Chapter LX: Appendix: A. the Inquisition187 (3)

Under Charles I (the emperor Charles V) the cortes sought for a modification of the laws of the Inquisition; but under Philip II the flames burned brightly again, at first in Seville and Valladolid (1559 _seq._). But by the end of the seventeenth century all vestiges of the Reformation were effaced, and the activity of the Inquisition became limited to the destruction of prohibited books, of which an Index had been prepared in 1558. Under Charles III, in 1770, an edict was passed, securing an accused party from arbitrary imprisonment; and other regulations were passed, curtailing the powers of the Inquisition, until, in 1808, Joseph Bonaparte abolished it entirely. In 1814 Ferdinand VII restored it; but the popular rage in 1820 destroyed the inquisitor’s palace at Madrid, and the cortes again abolished it. But in 1825, by the efforts of the clergy, another inquisitorial commission was appointed. It continued till 1834, when it was finally abolished, and its property applied to the payment of the public debt. But it may be a long while before the country will revive from the effects of the court which, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, extinguished her active literary life and placed this nation, so richly endowed, almost outside of the circle of European civilisation. Spain, it is true, remained free from heresies and religious wars; but her rest was the rest of the grave, so far as religious vitality was concerned.

The fortunes of the Inquisition in Portugal were similar to those which it had in Spain. In the reign of John VI (1818-1826) it was finally abolished. The last relics of the Italian Inquisition disappeared at the unification of the nation. The Congregation of the Inquisition at Rome, appointed by Sixtus V in 1587, is all that remains of it. In its day it likewise had crushed out the Reformation, and had raged the most fearfully in Venice; but there its activity seems to have ceased in 1781, and in 1808 Napoleon abolished it. Restored under Pius VII in 1814, it directed its energies to prevent the diffusion of the Italian Bible, and to check the introduction of evangelical truth.

In the Netherlands, where the Inquisition was first introduced in the thirteenth century, it became a terrible weapon in the time of the Reformation. In 1521, Charles V passed a rigorous edict against heretics, and appointed Franz van der Hulst inquisitor-general. In 1525 three inquisitors-general were appointed, in 1537 the number was increased to four, and in 1545 one was appointed for each of the provinces. According to Grotius, a hundred thousand victims died under Charles V; according to the prince of Orange, fifty thousand. Both computations are probably too large. Under Philip II the inquisitors developed the most zeal; and the duke of Alva, in 1567, appointed the Bloody Council, which proceeded with unheard-of cruelty against those whose wealth excited their avarice, or whose heresy aroused their suspicion. In 1573 Alva was recalled; and three years later the provinces concluded the League of Ghent, whose fifth article abolished the edicts against heresy.[z]

Torture lasted as late as 1817 in Spain, where Van Halen suffered it, notwithstanding the papal bull of 1816; and, according to Mackenna,[t] it lasted in Spanish America until 1809.

In conclusion it is possible to present a fairly accurate total of the ruinous sweep of the Inquisition. The historian Llorente[k] accomplished the seemingly impossible task of unearthing the records. He was a Spanish priest, and from 1785 was an officer of the Inquisition in its then milder form. In 1808 he became a Bonapartist, and was concerned in the suppression of monastic orders. The archives were at his disposal, and he studied them thoroughly. He fled to France on the Restoration in 1814, and there brought out his monumental work in French. His life was not safe even there, and he suffered much persecution. His work has been convicted of many faults, but not of dishonesty, and his conclusions may be quoted with a reasonable amount of confidence.[a]

_Llorente’s Computation of the Victims of the Inquisition_

In summing up, it appears that the Spanish Inquisition, during the first eighteen years of its existence under Torquemada, condemned 8,800 persons to perish in the flames, 6,500, dead or fugitives, to be burned in effigy; and imposed different pains and penalties upon 90,004 who were reconciled; making a total of 105,294 victims. I propose to take each tribunal separately and to place the number of victims as low as circumstances will permit.

Were I guided by the _autos da fé_ of the Inquisition of Toledo and Saragossa I might triple the number of victims, for in eight years alone 6,341 were punished by the inquisitors of Seville, which is at the rate of 792 a year, not including the many victims of other _autos da fé_ which I have found mentioned, but of which I cannot find the reports. Saragossa shows almost similar results, and if the same is assumed of the other tribunals the total would be twice as much again as by my reckoning. But I do not wish to give anyone grounds for saying that I have tried to exaggerate the evil.

The second general inquisitor was Diego Deza, a Dominican, tutor to the prince of Asturias, Don Juan, bishop of Zamora, Salamanca, Jaen, Palencia, and finally archbishop of Seville. He held the office from the beginning of 1499 to the end of 1506, when he resigned it by order of king Ferdinand V, regent of Castile. In his time there were the same twelve tribunals in the peninsula as in the time of his predecessor; therefore I reckon only 208 burned, 104 burned in effigy, and 4,057 subjected to penances, making a total of 4,369 victims a year. This number, multiplied by eight makes the number of victims in his time, 1,664 of the first class, 832 of the second class, and 32,456 of the third class; a total of 34,952 victims.

The third general inquisitor was the cardinal-archbishop Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros, a Franciscan. He held the office from the year 1507 until the 8th of November, 1517, when he died. During that time there was a separate office of general inquisitor of Aragon which was first held by Juan Enguera, a Dominican, bishop of Vique. He died in 1513 and was succeeded by Luis Mercader, a Carthusian, who upon his death on the 1st of June, 1516, was succeeded by Cardinal Adriano de Florencio, then dean of Lobania, tutor of Charles V, afterwards bishop of Tortosa, and ultimately sovereign pontiff (Adrian VI). In 1513 Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros created a tribunal of the Inquisition for the bishopric of Cuenca and its districts, separating them from the jurisdiction of Murcia in 1516; another for the fortress of Oran in Africa, and another for America in the island of Cuba. We will leave the two last out of our calculations, as well as those of Caller in the island of Sardinia, and of Palermo in Sicily.

The twelve former tribunals of the peninsula produced, according to the inscription in Seville, with the modification adopted, 208 burned, 104 burned in effigy, 4,057 subjected to penances, a year, making from the year, 1507 to 1513 inclusive a total of 1,456 of the first class, 728 of the second class, and 28,399 of the third class.

The tribunal of Cuenca was established in 1514, and according to my method of computation I assign to it 200 of the first class, 200 of the second, and 1,700 of the third, which added to the 208, 104, and 4,057 of the other twelve tribunals gives a total for that year of 408, 304, and 5,757. In 1515, the tribunal of Cuenca is counted as one of the old tribunals, with only 16 of the first class, 8 of the second, and 312 of the third, which added to the total of the other tribunals amounts to 224, 112, and 4,369. In 1516 and 1517, the result is similar. The total of the eleven years during which Ximenes de Cisneros was general inquisitor is 2,536 burned, 1,368 burned in effigy, and 47,263 penitents, 51,167 in all.

Cardinal Adriano, bishop of Tortosa, was the fourth general inquisitor. He was appointed at the beginning of March, 1518, and though he was elected pope on the 9th of January, 1522, he had no successor as head of the Holy Office until the end of 1522; for Adriano issued the bulls on the 10th of September of that year, fourteen days before his death. For this reason the number of tribunals in the peninsula was not increased for six years, but in America one was established at Puerto Rico for the West Indies in 1519.

According to the inscription in the castle of Triana, in the thirteen tribunals of our continent there were every year 224 persons burned, 112 burned in effigy, and 4,369 subjected to penances; consequently the total for the six years was 1,344 of the first class, 672 of the second class, and 26,214 of the third class; 28,230 victims in all.

The fifth general inquisitor was Cardinal Alfonso Manrique, successively bishop of Badajoz and of Cordova, and archbishop of Seville. In 1524, he ordered the inscription which has guided our calculations for the preceding years to be placed in the castle of Triana in Seville. In this same year the tribunal of Granada, which had been established the year before, began to exercise its functions. Although the number of those punished as Judaical heretics was diminished, there was no lack of victims, their places being supplied by the Mohammedan Moriscoes, Lutherans, and Sodomites, whose punishment, and that of other criminals, was confided to the inquisitors by Pope Clement VII. Manrique died on the 28th of September, 1538, having established tribunals of the Inquisition in Canaria, Jaen, and Granada, and two in America for Tierrafirme (Terra Firma) and the West Indies. It is calculated that the yearly victims would be about 10 burned, 5 burned in effigy, and 50 subjected to penances, a total of 65 victims. There were thirteen tribunals in the peninsula, two in the adjacent islands, and multiplying by the fifteen years of Manrique’s ministry there were 2,250 of the first class, 1,125 of the second class, and 11,250 of the third class, a total of 14,625 victims.

[Llorente continues thus his record from inquisitor to inquisitor through the centuries. We shall omit these till we reach the last years of the Holy Office.]

Fortieth, Felipe Beltran, bishop of Salamanca, was general inquisitor after Quintano, in 1774. He exercised this function until he died, which appears to me to have been about 1783. In his time there were 2 burned, none burned in effigy, 16 condemned to public penances, and very many in secret without infamy or confiscation. My departure from Madrid for Valencia on the 10th of August, 1812, since which I never returned to court, prevented me from completing this catalogue with the exact dates, but the substance of my narrative is most exact. The last victim who perished in the flames was a _beata_ of Seville, on the 7th of November, 1781. She was condemned for having a compact and illicit personal intercourse with the devil, and for impenitent denial of the offence, according to the trial. Her life would have been spared had she pleaded guilty to the crimes of which she was accused.

Forty-first, Augustin Rubin de Cevallos, bishop of Jaen, knight of the grand cross of the royal Spanish order of Charles III. He immediately succeeded Beltran and was general inquisitor from 1784 until 1792, when he died. No one was burned in person nor in effigy in his time; 14 were condemned to public penances, and many in secret but without infamy or confiscation. Forty-second, Manuel Abad-y-la-Sierra, bishop of Astorga, archbishop of Selimbra and general inquisitor, appointed in 1792. He resigned in 1794 by order of Charles IV. In his time 16 were condemned to public and many to private penances; no one was burned. Forty-third, Francisco Antonio de Lorenzana, cardinal-archbishop of Toledo, was appointed general inquisitor in 1794, and resigned by order of Charles IV in 1797. In his time 14 were condemned to public and many to private penances; no one was burned.

Forty-fourth, Ramón Josef de Arce, archbishop of Burgos and of Saragossa, patriarch of the Indies, councillor of state, general director of the Royal University of Madrid, and knight of the grand cross of the royal order of Charles III. He was general inquisitor from 1798 to 1808. In his time 20 were condemned to public and many to private penances, without infamy or confiscation of goods. One effigy was burned at Cuenca, but no one was burned in person, for though sentence was pronounced against the curate of Esco, the general inquisitor and supreme council refused to confirm it, in order to prevent its execution. Recapitulation: burned in person, 31,912; burned in effigy, 17,659; condemned to severe penances, 291,450; total, 341,021.

My design is to calculate the number of victims at the lowest figure possible, and I am convinced that from the year 1481, when the tribunal was established, until the end of the reign of Philip II, the numbers were much more than I have stated, considering the records of the tribunals of Toledo and Saragossa, which did not notably exceed the rest. If we were to add the victims punished by the tribunals of Mexico, Lima, Cartagena de las Indias (Cartagena in Colombia), Sicily, and in the galleys at sea, the number would be incalculable. Still more so were we to count the victims which resulted from the attempts to establish the Inquisition in Naples, Milan, and Flanders, for all these belonged to Spain, and felt the influence of the Spanish tribunal. How many died in their beds of illness caused by the infamy which fell upon them through the condemnation of their relations? No possible calculation could include all this misery.[k]

EFFECTS AND INFLUENCES OF THE INQUISITION

Geddes,[q] in 1714, made this contemporary observation, and his point should not be forgotten in an estimate of the far-reaching evils. “By this list we see what a terrible havoc is made by the Inquisition in Portugal, and especially among the trading people, to the great diminution both of its stock in trade and of the number of its current and expert merchants. For though there were but four persons burned this year in Lisbon by the Inquisition, there were above threescore undone by it. Anyone of a family’s being taken up by the Inquisition goes a great way towards ruining it, filling them with such horrors as drive them into countries that are out of the reach of the Inquisition.”

A recent writer, a churchman, Dean Kitchin,[ll] has said:

“The hand of the Holy Office was outstretched against all; no lofty dignity in church or state, no eminence in art or science, no purity of life, could defend from its attacks. It is said to have threatened Charles V and Philip II; it persecuted Archbishop Carranza, head of the church in Spain; destroyed De Dominis, archbishop of Spalatro; it smote Galileo, murdered Giordano Bruno, attacked Pico di Mirandola, and even is said to have threatened Cæsar Borgia. With equal vigour, in combination with the Jesuits, the Inquisition made war on books and learning, religious or secular alike; we have seen how baleful was its effect in earlier days on literature and art in Provence, and in the time of the Catholic sovereigns on the material well-being of Spain. ‘In the love of Christ and his maid-mother,’ says Queen Isabella, ‘I have caused great misery, and have depopulated towns and districts, provinces and kingdoms.’”[ll]

A CATHOLIC VIEW OF THE INQUISITION (C. J. HEFELE)

The word inquisition with the original signification of an ecclesiastical court of faith, was later applied to a state institution which, on account of its real or alleged harshness, has become a by-word in Europe for everything horrible. There is no doubt that, an ecclesiastical court of inquiry existed among the Christians from the beginning, but it is equally certain that in the earliest times the penalties for heresy were only ecclesiastical and clerical without any civil effect. The case was altered when Emperor Constantine appeared as both the protector and the secular arm of the church, for which reason he considered it necessary to exile the heretics, who were threatening the church with danger, in order to put them out of the way of doing harm. More severe punishments than exile were first inflicted upon the Catholics by the Arians when their co-religionists Constantius and Valens occupied the throne. The former introduced the practice of imprisoning the orthodox, the latter of drowning them, and Arian princes in the later Germanic kingdoms always exercised violence towards those of different faiths.

The connection of church and state was made much closer by the great theocratic idea, emanating from Gregory VII, which aimed at the bringing together of all peoples of the occident into one theocratic union, the protector of which was to be the pope, in the name of God; but the members of which could naturally be only those who belonged to the church. From this standpoint, heretics necessarily appeared as criminals of state because, through their wrong teaching, they rebelled against God as the king of the theocratic union: hence the civil codes of the middle ages punished heresy with death.

Whereas, after the time of Constantine the Great, the civil punishments of heretics were inflicted by the secular rulers, the decision as to whether a person was a heretic or not, was from the very beginning made by the bishops and synods. Hence, if we wish to get at the fundamental idea of the Inquisition, that it was a seeking out and a punishing of heretics, we must say that, in the former sense, it has existed since the time of the apostles; and, in the latter, since that of Constantine the Great. The actual Inquisition had its beginning in the great synod of Toulouse in 1229. Soon after this synod in southern France, we meet especially appointed inquisitors in Italy. Here also heresy had ravaged widely and had become so dangerous that even Emperor Frederick II, who is the last person one could accuse of bigotry, immediately upon his coronation and repeatedly afterwards uttered the death penalty against heretics. Gradually the episcopal inquisition became changed into a Dominican inquisition and was introduced into nearly all the countries of Europe. In the Pyrenaean peninsula likewise, which is here our main subject of interest, it came into Castile, Navarre, and Portugal, as well as into Aragon. Castile was to become the home of the “New Inquisition,” as Llorente[k] calls it,--more correctly of the Spanish Inquisition, the direct impulse to which was given by a peculiar condition which existed nowhere else than in Spain.

Already in the first centuries after the birth of Christ, the Jews in Spain had become so numerous and powerful that they began to think of Judaising the whole land. Hence it came about that the synod of Eliberis (303-313), an old Spanish city in the vicinity of which the later Granada is said to have been built, passed a resolution that in the future no Christian landholder was to let his fields be blessed by Jews. On the other hand there was no lack of attempts on the part of the old Visigothic kings in Spain to force the Jews to become Christians; but this was forbidden by the fourth council of Toledo, in its 57th canon, with the words: “Hereafter no Jew may be made to accept Christianity by force, but those who are already converted, even though it was by force, since they have already received the holy sacraments, must keep their faith and may in no wise blaspheme or despise it.”

Much more dangerous than the real Jews were those who were seemingly converted to Christianity and whose numbers had increased enormously after the persecutions at the end of the 14th century. While the former had seized upon a large part of the national wealth and the Spanish commerce, the latter threatened both the Spanish nationality and the Christian religion, since these disguised Jews on the one hand invaded clerical offices and even occupied episcopal chairs, while on the other they attained high civil honours, married into all noble families and used all these connections, together with their wealth, to bring about the victory of Judaism over Spanish nationality and over the Christian faith. Many laymen as well as churchmen recognised the danger threatened by the Jews and were convinced that something must be done by the government, for which reason repeated requests were made to Ferdinand and Isabella to take measures against the disguised Jews: it was against them that the inquisition was directed later, but never against the real Jews.

Soon after Ferdinand and Isabella had decided to introduce the Inquisition into Castile, Pope Sixtus IV, on November 1st, 1478, gave the ecclesiastical permission and allowed the two rulers to appoint two, or three clerical dignitaries, secular or regular priests, to question and to punish heretics. Two royal inquisitors were now appointed for Seville on the strength of the papal bull. In this step we have the beginning of the New or the Spanish state inquisition which differs principally from the ecclesiastical institution of the same name in the fact that the persons intrusted with the examination and the punishment of heretics--whether they were clericals or laymen--appeared not as servants of the church but as state officials who received their appointment and instructions from the ruling princes.

There was a second political reason why the Spanish monarchs in every way should have favoured an institution which, while appearing to be ecclesiastical, was almost continually accused and fought by the heads of the church, by the popes and bishops. With the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the transition began from the old state to the new, from the Germanic to the abstract and absolute. In the old state the central or royal power was limited by three comparatively free corporations, the nobility, the clergy, and the municipalities, and this the more so as these estates were closely connected with powers abroad, the clergy with Rome, the nobility and municipalities with their foreign peers, so that the union of the state within itself and therewith the superiority of the throne was not a little hindered. In both Castile and Aragon the inquisition was the most effective means of bringing all subjects, especially the clergy and nobility, under the power of the throne, and of perfecting the absolute authority of the sovereign.

Hence it was that it was precisely the two higher estates which most hated the Inquisition and which were persecuted as its enemies more often than the heretics; it was also principally the prelates who were soon involved in numerous suits with the new tribunals. The popes also could not fail to see that the Spanish Inquisition served the political absolutism much more than it did ecclesiastical purism, and hence they tried to intercept its growth in the same degree that they had promoted the old ecclesiastical inquisition.

This state character of the Spanish Inquisition has also been fully recognised by the more exact historical investigation of modern times, and even Ranke[mm] has expressed himself to the same effect as follows: “We have a celebrated book concerning it (the Inquisition) by Llorente,[k] and if I make so bold as to say anything in disagreement with such a predecessor let this be an excuse, that that so well informed author wrote in the interest of the Alfrancesados of the Josephinian government [i.e. the Gallicising faction supporting King Joseph Bonaparte]. In their interest he opposes the liberties of the Basque provinces, although the latter can hardly be denied. In the same interest he sees in the Inquisition also a usurpation of clerical power over state authority. If I am not mistaken, however, from the very facts which he relates it appears that the Inquisition was a royal court, but one provided with clerical weapons.”

Guizot[nn] agrees with this opinion in the words: “It (the Inquisition) was at first more political than religious, and destined to maintain order rather than to defend the faith.”

That the Portuguese Inquisition also was always regarded by the government itself as a state institution is shown by an ordinance dated March 20th, 1769, in which King Joseph I says: “It has been reported to me that whereas all other courts of justice, because they represent my royal person, have always borne and still bear the title Majesty, the misuse has arisen in connection with the Holy Office, a tribunal which by its organisation and its service is most closely and directly connected with my royal person, of giving it another title of address.”

The Inquisition is often judged according to standards of the 19th instead of the 15th and 16th centuries, and hence it is judged incorrectly. Whereas during the past hundred years it has been the tendency to regard wrong believers and unbelievers of all kinds as the most educated and the noblest citizens, the Inquisition on the contrary was based on the mediæval view that erring in religion was high treason and that only the advocate of the state religion could be a safe and trustworthy citizen. It is natural that the upholder of one standpoint cannot possibly judge impartially, events which have arisen from the other, unless in giving his judgment he is able to transport himself from his own time into the other and into its views.

This is done by every true historian. But the Inquisition is a subject which has been most discussed and described by those who give mere phrases instead of investigations, mere arbitrary statements instead of critical examinations, mere romantic descriptions instead of objective judgments, and who try to replace a lack of knowledge by so called liberally-minded phrases. People of this sort do not remember that the principle, _cujus est regio, illius et religio_,[206] on which the whole Inquisition rests, was universally recognised in olden times, and was so little questioned that Protestants especially upheld it and put it into execution.

For example in the palatinate, when the Kurfürst Frederick III, who had been a Lutheran until then, went over to Calvinism in 1563, he compelled all congregations in his land to take the same step, and exiled everyone who would not accept the Heidelberg catechism. Thirteen years later, in 1576, his son Ludwig restored the orthodox Lutheranism, drove out the Calvinistic preachers and teachers, and forced his dependents to become Lutheran again. The Religious Peace of the year 1555 gave every government the power of giving its dependents the alternative of accepting the religion of the sovereign or of emigrating, upon paying a certain sum, just as was done in Spain with the Jews and Moors; and it is a well-known fact that the Reformation owed its spread in Germany in large measure to this lenient Spanish alternative.

Furthermore, in judging the Inquisition it is often forgotten that the penal code of that time was much more severe and sanguinary than that of the 19th century. Many a trespass which is now atoned for by a slight penalty had at that time to be paid for with blood; and the criminal code of Charles V of the year 1532 is a most speaking witness for the severe criminal justice of the period out of which the Spanish Inquisition grew. Also the _Carolina_, for example, inflicts punishments on body, life, and limb for blasphemy of God and of the Blessed Virgin (§CVI); and witches are punished with death (§CXVI).

It must also not be overlooked, in judging the Inquisition, that the death penalty for heresy was not peculiar to it alone, but was common at that time to all lands and confessions. The reformer Buzer said of Michael Servetus, in the public pulpit at Strassburg, that he deserved the most humiliating death on account of his article against the Trinity. And that this was not merely a strong figure of speech of the Reformers is shown two decades later by Calvin, when on October 27th, 1553, he had that very “heretic” slowly burned to death at Geneva. That there may remain no doubt that the Protestants of that time wished to punish heresy with death, the “gentle” Melanchthon wrote on this subject to Calvin,

“I have read thy article, wherein thou hast refuted in detail
the terrible blasphemies of Servetus and therefore I thank the
Son of God who has given thee the victory in this thy struggle.
The church is greatly indebted to thee for it, now and in all
future time. I wholly agree with thy opinion and claim that
your highness (_eure Obrigkeit_) has acted wholly in accordance
with justice in executing a blasphemous person after a regular
examination.”

In addition I will note that Theodore Beza also wrote an article _De hereticis a magistrau civili puniendis_ and that many others besides Servetus, as Valentine Gentilis, Bolsec, Carlstadt, Grüet, Castellio, the councillor Ameaur, and others, could convince themselves through imprisonment, banishment, and death that in the Protestant church there was no milder an inquisition than in Spain. This is acknowledged even by many Protestants, as for example by Prescott[m] in his history of Ferdinand and Isabella.

But we do not need to go back to the 16th century or even to consider the terrible mistreatment of the Catholics in England,[207] in order to discover counterparts to the Spanish Inquisition among the Protestants. A remarkable case of this kind from the eighteenth century is related by Pfeilschifter: In the year 1724 at Rendsburg a young soldier, because he had wished to make a compact with the devil, as an act of royal favour was merely beheaded. Even more recently, _e.g._ in the year 1844, on the third of April the painter J. O. Nilson in Sweden was banished on account of “apostasy from the Lutheran faith and of going over to a mistaken religion” (the Catholic) and was declared to have forfeited all civil rights and rights of inheritance; this decision was confirmed by the highest court of the land in the year 1845. The unfortunate Nilson died in February 1847 at Copenhagen, in poverty.

I say all this not in reproach but only to show that the Protestants also have recognised the sanguinary rule: “Deviation from the state religion is to be punished with death.” If any one had any doubts as to the justice of this principle in the 16th and 17th centuries, it seems to me that these doubts should first have arisen in the minds of the Protestants, because their own apostasy from the church should have taught them to think more leniently of other apostates.

Among the victims of the Inquisition the so-called witches and sorcerers held a considerable place, and it would be superfluous to expend many words in proving that these unfortunates were just as severely persecuted in Germany as in Spain and in just as sanguinary a fashion by Protestants as by Catholics. Not only a Torquemada, but also a Benedict Carpzov two hundred years later, erected a stake for burning witches. Even the reformer Beza reproached the French parliament for being too lax in seeking out witches, and Walter Scott acknowledges that the stronger Calvinism grew in England the more numerous were the processes against witches. The Jesuit Frederick Spee of Langenfeld overthrew the belief in witches among the Catholics seventy years earlier than the Protestant Thomasius, and even in the year 1713 the legal faculty of Tübingen condemned a witch to death; indeed just a year later than in Spain, was the last witch burned in the canton of Glarus by a reformed court, in 1782.[208] On the whole, a comparison of the German processes against witches with the workings of the Spanish Inquisition, could hardly be made to appear to the advantage of the former.

Moreover it must not be forgotten with all this that the tribunal of the Inquisition always delivered only the sentence, that the accused was more or less, wholly or partly, or not at all guilty of heresy, blasphemy and the like. It itself never condemned to death though its decisions led to this penalty, in that the one found “guilty of heresy” by the Holy Office was turned over to the secular arm and by this, namely by the council of Castile, was led before the highest Spanish court for death or imprisonment.

The Spanish Inquisition is often declared to be a product of the Roman doctrinal despotism, without attention being given to the fact that it was precisely the popes who were least inclined to this institution and who at nearly all times tried to limit it. Even Llorente,[k] who can be accused of partiality to the popes no more than of a Jacobite partiality for the kingdom, shows this in almost innumerable instances and examples.

Stories are told of the cruel torments and tortures which the unfortunate beings in the dungeons of the Inquisition had to suffer, but even the most gentle character must not forget that the torture was used in those days in all secular courts in all countries, that it even existed legally in many German states in the 19th century and did not go out of general use until about the middle of the 18th century, in the courts of inquisition at the same time as in the secular courts. Besides execution by fire, sword, quartering, the wheel, gallows, and water, the _Carolina_ speaks of burying alive, of tearing with glowing tongs, of cutting off the tongue and ears, of hacking off fingers and the like. Of all these ignominious and painful punishments, however, the Inquisition knows nothing. Moreover, at a time when in all Europe prisons were dark damp holes and real graves, full of mould, filth, and pest-breeding smells, the Inquisition brought its prisoners, to use the words of Llorente[k] into “well arched, light and dry rooms where they could make some movement.” No more did any prisoner of the Inquisition, as again Llorente testifies, groan under the weight of chains, hand cuffs, iron neck bands etc., and Llorente tells of only one on whom fetters were put, in order to keep him from suicide. The prisoners were asked if the gaoler treated them well and good care was also taken of the sick. Special buildings, by the name of “penitence houses,” were erected for the prisoners for life and these were subject to vistation from time to time.

It has furthermore become customary to think of the Inquisition as an ever-threatening and never-satisfied catch-and-seize-institution, whose polyp arms greedily grasped the poor unfortunate at the least sign of suspicion. But this view, which has such a drastic effect in historical romances and in romantic histories is wholly wrong and mistaken and must be entirely abandoned, unless Llorente is to be accused of partiality for the Inquisition. In the first place, every tribunal of the Inquisition began its activity by promulgating a time of grace and proclaimed publicly that: “whoever is conscious of apostasy from the faith but within the fixed time will voluntarily come forth and do penance, shall be absolved in grace and protected from severe penalty.” After the expiration of the term, however, the severity of the law was to be exercised towards the apostates; but again and again were the times of grace renewed and lengthened.

Further, the statutes of the Inquisition regarding young heretics deserve attention. “If sons and daughters of heretics,” so ordained Torquemada, “who have fallen into error through the teachings of their parents, and have not reached the age of twenty years, themselves apply to be taken back into favour, the inquisition shall receive such young people kindly, even if they should come after the time of reprieve, shall impose lighter penances upon them than upon grown persons and shall take pains that they receive instruction in the faith and the sacraments of the Holy Mother, the church.”

It is said that the least expression, often an innocent one, brought an unfortunate into the prisons of the Inquisition. But the second great inquisitor, Deza, who is considered even stricter than Torquemada himself, issued the order on June 17th, 1500 that “no one may be arrested for trivial reasons, not even on account of blasphemy which was uttered in anger.” There was no inclination to take the testimony of any person who happened to make an accusation before the tribunal of the Inquisition; on the contrary Llorente himself tells of cases in which only repeated accusations against a person could move the inquisitors to action and they were very much inclined to ascribe the mad behaviour of many heretics to mental aberration.

Wonderful stories are told of the incomes of the inquisitors, who are said to have condemned many only in order to enrich themselves from the confiscated goods. It is true that the cause of justice is in a bad way when condemnation is to bring a pecuniary profit to the judge and it would have been truly a dangerous and disreputable arrangement if the income of the inquisitors had depended on the number of those they condemned. Prescott[m] (I, 287) would really like to make us believe that such was the case, but we know from Llorente that the confiscated goods of the condemned fell to the royal treasury, and that the Inquisition officers of all kinds had a fixed salary which they received quarterly. Hence it comes that Llorente accused the Spanish king of avarice and not the inquisitors, in which Ranke[mm] bears him out.

Terrible is the picture which we make to ourselves of an _auto da fé_ (actus fidei, i.e., “an act of faith”) as if it were nothing else than an enormous fire and a colossal stewing pan, around which the Spaniards sat like cannibals, in order to enjoy the spectacle of the roasting and broiling of several hundred unfortunates, four or five times a year. But let me be allowed to state that in the first place an _auto da fé_ did not consist of burning and killing but, in part, of the exculpation of those who had been falsely accused and in part of the reconciliation of the repentant with the church, and there were even many _autos da fé_ at which nothing burned but the candles which the penitent carried in their hands in token of the light of faith rekindled in their hearts.

Furthermore it must not be overlooked that those who were condemned by the Inquisition were not only heretics, but also such as lived in polygamy, priests and monks who had married, laymen who exercised clerical functions, deacons who heard confessions and those who falsely gave themselves out to be commissioners of the Inquisition, which as we know from _Gil Blas_ happened not infrequently.

If in the little Protestant city of Nördlingen, as Soldan shows in his history of the witch processes, out of a total population of 6,000, not less than 35 witches were burned in the four years from 1590 to 1594; this ratio, applied to Spain for four years, would give at least 50,000 witches, whereas Llorente himself gives the number of those condemned to death by the Inquisition during the 330 years of its existence as only 30,000, including heretics, witches, sorcerers, smugglers and all the rest; this even if we wish to accept Llorente’s figures as not exaggerated.

But I think I may claim and can prove that they are exaggerated. Above all we must never forget that Llorente’s figures are not taken from official registers, not even from private records, but originated only from a system of probable reckonings which in part rests on false premises. He himself confesses this unreservedly, and often describes the theory he has used in his conjectural reckoning. Llorente’s arbitrariness and injustice are most clearly shown in regard to Ximenes. Llorente states explicitly that this archbishop tried to make the Inquisition less severe, that he removed bad officials, that he pardoned many of the accused, etc. Nevertheless, that does not hinder him from supposing just as many executions annually under Ximenes as under Deza and his helper Lucero, both of whom he repeatedly accuses of the most boundless cruelty and severity. That such a reckoning is untrue and unjust needs no proof.

After all these observations we are still far removed from wishing to justify the Spanish Inquisition; on the contrary we would everywhere oppose the right of a secular power to interfere with the conscience, but we wished to prove that the institution of the Inquisition was not the outrageous monstrosity which party passions and lack of knowledge have often made it out to be.[oo]

_Another Catholic View_ (Heinrich Brück)

Opinions differ as to the character of the Spanish Inquisition. A number of scholars (Hefele[oo], Gams[pp] and others) claim that it was purely a state institution, whereas the Spanish writers emphasize its ecclesiastical character, without denying the great influence of the crown upon it. The correct view is probably given by Rodrigo[ii] and Orti y Lara.[jj] The former says (I, 276): “The tribunals of the Holy Office had no secular character of themselves. They were ecclesiastical tribunals in respect to the cases which they judged and in respect to the authority which created them. In respect to the royal delegation, however, which was granted to the judges, it may be said that they had a mixed character.” Orti y Lara expresses himself in like manner. According to him (p. 27), “the Inquisition united the papal sword of the church and the secular sword of the king into one single sword.”

The accusation that the Spanish Inquisition was unpopular is just as false as the statement that it caused the ruin of science and literature in Spain. As Balmes testifies (_Protestantismus and Katholicismus_, I, 412, _et seq._), the Catholic kings fulfilled the universal wish of the people by establishing the Inquisition; the people were always in sympathy with it, whereas it was opposed by the nobility and higher clergy. The decline of literary activity moreover can not have been caused by the Inquisition for the reason that the golden age of Spanish literature coincided with the time when the Inquisition was in full sway. The greatest theologians, philosophers, and poets, whose works were approved by the Inquisition, lived at that time. Schools were founded and classical studies diligently pursued.

One of the chief accusations brought against the Spanish Inquisition is the alleged extraordinary number of its victims. This accusation is based chiefly on the statements of Antonio Llorente.[k] But it needs only a nearer acquaintance with the character of this embittered free mason and with his proofs, to perceive the incorrectness of his statements. Far from citing historical documents he builds up his argument upon evident falsification, arbitrary assumptions which are in wide contrast with the authorities, and, as the Protestant Peschel[rr] says (page 151), upon a “frivolous calculation from probabilities,” so that he cannot be trusted in regard to his data. According to Gams[pp] (III, 274) the number of those executed for heresy during the whole period of the Inquisition was about four thousand, a number not equal to that of the victims of the witch processes in Catholic and Protestant Germany.[ss]

FOOTNOTES

[187] [This brief study, inserted here because Spain and Portugal were the chief centres of the fury of the Inquisition, will afford glimpses also of its development in other countries.]

[188] Confusion has been introduced by both friend and foe into the history of the Waldenses. At first they were confounded with the Cathari or Albigenses by Catholics in order to represent them as Manichæans; by reformed writers in order to clear the Albigenses also from the charge of Manichæism. Further, the origin of the Waldenses is often referred to an earlier period than that of Peter Waldensis, though it is so clearly proved by the witness of contemporaries that he is the founder of the sect.

[189] [This terrible man, in his letter to Innocent III announcing his victories, relates himself with triumph: “Our troops sparing neither sex nor age put to the sword nearly twenty thousand; splendid deeds were accomplished in the overthrow of the enemies, the whole city was sacked and burned by a divine revenge marvellous fierce.”]

[190] [Some Catholic writers would fain excuse St. Dominic from the imputation of having founded the Inquisition. It is true he died some years before the organisation of that tribunal; but he established the principles on which, and the monkish militia by whom, it was administered. The Sicilian Paramo,[i] traces it up to a much more remote antiquity. According to him, God was the first inquisitor, and his condemnation of Adam and Eve furnished the model of the judicial forms observed in the trials of the Holy Office. The sentence of Adam was the type of the inquisitorial “reconciliation,” his subsequent raiment of the skins of animals was the model of the _san-benito_, and his expulsion from paradise the precedent for the confiscation of the goods of heretics. This learned personage deduces a succession of inquisitors through the patriarchs, Moses, Nebuchadrezzar, and King David, down to John the Baptist, and even Christ, in whose precepts and conduct he finds abundant authority for the tribunal.[m]]

[191] [Among the modern apologists for the Inquisition may be named Rodrigo[ii] and Orto y Lara.[jj]]

[192] [Thus in Spain, Pope Sixtus IV, in a special bull of November 1st, 1478, quoted by Llorente,[k] conferring on Ferdinand and Isabella the power to appoint inquisitors, insisted that they be “two or three bishops or archbishops, or other competent and honest men, secular or regular priests upwards of forty years of age, of good life and customs, masters or bachelors of theology, and doctors or licentiates in canon law, by virtue of a strict examination.”]

[193] [In the _tormento de toca_, a gauze bag was placed in the throat and water poured in it, forcing the gauze gradually down the œsophagus into the stomach. Other torments were the gradual pouring of water drop by drop on one spot of the body, and the great swinging pendulum, or _péndola_, with the knife affixed, as described in Poe’s haunting story.]

[194] [The _trampazo_ was an iron shoe heated red hot and clamped to the bare foot.]

[195] [Philip the Fair in the course of his war with Pope Boniface VIII condemned the Inquisition, though he burned the Templars; or as Dean Kitchin puts it, the Inquisition “was effectively used by Philip the Fair to crush the Templars, though that greedy prince quickly interfered when he found the Inquisition laying hands on his special preserves, the wealthy Jews.” See the Papacy.]

[196] L. Marineo[bb] diffuses the two thousand capital executions over several years. He sums up the various severities of the Holy Office in the following gentle terms: “The church, who is the mother of mercy and the fountain of charity, content with the imposition of penances, generously accords life to many who do not deserve it; while those who persist obstinately in their errors, after being imprisoned on the testimony of trustworthy witnesses, she causes to be put to the torture, and condemned to the flames. Some miserably perish, bewailing their errors, and invoking the name of Christ, while others call upon that of Moses. Many, again, who sincerely repent, she, notwithstanding the heinousness of their transgressions, merely sentences to perpetual imprisonment.”

[197] Bernáldez[cc] states that guards were posted at the gates of the city of Seville in order to prevent the emigration of the Jewish inhabitants, which indeed was forbidden under pain of death. The tribunal, however, had greater terrors for them, and many succeeded in effecting their escape.

[198] [The Spanish form is _auto de fe_, but the Portuguese form--_auto da fé_, was the first to obtain English usage.]

[199] So says Puigblanch[ee]: The inquisitors after the celebration of an _auto da fé_ at Guadaloupe, in 1485, wishing probably to justify these bloody executions in the eyes of the people, who had not yet become familiar with them, solicited a sign from the Virgin (whose shrine in that place is noted all over Spain) in testimony of her approbation of the Holy Office. Their petition was answered by such a profusion of miracles that Dr. Francis Sanctius de la Fuente, who acted as scribe on the occasion, became out of breath, and, after recording sixty, gave up in despair, unable to keep pace with their marvellous rapidity, according to Paramo.[i]

[200] Voltaire[dd] remarks (_Essai sur les Mœurs_, Chap. cxl) that “An Asiatic, arriving at Madrid on the day of an _auto da fé_, would doubt whether it were a festival, religious celebration, sacrifice, or massacre; it is all of them. They reproach Montezuma with sacrificing human captives to the gods. What would he have said had he witnessed an _auto da fé_?”

[201] The government, at least, cannot be charged with remissness in promoting this. We find two ordinances in the royal collection of _pragmáticas_,[ff] dated in September, 1501 (there must be some error in the date of one of them), inhibiting, under pain of confiscation of property, such as had been “reconciled,” and their children by the mother’s side, and grandchildren by the father’s, from holding any office in the privy council, courts of justice, or in the municipalities, or any other place of trust or honour. They were also excluded from the vocation of notaries, surgeons, and apothecaries. This was visiting the sins of the fathers, to an extent unparalleled in modern legislation. The sovereigns might find a precedent in a law of Sulla.

[202] The Aragonese made a manly though ineffectual resistance, from the first, to the introduction of the Inquisition among them by Ferdinand. In Castile, its enormous abuses provoked the spirited interposition of the legislature at the commencement of the following reign. But it was then too late.

[203] By an article of the primitive instructions, the inquisitors were required to set apart a small portion of the confiscated estates for the education and Christian nurture of minors, children of the condemned. Llorente[k] says that, in the immense numbers of processes which he had occasion to consult, he met with no instance of their attention to the fate of these unfortunate orphans!

[204] Torquemada waged war upon freedom of thought in every form. In 1490 he caused several Hebrew Bibles to be publicly burned and some time after, more than six thousand volumes of oriental learning, on the imputation of Judaism, sorcery, or heresy, at the _autos da fé_ of Salamanca, the very nursery of science. This may remind one of the similar sentence passed by Lope de Barrientos, another Dominican, about fifty years before, upon the books of the marquis of Villena. Fortunately for the dawning literature of Spain, Isabella did not, as was done by her successors, commit the censorship of the press to the judges of the Holy Office, notwithstanding such occasional assumption of power by the grand inquisitor.

[205] The prodigious desolation of the land may be inferred from the estimates, although somewhat discordant, of deserted houses in Andalusia. Garibay[gg] puts these at three thousand, Pulgar[hh] at four, L. Marineo[bb] as high as five thousand.

[206] [This may be roughly translated “The man that rules the region, rules also its religion.”]

[207] [The reader will find full treatment of Protestant excesses in the histories of Germany, Switzerland, and England. The persecution of Catholics in England is discussed, in vol. XIX, pp. 148-155, 159-161, 199-200, 354-355, 406-408, 444-453, including an account of tortures used in England during Elizabeth’s reign, and a comparison of her cruelties with those of “Bloody Mary.” As part of religious history, one should also note the persecutions inflicted on dissenters by the Church of England, in Scotland and Ireland, as discussed in the histories of those countries.]

[208] [The reader will find in vol. XXIII page 177, a statement that a man was “swam for a wizard” in England in 1825. He should consult this same volume, pages 171-177, for an account of the witchcraft persecutions in the United States, at Salem, in 1692, and pages 177-178 for an account of the mutilation and execution of Quakers in Massachusetts.]

BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS

[The letter [a] is reserved for Editorial Matter.]