Chapter XIII: Tortures in the Inquisition

Torture to force confession--Hall of
Torture--Stripping--Binding--Squassation--Fire-pan--Rack--Horse--
Dice--Wet cloth--Various devices.

Prisoners in the Inquisition are of different characters; and many of them naturally deny their guilt. Others would only in part confess their faults and crimes, employing different terms in successive examinations. Others again, being innocent of the criminality with which they were charged, could not confess or acknowledge that they were guilty. While others, holding fast the doctrine of Christ, were willing rather to suffer death than deny the Gospel of their Lord and Saviour.

If the prisoner do not confess according to the deposition of the witnesses against him, or do not satisfy the inquisitors, torture is employed, chiefly to induce the accused to confess regarding friends or associates, who may hold opinions deemed heretical. Determined to humble their victims, they employ extensively a most cruel system of torture, the records of which have justly procured for the Inquisition the character of _sanguinary_ and _diabolical_. Surely, none but the evil spirit, “the devil, who was a murderer from the beginning,” could have devised such revolting methods of cruelty, and prompted men, with the most ingenious devices, so to outrage all the dictates of humanity, as to act on the system which was the practice of the Romish inquisitors. They yet attempt its justification on the plea that “Paul delivered the Corinthian to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” (1 Cor. v. 5.) Paul inflicted no bodily tortures, but such is the Romish perversion of the Scriptures.

These tortures of the Inquisition it will be necessary here briefly to describe, that the character of the atrocious system may be the more clearly understood by the reader.

1. THE HALL OF TORTURE.--This, in Spain, is a subterraneous chamber, in the centre of the prison, so that the cries of the sufferer may not be heard by any one outside. It is entered by a passage through several doors; at one end of it a tribunal is erected, on which the inquisitors, the inspector, and the notary are seated. The lamps being lighted in this dark room, the prisoner is brought in and delivered to the executioner, who makes a dreadful appearance; as he is covered all over with a black linen garment down to his feet, and tied close to his body, while his head and face are all hidden with a hood, having in it only two small holes, through which he may see. All this is intended to strike terror into the miserable wretch, when he sees himself in the power of one who has the appearance of an infernal spirit.

Those who are employed as torturers are required to be such as are born of “ancient Christians,”--undoubted Catholics; and they are sworn to secresy as to what is said and done in this terrible place of punishment.

2. STRIPPING.--All who are tortured are stripped naked, both men and women, without regard to decency or honour; and the prisoner has no clothing except a pair of linen drawers. This process, to some, is an inexpressible torment. While he is being stripped, he is exhorted to confess and declare all the truth, being admonished that if he should die under the torture, the judges would be clear from blame, which would rest alone with himself, as a criminal. The notary present writes down everything that is said or done in the act of torture. If the inquisitors are not satisfied with the confession, the prisoner is threatened with various punishments, the instruments of which he is shown in the hall.

3. BINDING.--This is done by cords, fastening the hands behind the back, the wrists bound together, with weights tied to the feet; so that it is impossible for the prisoner to extricate himself from the power of the executioner.

4. THE PULLEY.--By this instrument, the hook being passed under the rope at the wrists, the victim is drawn up till his head reaches near the pulley, fixed to the roof of the hall. Thus he is suspended; so that by the weight of the body, with what is hung at the feet, all the joints of the emaciated frame are dreadfully stretched, and the bones dislocated.

5. SQUASSATION.--This is performed by a jerk of the rope, but without allowing the body being suspended from touching the ground. By this a terrible shake is given to the whole frame, and the arms and legs disjointed, by which the sufferer is put to the most exquisite pain. The shock which is thus received oftentimes occasions death. Romish authors observe on this mode, “When the senate orders, ‘Let him be interrogated by torture,’ the person is lifted or hoisted up, but not put to the squassation. If the senate orders, ‘Let him be tortured,’ he must then undergo the squassation at once, being first interrogated as he is hanging upon the rope and engine. If it orders, ‘Let him be well tortured,’ it is understood that he must suffer two squassations. If it orders, ‘Let him be severely tortured,’ it is understood of three squassations, at three different times within an hour. If it says, ‘Very severely,’ it is understood that it must be done with twisting, and weights at the feet. When it says, ‘Very severely, even unto death,’ then the criminal’s life is in immediate danger.”

6. THE FIRE-PAN.--This was applied to the prisoner while he was fastened in the stocks, when a fire-pan, full of burning charcoal, was brought near to the soles of his feet. These were rendered increasingly susceptible of pain, by being rubbed with grease; so that they would literally be fried, and the suffering be most excruciating. During the process, the prisoner was exhorted to confess; and if he promised this, a board was put between his feet and the fire; but if he did not satisfy them, the board was removed, and the torture renewed. The Rev. Archibald Bower, once an inquisitor, but afterwards a clergyman in the church of England, states, that frequently the inquisitors and other officers, regardless of the groans and tears of the unhappy sufferer, converse before him on city news, or add insult to his misery while entreating by all that is sacred for a moment’s relief from the dreadful torment.

7. THE RACK.--Several instruments were so called: one was a plank with a windlass attached, having two pulleys. The prisoner, nearly naked, placed with his back on the board, was drawn by a rope tied to the iron ring on each wrist; so that his arms were drawn until they were dislocated, producing extreme agony to the victim.

8. THE HORSE.--This was a frame of wood--a sort of trough, across which was a round bar, like the step of a ladder. On this bar the prisoner was laid, with his feet elevated higher than his head. He was then bound to the horse by a cord drawn thrice round each arm, and the same round each leg. By means of sticks, after the manner of screws, the cord being twisted, it was thus tightened, and, cutting into the flesh, much bloodshed was caused. The rope was then removed to the sounder parts, and the torture repeated, producing excruciating agony.

9. THE DICE.--Sometimes iron dice were fastened to the heels of the feet, when screws were forced through the flesh till they reached the bones, producing indescribable suffering.

10. THE WET CLOTH.--The prisoner, while bound to the horse, in some cases, had thrown over his face a thin cloth, forming a bag to pass into his mouth, so that he was scarcely able to breathe; and, at the same time, a very small stream of water was directed to fall into the mouth, sinking the bag down his throat. Six or seven English pints of water have been thus poured into one person, and the convulsive agonies produced were like a sense of suffocation. Sometimes the cloth was removed from the face, to allow the wretched victim to answer the questions proposed by the inquisitors; when the pain occasioned by the pulling up of the bag from the throat was as if the bowels were being drawn through the mouth, and it was found to be soaked with blood as well as with water. In his struggling efforts to breathe, the sufferer would rupture a blood-vessel, and, in not a few instances, die under the horrid torture.

Various other modes of cruelty were employed in some courts, according to the will of the inquisitors. Some used canes put between the fingers, which were then pressed together, so as to dislocate the joints, and occasion exquisite pain. Others tied small cords round the thumbs, so tightly as to force blood from under the nails. Red-hot irons were pressed upon the naked breasts, and iron slippers heated were put on the feet, so as to burn the flesh to the bone. And in perpetrating these enormities, especially on the persons of women, the inquisitors behaved in the most inhuman and revolting manner, indicating the execrable character of the Romish “mystery of iniquity.”