, some hateful,
some greedy of the offered spectacle. Or it might be some poor half- swooning
woman, steadied by the attendant Dominicans, who seek to support her fainting
courage, to mitigate her unutterable anguish with comfortless words that hold
out the promise of pitiless mercy.
And all this, Christi
nomine invocato /
The reading of the
sentence is at an end. It concludes with the formula that the Church, being
unable to do more for the offender, casts him out and abandons him to the
secular arm. Lastly comes the mockery of that intercession, efficaciter—to
preserve the inquisitors from irregularity—that the secular justice shall
1 Later on a cage was
substituted for the stool.
*
so deal with him that
his blood may not be shed, and that he may suffer no hurt in life or limb.
Thereupon the doomed
wretch is removed from the scaffold ; the alguaziles of the secular justiciary
seize him ; the Regidor mutters a few brief words of sentence, and he is thrust
upon an ass and hurried away, out of the city to the burning-place of La
Dehesa.
A white cross has
been raised in this field, where twenty-five stakes are planted with the
faggots piled under each, and a mob of morbid sightseers surges, impatient to
have the spectacle begin.
The condemned is
bound to the stake, and the Dominicans still continue their exhortations. They
flaunt a crucifix before his dazed, staring eyes, and they call upon him to
repent, confess, and save his soul from Eternal Hell. They do not leave him
until the fire is crackling and the first cruel little tongues of bluish flame dart
up through the faggots to lick the soles of his naked feet.
If he has confessed,
wrought upon by spiritual or physical terror, the Dominican makes a sign, and
the executioner steps behind the stake and rapidly strangles the doomed man. If
his physical fears have not sufficed to conquer his religious convictions, if
he remains firm in his purpose to die lingeringly, horribly, a martyr for the
faith that he believes to be the only true one, the Dominican withdraws at
last, baffied by this “ wicked stubbornness,” and the wretch is left to endure
the terrible agony of death by slow fire.
Meanwhile, under that
limpid sky—Christi nomine invocato—the ferocious work of the
Faith goes on ; accused succeeds accused to hear his or her sentence read,
until the last of the twenty-five victims has been surrendered to the tireless
arm of the secular justice. In the meadows of La Dehesa there is such a blaze
of the fires of the Faith, that it might almost seem that the Christians have
been avenging upon their enemies those human torches which an enemy of
Christianity is alleged to have lighted once in Rome.
Six mortal hours,
Orozco informs us, were consumed in that ghastly business,1 for the
Court of the Holy Office must in all things proceed with stately and pompous
leisureliness, with that calm equanimity enjoined by the “ Directorium
”—simpliciter et de piano —lest by haste it should fall into the unpardonable
offence of irregularity.
Not until noon did
the proceedings conclude with the hurrying away to La Dehesa of the last of
those twenty-five.
The inquisitors and
their followers descended at length from their scaffold, and withdrew to the
Casa Santa to rest them from these arduous labours of propagating Christianity.
There was more to be
done upon the morrow—very important business, demanding an entirely different
ceremonial, wherefore it had been set apart and allotted a day to itself.
The accused on this
occasion were only two, but they were two clerics. One was the parish priest of
Talavera; the other occupied the distinguished position of a royal chaplain.
Both had been found guilty of Judaizing. They were conducted to the Auto in
full canonicals, as if about to celebrate Mass, each carrying his veiled
chalice. Led to the scaffold of the condemned, they found themselves
confronted from the other scaffold not only by the inquisitors and their
attendants and familiars, but further by the Bishop, who was attended by two
Jeronymites—the Abbot of the Convent of St. Bernard and the Prior of the
Convent of Sisla.
The notary of the
Holy Office read out the crimes of the accused, and pronounced them cast out
from the Church. Thereupon each was brought in turn before the Bishop, who
proceeded to degrade him, since the law could not without sacrilege lay violent
hands upon an ecclesiastic.
Beginning by
depriving each of his chalice, the
» See “ Boletin,” xi. p. 310 et scq.
Bishop passed on to
divest the priestly offender of his chasuble ; stole, maniple, and alb were
removed in succession, the Bishop pronouncing the prescribed formula for each
stage of the degradation, and defacing the tonsure by clipping away a portion
of the surrounding fringe of hair.
At last the doomed
clerics stood stripped of all insignia of their office. And now the
sanbenito—that chasuble of infamy—was flung upon the shoulders of each ; their
heads were crowned with the tragically grotesque coroza, a rope was put about
each neck, and their hands were pinioned. The sentence was fulfilled at last by
their being abandoned to the secular authorities, who seized them and bore them
away to the stake.
On Sunday, October
16, a proclamation was read in the Cathedral, pronouncing several deceased
persons to have been heretics, and setting forth that, although dead
themselves, their reputations lived as those of Christians. Therefore it became
necessary to publish their heresy, and their heirs were summoned to appear
within twenty days and render to the inquisitors an account of their
inheritances, from the enjoyment of which they were disqualified, since all
property that had belonged to the deceased was, by virtue of Torquemada’s
decree, confiscate to the royal treasury.
On December 10
goopersons were admitted to public reconciliation. They were self-delators from
remote country districts who had responded to a recent edict of grace published
in those districts.
The notary announced
the forms of Judaizing of which each had been guilty and proclaimed it as their
intention henceforth to live and die in the faith of Christ. He then read out
the Articles of Faith, and they were required to say “ I believe ” after each,
and lastly to make oath upon the Gospels and the crucifix never again to fall
into the error of Judaism, to de
nounce any whom they
knew to be Judaizers, and ever to favour and uphold the Holy Inquisition and
the Holy Catholic faith.
The penance imposed
was that they should be scourged in procession for seven Fridays, and thereafter
on the first Friday of every month for a year. This in their own districts. In
addition, they were required to come to Toledo and be scourged in procession
on the Feast of St. Mary of August and on the Thursday of Holy Week. Two
hundred of them were further ordered to wear a sanbenito over their ordinary
garments for a year from that date, and never to appear in public without it
under pain of being deemed impenitent and punished as relapsed.
Another 700 came to
be reconciled on January 15, 1487, and yet another 1,200 on March 10. These
last, Orozco says, were from the districts of Talavera, Madrid, and Guadalajara
; and he adds that some amongst them were penanced to the extent of being condemned
to wear the sanbenito for the remainder of their lives.
In the Auto of May 7
fourteen men and nine women were burnt. Amongst the former was a Canon of
Toledo who was accused of horrible heresies, and who, writes Orozco, had
confessed under torture to abominable subversions of thewords of the Mass.
Instead of the prescribed formula of the consecration, he had stated that he
was in the habit of uttering the absurd and almost meaningless gibberish—“ Sus
Periquete, que mira la gente.”
On the following day there
was held a supplementary Auto, especially for the purpose of dealing with
deceased and fugitive heretics, conducted with a ceremony of an unusual and
singularly theatrical order, which is not so much typical—as are the other
Autos described—of what was taking place throughout Spain, as indicative of a
morbid inventiveness on the part of the Toledan inquisitors.
On the scaffold
usually occupied by the accused a
sepulchral monument
of wood had been erected and draped in black. As each accused was cited by the
notary, the familiars opened the monument and drew out the effigy of the dead
man dressed in the grave- clothes peculiar to the Jews.
To this dummy of
straw the detailed account of his crimes and the sentence of the court whereby
he was condemned as a heretic were solemnly read out. When all the
condemnations had thus been proclaimed, the effigies were flung into a bonfire
that had been kindled in the square ; and together with the effigies went the
bones of the deceased, which had been exhumed to that end.
After that the next
Auto of importance was held on July 25, 1488, when twenty men and seventeen
women were sent to the stake, with a supplementary Auto upon the morrow in
which they burnt the effigies of over a hundred dead and fugitive heretics.
And so it goes on, as
recorded by the licentiate Sebastian Orozco, and cited by Llorente1
and Fidel Fita.2 From now onwards the burnings increase in number.
Indeed, all edicts of grace having expired, and no new ones being permissible,
sentencing to the flames—through the medium of the secular arm—and to perpetual
imprisonment becomes the chief business of the Inquisition in Toledo and
elsewhere.
The sanbenitos of the
burnt were preserved in the churches of the parishes where they had lived. They
were hung in these churches as banners won in battle are hung—trophies of
victory over heresy.
1 See “
Anales” under the dates given.
! 11 Boletin de la Academia, etc.,” vol. xi. p. 296 et seq.
TORQUEMADA AND THE JEWS
During
that
first year of the Inquisition’s establishment in Toledo, twenty-seven persons
there convicted of Judaizing were burnt and 3,300 were penanced. And what was
taking place in Toledo was taking place in every other important city in Spain.
Numerous now and
vehement were the protests against the terrible and excessive rigour of Torquemada.
Already, upon the death of Pope Sixtus IV, a vigorous attempt had been made by
some Spaniards of eminence to procure the deposition of the Prior of Holy Cross
from the office of Grand Inquisitor. It was argued that as his appointment had
been made by Sixtus, so it was automatically determined by that Pope’s decease.
But whatever hopes may have been founded upon such an argument were very
quickly overthrown. Innocent VIII, as we have already seen, not only confirmed
Torquemada in his office, but considerably increased his powers and the scope
of his jurisdiction.
Indeed, not only was
he given jurisdiction over all the Spains, but Innocent’s bull of April 3,
1847, motu proprio, commanded all Catholic princes that, upon being requested
by the Grand Inquisitor so to do, they should arrest any fugitives he might
indicate and send them captive to the Inquisition under pain of
excommunication.1
1
Lumbreras, quoted by Llorente, " Anales,” i. p. 132. The bull is quoted in
full by M. Fidel Fita, “ Boletin,” xvi. p. 315.
256
Notwithstanding the
threat by which it was backed, this command from the Vatican appears to have
been generally disregarded by the Governments of Europe.1
That such a bull
should have been solicited gives us yet another glimpse of the terrible,
rancour against the Jews which fanaticism had kindled in the soul of
Torquemada. Had his aim been merely, as expressed, to weed the tares of heresy
from the Catholic soil of Spain, the self-imposed exile of those wretched
fugitives would fully have satisfied him, and he would not have thought it
necessary to hound them out of such shelter as they had found abroad that he
might have the satisfaction of hurling them into the bonfire he had kindled.
His position being so
greatly strengthened by the wider and ampler powers accorded to him by the new
Pontiff Torquemada gave a still freer rein to the terrible severity of his
nature, and thus occasioned those frequent and very urgent appeals to the
Vatican.
Many New-Christians
who secretly practised Jewish rites, being repelled from taking advantage of
the edict of grace by the necessity it imposed of undergoing the horrible
verguenza already described, applied now to the Pontiff for secret absolution.
This required special briefs. Special briefs brought money into the papal
coffers, and procured converts to the Faith. Two better reasons for granting
these requests it would have been impossible to have urged, and so the Curia
acceded.
But the result of
this curial interference with the autonomous jurisdiction of the Holy Office in
Spain was to provoke the resentment of Torquemada. Wrangles ensued between the
Grand Inquisitor and the Pontifical Court—wrangles which may be likened to
those of two lawyers over a wealthy client.
Torquemada arrogantly
demanded that this Roman protection of heretics should not only cease in future
1 Llorente, " Ilistoria Critica,” tom, ii, p. 118.
but be withdrawn
where already it had been granted in the past, and his demand had the full
support of Catholic Ferdinand, who did not at all relish the spectacle of the
gold of his subjects being poured into any treasury other than his own. Rome,
having meanwhile pocketed the fees, was disposed to be amenable to the
representations of the Catholic Sovereigns and their Grand Inquisitor; and the
Pope proceeded flagrantly to cancel the briefs of dispensation that had been
granted.
There was an outcry
from the swindled victims. They protested appealingly to the Pope that they had
confessed their sins against the Faith, and that absolution had been granted
them. Very rightly they urged that this absolution could not now be
rescinded—for not even the Pope had power to do so much—and they argued that,
being in a state of grace, they could not now be prosecuted for heresy.
But they overlooked
the retrospective power which —however unjustifiable by canon or any other law—
the Inquisition had arrogated to itself. By virtue of this, as we have seen,
the inquisitors could take proceedings even against one who had died in a
state of grace, at peace with Holy Mother Church, if it were shown that an
offence of heresy committed at some stage of his life had not been expiated in
a manner that the Holy Office accounted condign.
These protests of the
unfortunate Judaizers, who by their own action had achieved—as they now
realized —no more than self-betrayal, were met by the priestly answer that
their sins had been absolved in the tribunal of conscience only, and that it
still remained for them to seek temporal absolution in the tribunal of the Holy
Office. This temporal absolution would accord them, as we know—and as they
knew—the right to live in perpetual imprisonment after the confiscation of
their property and the destitution and infamy of their children.
The answer, crafty
and sophistical as it was, did
not suffice to
silence the protests. Clamorously these continued, and the Pope, unable to turn
a deaf ear upon them, fearful lest a scandal should ensue, effected a sort of
compromise. With the royal concurrence, Innocent VIII issued several bulls,
each commanding the Catholic Sovereigns to admit fifty persons to secret
absolution with immunity from punishment. These secret absolutions were
purchased at a high price, and they were granted upon the condition that in the
event of the re-Judaizing of a person so absolved, he would be treated as
relapsed, the secret absolution being then published.
These absolutions
were particularly useful in the case of persons deceased, several of whom, at
the petition of the heirs, were included among the secretly reconciled—the
inheritance being thereby secured from confiscation.
Altogether Pope
Innocent granted four of these bulls in i486.1 In the last one
issued he left it at the discretion of the Sovereigns to indicate those who
should be admitted to this grace, and they were permitted to include the names
even of persons against whom proceedings had already been initiated.
With what degree of
equanimity Torquemada viewed these bulls of absolution we do not know. But very
soon we shall see him vexed by papal interference of a fresh character.
Simoniacal practices
were never more rampant in Rome than under the rule of Innocent VIII. His greed
was notorious and scandalous, and a number of alert baptized Jews bethought
them that this might be turned to account. They slyly submitted to the Holy
Father that although they were good Catholics, such was the harshness of the
Grand Inquisitor towards men of their blood that they lived in constant dread
and anxiety lest the mere circumstance of their having originally been Jews
should be accounted a sufficient reason to bring them under suspicion or should
lay 1 Lumbreras, quoted by Llorente, 11 Anales,"
vol. i. p. ill.
them open to the
machinations of malevolent enemies. Hence they implored his Holiness to grant
them the privilege of exclusion from inquisitorial jurisdiction.
At a price this
immunity was to be obtained ; and soon others, seeing the success that had
attended the efforts of the originators of this crafty idea, were following
their example and setting a drag upon the swift wheels of Torquemada’s justice.
That it stirred him
to righteous anger is not to be doubted, however subservient and injured the
tone in which he addressed his protest to the Pontiff.
Innocent replied by a
brief of November 27, 1487, that whenever the Grand Inquisitor found occasion
to proceed against one so privileged, he should inform the Apostolic Court of
all that might exist against the accused, so that his Holiness should determine
whether the privilege was to be respected.1
It follows inevitably
that if there was heresy, or the suspicion of it, the Pope must allow the
justice of the Holy Office to run its course. So that the Jews who had
purchased immunity must have realized that they were dealing with one who
understood the science of economics (and the guile to be practised in it) even
better than did they, famous as they have always been for clear-sightedness in
such matters.
Meanwhile, with the
power that was vested in him, Torquemada was amassing great wealth from the proportion
of the confiscations that fell to his share. But whatever his faults may have
been, he was perfectly consistent in them, just as he was perfectly, terribly
sincere.
Into the sin of pride
he may have fallen. We see signs of it. And, indeed, it is difficult to
conceive of a man climbing from the obscurity of the monastic cell to the
fierce glare of his despotic eminence and remaining humble at heart. Humble he
did remain; but with that aggressive humility which is one of
pride’s 1 Lumbreras, quoted by Llorente in “ Anales,” vol. i. p.
138.
worst forms and akin
to self-righteousness—the sin most dreaded by those who strive after sanctity.
We know that he
unswervingly followed the stern path of asceticism prescribed by the founder of
his order. He never ate meat ; his bed was a plank ; his flesh never knew the
contact of linen ; his garments were the white woollen habit and the black
mantle of the Dominican. Dignities he might have had, but he disdained them.
Paramo says 1 that Isabella sought to force them upon him, and that,
in particular, she would have procured his appointment to the Archbishopric of
Seville when this was vacated by the Cardinal of Spain. But he was content to
remain the Prior of Holy Cross of Segovia, as he had been when he was haled
from his convent to direct the affairs of the Holy Office in Spain. The only
outward pomp he permitted himself was that whenever now he went abroad he was
attended by an escort of fifty mounted familiars and two hundred men on foot.
This escort Llorente admits 2 was imposed by the Sovereigns. It is
possible, as is suggested, that it was to defend him from his enemies, since
the death of Arbu^s had shown to what lengths the New-Christians were prepared
to go. But it is more probable that this escort was accepted as an outward sign
of the dignity of his office, and perhaps also to serve the terrorizing purpose
which Torquemada considered so very salutary.
That he practised the
contempt for worldly riches which he preached is beyond all doubt. We cannot
discover that any of the wealth that accrued to him was put to any worldly uses
or went in any way to benefit any member of his family. Indeed, we have already
seen him refusing suitably to dower his sister, allowing her no more than the
pittance necessary to enable her to enter a convent of the Tertiary Order of
St. Dominic.3
1 “De Origine,” p. 276. ’ “Historia Critica,” tom. ii. p.
146. s Paramo, " De Origine,” p. 157.
He employed the
riches which his office brought him entirely to the greater honour and glory of
the religion which he served with such terrible zeal. He spent it lavishly upon
such works as the rebuilding of the Dominican Convent of Segovia, together with
the contiguous church and offices. He built the principal church of his
family’s native town of Torquemada and half of the great bridge over the River
Pisuerga.1
Fidel Fita quotes an
interesting letter of Tor- quemada’s, dated August 17, 1490, in which he thanks
the gentry of Torquemada for having sent him a sumpter-mule, but rather seems
to rebuke the gift.
“To me,” he writes, “
it was not, nor is necessary to send such things ; and it is certain that I
should have sent back the gift but that it might have offended you; for I,
praised be our Lord, possess nine sumpter-mules, which suffice me.”2
In sending the gift
they had asked him for assistance towards the work being carried out in the
church of Santa Ollala, the contribution he had already made not having proved
sufficient. He replies regretting that he can do nothing at the moment, as he
is not with the Court, but promises that upon his return thither he will do the
necessary with the Sovereigns so as to be able to send them the further funds
they require.8
As early as 1482 he
began to build at Avila the church and monastery of St. Thomas. This pleasant
little country town, packed within its narrow red walls and flanked with towers
so that it presents the appearance of a formidable castle, stands upon rising
ground in the fertile plain that is watered by the River Adaja. Torquemada
built his magnificent monastery beyond the walls, upon the site of a humbler
edifice that had
1 See H. del Castillo, "Historia General de Santo
Domingo.”
’ " Boletin de la Academia,” vol. xxiii. p. 413.
8 Castillo. " Historia de Sto. Domingo,” pt. i. p.
486
been erected by the
pious D. Maria de Avila. It was completed by the year 1493, and what moneys
came to him thereafter appear to have gone to the endowment of this vast
convent—a place of handsome, spacious, cloistered courts and splendid
galleries— which became at once his chief residence, tribunal, and prison.1
Again his fanatical
hatred of the Israelites displays itself in the condition he laid down—and
whose endorsement he obtained from Pope Alexander VI— that no descendant of Jew
or Moor should ever be admitted to these walls, upon which he engraved the
legend :
PESTEM FUGAT
H^RETICAM.3
In this monastery the
amplest provisions were made, not only for the tribunal of the Inquisition, but
also for the incarceration of its prisoners.
Garcia Rodrigo,
anxious to refute the widespread belief that the prisons of the Inquisition
were unhealthy subterranean dungeons, draws attention to the airy, sunny
chambers here set apart for prisoners.3 It is true enough in this
instance, as transpires from certain records that are presently to be
considered.1 But it is not true in general, and it almost seems a
little disingenuous of Garcia Rodrigo to put forward a striking exception as an
instance of the rule that obtained.
Whatever the
simplicity of Torquemada’s life, and whatever his personal humility, it would
be idle to pretend that he was not imbued with the pride and arrogance of his
office, swollen by the increase of power accorded him, until in matters of the
Faith he did not hesitate to dictate to the Sovereigns themselves, and to
reproach them almost to the point of
1 Ariz, “ Historia de Avila,” vol. i. p. 46.
a Paramo, “ De Origine,” p. 158.
3 “ Historia Verdadera,” vol. ii. p. 115.
* The case of the 41 Santo Nino of
L,a Guardia,”
menace when they were
slow to act as he dictated, whilst it was dangerous for any under Sovereign
rank to come into conflict with the Grand Inquisitor.
As an instance of
this, the case of the Captain- General of Valencia may be cited. The Inquisition
of Valencia had arrested, upon a charge of hindering the Holy Office, one
Domingo de Santa Cruz, whose particular offence, in the Captain-General’s view,
came rather within the jurisdiction of the military courts. Acting upon this
opinion, he ordered his troops to take the accused from the prison of the Holy
Office, employing force to that end if necessary.
The inquisitors of
Valencia complained of this action to the Suprema, whereupon Torquemada imperiously
ordered the Captain-General to appear before that council and render an account
of what he had done. He was supported in this by the King, who wrote commanding
the offender and all who had aided him in procuring the release of Santa Cruz
to submit themselves to arrest by the officers of the Inquisition.
Not daring to resist,
that high dignitary was compelled humbly to sue for absolution of the ecclesiastical
censure incurred, and he must have counted himself fortunate that Torquemada
did not subject him to a public humiliation akin to that undergone by the
Infante of Navarre.
The brilliant and
illustrious young Italian, Giovanni Pico, Count of Mirandola, had a near escape
of falling into the hands of the dread inquisitor. When Pico fled from Italy
before the blaze of ecclesiastical wrath which his writings had kindled, Pope
Innocent issued a bull, December 16, 1487, to Ferdinand and Isabella, setting
forth that be believed the Count of Mirandola had gone to Spain with the
intention of teaching in the universities of that country the evil doctrines
which he had already published in Rome, notwithstanding that, having been
convinced of their error, he had abjured them. (Another case of the “ e put
si
muove" of Galileo.) And since Pico was noble, gentle, and handsome,
amiable and eloquent of speech (Pseudopropheta est; dulcia loquitur et ad
modicum placet), there was great danger that an ear might be lent to his
teachings. Wherefore his Holiness begged the Sovereigns that in the event of
his suspicions concerning Pico’s intentions being verified, their highnesses
should arrest the Count, to the end that the fear of corporal pains might deter
him where the fear of spiritual ones had proved insufficient.
The Sovereigns
delivered this bull to Torquemada that he might act upon it. But Pico, getting
wind of the reception that awaited him, and having sufficient knowledge of the
Grand Inquisitor's uncompromising methods to be alarmed at the prospect, took
refuge in France, where he wrote the apologia of his Catholicism, which he
dedicated to Lorenzo de ’ Medici.1
We have said, on the
subject of the Inquisition’s introduction into Spain, that to an extent and
after a manner this must be considered the most justifiable— by which we are to
be taken to mean the least unjustifiable—of religious persecutions, inasmuch
as it had no concern save with deserters from the fold of the Roman Church.
Liberty was accorded to all religions that were not looked upon as heretical—
i.e. that were not in themselves secessions from Roman Catholicism—and Jew and
Moslem had nothing to fear from the Holy Office. It was only when, after having
received baptism, they reverted to their original cults, that they rendered
themselves liable to prosecution, being then looked upon as heretics, or, more
properly speaking, as apostates.
But this point of
view, which satisfied the Roman See, did not at all satisfy the Prior of Holy
Cross. His bitter, fanatical hatred of the Israelites—almost rivalling that of
the Dean of Ecija in the fourteenth 1 Fidel Fita in “ Boletin,' vol.
xvi, p. 315.
century—urged him to
violate this poor remnant of equity, drove him to overstep the last boundary of
apparent justice, and carry the religious war into the region of complete and
terrible intolerance.
The reason he
advanced was that as long as the Jews remained undisturbed in the Peninsula, so
long would a united Christian Spain be impossible. Despite penances,
imprisonments, and burnings, the Judaizing movement went on. New-Christians
were seduced back into the error of the Mosaic Law, whilst conversion amongst
the Jews was checked by respect for the feelings of those who remained true to
their ancient faith. Nor did the Hebrew offences against Christianity end
there. There were the indignities to which holy things were subjected at their
hands. There were criminal sacrileges in which—according to Torquemada—they
vented their hatred of the Holy Christian Faith.
Such, for instance,
was the outrage upon the crucifix at Casar de Palomero in 1488.
On Holy Thursday of
that year, in this village of the diocese of Coria, several Jews, instead of
being at home with closed doors at such a season, as the Christian law
demanded, were making merry in an orchard, to the great scandal of a man named
Juan Caletrido, who there detected them.
The spy, moved to
horror at the mere thought of these descendants of the crucifiers daring to be
at play upon such a day as that, went to inform several others of what he had
witnessed. A party of young Spaniards, but too ready to combine the performance
of a meritorious act with the time-honoured sport of Jew- baiting, invaded the
privacy of the orchard, set upon the Jews, and compelled them to withdraw into
their houses.
Smarting under this
indignity—for, when all is said, they had been more or less private in their
orchard, and they had intended no offence by their slight evasion of the Strict
letter of the law—they related
the event to other
members of the synagogue, including the Rabbi.
From what ensued it
seems plain that they must there and then have determined to avenge the honour
of their race, which they conceived had been affronted.
Llorente, basing
himself upon the chronicler Velasquez and the scurrilous anti-Jewish writings
of Torrejoncillo, supposes that their aim was to repeat as nearly as possible
the Passion of the Nazarene upon one of His Images. That, indeed, may have been
the prejudiced view of the Grand Inquisitor.
But it is far more
likely that, to spite these Christians who had added this insult to the
constant humiliations they were putting upon the Israelites, the latter should
simply have resolved to smash one of the public symbols of Christianity. The
details of what took place do not justify the supposition that their intentions
went any deeper.
On the morrow, which
was Good Friday, the circumstance of the day contributing perhaps to the more
popular version of the story, whilst the Christians were in church for the
service of the Passion, a party of Jews repaired to an open space known as
Puerto del Gamo, where stood a large wooden crucifix. This image they shattered
and overthrew.
It is alleged that
before finally breaking it they had indulged in elaborate insult, “ doing and
saying all that their rage dictated against the Nazarene.”
An Old-Christian,
named Hernan Bravo, having watched them, ran to bear the tale of their
sacrilegious deed. The Christians poured tumultuously out of church, and fell
upon the Jews. Three of the latter were stoned to death on the spot ; two
others, one of whom was a lad of thirteen, suffered each the loss of his right
hand; whilst the Rabbi Juan, being taken as an inciter, was put to the question
with a view to inducing him to confess. But he denied so stoutly the things he
was required to admit, and the inquisitors tortured so determinedly, that he
died upon the rack
—an irregularity this
for which each inquisitor responsible would have to seek absolution at the
hands of the other.
All those who took
part in the sacrilege suffered confiscation of their property, whilst the
pieces of the crucifix, which had become peculiarly sanctified by the affair,
were gathered up and conveyed to the Church of Casar, where, upon being
repaired, the image was given the place of honour.1
It is extremely
likely that the story of this outrage, exaggerated as we have seen, would be
one of the arguments employed by Torquemada when first he began to urge upon
the attention of the Sovereigns the desirability of the expulsion of the Jews.
He would cite it as a flagrant instance of the Jewish hatred of Christianity,
which gave rise to his complaint and which he contended rendered a united
Spain impossible as long as this accursed race continued to defile the land.
Further, there can be very little doubt that it would serve to revive and to
lend colour to the old stories of ritual murder practised by the Jews and
provided for by one of the enactments in the “ Partidas ” code of Alfonso XI.
The reluctance of the
Sovereigns to lend an ear to any such arguments is abundantly apparent. Not
Ferdinand in all his bigotry could be blind to the fact that the chief trades
of the country were in the hands of the Israelites, and to the inevitable loss
to Spanish commerce, then so flourishing, which must ensue on their banishment.
Of their ability in matters of finance he had practical and beneficial
experience, and the admirable equipment of his army in the present campaign
against the Moors of Granada was entirely due to the arrangements he had made
with Jewish contractors. Moreover, there was this war itself to engage the
attention of the Sovereigns, and so it was not possible to lend at the moment
more than an in-
1 Llorente, "Anales,” vol. i. p. 168, and
Torrejoncillo, “Centinela contra Judios.”
different attention
to the fierce pleadings of the Grand Inquisitor.
Suddenly, however, in
1490 an event came to light, to throw into extraordinary prominence the
practice of ritual murder of which the Jews were suspected, and to confirm and
intensify the general belief in the stories that were current upon that
subject. This was the crucifixion at La Guardia, in the province of La Mancha,
of a boy of four years of age, known to history as “ the Holy Child of La
Guardia.”
A stronger argument
than this afforded him for the furtherance of his aims Torquemada could not
have desired. And it is probably this circumstance that has led so many writers
to advance the opinion that he fabricated the whole story and engineered the
substantiation of a charge that so very opportunely placed an added weapon in
his hands.
Until some thirty
years ago all our knowledge of the affair was derived from the rather vague “
Testi- monio ” preserved in the sanctuary of the martyred child, and a little
history of the “ Santo Nino,” by Martinez Moreno, published in Madrid in 1786.
This last—like Lope da Vega’s drama upon the same subject—was based upon a “
Memoria ” prepared by Damiano de Vegas of La Guardia in 1544, at a time when
people were still living who remembered the incident, including the brother of
a sacristan who was implicated in the affair.1
Martinez Moreno’s
narrative is a queer jumble of possible fact and obvious fiction, which in
itself may be responsible for the opinion that the whole story was an invention
of Torquemada’s to forward his own designs.
But in 1887 the
distinguished and painstaking M. Fidel Fita published in the “ Boletin de la
Real Academia de la Historia” the full record, which he had unearthed, of the
proceedings against Yuc6 (or Jos6) Franco, one of the incriminated Jews.
1 Fidel Fita in " Boletin,” vol. xi
p. 160.
A good deal still
remains unexplained, and must so remain until the records of the trials of the
other accused are brought to light. It may perhaps be well to suspend a final
judgment until then. Meanwhile, however, a survey of the discovered record
should incline us to the opinion that, if the story is an invention, it is one
for which those who were accused of the crime are responsible—an unlikely
contingency, as we shall hope to show—and in no case can the inventor have been
Frey Tomds de Torquemada.
THE LEGEND OF THE
SANTO NINO
The extravagant story related by Martinez Moreno, the parish
priest of La Guardia, in his little book on the Santo Nino, is derived, as we
have said, partly from the “Testimonio ’’and partly from the “Memoria” by de
Vegas ; further, it embodies all those legendary, supernatural details with
which the popular imagination had embellished the theme.
Either it is one of
those deliberate frauds known as “ pious,” or else it is the production of an
intensely foolish mind. When we consider that the author was a doctor of
divinity and an inquisitor himself, we prefer to incline to the former
alternative.
This mixture of fact
and fiction sets forth how a party of Jews from the townships of Quintana, Ten-
bleque, and La Guardia, having witnessed an Auto de F6 in Toledo, were so
filled with rage and fury, not only against the Holy Tribunal, but against all
Christians in general, that they conspired together to encompass a complete
annihilation of the Faithful.
Amongst them was one
Benito Garcia, a wool- comber of Las Mesuras, who was something of a traveller,
and who had learnt upon his travels of a piece of sorcery attempted in France
for the destruction of the Christians, which had miscarried owing to a
deception practised upon the sorcerers.
The story is worth
repeating for the sake of the light it throws upon the credulity of the simple
folk of Spain in such matters, a credulity which in remote
271
districts of the
peninsula is almost as vigorous to-day as it was in Moreno’s century.
The warlocks, in that
earlier instance of which Benito had knowledge, were alleged to be a party of
Jews who had fled from Spain on the first institution of the Inquisition in
Seville in 1482. They had repaired to France bent upon the destruction of all
Christians, to the end that the Children of Israel might become lords of the
land, and that the Law of Moses might prevail. For the sorcery to which they
proposed to resort they required a consecrated wafer and the heart of a
Christian child. These were to be reduced to ashes to the accompaniment of
certain incantations, and scattered in the rivers of the country, with the
result that all Christians who drank the waters must go mad and die.
Having obtained the
wafer, they now approached an impoverished Christian with a large family, and
tempted him with money to sell them the heart of one of his numerous children.
The Christian, of course, repudiated the monstrous proposal. But his wife, who
combined cunning with cupidity, drove with the Jews the bargain to which her
husband refused to be a party, and having killed a pig she sold them the heart
of the animal under obviously false pretences.
As a consequence, the
enchantment which the deluded Jews proceeded to carry out had no such effect as
was desired and expected.
Armed with his full
knowledge of what had happened, Benito now proposed to his friends that they
should have recourse to the same enchantment in Spain, making sure, however,
that the heart employed was that of a Christian boy. He promised them that by
this means, not only the inquisitors, but all the Christians would be
destroyed, and the Israelites would remain undisputed lords of Spain.
Amongst those who
joined him in the plot was a man named Juan Franco, of a family of carriers of
La Guardia. This man went with Benito to Toledo
Photo by
Donald Macbeth
BANNER OF THE INQUISITION.
From Lirnborch’s “ Historia Inquisitionis.”
3n;i im o&
on the Feast of the
Assumption, intent upon finding a child for their purpose. They drove there in
a cart, which they left outside the city while they went separately about their
quest.
Franco found what he
sought in one of the doorways of the Cathedral, known as the Puerta del Perdon
—the door, adds Moreno, through which the Virgin entered the church when she
came from heaven to honour with the chasuble her votary St. Ildefonso. The Jew
beheld in this doorway a very beautiful child of three or four years of age,
the son of Alonso de Pasamontes. His mother was near at hand, but she was
conveniently blind—i.e. conveniently for the development of Moreno’s story,
this blindness serving not only the purpose of rendering the child’s undetected
abduction easily possible, but also that of affording the martyred infant scope
for the first miraculous manifestation of his sanctity.
Juan Franco lured the
boy away with the offer of sweetmeats. He regained his cart with his victim,
concealed the latter therein, and so returned to La Guardia. There he kept the
child closely and safely until Passion Week of the following year, or, rather,
until the season of the Passover, when the eleven Jews—six of whom had received
Christian baptism—assembled in La Guardia. They took the child by night to a
cave in the hills above the river, and there they compelled him to play the
protagonist part in a detailed parody of the Passion, scourging him, crowning
him with thorns, and finally nailing him to a cross.
On the subject of the
scourging, Moreno tells us that the Jews carefully counted the number of
lashes, aiming in this, as in all other details, at the greatest historical
fidelity. But when the child had borne without murmuring upwards of five
thousand strokes, he suddenly began to cry. One of the Jews—finding, we are to
suppose, that this weeping required explanation —asked him : “ Boy, why are you
crying ? ”
To this the boy
replied that he was crying because he had received five lashes more than his
Divine Master.
“ So that,” says this
doctor of divinity quite soberly, “ if the lashes received by Christ numbered
5,495, as computed by Lodulfo Cartujano in his ‘In Vita Christi,’ those
received by the Holy Child Christoval were
S’500'”1
. . . ,
He mentions here the
child’s name as “ Christoval,” to which he informs us that it was changed from
“ Juan,” to the end that the former might more aptly express the manner of his
death. There is no doubt that some such consideration weighed when the child
was given that suggestive name ; but the real reason for it was that no name
was known (for the identity ot the boy did not transpire), and it was necessary
to supply him with one by which he might be worshipped.
When he was
crucified, his side was opened by one of the Jews, who began to rummage2
for the child’s heart. He failed to find it, and he was suddenly checked by the
child’s question—“ What do you seek, Jew? If you seek my heart, you are in
error to seek it on that side; seek on the other, and you will find it.”
In the very moment of
his death, Moreno tells us, the Santo Nino performed his first miracle. His
mother, who had been blind from birth, received the gift of sight in the
instant that her child expired.3
This interpolation
appears to be entirely Moreno’s own, and it is one of the justifications of our
assumption that the work is to be placed in the category of pious frauds. But
he is, of course, mistaken, by his own narrative, in announcing this as the
first of the
1 “ Historia
del Santo Nino,” p. 40.
2 “Rummage” is
the only word that does justice to the original: “Eljudio andaba buscando el
corazon, revolviendo las entranas con su mano carniciera, y no lo hallando, le
pergunto : 1 Que buscas, Judio? Si buscas el corazon yerras
buscandolo en esa parte, buscalo al otro lado y lo incontrar&s.’ ”—"
Historia del Santo Nino,” p. 50.
3 “ Historia
del Santo Nino,” p. 95.
child’s miracles. He
overlooks the miracle entailed in the capacity to count displayed by a boy of
four years of age, and the further miracle of the speech addressed by the
crucified infant to the Jew who had opened his side.
Benito Garcia was
given the heart, together with a consecrated wafer which had been stolen by the
sacristan of the Church of Sta. Maria de La Guardia, and with these he departed
to seek out the mage who was to perform the enchantment. It happened, however,
that in passing through Astorga, Benito—who was himself a converso—pretending
that he was a faithful Catholic, repaired to church, and, kneeling there, the
more thoroughly to perform this comedy of devoutness, he pulled out a Prayer
Book, between the leaves of which the consecrated wafer had been secreted.
A good Christian
kneeling some little way behind him was startled to see a resplendent effluence
of light from the book. Naturally he concluded that he was in the presence of a
miracle, and that this stranger was some very holy man. Filled with reverent
interest, he followed the Jew to the inn where he was lodged, and then went
straight to the father inquisitors to inform them of the portent he had
witnessed, that they might investigate it.
The inquisitors sent
their familiars to find the man, and at sight of them Benito fell into terror,
“ so that his very face manifested how great was his crime.” He was at once
arrested, and taken before the inquisitors for examination. There he
immediately confessed the whole affair.
Upon being desired to
surrender the heart, he produced the box in which it had been placed, but upon
opening the cloth that had been wrapped round it, the heart was discovered to
have miraculously vanished.
Yet another miracle
mentioned by Moreno is that when the inquisitors opened the grave. where it was
said that the infant
had been buried, they found the place empty, and the Doctor considers that
since the child had suffered all the bitterness of the Saviour’s Passion, it
was God’s will that he should also know the glories of the Resurrection, and
that his body had been assoomed into heaven.
The “Testimonio” from
the archives of the parochial church of La Guardia, printed on tablets
preserved in the Sanctuary of the Santo Nino, is quoted by Moreno,1
and runs as follows :
“ We, Pedro de Tapia,
Alonso Doriga and Matheo Vazquez, secretaries of the Council of the Holy and
General Inquisition, witness to all who may see this that by certain
proceedings taken by the Holy Office in the year 1491, the Most Reverend Frey
Tomds de Torquemada being Inquisitor-General in the Kingdoms of Spain, and the
inquisitors and judges by him deputed in the City of Avila being the Very
Reverend Dr. D. Pedro de Villada, Abbot of San Marcial and San Millan in the
Churches of Leon ,and Burgos, the Licentiate Juan Lopez de Cigales, Canon of
the Church of Cuenca, and Frey Fernando de Santo Domingo of the Order of
Preachers, inquisitors as is said against heretical pravity, and with power and
special commission from the Very Reverend D. Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza,
Cardinal of Santa Cruz, Archbishop of Toledo, Primate of Spain, Grand Chancellor
of Castile, and Bishop of Siguenza.
“ It transpires that
the said inquisitors proceeding against certain Jews and some New-Christians
converted from Jews, of the neighbourhood of La Guardia, Quintanar, and
Tenbleque, ascertained that amongst other crimes by these committed was that :
one of the said Jews and one of the newly-converted being in Toledo and
witnessing a burning that was being done by the Holy Office in that city, they
were cast down
1 •' Historia del Santo Niflo,” p. 98 et seq.
by this execution of
justice. The Jew said to the convert that he feared the great harm that might
come and did come to them from the Holy Inquisition, and having treated of
various matters germane to this subject, the Jew said that if they could obtain
the heart of a Christian boy all could be remedied. And so, after his wide
practice in this matter, the Jew from the neighbourhood of Quintanar undertook to
procure a Christian boy for the said purpose.
“And it was agreed
that the said New-Christian should go to Quintanar as soon as bidden by the Jew
; and upon this understanding each of the aforesaid left the City of Toledo and
returned to his own district.
“A few days later the
said Jew summoned the New-Christian to come to him in the village of Tenbleque,
where he awaited him in his father’s house. There they foregathered, and agreed
upon a day when they should meet at Quintanar, whither the New-Christian now
returned, and informed, as he had agreed, a brother of his own, who like
himself was also a New-Christian, and he related fully all that had been
arranged, his brother being of the same mind.
“The better to
execute their accursed project, they arranged a place to which the child should
be brought, and what was to be done—that this should be in a cave near La
Guardia, on the road to Ocana, on the right-hand side. And thus to execute the
matter, the said New-Christian went to Quintanar on the day arranged together
with the said Jew.
“ The better to
dissemble, he went to a tavern, where presently he was able to communicate with
the Jew, and as a result of what passed between them, the New-Christian went
out to await him on the road to Villa Palomas in a ravine, where presently he
was joined by the said Jew on an ass with the child before him—of the age of
three or four years.
“ They went on
together, and arrived after nightfall at the said cave, whither came, as was
arranged, the brother of the New-Christian, and with him other
newly-converted Jews,
with whom it appears that the aforesaid matter had been treated.
“ Being all assembled
in the cave, they lighted a candle of yellow wax, and so that the light should
not be seen they hung a cloak over the mouth of the cave. They seized the boy,
whom the said Jew had taken from the Puerta del Perdon in Toledo—which boy was
named Juan, son of Alonso Pasamontes and of Juana La Guindera. The said
New-Christians now made a cross out of the timbers of a ladder which had been
brought from a mill. They threw a rope round the boy’s neck and they set him on
the cross, and with another rope they tied his legs and arms, and they nailed
his feet and hands to the cross with nails.
“ Being thus placed
(puesto), one of the New- Christians from the neighbourhood of La Guardia bled
the child, opening the veins of his arms with a knife, and he caught the blood
that flowed in a cauldron ; and with a rope in which they had tied knots some
whipped him, whilst others set a crown of thorns upon his head. They struck
him, spat upon him, and used opprobrious words to him, pretending that what
they were saying to the said child was addressed to the Person of Christ. And
whilst they whipped him, they said : ‘ Betrayer, trickster, who, when you
preached, preached falsehood against the Law of God and Moses ; now you shall
pay here for what you said then. You thought to destroy us and to exalt
yourself. But we shall destroy you.' And further : ‘ Crucify this betrayer who
once announced himself King, who was to destroy our temple . . .’ etc. etc.1
“ After the
ill-treatment and vituperation, one of the New-Christians from La Guardia
opened the left side of the child with a knife and drew out his heart, upon
which he threw some salt; and so the child expired upon the cross. All of which
was done in mockery of the Passion of Christ; and some of the
1 There is
a great deal more of this, but the alleged insults become too obscene for
translation.
New-Christians took
the body of the child and buried it in a vineyard near Sta. Maria de Pera.
“A few days later the
said Jew and New- Christians met again in the cave and attempted certain
enchantments and conjurations with the heart of the child and a consecrated
Host obtained through a sacristan who was a New-Christian. This con- iuration
and experiment they performed with the intention that the inquisitors of
heretical pravity and all other Christians should enrage and die raging
(rabiendo), and the Law of Jesus Christ our Redeemer should be entirely destroyed
and superseded by the Law of Moses.
“ When they saw that
the said experiment did not operate nor had the result they hoped, they
assembled again elsewhere, and having treated of all that they desired to
effect, by common consent one of them was sent with the heart of the said child
and the consecrated Host to the Aljama of Zamora, which they accounted the
principal Aljama in Castile, to the end that certain Jews there, known to be
wise men, should with the said heart and Host perform the said experiment and
sorcery that the Christians might enrage and die, and thus accomplish what they
so ardently desired.
“ And for the greater
ascertaining of the crime and demonstration of the truth, the said inquisitors
having arrested some of the said offenders, New-Christians and Jews, they set
the accused face to face, so that in the confession of their crimes there was
conformity, and these confessions consisted of what has been here set down. In
addition other further steps were taken to verify the places where the crimes
were committed and the place where the child was buried ; and they took one of
the principal accused to the place where the child was buried, and there they
found signs and demonstration of the truth of all.1 Some of the said
accused, and some already deceased,
1 But they
did not find the body—a circumstance which appears to be here slurred over.
being prosecuted,
they were sentenced and abandoned to the secular arm, all that we have set down
being in accordance with the records of the proceedings to which we refer.
“ The said ‘
Testimonio ’ written upon three sheets bearing our rubrics, we the said
secretaries deliver by request of the Procurator-General of the village of La
Guardia, by order of the Very Illustrious Senores of His Majesty’s Council of
the Holy Inquisition in the City of Madrid in the Diocese of Toledo, on the
19th day of September of the year of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, 1569.
“Alonso de Doriga = Nec auro
frangenda fides.
Matheo Vazquez = In cujus fide
fcedera con-
sistunt.
Pedro
de Tapia.”
This “Testimonio”
does not afford us the name of any one of the offenders—presumably that the
holy place in which the tablets were exposed should not be desecrated. When it
is compared with the account left by Moreno and the discrepancies between the
two become apparent, when, further, the extravagances of Moreno’s story are
considered, it is not surprising that the conclusion should have been reached
that the whole affair was trumped up to forward that campaign against the Jews
to which Torquemada was employing his enormous energies.
But the records of
the trial of Yuc6 Franco discovered by Fidel Fita throw a very different light
upon the matter. And whilst we know that Torquemada did avail himself to the
utmost of this affair of the Santo Nino to encompass the banishment of the Jews
from Spain, we must consider all notion that he himself simply invented the
story to that end as completely dispelled by the evidence that is now to be
examined.
From the records of
the trial of Yuc6 Franco
we are to-day not
only able very largely to reconstruct the event, but also to present a
complete instance of the application of the jurisprudence of the Inquisition.
Indeed, had the archives of the Holy Office been ransacked for an entirely
typical prosecution, embodying all the features peculiar to that terrible
court, no better instance than this could have been forthcoming.
THE ARREST OF YUCE
FRANCO
In May or June of 1490—the time of year being approximately
determined by the events that follow— a baptized Jew of Las Mesuras named
Benito Garcia put up at an inn in the northern village of Astorga. He was an
elderly man of some sixty years of age, a wool-comber by trade and a
considerable traveller in the course of his trading.
In the common-room of
the tavern where he sat at table were several men of Astorga, who, either in a
drunken frolic or because they were thieves, went through the contents of his
knapsack, and discovered in it some herbs and a communion wafer, which they at
once assumed to be consecrated (and which it was grossest sacrilege for a
layman so much as to touch).
Uproar followed the
announcement of the discovery. With cries of “ Sacrilege ! " these
thieving drunkards fell upon the Jew. They beat him. They flung a rope about
his neck, dragged him from the inn and haled him into the presence of the
Provisor of Astorga, Dr. Pedro de Villada. The reverend doctor discharged there
the functions of an agent of the Holy Office. He was fully experienced in inquisitorial
affairs, and he was upon the eve of being promoted to the dignity of inquisitor
in the court of Avila.
Villada received the
wafer, heard the accusation, and took a short way with Benito when the latter
refused to explain himself. He ordered him two
282
hundred lashes, and
finding the man still obdurate after this punishment, he submitted him to the
water- torture. Under this the wretched fellow at last betrayed himself. Of
precisely what he said we have no record taken at the time ; but we have his
own word for it—as reported afterwards by Yuc6 Franco to whom he uttered
it—that “he had said more than he knew, and enough to burn him.” 1
Having, as is clear,
obtained from him an admission of his own guilt, Villada now proceeded, as
prescribed by the “ Directorium,” to induce him to incriminate others. We know
the methods usually employed; from these and from what follows it is quite
reasonable to assume that recourse was had to them now.
Following Eymeric’s
instructions, Villada would, no doubt, admonish him with extreme kindness, professing
to cast no blame upon Benito himself but rather upon those evil ones who had
seduced him into error, and he would exhort the prisoner to save himself by
showing a true penitence, pointing out that the only proof of his penitence he
could advance would be a frank and free delation of those who had led him so
grievously astray.
From the occasional
glimpses of this Benito Garcia vouchsafed us in the records of the trial of
Yuc6 Franco, we perceive a rather reckless personality, of a certain grim, sardonic
humour, gleams of which actually pierce through the dehumanization of the legal
documents to ensnare our sympathy.
He is imbued with
contempt for these Christians whose religion he embraced forty years ago, in
what he accounts a weak moment of his youth, and from which he secretly seceded
again some five years before
* Fidel Fita in “ Boletin de la
Real Academia,” vol. xi. p. 35. “ Mas de lo que sabia ” is the actual and
rather ambiguous phrase. It may mean either that he had related more than was
known to him at the time of the torture—i.e. more than was actually true ; or
that he had said more than he knew—i.e. more than he could recall—now, at
the time of his conversation with Yucg Franco.
his arrest. He is
weighed down by remorse for having been false to the Jewish faith in which he
was born; he believes himself overtaken by the curse which his father launched
upon him when he took that apostatizing step; he is out of all conceit with
Christianity ; since seeing the bonfires of the Faith he has come to the
conclusion that as a religion it is an utter failure; it has been his habit to
sneer at Jews who were inclining to Christianity.
“ Get yourselves
baptized,” was the gibe he flung at them, “ and go and see how they burn the
New-Christians.” 1
In the prison of
Avila—when he gets there—his one professed aim is to die in the faith of his
fathers.
But it would seem
that when first taken in the toils of the Inquisition, and having experienced
in his own person the horrors of its methods, he realizes the sweetness of
life, and eagerly avails himself of the false loophole so alluringly exposed by
the reverend doctor.
In his examination of
June 6 he betrays to Villada the course of his re-Judaizing. He relates that
five years ago, whilst in talk with one Juan de Ocana, a converso whom he
believes to be a Jew at heart under an exterior of Christianity, the latter had
urged him to return to the Jewish faith, saying that Christ and the Virgin were
myths, and that there is no true law but that of Moses. Lending an ear to these
persuasions, Benito had done many Jewish things, such as not going to church
(although he whipped his children when they stayed away, lest their absence
should betray his own apostasy) nor observing holy-days, eating meat on Fridays
and fast-days at the house of Mos6 Franco and Yuc6 Franco—Jews of the
neighbourhood of Tenbleque— and wherever else he could eat it without being
detected. Indeed, for the past five years, he admits,
* See this upon his own word, as related in
Yuc6 Franco’s depositions (■' Boletin," xi.
p. 35 et seg.) and admitted by himself.
he has been a Jew at
heart, and if during that time he did not more completely observe Jewish rites
and practices, it was because he dared not for fear of being discovered ;
whilst all the Christian acts he had performed had been merely a simulation,
that he might appear to be a Christian still. The confessions he had made to
the priest of La Guardia had been false ones, and he had never gone to
Communion— “ believing that the Corpus Christi was all a farce (c reyen do qtie
todo era burla el Corpus Christi)!' He even added that whenever he saw the
Viaticum carried through the streets, it was his habit to spit and to make
higas (a gesture of contempt).1
In these last
particulars his confession is of an extreme frankness, and we can only suppose
that he is merely repeating what the torture had already extracted from him.
Completely to elucidate the matter as it concerns Benito Garcia, we should
require to be in possession of the full records of his own trial (which have
not yet been discovered), whereas at present we have to depend upon odd
documents from that dossier which are introduced in Yuc6 Franco’s as relating
to the latter.
Questioned more
closely concerning these Jews he has mentioned—Mos6 and Yuc6 Franco—Benito
states that they lived with their father, Ca Franco, at Ten- bleque, that he
was in the habit of visiting them upon matters of business, and that he had
frequently eaten meat at their house on Fridays and Saturdays and other forbidden
days, and had often given them money to purchase oil for the synagogue lamps.
We know that, as a
consequence of these confessions, Qa Franco, an old man of eighty years of age,
and his son Yuc6, a lad of twenty who was a cobbler by trade, were arrested on
July 1, 1489, for proselytizing practices—i.e. for having induced Benito
Garcia to abandon the Christian faith to which he had been converted.
1 "
Boletin,” xi. p. 60.
Ca’s other son, Mos6,
was either dead at the time or else he died very shortly after arrest and
before being brought to trial.
Juan de Ocana, too,
was arrested upon the same grounds.
They were taken to
Segovia, and thrown into the prison of the Holy Office in that city. In this
prison Yucd Franco fell so seriously ill that he believed himself at the point
of death.
A physician named
Antonio de Avila, who spoke either Hebrew or the jargon of Hebrew and Romance
that was current among the Jews of the Peninsula, went to attend to the sick
youth. Yuc6 implored this doctor to beseech the inquisitors to send a Jew to
pray with him and to prepare him for death—“ que le dixiese las cosas que disen
los Judios quando se quieren morir."
The physician, who,
like all the family of the Inquisition, was himself a spy, duly conveyed the
request to the inquisitors. They seized the chance to put into practice one of
the instructions advanced by Eymeric. They sent a Dominican, one Frey Alonso
Enriquez, disguised as a Jew, to minister to the supposed moribund. The friar
had a fluent command of the language spoken by the Jews of Spain. He introduced
himself to the lad as a Rabbi named Abraham, and completely imposed upon him
and won his confidence.
He pressed Yuc6 to
confide in him, and in his manner of doing so he proceeded along the crafty
lines advocated by the “ Directorium.”
Eymeric, as will be
remembered, enjoins that when a prisoner is examined, the precise accusation
against him should not be disclosed ; rather he should be questioned as to why
he conceives that he has been arrested and by whom he supposes himself to have
been accused, with the object of perhaps discovering further and hitherto
unsuspected matters against him.
Against Yuc6 Franco
and the other prisoners there
was at this stage no
charge beyond that—serious enough in itself—of having induced Benito Garcia to
re-Judaize. But the disguised friar now pressed him with probing questions,
asking him what he had done to get himself arrested.
Yuc6—who did not yet
know what was the charge —entirely duped, and believing that his visitor was a
Rabbi of his own faith, replied that “ he had been arrested on account of the
mita of a nahar, which had been after the manner of Otohays.” 1
We have left the
Hebrew words untranslated to illustrate the unintelligibility of the phrase to
the general.
Mita means
“killing,” nahar means “a boy,” whilst Otohays—literally “ that man ”—is
startling because it is identical with the term used in St. Luke (xxiii. 4) and
in the Acts of the Apostles (v. 28) to designate Christ.
Yuc£ begged the false
Rabbi Abraham to go to the Chief Rabbi of the Synagogue of Segovia,2
a man of very considerable importance and influence, and to inform him of this
fact, but otherwise to keep the matter very secret.
The Dominican
repaired to the inquisitors who had sent him with this very startling piece of
information, which was corroborated by the physician, who had remained well
within earshot during the entire interview.
By order of the
inquisitors Frey Alfonso Enriquez returned to Yuen’s prison a few days later to
attempt to elicit from the young Jew further particulars of the matter to which
he had alluded. But the lad—probably considerably recovered by now, and
therefore more alert—evinced the greatest mistrust of the physician Avila, who
was hovering near them, and would not utter another word on the subject.3
1 “. . . estava alii sobre una mita de nahar que
avido sido como de la manera de Otohays.”
* See Loeb in 11
Revue des Etudes Juives,” vol. xv. p. 218.
3 This is not only in the depositions of
Frey Alfonso Enriquez and the physician Avila (" Boletin,” xi. pp. 56 and
57), but it is also admitted and corroborated in detail by Yuc6 Franco himself
in his examination of September 16, 1491 {tbid. p. 58).
The matter was of
such gravity that we are quite safe in assuming—and we have evidence to warrant
the assumption—that it was instantly communicated to Torquemada, who at the
time was at his convent of Segovia, practically upon the spot.
We know—as will
presently transpire—that it was by order of Torquemada that Yuc£ Franco and the
others came to be in the prison of the Holy Office at Segovia, instead of in
that of the extremely active Inquisition of Toledo, within whose jurisdiction
the accused dwelt and the crime had been committed. We are unable to give an
absolutely authentic reason for this. But we gather that the examination of Qa
Franco, or of Ocana, or perhaps of Benito himself —who had said “ more than he
knew ”—must have yielded disclosures of such a nature that upon learning them
the Grand Inquisitor had desired that the trial should be conducted immediately
under his own direction.
The Sovereigns, who
had been in Andalusia since May of the previous year, about the war upon
Granada, now wrote to Torquemada—in July 1490—bidding him join them there.
From Segovia the
Grand Inquisitor replied, urging very pressing business to which he proposed to
give his personal attention, wherefore he begged them to permit him to postpone
his response to their summons.1
He quitted Segovia at
about this time to repair to Avila, where the work upon the church and
monastery of St. Thomas was well advanced ; so well advanced, indeed, that
already he was able to take up his residence in the monastery.
We may assume that
the pressing business he had urged to the Sovereigns as an excuse for
postponing his journey into Andalusia was the business of inquiring into the
alleged crimes of these Hebrew prisoners.
1 11 Boletin,”
vol. xxiii. p. 413.
For we know that he
had intended having them brought before himself at Avila, but that being unable
to dispose of the matter before the end of August or to postpone beyond that
time his departure to rejoin the Court, he was compelled to entrust the matter
to his delegates—the Dominican Frey Fernando de Santo Domingo, and the sometime
Provisor of Astorga, Dr. Pedro de Villada, with whom, no doubt, he would
leave—as he says himself—the fullest instructions.
So much we are
justified in assuming from the tenor of the following letter, which he
delivered to them under date of August 27, to serve them as their warrant to
remove the prisoners from Segovia and bring them to Avila for trial.
He wrote as follows :
“We, Frey Tomds de
Torquemada, Prior of the Monastery of Holy Cross of Segovia, of the Order of
Preachers, Confessor and Councillor to the King and Queen, our Sovereign lords,
Inquisitor-General of heretical pravity and apostasy in the Kingdoms of Castile
and Aragon and all other Dominions of their Highnesses, so deputed by the Holy
Apostolic See, Make known to you,
Reverend and Devout
Fathers, D. Pedro de Villada, Doctor of Canon Law . . . Juan Lopes de Cigales,
Licentiate of Holy Theology . . . and to you, Frey Fernando de Santo Domingo .
. . Inquisitors of heretical pravity in the said City and Bishopric of Avila,
That we, by certain
and legitimate information received, ordered the arrest of the persons and
bodies of Alonso Franco, Lope Franco, Garcia Franco, and Juan Franco of the
neighbourhood of La Guardia in the Archbishopric of Toledo, and of Yuc6 Franco,
a Jew of the neighbourhood of Tenbleque, and of Mos£ Abenamias, a Jew of the
City of Zamora, and of Juan de Ocana and Benito Garcia, of the neighbourhood
of the said place of La Guardia, and the
sequestration of all
their property for having practised heresy and apostasy and for having
perpetrated certain deeds, crimes, and offences against our Holy Catholic
Faith, and we ordered them to be taken to and held in the prison of the Holy
Inquisition of the City of Segovia until their cases should be fully known to and
decided by us or by such person or persons to whom we consign them upon being
so acquainted.
“ But inasmuch as we
are now occupied with other and arduous matters, and therefore may not
personally acquaint ourselves with the said cases or with any one of them,
trusting in the legality, learning, experience, and sound conscience of you,
the said Reverend Father Inquisitors and of each of you, and that you are such
persons as will well and faithfully discharge what we entrust to you by these
presents we commit to you, the said Reverend Father Inquisitors, and to each of
you, in solidum, the said proceedings against and trials of the aforementioned
and of any of them, whether they may have been participators or accessories
before or after the fact of the said crimes and offences in any way committed
against our Holy Catholic Faith, and likewise of the abettors, counsellors,
defenders, concealers, those who had knowledge of the facts and offenders of
whatsoever degree, to the end that concerning them you may receive and obtain
any information from any part of the said Kingdoms, and seize and examine any
witness, and inquire, learn, proceed, imprison, sentence, and abandon to the
secular arm such as you may find guilty, absolve and liberate those without
guilt, and do concerning them all things and any thing that we ourselves should
do being present. . . .
“ And by these
presents we order the Father Inquisitors of the City of Segovia and each and
any of them in whose power are the said prisoners to deliver them immediately
in safe custody to you.
“ Given in the
Monastery of St. Thomas of the
said Order of
Preachers, which is beyond and near the walls of the said City of Avila.”1
At what stage of the
affair the four brothers Franco of La Guardia—Alonso, Lope, Garcia, and
Juan—had been arrested, and upon whose information, we do not know. But we do
know—for the dossier of Yuc6’s trial is complete—that they were not betrayed by
Yuc£.
That their names had
been divulged is a confirmation of the surmise that the examinations of Ocana,
or C^a Franco, or even Benito Garcia, had already yielded further information
on the subject of the affair of La Guardia.
It must be understood
that the record of any examination of these prisoners in which the name of Yuc6
Franco was not mentioned would find no place in the dossier of the latter’s
trial.
The four Francos of
La Guardia were brothers, as we have said ; but they were nowise related to the
Francos of Tenbleque—^a and Yuc£. They were dealers in cereals—possibly
millers—as we shall see, and they owned a number of carts which they appear to
have further employed in a carrier’s business. They were baptized Jews, as is
already made clear in Torquemada’s letter by the fact that he does not describe
them—as he does the others—as Jews.
All concerned in the
affair, with the exception of one Ribera, who does not at present enter into
consideration, were men drawn from a humble class of life—a class which
through ignorance has always been credulous and prone to belief in sorcery and
enchantments.
A curious
circumstance is the omission in Torquemada’s letter of all mention of the
octogenarian (^a Franco, whom we know to have been already under arrest.
Having thus entrusted
the conduct of the affair to 1 " Boletin,’’ xi. p, 9.
bis subordinates, the
Grand Inquisitor set out to join the Sovereigns in Andalusia.
The prisoners were
soon afterwards brought to Avila, secrecy being so well observed that each remained
in ignorance of the arrest of the others. But before being transferred from Segovia
Yuc£ was taken before the Holy Office there for examination on October 27 and
28. And from the nature of the questions—as revealed by the depositions made—we
are left to assume that the inquisitors aimed at further incriminating the
Francos of La Guardia, proceeding upon information extracted from them, or else
obtained from one of the other prisoners.
In answer to the
questions set him, Yuc6 Franco deponed that some three years earlier he had
gone to La Guardia to buy wheat for the unleavened bread of the Passover from
Alonso Franco, having been told that the latter had wheat of good quality for
sale. He sought Alonso in the market, and thence accompanied him to his house.
Talking as they went, Alonso asked him why they made this unleavened bread, to
which Yuc£ replied that it was to commemorate God’s deliverance of the Children
of Israel out of Egypt.
The question may
certainly seem an odd one from a man who had been born a Jew. But it should be
remembered that ignorance and lack of education might easily account for it.
Yuc£ further deponed
that in the pursuit of this conversation Alonso not only betrayed nostalgic
leanings towards his original faith, but actually admitted that together with
some of his brothers he had crucified a boy one Good Friday in the manner that
the Jews had crucified Christ.
Continuing, he said
that Alonso had asked him whether the Paschal lamb eaten by the Jews at the
time of leaving Egypt had been terefa (slaughtered and bled in the Jewish
manner), to which Yuc£ had replied that it had not, as at that time the Law had
not yet been made.
These replies were
construed by the inquisitors into admissions of proselytizing on the
partofYuc£, and when subsequently at Avila (January 10, 1491) he was reminded
of what he had said at Segovia concerning what had passed between Alonso
Franco and himself, and asked whether he could remember anything further, he
confirmed all that he had already deponed, but could only add a question on the
subject of circumcision which had been addressed to him by Alonso.1
The fiscal advocate,
or prosecutor of the tribunal, prepared his case against Yuc6 Franco, and on
December 17, 1490, he came before the court at the audience of vespers to open
the prosecution.
1 11 Boletin,” xi. p. 29.
THE TRIAL OF YUC£
FRANCO
The
Fiscal,
D. Alonso de Guevdra, announces to their Reverend Paternities that his
denunciation of Yucd Franco is prepared, and he solicits them to order the
prisoner to be brought into the audience-chamber that he may hear it read.
The apparitor of the
court introduces the accused into the presence of the inquisitors and their
notary, to whom Guevdra now hands his formal accusation. This the notary
proceeds to read. Thus :
“ Most Reverend and
Virtuous Sirs,—I, Alonso de Guevdra, Bachelor of Law, Fiscal Prosecutor of the
Holy Inquisition in this City and Diocese of Avila, appear before your Reverend
Paternities in the manner by law prescribed, to denounce Yuc6 Franco, Jew, of
the neighbourhood of Tenbleque, who is present.
“Not content that, in
common with all other Jews, he is humanely permitted to abide and converse with
the faithful and Catholic Christians, he did induce and attract some Christians
to his accursed Law with false and deceptive doctrines and suggestions, telling
them that the Law of Moses is the true one, in which there is salvation, and
that the Law of Jesus Christ is a false and fictitious Law never imposed or
decreed by God.
“ And with infidel
and depraved soul he went with some others to crucify a Christian boy, one Good
Friday, almost in the manner and with that hatred
294
and cruelty with
which the Jews, his ancestors, crucified our Redeemer Jesus Christ, mocking
and spitting upon him, striking and wounding him with the aim of vituperating
and deriding our Holy Catholic Faith and the Passion of our Saviour Jesus
Christ.
“ Item, he contrived,
as principal, together with others, to obtain a consecrated Host to be outraged
and mocked in vituperation and contempt of our Holy Catholic Faith, and because
amongst the other Jews —accomplices in the said crime—there were certain
sorcerers who on the day of their Passover of unleavened bread were to commit
enchantments with the said Host and the heart of a Christian boy. And if this
were done, as said, all Christians were to enrage and die. The intention moving
them was that the Law of Moses should be more widely kept and honoured, its
rites and precepts and ceremonies more freely solemnized, that the Christian
Religion should perish and be subverted, and that they, themselves, should become
possessed of all the property of the Catholic and Faithful Christians, and
there should be none to interfere with their perverse errors, and their generation
should grow and multiply upon the earth, that of the Faithful Christians being
entirely extirpated.
“ Item, he committed
other crimes concerning the Holy Office of the Holy Inquisition, as I shall
state and allege in the course of these proceedings as far as I may consider
necessary.
“ Wherefore I beg
you, Reverend Sirs, that you pronounce the said Yuc6 Franco, for the said
crimes, to be a malefactor, abettor of heretics, and a subverter and destroyer
of the Catholic and Christian Law ; and that he shall be deemed to have fallen
into and incurred all the penalties and censures prescribed by canon and civil
law for those who commit these crimes, and the confiscation and loss of all his
property, which shall be applied to the royal treasury, and that he may be
abandoned to the secular arm and justice that it may do with him as by law
befits with a malefactor, an
abettor of heretics,
and an extirpator of the Catholic Faith. , . .
“ Wherefore I
petition your Reverences to proceed against the said Yuc6 Franco simpliciter et
de piano et sine estrepitu judicii, as runs the formula prescribed by law in
such cases,1 to the end that justice may be fulfilled.
“ And I swear to God
on this Cross on which I set my hand, that this petition and denunciation which
I bring against Yuc6 Franco I do not bring maliciously, but because I believe
him to have committed all that I have stated, and to the end that justice may
be done and the wicked and the abettors of heretics be punished, that the good
men may be known and that our Holy Catholic Faith may be exalted.” 2
It will be seen
presently that at this stage of the proceedings Yuc6 had not the slightest
suspicion that the pretended Rabbi Abraham who had visited him in his prison of
Segovia when he lay sick was other than he had announced himself. Nor did the
accusation afford him the least hint that any of his associates had been
taken, or that Benito Garcia had been examined under torture. So carefully had
they managed things that he was not even aware of the arrest of his old father.
Therefore it must
have come as something of a shock to him to hear this matter of the crucifixion
of the child at La Guardia included in the indictment. Nevertheless he
unhesitatingly pronounced the denunciation to be the “ greatest falsehood in
the world.”
Guevdra answered this
denial by petitioning the court to receive the proofs which he was prepared to
present.
Being asked whether
in the preparation of his defence he would require the services of counsel,
Yuc6 replied in the affirmative, and the tribunal
1 By Eymeric in the “ Directorium.”
2 ‘‘ Boletin,” vol, xi. p. 13.
appointed as his attorney
the Bachelor Sang,1 and as his advocate Juan de Pantigoso. The usual
form of oath was imposed upon these lawyers, and Yuce empowered them to act for
him within the narrow limitations imposed by the Holy Office, which afforded
them no opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses for the prosecution or even
to be present at their examination.
The notary of the
court was ordered to supply the defendant with a copy of the indictment, and
Yuc6 was allowed a term of nine days within which to prepare his answer.
Five days later the
accused successfully petitions the court that to the advocate appointed him be
added one Martin Vazquez, to whom he gives the necessary powers. And it is this
same Martin Vazquez who on that very day—December 22, 1490—presents to the
court the written repudiation of the indictment, prepared by the Bachelor Sang
in his client’s name.
The advocate begins
by respectfully submitting that this court has no jurisdiction over his client
on the score of the crimes alleged against him, since their Paternities are
inquisitors appointed—Auctoritate Apostolica—for the Diocese of Avila only, and
only over persons of that diocese. Yuc6 is of the Diocese of Toledo, where
there are inquisitors of heretical pravity, before whom he is ready to appear
to answer any charges. Therefore his case should have been referred to that
court of Toledo, and their Paternities should never have received Guevdra’s
denunciation.
He proceeds to
reprove their Paternities for having done so upon sounder grounds, when he
protests that the accusation is too vague and general and obscure. It does not
state place or year or month or day or hour in which, or persons with whom, it
is alleged that his client committed the crimes set forth.
Further, he objects
that since his client is a Jew,
1 Such is
the consistent but obviously inaccurate spelling of the name.
he cannot with
justice be accused of having fallen into the crime of heresy or apostasy ; and
therefore it is not right that—as may be done in the case of a heretic—the full
expression and elucidation of what is charged against him should be withheld,
since thus it is impossible for his client to defend himself, not knowing what
precisely are the charges made.
The advocate very
rightly denounces it as against all equity that the Fiscal should thus
prejudice Yuc6 without particularizing his accusation, and he warns their
Paternities that it may prove hurtful to their consciences if, as a result of
Guevara’s generalizations, Yuc£ should come to suffer and die undefended.
It is very
unsatisfactory equity which says to a man, “ You are accused of such-and-such
crimes. Prove your innocence of them, or we punish you.” But it is not equity
at all that can say, “ You are accused of something; no matter what. Prove to
us that you are innocent of all the offences for which this tribunal may
proceed against you, or we find you guilty and send you to death.”
This, however, was
precisely the method of the Holy Office, and being aware of it, the advocate is
forced to confess that in a case of heresy secretly committed the Inquisition
may admit an accusation that does not specify time or place of the alleged
offence.
But this, he insists,
does not apply to his client, who, being a Jew and not having a baptized soul,
may not truly be denounced as a heretic. He appeals to the consciences of the
inquisitors not to admit the accusation, and finally he threatens that if they
do so, he will lodge a complaint where by right he may.
From all this it
appears that so completely—as completely as his client—is the advocate in
ignorance of the mainsprings of the prosecution that he does not even know that
the trial has been ordered by Torquemada, himself, to take place in Avila. That
warrant-letter of the
Grand Inquisitor’s has not been divulged to the defendant, lest in learning the
names of his fellow-accused he should learn too much, be put upon his guard,
and equipped to set up a tenable defence.
But in any case, and
to be on the safe side, the advocate offers a categorical and eloquent denial
of every count in the Fiscal’s indictment.
He scoffs at the
absurdity of accusing Yuc6 Franco of seeking to seduce Christians into
embracing the Law of Moses. He urges the lad’s youth, his station in life, his
general ignorance (even of that same Law of Moses by which he lives), and the
fact that he has to work hard to make a living by his cobbler’s trade; and he
adduces that his client has neither the time nor the knowledge necessary to
attempt any such proselytizing as that with which he is charged.
He declares that if
at any time Yuc6 did expound any part of the Mosaic Law in answer to questions
addressed to him (this being obviously inspired by Yuc6’s recollection of the
statements he has made under examination concerning Alonso Franco) he did so
simply and frankly, with no thought of proselytizing, nor could it so be
construed. In fact, save for the answers returned by him to questions asked by
Alonso Franco, the lad does not remember ever to have done even so much, which
would have been no real offence in any case.
Full and formal, too,
is the denial of Yuc6’s participation in the crucifixion of any boy, and of
having procured or attempted to procure a Host. The advocate ridicules the
notion of this cobbler-lad being a sorcerer, or having knowledge of, or
interest in, sorcery.
Finally—burrowing
ever in the dark, and seeking to undermine possibilities, since he is given no
facts that he may demolish—he suggests that the depositions received against
Yuc6 are perhaps susceptible of being interpreted in different ways, and may
refer
equally to good or
evil, and that since he is accused and arrested the things he has, himself,
deponed (i.e. concerning Alonso Franco’s Judaizing tendencies) should be
interpreted in his favour, and not against him.
Therefore he
petitions their Reverend Paternities to order the witnesses to declare with
whom, where, when, and how Yuc£ committed these things which are deponed
against him. Failing that, he begs them to declare his client acquitted, to
release him, restoring him his good fame and all property that may have been
confiscated by order of their Paternities or any other judges of the
Inquisition.1
The court commanded
the notary to prepare a copy of this plea, and to deliver it to the Fiscal, who
was instructed to reply to it within three days. And they further commanded
that at the time of the delivery of the said reply, Yuc6 Franco should again be
brought before them that he might learn what was determined concerning him.
The only matter of
interest in the next sitting2— and this from the point of view of
the illustration which these proceedings afford us of inquisitorial methods—is
the Fiscal’s repudiation of any obligation on his part to precise the time or
place of the crimes with which Yuc6 Franco is accused, and his insistence that,
in spite of all that has been advanced by the defendant, the case must be
considered one of heresy.
The court evidently
takes the same view, for it commands both parties to the action to proceed to
advance proof of their respective contentions within thirty days. Meanwhile, to
clear up the matter of the venue, the court communicates with the Cardinal of
Spain. The Primate very promptly grants the requisite permission to transfer
the action to Avila from his own Archbishopric of Toledo within whose
1 "
Boletin,” xi, p. 16. * “ Boletin,” xi.
p. 21.
jurisdiction it had
lain. This was the merest formality ; for considering the explicit commands in
the matter left by the supreme arbiter, Torquemada, the Cardinal could hardly
have proceeded otherwise.
The methods now
adopted by the Fiscal to obtain the proofs which he requires, or at least to
build a more complete and overwhelming case—for we cannot but suppose that
already he had sufficient material upon which to have obtained a conviction—are
eminently typical.
We know that £ a
Franco, Benito Garcia, Juan de Ocana, and the four Francos of La Guardia were
all at this time in the hands of the inquisitors ; and it is not to be doubted
that these men would be undergoing constant examination. But it is obvious,
from the absence in the dossier with which we are concerned of any document
relating to this particular period, that no avowals were made by his fellow-
prisoners to increase the incrimination of Yuce.
Without wishing to set
up too many hypotheses to bridge the lamnce that result from the absence of the
records of the proceedings against the other accused, we would tentatively
suggest that in preparing that portion of his denunciation relating to the
crucifixion of the child, Guevdra had simply adapted details extracted from
Benito to Yuc6’s vague admission in the prison of Segovia. This conclusion is
eminently justifiable. It is based upon the fact that Guevara altogether
overstepped the limits of any evidence brought to light in the whole course of
the proceedings when he said that Yuc6 “ contrived as principal... to obtain a
consecrated Host.” Further it is based upon the circumstance already mentioned
that if in any deposition of Benito or of any other of the accused, Yuen’s
slightest participation in the affair of La Guardia had been mentioned, such a
deposition—or at least the respective extract from ;t—must
have found a place in the dossier of his
trial. And we know
that no such document is present.
Still further, we have
the fact that the month prescribed by the court for the submission of proof was
allowed to expire and another month after that, and still Guevara had no proofs
to lay before their Reverend Paternities, beyond the depositions we have
already seen. Meanwhile, Yuc6 continued to languish in prison.
And here the
following question suggests itself: In view of the admission made by Yuc6 to
the false Rabbi in Segovia, why was he not closely and directly questioned upon
that matter ? and in the event of his withholding details, why was he not put
to torture as by law prescribed ?
Instead of that
direct method of procedure, he was left in complete ignorance of his
self-betrayal and of the source whence the inquisitors had derived their
knowledge of his association with the afiair of La Guardia.
The only answer that
suggests itself is that Torquemada desired the matter to be very fully
elucidated, that the net should be very fully and carefully spread—as we shall
see—so that nothing and no one should escape. And yet this answer is hardly
entirely satisfactory.
If Guevdra allowed
months to pass without being able to lay the required proofs of Yuce’s guilt
before the court, on the other hand Yuc6 himself had been similarly unable to
supply his counsel with any proof of his innocence—as indeed was impossible in
the absence of all particulars of the charges against him.
Thus for a season the
case remains in suspense.
Attempts to extract
incriminating evidence from the other prisoners having meanwhile failed by
ordinary judicial methods, the tribunal now has recourse to other means.
Having failed to compel or induce the prisoners into betraying one another,
the inquisitors now
seek to lure them into selfbetrayal.
A well-known scheme
is employed.
Benito is moved into
a chamber immediately under Yuc^’s. To while away the tedium of his
imprisonment, and with a light-heartedness that is a little startling in a man
in his desperate position, Yuc6 sits by his window thrumming a viol or guitar
one day towards the end of March or in early April. The instrument may have
been left with him by the gaoler who was in the plot.
What was no doubt
expected comes to pass. Yucd’s music is abruptly interrupted by a voice from
below, which asks :
“ Can you give me a
needle, Jew ?”
Yuc6 replies that he
has no needle other than a cobbler’s.1
The speaker is Benito
Garcia, and it is certain that spies have been set to overhear what passes. We
know that their conversation took place through a hole in the floor contrived
by the gaoler, who was acting upon the instructions of the inquisitors.2
Yuc6 is very
circumspect in all that he says ; but Benito is entirely reckless during those
first days of their intercourse. And yet, whilst he admits that he considers
himself lost already through what “ that dog of a doctor ” (by which he means
the Reverend Inquisitor, Dr. Villada) extracted from him under torture in
Astorga, he shows himself at other times not without hope of regaining his
freedom.
He mentions a man
named Pena, who is the Alcalde of La Guardia. This man, he says, is interested
in him, and has—or so Benito fancies—■ influence at Court
which he would exert on Benito’s behalf
did he but know of the latter’s
position.
At another
time he vows that, if ever he gets out of prison, he will quit Spain and take
himself off to Judea. He is convinced that all this trouble has come upon him
as a punishment for having abandoned the 1 “ Boletin,” xi. p 32. 2 Ibid. p. 46.
Law of Moses and
denied the true God to embrace the religion of the Begotten God (Dios Parido).
But apart from these,
there are no lamentations from him ; more usually he is sardonic in his grievances,
as when he complains that all he got in return for the money he gave for the
souls in purgatory were the fleas and lice that all but devoured him alive in
the prison of Astorga ; or that all the recompense he enjoyed for having
presented the Church with a holy-water font was to be subjected to the
water-torture by “ that dog of a doctor in Astorga.”
He vows that he will
die a Jew, though he should be burnt alive. He inveighs bitterly against the
inquisitors, dubbing them Antichrists, and Torquemada the greatest Antichrist
of all ; and he alludes derisively to what he terms the frauds and buffooneries
of the Church.
It was from Benito
that Yuc6, to his surprise, received news of his father’s arrest and of the
fact that Qa. Franco lies in that same prison of Avila. He was informed of this
during their first talk, when Benito reproved his music.
“ Don’t thrum that
guitar,” Benito had said, “ but take pity on your father who is here and whom
the inquisitors have promised to burn.” 1
In the course of
another later conversation between the prisoners Yuc6 asks Benito what has
brought about the latter’s arrest. And when Benito has related the happening in
the inn at Astorga, Yuce questions him on the subject of the consecrated
wafer—and his questions certainly betray the fact that the young Jew had
previous knowledge of it and generally of the affair that was afoot. He becomes
so importunate in his questions that Benito—perhaps finding them awkward to
answer without betraying the extent to which he has incriminated his
associates—sharply bids Yucd to leave the matter alone, assuring him at the
1 11 Boletin,”
xi. p. 32 etseq.
Photo by
Donald Macbeth ■
SANBENITO OF PENITENT
ADMITTED TO RECONCILIATION. From Limborch’s “Historia Inquisitionis.”
same time that he has
never mentioned Yuce’s name to the inquisitors.
At first glance this
statement appears untrue. But it is obvious that Benito means that he has never
mentioned Yuc6’s name in connection with the Host or in any other way that
could incriminate him. And in this he is truthful enough as far as he knows,
for he could not suppose that what he had said about his own offences against
the Faith committed in Yuce’s house at Tenbleque could in any way be construed
against the lad or his father.
Passing on to other
matters, they refer to a certain widow of La Guardia, of whom Benito says that
he knows her to be a Judaizer, because she never ate anything containing lard
or ham, and he has frequently seen her eat adafinas (the Jewish food prepared on
the Friday for the Sabbath) and drink Caser wine.1
In the dossier of
Yuc6 Franco there are no depositions of the spy set to overhear his
conversations with Benito. But it is probable that some such depositions will
be found in the record of the trial of the latter, where they must belong,
since from the frankness which he used he incriminated himself to an extraordinary
degree and Yuc6 not at all. And it is not to be doubted that the inquisitors
made use of information thus obtained when they came to examine Yuc6 Franco on
April 9 and 102 and in a subsequent examination of August x,3
when they drew from him a deposition which embodies all the foregoing.
On the margin of the
last of these depositions there is a note drawing attention to what was said by
Benito concerning the widow of La Guardia, which shows that the inquisitors do
not intend that this piece of chance information shall be wasted.
Acting no doubt upon
the report of the spy, and having at last obtained information upon which they
could go to work, the inquisitors, Villada and Lopes, accompanied by their
notary, pay Yuc6 Franco a
1 11 Boletin,” xi. p. 46. *
Ibid. p. 32. * Ibid. p.
46.
surprise visit in his
cell on the morning of Saturday, April 9. Having obtained his ratification of
what he has already deponed at Segovia and in this prison of Avila, they draw
from him by vague and subtle questionings the following additions to those
admissions :
About three years ago
he was told by a Hebrew physician, named Yuc6 Tazarte, since deceased, that the
latter had begged Benito Garcia to obtain him a consecrated wafer, and that
Benito had stolen the keys of the church of La Guardia and so contrived to
obtain a Host; that in consequence of that theft, Benito was arrested—upon
suspicion, we suppose— two years ago last Christmas (i.e. 1488), and detained
in prison for two days.
Tazarte told Yuc6
that the wafer was required “ to make a cord with certain knots,” which cord,
together with a letter, Tazarte gave the witness for delivery to the Rabbi
Peres of Toledo, with which request Yuce had complied.
But beyond this, he
adds, he has no knowledge of what became of the Host, nor did Tazarte tell him
; and that not only Tazarte, but also Benito Garcia, Mos6 Franco—his own
brother, since deceased—and Alonso Franco of La Guardia, were mixed up in the
affair, according to what had been related by Mosd to his wife Jamila. In this
last particular he presently corrected himself: it was not, he says upon
reflection, to Jamila that Mos6 had related this, but to Yuce himself.
It is a curious
statement, and would no doubt be made in answer to the trend of the questions
set him as to what he knew of a certain Host that had been used for purposes of
magic. And there is reason to believe that—as we shall see presently—Yuc6 was deliberately
lying, in the hope of putting the inquisitors off the scent of the real affair.
But it is noteworthy
that in this, as in other depositions, he is careful to betray no Jews whom
his evidence can
hurt. His brother and Tazarte are dead; Alonso and Benito Garcia are already
under arrest, and the latter has admitted to Yuce that he has already said
enough to burn him. Moreover, they are Christians—having received baptism—and
their betrayal cannot be to Yuc6 as serious a matter as would that of a faithful
Jew. Particularly is this emphasized by his retraction of what he had said
concerning the slight connection of his sister-in-law Jamila with the affair,
having perhaps bethought him that even so little might incriminate her—as undoubtedly
it would have done.
The inquisitors
withdraw, obviously dissatisfied, and later on that same day they order Yuc6 to
be brought before them in the audience-chamber. There they recommence their
questions, and they succeed in extracting from him a considerable portion of
what passed between him and Benito in prison—matters of which, beyond all
doubt, they would be already fully informed.
Twice on the
following day, which was Sunday, was he haled before their Reverend
Paternities. At the first audience his statement of yesterday is read over to
him, and when he has ratified it he is again pressed with stealthy questions to
add a little more of what passed in those conversations with Benito. But in the
course of the second examination on that Sunday, Yuc6 is at last induced or
betrayed into supplying the inquisitors with information nearer their requirements.
He says that four
years ago he was told by his brother Mos6 that the latter, with Tazarte, Alonso
Franco, Juan Franco, Garcia Franco, and Benito Garcia had obtained a
consecrated wafer, and that by certain incantations they were to contrive that
the justice of the Christians and the inquisitors should not have power to
touch them. Mos6 invited him to join in the affair, but he refused to do so,
having no inclination, and being, moreover, on his way to Murcia
at the time. And he
knows, from what Mos6 told him, that about two years ago the same men repeated
the same enchantment with the same Host.1
We do not know
whether Yuce is now left in peace for a whole month, but we cannot suppose it.
And we have to explain the absence of any report of an examination during that
period by the assumption that whatever examinations did take place were
entirely fruitless and brought no fresh particulars to light. As the dossier
does not anywhere contain a single record of a fruitless examination, this
assumption—although we admit its negative character—does not seem
unreasonable.
Anyway, on May 7 it
is Yuc6 himself who begs to be taken before the inquisitors to tell them that
he remembers having asked Mos6 where he and his associates assembled to do
what they did, so that the wives of the latter—who were Christian women—should
have no knowledge of the affair, and Mos6 had answered him that they assembled
in the caves between Dosbarrios and La Guardia, on the road to Ocana.2
It is difficult to
suppose such a statement to be entirely spontaneous as following upon
depositions made a month earlier. Much rather does it appear to be the result
of some fruitless questionings such as we suggest may have taken place in the
interval. Similarly we assume that the examinations steadily continue, but
another month passes before we get the next recorded one, and this—on June gs—contains
a really important admission.
He says that he
doesrit remember whether he has mentioned that some four years ago, being ill
at Tenbleque and the physician Tazarte having come to bleed him, he overheard a
conversation between his brother and Tazarte, from which he learnt that the
latter, together with the Francos of La Guardia, had performed an enchantment
with a Host and the heart
1 “Boletin,” xi. pp. 30-38. a Ibid. 3
Ibid. p. 31.
of a Christian boy,
by virtue of which the inquisitors could take no proceedings against them in
any way, or, if they did, the inquisitors themselves would die.
His statement that he
doesn’t remember whether he had mentioned a matter of so grave a character is
either a foolish attempt to simulate guilelessness, or else, in itself, it
suggests a bewildered state of mind resulting from the multiplication of
examinations in
THE DISTRICT OF LA
GUARDIA.
which this matter of
the heart of a Christian boy— contained, as we know, in Guevdra’s
indictment—has been persistently thrust forward.
He is asked whether
he heard tell whence they procured the Host, and where they killed the boy to
obtain the heart. But he denies having overheard anything, or having otherwise
obtained any knowledge of these particulars.
We have seen
Eymeric’s prescription for visiting a prisoner and assuring him that the
inquisitors will pardon him if he makes a frank and full confession of his
crime and of all that is known to him of the crimes of others. Although it is
not positively indicated,
there is reason to
suppose from what follows that this course was now being pursued in the case of
Yuc6 Franco. To play the part of the necessary mediator, the inquisitors have at
hand the gaoler who must have been on friendly terms with the prisoner, having
contrived for him a means of communication with Benito at the time when the
latter had occupied the cell immediately beneath Yuce’s. That Benito no longer
occupies this cell may safely be assumed ; for having served his turn, he would
of course be removed again.
Whatever the steps
that were taken to bring it about, on July 19—a little over a year after his
arrest —Yuc6 is brought before Villada and Lopes,1 at his own
request, for the purpose of making certain additions to what he has already
deponed.
He begins by begging
their Paternities to forgive him for not having earlier confessed all that he
knew, protesting that such is now his intention, provided that they will pass
him their word assuring him of pardon and immunity for himself and his father
for all errors committed.2
It certainly seems
that without previous assurance that some such consideration was intended
towards him, he would never have ventured to prefer a request of this nature,
at once incriminating—since it admitted his possession of knowledge hitherto
withheld—and impudent in its assumption that such information would be
purchased at the price he named.
The inquisitors
benignly answered him that they agreed to do so upon the understanding that in
all he should tell them the entire truth, and they warned him that they would
soon be able more or less to perceive whether he was telling the truth.3
1 11 Boletin,” xi. p. 39.
* “E que lo diesen palabra e
seguro de perd6n e seguridad de todos sus errores e de su persona e de su
padre.”
3 “Que les
plasia con tanto que en todo dixiese enteramente la verdad, porque ellos bien
conoscerian poco mas <5 menos si la rliria.”
(This pretence of
being already fully informed is the ruse counselled by Eymeric to persuade the
person under examination of the futility of resorting to subterfuge.)
Reassured by this
answer, and deluded no doubt by the apparent promise of pardon conditional upon
a full confession, Yuc6 begins by offering, as an apology for his past silence
upon the matters he is about to relate, the statement that this has been due to
an oath which he swore not to divulge anything until he should have been in
prison for a year.
Thereupon he is sworn
in the Jewish manner to speak the entire truth without fraud or evasions or
concealment of anything known by him to concern the Holy Office of the
Inquisition, and he addresses himself to the task of amplifying and rectifying
what he has previously said.
His confession is
that once some three years ago he had been in a cave situated a little way back
from the road that runs from La Guardia to Dosbarrios, on the right-hand side
as you go towards the latter place, and midway between the two villages. There
were present, in addition to himself, his father, £a Franco, his brother Mos6,
since deceased, the physician Yuce Tazarte and one David Perejon— both
deceased—Benito Garcia, Juan de Ocana, and the four Francos of La Guardia—Juan,
Alonso, Lope, and Garcia.
Alonso Franco had
shown him a heart, which he said had been cut out of a Christian boy, and from
its condition Yuc6 judged that this had been lately done. Further, Alonso had
shown him a wafer, which he said was consecrated. This wafer and the heart
Alonso enclosed together in a wooden box which he delivered to Tazarte, and the
latter took these things apart, saying that he went to perform an enchantment
so that the inquisitors could not hurt any of them, or, if they attempted to do
so, they must themselves go mad and die within a year.
At this point the
inquisitors interpolate two questions :
“ Does he know whence
the Host was obtained?”
“ Does he know
whether they sacrificed any boy to procure the heart ?”
His answer to the
first is in the negative—he has no knowledge.
To the second
question he replies that he remembers hearing Alonso Franco state that he and
some of his brothers crucified a Christian boy whose heart this was.
Resuming his
statement, he says that some two years ago all the above-mentioned assembled
again between La Guardia and Tenbleque, and that on this occasion it was agreed
to send a consecrated wafer to Mosd Abenamias of Zamora, and that such a Host
was delivered to Benito Garcia enclosed in parchment tied with red silk. This,
Benito was to take to Abenamias, together with a letter which had first been
written in Hebrew, but which—lest this should excite suspicion in the event of
the letter’s being discovered—was replaced by another one written in Romance.
The interpretation to
place upon this seems to be that, doubts having arisen as to the efficacy of
the enchantments performed by Tazarte, it was deemed expedient to have recourse
to a magician of greater repute, and to send a consecrated wafer to Abenamias
in Zamora, that he might accomplish with it the desired sorcery.
The inquisitors press
Yuc6 to say whether he knows if Benito did actually deliver the wafer to
Abenamias. He replies that he doesn’t know what Benito did with it; but that he
has been told by Benito [in the course of their conversations in the prison of
Avila] that he went upon a journey to Santiago, and that in passing through
Astorga he was
arrested by order of
Dr. Villada, who was the provisor there at the time.
As for the heart, he
doesn’t know what happened to it; but he believes that it remained in the possession
of Tazarte, who performed his enchantments with it.
Questioned as to who
was the leading spirit in the affair, he replies that Tazarte invited him
together with his father and his brother Mos£, and that they all went together
to the cave, whilst he believes that the Christians (i.e. Ocana, the Francos,
and Benito Garcia) and David Perejon from La Guardia were also summoned by
Tazarte.
Finally he is asked
whether Tazarte received any money for his sorceries, and whether Benito Garcia
was paid to convey the Host to Zamora; and he answers that money was given by
Alonso Franco to Tazarte, and that Benito too would be paid for his trouble.
From a ratification
on the next day (July 20) of a confession made by the octogenarian (^a Franco,
it becomes clear that immediately upon dismissing Yuc6, his father was
introduced into the audience- chamber for examination.
The inquisitors are
now possessed of the information that (^a was present in the cave when Alonso
Franco produced the heart of a Christian child. Working upon this and upon the
other details obtained from Yuc6, they would now be able, by a clever parade of
these—and a seemingly intentional reticence as to the rest—convincingly to
feign the fullest and completest knowledge of the affair. Thus does the “
Directorium ” enjoin the inquisitor to conduct his examination.
Believing that all is
betrayed, and that further concealment will, therefore, be worse than useless,
£a at last speaks out. He not only confirms all that his son has already
admitted, but he adds a
great deal more. He
confesses that he himself, his two sons and the other Jews and Christians mentioned,
assembled in a cave on the right-hand side of the road that runs from La
Guardia to Dosbarrios, and he says that some of them brought thither a
Christian boy who was there crucified upon two timbers rectangularly crossed,
to which they bound him. Before proceeding to do this, the boy was stripped by
the Christians, who whipped and otherwise vituperated him.
He protests that he,
himself, took no part in this beyond being present and witnessing all that was
done. Pressed as to what part was taken by his son Yucd, he admits that he saw
the latter give the boy a light push or blow.
11 is to this mention
of Yucd that we owe the inclusion in the present dossier of this extract from
Ca’s ratification of his confession, which reveals to us so clearly the method
pursued by the tribunal.
(^a is removed, and
Yucd is forthwith brought back again. Questions recommence, shaped now upon the
further information gained, and betraying enough of the extent of that
information to compel Yuc6 to amplify his admissions.
No doubt they would
question him directly upon the matter of the crucifixion of the boy, insisting
upon this—now the main charge—and depending upon Yuc6’s replies to supply them
with further details than they already possess, so as to enable them to probe
still deeper.
Unable to persist in
denial in the face of so much obvious knowledge on the part of his questioners,
Yucd admits having witnessed the actual crucifixion in the cave some three or
four years ago. He says (as his father had said) that it was the Christians who
crucified the child, and that they whipped him, struck him, spat upon him, and
crowned him with thorns.
So far he merely
confirms what is already known. But now he adds to the sum of that knowledge.
He
states that Alonso
Franco opened the veins of the boy’s arms and left him to bleed for over half
an hour, gathering the blood in a cauldron and a jar; that Juan Franco drew a
Bohemian knife (i.e. a curved knife) and thrust it into the boy’s side, and
that Garcia Franco took out the heart and sprinkled it with salt.
He admits that all
who were present took part in what was done, and he is able to indicate the
precise part played by each, with the exception of his father : he doesn’t
remember having seen his father do anything beyond just standing there while
all this was going on ; and Yuc6 reminds the inquisitors that his father is a
very old man of over eighty years of age, whose sight is so feeble that he
couldn’t so much as see clearly what was being done.
When the child was
dead, he continues, they took him down from the cross. (They untied him, he
says.) Juan Franco seized his arms, and Garcia Franco his legs, and thus they
bore him out of the cave. Yuc6 didn’t see where they took him, but he heard
Juan Franco and Garcia Franco informing Tazarte that they had buried him in a
ravine by the river Escorchon.
The heart remained in
the possession of Alonso until their next meeting in the cave, when he gave it,
together with the consecrated wafer, to Tazarte.
“ Did this,” they ask
him, “ take place by day or by night ? ”
“ By night,” he
answers, “ by the light of candles of white wax; and a cloak was hung over the
mouth of the cave that the light might not be seen outside.”
He is desired to say
when precisely was this; but all that he can answer is that he thinks it was in
Lent, just before Easter, three or four years ago.
They ask whether he
had heard any rumours of the loss of a child at about that time in that
district, and he says that he heard rumours of a child lost in Lillo and
another in La Guardia ; the latter had gone to a vineyard with his uncle, and
had never been seen again. But he adds that, in any case, the
Francos came and went
between La Guardia and Murcia, and that on one of their journeys they might
easily have found a child and carried it off, because they had sardine barrels
in their carts, and some of those would be empty—by which he means that they
could have concealed the child in one of these barrels.
Urged to give still
further details, he protests that he can remember no more at present, but
promises to inform the court if he does succeed in recalling anything else.
He is dismissed upon
that with an injunction from Dr. Villada—which may have been backed by a
promise or a threat—to reflect and to confess all that he knows to be the
business of the Holy Office concerning himself or any others.
THE TRIAL
OF YUCE FRANCO (Continued)
It is not difficult to conjecture with what fresh energies
the court—armed with such information as it now possessed—proceeded to
re-examine the other seven prisoners accused of complicity in the crime of La
Guardia, pressing each with the particular share he was himself alleged to have
borne in the affair, and continuing to play off one accused against another.
It is regrettable
that the records of these proceedings should not at present be available, so
that all conjecture might be dispensed with in reconstructing step by step this
extraordinary case. And it is to be hoped that M. Fidel Fita’s expectations
that these records will ultimately be brought to light may come to be realized.
A week later, on July
28, Yuc6 is again brought into the audience-chamber for further examination.
But he has nothing more to add on the subject of the actual crime. All that he
has contrived to remember in the interval are scraps of conversation that took
place when the culprits assembled—on that later occasion—for the purpose of
sending the consecrated wafer to Abenamias. Nevertheless, what he says is, from
the point of view of the inquisitors, as damaging to those who uttered the
things which he repeats as their actual participation in the crucifixion of the
boy, and it is hardly less damaging to Yuc6 himself, since it shows him to have
been a fautor, or abettor of heretics
—a circumstance which
he may very well entirely have failed to appreciate.
He depones that
Alonso Franco had said that the letter they were dispatching to Abenamias was
better than the letters and bulls [of indulgence] that came from Rome and were
offered for sale. Ocana agreed by launching an imprecation upon all who should
spend money on such bulls, denouncing such things as sheer humbug (todo es
burla), and protesting that there is no saviour other than God. But Garcia
Franco reproved him with the reminder that it was good policy to buy one now
and then, as it gave them the appearance of being good Catholics.
On this same subject
of appearances, Alonso grumbled at the trouble to which they were put by the
fact of their being married to Old-Christian women who would not even permit
the circumcision of their children.
Three days later Yuc6
has remembered that it was Benito who crowned the child with thorns. He is
again questioned as to what he knows about the boy, and he admits having heard
Tazarte say that the child was obtained “ from a place whence it would never be
missed.”
They press him
further on the subject, but he can only repeat what he has already said—that as
the Francos travel a great deal with their carts, they may have found the boy
on one of their journeys.
As no more is to be
extracted from him on the subject, they now change the line of examination, and
seek information concerning other Judaizing practices of the Francos of La
Guardia, asking Yuc6 what he knows upon this matter.
He answers that about
six years ago the Francos, to his own knowledge, kept the Feast of the Tabernacles
and gave the beggar Perejon money to buy a trumpet which was to be sounded on
the seventh day of the feast, as is proper. He knows, further, that
they sit down to meat
prepared in the Jewish manner, over which they utter Jewish prayers—the Berakd
and the Hamopi—and that they are believed to have kept the great fast and to
give money for the purchase of oil for the synagogue.1
Asked further to
explain the oath of secrecy which he says was imposed upon him and to which he
has said that his past silence has been due, he states that all were solemnly
sworn by Tazarte that under no circumstances would they utter a word of what
was done in the cave between Dosbarrios and La Guardia until they should have
been one year in the prison of the Inquisition, and that even should the torture
betray them into infidelity to their oath, they must refuse to ratify
afterwards, and deny what they might have divulged.
M. Isidore Loeb clung
so tenaciously to the theory that the affair of the “ Santo Nino” was trumped
up by Torquemada that he would not permit his convictions to be shaken by the
revelations contained in these records of Yuen’s trial when they came to light.
He fastens upon this statement of Yuen’s and denounces such an oath as a
flagrant absurdity, concluding thence that here, as elsewhere, Yucd is lying.2
M. Loeb’s criticisms
of this dossier are worthy of too much attention to be lightly passed over, and
we shall return presently to the consideration of them.
In the meanwhile we
may permit ourselves a digression here to consider just this point upon which
he bases so much argument for the purpose of proving false the rest of the
story.
If we were to agree
with M. Loeb that Yuc£ is lying in this instance, that would still prove
nothing as to the rest—and it would be very far from proving that Torquemada is
the inventor of the whole affair. Assuming that this tale of an oath of silence
to endure
1 “ Boletin,” xi. p. 26.
1 “ Revue des Etudes Juives,” vol. xv. p. 232.
for one year after
arrest is a falsehood, it may very well be urged that it is employed by Yuc6 in
the hope that it will excuse his having hitherto withheld information and that
it will induce the inquisitors to deal leniently with him for that same
silence. Let it be observed that he prefaces his confession with that excuse at
the time of asking the inquisitors to give him an undertaking that they will
pardon him if he divulges all that he knows.
But is he really
lying ?
It seems to us that
in arriving at this conclusion, M. Loeb has either overlooked or else not
sufficiently weighed the following statement in Yuc6’s confession : “ Yucd
Tazarte . . . went to perform an enchantment so that the inquisitors could not
hurt any of them, or if they attempted to do so they must, themselves, go mad
and die within a year.” This means, of course, within a year of attempting to
hurt any of them, which again means within a year of the arrest of any of them.
Now, the fact of our
not believing to-day in the efficacy of Tazarte’s incantations and in the power
of his magic spells with the heart and the Host to accomplish the things he
promised, is no reason to suppose that Tazarte himself was not firmly persuaded
that his enchantments would take effect. Indeed, he and his associates must
firmly have believed it, or they would never have gone the length of
imperilling their lives in so dangerous a business.
Tazarte’s belief was
that these sorceries would invest them all with an immunity from inquisitorial
persecution, and that should any inquisitors attempt to violate that immunity,
such inquisitors must go mad and die within a year of arresting any of
Tazarte’s associates. Therefore in the event of arrest, all that would be
necessary to procure ultimate deliverance would be stubbornly to withhold from
the inquisitors all information on the subject of this enchantment until the
period within which it was to work should have expired.
When this is
sufficiently considered, it seems to us that such an oath as Yuc6 says was
imposed by Tazarte becomes not only likely but absolutely inevitable. Some
such oath must have been imposed to ensure the efficacy of the enchantment in
the event of the arrest of any of them.
It is difficult to
think that Tazarte was a mere charlatan performing this business with his
tongue in his cheek for the sake of the money he could extract from his dupes ;
difficult, because he was dealing with comparatively poor people, from whom the
remuneration to be obtained would be out of all proportion to the risk
incurred. But even if we proceed upon that assumption, are we not to conclude
that, being a deliberate charlatan, Tazarte would be at great pains to appear
sincere and to impose an oath which he must have imposed if he were sincere ?
It is rather singular
and it seems to ask some explanation, which it is not in our power to afford,
that not until now do the inquisitors make any use of that grave admission of
Yuen’s to the supposed Rabbi Abraham in Segovia. It is true that it was
extremely vague, but in (^a’s admissions of July 19—■ if not
before—they had obtained the connecting link
required.
But not until
September 16, when they pay Yuc6 a visit in his cell, do they touch upon the
matter. They then ask him whether he recollects having talked when under arrest
in Segovia, upon matters concerning the Inquisition, and with whom.
His answer certainly
seems to show that even now he has no suspicion that the “ Rabbi Abraham” was
an emissary of the Holy Office. He says that being sick in prison and believing
that he was about to die, he asked the physician who tended him to beg the inquisitors
to allow him to be visited by a Jew to pray with him, and his further
admissions as to what passed between himself and the “ Rabbi ” entirely
corroborate 21
the depositions of
Frey Alonso Enriquez and the physician Antonio de Avila.
The inquisitors ask
him to explain the three Hebrew words he used on that occasion : mita, nahar,
and Otokays. He replies that they referred to the crucifixion of the boy, as
related by him in his confession.1
At this stage it
would almost seem to transpire that Benito’s admissions under torture at
Astorga, when, as he has said, he admitted enough to burn him, must have been
confined to matters concerning the Host found upon him, and that until now he
has said nothing about the crucifixion of the boy.
This assumption is one
that deepens the mysterious parts of the affair rather than elucidates them,
for it leaves us without the faintest indication of how the Fiscal Guevdra was
able to incorporate in his indictment nine months ago the particulars of
“enchantments with the said Host and heart of a Christian boy.”
From what Benito has
said to Yuc6 in prison we might be justified in supposing that the former is
the delator ; but in view of the turn now taken by the proceedings this
supposition seems to become untenable. It is of course possiblethat
theparticulars in question may have been wrung out of one of the other
prisoners, or it is possible that Benito himself may have confessed and
afterwards refused to ratify. But beyond indicating these possibilities we
cannot go.
The fact remains that
on September 24 the inquisitors found it necessary to put Benito Garcia to
torture that they might obtain his evidence relating to the crucifixion.
And on the rack he
confesses that he and Yuc6 Franco and the others crucified a boy in one of the
caves on the road to Villapalomas on a cross made of a beam and the axle of a
cart lashed together with a rope of hemp ; that first they tied the boy to the
cross and then nailed his hands and feet to it; and 1 “ Boletin,”
xi. 52.
that as the boy was
screaming they strangled or stifled him (lo ahogaron) ; that all was done at
night, by the light of a candle which Benito himself had procured from Santa
Maria de la Pera ; that the mouth of the cave was covered with a cloak, so that
the light should not be seen outside; that the boy was whipped with a strap and
crowned with thorns—all in mockery and vituperation of our Lord Jesus Christ;
and that they took the body away and buried it in a vineyard near Santa Maria
de la Pera.1
There are some slight
discrepancies between the details of the affair afforded by Benito and those
given by Yuc6. The latter has not mentioned that the child’s hands and feet
were nailed to the cross; according to him they were merely tied. Nor has he
said that the boy was strangled; his statement seems to be that the child was
bled to death, as a consequence of opening the veins of his arms—a matter which
Benito does not mention. But on the score of the strangling, it is possible
that by the word employed—ahogaron—Benito merely means that the boy’s cries
were stifled, a detail which would be confirmed by Yuen’s statement that the
child was gagged.
The prisoners are
evidently permitted to learn that Benito has been tortured. Very possibly they
are given the information to the end that it may strike terror into them and so
induce them to betray themselves without more ado. But it does not seem that
they are very greatly frightened by the prospect of having to undergo the same
suffering, if we are to judge by Garcia Franco. This prisoner is permitted on
the following day (which is Sunday), by contrivance of the Holy Office, to get
into communication with Yuc£. In the course of their conversation Garcia
strongly urges a policy of denial under torture, should they be subjected to
it,8 from which it seems plain
1 “ Boletin,” xi. p. 55.
* Ibid. p. 50.
that he has no notion
of the extent to which Yuc6’s tongue has been loosened already.
On the following
Wednesday it is Juan Franco’s turn to be put to the torture.
Under it he gives a
general confirmation of what has already been extracted from the others. He
confesses that he and Yuc6 Franco and the other Christians and Jews crucified a
boy in the cave of Carre Ocana, which is on the right going from La Guardia to
Ocana ; that they crucified him on a cross made of two beams of olive-wood
lashed together by a rope of hemp ; that they whipped him with a rope ; and
that Yuc6 was present when the deponent himself cut out the boy’s heart—as is
more fully contained in the deponent’s confession (of which, again, this is no
more than an extract relating to Yuc6’s share in the crime). He states that an
enchantment was performed with the heart, so that the Inquisition might not
proceed against them.
This confession was
duly ratified upon the morrow.1
On the Friday of the
same week they torture Juan de Ocana and extract from him a confession that is,
in the main, in agreement with those already obtained. He relates how he and
the others crucified a boy in the caves of Carre Ocana ; that they whipped him
with ropes when he was crucified ; that they cut out his heart and caught his
blood in a cauldron ; that it was night and that they had a light ; and that
when they took the body down they buried it near Santa Maria de la Pera, as
fully set forth in his confession.2
As a consequence of
his having in the course of this confession spoken of the Host that was sent to
Zamora for delivery to Abenamias, Ocana is questioned again—on October
11—touching this particular. He is asked how he knows that this was done. He
replies that he heard Alonso Franco and the Jews— i.e. £a Franco and his sons
(Yuc6 and Mosd), Tazarte
1 "
Boletin,” xi. p. 52. 8 Ibid.
and Perejon—say that
such was the intention, but he doesn’t know whether the Host was actually
delivered or otherwise disposed of.
The persistence with
which this apparently trivial question arises—particularly when it is
remembered that the inquisitors were, themselves, in possession of the Host
found upon Benito at the time of his arrest—leads us to suppose that they were
probing to discover whether this consecrated wafer was the identical one
dispatched upon the occasion to which the confessions refer. Considering the
lapse of time between the dispatch of that wafer and Benito’s arrest, they may
reasonably have been concluding that the Host found upon the latter relates to
some similar, later affair. Such an impression is confirmed by the fact that no
letter—such as was addressed to Abenamias —had been discovered upon Benito.
The question again
crops up in an examination to which Yuc6 is submitted on that same day.
“ Did any of the Jews
or Christians,” he is asked, “go to Zamora to Abenamias in this matter?”
He answers precisely
as he has answered before : that he doesn’t know what became of the Host beyond
the fact that he saw them dispatching it together with a letter to the said
Abenamias, as deponed, and that all were present when this took place.
They seek to iearn
who was the instigator of the affair, but Yuc6 cannot answer with certainty on
that point. What he knows he tells them—that Tazarte meeting him when he was on
his way to Murcia, the physician asked him would he join in a matter to be
performed with a consecrated wafer to ensure that the Inquisition could not
harm the Christians in question. Before they met to crucify the boy, Tazarte
told the deponent and his brother Mos6 that he had arranged for it; and
although Yuc6 protests that he had no inclination to have anything to do with
the affair, he and his brother allowed themselves in the end to be persuaded to
be present, and they went with Tazarte
that same night to
the cave. There they were joined by the Christians, who brought the child with
them.
So far, it will be
seen, the evidence collected from Yuc6’s fellow-prisoners, whilst admitting that
he had been present in the cave when the boy was crucified— an admission in
itself grave enough and quite sufficient to procure his being abandoned to the
secular arm— did not charge him with any active participation in the
proceedings. In his own depositions Yuce had insisted that he and his father
had been no more than spectators and that they had gone to the cave more or
less in ignorance, as if hardly understanding what they were to witness.
Moreover before
relating the happenings in that cave of Carre Ocana, Yuc6 had made a sort of
bargain with the inquisitors that his confession should not be used against
himself or his father. And it is noteworthy that the other Jews whom he
incriminated were all dead, and that he suppressed the name of the only surviving
Jew—Hernando de Ribera—who had taken part in the affair. Of betraying the
New-Christians he would, as we have already said, have less concern, as these
by their apostasy must have become more or less contemptible in the sight of a
faithful Jew.
Whether the
inquisitors conceived that in view of his passivity in the matter, combined
with the promise they had made him before obtaining his confession, they were
not justified in proceeding to extremes with him, we do not know. It is
difficult to suppose any such hesitation on their part. Whatever their object,
it is fairly clear that they did not account themselves satisfied yet, and for
the purpose of probing this matter to the very bottom they now adopted a fresh
method of procedure which appears particularly to aim at the further
incrimination of Yuc£.
Just as the court was
in the habit of suppressing evidence entirely or in part, or the names of
witnesses,
when this course best
served its purposes, so, when the depositions were obtained from co-accused,
there must obviously come a moment when the publication of the evidence and of
the witnesses by confrontation must further the aims of the tribunal.
The anger aroused in
each prisoner by the discovery that his betrayer is one of his associates must
spur him to reprisals, and drive him to admit anything he may hitherto have
concealed. There is, of course, the danger that he may be urged to embark upon
inventions to damage in his turn the man who has destroyed him. But
inquisitorial justice was not deterred by any such consideration. Pegna—as we
have seen—tells us plainly enough that the point of view of the Holy Office was
that it was better that an innocent man should perish than that a guilty one
should escape.
In pursuit of this
policy, then, Benito Garcia is brought before the inquisitors on October 12,
and he is asked whether in the matter of the crucifixion and the Host he will
repeat in the presence of any of the participators in the crime what he has
already deponed. He replies in the affirmative. Thereupon he is taken out. Yuc6
Franco is introduced and asked the same question with the same result. Benito
is brought in again, and, the two being confronted, each repeats in the
presence of the other the confession he has already made.
They are now asked
whether they will repeat these statements once more, in the presence of Juan de
Ocana, and they announce themselves ready to do so. They are removed. Ocana is
introduced, and having similarly obtained his agreement to repeat before others
whom he has accused of complicity what he has already confessed, the
inquisitors order the other two to be brought back.
The notary records
that they actually manifest pleasure at seeing one another.
Ocana now repeats his
confession, and Yuc<£ and
Benito again go over
theirs. The three agree one with the other, and it is now further elicited that
it was six months after the crucifixion, more or less, when they assembled
between Tenbleque and La Guardia to give Benito the letter and the Host which
he was to convey to Abenamias in Zamora.
On October 17 there
is another confrontation—of Juan Franco with £a and Yuc6 Franco. In this each
repeats what he has already confessed, which we now learn for the first time.
Juan Franco admits that it was he himself who opened the boy’s side and took
out his heart, and in this as in other particulars the depositions agree one
with another.
Juan Franco goes on
to say that they next met in the cave some time after the crucifixion, and that
his brother Alonso brought the heart and the Host in a box which he gave to
Tazarte, who withdrew with them to a corner of the cave to carry out his
enchantments. Later on they assembled between Tenbleque and La Guardia—at a
place which, according to this witness, was called Sorrostros—and gave Benito a
letter to take to Zamora, this letter being tied with a coloured thread.
So far he is
completely in accord with the other deponents ; but now there occurs a
startling discrepancy. He says that at this last meeting (which, we are told,
took place some six months after the crucifixion), in addition to the
consecrated wafer and the letter for Abenamias, they also gave Benito the heart
to take to Zamora.
Now all the other
depositions lead us to suppose that the heart and the first wafer were
employed— presumably consumed in some way—by Tazarte in the enchantment
performed at the first meeting after the crucifixion, and that as doubts
afterwards arose touching the efficacy of the spells performed by the
physician, another Host was obtained some six months later, which they
forwarded to Zamora.
Is the explanation
the simple one that Juan Franco is mistaken on the subject of the heart ? It
seems possible, because he adds that he did not actually see the Host (on this
particular occasion), but that he understood that it was given to Benito.
Similarly he may have understood—erroneously taking it for granted—that the
heart accompanied it.
And now you may see
the confrontation bearing fruit, and yielding the results which we must suppose
are sought by the inquisitors—the further incrimination of Yuc6 Franco.
Juan de Ocana is
examined again on October 20 and questioned as to Yuc6’s participation in the
crime. He now adds to his former confession that Yuc6 and the others used great
vituperations to the child, which vituperations were really aimed at Jesus
Christ; he cites the expressions, and in the main they are those we have
already quoted from the Testimonio1 ; these, he says, were used by
£a Franco and his two sons. He says that they all whipped the boy, and that it
was Yuc6 himself who drew blood from the arms of the victim with a knife.
“ Whence was the
child ? ” they ask him.
He replies that it
was the dead Jew Mos6 Franco who had brought the boy from Quintanar to Ten-
bleque on a donkey, and that, according to Mose’s story, he was the son of
Alonso Martin of Quintanar.2 From Tenbleque several of them, amongst
whom were Yuc6 and his father, brought him on the donkey to the cave where he
was crucified, and it was Yuc6 who went to summon the brothers Franco of La
Guardia, Benito Garcia, and the witness himself.
So that from having
been a more or less passive spectator of the scene, Yuc6 is suddenly—by what we
1 Which was
framed upon the sentence ultimately passed. s All this is
contradicted by Juan Franco’s later confession that he himself procured the
child from Toledo, and brought him to the cave. The name of the child’s father
is as much a fiction as the rest of this vindictive deposition.
are justified in
accounting the vindictiveness of Ocana —thrust into the position of one of the
chief actors, indeed, almost one of the instigators of the crime.
On the same day
Benito Garcia is re-examined. His former depositions are read over to him, and
he is asked if he has anything to add to them. He has to add, he finds, that
Yuc£—whom he has hardly mentioned hitherto—had whipped and struck the boy, and
that he was an active participant in all that was done, his avowed aim being
the destruction of Christianity, which he spoke of as buffoonery and idolatry.
On the morrow Ocana
is brought back to ratify his statements of yesterday. He is asked if he has
anything to add that concerns the participation of Yuc6, and his answer is so
very much in the terms of the latest additions made by Benito that one is left
wondering whether, departing from their usual custom, the inquisitors put their
questions in a precise and definite form—founded upon what Benito has said— and
obtained affirmative replies from Ocana. For Ocana, too, remembers that Yuc£
said that Christianity was all buffoonery and that Christians were idolaters.
THE TRIAL OF YUCfi
FRANCO—{Concluded)
It might now
be said that, thanks to the patient efforts which the inquisitors themselves
have been exerting for close upon a year, the prosecutor is at last furnished
with the evidence necessary to support his original charge against Yucd Franco.
To this end he
appears before the court on that same October 21, 1491, to present in proof of
his denunciation the entire dossier, as taken down by the notary of the
tribunal. He begs that Yucd be brought into the audience-chamber to hear the additions
which he has to make to the original charge. These additions are the matters
lately extracted from Ocana and Benito Garcia : that Yuce used vituperative
words to the child when he was being crucified, and that these vituperations
were really aimed at our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Catholic Faith ; that
he struck the boy many times, and that he drew blood from the boy’s arm with a
penknife. Wherefore, he begs the inquisitors to abandon the prisoner to the
secular arm, as is right and proper.1
He does not, however,
add that Yucd’s brother had procured the child, and that Yucd was one of those
who brought him to the cave and who summoned the Francos to attend—an omission
which shows the credit attached to Ocana’s statement and its lack of corroboration.
Yuce’s answer is a
denial of all that is alleged and
* “ Boletin,” xi. p. 24,
added by the Fiscal,
the lad protesting that he never did or said anything beyond what he has,
himself, confessed.
Guevdra, thereupon,
petitions the court to permit him to submit his proofs of the matters of which
he accuses the prisoner, and the court having accorded him this petition, he
puts in as evidence the entire dossier from which we have drawn these pages on
the subject.1
Five days later both
parties are again before the court, Guevdra now petitioning their Reverend
Paternities to pass to the publication of witnesses, that the trial may be
brought to its conclusion. Dr. Villada announces his readiness to do so, but
accords the defendants three days within which to lodge any objection to any of
the matter contained in the depositions.
Yuc£ begs through his
advocate that copies be given him of all the depositions of those who were
present at the crucifixion, with the name of each hostile witness and a
statement of the day, month, year, and place in which anything alleged against
him is said to have taken place.
But Guevdra
immediately objects, urging that in the copies of the depositions to be given
defendant, no names shall appear of any of the witnesses who had deponed, and
no circumstances shall be included which might enable Yuc£ to conjecture the
names. It seems a purely formal objection ; for after the confrontations there
have been it appears to serve very little purpose. But some purpose it does
serve, because those confrontations after all were limited to Ocana and Benito,
and from the moment that it was not considered necessary to proceed to
confrontation with any of the other prisoners it would seem that they had
needed no such spur to drive them into depositions hostile to Yuc£.
However, the reverend
inquisitor replies loftily 1 " Boletin,” xi. p. 26.
enough that he will
do what justice demands, and he orders the notary to deliver to Yuc£ copies of
all the depositions against him. But from Yuen’s advocate’s plea on October
29—upon the expiry of the three days appointed—it is plain that the particulars
claimed have been withheld.
From the fact that
the advocate Sang has drawn up so strong an objection on behalf of his client,
it is perfectly clear that even at this date Yuen’s guilt of heresy cannot be
considered as established. If that were the case, Sang, in obedience to the oath
imposed upon him when entrusted with the defence, would have been compelled to
lay down his brief and withdraw.
Yuc£ denies all the
allegations against him which charge him with having taken any active part in
the crucifixion of the boy, and he protests that he is unable properly to
defend himself because the copies of the depositions supplied him do not
mention time or place of the alleged offences nor yet the names of the
witnesses by whom these allegations are made. Upon the assumption, however,
that these deponents are Benito Garcia, Juan Franco, and Juan de Ocana, he
proceeds to answer the charges as best he can.
This answer consists
of a repudiation of those depositions as inadmissible upon the grounds that
they do not agree one with another, and that each refers to a separate
circumstance, no two confirming any one particular accusation, and all being
contrary to what the same witnesses had stated in confrontation with the
defendant, when each had acknowledged that Yuen’s relation of the events was the
true one. Hence it is established that on one or the other of these occasions
they must have lied, from which it follows that they are perjured and unworthy
of faith.
Further, he claims
that they may not be admitted as witnesses because they were, themselves, participators
in the crime committed. Finally, he declares that their implication of himself
is an act of spite and
vengeance upon him.
It is his full and faithful confession which has placed the inquisitors in
possession of the facts of the case and the names of the offenders, and the
latter are determined that since they themselves must die, Yuc6 shall die with
them—out of which malice and enmity they have accused him.
Upon these grounds,
and insisting that he has told them the utter and complete truth, and that he
himself was no more than a witness of the events, and in no way a participator,
Yucd bases his defence, and begs that the depositions should cease to weigh
against him.1
Guev&ra’s answer,
if it inclines to the grotesque, is quite typical, and is certainly more to the
taste of the court.
He denies that the
witnesses are inspired by any such animosity as Yuc6 suggests, and he asserts
that they have deponed “with devout zeal of faith, and to deliver their souls
from peril.” And amongst these, be it remembered, was Benito Garcia, who
conceived that the worst thing he had ever done in his life had been to get
himself baptized a Christian, and who continued firm in his resolve to die a
Jew at all costs. Only at the very stake itself—as we shall see—did he recant
again, that he might earn the mercy of strangulation. Yet Guevdra does not
hesitate to say—what he must know to be untrue—that these men have confessed “
with devout zeal of faith.”
On these grounds
Guevdra urges that the depositions must be admitted as made in good faith and
as proof; and since the said Yuc6 Franco would not spontaneously confess all
that he had done, their Reverend Paternities should put him to the question of
torture, as by law prescribed in such circumstances as the present .2
The court agrees with
its Fiscal and proceeds to draw up a list of fifteen questions to be put to the
accused.3
With this list the
inquisitors Villada and Santo
1 “ Boletin,” xi. p. 72. 1
Ibid. p. 78. * Ibid* p.
80.
Domingo, accompanied
by their notary, go down into the prisons of the Inquisition on November 2, and
order Yuc6 Franco to be brought before them.
“Very lovingly and
humanely” they admonish him to tell the whole truth of the things known to him
that are the business of the Holy Office, and particularly in answer to the
questions they have prepared. These questions being summed up amount to the
following : Whence was the child that was crucified ? Whose child was it ? Who
brought it to the cave ? Who first set on foot this affair ?
They promise him that
if he makes truthful answer they will use him as mercifully as the law and
their consciences permit.
Yuc6 has cause to
mistrust any such promises. His first confession was made three months ago
under a promise of pardon, and he has every reason to suppose that it has been
the ruin of him.
He says, however,
that being in the cave on the occasion when they foregathered there for the
enchantment—about fourteen days after the crucifixion—he heard Tazarte inquire
whence was the child, and Juan Franco replied before all that it was from a
place whence it would never be missed, “ as stated in his confession.”
(When last asked this
question—at the time of making his confession—he had attributed these words to
Tazarte.)
He protests that he
can remember no more than he has already confessed.
Their Reverend
Paternities deplore his stubbornness. They tell him that since he will not
speak the entire truth of what he knows—as they have proof—■ they must
proceed to other measures. They summon Diego Martin, the torturer, and into his
hands they deliver the prisoner, with orders to take him to the
torture-chamber, strip him naked, and bind him to the escalera—intending, if
necessary, to proceed to the water-torture.
This is done, and
Yuc6 is stretched naked and cruelly bound with ropes that bite into his flesh
as a foretaste of the garrote by which his torments will commence. The
inquisitors enter—possibly after a delay sufficient to allow the mental torture
of anticipation to terrorize the patient into a more amenable frame of mind.
Again they admonish
him for his own sake to speak what he knows, and they even point out to him
that it is his duty as a God-fearing Jew to speak the truth. Again they promise
to deal mercifully with him if he will answer their questions fully and truthfully
; and lastly they protest that if his blood is shed in the course of what is to
follow, or should he suffer any other harm, or mutilation of limb, or even
death, the blame must fall entirely upon himself and nowise upon their
reverences.
Fully intimidated by
this skilful accumulation of terrorizing agents, Yuc6 implores them to repeat
their questions, which he will do his best to answer.
“ Whence,” they ask
him again, “ was the boy who was crucified at La Guardia ? ”
“ Juan Franco,” he
replies, “ brought him from Toledo.” He adds that Juan Franco announced this
before them all, and told them that he had kept the child concealed in La Hos
de La Guardia for a day before bringing him to the cave to be crucified.
What is not to be
explained is why Yuc6 should have waited until he was strapped to the escalera
before making this statement. Why did he not make it when the question was
asked him at his last examination— if not in his original confession? It cannot
be pretended that he was endeavouring to screen Juan Franco, because he has
very amply betrayed him in other ways. Is the explanation that under fear of
torture he felt the need to invent an answer likely to satisfy the inquisitors
? It can hardly be that, because Juan Franco himself is to admit—as we shall
see—the truth of this detail. It only remains to be supposed
Photo by
Donald Macbeth
SAN BENITO OF
PENITENT RELAPSED. From Liraborch’s “ Historia Inquisitionis."
that the lively fear
of torture had sharpened the young Jew’s memory. But that again seems hardly
satisfactory as an explanation.
“Where,” they ask him
next, “ is La Hos?”
“ It is,” he replies,
“ a meadow by the River Algodor,” and he goes on to explain that Juan Franco
had told them all that he had taken a load of wheat to Toledo to sell, and
that, having sold it, he went to an inn, and later on he found the boy in a
doorway and coaxed him away with nuSgados (a sweetmeat composed of flour,
honey, and nuts—nougat). Thus he got him into his cart and brought him to La
Guardia.
Yuc6 doesn’t know who
were the child’s parents, nor in what street of Toledo he was taken by Juan
Franco, as the latter did not mention those particulars.
“Who were the first
to propose the affair? Did the Jews engage the Christians in it, or the
Christians engage the Jews ? ”
He answers that the
Francos of La Guardia, fearing the Inquisition, performed an enchantment in the
first instance with a consecrated wafer, as he has already confessed (October
n), and then repaired to Tazarte asking him to do something more efficacious,
as the sorcery with the wafer had had no result. Tazarte agreed, and bade them
procure a Christian boy for the purpose. When Juan Franco brought him, it was
decided to cut out his heart, that with this heart and a wafer a stronger
enchantment might be performed.
“ Why was he done to
death by crucifixion rather than in any other way ? ”
Yuc6 believes that
the crucifixion was preferred in vituperation of Jesus Christ. But again he
protests that his own share was no more than he has confessed already.
“ What were the
particular vituperations used to the child, and by whom ? ”
His answer to this
question incriminates all those who were present at the affair; the
vituperations
which he tells the
inquisitors were employed were rather indecent, and include a scurrilous
version of the Incarnation which would, no doubt, be current at the time among
Jews and other enemies of Christianity in Spain and elsewhere—a story, it is
needless to add, entirely idle and foolish, and rather the obvious thing to be
conceived in those days against any historical character who might be detested.
He says that Tazarte
was the leader in all the vituperations (which sounds likely enough, as Tazarte
was the celebrant), that the others uttered them after him, and he admits that
he himself said some of the things which he has mentioned, but he doesn’t enter
into particulars.
“For what purpose
were the heart and the Host required, and what good purpose was expected to be
served by these sorceries ? ”
He replies that these
things were done to the end that the inquisitors or any others who should aim
at molesting these Christians concerned should die of rabies.
“ What advantage did
the Jews look to gain ? ”
He states that
Tazarte had assured them that as a consequence of the enchantment all
Christians in the land must either perish or become Jews, so that the Law of
Moses should triumph and prevail.
“To whom were the
heart and the Host to be delivered for the said enchantment ? ”
“To Mos6 Abenamias at
Zamora.”
“ Was Abenamias
himself to perform the enchantment ? ”
“ No; he was to give
orders for its performance to a wizard of Zamora.”
“ Does he, or do any
of the others, know the said wizard, and what is his name ? ”
He cannot answer the
question, beyond telling them that he had heard Tazarte say that he knew
Abenamias and the wizard, and that he had been to school with the latter.
“ How many times did
they assemble to decide upon the crucifixion ? ”
He knows that all
(with the exception of himself) assembled in the same cave to perform an
enchantment with a Host on an occasion previous to that of the boy’s
crucifixion. He knows this because he was invited to the gathering ; he did not
wish to go, and so stayed away, but he was told afterwards by the others what
had been done.
“ What Christians
does he know to have kept the Sabbath, the Passover, and to have performed
Jewish rites ? ”
He says that Benito
once came to their house at Tenbleque and spent a Sabbath with them, doing no
work, eating adajinas and drinking Caser wine ; and that he came upon another
occasion and asked them when was the fast of Tisabeaf (the eve of Purim),
and that he believes that, being informed of this, he kept that fast.
He can remember no
others, excepting one Diego de Ayllon and three of his daughters and a son, all
of whom kept the Sabbath and observed the law of Moses in secret; and the widow
of one Juan de Origuela, deceased, who sometimes kept Jewish fasts ; and Juan
Vermejo of Tenbleque, whom he knows once to have kept the great fast.
These names are duly
noted on the margin of the notary’s document as matters of importance which
need inquiring into.
“ Whence was the
wafer procured, and how does he know that it was consecrated ? ”
He answers that when
they assembled, a fortnight after the crucifixion, he heard Alonso Franco say
that he had taken it from the monstrancje in the Church of Romeral, replacing
it by an unconsecrated wafer.
“ Was this the wafer
given to Tazarte with the heart ? ”
He believes so, but
he is not sure, nor does he know what became of it.
“Who brought the
other wafer given to Benito, and whence was it obtained ? ”
Alonso brought it,
and said that he had obtained it in the church of La Guardia, and that it was
consecrated. But Yuc£ doesn’t know if anyone gave it to him.1
This confession Yuc6
ratified two days later, adding now that Juan and Garcia Franco together had
brought the boy, and that one had remained at La Hos with him whilst the other
had come to La Guardia. Further, he adds that the letter to Abenamias at Zamora
bore six signatures—Tazarte’s, Alonso Franco’s, Benito Garcia’s, Yuce Franco’s
own, his brother’s, and one other which he can’t recall.8
We have already
indicated that a mystery attaches to this letter. What has become of it ? We
are told that Benito bore it together with the Host. How does it happen that it
was not taken together with the Host when he was arrested at the inn at
Astorga? Possibly it was. But in that case, and since it bore Yuen’s signature,
why is it not included in the dossier, and why can we find no trace of any use
having been made of it by the inquisitors ? The only plausible explanation—and
it may be forthcoming when the dossiers of the other accused are discovered—is
that the Host found upon Benito Garcia was not the one sent with the letter by
his hand some time in 1487 or 1488.
On
November 3 the octogenarian Qa is examined in the torture-chamber, strapped, as
was his son, to the escalera. But the mere fear of torture is not sufficient to
loosen the tongue of this aged Jew. He resists their questions, and will add
nothing to what he has confessed, until the executioner has submitted him to
that frightful torment and given him one jar of water. He then affords them, at
last, the further information they require, telling them the precise
vituperations that were addressed to the crucified boy, 1 “
Boletin*” xi. p. 80. ’ Ibid. p.
87.
and admitting that
this was done in mockery of the Passion of Jesus Christ. He says that Tazarte
uttered the insults, and that the others—first the Jews, and after them the
Christians—repeated them. Further, he confesses that the child was crucified
and the sorceries performed that the inquisitors and all Christians should
enrage and die.1
On the same day Juan
Franco was tied to the escalera, beyond which it was not necessary to proceed
with him, for he there satisfied the inquisitors by confessing to the
vituperations employed against the crucified boy.a
On the 4th further
confirmation of this is obtained from Juan de Ocana, who confesses to the
vituperations, and says that they were first uttered by the Jews, who then
compelled the Christians to repeat them. He does not remember the terms used,
nor would he ever have known them but for the Jews.3
Benito is next
examined, and warned by the inquisitors to answer truthfully, as the truth is
already fully known to them. He admits that many vituperations were used ; he
cites them, and in the main they agree with what has already been deponed.
“ Who,” he is asked,
“ were the first to utter these things ? ”
He replies that £a
Franco, his sons, and Tazarte (i.e. the Jews) were the first, and that he and
the other Christians repeated them afterwards.
Lastly, on November
5, Alonso Franco affords the fullest confirmation to all this that has been
confessed by the other accused.1
The trial is now
rapidly drawing to a close. On the 7th Yuc6 is again before the court,
and—sinister feature—this time he comes alone. His counsel has vanished, in
acknowledgment of the fact that it is no longer tenable with his duty to God
that he should continue to defend one of whose “heresy” he is
1 " Boletin,” xi. p. 91.
* Ibid. p. 91.
8 Ibid. p.
90. 4 Ibid. p. 89.
himself
convinced. Yuc6 himself, in view of this, must realize that he is lost, and
must abandon his last shred of hope.
Guevdra, the
prosecutor, is there, and Dr. Villada announces that additional proof is now
before the court. He orders copies of the latest depositions, obtained in the
torture-chamber, to be delivered to the defendant, and he accords the latter
three days within which he must lodge any objection to anything contained in
them.
But Yuc6 does not
require so long. He realizes that all is lost, and he forthwith confesses that
what has been deponed by the witnesses against him concerning the
vituperations he used is true with certain exceptions, and these were the most
blasphemous and insulting.
Upon that the fiscal
Guevdra formally petitions the court to pass sentence. The inquisitor Santo
Domingo declares the trial to be at an end, and dismisses both parties,
requiring them to come before the court again in three days’ time to hear the
sentence.1
Yet, before
proceeding to this, on the 14th day of that month of November, the inquisitors
ordered all the prisoners (with the exception of Juan Franco) to be introduced
together into the audience-chamber. There, in the presence of his co-accused,
each was bidden to recite what he had already confessed, this being done with
the aim of obtaining a greater unanimity upon details.
Last of all, Juan
Franco is brought in, and he now admits that it is true that he brought the boy
from Toledo, that they had crucified him as he has confessed, that he himself
had opened the boy’s side and taken out his heart, and that his brother Alonso
had opened the veins of the child’s arms, etc.—all as confessed—and further
that it is true that he and his brother Alfonso had afterwards buried their
victim.
1
"Boletin, ’ xi. p. 97.
He now corroborates
Benito’s statement that on the day they stole the child he and Benito went together
to Toledo, and that they agreed that one should seek in one quarter of the city
whilst the other sought in another. And further, he says that he found the
child in the doorway'—known as the Puerta del Perdon—of the cathedral, as he
has already stated in his confession (which is not before us).1
On the next day
Guevdra appears before the inquisitors to petition that in view of what has
been deponed against the deceased Mos£ Franco, Yuc6 Tazarte, and David Perejon,
their Paternities should order it to be recorded ad perpetnam rei memoriam, to
enable the execution of the deceased in effigy, the confiscation of their
property, and the infamy of their heirs.
That is on November
15. On the 16th the last scene of this protracted trial is played in the
market- square of Avila.
There, near the
church of St. Peter, the scaffolds have been erected for the Auto de F6. On
one, in their hideous yellow sanbenitos, are grouped the eight prisoners and
the three effigies. On the other are the inquisitors, Dr. Pedro de Villada and
Frey Antonio de Santo Domingo, with all the personnel of the Holy Office, their
notaries, the fiscal Guevdra, familiars, and apparitors. Round the scaffolds
thronged the greater part of the inhabitants of Avila and many who had come in
from the surrounding country districts, whence it is clear that the Auto had
been announced some days before. The popular feeling against the Jews runs
high, and it is an angry, turbulent mob that witnesses the Auto. Avila, indeed,
is in uproar, and no Jew dare show himself abroad without risk of being
insulted or assaulted in the street.2
The
sentences are read by the notary Antonio Gongales, commencing with a very full
narrative of the crimes of each of the accused, which we need not render here
as it is a summary of all that has been
* “Boletin,” xi. p. 94. ’ Ibid. p. 421.
gone through and
practically a repetition of the matter contained in the “ Testimonio.”
They are sentenced
all to be abandoned to the secular arm of the Corregidor Don Alvaro de Sant’
Estiban, who, advised some days before, is in attendance with his lieutenants
and alguaziles.
The usual exhortation
being duly pronounced, they are seized by the men of the Corregidor and led
away out of the city to the burning-place. The inquisitors order their notaries
to accompany the doomed men, that they may record their final confessions at
the stake.
In Yuen’s dossier are
included not only his own confession—made at the last moment—but also Benito
Garcia’s, Juan de Ocana’s, and Juan Franco’s, all recorded by the notary
Gonzales. Further, this dossier contains a letter written on the morrow of the
event by the same notary of the Holy Office to the authorities of La Guardia,
accompanying a relation of the crime and the sentences pronounced, for
publication in La Guardia, where the offences were committed.
From this we learn
that Benito, in spite of his protestations that he would die a Jew betide what
might, accepted at the stake the spiritual comforts of the Church, and thus
earned the mercy of being strangled before the faggots were fired.1
Similarly Juan de
Ocafiaand Juan Franco accepted the ministrations of the attendant friars and
returned to the Church from which they had secretly seceded. But the Jews—the
stalwart old man of over eighty and his son—held staunchly to their faith, and
refused to avoid by apostasy any part of the agony prepared them. Wherefore, in
a spite that seems almost satanic, their flesh was torn with red-hot pincers
before they were consumed over slow fires.
“ They refused,”
writes the reverend notary, “ to call upon God or the Virgin Mary or to make so
much as a sign of the Cross. Do not pray for them,”
1 "
Boletin,” xi. p. 113.
he concludes,
impatiently it seems to us, “ for they are buried in Hell.”
Finally, the notary
begs the authorities of La Guardia not to permit that the place where Juan
Franco said that the Holy Child was buried should be ploughed over, but to see
that it is left intact. Their Highnesses and the Cardinal of Spain, he adds,
may desire to visit it, and he prays that God “ may reveal to us the bones of
the infant.” It is expedient to mark the spot, he concludes, because, in view
of the merits of such a place, he hopes that it may please God that the earth
of it will work miracles.
The sentence is sent,
it should be added, with order that it shall be read from the pulpit of La
Guardia on the following Sunday, and this under pain of excommunication.
In Avila the popular
feeling against the Jews as a consequence of this affair was so bitter that
their lives were not safe, and it is on record that one was stoned to death in
the streets. It became necessary for the Aljama of that city to petition the
Sovereigns for protection, and M. Fidel Fita quotes a royal letter commanding
such protection to be extended, with threats of rigour against any who should
molest them.1
1 “
Boletin,” xi. p. 421.
EPILOGUE TO THE
AFFAIR OF THE SANTO NINO
The
evidence
given by Yucd Franco as to whence the consecrated wafers had been obtained is
hearsay evidence, and very vague even then. But it would appear that from
Benito Garcia or Alfonso Franco the inquisitors have been able to obtain
something more definite, for whilst the trial of the eight accused has been
drawing to a close, the familiars of the Holy Office have been about the
apprehension of the sacristan of the church of La Guardia.
On November 18,
1491—two days after the Auto —this sacristan is brought before the court at
Avila, and admonished to tell the truth of this matter, being promised mercy if
he will do so.
He states that about
two years ago his uncle, Alonso Franco, besought him on two separate occasions
to let him have two consecrated wafers, promising him a cloak and money and
much else if he would so. Ultimately, in response to these requests, and in
accordance with the instructions he received from Alonso, he delivered a
consecrated wafer to Benito Garcia, who came for it on the other’s behalf.
He remembers that it
was winter-time, but he cannot recall the day or even the month. He explains
that he took the Host from the pyx in the sanctuary of the Church of Santa
Maria, having obtained the keys from the earthenware pot in which they were
kept. He pays that he begged Benito to tell him
346
what it was wanted
for, but that he could not induce him to say. He was assured, however, that no
harm was intended.
He is able to fix the
date more closely by remembering that the Francos were arrested about five
months later.
Under further
examination he declares that he believes in the True Presence, and always did,
and that when he urged this upon Alfonso Franco and Benito Garcia they admitted
that his act was a sin, but they assured him that it was not a heresy, and that
no heresy was involved, and that for the sin his confessor would absolve him.1
One man who is
alleged to have had a share in the affair of La Guardia escaped all mention at
the time in the depositions of the accused, and was, consequently, entirely
overlooked. This was one Hernando de Ribera, a man of a station in life very
much above that of the others, and it is said that in consequence of this to
him had been assigned the aristocratic rdle of Pilate in that parody of the
Passion.
Not until nearly
thirty years later was he arrested, self-betrayed, it is said, the man having
boasted of his share in that affair. He was convicted of that crime, and also
of flagrant Judaizing, for in the meanwhile he had accepted baptism to avoid
expulsion from Spain when the decree of banishment of all Jews was published.
Now, whilst the
publication by M. Fidel Fita of the records of the trial of Yuc6 Franco has
shed a good deal of light upon the affair, it is not to be denied that much still
remains to be explained, and that until such explanations are forthcoming—until
the records of the proceedings against Yucd’s co-accused are brought to light
and we are able to compare them 1 “ Boletin,” xii. p. 169.
one with another—the
affair of the Holy Infant of La Guardia must to a certain extent continue in
the category of historic mysteries.
Meanwhile, however,
in spite of the glaring contradictions contained in the evidence at present
available, in spite of the incongruities which refuse to fit into the general
scheme, we cannot hold that M. Loeb is justified of his conclusion that the
Holy Infant of La Guardia—and consequently the crime with which we have
dealt—never had any real existence.1
M. Loeb makes a
twofold contention :
(a) If the crime of La Guardia ever did take
place, then upon the evidence itself, it was not ritual murder at all, but a
case of sorcery in which Christians were concerned as well as Jews.
(b) No such crime ever did take place.
He bases his somewhat
daring final conclusion upon three premises:
(a) The depositions ot the witnesses, obtained
under torture or the threat of it, are full of contradictions, of
improbabilities, and of facts materially impossible.
(b) The judges made no inquest to discover the
truth.
(c) The Inquisition is unable to fix the date
of the crime ; it did not verify the disappearance or discover the remains of
any child.
The first of these
premises is the most worthy of attention. The other two appear to us to
overlook the fact that our present knowledge is confined to the record of the
trial of one of the accused, and this one a youth who was guilty of
participating in the crime in a comparatively minor degree.
No one is in a
position to say that the judges made no inquest to discover the truth. All that
we know is
1 "
Revue des Etudes Juives," vol. xv. p. 232,
that it does not
transpire from Yuc6’s trial that any such efforts were made. But then such
efforts may not so much concern Yuc6’s trial as the trials of some of the
ringleaders, and it is very possible that the records of the latter may divulge
some such inquest. It is more than possible. The compiler of the r£sum6 of
seven of the trials distinctly shows that this was done.1 He cites
the fact that when Juan Franco had confessed that he and his brother Alonso
buried the boy, the inquisitors took him to the place where he stated that the
body had been inhumed, and made him point out the exact spot, “ and they
discovered the truth and demonstration of all this.” 3
This, of course, does
not mean that the body was found. It simply means—as we are told—that the place
indicated by Juan Franco presented the appearance of having lately served the
purpose of a grave. The failure to find the body is undoubtedly one of the
unexplained mysteries of this affair. But it does not justify the statement
that no inquest was made—a statement which in itself implies that the
inquisitors knew the whole story to be false, and therefore deliberately
avoided inquiries which should expose that falseness.
The vagueness and
confusion that appear to exist on the subject of the date when the crime was
committed certainly call for comment.
The contradictions on
this score appear to be flagrant, and it is impossible to reconcile the date of
the crucifixion t with that of Benito Garcia’s arrest in Astorga. It seems to
be established by Yuc6 that the crucifixion took place at the end of Lent 1488;
and he and others tell us that about six months later they all assembled again
to dispatch the Host to Zamora by the hand of Benito. Yet Benito is arrested in
Astorga in May or June of 1490—more than eighteen months after setting out for
Zamora—
1 See “ Boletin," xiii. p. 113.
* “ Y se hall6 la verdad y
demonstracion de todo ello.”
and the wafer is
still in his possession, undelivered. That is what seems to be established. But
it is possible that a very simple explanation may dispose of this discrepancy.
We are not justified by our present knowledge in saying that the inquisitors
were unable to dispose of it. We may not assume that there is not, in the
records of the trials of the other accused, matter that will clear up this
question.
The date supplied by
the sacristan, for instance, does not seem to be so very inconsistent with that
of the event in the inn at Astorga. He said, it will be remembered, that he had
delivered the wafer to Benito some five months before the arrest of the
Francos. This tends strongly to confirm the impression we have already formed
that the wafer discovered upon Benito at the time of his arrest was not the one
that he had set out to take to Zamora some two years earlier. The Host,
together with the letter for Abenamias, may very well have reached its
destination. If this is admitted—and there is nothing in the evidence to forbid
its admittance—much that is irreconcilable in the depositions at once
disappears.
M. Loeb, of course,
has proceeded upon the assumption that it is pretended that the Host dispatched
from La Guardia in 1488 and the Host found upon Benito at Astorga in 1490 are
one and the same. It may appear to be the obvious thing to assume. Yet it is a
hasty assumption, which nothing in the evidence before us will justify.
As for the other
discrepancies which M. Loeb points out, when all is said, they refer to matters
of detail, upon which mistakes are not impossible.
Benito states that
the child’s hands and feet were nailed to the cross in addition to being tied,
whilst Yuc6 makes no mention of nails.
According to the
statements ofYuc^and of Juan Franco, it is the latter’s brother who opened the
veins in the boy’s arms, whereas Ocana said that this was
done by Yuc6. We have
already drawn attention to the circumstances under which Ocana so accused Yucd,
and we have suggested the vindictiveness that may have inspired him.
Juan Franco confessed
that he himself cut open the boy’s side and drew out the heart, whilst Yuen’s
statement was to the effect that Juan had opened the wound and Garcia Franco
had torn out the heart.
Mainly the evidence
seems to say that the child bled to death. Yet Benito states that he was strangled
(?), and Yuc6 in one of his statements says that they gagged him because he was
crying. We have already suggested that by the expression “ lo aho- garon"
so much as “strangling” may not necessarily have been meant.
These are, after all,
the principal discrepancies ; and it is to be remembered that these men were
referring to things done at least two years before; that confusion on the score
of particulars is not only possible but more or less inevitable; and that,
despite contradictions in these details, the main facts stated are always the
same in the depositions of each. M. Loeb more than suggests that this unanimity
was contrived by the inquisitors. He puts it forward as more than probable that
the prisoners were left alone together on the occasions of the confrontations,
to the end that they might agree upon the same tale.
There is not the
slightest warrant for such an assumption. In the records the notary very
clearly states that the inquisitors were present throughout those confrontations,
and it is of importance to remember that these records were not prepared for
publication, but were to be consigned to the secret archives of the
Inquisition—so that any notion of a fraud having been deliberately perpetrated
may once for all be dismissed as entirely idle.
But even were it not
the recorded fact that the inquisitors were present at the confrontations, and
that
the prisoners were
afforded no opportunity of coming to any understanding, it would still be
extremely difficult to believe that they should have come to an understanding
to get themselves all burnt.
M. Loeb’s attempt to
make this appear reasonable is the least convincing thing in a very able but
quite unconvincing article. It certainly seems to display his own want of
confidence in the general acceptance of such a situation.
“ We could
understand,” he says, “ that guilty men should come to an understanding to deny
the crime committed, or to attenuate the fault, or to cast it upon others. But
what should be the meaning of an understanding whose object, as would be the
case here, is to make truthful avowals of a real crime ? The accused would be
taking unnecessary trouble. But all is explained if, on the contrary, they
prepared confessions of a crime that was never committed.”
M. Loeb has vitiated
his argument by the absolute assumption that an understanding did take place.
This we cannot admit upon the evidence before us. But if we do, is the position
materially altered ? M. Loeb says that “ all is explained if they prepared
confessions of a crime that was never committed.” To our mind, nothing is
explained by such a procedure. What possible object could have induced them to
come to an understanding to make an uncommitted crime the subject of a
unanimous confession that must infallibly send them to the stake ? What
possible advantage could they hope to derive from a falsehood of that
description ?
One of the chief
obstacles to the rejection of the story as a fabrication is Yuen’s confession
to “ the Rabbi Abraham ” in the prison of Segovia. M. Loeb recognizes it, and
although he makes a determined attempt to overcome it, his arguments are too
arbitrary and do not materially affect the point even if they are admitted.
But if M. Loeb is
entirely unconvincing in his
attempts to prove
that the crucifixion of the boy is a fable, nothing could be more convincing
than his first contention : that even if we account the story true as contained
in Yuen’s dossier, the deed is not to be looked upon as ritual murder, but
purely as an operation in magic.
It is a conclusion
with which you must come to agree, although at first glance you may be tempted
to form the opinion that the crucifixion of the child served both purposes.
Some such opinion had been formed by the inquisitors when they asked why the boy
had been crucified rather than put to death in some other fashion, since his
heart was all that was required for the enchantment.
The answer was that
crucifixion was chosen in derision and vituperation of the Passion of Jesus
Christ. But this is a very different thing from ritual murder or “ the hanging
of Haman.” If we turn to the actual vituperative phrases employed,1
we find the expression of a desire to wound the Redeemer Himself, through that
form of magic, common in all ages, known as envoHtement. Instead of the
waxen or wooden effigy usually employed, a living body is used in this case.
For the rest the immolation of a child plays its part in the magic ritual
of other than Jews. We need mention but the notorious instance of the Black
Masses celebrated by the infamous Abb6 Gribourg in the eighteenth century.
There seems, indeed,
no doubt at all that we are justified in rejecting the theory that the
crucifixion of the Holy Child of La Guardia is to be accepted as an instance of
Jewish ritual murder. So far we can accompany M. Loeb, but no farther. We
cannot say with him that no such crime was ever committed. To convince us of
that it would be necessary to show that the whole of the dossier we have
considered is a forgery to serve the purposes of Torquemada. And this we have
proof that it is not. Had it been that, had it
1 See the
phrases quoted in the “ Testimonio.”
been manufactured for
popular consumption, it would not have lain concealed for four centuries in the
secret archives of the Inquisition.
That Torquemada
exploited the matter and turned it to the fullest account is admitted. But this
merely shows him to be an opportunist; it is very far from proving him a
forger. The very sentence was couched in terms calculated to excite—as it
did—popular indignation against the Jews. Nor did the publication of the
sentence end in La Guardia, whither copies were sent. We may infer that
Torquemada scattered those copies broadcast through Spain, since we actually
find a Catalan translation which was specially prepared for publication in
Barcelona.
The cult of the Holy
Child of La Guardia sprang up at once, and developed rapidly. Numerous shrines
were set up in his honour, the first and chief of these being on the site of
the house of Juan Franco, which had been razed to the ground. Here an altar was
erected in the cellar of the house, on the spot where it was believed that the
child’s sufferings had begun ; it was surmounted by a figure of a child
pinioned to a column.
Over this
subterranean shrine a church sprang rapidly into existence.
Another hermitage was
erected near Santa Maria de Pera, on the spot where the child was alleged to
have been buried, and yet another in the cave where he was believed to have
suffered crucifixion. “In all times since,” says Moreno,1 “ the
three sanctuaries have been frequented by those who come to pray to the Nino as
to a saint.”
The first of these
sanctuaries was erected by 1501— at which date records of it are to be found.
It was called the Sanctuary of the Holy Innocent, and Moreno adds that this has
always received the approval of Popes and Bishops, and that plenary and partial
indul-
* 11 Historia del Martirio,” p.
83.
gences have been
granted to the faithful visiting these shrines.
The people of La
Guardia elected him their patron saint, and a fast was appointed for the eve of
his feast- day, which at first was March 25, but was afterwards changed to
September 25. Moreno includes in his book the prayers prescribed and a litany
to the Nino.1
But it is not without
a certain significance that Rome—ever cautious, as we have already had occasion
to say, in the matter of canonization—has not yet recognized the Holy Child of
La Guardia as one of the saints of the Church.
Yepes chronicles four
miracles performed by the child after his death, beginning with his mother’s
obtaining sight. All these, with other very interesting and purely romantic
details, are to be found in that piously fraudulent work—the “ Life of the Holy
Child,” by Martinez Moreno.
1 "
Historia,” p. 146.
THE EDICT OF BANISHMENT
It
was,
as we have already suggested, the very opportuneness with which the trial and
sentence ot those concerned in the affair of La Guardia came to afford
Torquemada an additional argument to plead with the Sovereigns his case against
the Jews, which has led so many historians—prior to M. Fidel Fita’s
discovery—to reject the story as an invention. Another reason to discredit it
lay in the circumstance that it was circulated in Spain together with a number
of other stories that were obviously false and obviously invented expressly for
the purpose of defaming the Jews and exciting popular indignation against them.
Meanwhile Ferdinand
and Isabella pressed triumphantly forward on their conquering progress through
Andalusia. Lucena, Coin, Ronda, and scores of other Moorish strongholds in the
southern hills had fallen before the irresistible arms of the Christians ; and
the Sovereigns, aided by Jewish gold—not merely the gold extorted by
confiscations, but moneys voluntarily contributed by their Hebrew
subjects—pushed on to the reduction of Malaga, as the prelude to the leaguer of
Granada itself, the last bulwark of Islam in Spain. This fell on January 2,
1492, and with it fell the Moslem dominion, which had endured in the peninsula,
with varying fortunes, for nearly 800 years.
It might well have
seemed to the Catholic Sovereigns that the conquest ot Spain and the
356
victory there of
Christianity were at last accomplished, had not Torquemada been at their elbow
to point out that the triumph of the Cross would never be complete in that land
as long as the Jews continued to be numbered among its inhabitants.
He protested that the
evils resulting from intercourse between Christian and Jew were notorious and
unconquerable. He declared that in spite of the Inquisition, and in spite of
all other measures that had been taken to keep Christian and Jew apart, the
evil persisted and was as rampant as ever. He urged that the Jews continued
unabatedly to pervert the Christians, and that they must so continue as long as
they were tolerated to remain in the peninsula. Particularly was this notorious
in the case of the Marranos or New-Christians, to whom the Israelites gave no
peace until—by indoctrination or by the scorn and abuse they heaped upon
them—they had seduced them back into error.
And in proof of what
he urged he was able to point to the affair of La Guardia, to the outrage to
the crucifix at Casar de Palomero, and to other matters of a kindred nature
that had lately been brought to light. _
He called upon the
Sovereigns to redeem the promise they had made to give consideration to this
matter—a consideration which, in answer to his earlier pleadings, they had
postponed until the war against Granada should have been brought to its
conclusion.
In the meantime the
Jews themselves had fought strenuously against the banishment with which they
saw themselves threatened. Eloquent had been their appeals to the Sovereigns.
And the Sovereigns could hardly turn a deaf ear to the intercessions of
subjects to whom they owed so much. For was it not the very Jews who had
supplied the Spanish crown with the sinews for this campaign against the
enemies of the Cross ? Was it not owing to wonderful Hebrew ad
ministration—an
administration gratefully surrendered to them—that the army of the Cross was
equipped, maintained, and paid out of moneys that the Jews themselves had
provided ?
They found means to
bring this to the attention of the Sovereigns, as a proof of the loyalty of
their devotion, as a proof of their value to the Spanish nation. And the
Sovereigns had other experiences of the loyalty and affection which had ever
been manifested towards them by their long-suffering Hebrew subjects. When, for
instance, their son, the Infante Don Juan was proclaimed in Aragon, after the Cortes
of Toledo, the Jews had been foremost in the jubilant and loving receptions
that everywhere met their Highnesses in the course of their progress through
the kingdom of Ferdinand. Whilst the Spaniards were content to greet their
Sovereigns with acclamations, the Jews went to meet them with valuable gifts.1
Bernaldez tells us 2 of the splendid offering made to their Highnesses
by the Aljama of Zaragoza. It consisted ot twelve calves, twelve lambs, and a
curious and very beautiful service of silver borne by twelve Jews, a rich
silver cup full of gold Castellanos 8 and a jar of silver —“ all of
which the Sovereigns received and prized, returning many thanks.”
Loyalty so tangibly
manifested, of which this is but an instance, must have some weight in the scales
against fanaticism; further, it seems impossible that the Sovereigns should
have been altogether blind to the possible jeopardizing of the industrial
prosperity of the kingdom if those chiefly responsible for it were driven out.
So they had put off
their decision in the matter, Lirging that the present war demanded their full
attention. But now that the conquest of Granada was accomplished, they were
forced to look the matter in
1 Amador de los Rios, " Historia de los Judios,” vol.
iii. p. 292.
* " Cronica,” cap. xlvi.
* The casiellauo was worth 480 maravedis.
the face. For
Torquemada was giving them no peace. Hard-driven by his fanatical hatred of the
Israelites, the Grand Inquisitor had resolved upon his course and was
determined that nothing should turn him aside.
Constantly were his
arguments—all founded upon the love of Christ—poured into the ears of the Sovereigns,
and to prove the soundness of these arguments he was able to bring forward
concrete facts—or, at least, matters upon which the courts of the Inquisition
had pronounced—prominent among which would be the affair of La Guardia.
And what Torquemada
was doing by the Sovereigns ; the brethren of his order were doing by Spain.
Popular indignation against the Jews, so easy to arouse, already inflamed by
the outrage at Casar de Palomero and the crucifixion at La Guardia, was further
and unscrupulously excited by false stories that were set in circulation. It
was even alleged that the illness of the Prince Don Juan was the result of
Hebrew infamy, and to explain this a foolish, wicked story was invented, put
about and universally accepted.
Llorente quotes this
story from the “ Anonymo de Zaragoza.” 1 It is to the effect that
the prince coveted a golden pomander-ball worn by his physician, who was of a
Jewish family, and this gewgaw the physician ended by relinquishing to his
patient. One day, moved by youthful curiosity, the boy wished to see what the
pomander contained. Opening it, he discovered an indecent and blasphemous
picture, insulting to the divinity of Christ. The sight of it inspired the
princeling with such horror and grief that he fell sick. Nor would he divulge
the origin of his illness until the instances of his father succeeded in
drawing the secret from him, whereupon “ it was resolved to take proceedings
against the physician and to sentence him to the fire.”
This trivial,
scurrilous, and obviously untruthful
4 “ Anales,” vol. i. p. igg.
story would not be
worth repeating did it not serve the purpose of showing the sort of rumours that
were being propagated to the hurt of the Israelites.
Another story that
was circulated alleged that in Valencia there had also been an attempt by a
number of Jews to crucify a Christian boy. This is recorded in that scurrilous,
infamous publication, “ Centinela contra Judios,” by Frey Francisco de
Torrejoncillo. We have already referred to it more than once. It was first
printed in 1676, and is the book of a friar of the Order of St. Francis, a
disgraceful work which proves its author to have been as barefaced as he was
barefooted. It is a collection of stupid lies and forgeries, and, it is
scarcely an exaggeration to add, obscenities ; it may be another instance of
those frauds termed pious, but it is scarcely to the credit of a Church exercising,
by means of the “Index Expurgatorius,” a censorship of the press—to have
permitted the circulation of a work of this order from the pen of a churchman.
This, however, is by
the way.
The story here to be
recorded is taken, Torrejoncillo tells us, from the “ Sermon de la Cruz ” by
Frey Felipe de Salazar.1 On a Good Friday evening a youth who was in
a street of Valencia observed several men entering a house. Considering this to
be strange— although no suspicious circumstance is mentioned—he approached the
door and listened. He heard them say, “ There seems to be some one at the
door.” Fearing that a brawl might be the result if he were discovered there
when they opened, he drew his sword and fled. (How the drawing of his sword was
calculated to assist his flight the author does not think it worth while to
inform us.) As he was running he came upon a patrol, which seized him,
demanding to know whither he was hurrying in this fashion with a naked sword in
his hand. He related what he had witnessed, whereupon the officer, not only for
the purpose of testing the truth of the story but also that
1 See “ Ccutinela,”
p. 153.
he might ascertain to
what end so many men should be assembling, went to the house and knocked.
The door was opened
by a Jew, who began to make obvious excuses to him. Suddenly the officer heard
a child’s voice within the house, crying, “ These men want to crucify me.”
The Jews were taken,
the house demolished, and on the site of it was built the Church of Santa Cruz.
In this collection of
lies and forgeries are included the “ letter of Christ to Abgarus,” another
letter of Pontius Pilate to Tiberius dilating upon the miracles of the Saviour,
and a letter from the Jews of Constantinople to those of Toledo, which played
an important part in this anti-semitic campaign.
It was the
Cardinal-Archbishop Juan Martinez Siliceo who was alleged to have discovered
this letter in Toledo. We are to suppose that he also found in Toledo the
letter to the Jews of Constantinople to which this is a reply, for the chroniclers
are able to supply us with the texts of both,1 a circumstance which
no one at the time appears to have considered strange.
The letter to
Constantinople ran as follows:
“The Jews of Spain to
The Jews of Constantinople
“ Honoured Jews,
health and grace.—Know that the King of Spain compels us to become Christians,
deprives us of property and of life, destroys our synagogues and otherwise
oppresses us, so that we are uncertain what to do.
“ By the Law of Moses
we beseech you to assemble, and to send us with all speed the declaration made
in your assembly.
“
Chamarro, Prince
of the Jews of Spain.”
1 See
Llorente, “ Anales,” vol. i. p. 196, and " Centinela,” p. 86.
To this the answer
received from Constantinople was in the following terms :
“The Jews of Constantinople
to The Jews of Spain
“ Beloved Brethren in
Moses,—We have your letter in which you tell us of the travail and suffering
you are enduring there. . . . The opinion of the Rabbis is that since the King
of Spain attempts to make you Christians, you should become Christians; since
he deprives you of your goods and property, you should make your children
merchants, that they may deprive the Christians of theirs ; since you say that
they deprive you of your lives, make your sons apothecaries and physicians to
deprive the Christians of theirs ; since they destroy your synagogues, make
your sons clerics that they may destroy the Christian temples ; since you say
that you suffer other wrongs, make your sons enter public offices that thus
they may render the Christians subject to them.
“ Do not depart from
these orders, and you will see that from oppressed you will come to be held of
great account.
“
Husee,
Prince of the Jews of Constantinople."
The matter of these
letters—so very obviously forged—was freely circulated. Being accepted, public
indignation was suddenly increased by fear. Imaginations were stimulated, and
stories based upon these injunctions of Prince Husee became current, nothing
being ever too flagrant for popular consumption. It was related that a Jewish
physician in Toledo carried poison in one of his finger-nails, and that with
this he touched the tongues of the patients he visited, thus killing them. Of
another physician it was reported that he deliberately poisoned the woundg he wag
desired to heal.1
And that there were many other such stories current is beyond all doubt.
What use, if any,
Torquemada made of those forged letters and the stories that were their
offspring, we do not know. But it would be strange if the circulation and acceptance
of such matters displeased him, since they were plainly calculated to forward
his aims and compel the Sovereigns to lend an ear to his insistent
denunciations of the Jews.
Incessantly he
preached the need for religious unity in a united Spain. Indeed, Spain, he
urged, never could be united, never could deserve the blessing of Heaven,
until all men in that land were the children of God, true believers in the Holy
Roman Catholic Apostolic Faith. God had greatly favoured Ferdinand and
Isabella, the friar continued. He had collected the various elements of the
peninsula into one mighty kingdom,which H e had subjected to their sceptre. Let
them fuse those elements into a solid whole, rejecting all those who resist
this fusion—and this for the honour and glory of God and of their own kingdom.
Before this terrific
gospel of Religious Unity nothing could stand. Humanitarian considerations,
principles of equity, indebtedness and gratitude are mere trifles to be swept
away by that hurricane ot religious argument.
The Sovereigns found
themselves face to face with an issue of such a magnitude that no temporal
considerations could be allowed to weigh. And to the pressure of Torquemada’s
fierce arguments was added now the pressure of public opinion, cunningly excited
by his lieutenants. To the voice of God from the lips of the Grand Inquisitor
was added now the vox popuu —the vdice of God from the lips of the people.
And so clamorous was
this popular voice, so insistent were the accusations which it levelled against
the Israelites, of ritual infamies and of seducing back to
* See “ Centinela,” p. 153.
the Law of Moses
their apostate brethren, that the Jews were warned of the storm that was about
to break over their luckless heads.
Torquemada’s demand
was that they must receive baptism or go.
The Sovereigns
hesitated still. In Isabella perhaps the voice of humanity was too strong to be
entirely stifled by the dictates of bigotry.
But Torquemada’s
strength of purpose was the greater and more irresistible by virtue of its
purity and singleness of aim. Obviously he was no selfseeker. Obviously he had
no worldly ends to serve. What he demanded, he demanded in the name of the
religion which he served—solely for the greater honour and glory of his God ;
and to sovereigns of the temper of Ferdinand and Isabella demands so inspired
are not easily resisted.
And although it was
clear that he sought no worldly advantage for himself, he did not scruple to
use the prospect of the Sovereigns’ worldly advantage as a weapon to combat
their reluctance ; he did not hesitate to dangle before their eyes temporal
advantages that must result from the banishment of the Israelites. To arguments
upon religious grounds he added arguments of worldly expediency, arguments
which cannot have failed of effect upon the acquisitive nature of the King.
Never, urged the
Grand Inquisitor, would Spain know tranquillity whilst she harboured Jews. They
were predatory; they were untrustworthy ; their sole objective was the
satisfaction of their pecuniary interest —the only interest they knew ; and
their acquisitiveness would always dispose them to serve any enemy of the
crown so that it should profit them to do so.1
But Torquemada was
not the only advocate before the royal court. The Jews were there, too,
pleading on their own behalf, with an eloquence that seemed for a moment on the
point of prevailing—for the seductive
1 Llorente,
“ Anales,” vol. i. p. 182.
chink of gold was
persuasively intermingled with their protestations.
They urged their past
services to the crown, and promised even greater services in the future ; they
swore that henceforth they would be more observant of the harsh laws formulated
by Alfonso XI—that they would keep to their ghettos as prescribed, withdrawing
to them at nightfall, and abstaining rigorously from all such intercourse with
Christians as was by law forbidden. Last and most eloquent argument of all,
they offered through Abraham Seneor and Isaac Abarbanel—the two Jews who had
undertaken and so admirably effected the equipment of the Castilian army for
the campaign against Granada—that in addition to giving this undertaking they
would subscribe 30,000 ducats towards the expenses of the war against the
Moslem.
Ferdinand’s
hesitation was increased by this offer. Ever in need of money as the Sovereigns
were, the consideration of this gold not only tempted them, but it would
undoubtedly have conquered them had not Torquemada been at hand. But for his
violent intervention it is more than probable that the cruel edict of banishment
would never have been promulgated.
The Dominican,
learning what was afoot, thrust himself into their Highnesses’ presence to
denounce their hesitation, and to put upon it the name which in his opinion it
deserved.
It is not difficult
to picture him in that supreme moment. It is one of those rare occasions on
which this being whom we have compared to a Deus ex machina, a cold stern
spirit ruling and guiding the terrible organization of the Inquisition which he
has himself established, steps forth in the flesh, a living, throbbing man.
You behold him pale,
a little breathless in the excitement and anger by which he is possessed. His
deep-set eyes glow sombrely with the fever ot fanatical zeal and indignation.
He draws his lean
old frame erect. In
his shrivelled, sinewy old hands he flaunts aloft a crucifix.
It is an intense
moment. Everything contributes to it: the long-drawn duel between religion and
humanity, between clericalism and Christianity, of which this is at last the
climax ; and nothing so much as the figure offered by the Jews. This thirty
thousand is unfortunately reminiscent. It permits the Prior of Holy Cross to
draw a very daring parallel.
“ Judas,” he cries,
“once sold the Son of God for thirty pieces. Your Highnesses think to sell Him
again for thirty thousand. Here you have Him. Sell Him, then, but acquit me of
all share in the transaction.”
And, crashing the
crucifix upon the table before their startled Highnesses, he abruptly leaves
the chamber.1
Thus Torquemada
conquered.
The edict of
expulsion was signed at Granada on March 31 of that year 1492—that glorious
year in which Spain finally completed the erection of her monarchy upon the
ruins of the old Visigothic kingdom, and in which the navigator Columbus laid a
new world at the foot of the throne of the Catholic Sovereigns.2
1 Paramo, “ De Origine,” p. 143 ; Llorente," Historia
Critica,” ii. p. 114.
* The edict is quoted in full in Appendix
IV. of Amador de los Rios’ “ Historia de los Judios.”
THE EXODUS FROM SPAIN
It
was
solemnly declared in the edict of expulsion that this decree was promulgated
solely in obedience to the pressing need to cut off at the roots, once for all
time, the evils arising out ot the intercourse between Christians and Jews,
since all other efforts hitherto undertaken with the same intent had proved
fruitless.1
By this edict all
Jews of any age and either sex who should refuse to receive baptism must quit
Spain within three months, and never return, under pain of death and the
confiscation of their property.
The cruelty of this
expatriation calls for little exposition. Spain was the motherland of these
Jews. For centuries it had been the home of their ancestors, and they held it
in the affection implanted in the heart of each of us for the country which is
his own. They must depart out of it, into exile in some foreign land, and the
only terms upon which they could obtain immunity from that harsh decree was by
the sacrifice of something dearer still, something as dear to them as honour
itself. They must be false to the faith of their fathers and forswear the God
of Israel.
That was the choice
forced upon the Children of Judah—the choice which the arrogant Christian
Church had been forcing upon all men from the
1 See the
text of the edict in Rios’ “Historia de los Judios,” Appendix IV.
moment that she had
found herself mistress of the power to do so.
It was decreed that
after the expiry of the three months allowed them in which to settle their
affairs and be gone no Christian would be suffered to befriend or assist them,
to give them food or shelter, under pain of being called to account as an
abettor of heretics.
Until their departure
the persons and property of the exiled were nominally under the protection of
the Sovereigns. They were permitted to dispose of what property they
possessed, and to take the proceeds with them in bills of exchange1
or in merchandise, but not in gold, which it was forbidden to carry out of the
country.
Little greater would
have been the injury done them if their property had been confiscated outright.
For being compelled to dispose of it at such short notice, and the buyers
knowing that it must be sold, and eager to take advantage of these forced
sales, what chance had the Jews of realizing anything that should approach its
value ? How could they avoid the pitiless Christian exploitation of their
miserable position ?
“ The Christians
obtained,” says Bernaldez, “ much property and many very rich houses and
estates for little money ; the Jews went about offering these, and could not
find any buyers, so that they were forced to barter here a house for an ass,
there a vineyard for a piece of cloth.”8
From just this
passage in the chronicle of an author whose detestation of the Jews we have
earlier considered may be conceived how terrible was their distress, and how
mercilessly was advantage taken of it by the Christians.
1 Amador de
los Rios (iii. p. 310) very reasonably questions their being permitted to take
money in bills of exchange, although the statement is contained in Bernaldez’
“ Chronicle,” and is mentioned by other contemporaries.
3 “ Historia,” tom. i. cap. ex.
SANBENITO OF
IMPENITENT, From Limborch’s “ Historia Inquisitionis,"
Amador de los Rios
adds that entire ghettos entered into the sacrifice, and that, the Jews being
utterly unable to dispose of such communal property, they were forced to make
gifts of it to the municipalities that had shown them so little pity.1
Torquemada in his
great zeal for the Faith was not content to leave matters there. His chief aim,
after all, was not the expulsion of the Jews, but their conversion and the
effacement of their creed. As a means to that end was it that he had wrung the
edict of banishment from the Sovereigns.
Upon this campaign of
conversion he now sent forth his army of Dominicans. He published an edict,
with the royal sanction, in which he exhorted the Israelites to receive
baptism, laying stress upon the fact that those who should do so before the
expiry of the three months appointed for their emigration would be entitled to
remain.
In every city, in
every village, in every hamlet, in churches, in market-places, and at
street-corners his black-and-white Dominicans sought by exhortation and
argument to induce the Jews to receive the waters of baptism, thereby securing
their well-being and prosperity in this world and their eternal salvation in
the next. The preachers penetrated to the very synagogues in their zeal, and
exerted themselves even in the Jewish temples, by the promises they held out of
temporal advantage, to lead the Jews into the fold of Christianity. No place
was sacred from the friars-preachers. In Segovia, when the hour of departure
approached, the Jews spent three days in their cemetery weeping over the graves
of their dead, which they were abandoning. And there were zealous Dominicans
who intruded upon that sorrow, and seized "the opportunity to preach
conversion to that piteous assembly.2
But the response to
all these sermons was only
1 “ Historia de los Judios,” vol. iii. p. 311.
* Colmenares, 41
Hist. Segovia,” cap. xxxv. § ix.
slight. If
Torquemada’s friars were preaching Christianity on the one hand, and
attempting by argument and bribery to induce the Hebrews to embrace it, the
Rabbis, on the other, were no less energetic in their efforts to encourage the
Israelites to stand firm in their fidelity to their God, to resist the
temptations of corruption, and to remember that even as God had delivered them
out of Egypt and led them into the Land of Plenty, so in leading them out of
Spain would He see that His children did not suffer loss of honour or of
worldly goods.
Whether the
Israelites believed or not, the great body of them remained staunch, and sooner
than accept ease and advancement at the price of baptism, they firmly envisaged
exile and the loss of their property, which the royal decree inspired by Torquemada
rendered inevitable.
Bernaldez tells us
that, notwithstanding the law against taking gold out of Spain, many of the
exiles did take it in large quantities concealed about them— which is extremely
probable. Not quite so probable is the common rumour which he reports, that
they reduced many gold ducats to pellets with their teeth, and then swallowed
them upon arriving at seaports or other places where they were to be searched,
thus carrying the gold away in their stomachs. The women in particular, he
says, were great offenders in this respect, and—again reporting the voice of
common rumour—he informs us that some women contrived to swallow as many as
thirty ducats each.1
The story of this
swallowed gold evidently got abroad, to add to their affliction; and we are
told that some who sailed from Cadiz to Fez, and who fell into the hands of
Moors upon landing on the coast of Barbary, were not only plundered of their
belongings, but were in several cases ripped open by these brigands in their
quest for gold.3
1 11 Historia," tom. i. cap. ex.
* Llorente, “ Anales,” vol. i. p. 190,
Within the little
period of three months appointed them, the Israelites sold or bartered what
they could, and abandoned that for which they found no buyers. All boys and
girls of the age of twelve or more they married, so that each nubile female
should set out under the protection of a husband.1
The exodus from Spain
began in the first week in July of 1492. Those amongst the exiles who were
wealthy supported their poorer brethren, in pursuance of the custom that had
ever prevailed in their ghettos. Many who had been very wealthy and masters of
thriving trades abandoned their prosperity, and trusting to what Bernaldez
terms “ the vain hope of their blindness,” they took the harsh road into banishment.
The parish priest of
Palacios has left us a vivid picture of this emigration.2 It is a
picture over which Christianity must weep in shame.
On foot, on
horseback, on donkeys, in carts, young and old, stalwart and feeble, healthy
and ailing, some dying and some being born, and many falling by the way, they
formed forlorn processions toiling onwards in the heat and dust of that July.
On every road that led out of the country—on those that went southwards to the
sea, or westwards to Portugal, or eastwards to Navarre—these straggling human
droves were to be met, and they presented a spectacle so desolate that there
was no Christian who did not pity them.
Succour them none
dared, by virtue of the decree of the Grand Inquisitor; but on every hand they
were exhorted to accept baptism and thus set a term upon their tribulations.
And some, unable to endure more in their utter exhaustion and hopelessness, gave
way and forswore the God of Israel.
But these were
comparatively few. The Rabbis were at hand to encourage and stimulate them. The
women and the young men were bidden to sing as
1 Bernaldez, " Historia," tom. i. p. 339.
* " Historia,” tom. i. cap.
ex.
they marched, and
timbrels were sounded to hearten these wretched multitudes.
The Andalusians made
for Cadiz, where it was their intention to take ship. Those of Aragon also
turned towards the coast, repairing to Cartagena ; whilst many Catalans sailed
for Italy, where—singular anomaly !—a Catalan Pope (Roderigo Borgia) was to
afford them shelter and protection in the very heart of the system that was
oppressing and persecuting them.
Of those who arrived
at Cadiz, Bernaldez says that at sight of the sea there was great clamour
amongst them. Their imaginations fired by the recent sermons of the Rabbis, in
which they had been likened to their forefathers departing out of the Egyptian
captivity, they confidently expected to behold here a repetition of the miracle
of the Red Sea, and that the waters would separate to allow them a dry-shod
passage into Barbary.
Those who went
westwards were permitted by King John of Portugal to enter his kingdom and
abide there for six months upon payment of a small tax of one cruzado each.1
Of these many settled in Portugal and engaged there in trade, which they were
permitted to do subject to a tribute of 100 cruzados levied on each family.
It is no part of our
present task to follow the Israelites into exile and observe the miserable fate
that overtook so many of them, alike at the hands of the followers of the
gentle Christ and at those of the Children of the Prophet. Many sages and
rabbis were amongst those who abandoned Spain, and in their number was Isahak
Aboab, the last Prince of the Castilian Jews, and Isaac Abarbanel, the sometime
farmer of the royal taxes.
“ The expulsion,”
writes this last, “ was accompanied by pillage on land and sea ; and amongst
those who, stricken and sorrowful, set out for foreign lands,
1 The cruzado
is of the value of a florin, but with the purchasing power then of at least
five times that sum.
was I. With great
trouble I contrived to reach Naples, but I was unable to find any repose there
in consequence of the French invasion. The French were masters of the city, the
very inhabitants having abandoned their Government. All rose against our
congregation, expelling rich and poor, men and women, fathers and sons of the
Children of Zion, and reducing them to the greatest ruin and misery. Several
abandoned their religion, fearing lest their blood should be shed as water, or
that they might be sold into slavery; for men and women, young and old, were
being carried off in ships without pity for their lamentations, compelled to
abandon their Law and continue in captivity.”
France and England
received some of the exiles, others went to settle in the Far East. Most
wretched, perhaps, were those who landed on the coast of Africa and attempted
by way of the desert to reach Fez, where there was a Jewish colony. They were
beset by a horde of plundering tribesmen, who pillaged them of their
belongings, treated them with the utmost cruelty and inhumanity, ravished their
women under their very eyes, and left them stripped and utterly broken. Their
sufferings had reached the limit of their endurance. The survivors sought
baptism at the first Christian settlement they reached, and many of these
returned to their native Spain, having thus qualified themselves for
readmission.
There were many
otherwise who, similarly unable to endure the hardships which they met abroad,
broke down at last, accepted baptism and returned, or else returned clamouring
for the baptism that should enable them to dwell in peace in the land of their
birth.
For three years, says
Bernaldez, there was a constant stream of returning Jews, who having abandoned
all for their faith, had now abandoned their faith itself, and came back to
make a fresh start. They were baptized in grouos, all at once, by the
sprinkling of
hyssop over them.1
Bernaldez himself baptized a hundred of them at Palacios, and from what he
beheld, “ I considered fulfilled,” he writes, “ the prophecy of David—‘
Covertentur ad vesperam et famen patiuntur ut canes et circundabunt civitatem.’
’’
The priest of
Palacios estimates at 36,000 the Jewish families that accepted banishment,2
which would represent some 200,000 souls. But Salazar de Mendoza and Zurita set
the total exiles at twice that number,8 whilst Mariana carries it as
high as 800,ooo.4 More reliable perhaps than any of these is the
estimate left by the Jewish writers, who say that in the year 5252 of the
Creation 300,000 Jews left Spain, the land in which their forbears had dwelt
for close upon 2,000 years.5
These figures bring
home to us the gravity ot the step taken by the Sovereigns when they consented
to the banishment of the Jews ; and if anything had been wanting to make us
appreciate the irresistible quality of Torquemada and of the fanaticism for
which he stood, these figures would supply it.
The proposed
expulsion must fully have been discussed in council before the edict was
promulgated ;6 and it must have been obvious that Spain could not
fail to be left materially the poorer if some 40,000 industrious families were
driven out. It is unthinkable that king or councillor should not have raised
the question of the inexpediency, of the positive danger attaching to such a
measure. Yet certain it is that neither councillor nor king could stand against
the stern, uncompromising friar, in whom they saw the representative of a God
that was not to be trifled
1 11 Historia,” tom. i. p. 344.
* Ibid. p. 338.
3 Zurita, “ Anales,” lib. i. cap. iv.; Salazar de Mendoza,
“Monarquia de
Espana,” iii. p. 338.
* “ Historia,” lib. xxvi. cap.
i.
6 See Amador de los Rios, “ Historia de los Judios,’ vol.
iii. p. 316.
6 Paramo
states that it was. See “ De Origine,” p. 143, and also
Salazar de Mendoza, 11 Monarquia de Espana,” iii. p. 337.
with—a God whom their
conceptions transformed into some vindictive pagan deity.
Torquemada’s crucifix
so dramatically flung into the scales had definitely settled the question.
The Sultan Bajazet,
who welcomed and sheltered not a few of the fugitives in Turkey, was overcome
with amazement at this blunder of statecraft, so that he is reported to have
asked whether this king were seriously to be taken for a great statesman who
impoverished his kingdom to enrich another’s.
What the Grand Turk
perceived so readily, priest- ridden Ferdinand dared not perceive.
In banishing Jew and
Moslem from her soil—for the Moor was soon to follow, though temporarily permitted
to remain by virtue of the terms of the capitulation of Granada—Spain banished
her merchants and financiers on the one hand, and her agriculturists and
artisans on the other; in short, she banished her workers, the productive
section of her community. It is accounted by many that she did so with the
fullest consciousness of the consequences—an act of heroic sacrifice to
principle and to religious convictions. And it may be that she accounted
herself God-rewarded by the gift of a new world for this sacrifice to God.
The arts, the
industries, manufactures, agriculture, and commerce have been bewailing for
four hundred years the lack of hands to serve them. The New World proved but an
illusory and transient compensation. Its gold could not furnish Spain with the
workers that she lacked. On the contrary, it increased that lack. The New World
repaid herself with interest for what she gave. In return for the gifts she
poured into the lap of Spain she took to herself the very children of Spain,
luring them overseas with the fabulous tales of riches easily to be acquired.
Driven by this greed of gold, multitudes of families emigrated to increase the
depopulation of their country. And when, in the course of time, those children
of Spain in the New World had grown to a sufficient strength to
claim their
emancipation, they threw off the yoke of the motherland and distributed among
themselves her vast possessions. They left her bare indeed, who by her own act
was without home-resources, to realize perhaps at last what manner of service
had been rendered her by the Prior of Holy Cross.
The Moors of Granada,
meanwhile, had obtained from Ferdinand a promise that the Inquisition should
not be set up in Granada within the following forty years, nor yet any
prosecution instituted of Moriscoes (baptized Moslems) for the observance of
Mohammedan customs.
The term, however,
set too great a strain upon priestly patience. In 1526—long before the expiry
of the period marked—the Holy Office crept slyly into Granada upon the pretext
that it was requisite to watch the many suspected Marranos who had gone to
reside there in the shelter of the immunity enjoyed by the Moriscoes. That it
was the merest pretext is shown by the circumstance that already, as early as
1505, the Holy Office of Cordova had been moving in Granada and instituting
there, when occasion arose, proceedings against Judaizers.
THE LAST •■INSTRUCTIONS”
OF TORQUEMADA
The
expulsion
of the Jews may be considered the supreme and crowning work of Torquemada’s
life. It marks the high meridian of his achievement. Hereafter his career
dwindles gradually in importance in a measure as it sinks slowly to its
setting.
In Rome, meanwhile,
in that year 1492, a new Pontiff—Roderigo Borgia—had ascended the throne of St.
Peter under the title of Alexander VI, and from this Pontiff’s hands Torquemada
received his confirmation in the great office which he held—a confirmation
which, being couched in the otiose terms of affection not uncommon in papal
bulls, seems to have led many to believe that Alexander viewed Torquemada and
the Holy Office of Spain with particular fondness. As a matter of fact, this
Pope’s attempts to curb the excessive rigour of the Grand Inquisitor were less
lethargic—we dare not say more energetic— than those exerted by Sixtus IV and
Innocent VIII ; and it was Alexander VI who, weary of complaints, finally
contrived the retirement of the Prior of Holy Cross.
But that was not yet.
Before that came to pass, the scandals of secret absolutions sold and subsequently
rescinded by the Holy See were now repeated. Vigorous appeals were made to the
Holy Father against the procedure of the Grand Inquisitor, and the Holy Father,
acting upon the advice of the
Apostolic Court,
dispatched his briefs of absolution. Torquemada, incensed once more by this
fresh interference with his jurisdiction, made his appeal to the Sovereigns,
and jointly with them laid his protests before the Pope, who complacently
cancelled the briefs that had been paid for—or rather that part of the
absolution which concerned the temporal courts. For the moneys received it
could be shown that full value had been given, since these absolutions still
held good in the tribunal of conscience. We are familiar by this time with the
argument.
Torquemada’s enemies
in Spain were increasing now at an alarming rate. But, secure in the royal
protection, this old man steadily and ruthlessly advanced along the path of
intolerance, undismayed by ill-will. Conscious of the hatred he provoked, he
may have gloried in the maledictions hurled against him by the persecuted,
conceiving that the malevolence of the infidel would render his deeds the more
acceptable in the sight of his God. But whatever the equanimity with which he
may have confronted spiritual hostility, he took his measures to secure himself
from its temporal manifestations. That he went in dread of attack is evinced
not only by the fact that he was never seen abroad without his numerous escort
of armed familiars, but further by the circumstance that he never sat down to
dine without a horn of unicorn upon his table as a charm against poison.1
So arbitrarily and
arrogantly did he widen the sphere of autocratic jurisdiction accorded him that
soon he was usurping the functions of the civil courts, thereby provoking a
still deeper resentment. He conducted the business of the Holy Office in such a
manner that all other courts of the kingdom became subservient to it, and where
the magistrates, resenting these encroachments, attempted to withstand him, or
even to question his authority, they were—as had
1 Paramo, 11
De Origine,” p. 156.
happened in the case
of the Captain-General of Valencia—promptly charged with lack of zeal and even
impeached as hinderers of the Holy Office. They were compelled to submit to
humiliating penances, which in the case of magistrates entailed a total loss of
dignity and prestige. And such was the ascendancy this man had gained by now
that complaints or appeals to the Sovereigns were useless.
Meanwhile, however,
and by his own act, his enemies at home had found two powerful mediators with
the Pope, two powerful advocates to plead their cause before the Apostolic
Court. These were Juan Arias Davila, Bishop of Segovia, and Pedro de Aranda,
Bishop of Calahorra.
Torquemada’s frenzied
intolerance of men of Jewish blood was by no means confined to those who
practised the Law of Moses. It extended to those who had accepted baptism and
to their descendants, and it kept alive his mistrust of them.
Very markedly is this
exhibited in the proceedings he instituted against the two bishops mentioned,
notwithstanding the Papal decree which inhibited inquisitors from proceeding
against prelates save by special pontifical authority.
The Bishop of
Segovia—Juan Arias Davila—was the grandson of a Jew who had received baptism in
the reign of Henry IV, and had held an honourable position at the court of that
king by whom he had been ennobled. Considering the ecclesiastical eminence
attained by his grandson—now a very old man—one would imagine that the latter
should have been secure from inquisitorial attacks on the score of alleged
offences committed by his ancestor against the Faith. But the terrible
Torquemada contrived to rake up some matters against the long-deceased
converso, accused him of having re-Judaized before his death, and instituted
proceedings which must have resulted in the destitution, degradation and infamy
of the bishop, his descendant.
“ It sufficed,” says
Llorente on this subject,1 “ that a deceased Jew should have been
fortunate and wealthy to seek cause of suspicion upon his faith and religion,
such was the ill-will against those of Jewish blood, such the desire to mortify
them, and such the covetousness to absorb their property.”
To these proceedings
Davila set up a stout resistance and made appeal to the Pope, whereupon Torquemada
experienced his first serious check. The Pope ordered him to stick to the
letter of the law, and to lay the matter before the Apostolic Court, as was
due. Thither went the Bishop also, to defend his grandfather’s bones from the
accusation lodged. He was well received by the Pontiff, who ultimately gave him
the victory over Torquemada, for when the case was tried his father’s memory
was cleared of all guilt.2
In the meanwhile,
however, Davila had not only received a very kindly welcome at the Vatican,
but, pending his trial, he was given a position of honour, and he was
associated with Cardinal Borgia of Monreale (Alexander’s nephew) when the
latter went as papal legate to Naples, to crown Alfonso II of Aragon.3
Less fortunate was
Pedro de Aranda, the other accused Bishop. In his case, too, the proceedings
instituted were based upon the alleged Judaizing of his deceased father—a Jew who
had been baptized in the time of St. Vincent Ferrer.
His case was tried at
Valladolid, but the inquisitors and the diocesan ordinary disagreed in their
findings, and in 1493 the Bishop, accompanied by his bastard son Alfonso
Solares, set out for Rome, to present in person his appeal to the Pontiff. Him,
too, the Pope received with the utmost kindliness. His Holiness issued a brief
inhibiting the inquisitors, and relegating
1 “ Historia Critica,” tom. ii. p. 125.
s
Colmenares, “ Hist Segovia,” cap. xxxv., and Paramo, “ De Origine,” lib. ii.
cap. iv. Paramo says that the Bishop had “ causa propria ’ as well as the
defence of his grandfather’s bones to take him to Rome.
3 Burchard,
" Diarium” (Thuasne Ed.), ii. p. 163.
the case to the
Bishop of Cordova and the Prior of the Benedictines of Valladolid.
The case being tried
by them, a verdict entirely favourable to the Bishop was obtained, and his
father’s memory was acquitted of the charge preferred against it. But the
tribulations of the living son were not permitted to end there. Torquemada
would not suffer that his prey should escape so easily.
Already in 1488 the
Bishop had been defamed by a suspicion of judaizing, and the Grand Inquisitor
now pressed that he should be called to answer to that charge, forwarding the
indictment under seal to Rome.
Pending the solution
of the matter by the Apostolic Court, Alexander not only treated Aranda well,
but heaped honours and favours upon him and his son. The Bishop was sent to
Venice as papal legate, he was appointed Master of the Sacred Palace, whilst
upon his offspring was conferred the position of apostolic prothonotary.1
But despite the papal
favour which he enjoyed, and notwithstanding the fact that he called upwards of
a hundred witnesses to testify in his defence, he was found guilty. It is said
that his own witnesses helped to bring about his conviction. The Pontifical
Court was obliged to sentence him to loss of all ecclesiastical dignities and
benefices, to degrade him and reduce him to the lay estate, whereafter he was
imprisoned in Sant’ Angelo, and there he died a few years later.3
Notwithstanding the
sentence of the Apostolic Court, Llorente finds it impossible to believe that
Aranda was really guilty of Judaizing. " It seems incredible that it
should have been so, considering that he had preserved the reputation of good
Catholic for so long and with such applause that the Queen Donna Isabella
should have named him President of the Council of Castile. His celebrating the
Synoda1
1 Burchard,
11 Diarium ” (Thuasne Ed.), ii. pp. 409 and 494.
* Limborch, lib. xiv. cap. 41; Llorente,
‘‘Historia Critica,’’ tom. ii p. 126; Burchard, “Diarium.” ii. 494, iii. 13—.
Council in his
bishopric argues zeal for the purity of religion and its dogmas. That the
witnesses called should have deponed to any words or actions of his that were
contrary to this does not signify as much as may at first appear, for we know,
from a multitude of instances, that to fast on Sunday, to abstain from work on
Saturday, to refuse to eat pork, to dislike the blood of animals, and other
similar matters, sufficed as grounds upon which to declare a man a Judaizing
heretic, and this notwithstanding that, as any one knows to-day, these are
circumstances not at all at issue with a firm adherence to the Catholic
dogmas.” 1
His sentence,
however, was not pronounced until 1498. Until then he enjoyed, as we have seen,
great favour at the Papal Court. Taking advantage of this, he and the Bishop of
Segovia not only acted as mediators to lay their countrymen’s grievances
against Torquemada before the Pope, but, in their very natural resentment at
the injustice of the prosecutions instituted against themselves, they went so
far as to urge the Pope to depose the Grand Inquisitor from his office. And
Llorente—who states this upon the authority of Lumbreras—adds that these
petitions would, of themselves, have prevailed but for the royal protection
which Torquemada continued to enjoy.3
But the complaints of
the Grand Inquisitor’s abuse of his power continued to pour into Rome. They
multiplied to ;such an extent, they were of such a nature, and they were
presented by Spaniards of such eminence at the court of the Spanish Pontiff
that thrice was Torquemada forced to send an advocate to defend
1 Llorente,
11 Hist. Critica,” ii. p. 126. It was alleged against Aranda that in
the course of his Judaizing, when praying he would always say “ Gloria Patri ”
purposely omitting the 11 Filio et Spiritu Sancto,” that he took
food before celebrating Mass, that he ate meat on Good Fridays and other days
of abstinence, that he denied the efficacy of indulgences, and did not believe
in Hell or Purgatory, and much else. See Burchard,
“ Diarium,” iii. p.
14.
1 “Anales,”
tom. i. p. 214.
him before the Holy
See.1 And in the end Alexander considered it necessary to take
measures to circumvent the royal protection which continued to oppose the
deposition of the Prior of Holy Cross.
Since to depose him
were too aggressive a course to adopt towards the Sovereigns, with whom the
Pontiff desired to preserve the friendliest relations, at least Torquemada’s
power must be curtailed. And so, by a brief of June 23, 1494, indited with all
the craft and diplomacy of which Roderigo Borgia was a master, a brief in which
he assures the Grand Inquisitor that “ he cherishes him in the very bowels of
affection for his great labours in the exaltation of the Faith,” and charged
with tender solicitude for Torquemada’s failing health, the Pontiff puts
forward these infirmities as a reason for assuming him no longer equal to
discharge single-handed the heavy duties of his office. Therefore His Holiness
considers it desirable to appoint him assistants who will lighten the labour of
his declining years.
The assistants
appointed by Alexander were Martin Ponce de Leon, a Castilian nobleman who was
Archbishop of Messina, Don Inigo Manrique, Bishop of Cordova (nephew of the
prelate of the same name who was Archbishop of Seville), Don Francisco Sanchez
de la Fuente, Bishop of Avila, sometime Dean of Toledo and Councillor of the
Suprema, and Don Alonso Suarez de Fuentelsaz, Bishop of Mondonedo, who had also
held the position of inquisitor.
These assistants were
equipped by the Pontiff with the amplest powers—powers as ample as Torquemada’s
own—so that they were in no sense subservient to the Prior of Holy Cross. The
term “ assistant ” was a papal euphuism, serving thinly to veil the fact that
Torquemada’s autocratic rule was virtually at an end.
Such was the absolute
equality of the authority
1 Paramo
"De Origiue,” p, 156
of each of the five
Grand Inquisitors now in existence, that it was explicitly set forth that any
one of them had power singly to determine any matter, or singly to conclude any
case that might have been initiated by one of the other four.1
But of the four
assistants appointed only two accepted office jointly with Torquemada. These
were the Bishop of Avila and the Archbishop ol Messina, who at once took up
their duties.
The Pope went a step
further on November 4 following, when by a supplementary brief he appointed
Sanchez de la Fuente (Bishop of Avila) to be Judge of Appeal in cases of the
Faith. And from now onwards it is to Sanchez de la Fuente that the Pope
addresses his briefs concerning the conduct of the affairs of the Holy Office.
It was to him personally that Alexander gave orders that when a bishop was
unable or unwilling to perform upon an offending cleric of his diocese the
ceremony of degradation, this should be undertaken by the Bishop of Avila
himself, or else by a bishop by him appointed.
Thus it would seem
that Torquemada had virtually been superseded, and that Sanchez de la Fuente
had been rendered his superior. If so, that superiority cannot have been more
than nominal. In spite ot it, Torquemada remained the guiding spirit of the
Holy Office in Spain, the supreme arbiter and lawgiver, as we shall see when
we come to consider his last “ Instructions,” published in 1498.
In spite of these
measures taken by the Pope with a view to softening inquisitorial severity and
bringing it within more reasonable bounds, complaints to Rome seem to have
continued unabatedly.
Far from restricting
inquisitorial jurisdiction—as was intended—the appointment of these assistant
Grand Inquisitors appears to have widened it. They now went so far as
themselves to sell and dispose 1 Lumbreras, quoted by Llorente, “
Anales,” tom. i. p. 215.
SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.
38}] From Cohnenar’s “ DAlices
d’Espagne."
of confiscated
property—a matter which hitherto had been conducted by the officers of the
royal treasury. And this was more than Ferdinand could stomach. Where
humanitarian considerations, where arguments of political expediency had failed
to curb his bigotry, acquisitiveness seems easily to have carried the victory.
So that at last we see the King himself turning in appeal to the Pope against
this despotism of a court upon which he had conferred the power to become
mightier than himself in his own kingdom.
The response to his
appeal was the bull of February 1495, commanding the inquisitors under pain of
excommunication to desist from their course, and never to resort to it again
save under royal sanction. The power to proceed against inquisitors in case of
fraud or irregularity in this matter was vested in the famous Francisco Ximenes
de Cisneros.1
This man, who has
been called the Richelieu of Spain, had risen from very humble beginnings, as a
barefoot friar-mendicant, to the very splendid eminence of Primate of Spain—in
which office he had just succeeded Cardinal Mendoza, who died in that year
(i495)-
In the following year
Torquemada made his exit from the Court, where for a decade he had been a
figure of an importance second only to that of the Sovereigns themselves.
Crippled by gout, he
withdrew to his monastery at Avila.2 There he now dwelt in
retirement, an emaciated old man in his seventy-sixth year, debilitated and
racked with bodily infirmities, but with all his vigour and energy of mind
unimpaired, his severity as uncompromising as of old, his conscience entirely
at peace in the conviction that he had given of his best —indeed, his all—to
the service of his God.
But even now his
retirement can have been little
1 Llorente, 11 Anales,” tom. i. p. 222.
* Paramo, " De Origine,” p.
159.
more than physical.
His attention continued focussed upon the Inquisition and engrossed by it. To
the last do we find him actively directing the procedure of that tribunal of
the Faith.
In the spring of 1498
he summoned the principal inquisitors of the kingdom to the monastery of St.
Thomas of Avila, to the end that with himself they might concert the
promulgation of further decrees to check abuses which had crept into the
administration of the justice of the Holy Office, proving inadequate his
enactments of 1484, 1485, and 1488.
These, the fourth
“Instructions” of Torquemada, were published on May 25, 1498. They contain a
good deal that seems calculated to soften the rigour of the earlier decrees,
yet much of this is more or less illusory.
Let us very briefly
consider the sixteen articles of which they consist.
The first three
provide : (I) that of the two inquisitors appointed to each court one shall be
a jurist and the other a theologian, and that they shall not proceed other than
jointly to decree prison, torture, or publication of witnesses; (II) that the
inquisitors shall not permit their officers to bear weapons in those places
where the bearing of weapons is forbidden; (III) that no one shall be arrested
save upon sufficient proof of his guilt, and that all cases be disposed of with
dispatch and not delayed in the hope of discovering increased justification to
sentence.
This last clause
merely repeats an earlier one that we have already seen, and from this
repetition we are led to suppose that the former expression of the same command
had not received proper attention and obedience. The stipulation that no
arrest should be made save where there was sufficient proof of guilt is not as
generous as it sounds. It is dependent upon what the inquisitors would consider
“sufficient proof”; this is revealed by the jurisprudence of the Holy Office:
the accusation of a spiteful or malevolent person, or
a delation wrung from
some wretch under torture, would be accounted “sufficient proof” to justify the
arrest and its sequel. To abolish the inequitable character of this it would
have been necessary to have rescinded the decree which accounted “ semiplenal
proof” sufficient ground for taking action.
Very merciful in its
terms is Article IV, which sets forth that in proceedings against the dead the
inquisitors must absolve promptly where complete proof of crime is not
forthcoming, and not delay in the hope of obtaining further proof, as legal
delays are very injurious to the children, who are unable to contract marriage
whilst such matters are sub judice. But it comes a little late in the day. It
comes when the great harvest from the wealthy dead has been safely garnered.
Besides, no conditions imposed could mitigate the horrible rigour of the
enactment to exhume and burn the bones of the dead together with their
effigies, and to reduce the children or grandchildren to destitution and
infamy, even when the person convicted was known to have died penitent and
comforted by the sacraments of the Church—in consequence of which, by their own
Faith, the inquisitors believed him to be saved.
Article V provides
that when the tribunal shall be short of money for salary, no further pecuniary
penances be imposed than would be the case if the court had funds in hand.
Conceive, if you can,
the notions of equity prevailing in a tribunal which needed to have it decreed
that fines were to be governed by the offence committed, and not by the court’s
need of money at the time !
Similarly illumining
is Article VI, which sets forth that imprisonment or other corporal penances
must not be commuted to fines, and that only the inquisitors- general shall
have power to dispense an offender from wearing the sanbenito and to
rehabilitate the children of heretics so that they shall have liberty in the
matters of apparel and employment.
As Llorente points
out,1 the very existence of this decree shows of what abuses of
power the inquisitors were guilty for the purpose of increasing their already
considerable profit.
Article VII is
thoroughly imbued with the inquisitorial spirit of mercilessness. It warns
inquisitors to be cautious in the matter of admitting to reconciliation those
who confess their fault after arrest, since, considering how many years have
passed since the institution of the Inquisition, the contumacy of such
offenders may be taken as established.
On the subject of
Article VIII, which enjoins inquisitors to punish false witnesses with public
pains, Llorente is particularly interesting in a commentary :
“ Properly to
understand this article, it is necessary to realize that there were two ways of
being a false witness : one by calumniating, another by denying knowledge of
heretical words or deeds upon which a person might be questioned in the course
of proceedings against an accused. I have seen many records of proceedings
against those of this second class, but very rarely (rarissima vez) any against
those of the first. Nor could it be easy to prove that a calumniator has borne
false witness, for the unfortunate accused would have to guess his identity,
and though he were to guess correctly the court would not admit it.” 2
Article IX provides
that in no tribunal shall there be two persons who are related or one who is
the servant of another, even though their respective offices should be entirely
different and separate.
Articles X, XI, and
XVI are calculated to increase the secrecy of inquisitorial proceedings. The
first makes provision for the secret custody of all documents and for
punishing any notary who shall betray his trust ; the second enacts that a
notary must not receive the depositions of witnesses save in the presence of
the inquisitor ; the last decrees that after the
1 “ Historia Critica,” tom. ii. p. 77.
1 Ibid. ii.
p. 78.
witnesses shall have
been sworn by the inquisitors in the presence of the fiscal, the latter must
withdraw so as not to be present when the delations are made.
The remaining four
articles are concerned with such matters as the setting up of courts of the
Inquisition where these have not yet been established, the submission of
difficult questions that may arise to the Suprema for decision, the provision
of separate prisons for women and for men, and the stipulation that officers of
the court shall work six hours daily.
In addition to the
foregoing sixteen articles, he promulgated in that same year special
instructions concerning the personnel of the Holy Office. They speak for
themselves, and very vividly suggest the abuses they were framed to suppress.
For governors of prisons
and constables he decreed that they must permit no one to visit the prisoners
with the exception of the persons appointed to bear them food, and that these
must be bound by oath to preserve the “secrecy” inviolate, and to examine all
food to ascertain that no written matter is concealed in it. Food, it is added,
shall be conveyed to the prisoners by persons specially appointed for that
duty, and never by a constable or gaoler.
All officers are to
be sworn to preserve inviolate secrecy upon all things they may see or hear.
Receivers are
commanded that in the event of the acquittal of a person whose property has
been sequestered, they must restore the property according to the inventory
drawn up at the time of effecting the sequestration—but if there are debts to
be satisfied by such a person, these may be paid by order of the inquisitors
without awaiting the consent of the debtor.
If amongst
confiscated property there should be any that is in litigation, the matter is
to be judicially decided ; and if it is found that any property which should
have formed part of a confiscation shall have
passed into the hands
of third parties, action is to be taken to recover it.
Confiscated property
is to be sold after thirty days, and the receivers are not to purchase any
under pain of greater excommunication and a fine of 100 ducats. Each receiver
is authorized to give vouchers for property up to the value of 300,000
maravedis.
For the inquisitors
themselves it is provided that upon assuming office they shall be bound by oath
to discharge their duties well and faithfully and to observe the secrecy; that
no inquisitor or officer of the Inquisition shall receive any gift of
whatsoever nature from a prisoner, under pain of loss of office and a fine of
twice the value of the gift plus 100,000 maravedis, whilst any who shall have
knowledge of such matter and fail to divulge it shall be subject to the same
penalty.
Inquisitors are to
make oath never to be alone with a prisoner, and neither an inquisitor nor any
officer of the court shall hold two offices or receive two salaries. Lastly, in
any district where the Inquisition’s tribunal is established, the inquisitors
must pay for their own lodgings, and must never receive any hospitality from
conversos}
We have seen
Torquemada’s efforts strained to obtain the fullest possible control over
subjects of inquisitorial jurisdiction in Spain, and to establish himself the
sole arbiter in matters concerning heresies there committed. And we have seen
his frequent conflicts with Rome in consequence of what he accounted undue
interference on the part of the Holy See in affairs which he considered purely
within his own province. Despite repeated protests which had resulted in the
annulment of absolutions granted by the Apostolic Court, the Holy See had ever
continued to receive those who fled thither from Spain in quest of a
reconciliation that was procurable in Rome upon 1 See “Copilacion de
las Instrucciones,” under date.
terms far easier than
were accorded by Torquemada’s delegates.
Never, however, had
the fugitives to Rome been so numerous as they were now in the reign of
Alexander VI. Never before had so many Judaizers —who were liable, if
discovered in Spain, to perpetual prison or the fire—sought at the hands of the
Pontiff the absolution which, subject to penitence and penance, the Holy Father
was willing and ready to accord them.
On July 29, 1498, an
Auto de F£ was held in Rome in the vast square before St. Peter’s, when 180
Spanish Judaizers came to be reconciled to the Church.1
It is worth while to
take a glance at this, and to mark the difference between the Act of Faith in
the very heart of Christendom, and the spectacles provided under the same
title by Spanish bigotry and fanaticism.
There were present
the Governor of Rome, Juan de Cartagena, the Spanish Orator at the Vatican, the
Apostolic auditors, and the Master of the Sacred Palace, whilst the Pope
himself surveyed the scene from the balcony above the steps of St. Peter’s.
The penitents
received the sanbenitos, which were put on over their ordinary garments, and
arrayed in these theyentered St. Peter’s. There all were assembled and
reconciled, whereafter they were taken in procession to the Church of Santa
Maria della Minerva. In this temple they put off their sanbenitos, and each one
withdrew to his home without further bearing the insignia of shame and infamy.2
1 This is
the figure given by Burchard, and is the most authoritative (“ Diarium,” ii.
492). Llorente says “250,” and Sanuto (“Diario,” i. col. 1029) “zercha 300
marrani.”
J Llorente,
“ Anales,” tom. i. p. 238; Burchard, “Diarium,” ii. pp. 491-2. Sanuto the
Venetian diarist reports the matter from letters received from Rome with a
sarcasm entirely characteristic : “ The Pontiff sent some 300 marranos in
penitence to the Minerva, dressed in yellow, candle in hand : this was their
public penance; the secret one would be of their money. . . (“ Diario,” i. col.
1029).
The view taken by
Torquemada of a Pope who so little understood what the former considered to be
the duties of Christ’s earthly Vicar is to be gathered from the attitude of the
Sovereigns in the matter of these reconciliations, and their protests—protests
which, beyond doubt, would be inspired by the Grand Inquisitor.
Alexander advised the
Sovereigns in reply—by a brief of October 5—that in according these absolutions
one of the pains imposed upon the penanced was that they must never return to
Spain without the special sanction of the Catholic Sovereigns.1
In this manner,
clearly, there was no infringement by the Pontiff of the power relegated to the
Spanish inquisitors, since as long as the penitents remained abroad they were
beyond the jurisdiction of the Holy Office of Spain. As for the prohibition to
return being a part of the penance imposed, it was surely super- erogative, for
we cannot think that any of those who had so fortunately obtained absolution
would easily incur the risk of coming within reach of the talons of a court
that would disregard, or else find a way to cancel or circumvent, the Roman
reconciliation.
But by the time the
brief reached Spain, Frey Tomas de Torquemada, the arch-enemy of the Jews, had
breathed his last in his beautiful monastery of St. Thomas at Avila.
He passed away in
peace, laying down the burden of life and sinking to sleep with the relief and
thankfulness of the husbandman at the end of a day of diligent, arduous, and
conscientious toil. His honesty of purpose, his integrity, his utter devotion
to the task he had taken up are to be weighed in the balance of historic
judgment against the evil that he wrought so ardently in the unfaltering
conviction that his work was good.
His name has been
execrated and revered at once.
1
Lumbreras, quoted by Llorente, " Anales,” tom. i. p. 238.
He has been
vituperated as a fiend of cruelty, and all but worshipped as a saint; and there
is bias in both judgments—both are no better than gratifications of prejudice.
Perhaps Prescott is
nearest the truth when he says that “ Torquemada’s zeal was of so extraordinary
a character that it may almost shelter itself under the name of insanity.”1
Garcia Rodrigo speaks
of the barbarians of the nineteenth century who desecrated the monastery of St.
Thomas, and whose “ revolutionary hammers ” smashed so many of the sepulchral
and other marbles. He turns the medal about for us when he pours his fierce
invective upon anti-religious fanaticism and speaks of these broken marbles as
evidences of “perversity, intolerance, and want of enlightenment.” 2
The anti-religious
fanaticism and intolerance must be admitted. But it must be admitted that they
are the inevitable fruits that fanaticism and intolerance produce. Men reap as
they sow. And what but thistles shall be yielded by the seed of thistles ?
The same author
inveighs against the political fanaticism of Spanish Liberalism, which in the
hour of reaction sought fiercely for the bones of the first Grand Inquisitor.
He denounces it indignantly for disturbing the peace of sepulture. In the main
we share his feelings; and yet can we avoid perceiving here a measure of
retributive justice ? Can we fail to see in this fanatical act the vengeance of
humanity for the almost obscene violation of a thousand graves by that same
Grand Inquisitor’s fanaticism ?
1 11 History
of Ferdinand and Isabella,” vol. i. p. 286.
Llorente estimates
the number of Torquemada’s victims at 8,800 burnt, 6,500 burnt in effigy, and
90,000 penanced in various degrees. These figures, however, are unreliable and
undoubtedly exaggerated, although they are in themselves a correction of his
earlier estimate, which fixes the number of burnt at upwards of 10,000—an
estimate flagrantly preferred by Dr. Rule and other partisan writers on the
subject.
* “ Hist. Verdadera,” vol. ii,
p. 113.
He was laid to rest
in the chapel of his monastery, and his tomb bore the following simple
inscription :
HIC JACET REVERENDUS P. F. THOMAS DE TURRE-CREMATA PRIOR SANCT^E CRUCIS,
INQUISITOR GENERALIS HUJUS DOMUS FUNDATOR. OBIIT ANNO DOMINI
MCDLXLVIII, DIE XVI SEPTEMBRIS.1
But his work survived
him. His spirit—through his enactments—continued for three centuries after his
death to be the guiding spirit of the Inquisition, executor of the stern
testament he left inscribed upon the walls of his monastery—
PESTEM FUGAT H^RETICAM.