THE
BRAND OF DOMINIC
OR,
AT ROME "SUPREME AND UNIVERSAL/
BY REV. WILLIAM H .1 RULE.
PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PHILLIPS,
200 MULBERRY-STRF, ET
1853.
PREFACE.
To IMPART correct information, and to assist the general reader
in forming Ms judgment of the Inquisition as it was and as it
is, is the object proposed to himself by the author. He has
not attempted to give anything more than a well-authenti
cated statement of its establishment and progress. Much
more might have been related under the title of this little
volume ; but those countries where the system of the Inquisi
tion was never established, although they were theatres of
persecution, are not included. Neither would the author
have been justified in including all persecuting courts or
authorities under the single name of Inquisition. He has la
boured to be technically exact, and preferred passing over
doubtful anecdotes to setting forth as history what is no better
than romance ; and has also thought it more important to dis
close the policy and the power of this member of the Romish
Church, than to multiply recitals of the same -class, beyond
what is really necessary to complete a truthful picture.
The authorities may be described very briefly. As will be
seen during the perusal of the following chapters, they are all
original. The truth is, that original authorities are much
fewer than most readers would expect to find, but that the
books used in the course of research, in order to anything like
an eifective use of those authorities, are too numerous to be
recited in the preface to a work of so small volume. Many
of them pass unmentioned, but all the sources of authentica
tion are mentioned, either in the text or in the notes. And in
every instance the author has used them for himself. Some
of the material is altogether new, and, as he believes, the
structure of the work is more perfectly historical than that
of most others on the same subject. He has not endeavoured
to extenuate the enormity of the Inquisition and its officers,
nor is he conscious of exaggeration in any instance. The
struggle with Romanism is for life or death, and our strength
in the appeal to history consists in sobriety, earnestness, and
truth. Neither can he speak of the Inquisition as of an obso
lete barbarism, or as of a something that cannot any longer
exist. It is a permanent, active, and vigorous institution of
the Church of Rome. While the papacy survives, the Inquisi-
488
b PREFACE.
tion must live, for the spirit of it is not that of the middle
age, but of the Church itself. Many orders have risen and
fallen again within the bosom of that Church, because their
interests were local, or because, like some of the military so
cieties, they were not so constituted as possibly to be perma
nent. And special enterpi ises, like the Crusades, that could
not possibly be continued, have had their day, and passed off
into the pages of history. But the Inquisition ontlives every
change, adapts itself to the condition of every country, works
quietly amidst the most clamorous professions of liberality,
and, while seeming to have been beaten away from the wide
field of the popedom, and forced to retreat within the frontiers
of the papal state, even there the congregation of the faith
plies its agencies with an impalpable, noiseless, and all-per
vading energy that mocks our jealousy, by eluding our vigi
lance. The inquisitors are actually conducting a crusade, in
union with the Jesuits, against the civil and religious liberties
of the world, and are causing that intensely ecclesiastical but
worldly spirit, which is erroneously called Ultramontanism,
to prevail in countries which very lately seemed to be open
for a religious reformation.
The local Inquisitions of the thirteenth century gave place
to the more uniformly organized tribunals of the fifteenth.
These were diminished by the awakenings of the civil power
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They seemed to
have fallen, together with the Bastiles, in the early part of
the nineteenth century ; but, during the pontificates of Leo
XII. and his successors, it became increasingly apparent that
they had fallen only to be absorbed into one central adminis
tration, too truly called, at Rome, the "Supreme and Universal
Inquisition." It is not without reason that the Pope is
called " prefect," or universal inquisitor. He is really what
he professes to be, so far, at least, as his jurisdiction and his
influence extend. He is not chief Jesuit, indeed, or chief Do
minican, or chief oratorian, but he is, at the same time, and
with equal reality, chief of the bishops, and chief of the in
quisitors. This is confirmed by facts adduced in the last
chapter, and the author would fail in the discharge of a duty
to his fellow-Christians, and to their common head, the Lord
Jesus Christ, if he were not to ask and challenge a searching
examination of the results to which those facts conduct him,
that the Inquisition now exists, and acts throughout Christendom,
less repulsively, indeed, but not less effectively, than irhen it pa
raded its penitents, and openly burnt its victims.
W. H. R.
LONDON, Jtpril 10th, 1852.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PACK
4*1. BEGINNINGS OF THE INQUISITION 9
II. THE INQUISITION OF TOULOUSE 23
III. LAWS AND CUSTOMS 43
IV. LAWS AND CUSTOMS (CONTINUED) 56
V. LAWS AND CUSTOMS (CONCLUDED) 66
VI. FRANCE 78
I. SPAIN THE MODERN INQUISITION ESTABLISHED 83
VIII. SPAIN TRIUMPHS OF THE INQUISITORS 95
IX. SPAIN GRANADA EXPULSION OF THE JEWS 105
X. SPAIN MOORS AND MORISCOES 116
XI. SPAIN DEZA AND XIMENEZ DE CISNEROS, INQUIS
ITORS 129
XII. SPAIN THE INQUISITION UNDER CHARLES I. AND
PHILIP II 142
XIII. SPAIN PREPARATIONS FOR AN AUTO DE FE 154
XIV. SPAIN AUTOS DE FE 164
XV. SPAIN MORE AUTOS DE FE 179
XVI. SPAIN THE CASE OF CARRANZA, ARCHBISHOP OF
TOLEDO 194
XVII. SPAIN PROGRESS AND DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION 211
XVIII. SPAIN INQUISITION ABOLISHED TRIBUNALS OF THE
FAITH 228
XIX. PORTUGAL 243
XX. INDIA 260
xxi. INDIA (CONCLUDED) 281
XXII. SOUTH AMERICA 288
XXIII. ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION 303
XXIV. ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION (CONCLUDED) 325
XXV. ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS 338
XXVI. INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS (CONCLUDED) 355
XXVII. ITALY THE INQUISITION AS IT IS 367
THE
BRAND OF DOMINIC.
CHAPTER I.
BEGINNINGS OF THE INQUISITION.
POPE ALEXANDER III., driven from Rome by the anti-
Pope Octavian, has come by sea to France. Henry II.,
of England, who is in Normandy, and Louis VII., of
France, hearing of his arrival, both hasten to give him
welcome, and lead him in state on horseback through
the town of Couci on the Loire one monarch walking on
either side, and each holding the bridle. Thomas a
Becket will soon be there also. He has just been made
Archbishop of Canterbury ; and is, as yet, on good terms
with the king his master. It is two or three years since
the first confessors of Christ suffered death for his sake
in England, (" Martyrologia," vol. ii, p. 512;) and about
sixteen years ago St. Bernard first came into Languedoc,
to lead a crusade against the Albigenses. The king of
England has kissed the Pope s foot ; and, not presuming
to occupy a chair in his presence, has sat down, with his
barons, on the floor, in the abbey of Bourg-Dieu. Thus
abject are Englishmen in the twelfth century.
There has been a great religious awakening in the
provinces which we now call the South of France and
1*
10 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
North of Spain; and although Alexander might have
enough to do to defend himself against his competitor,
whom the Emperor of Germany, and whom almost all
Italy supports, he thinks it expedient to keep up the
rage of zeal against heretics, as they are called ; and, to
do this more effectually, convenes a council, to be holden
at Tours on the 29th day of May, 1163.
On the day appointed, seventeen cardinals, a hundred
and twenty-four bishops, four hundred and fourteen ab
bots, and a great multitude of priests and laity, assemble
in the church of St. Maurice, with the Pontiff at their
head. These clergy are French and English since only
these two nations acknowledge Alexander to be their
pope and a very few adherents from Italy. Arnoul,
Bishop of Lisieux, at his command, delivers a sermon
concerning the several interests of the Church, smooth
and plausible, and with scarcely any reference to the per
sons who are intended to be her victims. Forthwith
begins the business of the council. Thomas, the martyr
of Canterbury, as the Romanists now call him, comes to
Tours, and is received by the cardinals in procession,
which is an unusual honour, and takes part in the de
liberations ; but leaves before the close, being much occu
pied in the affairs of his new dignity in England. Still
his heart was with the council, and whether or not he
was present when the following decree was voted, the
English priests were, and it is undoubted that he and
they heartily concurred therein. The sentences are
worthy to be recited, inasmuch as that was the first act
of the Church of Rome that can be correctly called in
quisitorial*
When we say inquisitorial, we speak with reference to the
forms, rather than to the principles, of the Inquisition. The
BEGINNINGS OF THE INQUISITION. 11
" In the parts of Toulouse, a damnable heresy has
broken out of late, spreading itself by degrees, like a
cancer, into the neighbouring places, and now infects
great numbers in Gascony and other provinces." And,
after descanting on the insidious and destructive charac
ter of the new heresy, the fathers proceed to say : " Where
fore we command the bishops, and all the priests of the
Lord, dwelling in those parts, to keep watch, and under
peril of anathema to prohibit that, where followers of that
heresy are known, any one in the country shall dare to
afford them refuge, or to lend them help. Neither shall
there be any dealings with such persons in buying or
selling; that, all solace of humanity being utterly lost,
they may be compelled to forsake the error of their life.
And whoever shall attempt to contravene this order, shall
be smitten with anathema as a partaker of their iniquity.
But they, if they be taken, shall be thrown into prison
by Catholic princes, and be deprived of all their goods.
And forasmuch as they frequently assemble together
from various parts into one hiding-place, and have no
flames of persecution had been burning hotly for more than
six centuries before the Council of Tours, and the saints of the
Most High were pursued with violence, but not yet made the
subjects of secret judicial inquest. Soldiers were employed
to put down heresy with fire and sword, and magistrates en
forced the laws of -Justinian and his successors, or other laws
like them, in open court. Between persecution in general,
and that particular method of persecution which is called
"the Inquisition," the historian must carefully distinguish;
and by preserving the distinction in the volume we are now
beginning, many flagrant persecutions will be passed over
without notice. Their history must be sought elsewhere ; in
the "Martyrologia," if the reader pleases, and in the "Martyrs
of the Reformation."
12 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
reason why they should be together, except their consent
in error, and yet dwell in the same abode, let such con
venticles be attentively searched ; and if they be found
guilty, let them be forbidden with canonical severity."
Concilium Turonense. An attentive search could not be
conveniently conducted without some regulations for the
guidance of the spies ; and, this necessity being felt, rules
of Inquisitions were soon suggested.
The next General Council was holden at Rome, (A. D.
1179,) in the church of the Lateran, the mother church,
as it is called, where Alexander, having so far overcome
his antagonist as to be able to return to the seat of
government, presided on a lofty throne, surrounded by
the cardinals, prefects, senators, and consuls of the city.
In three solemn sessions the affairs of the papacy were
brought under review ; many canons were recorded, and,
amongst others, one that renewed the regulations of
Tours in regard to heretics, named the sects most ob
noxious to the hatred of the Church, and determined
that all who bestowed the slightest kindness on sectarians
should undergo equal punishment, and that the relaxed,
or persons informed against as under suspicion of heresy,
should be outlawed. (Concilium Lateranense III.) We
note the peculiar term, relaxatos, " relaxed," because it
eventually became established in the jargon of the " Holy
Office ;" and we also mark the part taken by informers,
whose successors were the " familiars" of the same tri
bunal. And the concurrence of the secular with the
ecclesiastical power in this council gave another weighty
precedent for their subsequent union in the exercise of
inquisitorial jurisdiction.
Lucius III., successor of Alexander, also a wanderer,
being driven out of Rome by the violence of the Romans,
BEGINNINGS OF THE INQUISITION. 13
held a council at Verona, (A. D. 1184,) at which the Em
peror Frederic I. was present, and there condemned all
heretics, and smote them with a perpetual curse ; includ
ing under that fulmination all unlicensed preachers, and
all who taught concerning the eucharist, baptism, and
remission of sins, and other chief points of doctrine, dif
ferently from the Church of Rome. " And because the
severity of ecclesiastical discipline is sometimes despised
by those who do not understand its virtue, we ordain,"
says the decree, " that they who shall be manifestly con
victed of the aforesaid errors, if they be clerks or religious
persons, shall be divested of every order and benefice,
and given over to the secular power, to receive suitable
punishment : unless the culprit, so soon as he is discov
ered, shall make abjuration in the hands of the bishop
of the place. In like manner the layman shall be pun
ished by the secular judge, unless he make abjuration.
They who are only found suspected shall be also pun
ished, unless they can prove their innocence by a suitable
purgation ; but they who relapse after abjuration or pur
gation, shall be left to the secular judgment, without
being heard again. The property of condemned clerks
shall be applied, according to law, to the churches that
they served. This excommunicatipn against heretics
shall be renewed by all the bishops on the great solem
nities, or when occasion presents itself, under penalty of
suspension from their episcopal functions for three years.
We add, by the advice of the bishops, and on the repre
sentation of the emperor, and the lords of his court, that
every bishop shall visit, once or twice every year, himself,
or by his archdeacon, or by other qualified persons,
those parts of his diocese where it is commonly reported
that heretics are living, and shall swear in three or four
14 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
men of good character, and even, if he thinks it desira
ble, all the people of the neighbourhood, binding them,
if they can discover where there are any heretics, or per
sons who hold private meetings, or that lead a different
life from the faithful in general, to denounce such per
sons to the bishop or the archdeacon. The bishop or
the archdeacon shall then call the accused before him ;
and if they do not clear themselves, following the custom
of the country, or if they relapse, they shall be punished
by the judgment of the bishops. But if they refuse to
swear, they shall at once be judged heretics." Barons,
governors, consuls, and all other secular authorities, are
then required to render effectual aid for the detection and
punishment of heretics and their accomplices, whenever
required so to do, under the penalties of excommunica
tion and interdict. " All the fautors of heretics shall be
noted with perpetual infamy, and, as such, excluded from
being advocates, witnesses, or discharging any public
functions." Lucius III., epist. 1183.
Here we find the concurrence of the civil and ecclesi
astical powers for the extirpation of heresy. J^The Church
employs excommunication and other censures : the
emperor, the lords, and the magistrates, are to inflict
temporal penalties?J Bishops are to inform themselves,
personally, or by commissaries, of persons suspected of
heresy, following common report or receiving special in
formation. The various degrees of suspected, convicted,
penitent, and relapsed, are marked, and must be visited
with correspondent penalties. And after the Church has
spent her spiritual weapons, she leaves the subjects of
her displeasure to be smitten by the secular arm. This
is the theory of the Inquisition, which may be considered
as then established, although, as yet, a distinct tribunal
BEGINNINGS OF THE INQUISITION. 15
was not erected : we may therefore say, that in the period
of twenty-one years, from the Council of Tours to that
of Verona, the general plan was formed. Thenceforth it
only awaited the usual process of legislation and experi
ence to reach the horrible perfection of the sixteenth
century.
Hitherto the bishops had been acknowledged as guar
dians of the faith, and intrusted with the duty of making
inquisition. But, notwithstanding the bond of canonical
obedience, and the expedients employed for detaching
the secular prelates and clergy from the interests of their
native countries, they were never all so absolutely devoted
to the Roman See as to overlook every consideration of
patriotism and humanity. A humane, or perhaps an
aged bishop could not incessantly endure the groans of
dying heretics, nor dip his hands every day in blood.
The aged priest, although a dotard in bigotry, might not
have either strength or courage to brave the dangers that
would be incurred in so rude a service. The ruler of one
diocese might be as gentle as his neighbour was severe
in the government of the next, and the inequality of
their administration would detract from the force of dis
cipline. And in almost every province there was a prev
alent persuasion, that bishops held the crozier by a
divine right, and that they were not justly required to
coerce and slay their flocks at the pleasure of a distant
and overbearing chief. And besides all this, it became
evident that so great a work as the extirpation of heresy
could not be efficiently performed, even by the most
willing servants, unless there were some charged with
the oversight of them all. It was not enough that each
episcopal court should take cognizance of heresy, and
that every magistrate should be at the command of his
16 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
diocesan to burn the culprits he condemned. It was
found that, in those numberless imprisonments and exe
cutions, there was more than enough labour to provide
work for a distinct ecclesiastical department; and, ac
cordingly, Pope Innocent III., whose fury still breathes in
two ponderous folios of epistles, almost each one of those
missives being full of threatening and slaughter, resolved
to take the matter into his own hands, and no longer
trust it entirely to the "natural inquisitors," the
bishops.
He therefore sent two commissaries into the South of
France, to represent his plenary authority in the dioceses
where the Albigenses and Waldenses were numerous,
and require every bishop, priest, or layman to assist in
the horrible service on their requisition, under peril of
ruin in this world, and, in the world to come, damnation.
These two envoys were Cistertian monks, brother Rainier
and brother Guy ; but the order of St. Bernard was not
sufficiently savage to furnish chief janizaries to the Sultan
of the West, and we have not much to record concerning
their operations. For a few years others were appointed,
who did their utmost to revive the zeal of the multitude
against the Albigenses and Waldenses of Aquitaine,
Narbonne, and other provinces ; but, while the eloquence
of their sermons drew some applause, their cruelties pro
voked indignation ; and at length one of them, Peter
of Castelnau, was killed by a soldier in the neighbour
hood of Toulouse. Innocent III. declared him a martyr,
gave him the title of blessed, and called on the Church
to devise some more effectual method for the inquisition
and punishment of heresy. The crusade against heretics
was raging, it is true, and Simon de Montfort was laying
waste the county of Toulouse. Cities were besieged,
BEGINNINGS OF THE INQUISITION. 17
taken, and sacked. Hundreds of martyrs had been
already cut to pieces, or burnt upon the field of battle ;
but it was evident that relays of volunteer troops could
not always be levied, and that there was a point beyond
which princes and barons would not be carried, in
slaughtering their subjects and impoverishing their
estates, to satisfy the vengeance of the Church.
Again, in the church of the Lateran, or, as it was also
called, the palace of Constantine, Innocent convened a
council. Being a man of words, no less than of deeds,
he chose to be the preacher, and delivered two vehement
sermons, one at the opening, and the other at the close,
of a session of twenty days. The sermons are preserved,
but contain nothing remarkable beyond exhortations to
take up the cross and go to Jerusalem. On the word
" passover," he founded all his doctrine. That word sig
nifies a passage from one place to another. He, like St.
Paul in his text, desired to celebrate a passover, a " pass
age of the Holy Land," there to storm the Holy City
and kill the infidels. The chapters of this council
fourth of Lateran are very copious, but contain little
more than a verbal repetition of the acts of similar as
semblies, and of letters apostolic concerning heretics ;
but more was done at that council than appears on the
face of the record.
Foulques, bishop of Toulouse, came from amidst the
ruins of a desolated diocese to make his appearance in
the council, and brought with him a youthful zealot, a
Spaniard, Domingo de Guzman. His mother, Juana,
whose imagination seems to have been as fiery as that
of many of her daughters in the present generation, had
dreamed that she was going to be delivered of a dog,
carrying a brand to set the world on fire. Her child
18 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
was precisely to her taste. He made rapid proficiency
in the school of Palencia, then one of the best in Europe,
soon obtained preferment in the Church, was chosen by
the Bishop of Osma, his own diocesan, to accompany
him on an inquisitorial journey into France, and signal
ized himself there by great address in dealing with here
tics, some of whom he converted by means of an argu
ment written on prepared paper, that would not burn,
although put three times into the fire, his own peculiar
element. At Toulouse, the scene of that performance,
he had conceived the design of raising a new order of
preachers, a sermon being in those days the approved
preliminary to a burning, as we shall shortly see ; and
one of his adherents, Pierre Cellan, gave him some houses
to serve himself and his other companions for endowment,
and for a first monastery. Domingo was just the man
to serve Innocent ; and although this pope had already
engaged the council to determine that np new orders
should be established, but that the old ones should be
mended, he did not hesitate to give the hopeful prior of
St. Romaiu authority to prepare a set of rules. " The
oracle" had spoken otherwise in the Lateran, but in the
Vatican he pronounced otherwise again, yet prudently
shaded his fallibility from immediate observation by re
fraining from the publication of a bull.
Nevertheless, Fray Domingo proceeded to establish
his fraternity, obtained a church and cells in Toulouse,
and, on the accession of a new pope in the year follow
ing, applied to him for the document that should invest
him with full authority. Honorius III., favourable to a
scheme of so vital importance to the papacy, received
the application graciously. This son of a dreaming
mother, when at the Pontiffs feet, related a vision with
BEGINNINGS OF THE INQUISITION. 19
which he had been honoured since his arrival at the
threshold of the apostles. He said that, when praying
one night in a church, he had seen Christ, angry, and
holding in his uplifted hand three javelins, to be launched
against sinners one to destroy the proud, another the
avaricious, and a third the voluptuous. He declared
that he had seen the Holy Mother embrace the feet of
her Son, imploring mercy, and had heard him acknowl
edge that her intercession had appeased his wrath ; but
that he had two servants there, whom he would intro
duce to her. One was Dominic (as we call him) and
the other was Francis, afterwards famous as founder of
the Franciscans, whom he did not then know, but met
him in the church next morning. Honorius was con
firmed, by the recital, in his sentiment of approbation,
and granted Dominic two bulls ; one declaring that he
and his brethren were champions of the faith and true
lights of the world, and the other empowering them to
possess property and perform their intended functions.
Not to contradict the council which prohibited the crea
tion of new monastic orders, he called them canons
regular. The bulls were dated September 12, 121*7.
At this time Dominic somewhat resembled a bishop
in partibus, having a title, but not a throne. He was
commissioned to ]be a champion of the faith, and all the
members of his order were to be champions of the faith ;
but as yet he had no troop of familiars, nor any fixed
tribunal before which to summon the suspected. How
ever, he determined to begin his work without loss of
time, and, on the same day, making a speech to those
who came with the usual congratulations, told them that
the Pope had conferred on him a new office ; and assured
them that he was determined to defend the faith man-
20 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
fully, and that, if spiritual and ecclesiastical weapons
should be insufficient, he had made up his mind to call
the secular power to his aid, and to excite and impel
Catholic princes to take up arms against heretics, that
their memory might be utterly blotted out. From that
time he sent out preachers, whose business was to inflame
the populace, who received repeated assurances of pro
tection from the Pope, and were, doubtless, worthy to .be
called inquisitors. Meanwhile, Dominic pursued the
organization of a system, and soon formed a "third
order,"* called the " Militia of Christ," to fight as cru
saders against heretics. These assisted the Dominicans
of the first order in searching out heresy, and, being con
sidered part of their family, were called familiars.
Honorius gave them his formal approbation, and first
we find them active in Italy about the year 1224. But
not only in Italy. For in this year the Emperor Fred
eric II., in a decree published at Padua, speaks of " the
Inquisitors whom the Apostolic See had appointed in
any part of the empire." And " we declare," said he,
" that the friars preachers and the friars minors, deputed
in our empire for the affair of faith against heretics, are
under our special protection."
The holy office was not yet erected ; but the ground
was opened, and the clergy, especially the Dominicans,
were busily laying the foundations. And the pontificate
of Gregory IX. was to be distinguished by a visible ad
vancement of the fabric. At Toulouse, which had been
conquered by the crusaders, and where the last Count
had preserved his title, with a shadow of power, by
abandoning the faith of his ancestors, a council was
holden in the year 1229; and, although its chapters
He had founded a second order of women.
BEGINNINGS OF THE INQUISITION. 21
generally resemble those of previous assemblies of the
kind, there is a specialty of character in them which in
dicates the near approach of a settled Inquisition. It
was decreed, in substance, that the bishops should ap
point a priest, and two or three laymen of good repute,
in every parish, whom they should swear to seek out
heretics exactly, and frequently, in houses, in caverns,
and in all places where they might be concealed ; and,
after having taken precaution, in order that none might
escape, they should give immediate notice to the bishop,
the lord of the place, or his bailiff. The lords were re
quired to search in villages, houses, woods, or other hid
ing-places ; and if any one of them was known to allow
a heretic to take refuge on his domain, he should him
self be punished. Negligent bailiffs were to be chastised,
and houses wherein the guilty had found shelter were to
be pulled down. Yet none should suffer as a heretic
until condemned by the bishop, or by an ecclesiastic hav
ing power to act. Any one might apprehend a heretic.
Converted heretics, although reconciled to the Church,
were not to live in a village suspected of heresy, " and,
to show that they detest their former error, they shall
wear two crosses, of a different colour from their dress,
one on the right and the other on the left breast." But
they could never be admitted to any public office, except
by dispensation of the Pope. Persons converted against
their will were to suffer perpetual imprisonment. An
exact list of all the inhabitants was to be kept in every
parish ; and all males above fourteen years, and females
above twelve, should swear to the bishop, or his delegate,
that they utterly renounced heresy, held the Catholic
faith, and would persecute and denounce heretics. All
who refused to swear thus would be dealt with as sus-
22 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
pected of heresy ; and so would all who failed to confess
and to communicate three times every year. And at
this Council of Toulouse, for the first time, the laity were
forbidden to read the Holy Scriptures of the Old and
New Testament. An aged person might possess a Latin
Psalter, a Breviary, or the Hours of the Virgin ; " but,"
said the fathers of the council, " we most strictly forbid
them to have the above-said books translated into a vulgar
tongue."
The reader shall not be wearied with tracking the
Dominicans in their inquisitorial itinerancy. Neither
shall we transcribe, or even abbreviate, the chapters of
council after council, and the papal briefs which were
issued to instruct them in their vocation, to give sanction
to their procedure, or to exact the concurrence of the
civil power with their violence. It is enough to say, that
the provincials of the Dominicans were gradually invested
with an authority closely resembling that of the inquisi
tors-general in later times, and that their operations ex
tended just so far as the papal power could prevail.
Happily for Germany, frequent misunderstanding, or
open conflict, between the Pope and the emperor hin
dered the progress of inquisitors in the empire ; but they
found entire support in France and Spain, and in most
of the Italian states. Even the republic of Venice re
ceived the inquisitors; but insisted on associating her
own magistrates with them in every case, and gained the
point, much to the annoyance of those papal delegates.
When the objects of their pursuit escaped to other coun
tries, they pursued them into every accessible retreat.
Refugees in the island of Sardinia, for example, found
themselves beset with the emissaries of St. Dominic from
Rome. These emissaries even established themselves in
THE INQUISITION OF TOULOUSE. 23
the remote region of Servia ; and, as if to crown the op
probrium of their spurious Christianity in Asia, they
prowled about in the territories occupied by the crusaders
in Syria and Palestine, endeavouring to preserve the
godless garrisons with the attendant rabble that held
precarious possession, from influences unfavourable to the
priesthood. We now proceed to examine one of the
records of the Inquisition of Toulouse, probably the most
ancient document of the kind extant.
CHAPTER II.
THE INQUISITION OF TOULOUSE.
AT the prayer of St. Louis, king of France, in the year
1255, Alexander IV. constituted the provincial of the
Dominicans and the guardian of the Franciscans in Paris
inquisitors-general for all that kingdom. And in the
beginning of the fourteenth century we find regular tri
bunals, jurisdiction conducted with accord of three several
authorities the civil in the magistrates, the ordinary
ecclesiastical in the bishops, and the pontifical in the in
quisitors with a rigorous administration of prison-dis
cipline and capital punishment, publicly inflicted. This
is what it is usual to call the ancient Inquisition.
Philip Van Limborch, Professor of Theology among
the Dutch Remonstrants, and author of a general history
of the Inquisition, obtained a manuscript which had been
taken from the archives of the Inquisition of Toulouse, a
city wrenched from the counts of that title by the cru
saders of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and made
24 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
by Dominic the cradle of his order and seat of the earliest
of those tribunals. The document was a parchment
volume, held between two covers, or pieces of wood. On
each of these covers was cut the title : L. SENTENCIARUM,
" Book of Sentences ;" that is to say, of sentences passed
on culprits in the Inquisition of Toulouse. Each record
was subscribed in the handwriting of one of the notaries
at least, of whom four had made the original reports, and
thus authenticated the fair copies, adding to the signa
ture a seal of office. Limborch gives the fac-simile of
each seal, and preserves in his reprint of the volume the
barbarous orthography of the yet more barbarous Latin,
in order that every letter of his original may be expressed,
merely putting syllables at length, instead of abbrevia
tions. His edition is a folio of the size usually given by
the Wetsteins,* of four hundred and twenty pages, with
the folios of the manuscript exhibited in the margin. I
have carefully examined this very remarkable evidence
of the doings of the first Inquisition, and will endeavour
to give, I think for the first time in our language, an idea
of what they were.
What is now called, after the Portuguese, an Auto da
Fe, or " Act of Faith," was then called a " General Ser
mon of Faith," because the proceedings of each of those
jail deliveries were opened by a sermon, and the same
custom continued down to the latest of them. The
" sentences " which the inquisitors delivered at fourteen
"sermons" are preserved here, syllable by syllable, as
the notaries drew them up. The first is dated on the
first Sunday of Lent, 1308.f It was holden in the
The imprint is " Amstelodami, apud Henricum Wetsten-
ium. CIO 10 C XCII."
t The authenticity of the MS. is tested by the accuracy of the
THE INQUISITION OF TOULOUSE. 25
cathedral of St. Stephen; and for the others the same
building or a market-place was chosen, where a great
crowd of spectators might be assembled. A seneschal,
a judge, a serjeant-at-arms, and a civil governor, repre
senting the sovereign, swore on the holy Gospels faith to
the Lord Jesus Christ and to the holy Roman Church,
promising to defend them with all their might, to pursue
and take if they could all heretics in belief, and their
aiders and abettors, and accuse and present them to the
Church and the inquisitors. They swore, engaging that
they would not give office of any sort to the aforesaid
pestilential persons, nor to any reputed to be such, nor
admit the like into their family, their friendship, their
service, or their council, if they knew it; and if they
came to know of having unwittingly harboured any, they
would instantly put such away. And then they reiter
ated the vow of obedience to God, the Church, and the
inquisitors.
A company of " consuls," or civil magistrates, next
approached, and were adjured after the same manner,
word for word.
But the archbishop of the province and the neighbour
ing bishops were not well content ; for between them and
the Roman delegates there had been jealousy from the
beginning. It was by dint of negotiation, no doubt, that
they obtained a place at the " sermons" as something
more than mere spectators; and, at length, the arch
bishop was able to exercise an official power, and author-
dates. There are two errors, however, which strengthen the
proof. For 1308 the scribe wrote 1307, by putting VII instead
of VIII. And by the omission of an I at the seventh sermon,
he makes it 1315 instead of 1316. De Morgan s tables help
me to verify the dates and the records at the same time,
2
26 THE BRAND OP DOMINIC.
ize some of his bishops to be present. They, when pre
vented by business, or deterred by humanity, sent " ca
nonical commissaries" to act as advocates of the persons
accused, if there was any ground for palliation, or any
space for pity.
The oaths being taken, the two inquisitors for all the
kingdom of France gave sentence of excommunication
against all that had any way hindered or opposed them
and their subordinates in office, either openly or secretly.
The " House of Inquisition " in Toulouse and there
was another such house in Carcassonne, and, most proba
bly, others in other places was emptied of its tenants,
who appeared in companies in the cathedral. They are
said, in this book of sentences, to have been " brought
out of the wall," (educti de muro^ a phrase which indi
cates the kind of dungeons wherein they had been liter
ally immured, models of those which later historians have
described in other countries. Some of them were sen
tenced to wear crosses ; and others, by an act of grace,
were excused from carrying that badge, yet were to do
heavy penance. Take a sentence for each class, as we
find it in the book : and first, of penitents marked with
crosses.
" In the name of the Lord, Amen. We, the aforesaid
inquisitors of heretical pravity," (Brother Bernard Guy
and Brother John de Belna, of the order of preachers,)
" and the commissary-delegate of the aforesaid Archbishop
of Toulouse, and I, the aforesaid Brother Bernard Guy,
by virtue of commission from the reverend fathers and
lords in Christ, G , and R , and G , bishops,"
(the names of the sees are obscure and unimportant,) "in
what pertains to them concerning the undermentioned
persons of their dioceses." Then follow fifty -seven names,.
THE INQUISITION OF TOULOUSE. 27
with designations, showing that whole families had been
seized by the inquisitors, and that the gospel had pene
trated beyond the Pyrenees into Spain. "These men
and women, immured by way of penance for crimes of
heretical pravity which they had committed, and in hum
ble obedience to the mandates of us and of the Church,
having been in the wall now for many years, we, willing
mercifully to mitigate their pain and penance, by grace
release them from the prison of the wall. But we enjoin
on them, all and each, under obligation of the oath they
have rendered, that, in exchange for the said penance
and prison, they henceforth perpetually wear two crosses
of yellow felt on every garment, except the shirt," (of size
prescribed,) " one on the breast and the other on the
back, between the shoulders, without which appearing
they must not be seen either within doors or out of doors.
If the crosses be torn, or worn-out, they must be mended
or renewed ; and as long as these persons live they must,
every year, visit the church of St. Stephen of Toulouse,
on the festival of the saint, and the church of St. Satur
nine of Toulouse, in the octaves of Easter, and hear high
mass and sermon in each. They must also confess thrice
every year, before Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide,
and communicate in those festivals, unless they abstain
by counsel of their priest. On every Sunday and feast-
day they must hear full mass in their parish church, and
a sermon whenever there is one in the parish where they
are, unless lawfully excused. They must abstain from
work on feast-days, and never bear any public office.
They must keep a lenten fast at Advent, refrain from
divinations and lots, and take no interest on money.
They must also persecute heretics, by what name soever
they be called, as well as their believers, abettors, receiv-
28 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
ers, and defenders, and fugitives for heresy. With all
their power they must honour the Catholic faith, ecclesi
astical persons, the rights of churches, and the office of
the Inquisition. They must also make pilgrimage, ac
cording to directions contained in letters which will be
given to them ; but which we command them to ask for,
keep, and follow the directions they contain. We and
ours, and our successors in the office of the Inquisition,
retain plenary power to throw the above persons, or any
of them, into the aforesaid wall again, even without any
new cause, or to increase or diminish, to mitigate or re
mit, this punishment to any of them, as we, or any of
our successors, may think fit."
Sometimes it was thought expedient to impose a dreary
penance, quite enough to make life burdensome, but
without the yellow crosses. This is designated " arbitrary
penance without crosses." But the penitents at largo
were a privileged class, reconciled to their Church, restored
to her bosom, hugged in her cold embrace, and envied
by the fellow-prisoners whom they left behind.
On Sunday, April 23d, 1312, on the feast of St. George
the Martyr, and "for the honour of the holy Roman
Church," Bernard Guy and a fellow-inquisitor, with the
usual array of ecclesiastical and civil forces, held a sermon
in the accustomed place. The number of their victims
was not unusually large ; but we can count the company
of prisoners this day before them the more easily, because
the notary happened to set down their names with a
mark (^f) of separation. Here are men, women, and
children, whole families, dragged into their presence,
garbed in wretchedness, and stricken with despair. An
officer of the holy office reads over a catalogue of eighty-
seven names : " Thou, Raymund Vasco ; and thou, Ber-
THE INQUISITION OF TOULOUSE. 29
narda Wilhelma, formerly wife of such an one ; and thou,
; and thou, ; and thou, ;" on to the
end. " So gravely and in so many ways have you of
fended in the damned crime of heresy, as has been read
and repeated to you intelligibly in the vulgar tongue;
you all being personally before us in this day and place,
to receive penance, and to hear your definitive sentence
peremptorily pronounced upon you, and desiring, as you
say, with good heart and unfeigned faith, to return to the
unity of the Church, and no\v again publicly abjuring all
heresy, and all favour and belief of heretics of every sect,
and all stubbornness, and belief, and rite, and favour of
heretical pravity, and promising to keep and defend the
orthodox faith, and to persecute heretics, and detect and
bring them out wherever you know them to be ; and
swearing that you will simply and faithfully obey the
prescribed mandates of the Church, and ours, for the
benefit granted to you of absolution from the excommu
nication with which, for the said faults, you were bound ;
if, indeed, you return to the unity of the Church with all
your heart, and keep the commandments we have en
joined upon you, the most holy Gospels of God being
placed before us, that our judgment may proceed from
the presence of God, and our eyes may see equity." The
reader is breathless. This long-protracted sentence
should end kindly. The penitents have much to do.
They are to be very active in persecution. They have
promised to render large service to the Church, which
will require great readiness and diligence. They are ab
solved. Brother Bernard invokes the God of mercy and
equity. The ever-blessed gospel is before him. But, no !
hear it out. The reader finishes in these words : " Sitting
at this tribunal, and having the counsel of good men,
30 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
learned in civil and canon law, we condemn you, by
sentence in this writing, to perpetual prison of the wall,
there to perform healthful penance with bread of grief
and water of tribulation."
The " benefit of absolution " is not yet exhausted.
Three men, one of them aged, and three women, two of
them widows, receive sentence thus : " And because you
have offended more largely and more gravely, and there
fore deserve weightier punishment, we determine that you
shall be perpetually shut up in closer wall and straiter
place, in fetters and chains." The sentence then draws
to its close in the usual form, and ends with a threat of
yet sorer punishment on any who may be found to have
suppressed the least fact when under examination.
From very copious notes of the examination of Wal-
denses, although they cannot be regarded as faithful
records, much might be extracted to throw light on the
domestic habits and ecclesiastical position of that long-
persecuted people. At another sermon we find, amidst
many companions in suffering and confession, Hugo de
Cernon. From childhood he had witnessed the piety of
his father, who did not refuse hospitality to the wander
ing Barbe. The inquisitors extorted the names of thir
teen persons whom he had seen as guests at various
times, or had himself entertained after his father s death.
He had prayed with them before dinner and after,* on
The inquisitor Eymeric, describing the marks by which
Waldenses might be known, after some incredible accusations
of licentiousness, adds what bears a beautiful appearance of
truth : " When they take their places at table, they say,
May He who blessed the five barley loaves in the wilderness
for his disciples, bless this our table ! And when they rise,
they repeat that passage of the Revelation : Blessing, and
THE INQUISITION OF TOULOUSE. 31
bended knees, leaning on a seat, "according to their
manner and rite of praying." He had heard their dis
course and received their exhortations, and learned, as they
are charged with maintaining, that judicial oaths are for
bidden in the New Testament. They denied the fable
of purgatory. The inquisitors represent him as saying
that he had twice confessed his sins to those Waldenses,
and received absolution and penance from them, "al
though he knew that they were not priests ordained by
a bishop of the Roman Church."* Juliana, wife of Vin
cent Vertelperio, had been guilty of the same crime of
hospitality ; for she and her husband had suffered some
of their pastors to sleep in their house, and they had
joined in family prayer in the same simple manner.
The alleged confessions of these Waldenses are so ex
ceedingly alike, that one cannot help regarding them as
forced or fabricated answers to a uniform set of questions,
with the addition, now and then, of some trifling incident
that is only noticed because it may serve to aggravate
the case. Juliana, for example, had accepted a needle
from one of them, and this is noted down. In another
house the custom of family prayer, first learned from a
visitor, had been continued. The offence of one man
chiefly consisted in his having carried money and cloth
ing from some humane persons to Waldenses that were
glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power,
and might, be unto our God forever and ever ! Amen." They
always [say this] raising their hands and eyes towards
heaven." Dircctorium Inquisitorum, p. 441.
That they certainly were not, but by bishops of their own.
The tale of confession is extremely improbable. Allix, on the
Ancient Churches of Piedmont, demonstrates the dishonesty
of inquisitorial reports.
32 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
lying in "the wall." For such aggravations of their
guilt, many, in these fourteen sermons, were delivered
over to the secular arm and burned alive.
The case of a priest named John Phillibert, even so
far as it can be gathered from the " Book of Sentences,"
is remarkable. When officiating in the parish of St.
Lawrence, in Burgundy, he was chosen, together with
another person, to go in search of a fugitive Waldense.
Like Saul of Tarsus, he received letters from the chief
priest, the inquisitor of heresy, empowering him to call
in help, if help were necessary, to arrest the man and
bring him back. With what success he performed that
journey into Gascony, is not stated ; but his communi
cation with the persecuted Christians had produced such
an effect on him, that he went to visit them, not as a
familiar of the Inquisition, but as an inquirer after truth
and peace. The Waldenses welcomed him into their
society. He was introduced into an extensive circle,
visited from house to house, and from town to town.
He shared in their hospitality as freely as if he had been
a Barbe. He prayed in companies gathered to meet
him, and attended in congregations where the word of
God was preached. This was, of course, unpardonable
in the sight of the inquisitors, who maintained that the
Waldensian ministers were mere laymen, not having been
ordained by any bishop of the Roman Church.* They
invited him to join their company, which he readily con
sented to do; for, notwithstanding his knowledge that
the inquisitors persecuted them, he believed them to be
good people. But so far were those honest Christians
from flattering their convert, that one, Cristino, told him
" Qui non erant nee sunt sacerdotes ordinati per ali-
quem episcopum Romana Ecclesiee, sed erant laici."
THE INQUISITION OF TOULOUSE. 33
that it would be better for him to be a swineherd than a
priest, in mortal sin, singing mass.
Even the partial defection of a priest could not escape
the vigilance of the inquisitors. Like many of his order
in those ages, he continued to serve at the altar after he
had ceased to believe in the doctrine of the mass ; but
his conscience, more scrupulous than enlightened, could
not be reconciled to a judicial abjuration; and when
Friar Guy, of Rheims, inquisitor of heresy in Bui-gundy,
required him, on some occasion, to swear upon the Gos
pels, he refused, and, on twice repeating the refusal, was
arrested, and placed under observation. The persecution
continued. Ere long he was summoned into the pres
ence of the same inquisitor, in the archbishop s palace
at Besangon ; and, in the presence of ten or twelve wit
nesses and a notary, submitted to be sworn, but avowed
his correspondence with the Waldensians, and his beli ef
that the inquisitors, in persecuting them, were sinning
against God. What means were employed to overcome
his constancy, we know not ; but he wavered so far as
to swear, that he renounced the Waldensian sect, and
promise that he would help to seize its followers wherever
he could find them. Perhaps the dread of scandal, as
they would call it, induced the inquisitors to release him
from durance without penance, and allow him to return
into Gascony, where he again joined the Waldenses,
visiting their congregations from place to place, eating
and drinking in their houses, and everywhere uniting in
their secret worship. Often, at night, he listened to their
readings of the Gospels and Epistles in the vulgar tongue,
followed by earnest expositions and exhortations. Still,
pursuing that fatal policy of concealment and consequent
equivocation which so frequently injured the work of God
o*
34 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
far more than the utmost violence of its enemies could
have done, he continued to officiate as a Romish priest.
During fourteen years he thus dissimulated, sometimes
elevating the host, and sometimes visiting imprisoned
brethren, and conveying food and clothing into their
prisons,* at the hazard of his life.
At length, in October, 1311, he was again arrested in
Toulouse, and brought into the presence of the inquisitor.
The register of his abjuration at Besancon was produced ;
and, as there could be no mercy for one relapsed, he was
finally condemned. And this is the sentence: "Since
the Church has nothing more that for thy demerits she
can do against thee, we pronounce and declare by these
presents that thou, John Phillibert, presbyter, aforesaid,
art to be degraded from thy holy orders ; and, when de
graded, art to be given over to the secular court and
judgment, and from that time we hereby leave thee to
that court, affectionately praying the same, as the canoni
cal sanctions advise, to preserve thy life and limb unhurt,
and allowing thee, if thou wilt worthily repent, the sacra
ment of penance and the eucharist." And from this we
may fairly infer that he had not repented, but that at
last, as he had so often been exhorted in the discourses
of the Waldenses of Gascony, he preferred suffering
death to making shipwreck of his conscience.
And he quickly suffered martyrdom. His diocesan, the
Bishop of Auch, had died ; so that there was no one em
powered to degrade him, except the Pope. But Pope
* It is notorious enough that, until a very recent period, the
prisons of Europe have been open to casual visiters, and that
the prisoners depended on visiters, chiefly or entirely, for
their daily food. And the Inquisition had not yet its secret
dungeons.
THE INQUISITION OF TOULOUSE. 35
John XXII., then at Avignon, himself a Frenchman, and
formerly bishop in the very province of Toulouse, gladly
issued a bull authorizing the archbishop to degrade John
Phillibert, and give him over to the secular arm. On
Sunday, June 15th, 1320, the archbishop proceeded to
the cathedral ; and, surrounded by a multitude of clergy
of all degrees, " zealous for the orthodox faith," and by a
greater multitude of laity, had the delinquent presbyter
brought from prison, attired in his robes, and set him on
high in view of all, to hear the records of previous ex
aminations read, and the papal warrant of degradation.
While this was done, one Raymund Fish sat by to take
notes of the formalities. The form of degradation, as
prescribed by the metropolitan, was after this manner :
The martyr being clad in robes of all the orders, with all
sorts of sacred vessels and sacramental symbols placed
on the credence, they took a chalice and paten from his
hand, to divest him of power to say mass. They stripped
him of the sacerdotal stole, to signify that, among the
Waldenses, he had lost the robe of innocence, and, there
with, the office of the priesthood. With the dalmatic
they removed " the ornament of the diaconate, the gar
ment of gladness, and the vesture of salvation." Taking
from his hand a book of the Gospels, they deprived him
of "power to read the office in the Church of God."
The deacon s robe was taken from his shoulders, and,
with it, the power of exercising the functions of the dea
con s office. And the instruments of that office a chalice,
paten, pitcher (urceolus}, water, and finger-cloth were
taken from him, to denote that he was prohibited their
future use. In like manner the tunic of sub-deacon was
removed, showing that, with the ornament of that office,
he had lost the use of it unto righteousness and health.
36 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
From his left arm they took the maniple of the sub-dia-
conate, and ministry thereby designated. They made
him deliver up the book of Epistles, out of which he had
learned more than it liked them he should know, and
thus took away the faculty of reading the Epistles in the
Church. The instrument with which the acolyth lights
candles being snatched away from him, he learned that
he should thenceforth have no authority to light them.
So with the pitcher, again removed, passed away his au
thority to mingle water with sacramental wine. With
the book of exorcisms, too, they took from him the power
which the Church professes to bestow on her meaner
ministers, to cast out devils a service which their su
periors may well be excused from. And his reader s
book being -taken, his lips were closed from reading in
the congregation. Lastly, they took out of his hand the
keys of the church, inasmuch as he might not open nor
enter the church again. Then, in the name of the Holy
Trinity, Raymund Fish declared that he was deposed and
degraded from every ecclesiastical order, honour, benefice,
and privilege. " And, nevertheless, we pronounce and
say to the noble man, Lord Guyard Guy, Seneschal of
Toulouse, here present, that he may receive thee, now
degraded, into his jurisdiction. Yet we instantly require
and pray him that he would so temper his sentence con
cerning thee, that thou mayest not be in peril of death,
nor suffer mutilation of limb" The presbyter Phillibert
had thus dwindled down, step by step, from the super
human dignity of priest into the vile estate of a layman.
Yet one vestige of his former dignity remained. The
sacerdotal crown was on his head ; and to destroy this a
barber was employed, whose razor reduced him to per
fect baldness, and thus he stood before the crowd with
THE INQUISITION OF TOULOUSE. 37
the last mark of ignominy on him. Seized by the exe
cutioners, he was then dragged out of the cathedral, and
thrown into the flames ; and we may hope that the more
truthful boldness of his latter days indicated the presence
of that faith that God crowns with glory. But the
notary made no note of the victim s words after they had
consigned him to the mercy of Guyard Guy.*
Concerning this matter of " degradation," a brief note may
not be unimportant. For information, the canonists refer us
to the Sixth Book of the Decretals, tit. ix, cap. 2. We find
there the first legal document on the subject, which has great
historical value. It is a letter from Boniface VIII. who be
gan to reign in 129i, and continued a little more than eight
years to the Bishop of Bourges, who did not know how to per
form the ceremony of degradation. That ceremony, therefore,
must have been novel, or it would have been provided for.
But it was novel in France, and it was introduced there to
gether with the Inquisition. Boniface gives general directions,
leaving the bishop to work them into form. The Archbishop
of Toulouse appears to have drawn up his own form, using
the liberty, as to ritual, which every bishop then enjoyed,
although such appeals to the Pope as that of the Bishop of
Bourges tended to curtail the liberty. The act, however, hav
ing relation to the priesthood only, of which the Pope was
chief, there was a reason why he might give the general in
struction to use " these, or like words, ; (hcec vel similia;) and
the archbishop, thus fortified, could truly say that the form
we have abridged in the text, was lawfully delivered, (a jure
tradita.) But let it now be well noted that there is an estab
lished form of degradation, with a very full rubric, and that
throughout the Romish Church it is in force. It will serve
either to save the honour of the Church, by depriving crimiu-
ous clerks of their sacerdotal character before they are sub
jected to the sentence of civil law, or to consign heretical
clerks to civil punishment on the judgment of a Church court,
or Inquisition. This is now quite practicable in Italy and Spain,
An analysis of the present "Form of Degradation" would
38 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Not only did they burn the living, but the dead. In.
their examinations of the Waldenses and other reputed
heretics, they obtained information of many who had
died in their fellowship, and then issued formal sentences
of condemnation. One such sentence will suffice for all.
" Considering that the crime of heresy, because of its
vastness and enormity, ought, according to both canonical
and civil sanctions, not only to be punished in the living,
but also in the dead ; having God before our eyes, &c.,
<fec., we declare and pronounce the aforesaid " (two men
and four women) " to have been receivers, believers, help
ers, and abettors, when they were alive, of the Walden-
sian heretics ; and that they died without repenting of the
crime of Waldensian heresy which they had committed ;
and we condemn, as such, the said deceased men and
women, and their memory. And we command, in sign of
perdition, that the bones of the said William and Michael,
and of the said women, if they can be distinguished from
the bones of the faithful, be extumulated or exhumed
from the sacred cemeteries, cast out thence, and burned."
This sentence was passed at Toulouse, at the sermon cele
brated on Sunday, under the octaves of the nativity of
the blessed Mary, Virgin, 1322. And the Roman hyenas
show that it is thoroughly inquisitorial ; but it is enough to
say that the concurrence of other bishops with the one officiat
ing, or deputing to officiate, is dispensed with in a cause of
heresy, (in causa haresis,) that the secular magistrate is required
to be present, that the old request for mercy is retained in the
very words used by the Archbishop of Toulouse in the year
1320, and that the last sentence of the rubric, which closes all,
is, " Which being done, the ministers of the secular court take
the degraded person into their custody, and depart." (Quo
facto, ministri secular is cur ice degradatum sub sua custodia re-
cipiuntj ct disccdunt.)
THE INQUISITION OF TOULOUSE. 39
have ever since employed themselves, on all possible op
portunities, in digging for carcasses of heretics. Up to
the year 1831, it may be confidently affirmed, that the
bodies of deceased Protestants in Spain were liable to the
grossest outrage, which the populace were instructed to
think it became them, as " good Catholics," to perpe
trate. A royal decree then made the interment of an
English Protestant lawful, where burial-grounds could be
purchased and enclosed ; but where that is not the case,
there is no assurance that the grave will not be vio
lated.
Assuming universal control, the Inquisition of Tou
louse laid its hands on books, as well as persons ; and
we find it stated that, on the 28th of November, 1319,
at the requisition and mandate of Bernard Guy, two
large waggon-loads of Hebrew books, being as many as
could be found on searching the houses of the Jews,
were drawn through the streets of Toulouse, with a pro
cession of servants of the royal court, and a crier going
before, proclaiming with a loud voice that the books,
said to be copies of the Talmud, contained blasphemies
against Christianity, and, having been examined by per
sons learned in the language, were to be burnt. And
they were burnt accordingly. Gregory IX., a zealous
persecutor of the Jews, had commanded the Talmud to
be burnt, which was done by the Chancellor of Paris in
the year 1230, before an assemblage of clergy and peo
ple; and, after an interval of thirteen years, there was
another solemn burning of that work at Paris, and
probably in other parts of France, by order of Innocent
IV. The works of Raymond Lulli, father of oriental
learning in Christendom, who gave his life for Christ in
Africa, where the Moors stoned him to death, were burnt
40 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
by order of Gregory XL, in the year 1376. This was a
revival of the old pagan custom of burning the sacred
writings ; and the allegation that there were blasphemies
in the Talmud, and heresies in other books, however true
it may have been, was insufficient to justify the method
taken to silence, rather than to refute. Here, howevei,
we mark the beginning of the literary persecution which
is conducted by the Congregations of the Inquisition and
the Index, as earnestly as at their first establishment.
Another incident from this " Book of Sentences," and
we have done with the Inquisition of Toulouse.
On Sunday, June 28th, 1321, the sound of a trumpet
was heard in the market-place of Castrum de Cordua, a
town in the diocese of Alby. It was to summon the in
habitants to that place, in order to hear a sermon, or
proclamation of the two inquisitors and their assistants,
and a commissary and other representatives of the bishop,
whose letters patent, addressed to the consuls, or magis
trates, were there produced and read. The consuls and
their councillors hastened to the spot, bringing with them
a petition, which was to be read in reply to the bishop s
pastoral, and the sentence of the inquisitors. The fact
was, that when the Inquisition had proceeded to exercise
their vocation there, and imprisoned some of the inhabi
tants, the townsfolk turned out in a body, attempted to
break into the dungeons, and poured forth volleys of
threatening against their priestly assailants. The in
quisitors fled in terror from the town, and published an
anathema, which was followed by the fearful consequen
ces of such a sentence, until the people were obliged to
sue for mercy. The humble and reverent supplication,
therefore, recited the offence and its penalty, and offered,
on the part of the inhabitants in general, submission to
THE INQUISITION OF TOULOUSE. 41
whatever penance and retribution the inquisitors might
think proper to ordain. Piteously did they implore for
absolution and release from the ban laid upon them,
promising and swearing devout and perpetual obedience
to the inquisitors and their successors, to perform whatso
ever it might please them to enjoin ; and called on the
notaries of the Inquisition there present to register the
vow. And the whole multitude of consuls and council
lors, of men and of women, raised a dolorous cry, in to
ken of repentance, and in affirmation of the prayer.
Then the inquisitors and commissary deigned to accept
the supplication, made the magistrates, one by one, swear
to fulfil the conditions of pardon, and, holding up a book
of the Gospels in sight of the people, for it seems that
they did not yet swear them on the crucifix, required
the whole multitude to raise their hands in abjuration
of all purpose to resist the Inquisition. The whole mul
titude then sang, mournfully, a penitential psalm ; and,
as the last notes died away, the commissary pronounced
a solemn absolution of all and each of the " university "
of people in that place. This done, the penance was en
joined. Considering the clemency of holy Church, and
the penitential humiliation of both magistrates and peo
ple, they ordained that the town should build a chapel,
without prejudice of the parish church, of a form and
magnitude prescribed, and to be well furnished and en
dowed. It should be intituled with the name of Peter
the Martyr, that Dominican inquisitor-general who lost
his life, in the cause of the Inquisition, by the hand of an
assassin between Milan and Conio, in the year 1252,
and whom the fraternity worship as their peculiar saint,
and three others, placing pictures of all of them over the
altar, and as many images of them in wood or stone.
42 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Outside the building were to be exhibited three stone
statues, one of the bishop, and two of the inquisitors.
The building, its sacred vessels and sacred pictures, with
every ornament and appurtenance, was to be completed
on the site chosen, to be of the magnitude and material
required, and to be ready by the time appointed, under
a heavy fine, which fine would be repeated every two
years until the finishing of the work. Added to this was
a heavy tax levied on the town for the solace of the
bishop and inquisitors, and recoverable at their discre
tion. And to bind them the more certainly, a deed,
engrossed in readiness, was signed and sealed upon the
spot. The deed, moreover, empowered the Inquisition to
do its pleasure in the town thenceforth, and thus gave it
a legal sanction under the hand and seal of the magis
trates themselves. After such an event we cannot but
say that the tribunal was fully established in the king
dom of France ; and with this humiliating fact must
close our notice of the Inquisition of Toulouse, merely
observing that the followers of our Lord Jesus Christ
were not the only persons subjected to punishment, but
others, accused of immorality and witchcraft. Multitudes
of Beguins, as they were called, whose only offence was
that they desired to revert to the most rigorous discipline
of the Franciscan order, as they understood it, were ac
cused of the most disgusting impurities, yet far too mon
strous to be credible, and burnt alive as heretics.
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 43
CHAPTER III.
LAWS AND CUSTOMS.
DURING about two centuries and a half, the Inquisition
was advancing towards an established form. At Tou
louse, indeed, it soon became complete, although not yet
independent of the bishops, as in after-times. There, at
Carcassone, and probably at a few other places, the in
quisitors had houses, that is to say, prisons and courts,
for the exercise of their juridical authority. At first they
proceeded arbitrarily, using all means within reach for
the accomplishment of their purpose, but without any
code of instructions. From time to time the popes issued
bulls or briefs, just as circumstances might require, and
generally with respect to some particular district or case ;
but as every such document had the full authority of the
apostolic see, it was carefully preserved, and afterwards
referred to as of universal sanction. And as the canon-
law in general depends on such documents, so does the
ever-growing code of the Inquisition for the most part.
The secret began, as being necessary in the management
of affairs that could not be divulged with safety ; and the
pontificate of Boniface VIII., from 1294 to 1303, is more
particularly marked as the time when secret examina
tions became an acknowledged part of inquisitorial juris
prudence, and gave those courts, at once and forever, a
character of their own. Terror, and sometimes actual
torture, were made use of, to assist the notaries to fabri
cate reports of confession. And it is remarkable that the
evidence preserved in the Tolosan " Sentences " from
1307 to 1323, entirely consists of alleged confessions,
44 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
which would not have been the case if any method of
humane and fair investigation had been followed. First,
familiars and other informers gave the inquisitors intelli
gence enough to convict their subject of heresy ; and,
this being done, the accused person was required to con
fess; and we have already seen that the most trifling-
word or action was considered sufficient evidence of his
being a heretic, or of having aided, abetted, sheltered, or
approved of heretics.
The action of the ancient Inquisition was various and
intermittent. In France it appears as the sequel of the
crusades of Bernard and Montfort; and after the first
zeal of the kings, who obtained the annexation of Tou
louse to their territories by the ruin of its counts and the
depopulation of the towns, had passed away ; and when
the clergy could more effectually resist the encroachment
of a tribunal which represented the person of the Pope,
with derogation of episcopal rights, the people and par
liaments also resisted the interference of an alien and
cruel power. Nor would the kings willingly allow the
court of Rome to meddle with their domestic affairs.
Perhaps the " Gallic liberties " would not have been ob
tained for the clergy, but for a reaction provoked by the
Inquisition ; and the " liberties of the kingdom of France"
resulted from the same cause.* In Spain, also, notwith-
Some of these twenty privileges, as they were published
in the reign of Louis XII., are obviously opposed to the Inqui
sition. For example : "1. The King of France knows no su
perior in temporals." " 4. The King of France, without con
sulting the Pope, may impose subsidies on ecclesiastics or on
Churches, under the name of loan, gift, or charity, for defence
of the kingdom." " 6. The King of France cannot be excom
municated, nor declared excommunicate, by any dignitary in
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 45
standing the vigorous support of many of the kings
reigning over the four kingdoms then comprehended in
that peninsula, the inquisitors made unequal progress,
everywhere encountering opposition. If our dates be
correct, more than a hundred and sixty years elapsed
before an " act of faith " was celebrated in Castile. Then,
however, those exhibitions became very frequent every
where ; and, at length, Nicholas Eymeric, made in
quisitor-general of Arragon in the year 1356, collected
from the civil and canon laws all that related to the
punishment of heretics, and formed the " Directory of In
quisitors," the first, and indeed the fundamental code,
which has been followed ever since, without any essential
variation. To give a correct idea of what the Inquisi
tion really is, we will borrow a general description from
this directory of Eymeric, expounded as it is by his com
mentator Pena, and sanctioned by the approbation of
Gregory XIII. It exhibits the practice of the Inquisition
at the time of its sanction in 15*78, and republication in
1587; and the theory of the Inquisition, which, under
some necessary variations of practice, remains unchanged.
This authority instructs practitioners to the following
effect. To avoid the dryness of a verbal transcript, I
shall employ my own words, but be careful to represent
the true sense of the " directory."
the realm." "11. The king has cognizance of civil cases be
tween ecclesiastical persons, while they act in spiritual causes,
or causes thereunto relating." " 12. The king alone makes
constitutions or laws in the kingdom of France." " 15. The
Pope does not legitimate nor restore in the kingdom of France,
but the king only." " 19. No one authorizes the bearing of
arms in the kingdom of France, but the king only. Stylus
Supreme Curias Parlamenti Parisiensis. Parisiis, M.DLL,
pars 4.
46 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Prosecution.
In a cause of heresy you should proceed quietly and
simply, without formality and noise of pleadings. There
should be no delay, no interruption, no appeal, and as
few witnesses as possible. It is the peculiar and high
privilege of the tribunal of the Inquisition, that its judges
are not obliged to follow forensic rules ; and therefore the
omission of what common right requires does not annul
the process, so that nothing essential to the proof be
wanting.
There are three ways of proceeding in cases of heresy :
by accusation, by information, and by inquiry.
The inquisitor will seldom make use of accusation, in
asmuch as it is unusual, dangerous to the accuser, and
tedious. He will therefore discourage accusations, and
advise accusers to refrain from bringing a charge, and to
content themselves with information. Or, if an accuser
persists, he may prepare the charge officially at the in
stance of the party ; but private persons are very seldom
permitted to undertake formal accusations, since an at
torney, or fiscal, of the holy office does this by virtue of
his ministry, and therefore runs no risk of punishment if
the charge should turn out to be false. (This provides
impunity to false accusers.)
It is most usual to proceed on information. One per
son informs against another, not to involve himself in the
affair, but to avoid the excommunication denounced on
those who will not inform, or through zeal for the faith.
The information must be reduced to writing, and attested
by an oath on the four Gospels, and must contain circum
stances of time and place. The inquisitor may receive
the information in private, with no other witness than
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 47
his secretary. The obligation to inform is absolute, not
withstanding oath, bond, or promise to the contrary.
There may be previous admonition to the suspected per
son, but that is not necessary. The information may
appear groundless at first sight, but the inquisitor must
not cancel it on that account : for what cannot be brought
to light to-day, may be made clear to-morrow. (Christ
came not to condemn the world, but to save : not so the
inquisitor.)
When there is no informer, resort may be had to in
quiry. This may be general, according to the Council
of Toulouse, setting the population to hunt for heretics
wherever they are likely to be found ; or it may be
undertaken by the inquisitor alone, when there is a com
mon report that such an one has said or done anything
against the faith. The inquisitor may question persons
concerning the reputation of that person ; and if he can
elicit that there is any ill report against him, he may
call him up. Or if he only entertain suspicion, in the
absence of all such report, he may proceed in the same
way, but cautiously. There ought to be two witnesses
to confirm the suspicion ; but their evidence will be valid,
even if they cannot say that they have ever heard him
utter an erroneous opinion, but can only testify that they
have heard it from others. Neither need they say what
they have heard ; for it will suffice if they declare that
people talk suspectingly about him. By common right,
no criminal is required to give evidence against himself;
but in a cause of heresy there is this obligation the
person accused must furnish all the particulars to enable
the fiscal to make out the charge. All the doctors agree
to this. (For their only business is to make sure of their
victim.)
48 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Witnesses.
In causes of heresy, testimony of all sorts of persons is
admissible. They may be excommunicate, accomplices,
infamous, or convicted of any crime. Heretics, too, may
give evidence ; but only against the culprit is it valid,
never in his favour. This provision is most prudent, nay,
it is most just : for since the heretic has broken faith to
wards his God, no one ought to take his word ; and it
should always be presumed that, say what he may, he is
actuated by hatred to the Church, and a desire that
crimes against the faith may go unpunished. The testi
mony of infidels and Jews may be taken also, even in a
question of heretical doctrine. The testimony of false
witnesses is also taken, if against the accused person, even
although a previous favourable testimony may have been
retracted. And note that, if the first declaration was
against him, and the second favourable, the first only
must be accepted. The judge must never give credit to
such retractations ; for if he do, heresy will be committed
with impunity. Domestic witnesses wife, for example,
children, relatives, and servants may have their testi
mony accepted against him, and then it has great value ;
but it never must avail to his advantage. All moralists
agree that, in case of heresy, a brother may declare
against his brother, and a son against his father. Fa
ther Simancas would have excepted fathers and children
from this law : but his opinion is not admissible ; for if
a man may kill his father if he be an enemy to his coun
try, how much more may he inform against him if he be
guilty of heresy! The son of a heretic, who has in
formed thus, is exempted from the anathema launched
against the children of heretics, and this is in reward of
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 49
his information. The reason of all this is, that nothing
but the force of truth would so overcome natural feelings,
as to lead one member of a family to delate another.
And as heresy is generally best known at home, such
evidence is very necessary. (The testimony of a parri-
cide has a special value.)
Every witness who appears against a heretic must be
examined and sworn by the inquisitor, in presence of a
secretary or scribe. Having put to him the usual ques
tions, he must bind him to secrecy. There may be one
or two men, of gravity and prudence, present at the ex
amination ; but this is by no means desirable. The
criminal must not see the witnesses, nor know who they
were. Eymeric weakly said that there should be more
than two witnesses to establish a fact; but practice, and
the general opinion of the doctors, allow inquisitors to
condemn a culprit on the evidence of any two whom
they can trust ; and, seeing that his case has been atten
tively examined, this is all that he should wish. (If his
enemies have diligently sought to kill him, he should be
thankful for their diligence !)
When the culprit is informed of the charges against
him, the names of witnesses should be concealed ; or, if
there be any particulars in the charges that would help
him to guess the names, the testimony given by one per
son should be attributed to another ; or names should be
substituted of persons that were not witnesses : but, after
all, it is best to suppress all names; and this is the
general practice, safest to informers, and to the Christian
public. (A lie is lovely in the holy office, if it helps to
homicide.)
False witnesses, who have caused the death of an in
nocent person, must not suffer any severer punishment
3
50 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
than perpetual confinement. Some have thought other
wise, and Leo X. authorized the delivery of such offend
ers to the secular arm, to be put to death ; but the Coun
cils of Narbonne and Toulouse, after grave deliberation,
mention no such punishment; the Council of Burgos
condemns them to penance with sambenito / and false
witnesses are not put to death by the Inquisition at Rome,
nor anywhere else. However, in any special case, the
judges may consult the inquisitor-general. A witness,
suspected of falsehood, may be put to the torture ; " and
I," says Eymeric, " was present in a case at Toulouse in
1312, where a father, who had informed against his son,
was laid on the rack, and there declared that his infor
mation was false." (Reward nine hundred and ninety-
nine false witnesses, to keep up the practice. Let one of
a thousand be punished for a blind.)
^Examination of the Culprit.
The inquisitor must require the culprit to swear that
he will answer every question truly, even to his own
damage. He must ask his name, birth-place, residence,
and so on. Has he heard speak of such and such points
of heresy ? Or has he spoken of them ? The answers
shall be written down, and the culprit shall sign them.
He must also ask him if he knows why he is imprisoned,
whom he supposes to have caused his apprehension, who
is his confessor, when he confessed last, and so on. He
must not question him in such a manner as to suggest
subterfuges, or provide escape, but let his interrogatories
be vague and general. "Too much prudence and firm
ness," says Peiia, " can never be employed in the inter
rogation of a prisoner. The heretics are very cunning in
disguising their errors. They affect sanctity, and shed
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 51
false tears, which might soften the severest judges. An
inquisitor must arm himself against all these tricks,
always supposing that they are trying to deceive him."
(An inquisitor, therefore, must be no less hardened than
depraved.)
Manifold are the tricks of heretics. They equivocate,
use mental reservation, elude the question, affect surprise,
shuffle, answer evasively, feign submission, pretend to be
fainting, counterfeit madness, or counterfeit modesty.
But the inquisitor must rebut this tenfold craft, paying
them in their own coin, according to the words of the
apostle, Cum essem astutus, dolo vos cepi : " Being crafty,
I caught you with guile." Let him proceed thus with
such :
Press them to give direct answers to your questions.
If you are not satisfied with the declaration of a pris
oner even having employed the jailor, or secret spies,
to extract from him beforehand speak gently, let him
understand that you know all, and discourse with him
after such a sort as this : " Be assured, my child, that I
am very sorry for you : they have -imposed on your sim
plicity, and mined you. You have been in error, no
doubt; but your deceiver is more to blame than you.
Be not a partaker of other men s sins, nor think of act
ing the part of a teacher, when you are but a learner.
Confess the truth. You see that I know it well already ;
but I want you to save your character, and enable me to
set you at liberty as soon as possible, and let you return
home in peace. But, tell me, who led you first astray ?"
Give him good words, but keep firm, and take it for
granted that the fact of his heresy is certain. Perhaps
the evidence will be incomplete, and the heretic may per
sist in declaring that he is innocent. Tn that case do you
52 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
put general questions ; and when he denies something
that you happen to have taxed him with, turn over the
notes of a former examination, and say, " It is clear that
you are not telling the truth. Do not equivocate any
longer." And so he will fancy that you have other evi
dence against him. Or, you may turn over a bundle of
papers, seem to be reading them, and, when he denies
anything, start, as with surprise, and ask how he can deny
that, seeing that it is as clear as day. Read your papers,
turn over the leaves, and say, every now and then, "Ah !
did I not say so ? Confess the truth." But be careful
not to go into particulars, lest he see that you know noth
ing about them.
Or, if he be still obstinate, tell him that you had hoped
to finish his case, as you are just going to take a long
journey, and know not when you shall return ; but, as
he will not confess, you must leave him still in prison.
He is evidently out of health, and not able to bear close
confinement. You are very sorry, but cannot help it, and
so on. Or you may multiply questions, and renew the
examination from time to time, until he has been made
to contradict himself for want of memory or self-posses
sion ; and when his answers are confused, the doctors
agree that you may put him to the torture. This method
is almost sure to succeed, and he must be clever that
does not fall into the snare. (Clever indeed ! The
father of lies contrived the snare.)
Or you may seem to relent, when the prisoner persists
in his denial. Relax your severity, give him better food,
send people to visit him, encourage him, advise him to
confess, and promise that the inquisitor will forgive him,
or, at least, that they will interest themselves on his be
half. Indeed, you may promise him pardon, and you
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 53
may pardon him in effect ; for in the conversion of a
heretic all is pardoned, and penances are favours. So
tell him that, if he will confess, he shall have more than
he could himself desire : and so he will ; for you will
save his soul. The doctors are not agreed as to this
dissimulation, which is not allowed in civil courts ; " but
I," Pena, " believe that it may be used in tribunals of
the Inquisition because an inquisitor has far more ample
powers than other judges, and may dispense with pen
itential and canonical punishments at his pleasure. So
that as he does not promise total impunity to the guilty,
when he says that he will pardon him, he can fulfil the
promise by forgiving him some of the canonical pen
alties, which depend entirely on himself." Still some
doctors are not satisfied with this opinion ; but the fraud
is useful for the public good ; and as it is lawful to extort
the truth by torture, it must be lawful, reasoning a for
tiori, to do so by dissimulation (verbis fictis). However,
for greater security of your conscience, you may employ
vague terms, capable of a double interpretation. (How
tender must his conscience be !)
Or you may gain over some friend of the prisoner,
and let him talk with him frequently alone, and get the
secret. If it be necessary, you may authorize the friend
to feign himself of the same opinion, and even to prolong
his conversation, until it shall be too late at night for
him to go home, and then he shall stay in the prison,
"having witnesses concealed in some convenient place,
that they may hear the conversation, and, if possible, a
clerk, who shall note down all that the criminal says,
while the person you have bribed draws from him his
most hidden thoughts." But the spy, although he may
pretend to be also a heretic, ranst not say so in so many
54 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
words : for that would be a lie, which is, at least, a venial
sin ; and sin is not to be committed on any account. In
short, whatever tricks you allow, you must be careful
not to sanction an untruth. By such contrivances as
these, you may get all you want, without touching the
rack, and your sagacity will search out the truth, accord
ing to the wise sentence of a poet :
" Sed quoniam variant animi, variabimus artes ;
Mille mail species, mille salutis erunt."
(And still the inquisitor preserves a tranquil conscience.)
Defence.
"When you have extracted a confession, it will be use
less to grant the culprit a defence. For although in
other courts the confession of the criminal does not
suffice without proof, it suffices here. Heresy is a sin
of the soul, and therefore confession may be the only
evidence possible. However, for the sake of appearance,
you may allow him to consult an advocate, to object to
witnesses, to object to one or more of the judges, or to
appeal. (In* no other court is so much trouble taken to
save the soul. Holy office ! )
As for the advocate, you are to choose him ; and, be
sides possessing other good qualities, he must be zealous
for the faith. Swear him to keep the secret, and to en
gage his client to confess. But the prisoner must not
communicate with his advocate except in the presence
of the inquisitor. But recollect that there is a chapter
in the Decretals (Si advcrsus, lib. v, tit. 7, De ffceret.)
which forbids advocates to plead for heretics in any
cause ; and therefore you must not allow one to a noto
rious heretic, but only where the suspicion is not yet
proved. And when an advocate is granted, he must
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 55
swear that he will abandon his client so soon as the her
esy is proved. (The advocate being a zealot, and the
law framed for vengeance, conviction is pretty certain.)
As for objecting to witnesses, heretics must not fancy
that this is easily admitted, since both honest men and
rogues, excommunicate, heretics, criminals, and perjured
persons, and any others, are allowed to bear witness
against heretics. Only on one account, that of capital
hatred in the witness towards the prisoner, may the lat
ter be suffered to object ; and, even in such a case, vari
ous methods are devised to weaken the objection, or to
prevent it. (Of course : capital hatred is a capital qual
ification.)
If he appeal to the Pope, observe that all the laws
agree that a heretic has no right to appeal. Thus, the
Emperor Frederic decided ; and thus the Council of Con
stance determined, that the appeal of John Huss was il
lusory and vain. Truly some laws appear to countenance
appeals ; but these may be easily disposed of. Note,
also, that if the prisoner appeals from you on one point,
you can appeal against him on some other. Or you
can dispute the legality of the appeal. Or you can grant
it under protest. But in no case should the inquisitor
appear at Rome to answer for his judgment, but let the
inquisitors-general, who are there, represent you. (The
prisoner may have a friend at Rome.)
56 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
CHAPTER IV.
LAWS AND CUSTOMS (CONTINUED).
Torture.
WHEN you subject a prisoner to torture, in order to com
pel him to confess, observe the rules following :
Torture is inflicted on one who confesses the principal
fact, but varies as to circumstances. Also on one who is
reputed to be a heretic, but against whom there is only
one witness of the fact. In this case common rumour is
one indication of guilt, and the direct evidence is another,
making altogether but semi-plenar proof. The torture
may bring out full proof. Also, when there is no wit
ness, but vehement suspicion. Also, when there is no
common report of heresy, but only one witness who has
heard or seen something in him contrary to the faith.
Any two indications of heresy will justify the use of tor
ture. If you sentence to torture, give him a written
notice, in the form prescribed; but let other means be
tried first. Nor is this an infallible means for bringing
out the truth. Weak-hearted men, impatient of the
first pain, will confess crimes that they never committed,
and criminate others at the same time. Bold and strong
ones will bear the most severe torments. Those who
have been on the rack before, bear it with more courage;
for they know how to adapt their limbs to it, and they
resist powerfully. Others, by enchantments, seem to be
insensible, and would rather die than confess. These
wretches use, for incantations, certain passages from the
Psalms of David, or other parts of Scripture, which thev
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 57
write on virgin parchment in an extravagant way, mixing
them with names of unknown angels, with circles and
strange letters, which they wear upon their person. " I
know not," says Pena, " how this witchcraft can be rem
edied ; but it will be well to strip the criminals naked,
and search them narrowly, before laying them upon the
rack." While the tormentor is getting ready, let the in
quisitor and other grave men make fresh attempts to ob
tain a confession of the truth. Let the tormentors ter
rify him by all means, to frighten him into confession.
And after he is stripped, let the inquisitor take him
aside, and make a last effort. When this has failed, let
him be put to the question by torture, beginning with
interrogation on lesser points, and advancing to greater.
If he stands out, let them show him other instruments
of torture, and threaten that he shall suffer them also.
If he will not confess, the torture may be continued on
a second or third day ; but as it is not to be repeated,
those successive applications must be called continuation.
And if, after all, he does not confess, he may be set at
liberty. Rules are laid down for the punishment of
those who do confess. Innocent IV. commanded the
secular judges to put heretics to torture; but that gave
occasion to scandalous publicity, and now inquisitors are
empowered to do it, and, in case of irregularity, (that is,
if the person dies in their hands,) to absolve each other.
And although nobles were exempt from torture, and, in
some kingdoms, as Arragon, it was not used in civil tri
bunals, the inquisitors were nevertheless authorized to
torture, without restriction, persons of all classes.
And here we digress from Eymeric and Pena, in order
to describe, from an additional authority, of what this
torture consisted, and probably still consists, in Italy.
3*
58 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Limborcli collects this information from Juan de Rojas,
inquisitor at Valencia.
There were formerly five degrees of torment, as some
counted, (Eymeric included,) or, according to others,
three. First, there was terror, including the threaten-
ings of the inquisitor, leading to the place of torture,
stripping and binding ; the stripping of all their cloth
ing both men and women ! with the substitution of a
single tight garment, to cover part of the body, being an
outrage of every feeling of decency ; and the binding
often as distressing as the torture itself. Secondly came
the stretching on the rack, and questions attendant.
Thirdly, a more severe shock by the tension and sudden
relaxation of the cord, which is sometimes given once,
but often twice, thrice, or yet more frequently. Lim-
borch here refers to Dillon s account of the Portuguese
Inquisition at Goa, whose words we borrow : " During
the months of November and December, (1675,) I heard
every morning the cries of those who were put upon the
rack, which is so cruel a torture, that I saw divers per
sons, both of the one and the other sex, who were distorted
and maimed by it, and, among others, the first compan
ion they had assigned to me in the prison. In this holy
tribunal no respect is made of quality, age or sex, and
all are indifferently submitted to the torture, when the
interest of the Inquisition so requireth it."
Isaac Orobio, a Jewish physician, related to Limborch
the manner in which he had himself been tortured, when
thrown into the inquisition at Seville, on the delation of
a Moorish servant whom he had punished for theft, and
of another person similarly offended. "After having
been in the prison of the Inquisition for full three years,
examined a few times, but constantly refusing to confess
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 59
the things laid to his charge, he was at length brought
out of the cell, and led, through tortuous passages, to
the place of torment. It was near evening. He found
himself in a subterranean chamber, rather spacious,
arched over, and hung with black cloth. The w r hole
conclave was lighted by candles in sconces on the walls.
At one end there was a separate chamber, wherein were
an inquisitor and his notary seated at a table. The
place, gloomy, silent, and everywhere terrible, seemed to
be the very home of death. Hither he was brought,
and the inquisitor again exhorted him to tell the truth
before the torture should begin. On his answering that
he had already told the truth, the inquisitor gravely
protested that he was bringing himself to the torture by
his own obstinacy ; and that if he should suffer loss of
blood, or even expire, during the question, the holy of
fice would be blameless. Having thus spoken, the in
quisitor left him in the hands of the tormentors, who
stripped him, and compressed his body so tightly in a pair
of linen drawers, that he could no longer draw breath,
and must have died, had they not suddenly relaxed the
pressure; but with recovered breathing came pain unut
terably exquisite. This anguish having past, they re
peated a monition to confess the truth, before the torture,
as they said, should begin ; and the same was afterwards
repeated at each interval.
" As Orobio persisted in denial, they bound his thumbs
so tightly with small cords, that the blood burst from
under the nails, and they were swelled excessively.
Then they made him stand against the wall on a small
stool, passed cords around various parts of his body, but
principally round the arms and legs, and carried them
over iron pulleys in the ceiling. The tormentor then
60 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
pulled the cords with all his strength, applying his feet
to the wall, and giving the weight of his body to in
crease the purchase. With these ligatures his arms and
legs, fingers and toes, were so wrung and swollen, that
he felt as if fire were devouring them. In the midst of
this torment the man kicked down the stool which had
supported his feet, so that he hung upon the cords with
his whole weight, which suddenly increased their ten :
sion, and gave indescribable aggravation to his pain.
Next followed a new kind of torment. An instrument
resembling a small ladder, consisting of two parallel
pieces of wood, and five transverse pieces, with the ante
rior edges sharpened, was placed before him, so that
when the tormentor struck it heavily, he received the
stroke, five times multiplied, on each shin-bone, produc
ing pain that was absolutely intolerable ; and under this
he fainted. But no sooner was he revived, than they
inflicted a new torture. The tormentor tied other cords
round his wrists, and, having his own shoulders covered
with leather that they might not be chafed, passed round
them the rope which was to draw the cords, set his feet
against the Avail, threw himself back with all his force,
and the cords cut through to the bones. This he did
thrice, each time changing the position of the cords,
leaving a small distance between the successive wounds ;
but it happened that, in pulling the second time, they
slipped into the first wound, and caused such a gush of
blood, that Orobio seemed to be bleeding to death. A
physician and surgeon, who were in waiting, as usual, to
give their opinion as to the safety or danger of continu
ing those operations, that the inquisitors might not com
mit an irregularity by murdering the patient, were called
in. Being friends of the sufferer, they gave their opin-
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 61
ion that lie had strength enough remaining to bear more.
By this means they saved him from a suspension of the
torture which would have been followed by a repetition,
on his recovery, under the pretext of continuation. The
cords were therefore pulled the third time, and this end
ed the torture. Then he was dressed in his own
clothes, carried back to prison, and, after about seventy
days, when the wounds were healed, condemned as one
suspected of Judaism. They could not say convicted,
because he had not confessed ; but they sentenced him
to wear the sambenito a vestment which we will describe
presently for two years, and then to be banished for
life from Seville."
To describe the many refinements of a purely diaboli
cal cruelty which inquisitors have invented, would fill a
chapter of horrors, and swell this little volume beyond
its limit. They have applied water, perpetually dripping
on the bare head, until it has tormented the sufferer to
madness ; or poured it down his throat, until his stom
ach has been distended, inducing extreme anguish.
They have applied fire, scorching, and almost suffocat
ing, their victim, who has lain before it, bound hand and
foot, in the horror of a lingering death. Thumb-screws
and the rack are proverbial. Enough of torture for the
present chapter. Occasions will occur to refer the reader
to these general statements, and to notice, in particular
cases, some of the diabolical refinements which Eymeric
would have marked as irregular ; but the tormentor be
ing allowed a discretionary power, there is no limit to
the variety of his methods beyond the poverty of his in
vention, or the power of endurance in his patients.
62 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Fugitives and Rebels.
No one who thought himself in danger of inquisitorial
treatment would remain to be taken, if he could escape ;
nor if he were absent, would he return to be thrown into
the dungeons. If the inquisitor caught an ill report of
an absent person, his directory instructed him to wait
with patience, even for a year or two, until the unsus
pecting culprit might return. If he did not corne back,
it would then be his duty to issue a citation, requiring
him to appear within a time fixed ; and if he came not,
and who would come on such a summons ? the in
quisitor was to declare him excommunicate. If he lay
unmoved under the lash of excommunication for one
year, he should be pronounced a rebel.
Or if a person fled, whether he had been convicted on
his own confession, or by witnesses, or had been delated
and summoned to appear, or had been known to favour
heretics, he was to be summoned to present himself be
fore the holy office, under pain of excommunication. At
the expiration of a year from the publication of the anath
ema, he should be condemned as a heretic, on pre
sumption of guilt, although there had never been inqui
sition made. If he were an ecclesiastic, the bishop of
his diocese would give a sentence of degradation ; but
the degraded priest, or the layman, was then to be given
over to the secular arm, by a mandate from the bishop and
inquisitor unitedly. The document would set forth that the
said bishop and inquisitor, having heard an ill report of
him, had " gone down to see and to inquire, whether the ru
mour that had reached their ears were true, and whether
he was walking in darkness or in light." On the testimony
of witnesses they had detected him in heresy. His con-
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 63
fession had confirmed the evidence, and he had consented
to do penance. But, seduced by an evil spirit, shrink
ing from the wine and oil which the Samaritan inquisi
tors wanted to shed upon his wounds, he had broken
prison, the wicked spirit had caught him away, and hid
den him, they knew not where. They had summoned
him to return, by papers put up on many church-doors ;
but, blinded by insane counsel, he had contumaciously
refused to come. They, for their part, obeying the exi
gence of justice, had excommunicated him. He, for
his part, had refused the salutary medicine of their curse ;
and for one full year the malignant spirit had carried
him from place to place, but whither they could not tell.
Mercifully and kindly the holy Church of God had
waited, all that time, to clasp him in her bosom, and
nourish him from the breasts of her clemency ; but he
still refused to come. Then she had invited him to
come in order to receive the sentence due for such con
tumacious heresy ; but, insensible to his mother s clem
ency, he had still refused. Now, their patience being
exhausted, and justice urging for the exaltation of the
Catholic faith, and the extirpation of heresy, in that day,
hour, and place, they gave sentence in the usual manner
leaving him to the secular arm, with the usual deprecation
of injury to life or limb. And the secular and ecclesias
tical authorities were required to seize him, if they could.
He was then to be burnt in effigy ; and if any one, in
endeavouring to apprehend the living man, for the
honour of the Church, should happen unfortunately to
kill him, the homicide, sanctified by a righteous intention,
was to be forgiven. His absence, and default of judicial
defence, did not diminish the power of the sacred tribu
nal to take his life.
64 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Absolution.
It would sometimes happen that the accused person
was as good a " Catholic," as they say, as the inquisitors
themselves. The witnesses could not prove so much as
one suspicious word or deed. After the exhaustion of all
arts, and the application of torture, there had not been a
syllable of confession ; but, on the contrary, the innocence
of the sufferer was manifest. What then ? In such a
case, the inquisitor was to grant a written absolution,
setting forth that, having come down to inquire, &c., &c.,
he had not found any legal proof of guilt, and, therefore,
he fully released him " from the present charge, inquisi
tion, and judgment." But if he had declared him to be
innocent, such a declaration would have made his act in
valid. The Inquisition presumes on guilt, in every case,
but never thinks of innocence. And the inquisitor was
required to avoid every word that might imply formal
justification, in order that a terror might evermore hang
over the person who had been once suspected ; and that
the way might be left open for further prosecution, should
it seem desirable. How unlike an absolution in the
court of heaven ! Nay, how unlike humanity !
Canonical Purgation,
Evil-speaking is not heresy. Ill-natured neighbours,
or dishonest debtors, might whisper that such an one
was a heretic. On this rumour the inquisitors might
found a process ; but, there being an utter want of evi
dence, not even a word whereon to rest suspicion of the
calumniated person, it would become necessary to finish
the case. The report could not be refuted without viola
tion of secret, and discovery of slanderers, to the dis-
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 65
couragement of all the familiars and friends of the holy
office. The slandered person was then required to pro
duce such a number of compurgators as the inquisitors
might choose, and of the class that it pleased them to
prescribe. The compurgators being found, the subject
of calumny was brought into some public place, probably
at the celebration of a sermon, and, after having sworn
tli at he had never fallen into the heresy which report
charged on him, the compurgators were all to come for
ward, and swear that they, from certain knowledge, be
lieved him to be innocent. From that time the com
purgators were held answerable for his religious reputa
tion ; and if he should fall into heresy, would inevitably
share his fate. This made it almost impossible for any
one to find compurgators, at least in sufficient number,
and of the sort required. In this default, he was sen
tenced at once as a heretic, and punished accordingly.
Abjuration.
But even so, it was not often thought expedient to
allow the chance of escape by expurgation. The Inqui
sition classified the degrees of suspicion under three
heads, light, vehement, and violent. The person sus
pected lightly was brought out before the multitude,
made his abjuration, received an order to do penance,
and so obtained release, with an admonition that, if again
suspected, he would fare worse. Abjuration after vehe
ment suspicion was followed by some ignominious pen
ance, such as standing at the church-door on festivals,
and visiting certain sanctuaries. Violent suspicion was
to be visited more severely. Suspicion became violent
when the pleasure of the inquisitors had been, in any way,
66 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
resisted. Numberless circumstances might arise to pro
voke their vengeance on a person whom they had not
even accused of heresy; but whose bearing, in their
litigation with him, served as a pretext for violent sus
picion. Sambenito, and perpetual imprisonment, with
bread and water, were the usual remedies employed for
the health of their " dear son," who was bidden not to
despair ; but, by meek submission, merit indulgence at
some future, but uncertain, time. But, on any second
offence, violent suspicion would be counted equivalent
with proof, and his body would then be burnt for the
salvation of the soul,
CHAPTER V.
LAWS AND CUSTOMS (CONCLUDED).
fines and Confiscation.
HERE is a grave question : it is the himdred-and-fourth
of the knots which Eymeric, the canonists assisting him,
undertook to loose. "May an inquisitor exact the ex
penses from those against whom he proceeds ; and may
he condemn them, by sentence, to pay these expenses ?"
^Respond emus, quod sic, <&c. Assuredly he may, if his
income be narrow, as it generally is, and insufficient for
his office. " Who goeth a warfare any time at his own
charges ?" Most just then, is it, that holy inquisitors,
men devoted to a work so pious, should have whereupon
to subsist ; and none can be so proper to maintain them
as the heretics, for whose benefit they labour. The
customs of countries, indeed, are various, and the methods
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 67
of maintaining the affluence and dignity of the holy office
are diverse ; but, whether its revenue be granted by the
temporal authority, or otherwise obtained, it is most just
that spiritual delinquents should be made to pay. And
as to confiscation of goods, so soon as the inquisitor pro
nounces a sentence of heresy, the life of that sinner ceases
to be his own ; and, therefore, it is no longer possible
that he, already dead, should possess house, or land, or
moveables. The sins of the fathers, too, are to be visited
upon the children ; and, therefore, the children of a here
tic are incapable of any other inheritance than poverty
and infamy. Still, as the Church is always merciful, she
may, of her free grace, take care of the children, binding
the boys as apprentices to a trade, putting out the girls
to service, and even feeding the infant, or the sickly
children ; but she must feed them scantily, that they may
be sensible of the visitation, in their own persons, of their
father s iniquity. As for wives, they share the fortune of
their husbands, unless fidelity to the holy office should
have entitled them to indulgent consideration, after the
perpetual imprisonment, or the fiery death, of their re
jected husbands. The legislation on this point is careful,
diffuse, and somewhat intricate ; but we need not study
it too closely. A penitent, be it noted, cannot have his
property restored. Indigence will be a salutary penance,
and justice demands the pelf in recompense to his con
verters.
Disability and Infamy.
Every man, of whatever estate, loses all office, benefice,
right, and dignity, so soon as he incurs inquisitorial
punishment. His memory is to be accursed. His prog
eny is to be infamous. Some have asked, whether
68 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
children begotten in the time of his innocency, when, as
yet, he had not fallen away from the holy Catholic
Church, are to be involved in the dishonour. The doc
tors have taken this case into consideration, and unani
mously determine that, as the end of punishment is pre
vention of crime, the terror of infamy ought always to be
before the eyes of every parent, in order that natural af
fection, compassion towards children who might suffer
by his fault, may keep his faith right. When a man is
heretical, his sons, his daughters, and their children must
all be infamous ; when a woman, her sons and daughters.
Men need harder binding to the Romish altar. Women
can be held in softer bonds. Offending fathers, be it also
noted, have no more authority at home. They cannot
demand honour or obedience from their children. Of
fending husbands have no more control over their wives,
who are instructed, thenceforth, to forsake the nuptial
bed. Those dutiful women, of course, are honoured by
the fathers of the holy office.
Perpetual Imprisonment.
This is a healthful penance, graciously imposed on all
convicted heretics who have repented satisfactorily, and
have not relapsed. The relapsed are uniformly burnt.
As to the mode of inflicting the penalty of perpetual im
prisonment, it has been various : a solitary dungeon, a
private house hired for that purpose, a monastery.
Sometimes the captive has been maintained by the bishop,
by the Inquisition itself, or by a trifling charge on his
confiscated property. Sometimes he has had to work at
his trade, yet in profound seclusion from all except his
keeper, with an occasional visit of an inquisitor who came
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 69
to ask how lie behaved. Sometimes his friends have
been permitted to visit him ; but this indulgence could
only be allowed when the public were thought free from
heresy, and the inquisitor was in full power. For eccle
siastics, monasteries have been, and still are, the cheapest
and most convenient prisons. Before being indulged
with this commutation of a severer penalty, the heretic
was to make a solemn abjuration at a " sermon," or " act
of faith," in presence of the people. In the days of its
glory, the Inquisition sometimes used to parade the per
petual penitents before the public on feast-days. The
sentence prescribed to be read by the inquisitor was al
most literally the same as one quoted above from the
" Book of Sentences" of the Inquisition of Toulouse. And
here we must stay, for a moment, to speak of prisons in
general.
In civil jurisprudence imprisonment served for cus
tody alone, until the Inquisition enlarged its use, and
made it also penal. But although, in common practice,
the end of justice is attained by the safe custody of an
accused person, and severities, after trial and sentence,
are penal, the canon-law, on the contrary,, makes im
prisonment for custody harder than imprisonment for
penalty. The doctrine and practice of canon-law may
be shortly told.
Clement IV., intent on "the extermination of here
tics," commanded " all the powers of the world, the lords
temporal of provinces, lands, cities, and all other places,"
the diocesan bishops, and the inquisitors of heretical
pravity then deputed, or thereafter to be deputed, from
the Apostolic See, to make inquest, pursue, arrest, and
keep in strait and careful custody those children of
iniquity, despite all appeal or prayer for pity. This you
70 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
may find in the Sext* Decretals, De Hcereticis. The
Council of Vienne, under Clement V., directed that, for
the glory of God, the augmentation of his faith, and the
happier transaction of the business of the Inquisition (eo
prosperetur felicius), bishops and inquisitors, putting
away all fleshly love, hatred, fear, or other temporal
affection, should, by their sole authority, cite, arrest, and
imprison heretics, laying iron manacles upon their hands,
and iron fetters upon their feet. Moreover, they were to
deliver them into hard and strait prison, there to be
examined and, if necessary, put to torture.
Degrees of guilt required correspondent measures of
suffering or degradation in the prison. The palace of
the Inquisition, therefore, or the Holy House, had exten
sive accommodation for all classes of delinquents :
rooms well ventilated, light and air being admitted
through iron grating, and sufficiently large for the occu
pant to move about, with bed, seat, fire-place, and a few
conveniences ; or close, dark cells, with little air, small
space, a heap of straw, no fire-place, and scarcely any
kind of convenience ; or, deeper still, no light, scarcely
space enough to move or stand upright ; a " little-ease,"
a misshapen pit, wherein the living body sank into
the hollow of an inverted cone, and was fed with just
enough to keep up the functions of nature, just to pre
vent death, and no more. Then were added, in due pro
portion of weight and number, those manacles, fetters,
Commonly so called, from the title of the SEXTUS Decre-
talium Liber. It is preceded by the Jive Books of Gregory IX.,
and followed by the Clementines and the Extravagantes. These
constitute the text of canon-law, since enlarged or modified
by whatever is published " under the ring," or " under the
lead/ by successive popes.
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 71
chains, and other contrivances of torment. The sworn
jailor might not speak to the suffering " child of iniquity,"
however summoned. To no call, or entreaty, or sigh, 01-
shriek, was the " faithful and industrious" keeper to give
an answer by word or^ign. No communication, no
respite, no sort of pity ! The inquisitor would come, or
send, when so it pleased him, to put question, tempt
with a promise, or terrify with a threat. The durance
being thus made perfect in solitude and in despair, there
could not be collusion with other criminals, nor corrup
tion of the keepers, nor intelligence from the outer world,
nor chance of any sort for defeating the ends of "justice."
Gradually, from the healthy and convenient chambers,
down into the horrible pit, the " inquisite " who refused
to deny Christ, to discover brethren, or to confess crimes
not committed, was made to descend; and, being still
obstinate, was taken to the rack, or handed over for the
stake.
This discipline, if necessary, having been exhausted,
and yet nothing proven, or if recantation had been
extorted, and, if extorted, thought sufficient, the inquisi
tors might sentence to perpetual imprisonment. And
this imprisonment might be tolerably easy, if, in confine
ment, vexation, and clftgrace, there can be ease. It was
even possible that, after the endurance of some years,
the penalty might cease, and the prisoner become a
penitent at large. Or, if the inquisitor, offended, dis
satisfied, or otherwise moved to severity, so chose, he
might aggravate the hardship of the place, plunge his
victim into the profoundest dungeon, and be only re
stricted to one limit, that he should not deprive him
of life, but keep the breath in his body. If, however,
death should happen, the inquisitor would be held guilty
72 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
of an irregularity ; for which irregularity he must atone,
not by being whipped or strangled, but by mentioning
the matter in secret to a brother inquisitor, and getting
instant absolution from all censure ecclesiastical
Delivery to the secular arm.
The secular arm (brachium sceculare) is the civil
power, subservient to the vengeful pleasure of the eccle
siastical. " Penitents" who repent them of having yielded
to the fear of temporal death, and, to escape the death
eternal, confess Christ again, or persons brought a second
time under accusation; reputed heretics, whose endur
ance is accounted pertinacity ; " negative heretics," who
persist in denying what the inquisitors think they should
confess, there being "full proof" against them; are de
livered over to the secular arm. But the delivery is
conducted with ceremony. " God-fearing men" are sent
by the inquisitors to converse with the doomed offender,
to speak to him of the nothingness of this world, the
miseries of life, and the glories of heaven. They tell
him that, since he cannot escape temporal death, he
ought to be reconciled with God. If he will not heed
their exhortations, he must feel the fire ; but if he will
confess, be absolved, and receiv* the host, the Church
will graciously receive him to her bosom ; and although
he must die for the good of his soul, the secular arm
will strangle him as promptly as possible, that he may
be spared the flames, which, in that case, will but con
sume a dead body, not a living one. This errand of
grace accomplished, the messengers report accordingly,
and the inqisitors tell the magistrate that the person
whom they condemned is ready.
At the time and place appointed, instruments of death
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 73
being prepared, the person to be killed is brought for
ward, himself only, or with others, as we shall presently
show. If a priest, he is degraded according to the
form already described. The inquisitors and others
being in their proper places, a paper is read, containing
a recitation of his case, and concluding thus : " Having
been informed, after all, that you are fallen again into
the same errors, and having examined this information
carefully, we find that you are indeed relapsed. Since,
however, you return again to the bosom of the Church,
abjuring heresy, we grant you the sacraments of penance
and the eucharist which you humbly ask; but holy
mother Church cannot do anything more in your favour,
because you once abused her kindness. Therefore we
declare you relapsed, put you away from the jurisdiction
of the Church, and leave you to the secular judges,
whom we efficaciously beseech (efficaciter deprecantes)
so to moderate their sentence, that no shedding of blood
nor peril of death may follow."
Here, again, is an important question, how the in
quisitors can make this request, at the same time that
they deliver the heretic for the very purpose of having
him killed, and are directed to excommunicate and
punish as a heretic, if they can, the magistrate who shall
refuse to kill him. The difficulties of conscience are in
stantly obviated. First, they have not in so many words
delivered him to the secular arm, but only left him to it :
secondly, the magistrate cannot understand them to
mean that he shall not be killed, whatever they may
say, because it is unlawful to plead or to intercede for a
heretic : thirdly, whatever the magistrate may or may
not understand them to mean, they have pronounced
words of intercession that will effectually save them
4
74 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
from the " irregularity" of shedding blood or killing in
any way. To kill, let us remember, is murder in most
cases; but inquisitors being exempted from the opera
tion of ordinary laws, and never intending to kill any
person, because the Church does not so intend, if it
should happen that any one dies in their hands, not by
their intention, but through his own obstinacy, it being
remotely possible that they might have prevented it,
they have fallen into " irregularity." But this accident
happened in the service of the Church, who, therefore,
empowers them to confess to each other, and to ab
solve each other. When the magistrate kills a heretic,
a schismatic, or a rebel, he does his duty, and they bless
him. But the deed is his, not theirs. They never kill,
except by accident. Excellent Church ! that can so
nicely manage conscience, and so liberally remit the
pains of hell, and so exquisitely absolve from even the
slightest taint of criminality.
It is not necessary to our present purpose to trans-
scribe the various written forms, nor to describe the vari
eties of ceremonial observed in the execution of different
classes of heretics, or prepared for adaptation to diversi
ties of circumstance. One contingency, however, has to
be provided for ; and that is, the apparently sincere re
pentance of a pertinacious heretic when on the verge of
death. On this point Eymeric descants with his accus
tomed coolness, thus : " And while the secular court is
fulfilling its office, a few upright men, zealous for the
faith, may go to the criminal, and exhort him to return
to the Catholic faith, and renounce his errors. And if,
after the sentence is passed, and he is given over to the
secular court, while they are taking him away to be burnt,
or when he is tied to the stake, or when he feels the fire,
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 75
he says that he is willing to turn and repent, and abjure
his heresy, I should think that he might, in mercy, be
received as a heretic penitent, and immured for life, ac
cording to some passages in the Decretals," (which are
cited,) "although I imagine this would not be found
very justifiable, nor is great faith to be placed in con
versions of the sort. And, indeed, such an occurrence
took place in Barcelona, where three heretics impenitent,
but not relapsed, were delivered to the secular arm, and
when one of them, a priest,* had the fire lit round him,
and was already half burnt on one side, he begged to
be taken out, and promised to abjure and repent. He
was taken out, and abjured. But whether we did right
or not, I cannot say. One thing I know, that fourteen
years afterwards he was accused, and found to have per
sisted in his heresy all the time, and infected many. He
then refused to be converted; and, as one impenitent
and relapsed, was again delivered to the secular arm,
and consumed in fire." Consumed in fire, of course,
that being the natural punishment of heretics, from its
resemblance to hell, and according to the saying of our
During the pontificate of Benedict XII., which was from
the year 1334 to 1342, a sect of Beghards, as Eymeric calls
them, sprang up in Catalonia. We only hear of them by the
report of their enemies ; but the fact now before us indicates
something far more vigorous than heresy. Fray Bononato, ac
cording to our informant, was the leader of those Spanish dissi
dents. It was he whom they bound to the stake at Barcelona.
He repented of the recantation, and resumed his ministra
tions in secret. A congregation assembled in a private house
in Villa Franca, a town between Barcelona and Tarragona,
but it was discovered ; his " accomplices," as they were called,
were thrown with him into the flames, and the house was
rased to the ground. (Direct. Tnquis., p. 266.)
76 THE BRAND OP DOMINIC.
Lord, " If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a
branch, and is withered, and men gather them, and
cast them into the fire, and they are burned." And the
impenitent having been burned in presence of the civil
authorities and a great multitude of people, who have
been edified by this lively image of the last judgment,
the inquisitor or bishop proclaims a general indulgence
from the flames of purgatory to as many as took any
part in the solemnities of the day, even as spectators
only, or had in any way assisted the holy office in their
labour of love.
As for those who have betaken themselves to flight, and
refused to return to be punished in their proper persons,
their effigies are handed over to the civil magistracy to be
burnt, in signification of the punishment awarded to
them, as rebels, and awaiting them, if they should be
caught.
r>
Subjects of Inquisitorial Jurisdiction.
The tribunal claims right of jurisdiction over the fol
lowing persons. All heretics without exception. All
who blaspheme God and the saints. They who utter
words of blasphemy when extremely drunk are not to
be condemned at once, but watched. If half drunk,
they are entirely guilty. They who speak blasphe
mously or heretically in their sleep are to be watched ;
for it is likely that their lips betrayed the heresy that
was lurking in their heart. All who speak jestingly of
sacred things. Wizards and fortune-tellers. Worship-
pel s of the devil : and it seems that, while the Inquisi
tion was in its glory, and the Reformation had scarcely
dawned, people were known to offer sacrifices to the Evil
One, kneel down to him, sing hymns to him, observe
LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 77
chastity and fast in honour of him, illuminate and cense
his images, insert names of devils in the litanies of saints,
and ask them to intercede with God. Such was the
condition of many who had known no other Church on
earth but that of Rome! But to return. They who
called on Satan to do his proper works of mischief were
not guilty of heresy, according to some doctors, if they
commanded him ; but were guilty if they besought him.
They might command, without much impropriety, (we
should say,) one who had rendered so long and so faith
fully his best service to their Church. To accept that
service is not heresy. Astrologers and alchemists. Infidels
and Jews : for, although Jews are not subject to the Church,
according to the saying of St. Paul, that he did not judge
them that were without, Jews become subject if they speak
against Christianity ; for, in so doing, they commit an
ecclesiastical offence. The Church may avenge her own
quarrel ; she cannot avenge that of Christ. All who
harbour, or show kindness to, heretics, being themselves
orthodox ; very near relatives, however, having slight
indulgence allowed them, in some cases, if the inquisi
tors so please. All who look ill on an inquisitor, those
ugly looks being indications of heresy, and injurious to
the holy office. Experienced inquisitors could detect a
heretic by a characteristic unsightliness about his eyes
and nostrils. Persons in civil office who hinder, or who
refuse to help, the Inquisition and its agents, or who
help or allow an accused person to conceal himself, or to
escape. Any one who gives food to a heretic, except he
be actually dying with hunger ; for, in that case it is
allowable to feed him, that he may live to take his trial,
and, haply, to be converted.
The general reader has now before him a sufficiently
78 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
distinct sketch of the science, and the practice too, of
inquisition and punishment of heresy. Those whose
taste or whose duty may lead them to study this branch
of Romish legislation are referred to Eymeric himself, or
to Farinacius, a Roman jurisconsult, whose folio saw the
light in Rome about thirty years later, and was also cir
culated throughout Europe for the instruction of that
host of practitioners which had spread itself over every
province of the popedom, with or without the name of
inquisitor. We now proceed to mark the progress of
the " Holy Office " in those countries where it was for
mally established, and shall then give our attention to
the present state of the same tribunal.
CHAPTER VI.
FRANCE.
WITHIN a very short chapter may be compendiated the
history of the French Inquisition. After the crusade
preached by Bernard, and headed by such princes as
could be persuaded to engage in it, from time to time,
Gregory IX. wrote a letter, still extant, to the minister
of the friars minors in Navarre, and to the master of
the friars preachers in Pamplona, reminding them that
he had given the sword of the word of God into their
hands, which, according to the sentence of the prophet,
they were not to keep back from blood ; but, after the
example of Phinehas, "zealot of the Catholic faith,"
were to proceed against them, and, if necessary, (si opus
fuerit,) were to call in the help of the secular arm.
FRANCE. 79
They, the monks, might kill if they could ; that is to
say, if they could get the faithful to renew the crusade ;
but, if not, the fire of mad fanaticism being nearly spent,
were to call in the secular power to kill for them.
Strange it is, then, that, in the face of this epistle, which
any one who can read Latin may peruse in Bzovius,
(A. D. 1235,) any one should dare to say that the Inqui
sition was established to prevent the people from killing
the heretics, and to substitute a humane court, thrifty of
life, in order to save the Albigenses from being slaugh
tered. On the contrary, the two inquisitors are
exhorted to " cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war."
But the dogs, were by that time glutted ; and it be
came, indeed, necessary to call in royal authority to do
the work. Obedient to the summons, Louis IX. (Saint
Louis) prayed Alexander IV. to establish inquisitors
over all his realm. The fiction of a secular origin to the
sanguinary scheme thus received some colour ; and the
prior of the Dominicans at Paris was invested with au
thority to be inquisitor-general of the whole kingdom of
France and the county of Toulouse. How that Inquisi
tion proceeded, we have learned in a preceding chapter
from the " Book of Sentences," archived at Toulouse ;
and, if Papal authorities could have prevailed over all
other, the Gallican Church would soon have been laid
prostrate under their feet, as is evident from the in
stances already cited. The clergy, however, resisted the
Roman innovation ; and, when Frenchmen fled from
their dwellings through fear of the Inquisition, the priests
allowed them to take refuge in the churches, where, by
right of asylum, they were safe. Nicholas IV., indeed,
willing to sacrifice anything to the reigning passion for
destroying heresy, gave a bull empowering the officers
80 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
of the new institution to drag fugitives from the altars,
and, in so doing, to set at naught one of the proudest,
yet most unreasonable and even dangerous, privileges of
the Church herself. For a time, no doubt, sanctuary
was broken ; no consideration of humanity or of sanc
tity could suffice to shield a suspected person from the
rage of his pursuer ; but the relations of the civil and
ecclesiastical jurisdictions, and the rights of the bishops
and archbishops to an independent administration within
their own provinces, were too closely studied, and too
earnestly contended for, to allow the pontiffs to exercise,
by their delegates, the inquisitors, an absolute power
even over heretics. The ecclesiastical history of France
is full of controversy between Church and state, and be
tween the clergy and their alien pontiff; and, from this
complication of interests, it resulted that the Inquisition,
as a permanent court, is less conspicuous there than in
some other countries, and that civil officers and dragoons
did in France what familiars have done elsewhere.
During four or five centuries the contending powers of
the Inquisition and the king or parliament, or both king
and parliament united, found an alternate ascendancy,
each change of position depending on the usual efforts
of intrigue, or interest, or force. At one time we find
Philip the Fair subjecting Fulco, a blood-thirsty inquisitor
in Aquitaine, to an inquest by commissioners, and re
quiring heretics to be sent to royal prisons, and not to
the dungeons of the " Holy House," and to be released
forthwith, unless the seneschal concurs in the prosecu
tion. But Philip is excommunicated, and France put
under interdict. Then heresy, so called, spreads. Greg
ory XL urges King Charles V. to issue edicts, and send
commissioners, to hold up the falling Inquisition. The
FRANCE. 81
obedient king hastens to prove bis loyalty to Rome,
thunders threatenings, despatches auxiliaries to the ser
geants of the faith, crams the royal jails with suspected
people, and causes new prisons to be built and filled, in
order that nothing may be wanting to preserve the faith.
Still the spark of truth smoulders in the ashes of the
martyrs, the breath of reformation quickens it after long
darkness, and another missive from Clement VII. renews
inquisitorial severities. But when a successor in the
popedom, Paul IV., repeats the experiment of a bull to
revive the Inquisition again, the parliament of Paris re
fuses to register it ; and, by that refusal, its power is an
nulled. But popes and their abettors laugh at parlia
ments when it seems possible to laugh with impunity ;
and, after this rebuff (A. D. 1559), when continental Eu
rope is mad against the Reformation which appears,
just in the last year of .Mary, to have been crushed in
England Henry II., advised by Cardinal Caraffa, pur
poses to establish the Inquisition with new formality in
France, in imitation of Philip of Spain. His ministers,
however, dissuade him from an attempt which may raise
a civil war; and he is content to ask for a prelate or
doctor to be delegated from the Pope to conduct an am
bulatory tribunal, disguised under some other name, but
effecting the same purpose.
In the beginning of the seventeenth century, there
fore, we find that portion of the canon-law which relates
to this department of government enforced in Spain ;
and the Directory of Farinacius, the latest guide print
ed in Rome, was then published in France, under the di
rect sanction of Louis XIII., to serve, of course, as a
guide to the inquisitors, who persisted in exercising their
vocation. But early in the reign of his successor, Louis
82 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
XIV., when a nuncio of Innocent X. presumed to con
demn a tract written in France in opposition to a decree
of the Congregation of the Holy Office in Rome, the
parliament of Paris arose in indignation, and declared
that the congregations of the court of Rome had no jur
isdiction within France, nor had the Pope any right to
publish such decrees. This disagreement grew into a
formal controversy concerning the relative rights of the
king and of the Pope, until, in the year 1682, the high
clergy sided with the crown ; and, at their assembly in
Paris, made the memorable declaration, that they had
power to manage their own affairs independently of the
Roman See. After this the Inquisition, although desired
by some politicians to be retained as an engine of regal
government, could no more exist. The Gallican clergy,
at that moment half emancipated, gave a solemn judg
ment that kings hold their authority independently of
popes, who cannot justly have any p ower over them.
The Supreme Council of the Spanish Inquisition, on the
other side, launched a censure condemning this propo
sition of the assembly of the French clergy as heretical ;
but their interference was regarded with contempt.
Yet the same clergy that maintained a principle without
which no nation can be safe, were at the height of rage
against the Huguenots; and the parliament of Paris,
and the provincial parliaments, were carrying on as hor
rible a persecution as the world ever saw. The dragon-
nades were filling France with slaughter; persecution
culminated in the revocation of the edict of Nantes, in
the third year after the publication of the famous "Four
Articles" of the metropolitan assembly ; and the French
history of that time tells, in every sentence, what uni
versal history confirms, that, without the truth of Chris-
SPAIN THE MODERN INQUISITION ESTABLISHED. 83
tianity and the love of Christ, ecclesiastical independence
and national dignity are but a mockery. And it is cer
tain that the Gallican clergy would never have opposed
the Inquisition, if the courts of Paris and Rome had not
been at variance on a question of temporal emolument
and regal or pontifical prerogative.
CHAPTER VII.
SPAIN THE MODERN INQUISITION ESTABLISHED.
"BETTER and happier luck* for Spain was the estab
lishment which took place in Castile, about this time, of
a new and holy tribunal of severe and grave judges, for
the purpose of making inquest and chastising heretical
pravity and apostasy, diverse from the bishops, on whose
charge and authority this office was anciently incumbent.
For this intent the Roman pontiffs gave them power and
authority, and order ivas given that the princes, with
their favour and their arm, should help them. These
judges were called inquisitors, because of the office which
they exercised of hunting out and making inquest, a
custom now very general in other provinces, as in Italy,
France, Germany, and even in the kingdom of Arragon.
Castile, henceforth, w r ould not suffer any nation to go be-
It is the father Juan de Mariana, of the Company of
Jesus, who here speaks. It is hut fair that admirers of the
Inquisition should speak in these pages, which are furnished
chiefly from their own lawyers and original historians. If
" luck" be a heathenish word, the fault lies in the Spanish
suerte, for which the translator cannot find a better English
representative.
84 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
yond her in the desire which she always had to punish
such enormous and wicked excesses. We find mention,
before this, of some inquisitors who exercised this office,
at least for a time, but not in the manner and force of
those who followed them.
" The chief author and instrument of this very salutary
grant was the Cardinal of Spain," (Mendoza,) " who had
seen that, in consequence of the great liberty of past
years, and from the mingling of Moors and Jews with
Christians in all sorts of conversation and trade, many
things went out of order in the kingdom. With that
liberty it was impossible that some Christians should not
be infected : many more, leaving the religion which they
had voluntarily embraced as converts from Judaism,
again apostatized and returned to their old superstition,
an evil which prevailed in Seville more than in any
other part. In that city, therefore, secret searches were
first made, and they severely punished those whom they
found guilty. If their delinquency was considerable,
after having kept them a long time imprisoned, and after
having tormented them, they burnt them. If it was
light, they punished the offenders with the perpetual dis
honour of all their family. Of not a few they confiscated
the goods, and condemned them to imprisonment for life.
On most of them they put a sambenito* which is a sort
of scapulary of yellow colour, with a red St. Andrew s
cross, that they might go marked among their neigh
bours, and bear a signal that should affright and scare
by the greatness of the punishment and of the dis
grace ; a plan which experience has shown to be very
salutary, although, at first, it seemed very grievous to the
natives.
SAMBENITO. Saco bendito, or " blessed sack \"
SPAIN THE MODERN INQUISITION ESTABLISHED. 85
" What caused most surprise was, that the children
should pay for the crimes of their parents ; that the ac
cuser should not be known nor made known, nor con
fronted with the accused, nor that there should be any
publication of witnesses ; which was all contrary to what
had ever been observed in other tribunals. Besides this,
it seemed to them a new thing, that sins of that kind
should be punished with death ; and, worst of all, that by
those secret huntings out, they were deprived of the lib
erty of hearing and speaking among themselves, since
they had in cities, towns, and villages persons appointed
to give notice of all that passed a thing which some
regarded as a most heavy servitude, and bad as death.
Hence there were various opinions. Some thought that
such delinquents ought not to be punished with death ;
but, this excepted, they confessed that it was just for
them to be chastised with some other kind of punish
ment. Among others of this opinion was Hernando de
Pulgar, a person of acute and elegant genius, whose -his
tory of the affairs and life of the King Don Fernando"
(Ferdinand) "is in print. Others, whose opinion was
better, and more to the point, judged that those were
not worthy of life who dared to violate religion, and
to change the most holy ceremonies of their fathers ;
but that they ought to be punished and put to death,
with forfeiture of goods and infamy, without caring for
their children. For it is well provided by the laws, that,
in some cases, children should bear the punishment of
their fathers, in order that love towards their own chil
dren may make them more careful; that by the judg
ment being secret, many calumnies, tricks and frauds be
avoided ; that none be punished except those who con
fess their crime," (imprisonment and the torture, whereby
86 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
confession is extorted, being no punishment in the eye
of this holy tribunal,} " or are clearly convicted of it :
and that sometimes the ancient customs of the Church
be changed, according to what the times may require.
And since liberty in sinning is greater, it is just that the
severity of the punishment should be greater also. The
event has shown this to be true, and the advantages are
larger than could have been expected.
" That these judges might not make an ill use of the
great power given to them, neither by bribery nor op
pression, very good laws and instructions" (of which the
reader has now some knowledge) " were prepared from
the beginning, and time and larger experience have given
rise to many more. What makes more to the purpose
is, that for this office are sought persons of mature age,
very upright and very holy, (!) chosen out of all the prov
ince, as those into whose hands are placed the estates,
honour, and life of all the natives. At that time was
nominated for inquisitor-general Fray Tomas de Torque-
mada, of the order of St. Dominic, a very prudent and
learned person, and who had much influence with the
king and queen," (Ferdinand and Isabella,) " from being
their confessor, and prior of the monastery of his order in
Segovia. At first he had only authority in the kingdom
of Castile ; four years later it was extended into Arragon.
Here they removed from the office, which they were
there discharging after the ancient manner, the inquisitors
Fray Cristobal Gualbes, and the Master Ortes, of the
same order of preachers. The said chief inquisitor, at
first, sent his commissaries to various places as occasions
presented themselves, not having as yet any fixed tribunal.
In latter years the chief inquisitor, with five persons of
the Supreme.Council in the court," (Madrid,) " where are
SPAIN" MODERN INQUISITION ESTABLISHED. 8*7
the other supreme tribunals, manages the most grave
matters touching religion. Causes of lesser moment,
and affairs of first instance, are in charge of each two or
three inquisitors, stationed in the different cities. The
towns where the inquisitors now reside (A.D. 1623) are
Toledo, Cuenca, Murcia, Valladolid, Santiago, Logrono,
Sevilla, Cordova, Granada, Llerena; and under the
crown of Arragon Valencia, Zaragoza, and Barcelona.
" The said chief inquisitor published edicts wherein he
offered pardon to all who would present themselves of
their own accord. With this hope they say, that seven
teen thousand persons, of both sexes and of all ages and
ranks, were reconciled, two thousand persons burnt, and
a larger, but uncounted number, fled into neighbouring
countries. From this beginning the establishment has
risen into so great authority and power, that there is not
another in all the world more terrible to the wicked, nor
more useful to Christendom ; a very opportune remedy
for all the evils that were impending, and with which
other countries were troubled shortly afterwards ; a gift
from heaven, without which, no doubt, the wisdom and
prudence of men would have been insufficient to prevent
or bring succour amidst perils so great as we have ex
perienced, and still are experiencing in other parts."
Historia General de Espana, libro xxiv, capitulo 17.
Setting aside the eulogy of this priest, we have ac
cepted his compendium of a long and wearisome tale, as
very characteristic of the Inquisition and of Spain. But
the instructions of Torquemada and the constitution of
the Supreme Council deserve a more distinct recital.
As for the council, it was at first a compromise ; but
forthwith became a veritable combination of the regal and
ecclesiastical jurisdictions for the extirpation of heresy,
88 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
with a predominance, however, of the latter. To establish
this statement, and show the spirit of Rome, as exempli
fied in the Inquisition, we must relate the facts. By a
bull of Gregory IX., dated May 26th, 1232, Dominican
friars were appointed inquisitors in Arragon ; and from
that time inquisition of heretical pravity went onward in
the four kingdoms of Arragon, Navarre, Castile, and Por
tugal, Granada being in possession of the Moors. No
inconsiderable part of the Spanish population consisted
of Jews, or persons recently converted from Judaism to
the Romish Church. They were the most industrious,
and therefore the most wealthy, people in the country,
and had risen to a position of extensive influence. Their
learned men occupied stations of great importance, as
physicians, agents of government, and even officers of
state ; while the " New Christians," or Jews professedly
converted to Christianity, were intermarried with the
highest families in Spain ; and all this had taken place
in spite of the enmity of the clergy, popular bigotry, and
the adverse legislation of cortes or parliaments in the
several kingdoms. But the wealth which procured the
Jews and New Christians their social influence, was at
the same time an occasion of great suffering. The " Old
Christians," less industrious, and therefore not so affluent,
were frequently their debtors. And although usury was
checked, and debts often repudiated, the Jews maintained
the usual advantage of creditors ; but the Christians of
pure blood, finding themselves involved in long reckon
ings, became increasingly impatient, and, under a cloak
of zeal for the " Catholic" religion, were incessantly em
broiling them with the magistracy, or stirring up the
populace against them. Llorente estimates the number
of Jews who perished in the streets, under the fury of
SPAIN MODERN INQUISITION ESTABLISHED. 89
mobs, at upwards of one hundred thousand in the year
1391. To evade persecution, multitudes submitted to be
baptized. More than a million changed name in the
fourteenth century. After those tumults, controversial
preachers, such as San Vicente Ferrer, declaimed for
Popery against Judaism ; and, in the first ten years of
tbe fifteenth century, a second multitude of converts threw
themselves under shelter of the Church, to the dis
couragement of their brethren, and to their own per
plexity at last ; for they were placed under the keenest
vigilance of the inquisitors, without being able to display
any honest attachment to the Church whose most griev
ous yoke they had put on.
Then the Church gloried over the declension of Juda
ism. In presence of Benedict XIIL, anti-pope, a Span
iard, then wandering in Spain, because he was not owned
at Rome, a formal disputation was carried on for sixty-
nine days, between Jerome of Santa Fe, and other con
verts, (or, as the Jews not unreasonably called them,
apostates,) on the one side, and a company of rabbis on
the other. Such a controversy, in the presence of even
a half-pope, could only come to the prescribed conclusion ;
and after seeing persuasion and corruption exhausted to
bring over the Hebrews to his sect, but without much
success, Benedict abruptly closed the debate, pronounced
them vanquished, and gave them notice of severer
measures. The richer from interest, the poorer from
bigotry, and the priesthood from instinct, poured con
tempt even on the proselytes, whom they classified ac
cording to their supposed degrees of heterodoxy. Some
were called converts, to note the newness of their Chris
tianity. Others had the title of confessed, to tell that
they had confessed that Judaism was false. Sometimes
90 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
they passed under the epithet of marranos, from maran
atha, or, as the Spaniards misinterpreted the words,
accursed. The whole were spoken of as a generation cf
marranos, or were branded with that worst of names,
which means all evil that can be concentrated in the im
agination of a Papist Jews. Goaded by this ungener
ous persecution, the proselytes groaned for deliverance ;
a few even dared to renounce the profession of a faith they
had never held, and many resumed the practice of Jewish
rites in private. This opened a new field to the zeal of
the inquisitors ; but the labour of suppressing a revolt so
widely spread, so rapidly extending, and even infecting
the Romish families with whom the unsound converts
were united, was more than the inquisitors could under
take without recruited forces, and a more perfectly or
ganized tribunal.
While matters stood thus with the Old Christians, the
New, and the remnant of unperverted Jews, Ferdinand
and Isabella made progress in reconquering the kingdom
of Granada. And as Mohammedanism fell in the south
of Spain, the Moriscoes, a middle class, not less danger
ous to the purity of Romish faith than the Jewish con
verts, absorbed the care of a new body of inquisitors, who
were anxious to watch over that uneasy population. No
other country in popedom was at that time more deeply
imbued with disaffection to the worship and doctrines of
the Church of Rome.
At this juncture one Fra Filippo de Barberi, a Sicilian
inquisitor, came to the court of Ferdinand and Isabella
(A. D. 1477), who were now the rulers of that island, to
solicit the confirmation of some privileges recently granted
to the holy office there ; and, having observed the
anxieties and peril of the Church within the enlarged
SPAIN MODERN INQUISITION ESTABLISHED. 91
and united dominions of the " Catholic sovereigns," under
whose rule nearly all Spain was comprehended, advised
that the creation of one undivided court, constituted
and acting like that of Sicily, would be the only means
of deliverance from the Marranos, Moriscoes, Jews, and
Mussulmans. The hint was quickly taken. The Do
minicans first of all, and after them the dignitaries of the
secular clergy, crowded around the throne to pray for a
reformation of the Inquisition after the Sicilian model.
They appealed, directly, to the covetousness of Ferdinand,
by offering him the proceeds of confiscations which
would be rapidly effected, in pursuance of the laws of
their Church to that intent provided. They appealed to
the piety of Isabella, and were careful that tales of
Jewish murders and Jewish desecrations should be in
vented, and poured incessantly into the royal ear. Fer
dinand had no scruple, and sincerely prayed the Pope to
sanction such a movement ; and swiftly as couriers could
bring it, came the desired bull. The queen could not
reprove the zeal of the priests and monks ; for she, too,
was zealous. She could not gainsay the authoritative
urgency of the nuncio, a bitter bigot. She could not
quench, in the bosom of her husband, the thirst of gold.
But she had brought him half his kingdom as her
dower, and by that accession he had been able to con
quer great part of Granada. To her conscience and
judgment some deference was therefore due, and she
was allowed to try gentler measures. During two or
three years her orator and her confessor wrote books,
and preachers were permitted to publish arguments, and
disputants to enter into conferences, for the conviction of
the Jews. Cardinal Mendoza published a constitution in
Seville (A. D. 1478), containing "the form which should
92 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
be observed with a Christian, from the day of his birth
as well in the sacrament of baptism as in all other
sacraments which he ought to receive, and of what he
should be taught, and ought to do and believe as a
faithful Christian, every day, and at all times of his life,
until the day of his death. And he ordered this to be
published in all the churches of the city, and put in
tables in each parish, as a settled constitution. And also
of what the curates and clerks should teach their
parishioners, and what the parishioners should observe
and show to their children." Thus does Hernando del
Pulgar, in his chronicle of the greater part of the reign of
the Catholic sovereigns, describe what some too hastily
call a catechism. It was merely a standard of things to
be believed and things to be done, set forth by authority,
read from the altar, and hung up in the church, not at
all resembling the familiar compositions now called cate
chisms. The king and queen also not the cardinal
commanded "some friars, clerks, and other religious
persons to teach the people." But no honest Jew could
be convinced that idolatry is not damnable ; and even
the more hopeful issues of controversy with the vacilla
ting or the ignorant were not faithfully reported. The
clergy maintained, that conversion by argument was im
possible ; and, at their instance, the bull, hitherto kept
in reserve, was at length published in 1480.
The question of humanity was ended ; but another
question of policy remained. The king and queen
remembered that they, .as well as the Pope, had an
interest in Spain; but they scarcely knew how that
interest could be guarded, if the inquisitors were allowed
absolute power over the persons and the property of their
subjects. To have demanded, like Venice, lay-assessors
SPAIN MODERN INQUISITION ESTABLISHED. 93
and open inquest, might have been reasonable, sup
posing that an Inquisition were, in any shape, com
patible with reason and religion, but to have made
such a demand of the See of Rome, then more powerful
than it had been for ages, would only provoke a quarrel,
and enable that court to arm the rest of Europe against
the newly united, but not yet consolidated, monarchy of
the Spanish peninsula. A milder proposal was therefore
made, and one which involved nothing that could offend
the Pope : and this was, that some priests nominated by
the king should be associated with some priests nomi
nated by the Pope; or that the king should name all,
and the Pope confirm his nomination. The " Catholic
sovereigns" calculated that nominees of Rome would, of
course, prefer the rights of the Church to those of the
crown, for such men could only represent an alien
power; but they fancied, or they wished to fancy, that
priests of their own choice would prefer their interests to
those of strangers. This was an illusion, and therefore
Rome made little difficulty; and after correspondence,
and some changes, the Supreme Council of the Spanish
Inquisition was constituted thus :
Friar Tomas de Torquemada, Inquisitor- General, of
whom Llorente says that it was hardly possible that
there could have been another equally able to fulfil the
intentions of King Ferdinand, in multiplying confisca
tions ; those of the court of Rome, in propagating their
jurisdiction al and pecuniary maxims; and those of the
projectors of the Inquisition, to infuse terror into the
people, by means of acts of faith : two jurisconsults,
Juan Gutierrez de Chabes and Tristan de Medina, asses
sors : Don Alonso Carrillo, a bishop elect, with Sancho
Velasquez de Cuellar and Poncio de Valencia, doctors
94 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
of civil law, were the king s counsellors. In matters
relating to royal power they were to have a definitive
vote; but in affairs of spiritual jurisdiction, they could
only be suffered to offer an opinion, inasmuch as all
spiritual power resided in the chief inquisitor alone.
Within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Council were four
subaltern tribunals, and eventually others were added, as
we have stated from Mariana ; some inquisitors, holding
special powers from the Pope, being stripped of their
independence, that the one court might have a uniform
and universal action throughout Spain. As the tribunal
advanced in labour and experience, the Supreme Council
was enlarged ; and, in the middle of the last century,
consisted, according to Miravel, of a president, (inquisi
tor-general for the time being,) six counsellors with the
title of apostolic, a fiscal, a secretary of the chamber,
two secretaries of the council, an alguazil-in-ehief, or
sheriff, one receiver, two reporters, four apparitors, one
solicitor, and as many consulters as circumstances might
require. Of course they were maintained in a style
worthy of their office. The inquisitor-general exerted
an absolute power over every one of His Catholic Ma
jesty s subjects, so that he almost ceased to be himself a
subject. He alone consulted with the king concerning
the appointment of inquisitors to preside over the pro
vincial tribunals which have been enumerated above.
Each of those inferior Inquisitions was managed by three
inquisitors, two secretaries, one under-sheriff, one re
ceiver, and a certain number of triers and consulters.
Their functions were considerably restricted, leaving all
capital cases and ultimate decisions in the hands of the
Madrid " Supreme."
SPAIN TRIUMPHS OF THE INQUISITORS. 95
CHAPTER VIII.
SPAIN TRIUMPHS OF THE INQUISITORS.
BUT while Ferdinand, Isabella, Torquemada, and the
nuncio were adjusting their plans, and preparing death for
heretics, what said Spain ? Neither clergy nor laity were
content. After the bull of Sixtus IV., empowering the
king to name inquisitors furnished with absolute authority,
and to remove them at pleasure, had arrived, but lay un
published, in consequence of the queen s repugnance, a
provincial synod assembled at Seville, where the court
then was (A. D. 1478). Had Castile desired the Inquisi
tion, the deputies would have said so; but so far were
they from approving of the new tribunal, to which every
bishop would be subject, but where no bishop would
any longer have a voice, that they passed over the affair
of heresy in silence, not consenting to accept the Inquisi
tion, yet not presuming to remonstrate. Then would
have been their time to add their power to that of the
sovereign, for the suppression of adverse doctrine ; and
so they would most probably have done, if inquisitor and
bishop, as in the first Inquisition of Toulouse, were to
exercise a co-ordinate jurisdiction ; but they saw, with
alarm, that the Episcopate was, at a stroke, despoiled of
its authority. A few months before the publication of
the bull, but long after every person in Spain knew the
purport of its contents, and the certainty that it would
be carried into execution, the cortes of Toledo met ; but,
instead of avoiding any act that would interfere with the
jurisdiction then to be introduced, they made several
provisions for separating Jews and Christians, by the
96 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
enclosure of Jewries in the towns, and for compelling
the former to wear a peculiar garb, and abstain from exer
cising, among Christians, the vocations of physician, sur
geon, innkeeper, barber, or apothecary. The parliament
plainly ignored the Inquisition in making this enact
ment.
And what said the magistracy and the people ? Seville
represented the general state of feeling at the time.
There, when a company of inquisitors presented them
selves, conducted by men and horses, which had been
impressed for the purpose by royal order, the civil au
thorities refused to help them, notwithstanding the in
junctions of the bull, the obligations of canon-law, and
a mandate from the crown. The new inquisitors found
themselves unable to act for want of help ; the objects
of their mission forsook the city, and found shelter in the
neighbouring districts ; and Ferdinand had to issue spe
cific orders, to counteract the hostility of all classes, and
to compel the magistrates to assist the new inquisitors.
Thus fortified, they took up their abode in the Do
minican convent of St. Paul, and issued their first man
date (January 2d, 1481). They said that they were
aware of the flight of the New Christians ; and com
manded the Marquis of Cadiz, the Count of Arcos, and
all the dukes, marquises, counts, gentlemen, rich-men
(ricos-homes), and others, of the kingdom of Castile, to
arrest the fugitives, and send them to Seville within a
fortnight, sequestrating their property. All who failed
to do this were to be excommunicated as abettors of
heresy, deposed from their dignities, and deprived of
their estates; and their subjects were to be absolved from
homage and obedience. Crowds of fugitives were driven
back into Seville, bound like felons ; the dungeons and
SPAIN TRIUMPHS OF THE INQUISITORS. 97
apartments of the convent overflowed with prisoners ;
and the king assigned to the "new and holy tribunal"
the castle of Triana, on the opposite bank of the Guadal
quivir, to be a place of custody. And the inquisitors,
elate with triumph over the reluctant magistrates and
panic-stricken people, shortly afterwards erected a tablet,
with an inscription, to commemorate the first establish
ment of the modern Inquisition in western Europe. The
concluding sentences of this inscription were : " May God
grant that, for the protection and augmentation of the
faith, it may abide unto the end of time ! Arise, Lord,
judge thy cause ! Catch ye the foxes !"
Their second edict was one of " grace." It summoned
all who had apostatized, to present themselves to the in
quisitors within a term appointed, promising that all who
did so, with true contrition and purpose of amendment,
should be exempted from confiscation of their property,
it was understood that they should be punished in some
other way, but threatening that if they allowed that
term to pass over without repentance, they should be
dealt with according to the utmost rigour of the law.
Many ran to that convent of St. Paul, hoping to merit
some small measure of indulgence. But the inquisitors
would not absolve them until they had disclosed the
names, calling, residence, and description of all others
whom they had seen, heard, or understood to have
apostatized in like manner. And, after all, they bound
them to secrecy. This first object being accomplished,
they sent out a third monition, requiring all who knew
any that had apostatized into the Jewish heresy, to inform
against them, within six days, under the usual penalties.
But they had already marked the men ; and those sus
pected converts suddenly saw the apparitors within theii
5
98 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
houses, and were dragged away to the dungeons. New
Christians who had preserved any of the familiar usages
of their forefathers, such as putting on clean clothes on
Saturdays, who stripped the fat from beef or mutton,
who killed poultry with a sharp knife, covered the blood,
and muttered a few Hebrew words, who had eaten flesh
in Lent, blessed their children, laying hands upon their
heads, who observed any peculiarity of diet, or distinction
of feast or fast, mourned for the dead after their ancient
manner, or even presumed to turn the face towards a
wall when in the agony of death ; all such were suspected
of apostasy, and to be punished accordingly. Thirty-six
elaborate articles were furnished, whereby every one was
instructed how to ensnare his neighbour. But what shall
we say of a faith that could only be preserved by the
extinction of charity, of honour, of pity, and of humanity ?
Llorente shall describe the issue.
" Such opportune measures for multiplying victims
could not but produce the desired effect. Hence, on the
Gth of January, 1481, there were burnt six unhappy per
sons, sixteen on the 26th of March, many on the 21st
of April, and by the 4th of November two hundred and
ninety-eight. Besides these, the inquisitors condemned
seventy -nine to perpetual imprisonment. And all this
in the city of Seville only, since, as regards the territories
of this archbishopric, and of the bishopric of Cadiz, Juan
de Mariana says, that in the single year of 1481, two
thousand Judaizers were burnt in person, and very many
in effigy, of whom the number is not known, besides
seventeen thousand subjected to penance. Among those
burnt were many principal persons and rich inhabitants,
whose property went into the treasury.
" As so many persons were to be put to death by fire,
SPAIN TRIUMPHS OF THE INQUISITORS. 99
the Governor of Seville caused a permanent raised pave
ment, or platform of masonry, to be constructed outside
the city, which has lasted to our time," (until the French
invasion, if not later,) " retaining its name of Quemadero,
or Burning-place, and at the four corners four large
hollow statues of limestone, within which they used to
place the impenitent alive, that they might die by slow
fires. I leave my readers to consider whether this pun
ishment of an error of the understanding was agreeable,
or not, to the doctrine of the gospel.
" The fear of others of the same class caused an in
numerable multitude of New Christians to emigrate to
France, Portugal, and even Africa. But many others,
whose effigies had been burnt, appealed to Rome, com
plaining of the injustice of those proceedings ; in conse
quence of which appeals the Pope wrote, on the 29th of
January, 1482, to Ferdinand and Isabella, saying that
there were innumerable complaints against the inquisitors,
Fray Miguel Morillo and Fray Juan de San Martin es
pecially, because they had not confined themselves to
canon-law, but declared many to be heretics that were
not. His Holiness said that, but for the royal nomina
tion, he would have deprived them of their office ; but
that he revoked the power he had given to the sovereign
to nominate others, supposing that fit persons would be
found among those nominated by the general, or the pro
vincial, of the Dominicans, to whom the privilege be
longed, and in prejudice of whose privilege the former
nomination by Ferdinand and Isabella had been allowed."
So adroitly did the Pope take the absolute control of the
Inquisition into his own hands, and leave the cheated
tyrant to eat the fruit of his doings. But, since that
time, king and pontiff have been again united in the
100 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
management of the holy office, the latter, however, in
subservience to the former.
Neither in the appeal nor in the brief was there any
thing to divert Torquemada from his purposes ; and there
fore he hastened to add Arragon to his jurisdiction. Fer
dinand convened the cortes of that kingdom in the city
of Tarazona (April, 1484), therein appointed a junta to
prepare measures for the establishment of a modern tri
bunal ; and then Torquemada, in pursuance of the latest
pontifical decision, created Friar Gaspar Inglar, a regular
preacher of the Dominican community, and Doctor Pedro
Arbues de Epila, a canon of the metropolitan Church, in
quisitors. The king gave a mandate to the civil au
thorities, a firman compelling them to lend aid to the
new officials ; and, on the 13th of September following,
the Grand Justice of Arragon, with his five lieutenants of
the long robe, and various other magistrates, swore upon
the holy Gospels that they would give men and arms to
defend and to enforce the authority of the holy Inquisi
tion. And as they swore thus, the chief secretary of the
king for Arragon, the prothonotary, the vice-chancellor,
the royal treasurer, whose fathers and grandfathers had
been Jews, and persecuted by the old inquisitors, together
with a multitude of persons of high rank and office, in
whose veins flowed Jewish blood, and whose descend
ants are now among the first families in Spain, looked
on with dismay, and sent a deputation to Rome, bearing
remonstrance against the newly-created Inquisition, and
deputed others to present their appeal at the court of the
"Catholic sovereigns." All these deputies were after
wards proceeded against as "hinderers of the holy office ;"
and the inquisitors, heedless of the general opposition, set
themselves to work without delay. In the months of
SPAIN TRIUMPHS OF THE INQUISITORS. 101
May and June, 1485, two acts of faith were celebrated
in Zaragoza, and a large number of "New Christians"
burnt alive. The public was enraged, although helpless ;
and many thought that since the Inquisition had resorted
to terror for the conservation of the faith, terror ought
also to restrain them in their turn.
In the night of September 14th, 1485, one of the in
quisitors, Pedro Arbues, covered with a coat-of-mail under
his robes, and wearing a steel helmet under his hat, (for
he was conscious of guilt, and apprehensive of retribution,)
took a lantern in one hand and a bludgeon in the other,
and, like a brave soldier of the Church, walked from his
house to the cathedral, to join in matins. He knelt
clown by one of the pillars, laying his lantern on the
pavement. His right hand grasped the weapon of de
fence, but stealthily, and half covered with the cloak.
The canons, in their places, were chanting the hymns.
Two men came, and knelt down near him. They un
derstood, as do most Spaniards, how most effectually to
attack, and how quickest to kill, a man. Therefore one
of them suddenly disabled him on one side by a blow on
the left arm. The other swung his cudgel at the back
of the head, just below the edge of the helmet, and laid
him prone. He never spoke again, but expired in a few
hours. The murder, however, was made use of to prove
the necessity of an Inquisition to repress violence ; and
the inhabitants of Zaragoza were suddenly overawed by
a display of judicial authority, which they were not in a
condition to resist. Queen Isabella, horrified at the
murder of her confessor, for " confessor of the kings "
was an honorary dignity conferred on each inquisitor,
caused a monument to be erected to his memory at her
own expense; and when the murders perpetrated by
102 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Arbues himself had somewhat faded out of memory, he
was beatified at Rome, and a chapel was constructed for
his veneration in the church where he had fallen.
Therein his remains were laid, and over the spot where
he received the mortal blows a stone was placed, with an
inscription that may serve to end the story. " Siste,
viator, &c. Stay, traveller! Thou adorest the place
(locum adoras) where the blessed Pedro de Arbues was
levelled by two missiles. Epila gave him birth. This
city gave him a canonry. The Apostolic See elected him
to be the first father-inquisitor of the faith. Because of
his zeal he became hateful to the Jews, by whom slain,
he fell a martyr here in the year 1485. The most
serene Ferdinand and Isabella reared a marble mauso
leum, where he became famous for miracles. Alexander
VII., Pontifex Maximus, wrote him into the number of
holy and blessed martyrs on the 17th day of April, in the
year 1664. The tomb having been opened, the sacred
ashes were translated, and placed under the altar of the
chapel, (built by the chapter, with the material of the tomb,
in the space of sixty-five days,) with solemn rite and vener
ation, on the 23d day of September, in the year 1664."*
If they beatify their martyrs, what should prevent us
from declaring ours as we trust to be blessed? More than
a century before this adoration of Pedro de Arbues, John Foxe
had published his Calendar of Martyrs, and been accused by
the Papists of the very sin charged upon themselves. But, in
his defence, he wrote thus : " To canonize or to authorize any
saints, for man it is presumptuous ; to prescribe anything
here to be worshipped, beside God alone, it is idolatrous ; to
set up any mediators but Christ only, it is blasphemous. And
whatever the Pope doth, or hath done, in his calendar, my
purpose, in my calendar, was neither to deface any old saint,
nor to solemnize any new."
SPAIN TRIUMPHS OF THE INQUISITORS. 103
The intelligence of this murder threw all Arragon into
commotion. The powers, ecclesiastical and royal, panted
for vengeance, and put the murderers to a most painful
death. The Jews and New Christians trembled with
rage and terror. The inhabitants of many towns, Ternel,
Valencia, Lerida, and Barcelona included, compelled the
inquisitors to cease from inquisition ; and it was only by
means of edicts and bulls, followed by military force,
that the king and the Pope could overcome resistance
after a labour of two years. In Zaragoza, where the
murder had been contrived by a party of the chief in
habitants, a consciousness of guilt weakened their hands,
and they endeavoured to save themselves by flight.
Thousands of people fled, although they had no direct
participation in the deed, and were everywhere pursued
as rebels ; and in that migration incidents occurred which
might throw a colour of romance on our history. We
briefly mention two. An inhabitant of Zaragoza found
his way to Tudela, and there begged for shelter and
concealment in the house of Don Jaime, Infante of
Navarre, legitimate son of the Queen of Navarre, and
nephew of Ferdinand himself. The infante could not
refuse asylum and hospitality to an unoffending fugitive.
He allowed the man to hide himself for a few days, and
then pass on to France ; and for that act of humanity
was arrested by the inquisitors, thrown into prison as an
impeder of the holy office, brought thence to Zaragoza, a
city beyond the jurisdiction of Navarre, and there made to
do open penance in the cathedral, in presence of a great
congregation at high-mass. The archbishop who presided
was an illegitimate son of King Ferdinand, a boy of seven
teen ; and, to crown the ceremony, two priests whipped the
royal penitent through the church with rods. The other
104 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
case was yet more shameful. One Gaspar de Santa
Cruz escaped to Toulouse, where he died, and was buried,
after his effigy had been burnt at Zaragoza. In this
place remained a son of his, who, as in duty bound, had
helped him to make good his retreat. This son was de
lated as an impeder of the holy office, arrested, brought
out at an act of faith, made to read a condemnation of his
deceased father, and then sent to the inquisitors at Tou
louse, who took him to his father s grave, and compelled
him to dig up the corpse, and burn it with his own hands.
Llorente shudders as he relates the fact, not knowing
whether the barbarity of the inquisitors, or the vileness
of the young man, is the more worthy of abhorrence.
But it is a chief glory of the Inquisition, that it can van
quish natural affection.
The arch-inquisitor, shortly after his accession to the
office, summoned the subalterns from their provinces to
meet him at Seville, and framed, with them, a set of in
structions for uniform administration. These were pub
lished, twenty-eight in number, on the 29th of October,
1484. On January 9th, 1485, eleven more were added.
The former chiefly related to the manner of making in
quisition and giving judgment. The latter were, for the
most part, provisions for managing and guarding the
jurisdiction and the revenue of the institution. The
spirit of those instructions pervades the Directory of
Eymeric, into which they were incorporated by his com
mentator; and they have already passed under review.
It is only important to mention here, that an agent was
appointed to represent the Inquisition at Rome, and
there to defend the inquisitors on occasions of appeal
from subjects of inquisitorial violence, or their friends or
survivors. And this was in spite of a bull sent into
GRANADA EXPULSION OF THE JEWS. 105
Spain two years before, which had appointed the Arch
bishop of Seville sole judge of such appeals. But that
bull was never acted on at Rome.
We mark this point in the history, forasmuch as here
began the practically juridical relation between the court
of Rome, as absolutely supreme, and the provinces of
the Romish Church, in relation to the Inquisition.
More, much more, of this hereafter; but, passing over
particulars that are foreign from our present object, let
it suffice to say that, during thirty years after the estab
lishment of the modern Inquisition in Spain, every one
who could effect an appeal to Rome, either by memorial
or in pei-son, and who paid for the despatch of briefs,
obtained the indulgence, or the exemption, he desired,
until an opposite party came after him, and purchased a
contrary decision. In this way the king, the inquisitors,
and the New Christians, all bought, and all were
cheated : but money flowed into the Roman datary, and
that was enough to satisfy the fathers of the faithful.
CHAPTER IX.
SPAIN- GRANADA EXPULSION OF THE JEWS.
THE first resistance to the horrible tribunal having been
overcome in Arragon, and its discipline fully organized
in that kingdom, it assumed a position of unexampled
influence over the general government of Spain, and
impressed a singular character on the future history of
the nation. We will survey its dealings with the Jews.
The " Catholic sovereigns" have conquered the Moors
5*
106 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
everywhere, Granada alone excepted. Their army is
laying siege to that noble city. The inhabitants know
resistance to be hopeless, and send out a flag of truce.
Hostilities are to be suspended for sixty days. The chief
men of Granada come into the royal camp, and are
encouraged to propose terms of capitulation. Their de
mands are large for a vanquished people to make at the
close of a hard campaign ; but the Spaniards are tired
of battle, and resolve to grant almost any terms, trusting
to the chance of events for what cannot now be obtained
without wearisome negotiation, or continued war. They
agree to give this brave remnant of the Saracens a tract
of country towards the seaboard, known as the Alpujarra,
to be occupied by them as crown-land, on very easy con
ditions, a handsome weight of gold, a general amnesty,
and special privileges to the Moorish king, Abdilehi, and
his family. As many as choose are to quit the city, with
all their property, fire-arms and ammunition alone ex
cepted ; and further articles, to be hereafter settled, are
to be ratified on delivery of the Alhambra, and other for
tifications, to Ferdinand and his garrison.
These articles are prepared, during a period of forty
days, with careful deliberation, and every possible ap
pearance of good faith. If they are fulfilled, the Moors
will be a free people, dwelling unmolested in the hilly
tract assigned to them, and its twelve towns ; and, in
Granada and the suburbs, they will cultivate the lands
in their own inimitable manner, and suffer no badge of
infamy, nor even the least mark of disrespect. They
will have their own laws, customs, and religion. But on
this last point an historian of the Inquisition must be ex
plicit, and recite the two articles which seem, most of all,
to guarantee them shelter from persecution. We translate
GRANADA EXPULSION OF THE JEWS. 107
them closely from the very words of the treaty, as re
corded by Marmol.
" That it shall not be permitted that any person,
either by word or deed, ill-treat Christian men, or Chris
tian women, who shall have turned Moors before these
capitulations. And that, if any Moor shall have married
any renegade woman, she shall not be forced to be a
Christian against her will ; but that she shall be interro
gated in presence of Christians and of Moors, and shall
follow her own pleasure. And the same shall be ob
served as to boys and girls born of a Christian woman
and a Moorish husband.
" That no Moor, either man or woman, shall be forced
to become a Christian ; and if any young woman, or wife,
or widow, shall wish to turn Christian, for the sake of
any attachment she may have, she shall not be received
until she has been questioned ; and if she has taken any
property, or jewelry, from the house of her parents, or
from any other place, it shall be restored to its owner,
and the guilty parties shall be punished."
On the day appointed, (January 2, 1492,) the Cardi
nal Archbishop of Toledo, Don Pedro Gonzalez de Men-
doza, puts himself at the head of a strong force, with
some pieces of artillery, and marches into Granada, to
take possession of the Alhambra. Ferdinand and Isabella
follow afar off, leading the main body of the army. The
vanquished Abdilehi meets him, bids him take possession
of those fortifications for the mighty sovereigns to whom
God has given them for the sins of the Moors ; and then,
turning his back upon them, goes away, sorrowful and
unarmed, to deliver himself to his conquerors. Isabella
has halted at a distance ; but within view of the citadel,
where she cannot yet see the Spanish flag. The kings
108 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
meet, and she fears some treason or some reverse, and
trembles with suspense amidst her priests, who are not
much more courageous than their mistress. At length
she sees the army move towards the gates, covering
the hill-side as they march up. When they enter, the
crescent falls, and the standard of Castilla and Leon,
surmounted by a silver cross, is hoisted. Granada is
theirs. The war is over. The "Pagans" are under
foot. Dissimulation is no longer needed. The whole
chapel strikes up a loud chant, and one Te Dcum suffi
ces for thanksgiving. Notwithstanding their treaty
above-cited, they instantly appoint one Fray Hernando
de Talavera to be archbishop of Granada, although, the
garrison excepted, there are not yet any persons there
bearing the name of Christian ; and this archbishop,
without a province, applies himself to the work of con
verting the Moors. His first measure is to make him
self agreeable ; and, in a very short time, not yet men
tioning doctrine to the inhabitants, his charities and
affability have so won their good opinion, that they pay
him great reverence, and salute him as the chief alfaqui
of the Christians. By this time, indeed, the said Chris
tians have crowded into Granada, and mass is sung with
high magnificence. Still we must do Fray Hernando
the justice of saying that he is a humane and reasona
ble man.
Now begins the action of the Inquisition on a great
scale indeed, yet not towards the Moors first.
It is very remarkable that, by one article of the Moor
ish capitulation, every Jew found in Granada on its oc
cupation by the Spaniards, was to be shipped away to
Barbary, if he did not become a Christian within three
years. This shows that an idea of expelling the Jews
GRANADA EXPULSION OF THE JEWS. 109
must have been entertained at that time, although none
of them appear to have entertained the least suspicion
of any design to ruin them, beyond the measures of or
dinary persecution.
Jewish armourers were, at that very moment, working
in the camp. Jewish victuallers provided the daily
rations. Jewish brokers advanced money to pay the
troops. And it is by no means unlikely, that they were
Jews who raised the gold which Ferdinand and his
queen had bargained to pay the Moorish king. And it
is indisputable that, but for the assistance of that people,
in the absence of any efficient system of national finance
in Christian Spain, Granada could never have been con
quered. But Torquemada followed the court, and, as
royal confessor, might have heard the king s aspirations
after wealth, and understood his unwillingness, and per
haps inability, to liquidate his debts. The zeal of the
inquisitor and the dishonesty of the king most seasonably
met and harmonized ; and it only remained for them to
contrive some scheme whereby both passions might be
satisfied. Some monks quickly collected a report that
some Jews had stolen a consecrated host, with intention
to kill a Christian child, make the host into paste with
his warm blood, and poison the inquisitors. But some
particles of the crumbled wafer had got between the
leaves of a Hebrew prayer-book in a synagogue. Some
one present saw the divine substance emit a bright light,
and, conjecturing by that signal that the crime of sacri
lege had been perpetrated, made it known to a priest.
The Jews guilt being thus miraculously discovered, the
priests and monks remembered that those wealthy and
serviceable Israelites had been wont to commit sacrilege
and murder from spite to the Christians, and endless
110 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
tales of the kind resounded in the palace of the Alhambra,
where the victorious, but scarcely solvent, sovereigns
resided. Torquemada gave judgment that they ought to
cleanse the soil of Spain from so vjje a race ; and they
accordingly issued an edict from Granada, dated less
than three months after the day of occupation, (March
30th, 1492,) to banish the entire people, excepting only
such as might choose to surrender their faith, and retain
their homes in compensation for apostasy.*
The document is long, but its contents may be shortly
stated. Their highnesses had been informed that the
Jews had been perverting Christians into their supersti
tion ; and seeing that neither separation of them from
the population in the Jewries, nor even examples of
death by fire, by sentence after inquisition, nor yet im
paling others alive, they might have added, had
restrained them from their attempts to overturn the
Christianity of Spain, they resolved on a final and effec
tual remedy. They did not imagine that all the Jews
were guilty ; but they conceived that when any detest
able crime was committed by some members of a college
or university, that college or university should be dis
solved and annihilated. Therefore they commanded all
Jews and Jewesses to quit their kingdoms, and never to
return, not even for a passing visit, under penalty of
death. The last day of July was to be the last of their
dwelling in the country ; and after that day, any person,
If Komanism were Christianity, and not idolatry, and if
the transition to it from the synagogue were voluntary,
through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, that change would be
conversion, causing joy in the presence of the angels of God.
But in the contrary case before us the renunciation of Juda
ism deserves no better name than that given to it in the text.
GRANADA EXPULSION OF THE JEWS. Ill
of what rank soever, who should presume to receive,
shelter, protect, or defend a Jew or Jewess, was to forfeit
all his property and be discharged from his office, dig
nity, or calling. During those four months, the Jews
might sell their estates, or barter them for heavy goods ;
but they were not to take away " gold, silver, money, or
other articles prohibited by the laws of the kingdom."
The decree of Ahasuerus was not more terrible, and
scarcely could the mourning, and weeping, and wailing,
which resounded throughout Persia and Media, have
surpassed those of the Spanish Jews. They cried aloud
for mercy, and offered to submit to any law, however
oppressive, if they might remain in their beloved country.
Rabbi Abarbanel, whose name is familiar to every He
brew scholar, a reputed descendant of the family of
Judah, a man who had enjoyed the confidence of suc
cessive sovereigns, whom Ferdinand and Isabella had
summoned to their court eight years before, and whose
services they made large use of while he farmed the
royal revenue, this aged Hebrew found his way into
their presence, in the Alhambra, knelt before them,
weeping, implored pity on his nation, and offered to lay
clown as ransom six hundred thousand crowns of gold.
Again he returned, and to use his own words,* "I
wearied myself to distraction in imploring compassion.
Thrice on my knees I besought the king : * Regard us,
O king ; use not thy subjects so cruelly. Why do thus
to thy servants? Rather exact from us our gold and
silver, even all that the house of Israel possesses, if he
may remain in his country. I likewise entreated my
friends, the king s officers, to allay his anger against my
Translated by Mr. Lindo, in his most valuable " History
of the Jews of Spain and Portugal."
112 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
people. I implored the councillors to advise the king to
repeal the decree. But as the adder closes its ear with
dust against the voice of the charmer, so the king har
dened his heart against the entreaties of his supplicants,
and declared that he would not revoke his edict for all
the wealth of the Jews. The queen at his right hand
opposed it, and urged him to continue what he had
begun. We exhausted all our power for the repeal of
the king s sentence ; but there was neither wisdom nor
help remaining." The truth is, that those intercessions
had nearly prevailed. The king was calculating whether
he had not better accept the ready money, instead of
trusting to get his share in the profits of the other
scheme, which would be squandered among many
claimants, when the first inquisitor ended his hesitation
at a stroke.
Torquemada rushed into a room where the king and
queen were sitting, holding up a crucifix, and shouting
at the top of his voice : " Judas sold the Son of God
once for thirty pieces of silver : your highnesses are going
to sell him the second time for thirty thousand. Here
he is ; here you have him ; sell him if you will."
And then the audacious bigot flung the crucifix before
them on the table, and retired in fury. The full weight
of papal indignation seemed to overhang them, and
Abarbanel and his friends were put to silence. Here,
indeed, the tribunal did not act, but only its head and
its members, who engaged their sovereigns to act instead
of them. The expulsion of the Jews, therefore, must
not be overlooked, as if it were not a deed of the Inqui
sition.
Having gained so much, Torquemada made the most
of his opportunity. He sent preachers through the
GRANADA EXPULSION OF THE JEWS. 113
country to convert the Jews, and published an edict,
offering baptism and reconciliation ; but very few indeed
submitted. He forbade Christians to hold any inter
course with them after the month of April, or to supply
them with food, shelter, or any necessary, thus annulling
a promise given in the royal decree, that during a pe
riod of four months no wrong or injury should be done
to them. u A contemporary and eye-witness," cited by
Lindo, (Bernaldez, MS. Chron. de los Reyes Catholicos,)
shall describe their condition at this time. " Within the
term fixed by the edict, the Jews sold and disposed of
their property for a mere nothing. They went about
begging Christians to buy, but found no purchasers.
Fine houses and estates were sold for trifles. A house
was exchanged for an ass, and a vineyard given for a
little cloth or linen. Although prohibited carrying away
gold and silver, they secretly took large quantities in
their saddles, and in the halters and harness of their
loaded beasts. Some swallowed as many as thirty du
cats to avoid the rigorous search made at the frontier
towns and seaports, by the officers appointed for the pur
pose. The rich Jews defrayed the expenses of the de
parture of the poor, practising towards each other the
greatest charity, so that, except very few of the most ne
cessitous, they would not become converts. In the first
week of July they took the route for quitting their na
tive land, great and small, old and young; on foot, on
horses, or asses, and in carts ; each continuing his journey
to his destined port. They experienced great trouble
and suffered indescribable misfortunes on the roads and
country they travelled ; some falling, others rising ; some
dying, others coming into the world ; some fainting,
others being attacked with illness ; so that there was not
114 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
a Christian but what felt for them, and persuaded them
to be baptized. Some, from misery, were converted ;
but they were very few. The rabbis encouraged them,
and made the young people and women sing, and play
on pipes and tabors, to enliven them and keep up their
spirits." All their synagogues were left unpurchased,
to be converted, without compensation, into mass-
houses.
An emigration of fifteen hundred wealthy families first
embarked. Ships were provided at Carthagena, Valen
cia, Barcelona, Cadiz, Gibraltar, and other ports, to con
vey them to Africa, Italy, and the Levant; and they
carried with them that dialect of the Spanish language
which to this day serves the Jews of those countries as a
medium of common intercourse. Some perished at sea
by wreck, disease, violence or fire ; and some by famine,
exhaustion, or murder, on inhospitable shores. Many
were sold for slaves; many were thrown overboard by
the savage captains. Parents sold their children for
money to buy food. On board one vessel full of exiles, a
pestilential disease broke out ; the captain landed all on
a desert island, where they wandered about in quest of
assistance. Heart-rending tales were told by the surviv
ors. A mother carrying two infants, walking with her
husband, expired on the road. The father, overcome
with fatigue, fell fainting near his two children ; on re
covering his consciousness, he found them dead with
hunger. He covered them with sand. " My God," ex
claimed he, " my misfortunes seem to drive me to
abandon thy law ; but I am a Jew, and will ever re
main so." The crowded vessels carried disease into the
port of Naples, where the inhabitants caught it, and
about twenty thousand were carried off. When another
GRANADA EXPULSION OF THE JEWS. 115
famishing division reached Genoa, they found the city
also suffering from famine, and were met, on landing, by
a procession of priests, of whom the foremost carried a
crucifix in one hand and a loaf in the other, to signify
that they who would adore the image might have the
bread. It pleased the Pope, Alexander VI., to give
them a better reception in his states, leaving it to his
more distant servants to do the heavier inquisitorial
drudgery, and to suffer the more flagrant scandal.
Spain had impoverished herself, in his service, by the loss
of eight hundred thousand persons, besides many more
who had already fled from the Inquisition during ten or
twelve years of terror, and the whole had carried away
an incalculable amount of wealth.
Having expelled the Jews, Torquemada and his royal
servants next turned their attention to the Moors and
Moriscoes. But as this prince of Spanish inquisitors did
not live to see the accomplishment of his desire in regard
to the Moors, of whom we have now to speak, we antici
pate the close of his administration of the Inquisition of
Castile, not to interrupt the sketch following, and here
note the number of his victims, according to the calcu
lation of Llorente, which is quite exclusive of the Jews,
and appears to be very moderate, notwithstanding a
charge of exaggeration laid against him by modern ad
mirers or apologists of the holy office :
Burnt at the stake 10,220
Burnt in effigy, the persons having died in
prison or fled the country 6,860
Punished with infamy, confiscation, perpet
ual imprisonment, or loss of civil rights... 97,321
Total 114,4.01
116 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
An equal number of families, at least, must have been
ruined ; and there must be yet an unrecorded number of
persons whose lives were shortened by indigence and
grief. Considering the number of his enemies, and the
badness of his conscience, we do not wonder that, in his
latter years, he was preyed upon by terror ; and, to pre
serve himself from assassination, never travelled without
a body-guard of fifty familiars of the Inquisition mount
ed as dragoons, and two hundred more marching as
foot-soldiers.
CHAPTER X.
SPATN MOORS AND MORISCOES.
THE persecution and expulsion of the Moors and Mo-
riscoes from the kingdom of Granada was entirely the
work of the Inquisition. But the action of the tribunal
began gently, and its method was so adapted to the pe
culiar circumstances of the new province, that a hasty
reader might attribute that to Spanish intolerance which
in truth belongs to the inquisitors alone ; and although
we carefully avoid the general history of persecutions, we
cannot exclude this from our pages.
The Catholic sovereigns had taken possession of Gran
ada, and, after banishing the Jews, rewarded the vassals
to whose arms they were chiefly indebted for the con
quest with grants of lands, and with offices of trust.
They invited to their court persons of high repute for
piety, such as it was, and for wisdom. Among the " re
ligious" whom they summoned from their cells to render
SPAIN MOORS AND MORISCOES. 117
counsel in affairs of state, the court being then a sort of
promiscuous and irresponsible cabinet, was Don Fray
Hernando de Talavera, whom we have already mention
ed, a friar professed of the order of St. Jerome, a man
of ready wit and extensive information, an eminent
preacher, learned in sacred literature and moral philoso
phy, and reputed to be unblamable in life. For twenty
years he had been prior of a monastery near Valladolid,
whence Ferdinand and Isabella, induced by the fame of
his virtues and talents, called him to their presence, made
him their confessor, gave him the bishopric of Avila, and
took him into their counsels. We mark this man the
more carefully, because he appears in favourable contrast
with other ecclesiastics of the court. After a large num
ber of Christians had come to live in Granada, he begged
to resign the see of Avila, in order to devote himself to
the interests of the New Church. His desire was honour
ed, and Pope Alexander VI. sent him a pallium, with
the title of Archbishop of Granada. With a revenue
much inferior to that of the diocese resigned, he display
ed little or no prelatic pomp, and applied himself dili
gently to the duties of a new charge, and to the conver
sion of the Moors.
A gentle spirit and a spotless life won the veneration
of the Moors, from whom he appears to have prudently
concealed his purpose of attempting their conversion.
Nor did he, so far as we can judge, propose to employ
any sort of coercion, but endeavoured to teach them
Christianity by the word of God. He caused the Holy
Scriptures to be translated into Arabic for their use ; and
although the translation was never printed, it is not im
probable that parts of it, at least, were copied for distribu
tion. The Mohammedans heard him willingly, meeting
118 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
him by companies in private houses, where he addressed
them through interpreters. Several ecclesiastics applied
themselves closely to the study of Arabic, encouraged by
the example of their diocesan, who also became a learner
in his old age ; and Moors, emulating their industry,
committed to memory the decalogue, the apostles
creed, and several prayers. But the zeal that threw
him into those labours of Granada, withdrew him from
the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, whom counsellors
of another kind entirely governed in all things relating
to religion. Torquemada, chiefly, held their conscience
at his disposal.
A first stroke of treachery was levelled at the last
king of Granada, Zogoybi, who was retired on the
estates allotted to him in the Alpujarra. After living
there peaceably for two years, he was surprised by the
sudden appearance of a servant whom he had appointed
to represent him in the train of the Catholic sovereigns
in Arragon. The man came into his presence, bringing
mules laden with eighty thousand ducats, and told him
that he had sold his lands for that money, wherewith he
had better go to Barbary, and there buy him a resting-
place, and avoid the danger which would surround him
if the Moors, encouraged by his presence, should disturb
the tranquillity of Spain. The slave had been corrupted.
Zogoybi submitted to a breach of faith which it was not
in his power to redress, and embarked for Barbary, over
whelmed with grief and shame.
Now came an effort to convert or banish all the
Moors. The inquisitors, headed by Don Diego Deza,
successor of Torquemada, and their adherents, plied Fer
dinand and Isabella with incessant entreaty to banish all
who would not be converted and baptized. They af-
SPAIN MOORS AND MORISCOES. 119
firmed " that by this measure the articles of capitulation
granted on the surrender of Granada would not be
broken, but that rather their condition would be bettered
by an arrangement of so great advantage to their souls ;"
and they further argued that, as Mohammedans and
Christians could not live in peace together, the public
good required that the former should either be converted
or expelled. The king and queen hesitated to attempt
the proposed expulsion, as they had hesitated, a few
years before, to receive a severer form of Inquisition, and
as they had more lately hesitated to expel the Jews.
"Although these considerations were holy and very
just," we quote the words of Marmol, "their high
nesses did not determine that such rigour should be used
with their new vassals, because the land was not yet
sure, nor had the Moors altogether laid aside their
weapons; and if, haply, they should be driven to re
bellion by oppression in a thing on which they would
feel so keenly, it might be necessary to resume the war."
Their highnesses thought the measure inexpedient rather
than immoral ; they were also unwilling to be diverted
from other projects; and they hoped that the Moors,
like other vanquished nations, would gradually adopt the
religion of their conquerors ; " and, that this might be
effected by love and benevolence, they commanded the
governors, alcaydes, and justices of all their kingdoms, to
favour the Moors, and not allow them to suffer any
grievance or ill-treatment, and bade the prelates and the
religious, gently and with demonstrations of love, endeav
our to teach concerning the faith those who might freely
choose to hear them, without oppressing them, in the
least, on that account."
It is not for us to inquire too severely how far this
120 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
expresses the real intentions of the sovereigns : we know
that it is not the language of the Church. After six or
seven years of conciliation, under the good care of Fray
Hernando. a far different personage, Francisco Ximenez
de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo, Primate of Spain, fol
lowed the court to Granada, saw the unusual charity dis
played by the archbishop of that province towards the
inhabitants, and received a royal injunction to remain in
the city and promote the great object of conversion, still
exercising forbearance, and guarding against every occa
sion of tumult. But Ferdinand and Isabella rendered
conciliation impossible, by allowing Granada to be taken
under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition of Cordova.
Hernando laid open his plans to his new colleague and
ecclesiastical superior. He showed him a manuscript
translation of the Holy Scriptures into Arabic, ready for
the press, with a version, in the same language, of the
missal, some rituals and other books used in worship.
Ximenez objected to such an innovation. Hernando
thought that nothing better could be done for New
Christians, than to put the sacred volume into their
hands in an intelligible form, and he desired that prayers
should be read in the vernacular language. He sus
tained his argument by citing the text of St. Paul ; and
justified his proposal by the example of the Greek
Church, whose liturgies he imagined to be still intelligi
ble to the congregations, and by that of the Latin
Church for many ages, until her language had ceased to
be vernacular. Ximenez, on the contrary, was persuaded
that the Moors would despise his Christianity if they
understood it ; and, rejecting the sentences of inspired
writers as inapplicable to the condition of society in later
times, and declaring that prayer in a known tongue
SPAIN MOORS AND MORISCOES. 121
would be an insufferable innovation, he forbade the pub
lication of the versions.
Xiraenez was not yet cardinal, nor yet inquisitor-
general, but he must have been in communication with
the " holy office" at Cordova. In the last year of the
fifteenth century he began his mission by holding some
apparently amicable conferences with their learned men,
presenting to them articles of belief and theological argu
ments, mingled with offers of civil freedom, rewards, and
offices, if they would accept the first elements of Chris
tianity, and teach them to their people. The bargain
being struck, Moorish doctors were heard in the mosques
declaiming against the superstitions and errors of Islam,
and exhorting their congregations to embrace the faith
of Christ. The reasons for conversion were not gathered
out of the Bible, which no one thought of, but were
entirely suggested by the primate, who had power to
dispense the favours of the crown. Such preaching
could not but work wonders, and the doctors led three
thousand of their brethren as candidates for baptism into
the presence of Ximenez. They were baptized at once.
The archbishop of Toledo sprinkled them " with hyssop"
as they walked past him. Hernando would have taught
them first ; but Ximenez feared that if they were not
received then, they might not come again. On the
festival of Our Lady of the 0,* the mosque of the Al-
baycin, a quarter of the city privileged with independent
jurisdiction, was consecrated to be a collegiate church,
under the advocacy of the holy Saviour. The selection
" Our Lady of the : The Feast of the Expectation of
the Birth of Most Holy Mary, so called from the exclamations
of the holy fathers who hoped for the coming of the Messiah."
Moreri.
6
122 THE BRAND OF DOMTNIC.
of time, place, and pel-sons, indicated a deep scheme ;
and the contriver would suffer nothing to hinder its pros
ecution.
Zegri, a Moorish prince, was said to have objected to
the desertion of so many from his religion ; and Ximenez,
thinking to put Granada to silence by an effort of
authority, had him arrested secretly, and imprisoned in
the Alhambra, with a monk named Leon in the same
cell, whose " lion-like" impetuosity, with threats of per
petual imprisonment if he would not be baptized, over
came his obstinacy ; and he not only submitted to bap
tism, but, having gone so far, endeavoured to make the
best of the change, by courting the favour of the superior
powers. Proselytes continued to flock into the Church,
their number is said to have risen to fifty thousand,
and the Archbishop of Toledo resolved to accelerate the
work by a new measure, an attempt to force the elches,
or renegades from Christianity, to return to the bosom
of the Church. Any renegade who refused on the first
summons was usually regarded as guilty of disrespect of
authority, and arrested. These arrests became very
numerous, and recusants filled the prisons. At length,
as an alguacil was leading away a woman of the Albaycin
to prison, the people became infuriated, released the
woman, and killed the alguacil. The general discontent
then broke out in an insurrection of the city. A hun
dred thousand men, capable of bearing arms, were terrible
by multitude and unity ; the small garrison in the Al
hambra could not attempt to act, and, during ten days,
Ximenez was besieged in the citadel, which must have
surrendered, if the Archbishop of Granada, whose gen
tleness the zealot had despised, had not calmly walked
into the midst of the multitude, imploring them to cease
SPAIN MOORS AND MORISCOES. 123
their violence. Having kissed his garments, as usual,
they complained of the breach of the articles of capitula
tion, respectfully remonstrated against the arrests which
Ximenez had committed, the public burning of their
Koran, and the indignities, of daily occurrence, which had
become insupportable. The captain of the garrison then
dared to come forth, joined in the parley, and promised
an amnesty if they would desist from insurrection. The
intelligence of these proceedings alarmed Ferdinand and
Isabella. Ximenez, justly accused of mad precipitancy,
found himself on the verge of disgrace, and hurried
away to Seville, to justify his doings to his sovereigns.
With great adroitness he not only appeased their anger,
but, after some persuasion, succeeded in engaging them
to treat Granada as a revolted city, and to regard the
compact with its inhabitants as made void by their re
bellion.
The sovereigns had hesitated ; but, as they gave way
before Torquemada and banished the Jews, so now they
yielded to his successor as their spiritual guide, and gave
up the Moors. The Sultan, who had been appealed to
from Granada, sent an embassy to demand that his
brethren should not be forced into Christianity ; but Fer
dinand and his Queen assured the ambassador that there
was no compulsion in the matter, but said that, as it was
evident that Moors could not be loyal to a Christian
king, those who did not freely change religion should be
taken to Barbary and allowed every facility for transit,
with opportunity to sell their property previously to de
parture. Great multitudes chose to be baptized. Her-
nando de Talavera performed the ceremony in the gross ;
for ceremony it was, assuredly not a Christian sacrament.
Those who preferred to leave the country found passage
124 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
in the royal ships, were treated with the utmost care,
and the captains who conveyed them to the shores of
Barbary delivered them to the governors of the several
towns, and received certificates of humanity to exhibit on
return. The Jews had not been so treated, because there
was no earthly power sufficiently interested to avenge
their cause. The Church, although she feared not the
God of Abraham, was afraid of the Sultan. But no
foreign Moor was henceforth allowed to enter Spain.
The inhabitants of the Alpujarra, aroused by these
outrages, broke into open revolt; and a civil war con
tinued, with intervals, through a period of seventy years.
Our business, however, is only to observe the part taken
in it by the Inquisition. The Moriscoes, or baptized
Moors, had nothing of Christianity but the name, and
that name they hated, and were consequently exposed to
the utmost severity of the tribunal. Royal mandates
were issued to compel them to learn Spanish, to dress
like the Spaniards, and to put aside the garb, the lan
guage, and the customs of their nation. But it was so
evidently impossible to enforce the mandate, that it was
again and again withdrawn. By command of the Em
peror Charles V., of whom we here speak as Charles I.
of Spain, a board of consultation was holden at Granada
(A. D. 1526), and presided over by Alonso Manrique,
Archbishop of Seville, and inquisitor-general. It consisted
of prelates and other dignitaries, with members of the
Council of Castile and of the Inquisition. They repeated
the obnoxious mandates, and devised methods of enforce
ment, under the direction of a distinct tribunal then first
established in Granada for the whole province. Great
numbers fled from that city and from the towns, and
betook themselves to the highways and to the mountains,
SPAIN MOORS AND MORISCOES. 125
everywhere pursued as rebels, or tracked by inquisitors as
heretics. For the consideration, however, of eighty thou
sand ducats, the emperor promised them that the severity
of the Inquisition should be mitigated as to confiscations ;
and Clement VII. confirmed the exemptions by a bull.
To teach the Moriscoes what they were to expect, in
spite of any indulgence that the emperor might grant, or
of any remission of pecuniary penalties that the Pope
might sanction, in regard to a people who were now ex
tremely impoverished, and had very few among them
possessing property enough to be an object of cupidity,
the inquisitors burnt alive, in Granada, a few Judaizing
heretics. This " act of faith " took place the year after
Clement granted his bull forbidding confiscations.
And the severity of inquisitorial government may be
estimated from a single instance. Until the year 1529
the Moriscoes had lived in separate quarters of the city,
known by the general name of Morerias ; but they were
then compelled to change their habitations, and live
among the " Old Christians," so that no two Morisco
families might be in communication. Their most trifling
actions were marked, and reported to the inquisitors at
Valladolid, whose dealings with them are exemplified in
a case related by Llorente from the original records. On
the 8th day of December, 1528, one Catalina, a woman
of bad character, delated Juan, a Morisco seventy-one
years of age, by trade a coppersmith, native of Segovia,
and inhabitant of Benevente. She told the inquisitors
that, eighteen years before, she had lived in the same
house with him, and seen that neither he nor his children
ate pork or drank wine, and that, on Saturday nights
and Sunday mornings, they used to wash their feet,
which custom, as well as abstinence from wine and pork,
126 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
was peculiar to the Moors. The inquisitors summoned
the old man into their presence, and questioned him, as
usual, at three several interviews. All that he could tell
them was, that he received baptism when forty-five years
old ; that, never having eaten pork or drunk wine until
that time, he had then no taste for them ; and that,
being coppersmiths, he and his sons found it necessary to
wash themselves thoroughly once a week. After some
other examinations, they sent him back to Benevente,
with prohibition to go beyond three leagues distance
from the town ; but, two years afterwards, the Inquisition
determined that he should be threatened with torture, in
order, of course, to obtain some information that might
help them to criminate others. He was, accordingly,
taken to Valladolid, and, in a subterranean chamber,
called " the dungeon of torment," stripped naked, and
bound to the " ladder." This might have extorted some
thing like confession from an old man of seventy-three ;
but he told the inquisitors that whatever he might say
when under torture, would be merely extorted by the
anguish, and therefore unworthy of belief; and that he
would not, through fear of pain, confess what never had
taken place. Having threatened, which was all that
they intended to do, they kept him in close prison until
the next " act of faith," when he walked among the
penitents with a lighted candle in his hand, and, after he
had seen others burnt to death, paid the holy office a fee
of four ducats, and went home, not acquitted, but re
leased. It does not appear that he was again summoned,
but probably he died soon afterwards.
At length Don Pedro Guerrero, Archbishop of Granada,
having to go to the Council of Trent, laid the case of the
still unsubdued Moriscoes before Paul III., who charged
SPAIN MOORS AND MORISCOES. 127
him to engage Philip II. to take such measures as would
prevent the perdition of those souls. The Inquisition
was the favourite institution of the Spanish Nero ; but,
as it could not act alone in the troubled kingdom of
Granada, he convened a special assembly at Madrid, con
stituted similarly to that of Granada, and appointed the
term of three years for the Moriscoes to divest themselves
of the Arabian costume, disuse the language, and re
nounce even the most innocent customs of their nation.
Pedro de Deza, auditor of the Inquisition, went to Gran
ada with the articles then enacted (A. D. 1566), and
caused them to be proclaimed ; but the proclamation
produced little more than a remonstrance and appeal to
.Philip, who had not wisdom enough to give ear to the
complaints of his subjects; and his refusal to hear them
precipitated the final struggle. Rebellion followed. A
tierce warfare spread havoc over all the province; but
the inquisitors assured the king that his only remedy
was to extirpate the Moriscoes ; and, after the last of
their strong-holds was taken, the remnant then scattered
over the country was sentenced to expatriation. The
bands of the Church military occupied all the kingdom
of Granada, now marked out into districts. A troop of
licentious soldiery drove the weeping Moriscoes from
their houses into the neighbouring churches, and thence
carried them away, in such vehicles as could be found,
to towns beyond the frontiers; and from those towns
they were distributed all over the Spanish peninsula, and
mingled with the general population. Thenceforth the
hated race has had no visible existence.
Valencia, being a city and province of the kingdom of
Arragon, although included in the same decree of Fer
dinand and Isabella, in 1502, for the expulsion of the
128 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Moors from their dominions, enjoyed a measure of con
stitutional rights by which the inhabitants could present
a determined, although brief, resistance. But the power
of the Moors rapidly diminished ; and when, in the year
1523, a seditious faction forcibly baptized sixteen thou
sand of them, merely in order to deprive the noble pro
prietors of land of the tribute they had received from
them as Mohammedans, at least an equal number emi
grated to Africa, leaving five thousand houses unoccupied.
From that time their strength declined in Arragon.
Charles V. obtained a bull, absolving him from an oath
which he had taken, in the cortes of Zaragoza, not to in
terfere with their religion. In an ecclesiastical assembly
at Madrid it was determined that the sixteen thousand
forcibly baptized were really Christians, and therefore sub
ject to the holy office. The inquisitors were enjoined to
convert the rest, and spared no pains in fulfilling the
commission. Flight on the one hand, and a mockery of
baptism on the other, emptied Valencia of the followers
of Mohammed. Those who desperately betook them
selves to the mountains were beaten into submission.
The vacated mosques became mass-houses. A wholesale
baptism was the sequel of each guerrilla. Inquisitors
waited in the cathedral of Valencia to give absolution,
with remission of penance, to all who chose to accept it.
In the year 1526, a civil war having terminated in a
pragmatic between the insurgents and the sovereign,
they were all baptized ; and, after wearing their old garb^
and speaking Arabic for a few years, these New Chris
tians melted away, under the management of the Inqui
sition, into the general mass of Spaniards, and, without
attaining to any knowledge of their Saviour, utterly forgot
the prophet of Mecca.
SPAIN DEZA AND XIMENEZ DE CISNEROS. 129
We cannot relate for there is not, so far as we know,
any record extant the particulars of the inquisitorial
persecution; but it is certain that, aided by the regal
power, the inquisitors crowded the dungeons and fed the
hearths. The sovereigns, indeed, purchased bulls at
Rome to authorize mitigation of severities ; but the in
quisitors set at naught the bulls, and kept their fires
burning, until, in the year 1609, their savage joy was
crowned by a final expulsion from Spain of the few
Moriscoes that survived. The loss to the population, by
successive expulsions of Jews, Moors, and Moriscoes, in
obedience to the Inquisition, is estimated at no fewer
than three millions.
Having followed the story of the Moriscoes to its
close, we must resume our narrative from the point at
which we digressed, and survey the progress of the In
quisition and of inquisitorial legislation in Spain, from
the accession of the next inquisitor-general until the
present time.
CHAPTER XL
SPAIN DEZA AND XIMENEZ DE CISNEROS, INQUISITORS.
PONTIFICAL charioteers rein in their steeds, or they ap
ply the goad, as may be the more expedient. Torque-
mada had no more than obeyed the impulse given at
Rome; but he dashed into the field so furiously as to
occasion scandal and alarm his masters. Towards the
end of his career the Pope expressed some disapproba
tion of his excessive zeal ; but a zealot of equal im
petuosity was appointed to succeed him. Moderation,
130 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
or humanity, or honesty, would have disqualified the
possessor of such virtues for the rough work that has to
be done by an inquisitor. The papacy, itself, is gentle.
That power, triply crowned, enthroned as if in heaven,
serene, impassive, aspiring upward, shutting its eyes to
the wretchedness of men, and closing its ears against
the crying of the oppressed, holds the Church in its firm
grasp, pours the glare of ecclesiastical doctrine on the
book of God, and launches vengeful bolts on every op
ponent. Angels ministrant not the papacy itself
direct the fuhninations, and smite the heretics. The
papacy, according to this ideal, hurts no man, but com
mits the scourge to inferior hands, and, like the god of
Epicurus, knows no anger, inflicts no pain, and feels no
pity.* But we must return to the Spanish Inquisition.
Don Diego de Deza, a Dominican, a bishop, professor
of theology in the University of Salamanca, tutor of the
infant of Spain, and confessor of the Catholic sovereigns,
deserved the superior dignity of inquisitor-general of
Castile. He understood the theology and the canons of
his Church, and he knew the mind of his masters. In
the last year of the fifteenth century, a bull of Alexan
der VI. established him. Being with the court in Se
ville, he began his work by decreeing a Constitution in
seven articles, (June 17th, 1500,) which ordained,
1. That there should be a general inquisition made in
every place that had not yet been so visited. 2. That
The vignette on our title-page, which is borrowed from a
similar position in a sumptuous edition of the Roman Cate
chism, exhibits this conception of the papacy, the interme
diate agencies of the Church, and heretics. It pictures the
rationale of the Inquisition, under an emblem conceived and
exhibited in Spain in honour of that supreme authority.
SPAIN DEZA AND XIMENEZ DE CISNEROS. 131
the edict requiring all persons to delate, should be again
proclaimed. 3. That the subaltern inquisitors should
search their books, and prosecute all persons noted
therein. 4. That no one should be troubled for such
trifles as blasphemy, which indicated ill-temper, rather
than heresy. 5. That in cases of canonical compurga-
tion, two witnesses should be sworn as responsible for
the orthodoxy of each one compurgated. 6. That every
one who abjured after vehement suspicion, should promise
to hold no more intercourse with heretics, but to delate
them. And, 7. That those who abjured after formal
conviction of heresy, should do the same. The solemnity
of this beginning showed that the new inquisitor-general
meant to be in earnest. His labours to extend the regu
lations of the Spanish tribunal to Sicily and Naples, we
shall notice when speaking of Italv. It was he who in
stigated Charles V. to break his oath with the cortes of
Arragon ; and we have already seen how the Moors and
Moriscoes suffered under his administration. In order
to illustrate the character of this administration, we may
note the persecution of the first Archbishop of Granada,
and the crusade on the inhabitants of Cordova.
The archbishop, Hernando de Talavera, when the
Italian inquisitor proposed to revive the Inquisition in
Spain, was the queen s confessor, and influenced her high
ness to resist the proposal, and endeavour to subdue
Judaism by Christian instruction. It was known that
by the channel of his maternal ancestry he had a slight
infusion of Jewish blood. When appointed to the new
see of Granada, he won the respect of the Moorish popula
tion ; and afterwards, when the city was insurgent against
the tyranny of Ximeriez, good Fray Hernando quelled the
insurrection by his presence and exhortations, which sub-
132 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
clued the infuriated multitude. He caused the Bible to be
translated into Arabic. He even dared to argue with
Ximenez for making the sacred volume intelligible to
the people. He could sway the city by moral influence,
whereas the Inquisition steadily purposed to crush by
force and to extirpate all whom they could not compel
into entire submission to the Church. Deza hated the
principles, and Xirnenez was jealous of the influence of
Hernando. Deza, as inquisitor-general, called on Xime
nez, while associated with him in endeavouring to con
vert Granada, to take information concerning the purity
of his religion. Ximenez, not yet brought over to the
policy of the Inquisition, although actuated by its spirit,
wrote the Pope, Julius II., whom he desired to take the
case in hand, lest the archiepiscopal dignity should suffer
by the primate of Spain acting as familiar upon the
archbishop of a province. The Pope commanded his
nuncio to inhibit the inquisitors from further action, but
to send him the reports which they had taken of the re
ligious character of Hernando. The pontiff assembled
several cardinals and prelates to hear those reports read,
and, with their concurrence, absolved the suspected arch
bishop, but not until after he had suffered three years of
anxiety and reproach, and seen many of his relatives
arrested and imprisoned by the inquisitor Lucero. And
notwithstanding his acquittal, his name figures in the
Spanish Expurgatory Index, of which a copy now lies
before me, with the rubric of Don Joaquin Castellot,
Reviser-General of the Council, in 1789.
This Lucero, whom some called Tenebrero, presided
over the tribunal in Cordova. No sooner was he in
stalled in that office, than he made a general attack on
the most respectable inhabitants of the city, whom he
SPAIN DEZA AND XIMENEZ DE CISNEROS. 133
arrested, examined, set down as imperfect " confitents,"
we must borrow a word from the inquisitorial vocabu
lary, and condemned as feigned penitents. Some of
them, in terror, added to their confession statements ut
terly at variance with the truth. Informers crowded
Lucero s chamber, bringing monstrous tales of a grand
conspiracy of monks, nuns, and other persons, whom
they represented as traversing the country, and holding
private meetings to establish Judaism and annihilate the
Church. Lucero received them gladly, his notaries re
corded the fables, familiars dragged innocent persons
from their beds, the prisons of Cordova overflowed, and
the inhabitants would have demolished the Inquisition
at a stroke, if the municipality, the bishop, the chapter,
and the nobility had not appeased them by appealing to
Deza, and praying for the removal of Lucero. But Deza
turned furiously on the complainants, and by name pro
nounced a long train of nobles, monks, nuns, canons,
and men of civil authority, abettors of Judaism. At
this juncture, Philip I. assumed the government of Cas
tile ; and the bishop, with a multitude of persons whose
relatives were in dungeons, implored him to transfer
their cause to some other court. Philip heard their
petition, suspended both Deza and Lucero from the
exercise of their functions, and directed that the whole
affair should be submitted to the Supreme Council of
Castile ; but, like many other princes, when brought into
a similar position of resistance to ecclesiastical powers,
lie died before his order could be obeyed. For Deza
that death was opportune ; and, during an interregnum,
the zealot vaulted into his inquisitorial throne again, and
renewed the assault on Cordova. The Marquis of Priego,
who had formerly sought redress by petition, now re-
134 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
solved to take it by force ; headed the willing inhabit
ants, broke open the House of the Inquisition, (October
6th, 1506,) liberated a crowd of prisoners, imprisoned
several officers of the holy office in their stead, but
missed Lucero, who had betaken himself to timely flight
on the back of a swift mule. Peza, not more brave, re
signed his office of inquisitor-general; and Cordova,
satisfied with deliverance, instantly became tranquil.
No class of persons had escaped this persecution.
Antonio de Lebrija, one of the few learned men who
shone as lights amidst the darkness of that age, suffered
vexatious interruption of his studies, which were purely
literary and Biblical. He describes the intellectual bond
age endured under the reign of Deza, in the following
impassioned sentences : " Is it not enough to yield my
understanding up to Christ, when religion so requires?
Must I also be compelled to deny what I have learned
on points that are clear to me, evident, notorious, mani
fest, more brilliant than the light of day, and true as
truth itself ? Must it be thus with me when I affirm, on
serious conviction, not uttering opinion or conjecture, but
bringing proof with invincible reasons, irrefragable argu
ments, and mathematical demonstrations ? 0, misery !
Alas, what slavery is this ! What iniquitous domination
is this, that by dint of violence prevents one from speak
ing as he feels, even without interfering with religion in
the least ? But what is it not to speak ? It is not even
permitted for one to write when he is alone, within four
walls. It is not even permitted to investigate the true
sense of anything, if he happens to suffer a whisper to
escape him. It is not permitted to reflect, no, not even
in intention. Then what may we think of, if it be not
lawful to spend our thoughts on those books which con-
SPAIN DEZA AND XIMENEZ DE CISNEROS. 135
tain the Christian religion ? Did not the psalmist say
that this is the occupation of the righteous man ? His
delight, he says, is in the law of the Lord, and in his
law doth he meditate day and night. " * This forcibly
recalls a sentence that I remember to have heard, a few
years ago, from the lips of the Padre de la Canal, one
of the most accomplished scholars and historians of
Spain, in his library in the Augustinian monastery in
Madrid : " The Inquisition has ruined Spain." And
Spain must be colonized, peopled anew, and made Chris
tian, before these traces of ruin, more general and more
lasting than the vestiges of Roman, Goth, or Saracen,
will disappear from the social condition of that fine
people.
Llorente calculates the victims of Deza thus :
Burnt alive 2,592
Burnt in effigy 896
Penitents 34,952
Total 38,440
The distribution of these numbers is conjectural, and the
entire calculation is involved in that of the time of Tor-
quemada ; but the aggregates are gathered by our author
from sources of indisputable authenticity, and the pro
portions are suggested by his experience and profound
historical information. Lesser men sometimes endeavour
to discredit Llorente ; but their attempts are vain.
Brute ferocity could no longer revel with impunity.
The insurrection of Cordova, and the steady resistance of
the kingdom of Arragon, taught the heads of Popedom
and of Spain that the Inquisition would fail unless its
* Biblioth. Hispanica, A., art. JLntonius.
136 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
affairs were conducted with prudence as well as vigour.
In this exigency Fernando V., King-Governor of Spain,
nominated Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros, Archbishop
of Toledo, to be Inquisitor-General of Castile, and raised
Juan Engueza, Bishop of Vique, to the same dignity in
Arragon. The Pope confirmed the nomination ; and the
bull to Cisneros came addressed to him as cardinal, the
consistory having awarded him the purple as a reward
for past services, and as an incentive to zeal for the
future. He had to contend not only with the men of
Cordova, but with a strongly pronounced disaffection in
every quarter of the kingdom, and therefore bespoke for
bearance by encouraging an inquiry into the conduct of
his fallen predecessor. Several persons had approached
"the threshold of the apostles," complaining that rela
tives were imprisoned without cause, or that their houses
had been razed to the ground wantonly, after false rumours
that they had been used for synagogues. The Pope had
appointed delegates to investigate those cases, and now
empowered Ximenez to take cognizance of the whole
affair. Entering on the duty with extreme caution, he
formed, in conjunction with the king, a " Catholic con
gregation," or special board of inquiry, chiefly consisting
of inquisitors ; and, after due deliberation, pronounced a
sentence of acquittal in favour of the sufferers, restored
the dead to honour and fame, rebuilt the ruined houses,
and ordered all records to the prejudice of the living to
be cancelled. The sentence was published at Valladolid
with great solemnity and rejoicing, in presence of king,
grandees, and prelates ; but Lucero, the chief criminal,
the man who had wasted so much life, and ruined so
many families, was liberated from prison, and sent, un
punished, to live at Almeria, and enjoy the dignity and
SPAIN DEZA AND XIMENEZ DE CISNEROS. 137
revenue of Maestrescuela, or " teacher of the clergy,"
in the cathedral there. No penalty was inflicted on him
or on Deza.
While only a looker-on, Xiraenez had favoured the
prevalent wish for a reformation of the Inquisition ; but
no sooner did he find himself intrusted with its control,
than he resolved to make the most of it as an engine of
government, and led the way for that political applica
tion of its agencies which is now so general and effective.
He resisted the acceptance of the very proposals which
he had formerly encouraged, and had even proffered to
Don Carlos of Austria, afterwards Charles V. He di
rected all his energies to confirm and to extend the in
stitution, without any diminution of even the least of its
enormities. He divided the realm of Castile into inquis
itorial provinces, placing an inquisitor at the head of each ;
in Sevilla, Jaen, Toledo, Estremadura, Murcia, Valladolid,
and Calahorra. His brother of Arragon followed the ex
ample, and partitioned his territory under Zaragoza, Bar
celona, Valencia, Majorca, Pamplona, Sardinia, and Sicily.
It was by means of his influence and management
that Ferdinand received the crown of Spain. He there
fore enjoyed unbounded confidence and favour. He was
Cardinal of Spain a title rarely conferred and gov
ernor, under Ferdinand, of all his dominions. As Arch
bishop of Toledo, he was head of the clergy ; as Inquisi
tor-General of Castile, he was the terror of every priest
and of every layman within the bounds of his jurisdic
tion ; and, having improved the organization of the
holy office, he proposed to extirpate the enemies of the
Church who occupied the small state of Oran, on the
coast of Africa, where every refugee from Spain and the
Inquisition could, until that time, find shelter. At the
138 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
head of fourteen thousand men, fitted out and paid from
his own purse, he embarked for Africa in February,
1509, and soon achieved the conquest. During his ab
sence, Ferdinand curtailed, for a time, the power of the
Popes over the inquisitor, by forbidding the reception of
briefs or bulls concerning it without his regium placet, or
permission. But this exercise of royal independence
never yielded any measure of mercy to those whom the
inquisitors chose to persecute.
Presiding, in 1510, over the cortes of Arragon, Ferdi
nand heard bitter complaints against the inquisitors in
that kingdom. The representatives of the cities and
towns declared that those men not only made inquisition
concerning faith, but usurped civil authority ; threw per
sons into their dungeons for civil offences, multiplied
familiars, all of whom were exempted from paying taxes,
until the country was brought to the verge of ruin, and
made themselves insufferable by meddling, under pretext
of religion or of privilege, in every court. Whoever at
tempted to resist these usurpations, whether he were
viceroy, captain-general, or grandee, was instantly sub
jected to insult, and even to excommunication. They,
therefore, prayed the king to keep the inquisitors within
their proper bounds, and cause the laws and rights of
Arragon to be respected. The king hesitated, promised,
equivocated, and delayed ; but, after two years reluct
ance, was compelled to yield, in part, to their demands.
Yet, after solemnly binding himself by oath in open
cortes to enforce the concordat between the Inquisition
and the kingdom, he was soon induced to apply to
Rome for a consecration of perfidy, and obtained from
Pope Leo X. a dispensation from the oath.
Returned, from his African campaign, Ximenez re-
SPAIN DEZA AND XIMENEZ DE CISNEROS. 139
sumed the management of the Inquisition, which had
been conducted by a substitute during his absence, and
gave clearest evidence that, amidst the cares of state, he
had no care for the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
A clever impostor, known as the devotee of Piedrahita,
rilled Spain with wonder, by professing to be favoured
with a constant vision of the Saviour and of the holy
virgin, uttering blasphemies that the pen refuses to re
peat. Ximenez sent for her to court. He and the king
conversed with her. The inquisitors noted her sayings,
and admired her miracles. The Pope and his nuncio
acknowledged that they dreaded scandal ; but the In
quisition pronounced her blessed. Scandal there was, in
deed ; but it came from another quarter. The inquisit
ors were known to be accustomed to violate the females
whom they had caused to be brought into the "holy
houses;" and Ximenez, with due ostentation, decreed
that all convicted of that crime should be put to death ;
but none died, because none were convicted. Nor could
any be convicted, for none were prosecuted. Neither did
the abomination cease.
The New Christians, on whom the severest perse
cution fell, offered Ferdinand six hundred thousand
ducats of gold, if he would protect them from the horri
ble secret of the tribunal, and allow the names of wit
nesses to be published ; and they very nearly succeeded
in obtaining the object of their prayer. But Ximenez,
with his wonted munificence, or, perhaps, with his usual
calculation as to ultimate advantage, laid down a sum,
if not equal, at least sufficient to induce the king to
reject their overture, and to maintain the secret.* Indul-
Here note, and, on every like occasion, recollect, that this
class of the population was chiefly persecuted for the sake of
140 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
gent to a wretched woman who brought derision on the
name of the adorable Redeemer, he had no indulgence
for a " penitent ;" and, resolving that no penitent should
henceforth be spared a blush, he despoiled all the pro
vincial inquisitors of their accustomed privilege of dimin
ishing the more ignominious part of penance, by
forbidding them to allow the sambenito to be laid aside.
Meanwhile, the kingdoms of Castile and Arragon were
struggling against the regal and pontifical authorities.
Ferdinand, although Leo X. sanctioned his perfidy,
saw that, if he persisted in violating his engagement
with the cortes of Monzon, all Arragon would be up in
arms, and therefore prayed the Pope to recall his obnox
ious bull, and restore its jurisdiction to the civil power.
And in the same year, 1515, the cortes of Toledo, in
Castile, extorted a similar concession, and forced the
king to confine the inquisitors within their province, and
restrain them from interfering with the business of secu
lar judges. Ximenez bowed, perforce, before the repre
sentatives of the nation ; but quietly pursued his course
of internal advance in discipline, and not only placed in
quisitors, with their establishment, in Cuenca, but set up
the tribunal in the newly-conquered territory of Oran.
And, having thus extended it to Africa, he sent it across
the Atlantic, to awe the converts of the new world into
submission to the " righteousness and mercy " of his
Church. Ferdinand V. commanded the " holy tribu
nal " to be erected in " the kingdom of Terra Firma ; r
and Ximenez named (A. D. 1516) Juan Quevedo,
the confiscations. To accept even 600,000 ducats, once for all,
instead of a constant and unlimited exaction, would have been
a loss to the inquisitors. It is not to be imagined that the
money disbursed by Ximenez came from his private purse.
SPAIN DEZA AND XIMENEZ DE CISNEROS. 141
Bishop of Cuba, as first inquisitor-general in those re
gions. But we will not follow him in the present chapter.
Unlike other powers, which usually begin by concili
ating the confidence of their subjects, the Inquisition was
generally careful to make a first impression of terror.
In the new district of Cuenca, one of the first acts of the
inquisitors was to proceed against the memory and es
tate of Juan Henriquez de Medina, saying that, although
he died in peace with the Church, having received the
sacraments of confession, eucharist, and extreme unction,
he was, in reality, an impenitent heretic, and a feigned
Christian. They declared him infamous, commanded
his remains to be exhumed and burnt, his effigy, covered
with a sambenito, to be exhibited at the same time, and
his property to be confiscated. The heirs of Medina ap
pealed to Ximenez, who appointed commissioners to
examine the case ; but the commissioners proceeded in
entire agreement with the inquisitors themselves. The
aggrieved family appealed from Ximenez to the Pope,
who commanded the commissioners to exercise imparti
ality, and these were induced to give sentence in favour
of the deceased. A similar case occurred at Burgos,
where a dead man was arraigned, absolved, and then
accused of heresy again. The family appealed to Leo X.
on behalf of the deceased, Juan de Covarrubias, whom
Leo recognised as a friend of his youth, and the more
earnestly, on that account, interposed his authority to
quash a project of spoliation and infamy. But the Cardi
nal of Spain, and Regent of Castile,* elate with power,
Appointed by Ferdinand to be regent after his death, in
consequence of the insanity of his second wife, Juana, until
the arrival of his grandson, Charles, afterwards the Emperor
Charles V.
142 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
resisted the Pope, rallied the inquisitorial host into revolt
against their supreme pastor, and was in the height of the
quarrel when death, silenced him. But disgrace came
first. His new sovereign, Charles V., had commanded
him to retire to his archbishopric ; and there, at war
with the world, and scarcely in agreement with the
Church, he expired, eighty years of age, on the 8th of
November, 15 17. His victims were :
Burnt at the stake 3,564
Burnt in effigy 1,232
Penitents 48,059
Total 52,855
Nearly fifty-three thousand witnesses, whose testimony
would contradict the praises lavished by many credulous
reciters of other men s praises on that learned, liberal,
munificent Cardinal Xiinenez de Cisneros.
CHAPTER XII.
SPAIN THE INQUISITION UNDER CHARLES I. AND
PHILIP II.
HAVING traced the history of the modern Inquisition in
Spain under the government of four inquisitors-general,
we will very briefly note its condition during the reign
of Charles V., or Charles I., as the Spaniards count, un
der the administration of the Cardinals Adriano, Tabera,
and Loaisa, who successively presided, and the former
part of that of the Archbishop Valdes.
Charles did not come to Spain until two years after
the death of his predecessor. He was a German by
INQUISITION UNDER CHARLES I. AND PHILIP II. 143
birth, education, and language. His education chiefly
consisted in historical reading; and by this he had
learned the evil of Papal interference with the rights of
kings, and resolved to abolish the Inquisition in his new
kingdom, or, at least, to change its character. Some
universities and colleges, both in the Netherlands and
Spain, had given sentences confirmatory of his own
opinion ; and in the fervour of youthful purpose, for he
was only eighteen years of age, he resolved to confer
this benefit on Spain. After a magnificent entry into
Valladolid, he there met the cortes of Castile, (February,
1518,) who laid a petition before him, containing this
prayer: "We supplicate your highness to command
provision to be made, that in the office of the holy In
quisition the proceedings be so conducted, that entire
justice be observed; that the wicked be punished, and
that good men, being innocent, suffer not; that they
observe the sacred canons and the common right, which
speak on this point; and that the judges who may
be appointed to this end be generous,* of good char
acter and conscience, and of the age which the law re
quires such persons as may be expected to do justice ;
and that the ordinaries be righteous judges."f So intent
were the deputies of Castile on their object, that they
made a present of ten thousand ducats of gold to the
king s chancellor, a man of extreme venality, to engage
him to promote their suit. The king, who needed no
persuasion, answered the petition by a pragmatic sanc
tion, or decree, having force of law until the next cortes.
The paper reads beautifully. Almost every sentence is
Generosos, " noble by descent."
f Llorente, xi, 1, gives the press-mark (D. 153) of Ms man
uscript authority in the Royal Library of Madrid.
144 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
in direct contradiction to the laws and customs of the
Inquisition, and the whole system would have been over
turned had it come into effect. But there are critical
moments when the angel of death seems to wait upon
the pleasure of inquisitors, and with wondrous opportu
nity he wafts away their adversaries. Whether that
angel be sent from above or evoked from beneath, no
man can say. The Chancellor Sauvage died, and the
pragmatic was never published.
From Valladolid Charles went to Zaragoza, where he
met the deputies of Arragon, and swore to maintain the
rights and laws of their kingdom, wherein were included
restrictions on the holy office. But by this time the in
quisitor-general, Ariano, had gained the young king s
ear, and, by reasons of state, soon converted him into an
ardent patron of the very institution he had intended to
destroy. The cortes of Arragon met a second time,
(close of 1518,) represented to his highness that the ex
isting restraints on inquisitorial power were insufficient,
and prayed for the addition of articles like those promised
to Castile. In reply, he told them that they must con
fine their requests within the limits of the sacred canons
and pontifical decrees, attempting nothing against the
Inquisition ; that if they had any complaint to make
against an inquisitor, they must carry it to the inquisi
tor-general ; and that, in case of doubt, it must remain
with the Pope to arbitrate. But this refusal was con
veyed so artfully, that they imagined his words to bear
a favourable meaning ; and, like many others of their
own communion, fancied that in "the sacred canons"
they might find abundant authority on the right side.
Nothing can be more fallacious than such an expectation.
A similar discussion arose between the king and the
INQUISITION UNDER CHARLES I. AND PHILIP II. 145
cortes of the principality of Catalonia, and closed with
equal ambiguity. The inquisitors, on the other hand,
revenged themselves by seizing the secretary of the
cortes at Zaragoza, and throwing him into prison as a
heretic. But this provoked the Arragonese to refuse a
grant which they had agreed to give the king, on the un
derstanding that he would redress their grievances ; and
his highness, after making a slight concession, merely to
secure the money, prosecuted the cause of the Inquisition
with the utmost zeal. Leo X. gladly heard appeals from
Spain against the wickedness and cruelty of the inquisi
tors; and cardinals, richly bribed, espoused the cause
of the complainants. Favourable briefs were issued to
meet some particular cases, and a bull of reform was
actually despatched. Still Charles and the inquisitors
remonstrated. The bull was not published. The Pope,
having made a good market of his supremacy as the
only judge in this controversy, suffered himself to be
persuaded that a reform of the Inquisition would be
prejudicial to the Holy See, and intimated to his son
Charles, that if the document were returned to him un
published, he would cause the lead to be broken ; and
thus, without submitting to the shame of recalling what
the world ought to think irrevocable, he would make it
useless. Whether or not the seal was broken, the bull
never saw the light; and just as its suppression was
agreed to, Leo died.
Let it not be imagined, that either the jealousy of
civil authorities, or the dissatisfaction of the public, re
strained the tormentors in the least. One example will
show the contrary. A physician, Juan de Salas, was
accused of having used a profane expression, twelve
months before, in the heat of a dispute. He denied the
146 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
accusation, and produced several witnesses in his defence.
But the inquisitor Moriz, at Valladolid, where the charge
was laid, caused De Salas to be brought again into his
presence in the torture-chamber, stripped to his shirt,
and laid on the ladder, or donkey, an instrument re
sembling a wooden trough, just large enough to receive
the body, with no bottom, but having a bar or bars so
placed that the body bent, by its own weight, into an
exquisitely painful position. His head was lower than
his heels, and the breathing, in consequence, became ex
ceedingly difficult. The poor man, so laid, was bound
round the arms and legs with hempen cords, each of
them encircling the limb eleven times. During this part
of the operation they admonished him to confess the
blasphemy; but he only answered, that he had never
spoken a sentence of such a kind, and then, resigning
himself to suffer, repeated the Athanasian Creed, arid
prayed "to God and Our Lady many times." Being
still bound, they raised his head, covered his face with a
piece of fine linen, and, forcing open the mouth, caused
water to drip into it from an earthen jar, slightly per
forated at the bottom, producing, in addition to his suf
ferings from distension, a horrid sensation of choking.
But again, when they removed the jar for a moment, he
declared that he had never uttered such a sentence ; and
this was repeated often. They then pulled the cords on
his right leg, cutting into the flesh, replaced the linen on
his face, dropped the water as before, and tightened the
cords on his right leg the second time; but still he
maintained that he had never spoken such a thing; and,
in answer to the questions of his tormentors, constantly
reiterated that he had never spoken such a thing. Moriz
then pronounced that the said torture should be regarded
INQUISITION UNDER CHARLES I. AND PHILIP II. 147
as begun, but not finished ; and Salas was released, to
live, if he could survive, in the incessant apprehension
that if he gave the slightest umbrage to a familiar or to
an informer, he would be carried again into the same
chamber, and be racked in every limb. Llorente tran
scribes the original record of this deed, with the signature
of the notary affixed. Let it be carefully noted that the
sufferer was not a Jew, Turk, or heretic, but a child of
the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, against
whom no suspicion lay of any greater offence than a
word spoken hastily ; and even one of the accusers, him
self suffering moral torment at the time, for they were
both imprisoned in the Inquisition, and under examina
tion, when they criminated Salas, affirmed that he had
afterwards, with an air of repentance, confessed the sin,
and taxed himself with folly. But the truth is, that
Protestants have suffered less than others from the
Inquisition, which spends its fury chiefly on the chil
dren of the Church, giving little encouragement to
those whom that Church would entice into her
bosom.
Popular dissatisfaction, not only represented in cortes,
but made manifest in tumults, and threatening civil war,
together with disputes between the king and the pontiffs,
rose to such a height that, at length, Charles withdrew
the sanction of royal jurisdiction from the acts of the
tribunal (A. D. 1535); and the Spanish Inquisition suf
fered a humiliation of ten years.* But we must refrain
It has been hastily inferred, from this act of the king,
that the Inquisition was suspended ; and so some of the dep
uties in the cortes of Cadiz, in 1812-13, stated. But we find
the inquisitors active in that interval. Had it been suspended,
it could hardly have been revived by Philip.
148 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
from narrating the history of those disputes, and pass on
to a period of mournful interest to every Protestant.
About the year 1541, the guardians of Romish faith
in Spain began to proceed formally against Lutherans,
as they were called who gathered their knowledge of
Christianity from the Bible. During eighteen years,
cases of Lutheran heresy frequently occurred ; but they
were single, and the Inquisition did not think it necessary
to put forth its utmost energies until the year 1559,
when a chapter of surpassing importance opens in our
history.*
Judaism was dislodged from Spain, after having
flourished there from times anterior to the Christian era.
The religion of the Koran had been driven from the
shore ; and there \vas neither mosque nor muezzin re
maining. The Jews had formerly enjoyed legal protec
tion, and the Mohammedans had almost occupied the
peninsula as their own territory ; yet both the one and
the other gave way before the united power of the king
and the inquisitor. Evangelical Christianity was never
acknowledged, nor even known to the laws but as an
offence. Without any ostensible communion, or even a
single edifice erected for divine worship, small companies
of brethren had peacefully and silently resisted forces
that to all others had been resistless. Without any
charm of antiquity, or any appeal to human motive,
those disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ braved the peril
of death for twenty years ; and for eighteen of those
twenty were, doubtless, yielding themselves to imprison
ment, to torments, and to death, far beyond the scanty
records that have come to our knowledge; and were
The leading examples of persecution during those eighteen
years, may be found in " Martyrs of the Reformation," chap. v.
INQUISITION UNDER CHARLES I. AND PHILIP II. 149
thus proving the superior power of that faith which can
persevere at all hazards, and in the absence of every
earthly succour or incitement. At length, as the ob
noxious races had been swept away by two great efforts,
so Lutheranism, as it was called, was marked for anni
hilation by a third.
In the years 155*7 and 1558, a large number of per
sons were imprisoned as Lutherans. Many of them were
of illustrious descent, and eminent for learning and
official rank. From the usual examinations, it became
evident that an evangelical reformation was extending
rapidly ; and Philip II., with the inquisitor-general Val-
des, resolved to employ some extraordinary means to
crush it, if possible, forever. The king laid the whole
case before the Pope, Paul IV., who addressed a brief to
Valdes (January 4th, 1559), authorizing him, notwith
standing anything to the contrary that might be found
in the general rules of the Inquisition, to deliver over to
the secular arm, for punishment of death, all dogmatizing
(teachers) Lutheran heretics, even although they had not
relapsed, as well as those who professed penitence, but were
still subject to suspicion. This was an excess of cruelty
beyond that of Ferdinand and Torquemada, who never
put penitents to death, even if the recantation were evi
dently extorted by fear, unless they had afterwards re
lapsed. And on the day following the Pope gave another
brief, revoking all licences to read prohibited books,
authorizing the prosecution of all who read such books,
and instructing all confessors to examine their penitents,
and to require them to declare at the holy office the
names of all whom they knew to possess such books,
under penalty of the greater excommunication. The
confessor who omitted this examination and injunction
150 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
was to be laid under equal condemnation. Bishop,
archbishop, king, or emperor, every one was included
under the terrible obligation, to go to the holy office,
and give information of the slightest shade of heresy
that they might have detected or imagined in another.
The Jesuits were, by this time, very numerous in Spain,
and exerted themselves, beyond all others, in the delation
of heretics.*
The particular heresy that it pleased the keepers of the
faith to mark, at this time, for visitation with capital
punishment, cannot be so well described as in the words
of the cardinal inquisitor-general Manrique, who com
manded, in agreement with the council of the "Supreme
Inquisition," that to the articles recited in the annual
edict requiring all persons to inform against heretics, the
following should be added :
" If they know, or have heard, that any one has said,
defended, or believed, that the sect of Luther or his fol
lowers is good, or that he has believed and approved
any of its condemned propositions ; to wit :
" That it is not necessary to confess sins to the priest,
since it is sufficient to confess them before God ;
" That neither pope nor priests have power to absolve
from sins ;
" That the true body of our Lord Jesus Christ is not
in the consecrated host ;
Popular dislike already pursued the Jesuits. It was
rumoured that they, like Ignacio Loyola himself, were prose
cuted for heresy, and that the cells were full of Jesuits. So
confidently was the rumour spread, that V aides found it neces
sary to send private instructions to the inquisitors of the
several tribunals, to assure the lords, prelates, and others f
that the contrary was the case. De Castro copies this lettei
from a Spanish authority.
INQUISITION UNDER CHARLES I. AND PHILIP II. 151
" That we ought not to pray to saints, nor ought there
to be images in the churches ;
"That there is no purgatory, nor any necessity to pray
for the deceased ;
" That faith, with baptism, is sufficient for salvation,
without any need of works ;
" That any one, although not a priest, may hear
another in confession, and give him the communion under
the two kinds of bread and wine ;
" That the Pope has no power to grant indulgences
and pardons ;
" That clerks, friars, and nuns may marry ;
" That there ought not to be friars, nuns, nor monas
teries ;
"That God did not institute the regular religious
orders ;
" That the state of marriage is better and more per
fect than that of unmarried clerks and friars ;
" That there should be no more feast-clays than the
Sunday ;
" That it is not a sin to eat flesh on Friday s, in Lent,
and on other days of abstinence.
"If they know, or have heard say, that any one has
held, believed, or defended various other opinions of Lu
ther and his followers, or that any one has left the king
dom to be a Lutheran in other countries."
When the inquisitor-general prescribed these additions
to the edict, he told the provincial inquisitors that they
might also insert something to direct information against
the alumbrados (enlightened), or dejados (careless), as
they were also called, a sect of Antinomians, a folk w r ho
are too numerous at all times, but especially abound
when a once-dominant religion, whether true or false,
152 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
has decayed, and while the masses of the people are un
taught. In such a condition of society, truth and error
are wildly mingled and confounded. But even the
speculations of the Spanish illuminati would be rather
exaggerated by the inquisitors than stated fairly. The
council of " the supreme" afterwards took up the sug
gestion ; and in cartas-acordadas, or " letters of instruction,"
issued on the 28th of January, 1568, and 4th of Decem
ber, 1574, prescribed the following questions, which we
may take as characteristic of the times :
" Do you know, or have you heard, that any person,
living or dead, has said or affirmed that the sect of the
alumbrados, or dejados, is good ?
" That mental prayer is of divine command, and that
by it is fulfilled all that remains of the Christian religion ?
" That prayer is a sacrament hidden under accidents ?
" That this sacrament is only verified in mental prayer,
since vocal prayer is of little value 1
" That servants of God should not busy themselves in
bodily exercises ?
" That a parent, or other superior, ought not to be
obeyed, when he commands things that would hinder
the exercise of mental prayer and contemplation ?
" Have you heard that any one has spoken evil of the
sacrament of matrimony, or said that no one can attain
to the secret of virtue, without learning from those who
teach this doctrine following ?
" That no one can be saved without the prayer that
they practise and teach, and without making a general
confession.
"That the heats, tremblings, and faintings, which
usually appear in the said teachers, and their good disci
ples, are indications of the love of God.
INQUISITION UNDER CHARLES I. AND PHILIP II. 153
" That, by these signs, they are known to be in grace,
and to possess the Holy Spirit.
" That they who are perfect need not perform virtuous
works.
" That on reaching the state of one perfect, the essence
of the most Holy Trinity is made visible in this world.
" That such perfect persons are directly governed by
the Holy Spirit.
"That for doing, or for not doing, anything, these
perfect ones are not subject to any other rule than that
of inspirations directly received from the Holy Spirit.
" That people ought to shut their eyes when the priest
elevates the host.
" That any one has said that, on arriving at a certain
degree of perfection, the perfect can no longer see images
of saints, nor hear sermons, nor other discourses that
treat of God ?
" Have you seen or heard any other piece of bad doc
trine of the said sect of almnbrados, or dejados ?"
To receive the crowds of informers who rushed to the
tribunal of the faith, and discovered entire congregations
of Lutherans assembled in private houses, and to conduct
the procedure of inquisition, Don Pedro de la Gasca was
appointed by Valdes his sub-delegate in Valladolid ; and
in Seville, Don Juan Gonzales de Munebrega. For in
those two cities, and in their neighbourhood, the gospel
was making extraordinary progress. Valdes also ap
pointed a set of ambulatory officers, who dispersed them
selves all over the country, and, gaining information of
persons who were leaving their homes to avoid prosecu
tion, mounted on post-horses, pursued them from stage
to stage, and, flight being held equivalent with confession
of heresy, brought them back, and threw them into dun-
7*
154 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
geons. The revenue of the holy office, rich as it was,
was said to be insufficient to defray the cost of the cru
sade ; and therefore the Pope, at request of the inquisitor-
general, required the revenue of a canonry in each me
tropolitan cathedral and collegiate church to be trans
ferred to this new service; and, by another brief, he
alienated, from the ordinary ecclesiastical revenue of
Spain, the sum of one hundred thousand ducats of gold.
Many chapters demurred at the impost, and one, at
least that of Majorca refused to pay so much as a
maravedi ; but they generally submitted in the end ;
and never was army better equipped for a campaign,
than were those inquisitors for theirs. Public expecta
tion ran high. The priests and the populace demanded
spectacles answerable to the rank and number of the
heretics, and they were not disappointed.
CHAPTER XIII.
SPAIN PREPARATIONS FOR AN AUTO DE FE.
HERE, once for all, we may describe the preparations
for a Spanish Auto de Fe, for the public execution of
heretics.
When an inquisitor had determined to pronounce
sentence on a company of prisoners, he appointed, as we
observed when describing the " sermons " of Toulouse, a
Sunday or feast-day for the solemnity ; avoiding, how
ever, a Sunday in Advent or Lent, or Easter-day, or
Christmas-day, or any great festival, because, for such
days, special entertainment is provided in the churches,
SPAIN PREPARATIONS FOR AN AUTO DE FE. 155
and must not be interrupted. The day being fixed,
general notice was given by the curates from their pulpits
that, at the time and place appointed, there would be
"a general sermon of the faith" delivered by the in
quisitor ; and that, in honour thereunto, all other preach
ers would be silent. A living picture of the last judg
ment, said they, would be represented for the instruction
of the faithful.
If any were to be delivered over to the secular arm,
due notice was given to the chief civil authority, that he
might be present with all his subalterns to receive the
culprits. On the day before the Auto it was usual in
Spain to carry a bush to the quemadero, or place of
burning, in procession, thereby to signify many things to
the people, which are scarcely worth the trouble of nar
ration here. A secretary and ministers, with a crier,
came forth in a body from the palace of the Inquisition,
and, in the squares and public places, unfurled a banner,
on which was displayed an order that no person, of
whatever station or quality, from that hour until the
day after the execution of the Auto, should carry arms,
offensive or defensive, under pain of the greater excom
munication, and the loss of such arms ; and that this
same day, until two in the afternoon, no person should
proceed in coach or sedan, or on horseback, through the
streets where the procession was to pass, nor enter the
square in which the scaffold was erected. In the even
ing came the procession of the Green Cross. All the
communities of friars of the city and neighbourhood,
having assembled at the Inquisition, together with the
commissaries, the scribes, and the familiars of that dis
trict, sallied forth in long array. After them walked the
consultors and the triers, (qualificatores,) with all the
156
THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
officials of the tribunal, each carrying a large white
taper, lighted. Between the officials went men bur
dened with a bier that was covered with a pall. A mi-
9 A M B E N I T O.
SPAIN PREPARATIONS FOR AN AUTO DE FE. 157
merous band, vocal and instrumental, followed last, per
forming the hymn, Vexilla regis prodeunt* In this
order the procession reached the square in which the
platform and galleries were erected for the exhibition of
the morrow. On that scaffold was an altar, and, the
pall being removed from the bier, a large green cross,
covered with a black veil, was taken off it, carried to
the platform, unveiled, erected on the altar, and illumi
nated with twelve large white tapers. Some friars of
St. Dominic and a strong body of lancers, took their
station round the cross to watch there during the night,
and the procession dispersed. Meanwhile, preparations
began in the "holy house," where the prisoners had
their beards shaven and their heads shorn close, that
they might present an appearance of humiliation and
nakedness suitable to wretches who had forfeited bap
tismal grace.
On the morning of the fatal day, by sunrise, or earlier,
the culprits were brought out of their cells into the
chapel, or hall, already attired for the spectacle. Peni
tents of the lowest class were merely dressed in a coarse
black coat and pantaloons, bareheaded, and without
shoes or stockings. The more guilty wore a sambenito,
or penitential habit, as represented in the plate. It was
yellow, and the St. Andrew s cross which appears on it
was red. Sometimes a rope was put round the neck, as
an additional mark of ignominy. They who were to be
burnt were distinguished by a habit of the same form,
The hymn so "beginning may be found in the Breviary,
infra Hebd. quartam quadragesirrus. It contains the often-
quoted passage : " Hail to thee, cross, our only hope ! In
this time of passion, increase grace to the pious, and blot out
their crimes for the guilty !"
Z A M A R B A.
SPAIN PREPARATIONS FOR AN AUTO DE FE. 159
called zamarra* and a conical paper cap, slightly re
sembling a mitre, about three feet high. They called it
coroza.\ On the zamarra there was no cross, but
painted flames and devils, and sometimes an ugly por
trait of the heretic himself, a head, with flames under
it. The coroza was painted in like manner. Any who
had been sentenced to the stake, but indulged with com
mutation of the penalty, had inverted flames painted on
the livery ; and this was called fuego revuelto, " inverted
fire." The penitents of all degrees were permitted to sit
upon the ground in profound silence, not moving a limb,
thus to await the hour. Those condemned to burn were
taken into a separate apartment, where the inquisitors
beset them with importunate exhortations to repent, and
be reconciled to the Church. The inducement offered
was, that they should be put to death by strangulation,
not by flames, leaving only lifeless bodies to be con
sumed, and that they should be spared from hell.
They who came to take part in the Auto assembled
in the palace of the inquisitor, crowding the apartments,
and partook of an abundant breakfast to fortify them for
the labours of the day. The penitents, the impenitent,
and the relapsed, also had a meal prepared for them ;
and sometimes, as if in mockery, the breakfast set be
fore the condemned to fire was ostentatiously sumptuous.
The great bell of the cathedral had been tolling from
early dawn, and now the city was in motion. All pre
parations being complete, the chief inquisitor proceeded
to the palace-door, attended by his notary, who read the
roll, beginning with the names of those who had offended
An old Spanish word, denoting the material, and derived,
according to the Academy, from the Hebrew "ifa^, " wool."
| Peggiorative of corona, " crown."
F IT EGO REVUELTO.
SPAIN PREPARATIONS FOR AN AUTO DE FE. 161
least, and closing with them on whom the holy office
poured its bitterest curses. Each person came to call,
with all his marks upon him marks of starvation,
torture, terror, shame, or oftentimes with a smile of con
quest on his countenance, and words of triumphant faith
bursting from his lips. But criminals of that class
known as dogmatizers were generally gagged the
mouth being filled with a piece of wood, kept in by a
strong leather band fastened behind the head, and the
arms tied together behind the back. In Goa, as each
came, or was brought, the notary read another name,
that of a guard or sponsor, who was to perform the
meritorious duty of walking beside him in the proces
sion. In Spain, however, there were two guards to each.
The Dominicans, honoured with everlasting precedence
on all such occasions, led the way in Goa and in Spain ;
singing-boys also preceded, chanting a litany. The ban
ner of the Inquisition was intrusted to their hands. The
Spanish banner was a rude green cross, on a black
ground, with an olive-branch on one side and a sword
on the other, showing the alternative of reconciliation or
death offered by the holy office. The motto was, Ex-
surge, Domine, et judica causam tuam : " Arise, O
Lord, and judge thy cause." The Inquisition of Goa
displayed a portrait of St. Dominic holding the olive-
branch and sword, standing on a cloud with a dog of
which his mother dreamt* having a brand in its mouth
to set the globe on fire. By his motto, Misericordia et
justitia, he seemed to offer the choice of mercy or jus
tice. We pause here to note that the rules of the In
quisition preclude the exercise of mercy, and set at
naught even the common forms of justice. After the
See above, page 2,
162 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
banner walked the penitents ; a penitent and a sponsor,
two and two. In Goa, a cross-bearer brought up the
train, carrying a crucifix aloft, turned towards them, in
signal of pity; and, on looking along the line, you might
have seen another priest going before the penitents with
his crucifix turned backwards, inviting their devotions.
In Spain, the banner which preceded was itself a cross,
and answered the same purpose. They to whom the
Inquisition no longer afforded mercy, walked behind the
penitents, and could only see an averted crucifix. Two
armed familiars walked, or rode, beside each of these,
who was mounted on an ass, and two ecclesiastics, proba
bly Theatines, or some other clerks regulars, also at
tended. After these, the images of heretics who had
escaped were carried aloft, to be thrown into the flames ;
and porters came last, tugging under the weight of
boxes containing disinterred bodies, on which the exe
cration of the Church had fallen, and which were also
to be burnt.
To do honour and service on that occasion, the whole
body of civic authorities, high and low, walked in order
after that miserable train ; then the secular clergy ; then
the regular clergy. The staff inquisitorial, not to be
confounded with any others on that triumphal day, had
gone before ; a long space intervening between them
and the general procession. They were attended by a
strong body of armed familiars, all mounted on horse
back; and, overshadowed by the banners of the Pope
and the king, they entered first into the grand theatre
and ceremoniously took their places. This theatre was
a temporary wooden erection, but very spacious. It was,
in fact, a large amphitheatre, resembling those which are
used for bull-fights, except that it was not an unbroken
SPAIN PREPARATIONS FOR AN AUTO DE FE. 163
circle, but consisted of separate galleries facing each
other, on two or three sides of a square, with stages for
the chief officers of Church and State, and one magnifi
cent altar, at least ; the fourth side being left open for
entrance and egress. On one side of the altar was a
pulpit for the delivery of the sermon, and the publication
of the sentences; and sometimes there were more pul
pits than one. The members of the procession ascended
the galleries in order, and the open area was left free for
the ceremonies that were to take place. Outside the
city as in the valley of Gebinnom, for the fires of
Tophet and for the sacrifices to Moloch was a hearth,
or place of burning. As our own language is too poor
to provide a name for such a thing, we consent to bor
row from Spanish its peculiar designation, and call it
the quemadero. This quern adero was a piece of pave
ment devoted to the single use of burning human bodies ;
and, besides other sufficient reasons why it should lie
without the walls, there was this, that the act of killing
might be done apart, and so made, the more formally,
that of the civil power ; and that the smoke of those
horrid sacrifices might not offend the nostrils of the
higher clergy, they, only, going to witness the execution
of their own sentence, to whom the sight would be
agreeable, or who might, in superior devotion, wish to
attend at the performance of the meritorious deed.
Sometimes the quemadero was a raised platform of
stone, and sometimes adorned with pillars or other bits
of masonry, to distinguish and beautify the spot. Some
were surrounded with statues. Our attention shall now
be chiefly given to the four most famous Autos de fe
that were celebrated in Spain in the reign of Philip II.
Never were heretics baited and consumed with greater
164 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
pomp ; and, therefore, although these most savage spec
tacles were very numerous and long continued, fuller ex
amples cannot be found of inquisitorial splendour than
these following.
CHAPTER XIV.
SPAIN AUTOS DE FE.
ON Trinity Sunday, May 21st, 1559, was the first royal
Auto de fe at Valladolid, in the great square. The
king himself was not able to be there ; but the princess,
Dona Juana, governess of the kingdom in his absence,
and the prince, Don Carlos, were on the stage. They
were surrounded by the councillors of all the councils
that attended the court, many grandees of Spain, a large
number of titled marquises, counts, viscounts, barons, and
gentlemen ; ladies of all classes ; and on the ground a
vast concourse of spectators. The platform, stages, chairs
of state, galleries, altars, and pulpits, were fitted up with
unsparing sumptuousness. When the procession entered
the arena, this courtly audience counted sixteen per
sons wearing penitential badges, brought to be recon
ciled to the Church, and then doomed to life-long
dishonour ; fourteen to suffer death by fire ; and a box,
with the mortal remains of a lady who was reported
to have died under the taint of Lutheranism ; and this
lady s effigy was also carried as a mark of special shame.
We note the highest class of sufferers more par
ticularly.
Dona Leonor de Vibero, wife of Pedro Cazalla, king s
SPAIN AUTOS DE FE. 165
comptroller, daughter of one who had held the same
office, was proprietress of a chapel and burial-place in the
church of the monastery of St. Benedict in Valladolid.
Dona Leonor died in communion with the Romish
Church, communion signified by the ceremonies of
confession, eucharist, and extreme unction. Some prison
ers of the Inquisition, when on the rack, or threatened
with it, declared that she had entertained and acknowl
edged Lutheran opinions at the time of her decease;
and, on inquiry, it was found that religious meetings
were wont to be holden in her house. Sentence was
therefore given that she had died in heresy. Her chil
dren and grandchildren were declared infamous. Their
property was confiscated. Her exhumed body was car
ried in the procession to the Auto, and thence to the
quemadero, and burnt openly. Her effigy was paraded
through the streets, with coroza, zamarra, flames and
devils, amidst the yells of zealots. The house where she
had lived, and where the "Lutherans" had met for
prayer, was razed to the ground ; and a pillar was erected
on the spot, with an inscription setting forth the offence,
the sentence, and the execution. " I have seen the site,
the pillar, and the inscription," says Llorente ; " but they
tell me that it is no longer to be found, a French general,
in the year 1809, having caused this evidence of ferocity
towards the dead to be taken down."
The following were burnt :
1. Doctor Ayustin Cazalla, a presbyter, a canon of
Salamanca, chaplain of honour and preacher to the king
and to the emperor, son of Pedro Cazalla, king s comp
troller, and of Doiia Leonor, just mentioned. They say
that he was, in common with many of the first people
of Spain, of Jewish extraction. He was accused of being
166 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
" chief dogmatizing Lutheran heretic of the conventicle
of Valladolid, and correspondent of that of Seville." At
first he denied the facts, and even swore to the denial.
But when condemned to suffer torture, and taken to the
chamber, he confessed, and signed his confession and a
promise to be "a good Catholic," if they would allow
him to be reconciled under penance. The inquisitors
thought it impossible to remit capital punishment to
one who had been accused of dogmatizing; but they
encouraged him to hope for mercy, and to reveal the
history of his life, and many particulars relating to other
persons, which might serve their purpose. On the day
before this Auto, one Fray Antonio de Carrera, a
Jeromite monk, went to him, by order of the inquisitors,
and told him that they were not yet satisfied with his
declarations, which did not disclose all the truth ; and
that it would be for the good of his soul to confess all
that he could remember of himself, or that he knew of
others. He answered, that, without bearing false witness,
he could confess no more, for he knew no more. Then,
after much conversation, the friar bade him to prepare
to die the next day. Astounded at this intelligence, he
asked if there were no hope left for a mitigation of the
sentence; and hearing that there was none, unless he
would make a larger confession, he seemed to look to
Him, at length, from whom alone mercy could be had.
" If it be so," said he, " let me prepare to die in the
grace of God ; for, without falsehood, I cannot say more
than I have said already." But he obtained exemption
from the stake by confessing with the friar, and was
therefore strangled before the burning of his body.
2. Francisco de Vibero Cazalla, brother of the doctor,
was a presbyter, curate of the town of Horrnigos. At
SPAIN AUTOS DE FE. 167
first he denied the charge of Lutheranism, but confessed
when under torture, and ratified the confession ; and it
is said that he implored reconciliation to the Church with
penance. Him they would not pity, because, although
not a dogmatizer, they thought that his "repentance"
only rose from fear of death. But it does not appear
that he did repent. On the contrary, he persevered in
confessing Christ ; and when his brother, at the quema-
dero, was speaking to the spectators under the character
of a penitent, he manifested grief and indignation at his
unfaithfulness, and gave himself calmly to the flames.
Both he and his brother were degraded in the square,
before being led away to the place of execution.
3. Dona Beatriz de Vibero Cazalla, sister of the two
preceding, denied, confessed when on the rack, implored
reconciliation and pity, failed to obtain either, was
strangled, and then burnt.
4. Alfonso Perez, presbyter, master in theology, de
nied, confessed on being tortured, was degraded, strangled,
and consumed.
5. Don Cristobal de Ocampo, from Zamora, knight of
the order of St. John, almoner of the grand prior of
Castile and Leon of the same order, was strangled, and
thrown into the fire.
6. Cristobal de Padilla, a private gentleman, strangled
and burnt.
7. The Licentiate Antonio Herrezuelo, advocate, from
the city of Toro, condemned as an impenitent Lutheran,
died with a good confession. Agustin Cazalla exhorted
him, as they were going to the quemadero, to follow his
example, and by confession, so called, avoid the flames,
and at the spot continued the exhortation ; but Her
rezuelo was unmoved : he sang psalms and recited pas-
168 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
sages of Scripture as they went through the streets, and
smiled when they bound him to the stake. He could
not then speak, for they had gagged him ; and a soldier
of the guard, to signalize his zeal, stabbed him with his
halberd ; but the wound was not mortal ; and, bleeding
and burning at the same time, he silently endured the
last suffering, and expired.
8. Juan Garcia, silversmith. It was his wife who
first told the inquisitor where meetings were held for
prayer. Garcia, who frequented the house, died, of
course. He confessed, and was strangled at the stake ;
but she was rewarded, for betraying her husband, with
an annual pension from the treasury of the holy office.
9. The Licentiate Perez de Her r era, a magistrate of
the city of Logrono, was condemned, confessed, strangled,
and his body burnt.
10. Gonzalo Baez, a Portuguese, condemned as a Juda-
izing heretic, confessed, and suffered in the same manner.
11. Dona Catalina de Ortega, a lady of rank in Val-
ladolid, condemned as a Lutheran, confessed, and died
as the others.
12. Catalina Roman, a woman from Pedrosa;
13. Isabel de Estrada, a beata, or devout woman, of
the same town ; and,
14. Juana Elasquez, servant of the Marchioness of
Alcanices, were all conducted to the burning, and, with
the exception of the Portuguese, who was probably a de
scendant of Jews, they all suffered for Lutheranism : and
it is worthy of special remembrance that, of this promis
cuous company, two refused to make the perilous con
cession of an external reconciliaton with the Church of
Rome, but, by confessing the Lord Jesus Christ,
triumphed over Antichrist.
SPAIN AUTOS DE FE. 169
The sixteen sack-bearers were led back from the pa
rade of that doleful day to the cells of the Inquisition,
there to spend one other night. If the rules were kept,
the work of persecution was resumed, next morning,
with accelerated vigour. For every one who had taken
any part in the Auto, even but as a spectator, and con
tributing nothing to it beyond his presence, or perhaps
one passing execration on the heretics, forty days
indulgence had been proclaimed. Every one who had
rendered any active aid was bidden to rejoice in three
years respite from the pains of purgatory. And every
one who would help to make up another burning by in
formation of another lurking heretic,- was incited by an
offer of the same indulgence. The inquisitors, refreshed
by a night s repose, met in their palace, and had the six
teen culprits brought once more into their presence.
The sentence given against each was read ; and one of
the fathers instructed him concerning the manner, the
degree, and the duration of his penance. This monition
ended, each was sent to his proper place. Some, destin
ed to the galleys, were taken to the civil prison, thence
to be transferred to the chain, the oar, and the lash.
Some, stripped and flogged, went bleeding through the
streets and market-places. Some, covered with sambeni-
tos and dragging ropes, w r ere made to show themselves
in squares and in churches, there to be tormented by the
ribald mob, who heaped on them every sort of insolence.
And all were sworn to seal up in everlasting silence all
that they had seen, heard, or suffered, under peril of a
repeated persecution. The sambenitos, or zamarras,
worn by the persons burnt, were hung up in the chu r ch
of the Dominicans, with the name of each, and the word.
combustus, " burnt."
8
1*70 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
And, meanwhile, the gracious providence of God did
not slumber. The princess Juana, and the young prince
of Asturias, Carlos, in their places on the platform, had
been required to swear fidelity to the holy office ; bind
ing themselves, by that oath, to give notice of everything
that they should ever know to be spoken or done against
it. The royal persons reluctantly submitted ; but the
prince, then but fourteen years of age. writhing under
the indignity, eyed every part of the ceremony with hor
ror. The hatred of the Inquisition, and compassion for
the Protestants, which then sprang up within him, cost
him his life eventually ; but not until he had contributed
to create that jealousy of the tribunal which soon took
deep root in the court of Spain, and never left it until
the Inquisition was abolished.
The managers of the next Auto in Seville, on Sunday,
September 24th, 1559, could not boast of royal pres
ence ; but the Church of God acknowledges a noble
band of martyrs who suffered on that day. In the
square of St. Francis was the usual apparatus at the
service of the Church. Four bishops, all experienced in
the service, the inquisitors of the faith in Seville, the chap
ter of the cathedral, some grandees, many titles, knights,
the Duchess of Bejar, and a train of ladies, with the
usual concourse, were actors, abettors, and witnesses.
Twenty-one came to be burnt, followed by one effigy,
and eighteen penitents. We must notice some of them.
The effigy represented the licentiate Francisco de Za-
/Va, a beneficed presbyter of the parish church of St.
Vincent, of Seville, condemned as an absent contuma
cious Lutheran heretic. Reynaldo Gonzalez de Monies*
Better known as Reginaldus Gonsalvus Montanua, author
of a sm.aU voUutje intituled, " Sanctie Inquisitioni* Hispanire
SPAIN AUTOS I)E FE.
171
says, that he was very learned in the Holy Scriptures;
but so skilful in concealing his opinions, that the inquisi
tors did not suspect him, but employed him frequently
as a trier of doubtful propositions, and that, in this capa
city, he served many of his friends, by giving a favour
able judgment of their writings and speeches. A weak-
minded beata. whom he supported in his house, and who
had become acquainted with his connexions, ran mad,
was placed under the severe discipline then thought ne
cessary for maniacs, and confined to her chamber. But
she escaped ; and in revenge, went straightway to the In
quisition, asked an audience, and informed against as many
as she could think of, Zafra included. By her good help,
the inquisitors made out a list of more than three hun
dred persons. At first he succeeded in persuading the
inquisitors that he could not be suspected of heretical
taint on the testimony of an insane woman ; but they
had caught the clue : a multitude of persons were soon
in durance, and their prisons in the castle of Triana, and
all available places of confinement in Seville, were crowd
ed. Zafra was arrested also ; but the suddenness of the
procedure made it impossible to provide secure prisons,
and he, with several others, effected his escape. His
effigy was burnt.
First of those given over to the secular arm was Dona
Isabel de Baena, a rich lady of Seville, in whose house a
congregation had met. She was burnt, and her house
razed to the ground, like that of her sister in Valladolid.
Don Juan Gonzalez, Presbyter of Seville, an eminent
preacher. With admirable constancy he refused to make
any declaration, in spite of extremely severe torture, say-
Artes Aliquot Detect*," containing the fruits of his own ex
perience when a prisoner in the holy house at Seville.
172 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
ing that he Lad not followed any erroneous opinions, but
that he had drawn his faith from Holy Scripture ; and
for this faith he pleaded to his tormentors in the words
of inspiration. He maintained that he was not a heretic,
but a Christian ; and absolutely refused to divulge any
thing that would bring his brethren into trouble. Two
sisters of his were also brought out to this Auto, and dis
played equal faith. They would confess Christ, they said,
and suffer with their brother, whom they revered as a wise
and holy man. They were all tied to stakes on the que-
madero. Just as the fire was lit, the gag which had
silenced Don Juan was removed, and as the flames burst
from the fagots, he said to his sisters, " Let us sing, Deus
laudem meam ne tacueris" And they sang together,
while burning : " Hold not thy peace, O God of my
praise ; for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of
the deceitful are opened against me : they have spoken
against me with a lying tongue." Thus they died in the
faith of Christ, and of his holy gospel.
Fray Garcia de Arias, called "The white doctor,"
from his snow-white hair, an aged monk of the monas
tery of St. Isidore of Seville. For many years he had
entertained evangelical opinions in secret, but few of the
more eminent converts being aware of them. He w r as
universally revered, and thought to be a thorough Ro
manist, except by the few who knew him. Indeed, he
had been among the most zealous opponents of the
Reformation, and persecutors of the reformed. The in
quisitors constantly consulted him on questions of doc
trine ; he was notorious as a favoured consulter and par
tisan of the holy office; and when his change of views
aroused suspicion, and the inquisitors -began to receive
accusations against him, they imagined that Luther-
SPAIN AUTOS DE FE. 1*73
ans were endeavouring to revenge themselves, and ad
vised him to be more cautious, for the future, when in the
presence of suspicious persons. As yet his opinions were
changed, but not his heart ; and he concealed his convic
tions in an extraordinary manner. Then it was that
Gregorio Ruiz, a preacher in the cathedral of Seville,
gave great offence by evangelical expositions of Holy
Scripture ; and when he was delated, the inquisitors re
solved to test him by a formal disputation. Ruiz ap
plied to his friend for counsel, who concerted with him a
course of argument that seemed cogent enough to re
duce the divines to silence, whoever they might be ; but
he was amazed to find his friend among the inquisitors,
arguing against him, and demolishing the very argu
ments which he had suggested. Ruiz yielded for the
mysterious contradiction deprived him of self-possession
and by yielding, escaped the vengeance of the Inquisi
tion. And, afterwards, Arias told him and other breth
ren, that he had by that contrivance averted from the
whole party the death that he now saw imminent. But
this dissimulation could not continue. He became in
creasingly earnest, and laboured incessantly in commu
nicating his growing knowledge of the truth to some
who subsequently bore a conspicuous part in the labours
of the Reformation. The light could not be covered.
Delations were renewed ; and the inquisitors, enraged to
find that they had been deceived, threw him into a se
cret dungeon. His companions had taken timely warn
ing and fled, leaving him in the very jaws of death.
He then resolved, in the strength of God, not to dissim
ulate any more ; and made a bold and most explicit
confession of his faith, defended his belief concerning
justification, the sacraments, good works, purgatory,
174 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
images, and all the points in controversy ; arid declared
the Romish doctrine to be grossly erroneous. In short,
he turned the attack upon the inquisitors, who were ut
terly unable to contend with him. He taxed them with
ignorance, and put them to silence with his learning.
But such a contest was unequal. They could hide their
shame under the veil of secrecy ; and he was brought
forth with the coroza on his reverend head, and with the
cope of infamy. He died, as they would say, impenitent,
having entered into the pyre rejoicing that, by the grace
of God, he could bear witness in a good confession.
Fray Cristobal de Arellano, a member of the same
convent, a truly Christian community, was, even by con
fession of the inquisitors, profoundly learned in the Holy
Scriptures. And he was no less bold in his confession.
They condemned him as a contumacious Lutheran.
When, in the square of St. Francis, the " merits" of his
cause were read, one of the propositions imputed to him
was, that the mother of our Lord was no more a virgin
than he himself. Unable to suffer so shameful an accu
sation, he rose, and cried aloud : " That is false ! JS T ever
have I uttered such a blasphemy. Always have I be
lieved the contrary ; and now, and in this place, will I prove
out of the gospel the virginity of Mary." Such were
the merits published at those times, to stir up the mul
titude against the followers of our blessed Saviour.
When they reached the quemadero he was intensely
earnest in exhorting two of his brother monks, Cris-
ostomo and Casiodoro, to stand firm in gospel truth.
Nor was his exhortation lost. They all suffered a trium
phant martyrdom.
Fray Juan de Leon, another inmate of the same mon
astery, was among those who, after consultation with
SPAIN AUTOS DE KK. 176
brethren, absconded, in hope of saving their lives. Un
able to bear separation from Christian society, he secretly
returned, but found that they also had fled, and were at
Frankfort. Thither he followed them, and thence they
proceeded in one company to Geneva. At Geneva,
hearing that Queen Elizabeth was on the throne of Eng
land, instead of Mary, they resolved to seek a refuge
here, and set out on the journey. From the time, how
ever, that the Christians were known to be fleeing from
Seville, the Inquisition employed spies in Milan, Frank
fort, Antwerp, and other towns of Italy, Flanders, and
Germany, giving handsome rewards to all who could
bring back fugitives. Fray Juan was among those who
fell into their hands. They caught him in Zealand, just
as he was about to embark for England, together with
Juan Sanchez, who was burnt in Yalladolid. They
loaded Fray Juan de Leon with irons on his arms and
legs, put a cap of iron over his head and shoulders, with
a sort of iron tongue passing into his mouth, and press
ing down, as Llorente words it, "the natural tongue of
flesh," and brought him to Seville. When thrown into
prison he confessed his faith, and maintained it too.
Condemned to be delivered to the secular arm, he was
brought to the Auto with a gag in his mouth, thrust in
so cruelly that it caused excessive torture, and gave him a
most pitiable appearance. Contrary to custom, he was
not shaven ; and his haggard, attenuated figure presented
an appearance scarcely human. They removed the gag
when he was at the stake, that he might say the creed,
profess the Catholic faith, and be confessed, in order to
avoid the death by fire. An old schoolmate, and priest
of the same monastery, implored him to take pity on
himself; but he would not hazard the loss of God s
176 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
mercy, and steadfastly persevered in confessing Christ
his Saviour, that he might enter, even through fire, into
rest.
The Doctor Cristobal de Losada, who had practised
as a physician in Seville, and was regarded as minister
in a congregation of the reformed, in that city, resisted
every persuasion to recant, directly or indirectly, and was
burnt alive.
Fernando de San Juan, a schoolmaster, at tirst
showed some signs of instability, but recovered strength,
confessed boldly, and was burnt alive. Morcillo, a monk
of St. Isidore, and his fellow-prisoner, who had en
couraged him to this effort of constancy, wavered at the
last moment, and was strangled by the inquisitorial
grace, usually granted to those who make a " sacramen
tal confession."
Dona Maria de Bohorques, illegitimate daughter of a
gentleman of Seville, not quite twenty-one years of age.
She had been instructed by Doctor Juan Gil, canon ma
gistral of Seville, and bishop elect of Tortosa. She knew
Latin well, had some knowledge of Greek, possessed a
good library with many Lutheran books, knew much
of the sacred text by memory, and was well taught in
evangelical doctrine. When confined in a secret dun
geon, she made bold confession, and argued calmly with
her persecutors. She acknowledged all that was true in
the charges laid against her, and denied what was false
or misapprehended ; but maintained an impenetrable
silence on whatever would lead to discovery of others.
The inquisitors put her to the torture, and made her say
that her sister Juana had not reproved her for the opin
ions she entertained. Beyond this they could extract
nothing. During the intervening days incessant attempts
SPAIN AUTOS DE FE. 177
were made to subdue her constancy ; but she overcame
them all ; and when a company of priests came, the
night before her death, to make a last effort, she thanked
them for their pains, but assured them that she was in
finitely more interested in her own salvation than it was
possible for them to be. When the iron was on her
neck at the stake, they bade her recite the creed, which
she did most readily, but began to expound it in such a
manner as to allow no doubt of her consistency. To
prevent this they strangled her, and her ashes were
mingled with those of the martyrs of Seville, than whom
there never was a nobler company. But there was an
other victim, who did not appear in the procession, nor
at the quemadero, Dona Juana Bohorques, the sister
of Maria. The single word that had escaped from Maria,
when in the anguish of torture, was enough for the in
quisitors. She had not reproved her: there had not
been any breach of sisterly affection : therefore. Juana was
to be suspected of heresy. To be suspected, in the logic
of the holy office, is to be guilty ; and this lady was in
stantly seized, and thrown into the Castle of Triana.
As they found that she was soon to become a mother,
they allowed her to remain in an upper apartment until
the birth of a male child, which was taken from her at
the end of eight days, and, after the lapse of seven more,
she was thrown into a dungeon. Then began the trial.
Charges were made which she could not acknowledge
Avith truth, and they were not slow in applying torture.
But how could they be expected to pity this young
mother ? To bind her arms and legs with cords, and to
gash the limbs with successive strainings by the levers,
or to dislocate her joints by swinging her from pulleys,
yet sparing vital parts, would have been the usual course
178 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
of torment : but from that she might have recovered.
The savage tormentors, in their fury, passed a cord over
her breast, thinking to add new pangs, and, by an addi
tional outrage of decency, as well as humanity, extort
some cry that might serve to criminate husband or
friend. But when the tormentor weighed down the bar,
her frame gave way, the ribs crushed inwards, blood
flowed from her mouth and nostrils, and she was carried
to her cell, where life just lingered for another week, and
then the God of pity took her to himself. The murder
ers had not committed the least inquisitorial irregularity ;
for she did not expire when in their hands. They
needed no absolution, they showed no compunction ; but
they strove to smother the report, for fear of scandal ;
and over her dead body they pronounced a sentence,
not that she was innocent, as some say, but that the
accusation of heresy had not been proved. If hell can
be upon earth, it must be in an Inquisition.
SPAIN MORE AUTOS DE YE. 179
CHAPTER XV.
SPAIN MORE AUTOS DE FE.
HAPPILY for England, Philip II. missed the crown by
the death of his wife, Mary. He had gone over to his
hereditary dominions before her decease, and was in
Brussels, anxiously negotiating a peace with France,
when the first Auto took place at Valladolid. His
return to Spain was by sea. Having embarked at
Flushing, he found his way into the Bay of Biscay, and
was within sight of Laredo, when, between rough
weather and bad seamanship, his fleet began to founder.
In that extremity he made a vow that, if God would per
mit him to set foot on firm ground again, he would take
signal vengeance on the heretics of Spain. He landed,
and it was resolved that the vow should be fulfilled
without delay in Valladolid.
On Sunday, October 8th, 1559, in the grand square,
as before, an Auto was celebrated with unprecedented
pomp. The " heretics," with their guards, occupied a
gallery so contrived, that from all parts the culprits
might be seen. Independently of the king s oath, it had
been predetermined that he should be recreated by the
spectacle now exhibited ; and several prisoners were re
served to supply the entertainment. His Majesty, the
young Prince of Asturias, for the second time, his sister,
also for the second time, his cousin, the Prince of Parma,
three ambassadors from France, the Archbishop of Seville,
the Bishops of Palencia and Zamora, several bishops
elect, the constable and admiral, the Dukes of Nagera
and Arcos, the Marquises of Denia and Astorga, the
180 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Counts of Urena, Benavente, and Buendia, the Grand
Master of the military order of Montesa, the brother of
the Duke of Gandia, the Grand Prior of the order of St.
John of Jerusalem, a brother of the Duke of Alva, other
grandees not named, many men of title, the Countess of
Ribadavia, aud other grand ladies of Spain, with all the
councils, tribunals, and constituted authorities of the city,
in their seats of state, represented every power and hie
rarchy, and made that " Act of Faith " as truly national
as any act could be. France was represented by ambas
sadors, and so was Rome. All southern Europe as
sented to the deed, and another sin to be retributed was
registered on high.
The Bishop of Cuenca preached " the sermon." The
" most illustrious" prelates of Palencia and Zamora went
to the spot appointed, and performed the ceremony of
degradation on the clerks brought to undergo that last
act of canonical authority. Then Valdes, the inquisitor-
general, Archbishop of Seville, advanced to the king, and
demanded of him the oath prescribed. The king rose,
drew his sword, and brandished it bravely. Valdes read
the form : " It having been, by apostolical decrees and
sacred canons, ordered that kings should swear to favour
the holy Catholic faith and Christian religion, does your
majesty swear by the holy cross, with your royal right
hand upon your sword, that you will give all favour that
is necessary to the holy office of the Inquisition, and to
its ministers, against heretics and apostates, and against
those who defend and favour them, and against whatso
ever person, directly or indirectly, may impede the efforts
and affairs of the holy office, and that you will force all
your subjects and people to obey and observe the consti
tutions and apostolical letters given and published in de-
SPAIN MORE AUTOS DE FE. 181
fence of the holy Catholic faith against heretics, and
against those who believe them, receive them, or favour
them ?"* Philip answered, Asi lo juro : " Thus I
swear."
We now turn to the victims.
Don Carlo di Sesso, native of Verona, son of the
Bishop of Piacenza, of noble family, forty-three years of
age, a scholar, long in the service of the emperor, chief
magistrate of Toro, married into a Spanish family that
boasted descent from Peter the Cruel, had come to re
side in Spain, in consequence of his marriage, at Villa
Mediana, near Logrono. He was reputed to be the
principal teacher of Lutheranism in Valladolid, Palencia,
Zamora, and their respective districts. They arrested
him in Logrono, and took him to the secret prisons in
Valladolid, where he answered to the accusation of the
fiscal, on the 18th of June, 1558. On the day before
this Auto, they told him that he must prepare to die, and
exhorted him to confess whatever he had not yet dis
closed, either respecting himself or others. In reply to
those exhortations, he asked for paper and ink, and de
liberately wrote a full confession cf his faith, adding that
the true doctrine of the gospel was not that which the
Church of "Rome taught, and had taught through several
ages of corruption, but that which he had then written ;
and affirmed that he wished to die in the same faith, and
to offer his body up to God, through living faith in his
Son our Lord Jesus Christ. With indescribable vigour
and energy, he wrote full two sheets of paper without a
pause. Through the whole night the friars laboured to
* Given by De Castro, in his " Spanish Protestants," from
a MS. by the Bishop of Zamora, above-mentioned, who recorded
the oath as written by himself on the day preceding.
182 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC,
extort some word of submission, and again on the morn
ing of the day, but without a shadow of success. He
therefore appeared at the sermon with a gag in his
mouth, sat gagged during the whole ceremony, and was
thus taken to the hearth, lest he should speak heresy in
hearing of the people. Then they bound him to the
stake, removed the gag, and again exhorted him to con
fess. But with great seriousness, and in a loud voice, he
answered, " If I had time, I would make you clearly see
that you, who do not follow my example, condemn your
selves. But light up the fire as soon as possible, that I.
may die in it." They did so immediately, and he died
unmoved.
Pedro de Cazalla, brother of Doctor Agustin Cazalla.
He had asked to be reconciled to the Church ; but they
refused him, because he had dogmatized, or taught.
When bound to the stake, and while they were lighting
the fagots, he begged permission to be confessed. They
confessed him, strangled him, and burnt the body. Do
mingo Sanchez, a presbyter, underwent the same penalty.
Fray Domingo de Rojas, Dominican and priest, a son
of the Marquis of Poza, had shown some irresolution, but
was undoubtedly a believer in the gospel. When leav
ing his seat to go to the place of execution, he attempted
to appeal to the king, who drove him from his presence,
and he went gagged to the stake. More than a hundred
of his order followed him, entreating him to recant ; but
he persisted in an earnest, although inarticulate, refusal.
Some of them chose to understand him differently ; and,
perhaps to boast that he had made concession, the in
quisitors allowed him to be strangled.
Juan Sanchez, an inhabitant of Valladolid, had fled
into Flanders, but was discovered, arrested by order of
SPAIN MORE AUTOS DE FE. 183
the king, and was now condemned to die. When the
cords that had confined him snapped in the flames, he
bounded in the air with agony ; the priests offered him
mercy if he would be confessed ; but he called for more
fire, which was given, and thus he " kept the faith."
Besides these five, nine others perished. One, at least,
would have recanted, if thereby she could have saved her
life ; but it was determined that she should die. An
other, in despair, committed suicide, and her body was
burnt. The king, be it noted, went from the scaffold to
the hearth, witnessed all the executions, and made his
guard assist. There were sixteen sentenced to the sam-
benito, and still there were forty-five prosecutions pend
ing. One case occurred in connexion with this Auto
which deserves especial notice, as illustrating the inex
orable spirit of the Inquisition, even prevailing over the
considerations of personal regard which sometimes find
place among the thoughts even of an inquisitor.
When Dona Maria Miranda, a nun of the Cistertian
convent of Bethlehem, in Valladolid, was in the hands
of tormentors, it escaped her that one of the sisterhood,
Dona Marina de Guevara, a lady of high family con
nexions, partook of her opinions. Marina, perhaps ap
prehensive of such a disclosure, and not prepared by the
grace of God to suffer martyrdom, went to an inquisitor
on that very day, (May 15th, 1558,) and laid what is
called a spontaneous information against herself. The
Inquisition invited such delations, promised indulgence
to all who would bring them, and, in its own code, laid
down a general rule that, in every such case, the in
quisitor receiving the informant should deal gently with
him, (semper mitius se habendo erga eum, quia venit per
se, non vocatus ;) and the Council of Beziers had deter-
184 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
mined that a spontaneous self-accuser should not suffer
death, imprisonment, exile, nor confiscation of goods, if
the confession were true and full, (poenitentes et dicentes
plenam de se ac de aliis veritatem, habeant impunitatem
mortis, immurationis, exilii, et confiscationis bonorum.}
Trusting in the letter of the law, and unwilling to suffer
for a merely intellectual faith, Dona Marina threw her
self at the feet of the inquisitor Guillelmo, and told him
that she had admitted some Lutheran opinions as proba
ble, but had never given them full assent, and desired to
renounce them altogether. He proceeded, according to
the rigour of law, to exact a judicial confession, which
she made, saw it reduced to writing by a notary, and
again, on the 16th, 26th, and 31st of the August follow
ing, returned to him witli confidence to make voluntary
additions, as her memory recalled the most trifling words
that she had ever spoken on the points in controversy.
But Guillelmo and his colleagues were secretly weaving
a net wherein to take their prey. All whom she men
tioned were arrested and examined ; and her Lutheran-
ism being made out to the satisfaction of the inquisitors,
they removed her from the convent to their secret prisons
(February llth, 1559), and subjected her to three more
examinations ; but without finding anything to be added
to her voluntary declarations. The fiscal then (March
3d) read her twenty-three articles of accusation, most of
which she acknowledged to be true ; but pleaded that
the propositions of those articles expressed her doubts
rather than convictions, and, by a petition duly signed
by an advocate allowed her, she prayed for absolution.
Again (May 8th) she applied for another hearing; and
afterwards made some slight additions to her confession,
which were duly ratified according to a judicial decree.
SPAIN MORE AUTOS DE FE. 185
A summary was then shown to her, with requisition to
confess the whole truth, and to confirm what others had
witnessed, but she had neglected to confess. Yet again
she asked for an audience (July 5th), and declared, " that
she had seen the publication of witnesses, and thought
that it must have been given to her rather that she might
learn errors than be delivered from them ; and that,
therefore, she did not dare to read it, lest some of them
should remain in her memory. For the love of God she
prayed them to believe her statement ; for, in his sight,
and on oath, she had told them the whole truth, and
could neither say nor remember any more." And she
repeated her former declarations in a distinct paper, fol
lowing it up (July 14th) with a petition to be absolved ;
or, if that were too much to ask, to be reconciled with
penance. The abbess and five nuns of her convent certi
fied, on oath, her " good religious conduct." Even the
Inquisitor-general, who knew several of her friends, in
terested himself in her behalf, and, knowing the unfa
vourable temper of the inquisitors of Valladolid, sent
(July 28th) her cousin, Don Alfonso Tellez Giron, lord
of the town of Montalban, and cousin of the Duke of
Osuna, to entreat her to confess what the witnesses had
deposed against her, and to tell her that by that means
only could she escape death. Perhaps dreading the
living death of one branded with heresy, she replied,
that it was impossible, without falsehood, to add any
thing to the confession already made. The judges were
inexorable, and being assembled with the consulters
(July 29th), all voted that she should be put to death,
one only dissenting, who advised that she should be laid
upon the rack. The council of the supreme confirmed
their sentence.
186 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Of this, however, she was not informed until the eve
of the Auto, when the inquisitor-general, still hoping to
save her, sent Don Alfonso once more to advise her to
confess all, and save herself from death. The provincial
inquisitors refused him admission, complaining that it
was scandalous to display so much anxiety to save that
single nun, when many others had been killed for lesser
faults. Yaldes appealed to the " Supreme," who re
solved that their president might be gratified ; but that
the inquisitors, or one of them, should be present at the
conference, together with her advocate. This was done ;
but Marina still refused to make a false confession, even
to save her life, and she therefore suffered the garrotc,
and her body was burnt. The sentence read at the Auto
was remarkable, for all in it that is definite may be
summed up in few words : That she had heard some
one constantly repeat this sentence, Being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ oar
Lord ; she thought that it sounded well, and believed it,
although she understood not in what sense. For this
only was she put to death ; and so unanimous were all
others in the sentence, that not even the inquisitor-
general could save her !
The inquisitors at Seville had hoped for the presence
of the king at a second Auto in that city, as well as at
Valladolid, but were disappointed ; and therefore de
ferred its celebration until December 22d, 1560, when
fourteen persons and three effigies were burnt, and thirty-
four condemned to penance.
One of the effigies was of Doctor Juan Gfil, or Egidius,
a canon-magistral of the cathedral of Seville. He had
been prosecuted for Lutheran opinions, and underwent
imprisonment in the Castle of Triana. After that pun-
SPAIN MORE AUTOS DE FE. 18*7
ishment, he renewed his intercourse with the reformed,
and took a journey to Valladolid to see them, but soon
died, and was buried at Seville. Among other discov
eries in the course of their inquisitions, the judges of
the holy office made that of his communion with the
persons whom they were labouring to extirpate : they
instituted a suit against his body, and caused it to be
exhumed and burnt, together with his effigy. They
confiscated his property, as usual, and declared his name
infamous.
Another effigy represented the Doctor Constantino
Ponce de la Fuente, also magistral-canon of Seville, a
fellow-student of Gil in the University of Alcala de
Henares, and his successor in the canonry. With him
he had laboured to promote the study of the Holy Scrip
tures, and from the pulpit of the cathedral to raise the
standard of popular exposition. Profound learning and
extraordinary eloquence brought him the patronage of
the emperor, who made him his honorary chaplain and
preacher ; and for several years he followed the imperial
court in Germany. Vast congregations heard him in
the cathedral of Seville, and his reputation as a philoso
pher, a theologian, and a Greek and Hebrew scholar,
commanded universal deference. But his sermons
abounded in propositions which were marked as Lu
theran, and reported to the Inquisition, whence came
spies to add their evidence and contribute to the pre
paration of a charge. At length, some papers written
by his hand, were found in the house of a lady whom
they had imprisoned for heresy ; and these papers fur
nished copious evidence that his belief was in utter op
position to the Romish dogma. In a secret dungeon
the papers were laid before him ; and lie not only ac-
188 THE BRAND OF - DOMINIC.
knowledge*! them to be his own, but defended the doc
trines therein written, and steadfastly refused to say a
word that would betray his brethren. Enraged and
mortified, they threw him into a subterranean cell, damp
and pestiferous, where he could scarcely shift his position
for want of room, and where no relief was allowed him
even for the necessities of nature. Oppressed beyond
endurance, he is said to have exclaimed, " O my God !
were there no Scythians, cannibals, nor beings yet more
cruel and more inhuman, in whose power thou couldest
have left me, rather than these barbarians ?" But life
could not endure in such a place, and, by an attack of
dysentery, he was delivered from their power. There
was none to tell of him in the hour of death ; and all
we know is, that he was one of a countless multitude of
victims whose only record is in heaven. Fray Fernando,
a monk of San Isidro, suffered at the same time for the
same cause and in the same manner, and was also repre
sented by an effigy. A third figure told of the absence
of the Doctor Juan Perez de Pineda, who had escaped
the clutches of his persecutors by timely flight.
Among the fourteen burnt was Julian Hernandez, a
Spaniard, deacon, it is said, of a Lutheran Church in
Germany. From the remarkable smallness of his per
son, he was known as Julian el chico, ("the little.")
Dressed as a muleteer, exceedingly active and shrewd,
he travelled between France and Spain, concealing books
among the goods that he carried; and, traversing the
country, not only to Castile, but even to Andalusia, he
delivered the principal works of the Reformers to per
sons of education and rank in several of the chief cities
in Spain. His learning, skill in argument, and piety,
were not less remarkable than the diligence and courage
SPAIN MORE AUTOS DE FE. 189
with which he baffled for several years all the vigilance
of the inquisitors, and, in hourly peril of the death which
now befell him, had cheerfully hazarded his life for the
sake of Christ. Great pains were taken to pervert him
during his imprisonment. Relays of monks tried their
skill, but to no effect. When a party of beaten dis
putants had left his cell, he would exult in their discom
fiture, and cheer his fellow-prisoners by singing,
Vencidos van losfrailes, vencidos van;
Corridas van los lobos, corridas van.
" There go the friars, there they run !
There go the wolves, the wolves are done !"
The "wolves" tried the virtue of the rack, after argu
ment had failed. But he gave not the slightest clue for
the discovery of those who had aided him in his peculiar
mission nearly through the length of the peninsula.
Lest he should spoil the decorum of this Auto by
Unwelcome speech, they brought him gagged. Two
priests, who knew the doctrine of the gospel, but fought
against conviction, came to persuade him to be con
fessed ; but he reproved them sternly for their hypocrisy,
drew a fagot of dry wood near his head that it might
help to consume him quickly, and, by the grandeur and
constancy of his faith, filled the spectators with amazement.
A nun, Francisca de Chaves, of the order of St.
Francis of Asis, in the convent of Santa Isabel, in Se
ville, gave up herself to martyrdom. She had used
great plainness of speech after her imprisonment, telling
the inquisitors, as our Lord told the Pharisees, that they
were a generation of vipers. They classed her as perti
nacious, and burnt her alive.
The Inquisition, being "supreme and universal," con-
190 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
descended not to heed the rights of nations, but gloried
in the sacrifice of three foreigners in this festival of blood.
Nicholas Burton, a citizen of London, had traded with
Spain in a vessel of his own, and, about two years be
fore, being at Cadiz, was arrested by a familiar. His
alleged offence was having spoken something contrary
to the religion of the country to some persons in Cadiz,
and to some others at S. Lucar de Barrameda. What
this something was does not appear ; but the real cause
of his arrest was his being owner of a fine ship, and, as
the inquisitors believed, of all the cargo, and other valu
able property. Surprised at finding himself arrested
without a word of accusation, he demanded the reason ;
but was answered only with threatenings, dragged to
the common prison, kept in irons fourteen days, and,
not imagining himself to be there as a heretic, but on
false accusation of another kind, unconsciously supplied
his persecutors with material for their purpose, by ex
horting the prisoners to repentance, and explaining to
them the word of God. Witnesses to his heresy being
thus made, they conveyed him to Seville, laden with
irons, and threw him into a secret prison in the Triana.
There he must have lain for two years at least ; and now
he was brought into the theatre in the attire of an obsti
nate heretic, " his tongue forced out of his mouth with a
cloven stick fastened upon it, that he should not utter
his conscience and faith to the people ;" and whatever
were the torments he had suffered, or the confession he
made before his tormentors, we know them not. Llorente
found records to the effect that he was a " contumacious
Lutheran heretic," and that " he remained constant in
his sect, and was burnt alive ; the holy office of Seville
taking possession of ship and cargo."
SPAIN MORE AUTOS DE FE. 191
To recover that ship and cargo, a Bristol merchant, in
part owner, sent his attorney, John Frampton, to de
mand restoration. Frampton spent four months in Se
ville in useless legal formalities, when his powers were
pronounced insufficient, and he returned to England for
a more ample commission. Thus furnished, he landed a
second time at Cadiz, where the servants of the Inquisi
tion seized him, set him on a mule, " tied him with a
chain that came under the belly of the mule three times
about, and, at the end of the chain, a great iron lock,
made fast to the saddle-bow." Two armed familiars
rode beside him ; and thus he went to Seville, alighted
within the walls of the old prison, and was thrown into
a dungeon, where he found some Spaniards under treat
ment for heresy. Next day he was interrogated as to
his name, travels, calling, and relations, and, lastly, re
quired to say the " Hail, Mary." His recitation did not
include the Romish addition, "Holy Mary, mother of
God, pray for us sinners ;" and this served in proof that
he might be detained as an English heretic, that the
course of law might be interrupted, and ship and cargo
transferred to the inquisitors. After this he was racked,
and, at the end of fourteen months, brought out in a
minbenito. Burton saw his baffled advocate among the
penitents, yet not knowing who he was ; and Frampton,
having seen Burton burnt alive, was taken back to prison
for another fourteen months, and then released under the
usual humiliating injunctions, with an obligation to abide
in Spain. But a favouring Providence restored him to
England, and he divulged the whole. He lost 760
cash, and understood let this be well noted that the
gains of the Inquisition by that single Auto were above
50,000. He saw William Brook, a mariner of South-
192 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
ampton, and Barthelemi Fabianne, a Frenchman, burnt
on the same hearth with Burton.
Ana de Ribera, widow of the schoolmaster, Her-
nando de San Juan, who was burnt the year before, now
suffered as a Lutheran heretic ; as did Juan Sastre, a
monk of S. Isidro, and Francisco, Ruiz, wife of an al-
guacil of Seville. The reader may remember that a
mad woman had given the first information of the re
formed congregation in Seville. Recovered from insanity,
the poor woman regained her enjoyment of religion, and
died for it, in this Auto, with Leonor Gomez, her sister,
wife of a physician, and with Elvira Nunez, Teresa Go
mez, and Lucia Gomez, her unmarried daughters. One
of these daughters was imprisoned first, and put to the
torture, to declare accomplices, but made no disclosure.
The inquisitor then tried another method. He had her
brought into the audience-chamber, sent his subordinates
out of the room, and professed that he had fallen in love
with her, and was resolved to save her life. Day after
day he repeated the declaration, and at length persuaded
the poor girl that he was indeed her lover. He then
told her that, although she knew it not, her mother and
sisters were accused of heresy by many witnesses, and
that, for the love he bore to her, he desired to save them,
but that, in order to effect his object, he must be fully
informed of their case, under secrecy. She fell into the
snare, and told him all. His point was gained. Their
conversation ended. The very next day he called her to
another audience, and made her declare, judicially, what
she had revealed to him in the assumed character of
lover. That was enough. The mother and her daugh
ters were sent together to the flames. And the fiend-
like inquisitor saw his victims burnt.
SPAIN MORE AUTOS DE FE. 193
Enough of Autos for the present. They became or
dinary spectacles, as familiar to the Spaniards as bull
fights are at this day. Each particular Inquisition had
its annual celebration, necessary to maintain dread of the
clergy, to fill the pockets of the inquisitors, and to sup
ply entertainment to the populace. A rumour of heresy,
or any sudden impulse of suspicion, cupidity, or even
fear, would arouse the holy office to special action, and
add an extraordinary spectacle to that of the year cur
rent. With regard to these Autos, one or two notes of
technical information, which ought not to be omitted,
are given at the foot of the page.*
A general Act of Faith is such as one of those just now de
scribed. A particular Act is only different from a general one,
in that it has not the apparatus and pomp. The " holy office "
alone is there, and just one civil officer, if there is any one to
be killed. If there be only persons for death by slow degrees,
he is not wanted. A singular Act is that wherein there is
but one culprit for exhibition. An .Autillo, or " little Act," is
celebrated within the halls -of the Inquisition where the sen
tence is pronounced. There may be visitors present, by ex
press invitation of the inquisitor, who brings them in. The
doors may be shut, for greater convenience ; or they may be
open, yet none admitted but by authority of the inquisitor.
Or it may be performed in presence of a class of persons
called " Ministers of the Secret," and of these only.
9
194 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
CHAPTER XVI.
NZA, ARCHBISHOP OF
TOLEDO.
So swiftly did the providence of God retribute, that
while Philip II. was presiding at the murder of Christian
men and women at Valladolid, one of his chief assistants
in persecution, and no less a person than the Archbishop
of Toledo, Primate of Spain, lay in a prison of the In
quisition.
Bartolome Carranza was born at Miranda, a town of
Navarre, in the year 1503, of noble parents. In the
year 1520, after good advance in studies, he entered a
Dominican monastery in Alcarria, now called Guadala
jara. As soon as he had professed, he was sent to Sa
lamanca to study theology, and, in the year 1525,
became fellow of the college of St. Gregory, in Vallado
lid. But during this honourable career he allowed
himself a greater freedom of thought than consisted
with submission to his Church; and, in 1530, a lecturer
of his college delated him to the Inquisitor Moriz, who
already suspected him of unsound opinions. Another
friar also complained of him. He was examined, and
censured for having defended some propositions of Eras
mus, and spoken lightly of some vulgar superstitions ; but
his reputation was so well established, that the inquisi
tors did no more than record their examination, and
dismiss the case, which probably remained unknown to
all except the persons concerned, and certainly was not
remembered to his prejudice. Yet it eventually became
evident that there was a germ of " Lutheranism " in
CARRAKZA, ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO. 195
him. Not suspecting him of heterodoxy, the rector and
councillors of St. Gregory recommended him, in that
same year, to the chair of Philosophy, in 1533 they
named him regent of Neology, and in 1534 they made
him regent-major. Then he became theologian " quali-
ficator," or examiner, of the holy office of the Inquisition
of Valladolid, and in that capacity often acted. In 1539
he was raised to the general chapter of his order in
Rome, and with great credit assumed the dignity, pass
ing through his inauguration with applause. Amongst
other honours was that of permission to read prohibited
books, conferred on him by Paul III.
In 1540 he was again at Valladolid, shining as doc
tor of theology in the professorial chair, generally es
teemed for good qualities which ought to adorn the
clerical office, and so splendidly charitable that, on the
failure of a harvest, he sold all his books except the
Bible and the Sum of St. Thomas to feed the poor;
and yet he had not charity for heretics. He now la
boured incessantly in the holy office, examining processes,
and, in his own house, censuring books that were sent
to him from the council of the supreme. In the public
" place " of the city he preached the sermon at the first
burning of a Lutheran, Francisco San-Roman, in 1544,
witnessed his patience, triumphant over fear of death,
and heard his last remonstrance : " Do you envy me my
happiness ?" He became an eminent preacher of those
bitter sermons. The bishopric of Cuzco, in America,
was offered to him, but he refused it; and in 1545 we
find him at the Council of Trent, as theologian of the
emperor, foremost among those who declaimed against
the non-residence of bishops, and exalted the episcopate
at the expense of the pontificate. Yet he was one of
196 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
the stoutest pillars of his Church. He spent three years
in Trent, and at that time enlarged his reputation, by
appearing as an author. On his return to Spain in 1548,
he was appointed confessor of Philip II., to accompany
his highness in Flanders and Germany, but declined that
honour also, and, in 1549, refused the bishopric of the
Canaries. He accepted, however, the priorate of the
Dominican convent of Palencia ; and there expounded
St. Paul s Epistle to the Galatians, unconsciously to
himself, perhaps, treading in the steps of Luther. In
1550 he was elected provincial of Castile, and rigorously
enforced discipline in his visitation of the monasteries of
that province. In 1551, when the Council of Trent was
opened a second time, Carranza was there again by or
der of the emperor, and as proxy of the Archbishop of
Toledo ; and he perseveringly took part in all the ses
sions and congregations.
To him was first intrusted the formation of an index
of prohibited books, for which purpose large numbers
were put into his hands. He examined the volumes,
destroyed such as it pleased him to condemn, and gave
the " good ones " to the Dominican convent of San Lo
renzo of Trent ; and, on returning to Valladolid, devoted
himself, with eminent zeal and application, to similar
toils in the service of the Inquisition. Little did he
think that his own name would soon be registered on
the same pages with the names of men whom he was
burning.
When marriage was agreed on between his king,
Philip, and Mary of England, he came over to prepare,
in conjunction with Cardinal Pole, for the reconciliation
of this country to the See of Rome, and obedience to the
Pope. " The king followed, and words cannot describe
SPAIN CARRANZA, ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO. 197
the labour of Carranza in favour of the Catholic religion.
He preached continually, he convinced and converted
heretics without number, and confirmed many waverers,
answering their arguments verbally and in writing. In
1555 Philip went from London to Brussels, and Carranza
remained with the queen, to assist her in settling the
Catholic doctrine in the universities, and attending to
other important objects. By order of Cardinal Pole, the
Pope s legate, he drew up the canons that were to be
passed in a national council. He was zealous for the
punishment of several pertinacious heretics, particularly
Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate
of England, and Martin Bucer, a famous dogmatizer of
the errors of Luther, which several times brought him
within a little of death.* In 1557 he went over to
Flanders, to inform King Philip of what had taken place
in England ; and, with the greatest earnestness, he col
lected and burnt books containing Lutheran doctrine.
In Frankfort he did the same, by means of Fray Lorenzo
de Villavicencio, an Augustinian religious, whom he sent
for that purpose, dressed as a man of the world, and in
Spain also, telling the king that they were introduced by
way of Arragon, which his majesty communicated to the
inquisitor-general, that he might have them seized.
With the same intent he formed a list of the Spanish
fugitives from Seville and other places, who were living
in Germany and Flanders, and who sent heretical books
to Spain, which list was found among his papers when
We shall not digress to examine the truth of this state
ment. If he was thought to have hazarded his life in labouring
to suppress heresy, his claim on the Inquisition, for favour
able consideration, ought to have been the more readily ac
knowledged.
198 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
they were all taken from him at the time of his arrest."
Thus does Llorente set forth his merits.
On the death of the Archbishop of Toledo, he was
offered that see, the highest ecclesiastical dignity of
Spain, but manifested such reluctance, that it became
necessary for Philip to command him, by his " obedience
and fealty as vassal," to accept it; and that injunction
was also found among his papers. On the 16th of
December, 1557, his preconization took place in a con
sistory of cardinals at Rome, the Pope, Paul IV., having
dispensed with the usual precaution of taking informa
tion from persons in his diocese, saying that such in
formation was not necessary for Carranza de Miranda,
whom he had intimately known at Trent, and of whose
services in England, Germany, and Flanders he had such
abundant intelligence. Carranza, therefore, was one of
the last persons to be a prisoner in the Inquisition, and
one of the most likely to wear a red hat or the triple
crown. But, all this time, there were secret agencies at
work to effect his ruin.
Many prelates had been offended by his insisting, in
the Council of Trent, on the residence of bishops in their
dioceses, and by his publishing a treatise on the subject.
Many aspirants after honour were jealous of his advance
ment. On his nomination to the archbishopric, a monk
of his own order, Melchor Cano, broke out into declared
enmity, and so did Juan de Regla, confessor of Charles V.
The inquisitor-general, Valdes, partook of the same
feeling, as did Pedro de Castro, Bishop of Cuenca, and
several others. They concealed their malice, but sought,
in secret, how to humble him, and did not despair of
rinding some heresy in his writings or discourses that
might serve their purpose. For some time past the
SPAIN CARRANZA, ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO. 199
archbishop had been composing " Commentaries on the
Christian Catechism."* It was printed at Antwerp, in
1558, the sheets were sent to Valladolid as they were
printed off, and read with avidity both by friends and
foes. Among the latter, Melchor Cauo gave his utmost
diligence to detect heresy, and declared, in all companies,
that it was full of propositions, ill-sounding, dangerous,
and smelling strongly of Lutheranism. The inquisitor,
Valdes, bought several copies, and put them into the
hands of examiners, charging them to make notes pri
vately, and keep silence for the present. To Castro,
Bishop of Cuenca, it would seem that Valdes had made
a special request for a prompt report, and Castro wrote
that there were Lutheran propositions under the title of
Justification : that he entertained a very bad opinion of
the belief of the author, for he had heard him speak in
the same manner in the Council of Trent ; and although
he had not then believed that Carranza admitted error
in his heart, he did now believe it : that Lutheran pro
positions were many, and very frequent, betraying an
inward sentiment ; and that other circumstances, already
explained to Doctor Antonio Perez, councillor of the
Supreme Inquisition, concurred to induce this judgment.
The industry of the chief inquisitor and his coadju
tors quickly collected a mass of evidence to inculpate Car
ranza. De Castro said that he had heard him preach in
London, three years before, in the king s presence, when,
in an apostrophe to the Saviour enthroned in glory, he
That is to say, on the Apostles Creed, the Decalogue, the
Lord s Prayer, and the Sacraments. Catechisms, properly so
called, had been only known among the Waldenses and Prot
estants, until, a very few years before this time, some were
written by Jesuits.
200 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
spoke of justification by living faith in such terms as a
Lutheran might have used. In other sermons preached
in England, Carranza was said to have spoken heretical ly
of sin, and not respectfully enough of indulgences of the
Bull of the Crusade, which he had imprudently stated
were on sale in Spain for two reals each, "perilous
language" in England, and before heretics ! Some one
had even whispered, after one of those London sermons,
"Carranza has preached just as Philip Melancthon might
have done." But if Carranza had continued a plain friar,
no one would have given those things a second thought.
Several persons were interrogated in the Inquisition con
cerning what they had heard, seen, said, or thought of
the archbishop ; but not much could be gathered from
their answers. Some one, however, had heard some one
say, that he had said, that " he saw no clear proofs in
Scripture of the existence of a purgatory ;" yet the same
person thought that he must himself believe in such a
place, because he had strongly recommended foundations
to pay for masses for the dead. Many witnesses were
questioned on this point; but their testimony showed
that Carranza really believed and taught the purgatorial
fable. Some, who had been in his confidence, stated
that, having licence to read prohibited books, he had
borrowed some things from them, and inserted them in
his own writings ; but was accustomed to observe that
heretics mingled good and bad so artfully together, that
even their good sayings were not to be trusted. A Fran
ciscan monk deposed that he had heard Carranza say, in
a sermon, many things that coincided with other tilings
that Lutherans were wont to say ; that he had affirmed
that " mercy should be shown to converted heretics ; and
that sometimes persons are reputed to be quietists, alum-
SPAIN CARRANZA, ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO. 201
brados, and so on, if they be only seen on their knees,
beating their breasts with a stone before a crucifix."
This very sermon was afterwards found among his
papers, tested, and reported sound in Romish faith. One
said, when on the rack, that he had heard Carranza say,
that if a notary were to come to his bed-side when he
was dying, he would bid him take his confession " that
he renounced all merit of good works, and only desired
to avail himself of those of Christ; and that his sins
were as if they never had been, since Christ had made
atonement for them all." Others confirmed this evi
dence by stating that they had often heard him use like
expressions, but thought them admissible in a Catholic
sense.
Fray Juan de Regla ran to tell of the Archbishop of
Toledo, that when Carranza was at Yuste, visiting the
Emperor Charles V. on his death-bed in the convent, he
had used Lutheran expressions concerning the pardon of
sins ; and that, when arguing in the council, he had
manifested a scandalous indulgence towards the Lutheran
heresy. But other witnesses disproved the latter charge.
Perhaps the most remarkable saying of Carranza was
one that he addressed to Charles when dying, exhorting
him to trust in the merits of Christ alone. But every
thing that malignity could collect from common report,
from persons under torture, or in the audience-chamber of
the Inquisition, or from unguarded passages in his com
mentaries, was thrown together ; and as his dignity was
higher than that of the inquisitor, Valdes had a summary
of the charges prepared, and sent it to the Pope, with a
request that he might be authorized to make the Primate
of Spain a prisoner. And Paul IV., by a brief, surren
dered his friend into the clutches of the Inquisition, but
9*
202 THE BRAND OF DOMIMC.
without naming him; and his successor, Pius IV., who
came to the papacy before Valdes had accomplished his
purpose, confirmed the licence.
On the reception of the latter brief, Valdes made offi
cial record of his acceptance of the powers ; and the fiscal
of the Inquisition, soon afterwards, applied to him for
permission to proceed, by virtue of that authority,
against a personage whom he did not name, but would
make known in due time. After some further formalities
of office, the fiscal presented a second petition, saying,
"That Don Fray Bartolomc Carranza de Miranda,
Archbishop of Toledo, had preached and pronounced,
written and dogmatized, many heresies of Luther in con
versations and sermons, in his commentaries and other
books and papers, as appeared from witnesses, books,
and writings which he presented ; and promised to accuse
him more in form. Wherefore he prayed that the
archbishop might be taken, shut up in secret prisons,
and his property and revenue seized and placed at the
disposal of the inquisitor-general." Valdes consulted the
council, and the fiscal was required to present the docu
ments, which were presented accordingly. Everything
being thus made ready, Valdes consulted the king, who
had already agreed to the proceeding, and required that
when the person of Carranza came into their power, his
dignity should be respected. Still there was much cor
respondence between the king and Carranza, as well as
with Valdes ; and the object of persecution had sufficient
information to expect a severe censure, but not to appre
hend any personal suffering. To expedite the matter,
some more witnesses were found, and a stronger case
made out. The fiscal then repeated his application to
seize Carranza.
SPAIN OARRANZA, ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO. 203
In compliance with this formality, the inquisitor-gen
eral decreed (August 1st, 1559) permission to the fiscal
to imprison the archbishop ; and Philip had written to
his sister Juana, governess of the kingdom in his ab
sence, desiring her to call the primate up to court under
some decent pretext, and there let him be taken into
custody, to avoid the scandal and trouble of executing
an order of the holy office at his residence in Alcala.*
A false report was therefore circulated of the king being
on his way to Spain ; and the princess governess wrote
a letter to Carranza desiring him to hasten to Valladolid,
to await his arrival. Scarcely had the morning of the
9th of August begun to dawn, when Rodrigo de Castro,
brother of one of Carranza s capital enemies, bearing the
royal letter, alighted in the town of Alcala de Henares,
at the gate of the archiepiscopal palace, and hastened to
put the letter into his hands. He read that the princess
wished to see him at Valladolid as soon as possible, de
sired him not to wait for his usual equipage, but to travel
with all speed ; and promised that everything necessary
for his public appearance should be provided at his lodg
ings. He instantly made preparation for the journey,
and ordered a solemn procession, next day, to pray for
the safe arrival of the king. De Castro, however, was
so much fatigued with his journey, that he had to re
main in bed for some days ; and Carranza, not without
misgiving, yet unable to believe danger so near at hand,
had no heart for speed, and waited for the recovery of
Thus far, my chief gmde has been Llorente. In relating
the circumstances of Carranza s imprisonment, and there only,
I follow a recent writer, Adolfo de Castro, because, in this pas
sage of his " Spanish Protestants," he evidently brings good
authority, and is not warped by vanity or system.
204 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
the messenger, that they might set out together, and
perform the voyage with comfort and decorum. After
a delay of eight days they set out from Alcala, and
the archbishop had arranged to stop at some places
on the way, for the purpose of holding confirmations.
But just a week after the arrival of De Castro, another
messenger came to Alcala. It was the chief officer of
the Inquisition of Toledo, who immediately visited the
archbishop, telling him that Don Diego Ramirez, inquis
itor of that tribunal, would arrive that very night, to
publish an edict of the faith ; and Carranza caused proc
lamation to be made immediately for celebrating it in
the church of San Francisco. The archbishop himself
was to preach the sermon, and a vast congregation as
sembled in the church. The hour for the sermon being
come, the primate ascended one pulpit, and the person
appointed to read the edict occupied another. The per
son who represented Don Diego, the inquisitor for Ra
mirez himself had disappeared sent a message him
self desiring the reader to wait until after his reverence
should have preached. Carranza delivered the sermon
with great earnestness, exhorted the people to obey the
edict, by informing against all suspected of heresy, and
eloquently descanted on the good that from such obedi
ence would redound to their souls. The edict was then
read ; but it was afterwards remarked that it contained
no reference to prohibited books, which silence was
thought respectful to the dignity of the archbishop,
whose person was so nearly in their power.
At Fuente el Saz he met with Fray Felipe de Menezes,
a professor of one of the colleges of Alcala, who called
him aside, told him that a rumour was current in Valla-
dolid that the holy office had resolved on arresting the
SPAIN CAKRANZA, ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO. 205
Archbishop of Toledo, and advised him, as Providence
had allowed him intimation of the report, either to re
turn to Alcala or hasten to Valladolid, without delay,
where, perhaps, he might find some way of extrication
from the peril threatened. To this he is said to have re
plied, that such a rumour was incredible ; that the prin
cess herself had summoned him, and sent Don Rodrigo
de Castro to convey her desires. And he could appeal
to God, he said, to witness, whether at any period of his
life he had been tempted to fall into any error, the cog
nizance of which could in any way pertain to the Inqui
sition. On the contrary, God had made him his instru
ment to the conversion of more than two millions of her
etics. On Sunday, August 20th, in the morning, the
archbishop reached Tordelaguna, and was there met by
father Master Fray Pedro de Soto, who told him that
his correspondent Fray Luis de la Cruz had just been ar
rested in Valladolid. " What do you say, father Master ?"
answered Carranza, in surprise. " Then, according to
this, I suppose they will also wish to make me a heretic ?"
Fray Pedro assured him that, in fact, inquisitors had al
ready left Valladolid to take him ; and he left the arch
bishop in much perplexity.
It was too true. And they were on that very spot.
During four days the chief alguacil of the council of
the Inquisition had been concealed in an inn at Torde
laguna, in bed by day ; and at night, with two servants
on horseback, in disguise, he had gone to visit Rodrigo
de Castro at Talamanca. Having returned, he hid him
self at the inn again. He had also sent to Alcala, and
informed Diego Ramirez that he was there in readiness ;
and Diego, in order to complete the plan, instantly left
Alcala, pretending that he had an urgent call to Madrid,
200 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
and joined him. This caused a great stir in Alcala,
which was increased by the distribution of twenty wands
of justice to as many men, who were mounted on horse
back, and led out of the town by a minister of the Inqui
sition, none of them knowing whither, nor wherefore.
He travelled by devious roads, impressing others into the
same service as they went ; and, on Tuesday, 22d, at day
break, a party of nearly a hundred men were within half
a league of Tordelaguna, These men were exhorted to
obey the holy office, and be constant to it in what they
were about to do ; but they had not the slightest intima
tion of what that would be. Tordelaguna was the chief
of three towns, all under one jurisdiction ; and it would
appear that the archbishop continued there in the dis
charge of his functions, during the whole week,
knowing that imprisonment awaited him in Valladolid,
and afraid to seem to flee by turning out of the road,
which would cause the inquisitors to treat him as a
fugitive.
On the Sunday night, 27th, Rodrigo supped with the
archbishop, and, under pretence of fatigue, left early,
went to his own host, and arranged for impressing a
dozen more assistants. De Castro and his host then re
turned, privately, and bade Salinas, host of the arch
bishop, have all the doors of his house open at break of
day. About one o clock, Rodrigo and his servants, with
the new assistants, went to the house of the governor
of the three towns, who had married a sister of Carran-
za, entered, seized the governor, and left him a prisoner
under guards. So did they with all the other civil au
thorities ; and these doings kept them busy until day
break. By that time Ramirez and his people were
arrived ; and a strong body of men, impressed into the
SPAIN CAUUANZA, ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO. 207
service of the Inquisition, stood ready to earn merits by
doing as they might be commanded.
Ramirez, De Castro, the alguacil, and a few men with
wands, went tip stairs, and knocked at the door of an
ante-chamber, where a lay-friar, in attendance on the
archbishop, was sleeping. " Who calls ?" cried the friar.
" Open to the holy office," said they ; and instantly the
door was open. Leaving guards there, they walked
through to the chamber of the archbishop, knocked at
the door, and, when he called, answered again, " The
holy office." "Is Don Diego Ramirez there?" asked
he ; and on hearing that he was, he bade a page open
the door. Rodrigo entered first, approached the bed,
knelt on one knee, and begged his reverence to give him
his hand and pardon him. Then he beckoned to the
alguacil, who also came forward, and said, "Most illus
trious Seiior, I am commanded by the holy office to
make you its prisoner." " Have you orders to do that
which you are now undertaking to do ?" " Yes, Senor."
And he produced and read an order of the inquisitor-
general, and the council of the Inquisition. " But these
gentlemen are not aware that they cannot be my judges,
being, as I am, by my dignity and consecration, imme
diately subject to the Pope, and to no other person." In
answer to this, Don Diego advanced, saying, " On this
point your reverence shall have entire satisfaction," and,
drawing the Pope s brief from under his robe, read it.
It was unanswerable ; and the archbishop surrendered
himself without another word. In obedience to the wish
of Philip, they refrained from insolence of language, but
made him feel the humiliation and bitterness of his new
condition. The remonstrances of a few faithful servants
were soon silenced ; they kept the primate under arrest
208 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
that day, and the next midnight set him upon a mule,
and a body of armed familiars conducted him out of the
town. On entering Valladolid, he begged, as a favour,
that he might be lodged in the house of a friend, a prin
cipal inhabitant of the city, and was told by De Castro
that his desire should be gratified. He was taken to the
house, and, at first, could scarcely believe himself a pris
oner. But restraints multiplied ; the building had been
previously bought by the Inquisition, apparently for this
very purpose ; and the shadows of an impenetrable
secrecy soon closed round the captive.
The inquisitor-general and his council proceeded to
the usual ceremonies of examination ; but he refused to
acknowledge their jurisdiction, and appealed to the
Pope. They claimed power by virtue of the brief; but
he maintained that when that document was granted,
authorizing the prosecution of suspected archbishops or
other prelates in Spain, there was neither archbishop nor
other prelate in Spain suspected of heresy ; that, at that
time, he was not in Spain, but in the Netherlands, la
bouring for the extirpation of heresy and the exaltation
of the Church ; and that, therefore, the brief could not
possibly have reference to himself. On that plea he re
fused to answer any question, or by any act, or any sub
mission, to acknowledge the jurisdiction of Valdes. And
he further objected to submit to any judgment of Valdes,
even as a delegate of the Pope, because he was his
enemy ; and even the letter of inquisitorial law allowed
a prisoner to object to the evidence of a known enemy.
The elevation of his rank, the confusion and obscurity
of the answers given by witnesses, the favourable judg
ment of his Commentaries on the Catechism already
pronounced by many of the most eminent Spaniards,
SPAIN CARRANZA, ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO. 209
and a serious division of opinion in the Supreme Coun
cil, concurred to deter the Inquisition from proceeding
in this case as if it were that of an inferior person. They
even feared the effects of popular indignation if they
should terminate the cause, without being able to make
out a justification of their conduct in beginning it.
Nearly a hundred new witnesses were examined, but
without any definite result ; and Carranza, by his advo
cate, Azpilcueta, had appealed to the supreme pontiff.
Year after year passed away in litigation and delays, he
being still in custody ; and, meanwhile, the Council of
Trent, in spite of the remonstrances of Philip, had ap
pointed a commission to examine his Commentaries, and
received a favourable report. In short, his case became
one of relative powers, the Court of Rome claiming
jurisdiction on one side, and the king and Inquisition of
Spain claiming it on the other.
At length the Pope superseded Valdes, by appointing
a coadjutor to act for him, on pretence that his age ren
dered him incapable, forbidding him to take any further
part in the affair of the Archbishop of Toledo, and re
voking the cause to be tried in Rome. Rome could no
longer be resisted altogether, and, although the inquisi
tors did not obey the Pope by setting him at liberty
without requiring any security for his further appearance,
they allowed him to go to Rome. Conducted by a
strong military escort, he left the prison of Valladolid,
after a confinement of six years and a quarter, and em
barked at Cartagena on the 27th of April, 1567, after
some delay there, in company with several inquisitors,
who went to make the best of their case, and with that
notable personage, the Duke of Alva, in the chief cabin,
until they reached Genoa. At Civita Vecchia the arch-
210 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
bishop landed amidst great care for his safe-keeping, and
such marks of honour as could be rendered to a captive
wearer of a pallium, and was conveyed to the Castle of
St. Angelo, the state-prison of Rome. There he lay
until the 14th of April, 1576, when a persecution and
imprisonment of seventeen years was brought to a close
by the firmness of Gregory XIII. Carranza abjured
Lutheran articles which there was no proof that he had
ever held ; submitted to a suspension of the functions of
archbishop, to which his constitution, impaired by suffer
ing, and worn by age, was no longer equal ; and, after
having seen the Spanish inquisitors mortified by a con
stant manifestation of disrespect during protracted in
vestigations in secret consistories in the presence of the
pontiff and cardinals, behind whose benches they were
compelled to stand day after day and week after week,
he solemnly said mass, in token of reconciliation with the
Church that ought to have crowned him with honours,
if it were only for his zeal against those whom the
Church persecutes ; and then, almost as soon as he had
received the congratulation of his friends, and witnessed
in his own case a trifling triumph of the Court of Rome
over the Court of Madrid, he died. I have marked his
persecution the more carefully, as it illustrates the action
of private passion, and of political faction, on the theatre
of the Inquisition, even in contempt of the dignities and
the reputation of the Church herself.
SPAIN DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION. 211
CHAPTER XVII.
SPAIN PROGRESS AND DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION.
So terrible an institution could not always retain undis
puted power. The people could not continually be per
suaded to bate Protestants; and the supreme council
of the Inquisition in Madrid already saw the animosity
of Romanists in France so far diminished, that it was
impossible to burn heretics as formerly ; therefore they
concurred in a general purpose, if not in the plot, to de
stroy the Huguenots by some stroke of state, or secret
conspiracy, as was done in the massacre of St. Bartholo
mew. And in Spain itself so little Lutheranism re
mained, and, at this time, so feeble were the vestiges of
Judaism, that there was no object conspicuous enough
to serve as a butt of popular bigotry, and keep up the
splendour of periodical processions and burnings. Con
sequently the Inquisition was driven to new expedients,
and people, having time for consideration, became per
suaded, although by slow degrees, that the existence of
such a tribunal was incompatible with civil rights. Con
tentions between it and the civil power were frequent ;
and in the conflict that continued for two centuries and
a half after the great Autos of Sevilla and Valladolid,
the advantages were sometimes with one party, and
sometimes with the other. We hasten rapidly through
this period, avoiding consecutive narration, and only
marking the more characteristic incidents.
The transatlantic and insular dominions of the kings
of Spain were brought, as we shall observe in the proper
place, under the rule of inquisitors ; but, at home, the
212 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
confusion between civil and ecclesiastical authorities be
gan to appear in the inquisitorial administration. Philip
and the Spanish inquisitors, ill-content that on the high
seas there should be any respite from the thraldom
now extended over both hemispheres, and fixing their
eyes on the great fleets then on the waters, desired a
naval tribunal, one that should float on every sea, and
plunge heresy into its depths, as if to prefigure the
drowning of their own Babylon. Pius V. lost not a
moment in granting the necessary bull, (July 27th,
1571,) and up sprang "the Inquisition of the Galleys,"
or, as it was afterwards called, "of Army and Navy."
The inquisitor-general of Spain saw the broad ocean
added to his dominion, fleet and camp placed under
his control. In every seaport a commissary-inquisitor
visited the ships, took an official declaration from every
captain that there were no prohibited books on board,
nor any object that looked heretical ; or, if there were,
he seized it, being portable, or he carried a note of it on
shore. The bales of merchandise also underwent exami
nation and cleansing from every heresy-infected object.
This marine Inquisition flourished grandly in Cadiz, chief
seaport for commerce with the west. The visiter-inquisi-
torial embarked with notary, alguacil, porter, and a com
pany of servants, to be ready for active service. Soon
as his reverend feet touched the deck, a salute proclaimed
him present. First of all he and his train descended
into the chief cabin, found refreshment of all sorts, a
respectable fee ready for certification that the ship was
clear of heresy ; and oftentimes, when matters were sus
picious, handsome presents induced favourable and quick
despatch. The attendant familiars, being generally com
mercial men, made advantageous purchases, and, having
SPAIN DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION. 213
fulfilled their service to the Church, found the boat ready
for use in their own, and returned with their chief to
shore. But the merchants became impatient of the new
system, and made a bargain with the holy office, through
the custom-house, to be exempted from direct visitation.
At length this arrangement fell into disuse. The cap
tains, too, accustomed to command their crews alone,
found the ships duty interrupted by the meddling of
chaplains. A strange sail hove in sight, or the wind
freshened, while able-bodied men were between decks
undergoing inquisition. Of course inquisition was cut
short at such times, and the inquisitor-general soon
heard that his interference on the high seas hindered
navigation. So the marine tribunal came to naught.
In Galicia, where the Inquisition had been silent for a
year, it was renewed (A. D. 1574), to enforce an edict
of the supreme, published two years before, forbidding
trade, at the frontiers, in saltpetre, sulphur, or gunpow
der, lest those articles should come into the hands of
heretics, and be used as ammunition wherewith to fight
against the Catholic faith.
Encouraged by the favour of the king, some zealots
projected the establishment of a new military order, un
der the direction of the inquisitor-general, and with the
title of " St. Mary of the white sword :" the sword of
St. James was red, to show blood. To the new dignitary
they would give entire possession of the property of all
members, and absolute control of their persons. The
new legions would fight against all heretics, real or sus
pected, and be free from royal control. No fewer than
eleven provinces accepted the scheme with enthusiasm,
and an army was just on the point of starting into array,
when a patriotic gentleman, Don Pedro Venegas, of
214 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Cordova, represented to the king that the Inquisition had
been, as yet, diligent enough in taking care of the
Church ; that the regular forces were able to defend the
state ; that if there were any extra service to be per
formed, the existing military orders would be forthcom
ing ; that so formidable an armament, under control of
the inquisitor, might join the king s enemies, or be in
itself strong enough to overturn his throne ; and, in short,
he brought such a weight of argument against the
scheme, that Philip appointed a commission to examine
it, in conjunction with the royal council ; and, as they
could not agree to recommend it, he was, for once, wise
enough to foresee the evil, and refused his sanction.
While the Inquisition was enduring these reverses, its
officers were persecuting some of the most eminent eccle
siastics who some in the Council of Trent, and some in
Spain had given judgment favourable to Carranza, and,
of course, were making themselves enemies within the
bosom of the Church. They even threatened, and en
deavoured to convict, the most respected lady in Spain,
Santa Teresa, who trembled for the consequences of their
censure, but, by a witty antiphrasis, for she called them
angels, flattering submission, and some external influ
ence besides, conjured the tempest. They went further
still, and waged open war on the society of Jesus. Sev
eral members of that society, whether disgusted with its
evils, or weary of its discipline, delated the provincial,
and some of the more eminent fathers, to the holy office
at Valladolid. Their information afforded the Inquisi
tion an opportunity for display of power. The provincial,
Marcenius, was arrested with some others (A. D. 1586).
The society was required to produce their rules, and all
documents relating to the internal management of their
SPAIN DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION. 215
affairs, to be examined by the triers. Their discipline,
studies, morals, all were subjected to a searching investi
gation. Aquaviva flew to Rome, and implored the
Pope to interpose his supreme authority, and save the
society. Xystus V. heard the prayer, and commanded
his nuncio at Madrid to espouse the cause of Jesuitism.
Philip II. inclined to favour them. Xystus revoked the
cause to the apostolic see ; and, after hot war between
the two chief legions of the papacy, they were set at
peace with each other, so far, at least, that they could
again agree to turn their weapons against their common
foe, evangelical Christianity.
The reign of Philip III. was remarkable for frequent
and loud remonstrances against this enormous oppression.
Four times did the cortes of Castile implore him to lay
some restraint on the inquisitors ; but as often did he put
them off with empty words, and the persecutors grew
reckless in their insolence.
Philip IV. chose to be entertained, on his accession to
the throne, with an Auto at Madrid (June 21st, 1621),
where no one, indeed, was burnt, because a heretic could
not be found for the fire; but a lewd nun, who had
added to licentiousness with her confessors and others a
profession of compact with the devil, no very dissimilar
offence, appeared in a sambenito, and gagged, received
two hundred lashes, and was carried away to perpetual
imprisonment, furnishing the friends of the Inquisition
with a rare instance of its usefulness for purifying the
morals of the clergy.
The clergy now began to add their complaints to those
of the laity, remonstrating against the usurpation of
spiritual power by the inquisitors. The Bishop of Carta
gena and Murcia, for example, with his chapter, appealed
216 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
to the Council of Castile, who addressed the king in such
words as these : " Will your majesty consider if it be
not enough to make one weep when he sees this high
dignity " (of the episcopate), " so revered by us all, out
raged, laid prostrate, and defamed in the pulpits, perse
cuted and trodden down at the tribunals, and all this by
an inquisitor-general, and a council of inquisitors, who,
while they should be the very men to maintain the au
thority of religion, strip that authority from the first
fathers of religion, the bishops ?" (October 9th, 1622.)
But the king, like his predecessors, paid no regard to
chapter or council, and, instead of diminishing the power
of the inquisitors, put a new instrument of mischief into
their hands, a few years afterwards, by giving them juris
diction over smugglers, and authorizing them to seize all
the silver or copper money that they might find on
Spaniards leaving the country, and to reserve a fourth
part of it for their own treasuries (A. D. 1627). And,
if we might digress into the history of Jesuitism, we
should find that a spirit of rivalry between the inquisi
tors and the Jesuits both pillars of the Church, both sup
porters of despotic sovereignty, and both aspirants after
ascendancy over civil society often broke the peace of
those guardians of the faith, and involved them in posi
tions of difficulty out of which their tribunal could never
more be extricated.
The two bodies, however, tended to coalescence rather
than to opposition ; and often the astute policy of Jesuit
ism, guiding inquisitorial operations, rendered them less
conspicuous, and therefore more formidable. This union
was marked strongly in the appointment of father
Nithard, a Jesuit, and confessor of the queen of Philip IV.,
to the offices of inquisitor-general and councillor of
SPAIN DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION. 21 7
state, after the death of that king, and during the mi
nority of his son, Charles II. As confessor, councillor,
and inquisitor, Nithard held the reins of both temporal
and spiritual government, and encountered the opposi
tion of Don Juan of Austria, an illegitimate son of the
deceased king, who resisted the Austrian and Jesuitical
policy then dominant at court. He had both spoken
and written freely of Nithard, and many of the clergy
supported him by their advice and influence. The in
quisitor directed censors to examine his propositions,
which, of course, they pronounced heretical; and Don
Juan would have been immured, at least, had not public
indignation risen so high, that the Jesuit-inquisitor found
it expedient to decamp, and shelter himself under the
wing of Clement IX. at Rome (A. D. 1669), where a red
hat soon rewarded his ambition.
The government of Spain, although not overthrown by
the resistance of Don Juan and his adherents, was con
temptibly feeble, and owed much to the infamous tribu
nal for its existence. The successor of Nithard amused
Charles, at his attainment to the majority, and marriage
with a French princess, with a grand Auto. For the
gratification of the young queen, a hundred and eighteen
culprits were marched into her presence at Madrid,
charged with various delinquencies : amongst them were
eighteen Judaizers, and one apostate to Mohammedan
ism, sentenced to be burnt alive, and they were burnt
accordingly (A. D. 1680). Then arose the great ques
tions between the courts of Rome and Paris concerning
the limits of royal and pontifical authority, and the inde
pendence of the national Church from the Roman pontiff.
The Spanish Inquisition, instead of leaving the contend
ing parties to settle their dispute, chose to involve itself
10
218 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
in the controversy, by taking a part no less offensive to
the good sense of mankind in general, and to all true
Christians, than vexatious to the French clergy. They,
in a solemn assembly, made a declaration containing four
articles, which have since been strongly marked in the
general history of the seventeenth century; and of those
articles the first reads thus : " At first, to St. Peter and
to his successors, vicars of Christ, and to the Church
herself, God gave power in spiritual things, pertaining to
eternal salvation, but not in civil things ; for the Lord
said, My kingdom is not of this world ; and again,
4 Render therefore to Coesar the things that are Cesar s,
and to God the things that are God s ; and therefore the
apostolic precept must stand, Let every soul be subject
to the higher powers, for there is no power but of (rod,
for the powers which be are ordained of God ; therefore,
he who resists the power, resists the ordinance of God?
Kings, therefore, and princes, are not subject to any
ecclesiastical power in temporals, by the ordination of
God ; neither, by the authority of the keys of the Church,
can they be directly or indirectly deposed, nor their sub
jects be exempted from fealty and obedience, nor re
leased from the oath of fealty that they have taken.
And this sentence is necessary for public tranquillity, is
no less useful to the Church than to the empire, and
ought to be inviolably retained, as agreeing with the
word of God, the tradition of the fathers, and the exam
ples of the saints." The Spanish Inquisition submitted
this article, as well as the others, to the examination of
consulters, and adopted their report, that it was rash,
erroneous, and heretical.*
Discusion del Proyecto del Deere to sobre el tribunal de la
Jnquisieion. l)ispurso dol Sen or Villanueva, en la sesion del
SPAIN DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION. 219
As the seventeenth century advanced, with its growing
literature, and earnest controversies, the Inquisition, pre
tending to rule every question, and to exert a universal
censorship, could not but catch a little of the polemical
spirit ; and its ministers, indulging the dangerous tem
per, venture to break through the ancient restraints of
silence, and condescended to a public advocacy of princi
ples that were each day controverted more and more.
A single example of inquisitorial theology may be ad
mitted here. Many pages might have been filled with
such material ; but the reader may think himself suffi
ciently instructed in this branch of exegesis, if he can
master the following abstract of a sermon preached in
the church of the Franciscan convent in Zaragoza, on
Sunday, March 1st, 1671, by brother Manuel Guerrera
y Ribera, a Trinitarian shod, Doctor of Theology, Pro
fessor of Philosophy in the University of Salamanca,
preacher to the king, and wearer of many honours.
The occasion was the publication of the annual edict for
general inquisition. It is translated closely from the
Spanish of Llorente.
" And He was casting out a devil, and it was dumb," &c., &c.
Luke xi, 14-28.
"On the 1st of March Moses opened the tabernacle,
Aaron clothed himself as high priest, and the princes of
the tribes offered to obey his precepts, because on the
1st of March the temple of St. Francis would be opened,
the pontifical mandates to delate heretics to the inquisi
tors, vicars of the supreme pontiff, be published, and the
principal citizens of Zaragoza would promise to obey
Dia 21 de Enero de 1813. The speaker cited his authority for
the information of the cortes of Cadiz.
220 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
them. Aaron was inquisitor of the law, and he is this day
represented by the inquisitors of Zaragoza. Jesus Christ
is accused of superstition. This is a crime for inquisition.
I shall reduce my sermon to two points : first, the obli
gation to delate ; second, the holiness of the office of
judge-inquisitor.
"First point. Religion is a warfare. Every soldier
should give notice to his chief if he knows that there are
enemies. If he does not, he deserves to be punished as
a traitor. The Christian is a soldier ; and if he does not
denounce the heretics, he is a traitor ; justly will the in
quisitors punish him. St. Stephen, when stoned, prayed
God not to impute the sin to his persecutors : but they
had two sins ; one, that of stoning Stephen ; another,
that of resisting the Holy Ghost, which is a sin for the
Inquisition. He asks God to forgive that of killing him,
because he could ask it ; but not to forgive the other)
because it was a sin for the Inquisition, and he delated
it to God. Jacob separates himself from the house of
Laban, his father-in-law, without saying, Good-bye.
Why did he not pay respect to his father-in-law ? Be
cause Laban was an idolater ; and in matters of faith,
religion must be above all human considerations. There
fore, the son ought to delate the heretic to the Inquisi
tion, although that heretic be his own father. Moses
was inquisitor against Pharaoh, his foster-grandfather,
plunging him into the sea because he was an idolater ;
and against his brother Aaron, reproving him for having
consented to the golden calf. Therefore, in offences of
inquisition, you must not stop to think whether the de
linquent be your father or your brother. Joshua was
inquisitor against Achan, commanding them to burn him,
because he had stolen property confiscated under the
SPAIN DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION. 221
curse of Jericho which ought to have been burnt in fire.
Therefore, it is just for heretics to be burnt. Achan
was a prince of the tribe of Judah, and yet they delated
him. Therefore every heretic ought to be delated,
though he were a prince of royal blood.*
" The second point. Peter was inquisitor against Si
mon Magus. Therefore the representatives of the vicar
of Peter ought to punish magicians. David was inquis
itor against Goliath and Saul : with the first severe, be
cause Goliath outraged religion wilfully : with the second,
merciful, because Saul was not quite his own master, for
he acted under the possession of an evil spirit; and
therefore Inquisitor David soothed him in his proceedings,
by playing on a harp. Therefore the stone and the
harp signified the sword and the olive of the inquisitorial
office. The book of Revelation was closed with seven
seals, because it signified the process of the Inquisition,
so secret that it seems to be closed with seven thousand.
Only a lion opens it, and then the lion is changed into a
lamb. What can be a clearer figure of an inquisitor ?
To make inquisition into crimes, he is a lion that terrifies ;
after having sought them out, he is a lamb, that treats
all the guilty written in that book with gentleness, kind
ness, and compassion. Other elders attended with little
vials of pleasant odours at the opening of the book.
They were little vials (redomitas), and not vials (redo-
mas) : they had their mouths little. Therefore the inquis
itors and their servants ought to speak little. The odours
were aromatic: St. John says that they signified the
prayers of the saints. These saints are the Lord s inquis-
His hearers would not fail to think of Don Carlos, whom
his father, Philip II., with concurrence of the inquisitors, caused
to die in prison, because he thought him tinged with heresy.
222 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
itors, who offer prayer before they pronounce the sen
tence. The text says, that the ministers carried harps
(citdras) also. Why not lutes or viols (arpas 6 vihuelas) ?
Nothing of the kind. The chords of these musical
instruments are made of skins of animals, and the Lord s
inquisitors do not skin any one. The harps have chords
of metal, and the inquisitors must use iron, tempering it,
and adapting it to the circumstances of the guilty.
The viol is played with the hand, symbol of despotic
power ; the harp with the quill, hieroglyphic of knowl
edge. Let it be a harp, then, and not a lute or viol,
because the inquisitors decide with knowledge, and not
with despotism. The hand depends on the body and
its influences ; the quill is a separable, independent thing ;
therefore it must be harp, not lute, because the sentence
of an inquisitor does not depend on influences."
In an age and with a people who could listen to such
folly, when kings had such preachers and colleges such
professors, the Inquisition might carry its daring to great
length ; but those times of ignorance were passing rap
idly away. Preachers like the orator of Zaragoza, and
inquisitors like Kocaberti and the royal confessor Diaz,
who could hunt for witchcraft all over Spain, in order to
find out by whose fault Charles II. was childless, were
not the men to turn back a tide of discontent that
flooded higher from year to year. And it was in this
reign that the first effectual measures were taken to un
dermine the strength of the " horrible tribunal."
Two councillors of State, two of Castile, two of Arra-
gon, two of Italy, (for the Spanish possessions in Italy,)
two of the Indies, two of military orders, and a secretary
of the king, constituted what was called "the Great
SPAIN DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION. 223
Junta," summoned by the king to consider the com
plaints that carne from all quarters against the Inquisi
tion. After grave deliberation they reported (May 21st,
1696), that the usurpation of jurisdiction by the inquisi
tors was found to be as old as their establishment in his
majesty s dominions. They had assumed power in every
kind of case, and over persons of all conditions. Persons
of all ranks had been thrown into their prisons, and
families covered with disgrace. The slightest disrespect
shown to any of their dependents or domestics, who had
come into the possession of exorbitant privileges, they
punished with relentless severity. The very forms of
their judicial proceedings were insolently contemptuous
towards the royal courts, and prejudicial to all civil au
thority. The king s " vassals " had ever been discon
tented, and the emperor, Charles V., had been so per
suaded of the justice of their complaints, that he
suspended the sanctions hitherto given to the Inquisition ;
but Philip II., being governor in his absence, (after his
abdication of the empire,) restored them after a suspen
sion of ten years, but under some restrictions which
never were observed. Spoiled by long indulgence, the
insolence of the inquisitors became insufferable. They
exercised jurisdiction over secular persons, and in mat
ters not pertaining to religion, (as is related in this
chapter,) but forgot that such jurisdiction belonged to the
sovereign alone, and was only delegated to them by his
favour. They even denied this; and, with equal con
tempt, set aside the restrictions of canon-law and of bulls
which lay in their own archives. The Junta stated
that they might justly ask for a revocation of all the
privileges which had been thus abused, but would only
recommend that the original restrictions should be en-
224 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
forced, and that no one should be confined in prisons of
inquisitions, except for crimes against religion. They
further recommended a permission to appeal from the
Inquisition to the throne, with a public examination of
causes before the royal courts. And they enumerated
many evils resulting from privileges of the Inquisition,
undefined and unlimited as those privileges were, and
extended to all connected with an inquisitor. His coach
man, or his lackey, demanded reverence of every one,
and fancied himself privileged to commit unbounded in
sult His servant-girl complained if she were not served
quickly or well enough in the market or the shop ; and
whoever offended one of those menials was liable to be
flung into the deepest dungeon. They then described
the discontents and tumults which the Inquisition had
provoked in various provinces of Spain, and proposed
that its jurisdiction should be narrowed, its privileges
diminished, and the civil authorities enabled to resist its
encroachments. But the king was too feeble to resist the
influences which held him in subjection, and the griev
ances of the nation were not redressed.
The eighteenth century opened somewhat more hope
fully for Spain. Philip V., grandson of Louis XIV. of
France, was the first who refused to have an Auto at his
coronation ; but, following the advice of his grandfather,
he maintained the Inquisition as an instrument of des
potic government, and actually employed it to punish,
as heretics, those who had any doubt for there was a
war of succession concerning his title to the crown.
And he not only humbled the tribunal to this political
service, but deprived an inquisitor-general of his office
who had presumed to proceed, for heresy, against some
high officers of state. Irritated by the presumption of
SPAIN DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION. 225
the inquisitors, he ordered a decree for the suppression
of their office; but, dreading the rebound of his own
stroke, dared not to carry the decree into execution.
The cortes of Castile again (A. D. 1714) recorded their
condemnation, but without any further effect than that
which eventually results from every disclosure of a truth.
The same body repeated their complaint a few years
afterwards (A. D. 1720). But while Philip V. used
the Inquisition for his own service, and the evangelical
doctrine which had prevailed two centuries before no
longer left a trace of its existence, there were multitudes
of persons accused of attempting to revive Judaism, and
others offended by their activity in propagating free
masonry. This gave the inquisitors abundant pretext
for the discharge of their political mission; and when
Philip V. died, it was found that there had been, during
his reign of forty-six years, seven hundred and eighty-two
Autos in Spain alone. Llorente calculates that 1564
were burnt alive, and 782 in effigy, with 11,730 peni
tents; making a total of 14,076 victims.
There were two incidents of this reign worthy of
notice. In the year 1713 Gibraltar was ceded to Great
Britain; and, by an article of the treaty of Utrecht,
" Her Britannic Majesty, at the instance of the Catholic
king, consented and agreed that on no account should
Jews or Moors inhabit or have dwelling in the said city
of Gibraltar ;" but " Her Majesty, the Queen of Great
Britain, promised that the inhabitants of the said city of
Gibraltar should be allowed the free exercise of the
Roman Catholic religion." The very next year, Isaac
Martin, an Englishman, was imprisoned and tortured by
the Inquisition in Granada, on the very spot where the
edict was written for the expulsion of the Jews from
10*
226 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Spain ; as if to show Great Britain the effect of principles
to which she had rendered obeisance in the proscription
of the Jews at Gibraltar, and the return she might
expect for indulgence towards " the Roman Catholic reli
gion" within her own dominions.
During the reigns of Charles III. and Charles IV. a
revival of literature, and an advance in political science,
guided the attention of the clergy and of the government
to the pretensions of the court of Rome, as well as to
the proceedings of the inquisitors. The former of these
monarchs nearly yielded to the persuasion of his best
advisers, the Marquis of Roda, and the Counts of
Aranda, Floridablanca, and Campomanes, who advised
him to suppress the Inquisition, as well as to expel the
Jesuits. He banished the fathers of the society, but
could not summon up courage to extinguish that terrible
police. A mysterious dread held back his hand from
giving sanction to a decree that would have made his title
as Benefactor of Spain complete. Even an inquisitor-
general rare instance of humanity ! the Archbishop
of Selimbria, proposed a scheme for its reformation ; but
an intrigue of court unseated him, and confined him to a
monastery (A. D. 1794). When the Inquisition had
prepared to cast into its dungeons Don Ramon de Salas,
whom Charles IV. rescued, and the Prince of the Peace,
a decree of suppression was actually drawn up ; but the
Prince of the Peace himself was induced to dissuade the
king from signing it (A. D. 1797). The project of ref
ormation, however, was no more lost sight of; and, at
length, the first step was taken, by the exertion of Ur-
quijo, prime minister of Charles, who obtained a royal
prohibition of interfering with foreign consuls in Spain
(A. D. 1799). From that time those functionaries have
DECLINE Ul THE INQUISITION. 22*7
been allowed to exercise the Protestant religion in the
consulates, and to have in their libraries whatever books
they please ; and it is gratifying to know that a few of
them have made good use of the liberty then conceded.
Meanwhile, sentences to death nearly ceased ; and when
a good man, whose heart the Lord had touched, and
who steadfastly refused to compromise his conscience by
any concession to Romish idolatry, was sentenced to be
delivered over to the secular arm, in compliance with the
letter of the law, the inquisitors themselves connived at
a humane fraud, if we may so speak, a certificate of
lunacy, resorted to by agreement between all parties, as
an evasion of the law. By this contrivance Don Miguel
Solano, priest of Esco, a town in Arragon, walked out
of the secret dungeons of the Inquisition of Zaragoza as a
maniac, forgiven his heresy, and, as a maniac, exempted
from priestly ministration, while every one knew him to
be a reasonable man, and treated him accordingly.
Nothing, however, could repress his zeal for Christ ; and,
after bearing open testimony to the truth, and resisting
every effort to dissuade him from that confession, he was
released from controversy by death, and, refusing the
wafer and the unction, departed in the faith (A. D. 1805),
and was buried in unconsecrated ground, within the
walls of the Inquisition, on the bank of the Ebro, but
without any sentence of infamy, or posthumous con
demnation. So great a revolution had taken place in
the views of Spanish ecclesiastics.
At this point we may transcribe the summary of the
number of sufferers given by Llorente at the close of his
" Critical History," only noting that this gives the lowest
possible estimate. From the time of Torquernada, until
the year 1800, there were, at least,
228 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Burnt alive 31,912
Burnt in effigy 17,659
Penitents 291,450
Total 341,021
Let us not fail to note that, fifteen years before the
death of Solano, the word of God had been translated
into the language of the people by Padre Scio, tutor of
the Prince of Asturias, and that its universal reading, by
persons of all ranks and ages, was advocated by Don
Lorenzo Villanueva with a scope of learning, and clear
ness and warmth of eloquence, that would adorn the
literature of the most polished nation, in the most
enlightened age. Our page brightens. We approach
better times.
CHAPTER XVIII.
SPAIN INQUISITION ABOLISHED TRIBUNALS OF THE
FAITH.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE had succeeded in embroiling the
royal family and court of Spain. Charles IV. abdicated,
and his son, Ferdinand VII., received the crown. This
was brought about by the nefarious contrivances of the
emperor and his Frenchmen, and every true Spaniard
regarded the foreigners with abhorrence. It so happened
that the Pope did not smile on that scourge of Europe ;
and the Inquisition also, from repugnance to the political
principle of the French revolution, refused to commit
itself to the French influence which had become para-
SPAIN INQUISITION ABOLISHED. 229
mount at Madrid. The inquisitor-general, however, Don
Ramon de Arce, choosing rather to bend than break,
resigned his office (March 23d, 1808) to the young King
Ferdinand, whom Bonaparte induced to retire into
France. The Council of the Supreme stood firm, and
asserted their power to act without a general, in case of
his death or inability ; but it is not likely that they
ventured to continue an active inquisition of French
books, either infidel or revolutionary. Spain was deluged
with foreign influences, and they were helpless.
In a few months more the imperial standard crossed
the Bidasoa. Bonaparte carried all before him. On
the 2d of December, 1808, he entered Chamartin, a
village one league from Madrid, established his head
quarters there, and sent troops to take possession of the
capital, and demand submission of all the public bodies.
The council of the Inquisition had courage to refuse, and,
on receiving information of their passive resistance, he
took his pen and wrote in few words on a slip of paper
(December 4th) an order to arrest the inquisitors, abolish
the Inquisition, and sequestrate its revenue. Some of
the inquisitors escaped, their brethren were carried pris
oners to Bayonne ; and the invader of Spain did what
its worthier sovereigns, especially Charles III., had often
wished to do, but never dared. Probably this is the
only act of Bonaparte in Spain that Spaniards could ap
prove, and he thought thereby to acquire popularity ;
but, as they could not honourably accept deliverance,
even from the Inquisition, at the hands of a usurper, so
soon as a council of regency could be formed, to admin
ister government and conduct war, in the name of the
captive king, they instructed one of the fugitive inquisi
tors, then in Cadiz, (August 1st, 1810,) to assemble as
230 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
many of his colleagues as possible, and to continue the
functions which had been interrupted by the violence of
the enemy. Constituent cortes then assembled at Cadiz,
(September 24th,) and, in pursuance of the act of the
regeney, enjoined several formalities, from time to time,
tending to complete the restoration.
But those acts were no more than formalities. In
preparing a fundamental code for future government, the
leading statesmen deliberated on the relations that ought
to exist between the temporal and spiritual authorities,
and, as a first measure, framed an article of the new
constitution, which, although excessively intolerant, was
constructed to serve an important purpose. It ran thus :
" The religion of the Spanish nation is, and shall be
perpetually, the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman, only true.
The nation protects it by wise and just laws, and pro
hibits the exercise of any other." The same cortes, in
preparing a coronation-oath, provided that the sovereign
should swear to " defend and preserve the Roman Catho
lic apostolic religion, without permitting any other ;" and
the hottest bigots might, therefore, have thought their
cause secure. Meanwhile, both cortes and regency took
measures for the restoration of the Supreme Council.
But there were some, even in those cortes, who spoke
freely on behalf of religious liberty ; and a yet larger
number of deputies professed their hope, notwithstand
ing the enactment of perpetuity to Romanism, that the
new code would soon be succeeded by a better, and
that Protestants would have permission to erect churches
in Spain.
The Inquisition might possibly have been restored,
under some restrictions, but for the precipitancy of the
inquisitors, who would not wait to be instructed as to
SPAIN INQUISITION ABOLISHED. 231
the constitution of their bod} 7 , and the extent of their
jurisdiction, but notified to the regency (May 16th, 1811)
their intention to proceed forthwith. There were, also,
reasons for distrust on part of the government towards
some of them, and they were forbidden to act vithout
further authority. The whole aft air of the Inquisition
was remitted to the consideration of a special commis
sion ; but, instead of preparing a plan for the guidance
of the holy office, they divided on the question of its
compatibility with the constitution, and, after much de
lay, the case daily assuming an appearance of greater
complication, the cortes ordered their committee for the
constitution, which was not yet complete, to entertain
that fundamental question, and to report thereupon.
They undertook the charge, amidst general anxiety ; the
laity, on one side, desiring the abolition of the tribunal,
and most of the clergy trembling lest the main support
of Popery should be taken from them. At length (De
cember 8th, 1812) the commission presented an elaborate
and profoundly interesting report, containing a review of
the history of the Spanish Inquisition from its earliest
and most authentic records, so far as they were then ac
cessible, and concluding that it could not be reestablished
consistently with the liberties of Spain. The document
is extremely valuable, and is itself a history. On the
main question it speaks thus :
" This is the tribunal of the Inquisition ; that tribunal
which is not dependent upon any in its proceedings ;
that, in the person of the inquisitor-general, is sovereign,
since he dictates laws for judgments wherein sentence to
temporal punishment is pronounced ; that tribunal which,
in the darkness of night, drags the husband from the
side of his wife, the father from the arms of his children,
232 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
the children from the sight of their parents, without
hope of seeing them again until they be absolved or
condemned, without power to contribute to their de
fence and that of the family, and with no means of
knowing that, in truth and justice, they ought to suffer
punishment. And, after all this, besides the loss of hus
band, parent, child, they must endure the sequestration
of their property, the confiscation of their estates, and
the dishonour of their family. And can this be com
patible with the constitution, by which order and har
mony have been established between the supreme au
thorities, and in which Spaniards perceive the shield that
must preserve them from the attacks of arbitrary power
and of despotism 1
"First: It is not compatible with the sovereignty
and independence of the nation. In ^the judgments of
the Inquisition the civil authority has no influence ; for
Spaniards are imprisoned, tortured, and condemned to
civil penalties, without any intervention of the secular
power; prosecutions are instituted, trials conducted,
proofs admitted, and sentences pronounced, according to
laws dictated by the inquisitor-general. How, then, can
the nation exercise its sovereignty in the judgments
given by the Inquisition ? It cannot. The inquisitor is
a sovereign in a sovereign nation, and beside a sovereign
prince ; for he dictates laws, he applies them in particu
lar cases, and he watches over their execution. The
three powers which the cortes have regulated in the
wise constitution, given for the happiness of Spaniards,
are united in the inquisitor-general, together with his
council, and make him a real sovereign, without any of
the modifications established for the exercise of the
national sovereignty ; a thing the most monstrous that
SPAIN INQUISITION ABOLISHED. 233
can be conceived, and that destroys the very first princi
ples of national independence and sovereignty." And
after establishing these positions by a comparison of laws
and facts, the commission asks : " Has not he," Napo
leon, " filled France with bastiles, where free-born men,
without number, lie groaning in fetters, having been ar
rested by a police whose manner of proceeding differs in
no respect from that of the Inquisition ? There, as here,
the accuser is not known, the names of witnesses are
not known, the cause of imprisonment is not told, and
sentence is executed in outrage of all judgment. This
is the liberty and independence of France with the police
of Napoleon ; and this will be ours too, if inquisitors
may accommodate the liberty and independence of Spain
to the Inquisition. What deputy will then be able to
speak against the will of the prince ? Who shall de
claim against arbitrary administration, and the unlawful
acts of a sagacious and revengeful secretary of the Home
Department, or dare to bring him to his responsibility?
Who, like Macanaz, will defend the rights of the nation
against the influence of Alberoni ? Will he not have
reason to fear that envy and hate will load him with
calumny, and bury him in the dungeons of the Inquisi
tion ? Undoubtedly. Members could not utter their
opinions freely in the face of the Inquisition. The cortes
cannot exist together with this establishment; and it
cannot be compatible with the sovereignty and inde
pendence of the nation, if it annihilates in cortes the
national representation on which that sovereignty and
independence rest.
" Neither is the tribunal of the Inquisition compatible
with personal liberty, for the assurance of which various
maxims have been sanctioned in the constitution that
234 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
are opposed to this establishment." The provisions for
guarding against arbitrary imprisonment are then enu
merated. "But what liberty," asks the commission,
"do Spaniards enjoy in the tribunals of the Inquisition ?
They are taken to prison without having seen their
judges; they are immured in dark and narrow cells,
and, until the sentence has been pronounced, they are
allowed no communication. At such time and manner
as may please the inquisitors, they are asked to make a
declaration; they are never told the name of the ac
cuser, if there be any, nor the names of the witnesses
that depose against them ; scraps of evidence only are
read to them, and the depositions themselves are dis
guised by being written in the third person ; in the tri
bunal of the faith of God, who is truth, itself, all truth is
violated, in order that the prisoner may not come to the
knowledge of the enemy by whom he has been slan
dered and persecuted. The cause is never published,
but sealed up in the secret of the Inquisition ; so much
is extracted from it as seems good to the inquisitors, and
with that only there is made a publication of proofs,
and the person treated as a criminal is invited to ground
his defence on that, pleading for himself, or through an
advocate who has been given to him, or to object to the
witnesses. But how can he object to persons whose
names he knows not? The unhappy culprit is bewil
dered with thinking, remembering, suspecting, guessing.
He forms rash and hasty and false conjectures. He
struggles with his own conscience, with his sense of
honour, with his affections of friendship, trying to dis
cover the covetous person who has sold him, the am
bitious one who has sacrificed him, the false friend who
has betrayed him with a kiss of peace, the lewd one who
SPAIN INQUISITION ABOLISHED. 235
could not freely satisfy a brutal passion. / feel the
pain," 1 the innocent Fray Luis de Leon cried from the
dark dungeons of the Inquisition, I feel the pain, but I
cannot see the hand, nor is there a place for me to hide
or shelter me At this point the commission, over
whelmed with horror and amazement, knows not in what
language to find utterance. Priests, ministers of that
God of peace and charity who went about doing good,
are they who decree the torture, and are present at its
infliction, to hear the piteous cries of innocent victims,
or the execrations and blasphemies of the guilty ! It is
inconceivable, sir, how far prejudice can fascinate, and
false zeal can lead astray."
The commission added to their report a project of law
that passed the cortes after a debate protracted from De
cember 8th to February 5th.* By that law the tribu
nal was abolished, it is true ; but the murderous princi
ple of the Inquisition was most fully recognised. The
civil power partially sustained its own jurisdiction, and
but partially, still leaving heretics to suffer. One is
ashamed to find such a law enacted in a European par
liament in the year 1813, and sorry to record it as yet
in force, and with the aggravation that, by a recent con
cordat between the Pope and the Queen of Spain, the
clauses that would restrict the ecclesiastical judges are
divested of their force. " The General and Extraordinary
Cortes," as we read, " desiring that the provision made
in the 12th article of the constitution," cited above, " be
carried out to the fullest effect, and that the faithful ob
servance of so wise a measure be insured for the future,
declare and decree :
The whole " Discussion " was reprinted from the Diary of
the Cortes, "Cadiz: En la Iniprenta Nacional. 1813."
236 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
"Art. 1. The Catholic, Apostolic, Roman religion
shall be protected by laws consistent with the constitu
tion.
" 2. The tribunal of the Inquisition is incompatible
with the constitution.
" 3. Therefore the law ii, title xxvi, partida 7, is re
established in its original force, inasmuch as it leaves
free the authority of the bishops and their vicars to take
cognizance in matters of faith, agreeably to the sacred
canons and common right, and that of the secular judges
to declare and inflict on heretics the penalties which the
laws determine, or which shall be determined hereafter.
The ecclesiastical and secular judges shall proceed in
their respective cases according to the constitution and
the laws.
" 4. Every Spaniard is at liberty to accuse of the crime
of heresy at the ecclesiastical tribunal : in default of ac
cuser, or even if there be one, the ecclesiastical fiscal shall
take the place of accuser."
Articles 5, 6, and 7, regulate the respective action of
the secular and ecclesiastical officers. Article 8 makes
it " lawful to make appeals to the civil authority in the
same manner as in all other ecclesiastical judgments;"
and the last article is but a reproduction of an old in
quisitorial regulation.
" 9. When the ecclesiastical judgment shall have been
given, a statement of the case shall be forwarded to the
secular judge," this, however, supersedes the Auto de
Fe, " and the criminal shall thenceforth remain at his
disposal, in order that he may proceed to inflict on him
the penalty which may be allowable according to the
laws."
And the partida cited in this " decree for the establish-
SPAIN INQUISITION ABOLISHED. 237
ment of tribunals protective of the faith," provides " that
heretics be burnt, with the exception of those who are
such in the lowest degree, who, not being yet formal be
lievers " (in the heresy), " have to suffer perpetual banish
ment from these kingdoms, or imprisonment until they
repent, or turn to the faith." Other penalties, like those
in use by the Inquisition, are minutely prescribed.
A second chapter in this decree supplied a substitu
tion for the second department of inquisitorial jurisdic
tion ; which is, uniformly, the censorship, suppression,
and prohibition of books. The king, it was provided,
should appoint literary inquisitors in the frontier custom
houses ; a system of censorship, slightly mitigated, was
to prevent the publication of heresy in Spain ; and the
council of state was directed to perform, in conjunction
with ordinary cortes, and under the royal sanction, the
functions of a Spanish congregation of the index. By
that arrangement, it was intended that a prohibitory
index for Spain should perpetually hide every ray of
evangelical intelligence from the public eye.
The clergy might well have been satisfied with this
enormous power to burn, to banish, to confiscate, and to
suppress ; but a considerable number of them, headed
by the papal nuncio, refused to acknowledge the new
law, and attempted, even while the enemy was on their
borders, to stir up an insurrection on behalf of the sup
pressed Inquisition. But they failed, and the nuncio,
with several others, was banished from Spain.
Ferdinand VII. returned in the summer of 1814, and
was no sooner established in Madrid, than he arrested
the members of the cortes who had come up from Cadiz,
although to them and the Spanish people he owed res
toration to his throne. He had them taken from their
238 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
beds to dungeons in perfect inquisitorial style, declared
tliat they were all infidels and rebels, and issued a decree
(July 21st) to restore the tribunal of the holy office. A
council of the supreme was again assembled ; an in
quisitor-general, Francisco Xavier de Mier y Campillo,
Bishop of Almeria, issued instructions to a new company
of inquisitors throughout Spain and Spanish America;
and after a few months had been spent in efforts to re
pair the shattered fortunes of the establishment, the
general revived one of the ancient customs by issuing an
edict of the faith. Prudence required that the language
of this edict should be somewhat subdued. He lamented
that licentiousness and infidelity, chiefly in consequence
of the presence of foreign soldiers, had overrun Spain ;
and took credit to himself for greater gentleness than
that of the disciples who would have called down fire
from heaven to burn the Samaritans. He offered mercy
to the guilty, and commanded all who laboured under
consciousness of heresy to denounce themselves at the
holy office before the end of the year, but graciously
promised that they who did so should be absolved in
secret without any punishment. But he further com
manded the people to delate all persons whom they
knew to be faulty in doctrine, and required confessors to
exhort all penitents to do the same, lest they should be
themselves accused arid prosecuted by the tribunal of the
faith. It does not seem that many persons, if any,
thought it advisable to present themselves to the new in
quisitors in Spain ; but means were found to sacrifice a
political victim in an " act of faith " in Mexico, before the
year had ended.
And here we must spend a few moments to note an
instance of inquisitorial deception.
SPAIN INQUISITION ABOLISHED. 239
An advocate of the holy office, in the cortes at Cadiz,
had the effrontery to say that, for a century past, torture
had been discontinued; but the contrary was too well
known for his assertion to be credited. Three years and
a quarter after he had said that no one had been tor
tured for at least a century, a letter from Rome, dated
March 31st, 1816, published in the " Gazette de France,"
No. CV., (Llorente, torn, ix, p. 105,) told the French that
his holiness had then prohibited torture in the tribunals
of the Inquisition, and commanded this resolution to be
communicated to the ambassadors of Spain and Portugal
at Rome. While this rumour was yet on the lips of the
Parisians, another letter from Rome, dated April 17th,
announced that a reform of the tribunals of inquisition
was going forward in earnest, and would be extended to
all countries where there was a holy office. Proceedings
were to be thenceforth regulated according to the custom
of other courts, and the dictates of humanity. All was
to be transacted openly ; every presumption was to be in
favour of the accused ; and even delations were to be
discouraged, and made difficult. A new code was to be
framed, and then sent to all the courts of Europe. Pius
VII. was said to be preaching mercy and charity to the
congregation of the Inquisition most fervently. (Llorente,
torn, ix, p. 1 06.) Another letter, dated May 9th, described
the pontiff as a mirror of benevolence, and a reformer of
the holy office. (Llorente, torn, ix, p. 107.) At this rate,
with all that had been said of a prohibition of torture,
of torture discontinued for a century, and therefore be
yond the possibility of prohibition, and while the courts
of Europe were waiting to hear of the abolition of torture,
and of all other abominations of the Inquisition, there
must have been some insuperable obstacle at Rome, for
240 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
no such reformation was announced. At length, nine
months more having lingered away, another letter from
Rome appeared in the same gazette, telling of a proba
bility that the reform promised would really take place
within another year. And the writer went so far as to
say, that the Inquisition might, even then, be regarded
as extinct. (Llorente, torn, ix, p. 108.) We shall see
that the Roman Inquisition is not yet extinct ; but, for
the present, we are limited to Spain. In Spain, in the
years 1812 and 1813, it was said that torture had been
out of use for a century. In Spain it was reported in
1816 and 1817, that the Roman congregation was going
to order it to cease, perhaps, after waiting one year more.
In Spain, again, on the night of November 20th, 1817,
Colonel Van Halen, charged with belonging to an associa
tion of Spanish liberals, and with desiring to subvert the
government and religion of the country, a government
and a religion equally obnoxious to the enlightened and
humane, was taken from his bed in a cell of the Inqui
sition in Madrid, by four men with their faces covered,
carried by the dim light of a lantern into the torture-
chamber, questioned, raised from the ground on two tall
crutches, his right arm bound down to one of them, and
his left arm extended horizontally in an iron frame,
questioned again, and his arm stretched by machinery
until he fainted with anguish. And he was questioned
again and again, and variously tormented, in order to
extort the disclosure of names to be added to the list of
those whom Ferdinand and his friends desired to pro
scribe or put to death. Van Halen was afterwards de
livered from the dungeons, and related the particulars of
his torture. Yet, all this time, some said that there was
no torture ; others, that it would shortly cease to be per-
SPAIN INQUISITION ABOLISHED. 241
mitted ; and others, that the Inquisition had ceased to
act. But the tribunals of the faith acted vigorously
during the reign of Ferdinand VII., especially after his
return to power in 1823. How many deaths there were
on account of religion it is impossible to say ; but I have
evidence of one. A schoolmaster of Busafa, a village in
the neighbourhood of Valencia, was reputed to be a
Quaker. He was accused before the tribunal of the faith,
condemned, thrown into the prisons of St. Narcissus, as
they are called, and there detained for some time, to
gether with the vilest felons. " The lords of the tribunal
of the faith," says my informant, a priest of Valencia,
" endeavoured to induce him to make a solemn recanta
tion of his belief as a Quaker ; but he said that he could
not do anything against his conscience, nor could he lie
to God. They condemned him to be hanged ; and he
was transferred to the condemned cell, and resigned him
self fully to the will of God. On July 31st, 1826, he
was taken from the prison to the scaffold, displaying the
most perfect serenity. The crosses were removed from
the scaifold. He was not clothed in the black dress
usually put on culprits when brought out to execution,
but appeared in a brown jacket and pantaloons. With
a serious countenance and unfaltering mien, he ascended
the scaffold, conducted by father Felix, a barefooted
Carmelite friar, who exhorted him to change his views.
But he only replied, * Shall one who has endeavoured to
observe God s commandments be condemned ? When
the rope was put round his neck, he asked the hangman
to wait a moment, and, raising his eyes toward heaven,
prayed. In three minutes he ceased to live." I have
been shown the spot, and have conversed with some who
saw " the Quaker schoolmaster " die.
11
242 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
To follow the alternate suppressions and restorations
of the tribunal until its abolition in 1834, it would be
necessary to trace the history of Spain during a long
struggle for civil liberty. In general, it may be stated,
that a more equitable constitution in that year, and a
better state of public feeling, rendered prosecution for
heresy almost impossible ; and the Inquisition was again
abolished. But Tribunals of Faith might be assembled,
if judges could be found to sit there. The law of the
partidas above cited was taught in the universities as a
part of Spanish jurisprudence, as I found in the Univer
sity of Seville in the year 1838. In 1839, Christina,
queen-governess of Spain, by a note from her Secretary
of State to the British Charge d" 1 Affaires, required me
to leave Spain under peril of the extreme penalty pre
scribed in that law, las ultimas penas, for having
officiated as a Protestant minister; and if the Inquisition
be not now formally revived there, the vigilance of the
priesthood, and the concurrence of the civil authorities
in acts of persecution, provide a most effective substitute.
It is true, then, that there is not an Inquisition in Spain ;
that, just now, no one can be thrown " into the Inquisi
tion ;" and whoever speaks of such an event shows him
self ignorant of one of the most interesting passages of
recent European history ; but it must also be borne in
mind, that they who refer to Spain to prove that the
inquisition of heresy has ceased, and conceal the fact that
there are tribunals appointed for that purpose, with
power to deliver over their victims to the secular arm to
be burnt alive or hung, are guilty of gross dishonesty.
Although there be not an inquisition in name, there is
one in reality. It is perpetuated, by the renewal of old
laws, in the Tribunals of the Faith.
PORTUGAL. 243
CHAPTER XIX.
PORTUGAL.
HAPPILY for Portugal in the fifteenth century, the sway
of the " Catholic sovereigns," Ferdinand and Isabella, did
not extend into that kingdom, neither did the Inquisition
of Torquemada. But the spirit of persecution cannot be
excluded from a province where the Romish priesthood
officiate. In Portugal, as in Spain, the Jews had long
been oppressed; and although multitudes who left the
latter country in 1492 were allowed to remain in Por
tugal, it was only under conditions of extreme severity ;
and, at length, they were reduced to the same terrible
alternative of exile, or compulsory profession of Chris
tianity. They who submitted to the latter took upon
themselves, not the easy yoke of Christ, of whom they
had been taught nothing, but an insufferable bondage to
the Church of Rome. Under the usual designation of
New Christians, they were obnoxious to suspicion, con
tempt, and the most vexatious vigilance of the priests ;
although the King Emanuel had granted them a pro
mise, in 1497, that they should be exempt from inqui
sition for twenty years. Whether there was any tribunal
there it is not easy to say ; but that there was formal
prosecution for heresy, as in every other country of
Popedom, is unquestionably certain. The same exemp
tion was renewed in 1507 ; and in 1521 John III. again
renewed it for another twenty years, with a clause, that
even after the term appointed, their descendants should
not be tried for heresy without being confronted with their
accusers, and that the property of persons put to death
244 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
for heresy should, nevertheless, descend to their heirs.
These privileges, like all others, must have been purchased
by the New Christians for themselves and their children.
But, six years before the expiration of the term, Pope
Clement VII. sent an inquisitor-general, Fray Diego de
Silva, to set up an office in Lisbon ; and this he did, not
of his own motion, but in compliance with earnest repre
sentations and entreaties from King John III., who com
plained that those New Christians were receiving the
doctrines of Luther, which then began to find acceptance
in all parts of the peninsula. After some reluctance, it
is said, Clement consented to absolve the king from his
obligation, and sent the friar, invested with full authority,
to introduce the holy office. Don Diego came, but
encountered the execrations of the inhabitants ; and the
New Christians expostulated so strongly, that John was
obliged to consent to remit the case to Rome for a recon
sideration. Clement died about that time ; and his suc
cessor, Paul III., struggling with a sense of honour,
hesitated to confirm the act of his predecessor. But the
ferocious importunity of John, and the prevailing spirit
of the Church, overcame his scruples; and he issued a
bull (March 23d, 1536) that satisfied the importunity of
fifteen years, and enabled King John fully to avenge the
contempt which he said those Judaizers had shown to
ceremonies of the mass and to images of the saints.
His holiness named three bishops as commissaries, or
sub-inquisitors, with Silva, to whom he gave the title of
Chief Inquisitor, and commanded them to proceed, in
conjunction with the ordinary of the diocese, but for
three years to follow the practice of criminal courts, and
proceed according to common right. He also prohibited
confiscation of property ; thus adapting, as he conceived,
PORTUGAL. 245
the odious institution to the circumstances of the country.
In due time a supreme council was formed in Lisbon,
which sat twice every week.
Thus began the Inquisition of Portugal, as the docu
ments quoted by Antonio de Sousa* demonstrate. Some
writers, following Paramo, attribute it to one Juan Perez
de Saavedra, a clever impostor, who forged a bull, in the
year 1540, to the purport that the tribunes of Portugal
should be assimilated to those of Spain, came to Badajoz
with a splendid equipage, assumed the dress and title of
a cardinal, acted as papal nuncio, received all the
honours rendered to such a personage, visited the holy
houses, instructed the inquisitors, heard appeals, redressed
grievances, levied contributions, accepted presents, suf
fered his attendants to receive fees, did much "good,"
as he afterwards pleaded, by diminishing the odium of
the Inquisition through such acts of lenity as were never
known to be performed by a true inquisitor, took money,
indeed, but, unlike real inquisitors, did not take life.
He learned inquisitorial secrets, but divulged none of
them ; deserved, as he thought, praise and reward for
the skilful management of so beneficial a fraud ; but was
detected, arrested, and sent to expiate his offences
against pontifical and inquisitorial dignity by nineteen
years labour in the galleys. His fraud, it might have
been expected, and the presumption of heresy which
always attends offences against the Inquisition, should
have sent him to the stake. But it was not so. Thither
go the confessors of Christ. Fraud is too familiar with
the defenders of Romish faith to be classed with mor
tal sins; and even Philip II. of Spain, severely zeal
ous as he was, sent for "the false nuncio of Portugal"
Aphorismi Inquisitor urn.
246 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
after his release from punishment, and complacently bade
him relate his adventures. He did so, but adorned the
narrative with romance enough to provide material for a
novel, and to mislead those who do not critically examine
dates and cannot detect improbabilities.
The partition of Portugal into inquisitorial districts
soon took place. The tribunal of Evora was erected by
De Silva in the year 1537, with Juan de Mello, after
wards Archbishop of Evora, for its first inquisitor. In
1539 Cardinal Henry, second inquisitor-general, estab
lished that of Lisbon, whither he transferred De Mello,
to make beginning there also. And the same cardinal
created a third at Conimbra, in 1541, under the admin
istration of two "commissary-inquisitors," Bernardo da
Cruz, a Dominican, and Alfonso Gomez, a canonist.
If we had the correspondence that passed between the
true nuncio and King John and the court of Rome, an
insight into the history of the early Portuguese Inquisi
tion might, perhaps, be gained ; and the veil which
now covers most of the proceedings of the Inquisition
and government of Lisbon might be withdrawn. But
enough is published to show that those proceedings were
atrocious. From a brief of Paul III. to the king (June
16th, 1545), we learn that Simon de Vega, his ambas
sador, had taken a letter to Rome, five months before,
relating the case of the Inquisition in Portugal, and com
plaining, at great length, and in no very respectful terms,
of a former brief, wherein the Pope had forbidden that
neophytes then imprisoned should be subjected to any
further trial or punishment until Giovanni Ricci, bishop
elect of Sipento, had further informed him concerning
some of them. The Pontiff complained that the king
had demanded, with an air of bitterness very unbecom-
PORTUGAL. 247
ing in a Christian, permission to inflict vengeance on the
Jews, and full severity on heretics. But he proceeded
to tell him that he had received many and sore com
plaints of the conduct of the inquisitors, who were ac
cused of having burnt many persons unjustly, and of
having kept very many more in custody, in order to
burn them, also, unjustly; and that therefore he had
commanded judgment to be suspended, and a report of
the doings of those ministers of the holy office to be
transmitted to himself, that he might see whether they
had been just or unjust. The truth is, that the Pontifical
authority had been resisted by the Inquisition. When
Paul ILL confirmed the appointment of his predecessor,
he did so under a compromise with the agent of the
New Christians in Rome, who obtained, by the usual
method, an order for the release of his brethren then in
the prisons of the new Inquisition in Lisbon. But the
inquisitors, headed by the king, refused to open the
prisons ; and the nuncio, resolved to maintain the dig
nity of the Pope, caused the proclamation of pardon to
be affixed to the church-doors, and himself went to the
prisons, saw them opened, and released one thousand
eight hundred persons from durance, and many of them,
no doubt, from death. But the king persisted in placing
his forces at the service of the inquisitors, who furiously
renewed the persecution ; and the agent of the persecut
ed people, Duarte de Paz, a knight of St. John, had
been actively engaged at Rome in moving the court to
enforce the favourable orders they had purchased. Gold,
given by the persecuted while under the pressure of suf
fering, procured briefs to mitigate the violence of their
persecutors; and it would seem that papal authority
overcame the fury of John III. Paul commanded the
248 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Cardinal Henry of Portugal, head of the Inquisition,
both as chief inquisitor and by virtue of his dignity as
legate, to see that the ministers proceeded cautiously, and
bade him exhort the king, his brother, to refrain from
unchristian severity. And to "his son," the king, the
Pope sent another brief, exhorting him to be careful that,
while the Inquisition was/ree, it should also be moderate ;
to remember that those neophytes were as yet but babes
in Christianity, and that both nature and Scripture teach
us to treat babes with soft words rather than with
threatenings.* For Lutheran heretics, however, Paul
had not been moved to exhortation, and they were left
to be burnt without pity. Doubtless he would allow
their condemnation to be "just."
A veil of obscurity hides those victims from our knowl
edge ; and, although we find it everywhere stated that
Autos were no less frequent than in Spain, we do not find
authentic narratives to yield material for a consecutive
sketch, and must therefore be content to mark a few in
stances, and close our notice of the Inquisition in Por
tugal.
William Gardner, a native of Bristol, was " honestly
brought up, and by nature given unto gravity ; of a
mean stature of body, of a comely and pleasant counte
nance, but in no part so excellent as in the inward qual
ities of the mind, which he always, from his childhood,
preserved without spot or reprehension." Having been
respectably educated, he entered into the service of a
merchant, who had connexions both in Spain and Por
tugal, and, when about twenty-six years of age, was sent
to Spain for the transaction of business ; but, putting into
These briefs are given by Raynaldus, A. D. 1545, LVI1I. ;
1547, CXXXL, CXXXII.
PORTUGAL. 249
Lisbon, and being there detained for some time, his rapid
acquisition of the language, and acquaintance with the
commercial relations of his employer, led to his estab
lishment in that port. In those days Englishmen were
earnest Protestants, and some such were then in Lisbon,
"good and honest men ;" and, in their society, with help
of good books, and by the blessing of God, he became
increasingly earnest in the cultivation of personal religion.
On the first day of September, 1552, a son of the king
of Portugal was married to a Spanish princess; the
wedding was solemnized with great pomp in the cathe
dral, " the king first, and then every estate in order,"
flocked into the church, mass was celebrated with the ut
most ceremony, and " the cardinal did execute." The
young Englishman, who had hitherto kept aloof from
Romish worship, had gone with the multitude to see the
wedding, rather than the mass, which he now saw in its
perfection. The cardinal stood, elevating the host; the
people, " with great devotion and silence, praying, look
ing, kneeling, and knocking." Gardiner felt the horror
that seizes on a Christian mind in such a situation, and
went home sad. He did not communicate the cause of
his heaviness to any one; but, "seeking solitariness and
secret places, falling down prostrate before God, with
manifold tales he bewailed the neglecting of his duty, de
liberating with himself how he might revoke the people
from their impiety and superstition." But he reached a
determination that could not be executed without putting
his life in peril ; and, not shrinking from the sacrifice, he
deliberately settled all his temporal affairs, paying his
debts, and leaving his accounts balanced, and then con
tinued night and day in prayer and meditation in Holy
Scripture.
11*
250 THE BRAND OJb DOMINIC.
In tlie course of the nuptial festivities another mass
was to be performed, the king and royal family being pres
ent, and the cardinal officiating. William Gardiner was
there, " early in the morning, very cleanly appareled, even
of purpose, that he might stand near the altar without
repulse." The king and his train came, the crowd filled
the church, and Gardiner, as if carried nearer by the
press, took a seat almost close to the altar, having a Tes
tament in his hand, which he diligently read, and pray
ed, heedless of the scene. Mass began. But he sat
still. " He which said mass proceeded : he consecrated,
sacrificed, lifted up on high, showed his god unto the
people. All the people gave great reverence, and, as yet,
he stirred nothing. At last they came unto that place
of the mass where they use to take the ceremonial host,
and toss it to and fro round about the chalice, making
certain circles and semicircles.* Then the said William
Gardiner, not being able to suffer any longer, ran speedily
unto the cardinal ; and, even in the presence of the king
and all his nobles and citizens, with the one hand he
snatched away the cake from the priest, and trod it
under his feet, and, with the other hand, overthrew the
chalice." They were all astounded ; but, after the
silence of a moment, a great cry rose from all the congre
gation, nobles and common people ran together to seize
him, and one of the latter wounded him on the shoulder
with a dagger. But the king commanded him to be
saved, and reserved for examination. The tumult hav
ing subsided, he was brought before his majesty, who
asked him what countryman he was, and how he dared
to commit such an act, in his presence, against the sacra
ments of the Church. He answered, " Most noble king,
In what is called the lesser elevation.
PORTUGAL. 251
I am not ashamed of my country, who am an English
man, both by birth and religion, and am come hither only
for traffic of merchandise. And when I saw, in this
famous assembly, so great idolatry committed, my con
science neither ought nor could any longer suffer, but
that I must needs do that which you have seen me pres
ently do. Which thing, most noble prince, was not
done or thought of by me for any contumely or reproach
of your presence, but only for this purpose, as before God
I do clearly confess to seek only the salvation of this
people."
Supposing that he had been instigated by others,
Edward VI. being then on the throne of England, and
anxious to obtain information, they put him into the
care of surgeons, and, when his wound was nearly healed,
subjected him to the usual process of examination. He
persisted in declaring that they, only, who committed
such gross idolatry, were the cause of his action. They
took possession of his papers, but could learn nothing.
They imprisoned all the English that were then in Lis
bon, but still could not find that he had any accomplice
or adviser. They questioned him as to religion ; and, so
far was he from attempting to evade their inquisition
that he disputed fearlessly with the theologians, using
Latin, which, for such a subject, was more familiar to
him than Portuguese. Then they administered various
kinds of torture, and, among others, forced a ball down
his throat, and drew it up again with such violence, and
so often repeated, that death would have been more
tolerable. After the tormentors had wearied themselves
in vain, and he still declared that he would do the same
again, were it possible, to testify against their idolatrous
perversion of a holy sacrament, they brought him to
252 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
the vestry of the cathedral, and chopped off his right
hand ; which he took up with his left, and kissed. Then
they took him to the market-place, cut off his left hand,
and mounted him on an ass. From the market-place
they thus carried him to the river-side, hoisted him up
over a pile of wood, which was set on fire, and, by a rope
and pulley, they alternately let him down into it and pulled
him up, that the populace might enjoy the sight of his
half-roasted body. " In this great torment, for all that,
he continued with a constant spirit, and, the more terri
bly he burned, the more vehemently he prayed." All
this time they were exhorting him to repent, and pray to
the Virgin ; but he preached to them in return, entreat
ing them to leave off such vanity and folly. "When
Christ," said he, " ceases to be your advocate, then I will
pray to the Virgin Mary to be mine." Life was ebbing out.
But, with his last breath, he prayed, Judica me, Deus,
et discerne causam meant de gente non sanctd : " Judge
me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly
people." He was endeavouring to recite the Psalm,
when they drew him up and down with violence, the
burning rope broke, he fell into the pile, and was heard
no more. One Pendigrace, his fellow-lodger, was kept
in the Inquisition for two years, and frequently tortured ;
but he said nothing that could enable the inquisitors to
proceed against any of his countrymen, and, after his
release, returned to England. From his narrative, con
firmed by the testimony of other Englishmen, Foxe, our
great martyrologist, derived his information, as we find
it in the " Acts and Monuments."
In 1560 the Inquisition of Goa was added to the
three of Portugal Lisbon, Evora, and Conimbra. But
of Goa we must speak separately.
PORTUGAL. 253
In the same year Mark Burges, an Englishman, mas
ter of the ship ; Minion," was burnt in Lisbon.
The inquisitors burnt Protestants at every opportunity ;
but their business was chiefly with the descendants of
Jews who still remained separate from the original Por
tuguese, and were still called New Christians. Nor was
any occasion lost, either at Rome or Lisbon, for making
gain of those unhappy people, so long as bigotry was
not stronger than cupidity. Thus, in 1579, Sebastian
having been beaten by the Moors in a luckless expedi
tion to Africa, they obtained a bull from Gregory XIII.
to exempt them, for ten years, from confiscation of their
property by the inquisitors, in consideration of a sum
equal to 250,000, which they had contributed for its
outfit. Philip II. of Spain strongly objected to this act
of common justice ; and when Cardinal Henry, the same
man whom Pope Paul III. had been engaged to employ
for the protection of that very people, succeeded to his
nephew Sebastian on the throne, either forgetting his
earlier lessons, or remembering that papal charity was
but venal, he obtained consent of the same Pope to
annul the indulgence, three months after its publication.
He had consulted learned men, said the crowned inquisi
tor, who all agreed that he was bound to make that rev
ocation, which the good of the faith especially required.
Learned men, on subsequent occasions, set their faces
against similar compacts with rich heretics, who were
fleeced in Portugal as relentlessly as are the Jews, at this
day, in Morocco. Yet their great numbers and their
industry, superior to that of the Old Christians, always
gave them importance ; and, in the course of the seven
teenth century, they presumed to pray that the Inquisi
tion might be suppressed in Portugal. The king, the
254 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
nuncio, and the Pope condescended to receive their
petition, but they never gave them anything better than
fair words in reply. Clement X. did, indeed, issue a
bull to suppress the Portuguese Inquisition, on petition
of the Jesuits, who, at the time, quarreled with it ; but
the bull never came into effect.
Clement VIII. (August 23d, 1604) issued a bull of
nominal indulgence, reciting similar documents of Clem
ent VII. and Paul III.; but it only aggravated their
condition, by the restrictions with which it was loaded ;
and De Sousa acknowledges that its intention was, not
to relieve the complainants, but, new circumstances hav
ing arisen, so to alter the inquisitorial regulations, as to
provide a new remedy. In fact, it was a pardon for past
offences under certain conditions ; but, after the publica
tion of that pardon, a system of inquisition was to follow,
far less easy to be evaded than any that had preceded ;
and, from that time, similar amnesties with spiritual
offenders were not repeated, because, as the Portuguese
theologians contended, all the tenderness ever spent on
heretics, by pontiffs and inquisitors, had been spent in
vain. And notable proof of inquisitorial tenderness was
given in the year 1682, when six effigies were burnt in
an Auto instead of so many persons, who had perished
in prison ; eighty-tivo were condemned to severe penal
ties, such as whipping, banishment, and perpetual im
prisonment ; three were burnt alive ; and one strangled
and burnt. The offence charged against most of them
was Judaism ; some were accused of witchcraft, and
others of immorality. A separate company of thirteen
did penance for an unnatural crime. Another evidence
of the tenderness of inquisitors towards heretics was fur
nished in the year 1690, when a deputation from the
PORTUGAL. 255
New Christians of Portugal appeared in Rome, and
threw themselves at the feet of Alexander VIII., implor
ing pity on five hundred prisoners then in the dungeons,
of all ranks and ages, arrested without respect of sex or
condition. Some of them had lain there fourteen years,
some twelve, and none less than seven.
Nor can we wonder at the multitude of captives, nor
at their detention without any final sentence, either of
condemnation or acquittal, when we read of such occur
rences as that of 1672. A general attack was then
made on the neophytes of Lisbon, in consequence of the
loss of a few/orms, or wafers, from one of the churches.
There was no one on whom suspicion could be fixed ; and
the inquisitors, resolved to profit by the occasion, seized
all the neophytes, all who had the misfortune to be of
Jewish or Moorish descent, drew on them a flood of
popular outrage, and subjected them to the dreadful
ordeal of torture. Their sufferings, for once, excited pity,
and some Portuguese noblemen, bishops, monks, and
doctors, went in a body to the king, and begged him to
put an end to those atrocities. His majesty did not
dare to open the dungeons, take out the innocent, and
put in the guilty inquisitors in their stead ; but he did
refer the matter to the court of R6me. Before an
answer could be had, the thief was detected, not a neo
phyte, but an Old Christian ; and, in common honesty,
the prisoners ought to have been all released. But the
inquisitors thought that such an act would be inconsistent
with their credit ; and therefore they kept the prisoners im
mured in order to question them further, in presumption
that they must have had some correspondence with the
criminal. The appeal to Rome was prosecuted ; and the
Pope, in order that he might judge of their manner of
256 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
conducting trials, commanded them to send him the
records of four. They refused. The Pope insisted. No
reports were forthcoming. The Pope, Clement X.,
threatened excommunication. They began to fear ; and,
not able to send the reports of four causes, because so
many were not on record, they managed to send two.
The king, sharing in the indignation of the complainants,
prosecuted his application to the court of Rome for a
reform in the rules and administration of the Inquisition,
but gained nothing. And after the death of this king,
the inquisitors had the audacity to go to his widow,
Donha Luisa, then queen regnant, by the law of Por
tugal, take her to the grave of her late consort, exhume
his body, and treat it with brutal insult in her presence.
Truly, there was a mingling of political hatred with in
quisitorial bigotry in this instance, as in many others ;
but that only made their conduct the more abominable.
A foreigner in Spain, who saw a crowd of spectators,
cowled and uncowled, surrounding a quemadero, with a
pile of fagots blazing, and a human being shrieking
and burning in the midst of it, half-concealed, however,
by fuel and smoke, might suppose them to be men pos
sessed by infernal spirits, and thus impelled to perpetrate
a deed, emblematical, as they said, of the last judgment,
but certainly presenting a resemblance to hell. In Por
tugal, the scene would be no less fiendish, and more pro
foundly brutal. In the Auto itself, the Spanish and
Portuguese customs were very similar. The use of the
gag, for example, prevailed in both, and was affectingly
exemplified to Dr. Michael Geddes, who relates that he
saw a prisoner who had been several years shut up in a
dungeon, where he could not see clear day, raise his
eyes towards the sun, and heard him exclaim in rapture.
PORTUGAL. 25*7
as if absorbed in the majesty of the object, " How can
people that behold that glorious body, worship any other
being than HIM who created it ?" Instantly the gag was
thrust into his mouth, and the Jesuits who attended him
to the Terreiro de Paco, where the gallery was erected,
were not trou bled with any more of his reflections. Instead
of being marched thence directly to the place of execu
tion, they who were to be burnt were taken to common
prisons, kept there for an hour or two, and then brought
before the Lord Chief Justice, who asked each of them
in what religion he intended to die. If he said, " In the
Roman Catholic Apostolic," the sentence was, that he
should first be strangled, and then burnt. If he named
the Protestant, or any other differing from the Romish,
that functionary directed that he should be burnt alive.
At Lisbon, the place of execution was at the water
side. For each person to be burnt, whether alive or
dead, a thick stake, or spar, was erected, not less than
twelve feet above ground, and within about eighteen
inches of the top there was a thick cross-piece, to serve
as a seat, and to receive the tops of two ladders. Be
tween those ladders, which were for the use of two Jesuits,
was one for the condemned person, whom they com
pelled to mount, sit on the transverse piece, and there be
chained fast. The Jesuits then ascended, delivered a
hasty exhortation to repentance, and, that failing, declared
that they left him to the devil, who was waiting to re
ceive his soul. On perceiving this, the multitude shout
ed, " Let the dog s beard be made ;" that is to say, Let
his face be scorched. This was done by tying pieces of
furze to the end of a long pole, and holding the flaming
bush to his face, until it was burnt black. The dis
figuration of countenance, and piteous cries for " mercy,
258 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
for the love of God," furnished great part of the amuse
ment for the crowd, who, if he had been suffering death
in a less barbarous way, for any criminal offence, would
have manifested every appearance of compassion. When
" the beard " was made, they lit the heap of furze at the
foot of the stake, and, if there was no wind, the flame
would envelop the seat, and begin to burn the legs;
but as there generally is a breeze on the banks of the
Tagus, it seldom reached so high as the knees. If there
was no wind, he would be dead in half an hour ; but the
victim generally retained entire consciousness for an hour
and a half, or two hours, in dire torment, which the
spectators witnessed with such demonstrations of delight
as were never produced by any other spectacle. In short,
the burning, or rather roasting, to death was so contrived
that the sufferer should be exposed to every spectator,
and that his cries from that elevation should be distinctly
audible. And after such a brutalizing education, who
can wonder at the degradation of the Portuguese, not
withstanding the ancient wealth and power of Portugal,
as the first maritime nation in the world, the fertility of
the country, the loveliness of the climate, and the com
mercial advantages that lie open to the people, especially
in relation to Great Britain ? But the cause of their
disease is evident. The cause is Popery ; and until that
be removed, the cure cannot be effected.
Now, after the lapse of more than two centuries, we
wonder at the mockery of a sermon delivered at an Auto
da Fe in Evora (A. D. 1637), by a commissary of the
holy office, and prior of the Dominicans. " My well-
beloved Portuguese," cried the monk, " let us render our
heartiest thanksgivings to Heaven for the signal favour
that has been shown us in this holy tribunal. If we had
PORTUGAL. 259
not had this, our kingdom would have become a bush
without flowers and without fruits, fit only to be burnt.
Let us look on England, France, Germany, and
the Low Countries, and see what progress heresy has
made, through lack of an Inquisition. We shall have
no difficulty in understanding that we should have been
like those places, had we been deprived of so great a
benefit"*
The Inquisition of Portugal fell in 1821, amidst the
struggle for civil liberty ; and the letter of the Portuguese
constitution seems to guarantee freedom of worship to
foreigners, and, by fair construction, to leave the Portu
guese themselves free to accept the gospel : but little
advantage has been taken of that measure of liberty ;
British Christians did not enter into the door while it
was open. In Madeira, however, an active persecution
of Dr. Kalley, and of those converted by his means, de
monstrates that, although the external form of the Inqui
sition has fallen, the spirit yet lives ; and present appear
ances, both in Spain and Portugal, show that if the form
and the name be not soon revived, it will not be for
want of inclination in the Church of Rome.
Sermon do Padre Frey Antonio Couantlio, impresso cm
Lisboa, 1638.
260 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
CHAPTER XX.
INDIA.
HEROIC self-denial in the prosecution of a great object is
nowhere exhibited more brilliantly than in the first
Indian missions of the Jesuits. This must be acknowl
edged, notwithstanding the exhibition of vices in the
subsequent government of those missions, that were as
flagrant as the zeal and sincerity of some of the earliest
missionaries were conspicuous. This, however, is not the
place to characterize, much less to describe, the labours
of the Propaganda. Our present business is to trace the
introduction of the Inquisition into India, and its progress
there. If this work were of larger volume, I should in
dulge in research into this branch of ecclesiastical history,
but must now be content to set down just enough to in
form the general reader, indicating to the student a field
that might be traversed with advantage, although it is
covered with obscurity, and pass on to our peculiar
object.
Alfonso de Sousa says, that Francisco Xavier, in a
letter to John III. of Portugal, dated November 10th,
1545, stated, that "Jewish perfidy was daily spreading
in those countries of Eastern India that were subject to
Portugal; and earnestly prayed the king to send the
office of the Inquisition into that country as the remedy
of so great perfidy." Sousa further states, that the
Cardinal Henry, who was at that time inquisitor-general
in the kingdom of Portugal, erected a tribunal of the In
quisition in Goa, and sent thither inquisitors, officers, and
servants necessary. The first inquisitor was Alexo Diaz
INDIA. 261
Fulcano, sent thither from Lisbon, March 15th, 1560.
But it is not likely that the establishment of the Inquisi
tion in India would, in those days, have depended on
the suggestion or the request of any one person ; and we
cannot gain a more exact view of its origin and progress,
than by marking facts as they occurred.
First : there was a bishopric at Goa, established there,
as usual in all such cases, on that part of the coast falling
into possession of the Portuguese, in 1510.
Then followed an appliance of all the accustomed
methods of conversion, under the terror of a strong gar
rison. Favours and honours were lavished upon the first
converts : while the viceroy and highest functionaries
stood sponsors for proselytes at baptism.
Accessions of proselytes along the eastern coast of
India, more particularly, and some consolidation of
military and civil power, indicated that the time was
come for an enlargement of the ecclesiastical platform ;
but there was still some delay, until more vigorous
measures could be taken to sustain a complete hierarchy.
The conversion of Gentile Malabars, therefore, was for
some years the object chiefly pursued. Adults were per
suaded, or intimidated ; but children were stolen, bap
tized, brought up in the Jesuits houses, and employed
afterwards to bring in fresh recruits. They were paraded
through the streets, singing catechism, and every child
that could be decoyed to join the processions was taken
by the Jesuits and baptized. A great number of these
forcible baptisms took place in the year 1557, in spite of
the resistance of their parents.*
The flock being multiplied, and somewhat disciplined
o Parentibus quanquam invitis ac renitentibus." (Acostae
Hist. Rerum in Orieute Gestarum. Parisiis, 1572. Fol. 14.)
262 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
into subjection, the Bishop of Goa was promoted to be
metropolitan ; and two new bishops were sent out to take
possession of the dioceses, created for them, of Malacca
and Cochin. This was done in 1559. And as the in
troduction of a new Romish hierarchy into any country
is sure to be followed by correspondent manifestations of
authority, the very next year that establishment was fol
lowed by the introduction of the " Holy Inquisition."
The inquisitors were there, preparing and waiting for
a pretext. Melchior Carneiro, Bishop-designate of Co
chin, was in the mountains of Malabar, on a mission to
the Nestorian Christians. Those Christians had been
for many centuries in communion with the see of Baby
lon, or Mosul, and traced a succession of bishops, as they
believed, back to the apostolic age. They were not
clear of some corruptions that had overspread Christen
dom, but had none of the characteristics of Popery ; and
although reproached on account of the heresy of Nesto-
rius, whose followers do not seem to have entertained a
sufficiently exalted view of the person of our incarnate
Saviour, they had received from Nestorius a doctrine, on
other points, far superior to that of Rome. Their clergy
were married ; they knew but of two sacraments, bap
tism and the eucharist ; they did not pray to saints nor
worship images ; they knew nothing of auricular confes
sion ; they had not heard of purgatory or transubstantia-
tion. They only acknowledged two sacred orders, Dia-
conate and Presbyterate :* although a member of the
latter had always taken the oversight of his brethren
within a diocese; and these "vicars," as they were
called, were again associated under a metropolitan, who
Presbyterate, not priesthood, exactly expresses the Syriac
word which agrees with the style of the New Testament.
INDIA. 263
acknowledged the superior authority of the patriarch of
Babylon. In their worship they used ancient Syriac
liturgies. Of pope and mass they heard only after the
Portuguese invasion of their country ; and, to express
their abhorrence of idolatry, they shut their eyes when
an image or the wafer was produced. Carneiro signal
ized himself by an assault on that communion. He
took possession of one of their churches, and kept pos
session of it under Portuguese authority for two months.
With extreme difficulty he collected hearers, and only
by making the most of his position and his means.
The people generally fled from him ; but he succeeded
in persuading a few to submit to anabaptism, under the
notion that the Syrian baptism which they had received
was no sacrament; and he bound his proselytes to
swear submission to the Pope of Rome. The metropoli
tan concealed himself among the fugitives of his flock,
wisely refusing to go down to the coast to hold a dispu
tation with Carneiro. Carneiro, bent on his destruction,
pursued him into a neighbouring kingdom, and strove
to induce the king, or chief, to put him to death as a
propagator of error, and a disturber of peace. In this he
failed ; but, notwithstanding the provocation he had
given to the native Christians, he returned to Cochin
without suffering the least violence. But in that place,
if his report be true, an arrow struck off his hat;
and a note, attributed to some Syrian Christian, and
containing expressions disrespectful to Gonsalvo, princi
pal of the Jesuits at Goa, with blasphemies against our
Lord Jesus Christ, was dropped into a charity-box in the
principal church. That any Syrian Christian who could
write should blaspheme the Saviour whom he acknowl
edged, and abuse the Jesuits at the same time, whom
264 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
he hated, is utterly incredible ; but such a note, probably
written by Carneiro or Gonsalvo, to serve their purpose,
was exhibited to show that, while the arrow indicated a
murderous intention, another overt act had given proof
of heresy. " That thing," says Sacchini, " admonished
the fathers that they should see more diligent inquisition
made concerning the faith of certain men. And, behold !
a vast number of false brethren of the circumcision is dis
covered. These men, fugitives from various regions of
the world, had found means of concealment in India ;
and, while bearing the name of Christians, secretly prac
tised the rites of Judaism, and propagated the same by
stealth." Perhaps the truth may be, that some New
Christians, having fled from Europe on account of perse
cution, were endeavouring to get rid of the spurious
Christianity that had been forced upon them. It is not
incredible that they would be sometimes overtaken in
uniting with the natives to resist the oppression of the
Portuguese governors, or to counteract the schemes of
the Jesuits. And, in this instance, they not only suffered
the persecution to which their race was universally sub
jected, but they served as cover for an attack upon the
native Christians. " Therefore," according to Sacchini,
" if ever the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition was neces
sary, the fathers (Jesuits) considered that it was neces
sary at that time in India, both because of the licentious
ness prevalent, and the medley of all nations and
superstitions; and having sent urgent letters both to
Portugal and Italy, and made representation to those on
the spot to whom pertained that care, they demonstrated
fully that, in order to preserve that fortress in faith incor
rupt, it should be established at Goa." Sacchini, Hist.
Soc. Jesu. Pars secunda, lib. i, 150, 151. And a very
INDIA. 265
short time afterwards, (post paulo,} in the year 1560, it
began its operations.
There can be no doubt that the first proceedings were
sufficiently terrific. The " vast number of false breth
ren " that were detected did not go unpunished. The
inquisitors of Goa would not be less active than their
brethren in Portugal ; and their victims would be so
much the more easily disposed of, as no way of appeal to
Rome lay open to them. From the Jewish Christians
the " sacred searchers of the faith " proceeded to their
work of subjugating the Syrian Church. Seven years
after the erection of the tribunal at Goa, Mar Joseph,
Syrian bishop of Cochin, in pursuance of a rescript from
Pius V. to Cardinal Henry of Portugal, commanding
the Inquisition to prosecute him, stood before it, was de
clared guilty of the Nestorian heresy, sent prisoner to
Lisbon, and thence, in the year following, to Rome,
where he died quickly. At that time burnings were
common. General baptisms were celebrated with great
pomp at Goa, the ecclesiastical metropolis of India, and
so were general acts of faith. It was deemed an equal
evidence of good affection to the Jesuits to attend at
either. One Sebastian Fernando, writing to his general,
at Rome (November, 1569), applauds the charity of his
brethren, the fathers, who constantly attended persons con
demned by the sacred inquisitors on account of depraved
religion, not quitting them from the moment of sentence
until the moment when the flames rose round them at the
stake. (De Rebus Indicis Epist. Liber. Parisiis, 1572.)
Such as would not go to mass, and keep their eyes open
at the elevation, or in any way showed disaffection to
Rome, were burnt for the admonition of the public.
Bishops and priests disappeared- continually, immured
12
266 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
at Goa, or sent to Italy or Portugal. Now and then a
name transpired. Simeon, a bishop in the Church at
Malabar, was seized, sent to Rome, and graciously per
mitted by Pope Xystus V. to breathe within the walls
of a convent of friars minors in Portugal, where, in the
year 1599, he perished (FERIIT).* With this significant
word Asseman closed a brief notice of Simeon : and La
Croze (Histoire du Christianisme des Indes, livre i,)
throws light on it, by saying that Meneses, Archbishop
of Goa, gained possession of an intercepted letter of his,
containing Nestorian errors ; that he sent the letter to
the chief inquisitor at Lisbon ; that, from that time, no
more is heard of Mar Simeon ; and that it may therefore
be presumed that he was conveyed to the prison of the
Inquisition, and then, as one relapsed into heresy, he
would be given over to the secular arm.
This same archbishop, Alexo de Meneses, held a dio
cesan synod at Diamper, in Cochin, on that 20th of
June, 1599, and six days following. In the synod a
large number of Syrian priests were present, not by free
choice, but by the pressure of Portuguese influence, and
were induced, although in the territory of a Pagan
sovereign, to subscribe the following extraordinary de
cree, previously written, with all the others, by himself
and a Jesuit, in Portuguese, for those poor Malays:
" All the priests and faithful people of this bishopric, in
synod assembled, submit themselves, with much respect
and obedience, to the holy, upright, just, and necessary
tribunal of the holy office of the Inquisition of these
parts, acknowledging how this tribunal contributes to
the integrity of the faith. They swear and promise obe-
a Assemanni Dissertatio de Syris Ne*torianis CCCCXLVII,
where savpval of these cases are noted.
INDIA. 267
dience to its commands; they desire to be judged
according to its laws in matters of faith ; and they be
seech the inquisitors to appoint in their place, on ac
count of their distance," (the distance of Goa from the
diocese of Cochin,) " the reverend Jesuit fathers of the
college of Vaipicota, or some other learned persons from
the number of those who reside in this diocese." (Sess. iii,
act. 22.) All the history of Romanism in this part of
India contradicts this act. The few priests who were
persuaded to join the Church of Rome, did so with
reluctance, and not without reservation ; and the ma
jority both of clergy and laity regarded the strangers
with abhorrence. Above all things, the Inquisition was
hateful to them ; and when the books containing their
ancient Syriac liturgies were burnt, and the use of those
liturgies forbidden, under peril of excommunication,
which was equivalent with death, they conceived a pro
found indignation, which every successive provocation
deepened, until they desperately broke off the yoke.
Long did those Christians refuse obedience to the Ro
man pontiff; but they were lashed into submission ; and,
after a tedious and humiliating negotiation, a synod be
ing convened at Amida, a sort of union was effected.
Once, during that correspondence, Elijah, their patriarch,
ventured to address Paul V. in such words as these :
" We beseech you to send us good letters in considera
tion of our profession" (of obedience to the papal see),
" to show on our arrival in India," (whither Elijah was
going in the new character of one holding authority
from the Pope ;) " because in Ormus and in Goa, and be
yond, the inquisitors of the faith sorely trouble us, and
the men of our country are not all learned, and therefore
they trouble us exceedingly, or else take money from us,
268 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
and then let us go. One priest of Amida has died in
consequence of what they have done to him" (A. D.
1616). But it does not appear that Paul V. condescend
ed to lay any restraint on the inquisitors, who went on
their way, killing some, and ruining others by fines and
confiscations, until one too hasty step provoked a part of
the people of Malabar to snap their fetters.
Having failed in obtaining any concession from Rome in
favour of their Syrian ritual, the Malabar Christians se
ceded from Francisco Garcia, the Jesuit Archbishop of
Cranganore, and applied to the Nestorian patriarch of
Babylon, or the Jacobite at Damascus, for another in his
place. He sent them one named Atahalla ; but the in
quisitors seized him in Meliapore (St. Thomas), took him
to Goa, and there he miserably perished in their hands.
Meetings were held in the diocese of Cochin, and, at
length, a Nestorian bishop was ordained (A. D. 1653).
From that horrible den at Goa M. Dellon, about thirty
years after the murder of Atahalla, withdrew the covering ;
and, by his assistance, we will look into it for a few moments.
M. Dellon, a French traveller, spending some time at
Damaun, on the north-western coast of Hindostan, incur
red the jealousy of the governor and a black priest, in
regard to a lady, as he is pleased to call her, whom they
both admired. He had expressed himself rather freely
concerning some of the grosser superstitions of Roman
ism, and thus afforded the priest, who was also secretary
of the Inquisition, an occasion of proceeding against him
as a heretic. The priest and the governor united in a
representation to the chief inquisitor at Goa, which pro
cured an order for his arrest. Like all other persons
whom it pleased the inquisitors or their servants to ar
rest, in any part of the Portuguese dominions beyond
INDIA. 269
the Cape of Good Hope, he was thrown into the com
mon prison, with a promiscuous crowd of delinquents,
the place and the treatment being of the worst kind,
even according to the colonial barbarism of the seven
teenth century. To describe his sufferings there, is not
to our purpose, inasmuch as all prisoners fared alike,
many of them perishing from starvation or disease.
Many offenders against the Inquisition were there at the
same time, some accused of Judaism, others of Pagan
ism in which sorcery and witchcraft were included
and others of immorality. In a field so wide and so
fruitful, the "scrutators" of the faith could not fail to
gather abundantly. After an incarceration of at least
four months, he and his fellow-sufferers were shipped off
for the ecclesiastical metropolis of India, all of them be
ing in irons. The vessel put in at Bacaim, and the pris
oners were transferred, for some days, to the prison of
that town, where a large number of persons were kept in
custody, under charge of a commissary of the holy
office, until a vessel should arrive to carry them to Goa.
In due time they were again at sea, and a fair wind waft
ed their fleet into that port after a voyage of seven days.
Until they could be deposited in the cells of the Inquisi
tion with the accustomed formalities, the Archbishop of
Goa threw open his prison for their reception, which prison,
being ecclesiastical, may be deemed worthy of description.
" The most filthy," says Dellon, " the most dark, and the
most horrible, of all that I ever saw ; and I doubt whether a
more shocking and horrible prison can anywhere be found.
It is a kind of cave, wherein there is no day seen but
by a very little hole ; the most subtle rays of the sun
cannot enter into it, and there is never any true light
in it. The stench is extreme. . "
270 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
On the 16th of January, 1674, at eight o clock in the
morning, an officer came with orders to take the prison
ers to " the holy house." With considerable difficulty
M. Dellon dragged his iron-loaded limbs thither. They
helped him to ascend the stairs at, the great entrance,
and, in the great hall, smiths were waiting to take off
the irons from all the prisoners. One by one, they were
summoned to audience. Dellon, who was called the
first, crossed the hall, passed through an antechamber,
and entered a room, called by the Portuguese " board of
the holy office," where the grand inquisitor of the Indies
sat at one end of a very large table, on an elevated floor
in the middle of the chamber. He was a secular priest
about forty years of age, in full vigour a man that could
do his work with energy. At one end of the room was a
large crucifix, reaching from the floor almost to the ceiling ;
and at one end of the table, near the crucifix, sat a no
tary on a folding-stool. At the opposite end, and near
the inquisitor, Dellon was placed, arid, hoping to soften
his judge, fell on his knees before him. But the inquis
itor commanded him to rise, asked whether he knew the
reason of his arrest, and advised him to declare it at
large, as that was the only way to obtain a speedy re
lease. Dellon caught at the hope of release, began to
tell his tale, mixed tears with protestations, again fell at
the feet of Don Francisco Delgado Ematos, the inquisitor,
and implored his favourable attention. Don Francisco
told him, very coldly, that he had other business on hand,
and, nothing moved, rang a silver bell. The alcayde en
tered, led out the prisoner into a gallery, opened and
searched his trunk, stripped him of every valuable, wrote
an inventory, assured him that all should be safely kept,
and then led him into a cell about ten feet square, and
INDIA.
271
shut him up there in utter solitude. In the evening they
brought him his first meal, which he ate heartily, and
slept a little during the night following. Next morning
he learnt that he could have no part of his property ;
not even was a breviary, in that place, allowed to a
priest, for they had no form of religion there, and for that
reason he could not have a book. His hair was cropped
close ; and therefore he " did not need a comb."
Thus began his acquaintance with the holy house,
which he describes as " great and magnificent," on one
side of the great space before the church of St. Catharine.
There were three gates in front; and it was by the
central, or largest, that the prisoners had entered, and
mounted a stately flight of steps, leading into the great
hall. The side-gates provided entrance to spacious
ranges of apartments, belonging to the inquisitors. Be
hind the principal building was another, very spacious,
two stories high, and consisting of double rows of cells,
opening into galleries that ran from end to end. The
cells on the ground-floor were very small, perhaps from
the greater thickness of the walls, without any aperture
from without for light or air. Those of the upper story
were vaulted, whitewashed, had a small strongly-grated
window, without glass, and higher than the tallest man
could reach. Towards the gallery every cell was shut
with two doors, the one on the inside, the other on the
outside, of the wall. The inner door folded, was grated
at the bottom, opened towards the top for the admission
of food, and was made fast with very strong bolts. The
outer door was not so thick, had no window, but was left
open from six o clock every morning until eleven a
necessary arrangement in that climate, unless it were
intended to destroy life by suffocation.
272 THE BIJAND OF DOMINIC.
To eacli prisoner was given an earthen pot with water
wherewith to wash, another full of water to drink, with a
cup, a broom, a mat, whereon to lie, a large basin for
necessary use, changed every fourth day, and another
vessel to cover it, and receive offals. The prisoners had
three meals a day ; and their health, so far as food could
contribute to it in such a place, was cared for in the pro
vision of a wholesome, but spare, diet. Physicians were
at hand to render all necessary assistance to the sick, as
were confessors, ready to wait upon the dying ; but they
gave no viaticum, performed no unction, said no mass.
The place was under an impenetrable interdict. If any
died and that many did die is beyond question his
death was unknown to all without ; he was buried within
the walls, without any sacred ceremony ; and if, after
death, he was found to have died in heresy, his bones
were taken up at the next Auto, to be burned. Unless
there happened to be an unusual number of prisoners, each
one was alone in his own cell. He might not speak, nor
groan, nor sob aloud, nor sigh. His breathing might be
audible when the guard listened at the grating, but noth
ing more. Four guards were stationed in each long gal
lery, open, indeed, at each end, but awfully silent, as if
it were the passage of a catacomb. If, however, he
wanted anything, he might tap at the inner door, when
a jailer would come to hear the request, and would re
port to the alcayde, but was not permitted to answer.
If one of the victims, in despair, or pain, or delirium, ut
tered a cry, or dared to pronounce a prayer, even to God,
the jailers would run to the cell, rush in, and beat him
cruelly, for terror to the rest.
Once in two months the inquisitor, with a secretary
and an interpreter, visited the prisons, and asked each
INDIA.
273
prisoner if he wanted anything, if his meat was regularly
brought, and if he had any complaint against the
jailers. His want, after all, lay at the mercy of the
merciless. His complaint, if uttered, would bring down
vengeance, rather than gain redress. But in this visi
tation the holy office professed mercy with much for
mality, and the inquisitorial secretary collected notes
which aided in the crimination, or in the murder, of
their victims.
The officers of Goa were, the inquisidor mor, or
grand-inquisitor, who was always a secular priest; the
second inquisitor, a Dominican friar; several deputies,
who came, when called for, to assist the inquisitors at
trials, but never entered without such a summons ; quali
fiers, as usual, to examine books and writings, but never
to witness an examination of the living, nor be present
at any act of the kind ; a fiscal ; a procurator ; advocates,
so called, for the accused ; notaries and familiars. Of
these officers enough has been said in preceding chap
ters. The authority of this tribunal was absolute in Goa,
as in Portugal, except that the archbishop and his grand-
vicar, the viceroy and the governors, could not be arrested
without authority obtained, or sent, from the Supreme
Council in Lisbon. There does not appear to have been
anything peculiar in the manner of examining and tor
turing at Goa, where the practice coincided with that of
Portugal and Spain, as already described.
The personal narrative of Dellon affords a distinct
exemplification of the sufferings of prisoners. He had
been told that, when he desired an audience, he had
only to call a jailer, and ask it, when it would be allowed
him. But, notwithstanding many tears and entreaties,
he could not obtain one until fifteen days had passed
12*
274 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
away. Then came the alcayde and one of his guards.
The alcayde walked first out of the cell ; Dellon, uncovered
and shorn, and with legs and feet bare, followed him ;
the guard walked behind. The alcayde just entered the
place of audience, made a profound reverence, stepped
back, and allowed his charge to enter. The door closed,
and Dellon remained alone with the inquisitor and secre
tary. He knelt ; but Don Fernando sternly bade him
sit on a bench, placed there for the use of culprits. Near
him, on the table, lay a missal, on which they made him
lay his hand, and swear to keep secrecy, and to tell them
the truth. They asked if he knew the cause of his im
prisonment, and whether he was resolved to confess it.
He told them all that he could recollect of unguarded
sayings at Darnaun, either in argument or conversation,
without ever, that he knew, contradicting, directly or
indirectly, any article of faith. Pie had, at some time,
dropped an offensive word concerning the Inquisition ;
but so light a word, that it did not occur to his remem
brance. Don Fernando told him that he had done well
in accusing himself so willingly, and exhorted him, in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to complete his self-accu
sation fully, to the end that he might experience the
goodness and rnercy which were used in that tribunal
towards those who showed true repentance by a sincere
and unforced confession. The secretary read aloud the
confession and the exhortation, Dellon signed it, Don
Fernando rang the silver bell, the alcayde walked in,
and, in a few moments, the disappointed victim was
again in his dungeon.
At the end of another fortnight, and without having
asked for it, he was again taken to audience. After a
repetition of the former questions, he was asked his name,
INDIA 275
surname, parentage, baptism, confirmation, place of
abode, in what parish ? in what diocese ? under what
bishop ? They made him kneel down, make the sign of
the cross, repeat the Pater Noster, Hail Mary, creed, com
mandments of God, commandments of the Church, and
Salve Regina. He did it all cleverly, and even to their
satisfaction ; but the grand-inquisitor exhorted him, by
the tender mercies of our Lord Jesus Christ, to confess
without delay, and sent him to the cell again.
His heart sickened. They required him to do what
was impossible, to confess more, after he had acknowl
edged all. In despair, he tried to starve himself to
death ; but they compelled him to take food. Day and
night he wept, and, at length, he betook himself to
prayer, imploring pity of " the blessed Virgin," whom
he imagined to be, of all beings, the most merciful, and
the most ready to give him help. At the end of a
month he succeeded in obtaining another audience, and
added to his former confessions what he had remem
bered, for the first time, touching the Inquisition. But
they told him that that was not what they wanted, and
sent him back again. This was intolerable. In a frenzy
of despair he determined to commit suicide, if possible.
Feigning sickness, he obtained a physician, who treated
him for fever, and ordered him to be bled. Never
calmed by any treatment of the physician, blood-letting
was repeated often, and each time he untied the bandage,
when left alone, hoping to die from loss of blood ; but
death fled from him. A humane Franciscan came to
confess him, and, hearing his tale of misery, gave him
kind words, asked permission to divulge his attempt at
self-destruction to the inquisitor, procured him a mitiga
tion of solitude by the presence of a fellow-prisoner, a
276 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
negro, accused of magic; but, after five months, the
negro was removed, and his mind, broken with suffering,
could no more bear up under the aggravated load. By
an effort of desperate ingenuity he almost succeeded in
committing suicide, and a jailer found him weltering in
his blood, and insensible. Having restored him by cor
dials, and bound up the wounds he had inflicted on
himself, they carried him into the presence of the in
quisitor once more, where he lay on the floor, being
unable to sit, heard bitter reproaches, had his limbs con
fined in iron, and was thus carried back to a punishment
that seemed more terrible than death. In fetters he
became so furious, that they found it necessary to take
them off; and, from that time, his examinations assumed
another character, as he defended his positions with
citations from the Council of Trent, and with some pas
sages of Scripture, which he explained in the most
Romish sense, discovering a depth of ignorance in Don
Fernando that was truly surprising. That " grand-
inquisitor" had never heard the passage which Dellon
quoted to prove the doctrine of baptismal regeneration :
" Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he
cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Neither did
he know anything of that famous passage in the twenty-
fifth session of the Council of Trent, which declares that
images are only to be reverenced on account of the per
sons whom they represent. He called for a Bible, and
for the acts of the council, and was evidently surprised
when he found them where Dellon told him they might
be seen.
The time for a general Auto drew near. During the
months of November and December, 1675, he heard,
every morning, the cries of persons under torture ; and
INDIA. 277
afterwards saw many of them, both men and women,
lame and distorted by the rack. On Sunday, January
llth, 1676, he was surprised by the jailer refusing to
receive his linen to be washed, Sunday being washing-
day in the " holy house." While perplexing himself to
think what that could mean, the cathedral-bells rang for
vespers, and then, contrary to custom, rang again for
matins; and he could only account for that second
novelty by supposing that an Auto would be celebrated
next day. They brought him supper, which he refused ;
and, contrary to their wont at all other times, they did
not insist on his taking it, but carried it away. Assured
that those were all portents of the horrible catastrophe,
and reflecting on often-repeated threats in the audience-
chamber that he should be burnt, he gave himself up to
death ; and, overwhelmed with sorrow, fell asleep a little
before midnight.
Scarcely had he fallen asleep, when the alcayde and
guards entered the cell, with great noise, bringing a
lamp, for the first time since his imprisonment that they
had allowed a lamp to shine there. The alcayde, laying
down a suit of clothes, bade him put them on, and be
ready to go out when he came again. At two o clock
in the morning they returned, and he issued from the
cell, clad in a black vest and trousers, striped with white,
and his feet bare. About two hundred prisoners, of
whom he was one, were made to sit on the floor, along
the sides of a spacious gallery, all in the same black
livery, and just visible by the gleaming of a few lamps.
A large company of women were also ranged in a
neighbouring gallery in like manner. But they were all
motionless, and no one knew his doom. Every eye was
fixed, and each one seemed benumbed with misery. In
278 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
a room not very distant, Dellon perceived a third com
pany ; but they were walking about, and some appeared
to have long habits. Those were persons condemned to
be delivered to the secular arm ; and the long habits
distinguished confessors busily collecting confessions in
order to commute that penalty for some other scarcely
less dreadful. At four o clock, servants of the house
came, with guards, and gave bread and figs to those
who would accept the refreshment; and one of the
guards gave Dellon some hope of life by advising him
to take what was offered, which he had refused to do.
" Take your bread," said the man ; " and if you cannot
eat it now, put it in your pocket : you will be certainly
hungry before you return" This gave hope that he
should not end the day at the stake, but come back to
undergo penance.
A little before sunrise, the great bell of the cathedral
tolled, and at its sound Goa was aroused. The people
ran into the streets, soon lining the chief thoroughfares,
and crowding every place whence view could be had of
the procession. Day broke, and Dellon saw the faces of
his fellow-prisoners, most of whom were Indians. He
could only distinguish, by their complexion, about twelve
Europeans. Every countenance exhibited shame, fear,
grief, or an appalling blankness of apathy, as if dire suf
fering in the lightless dungeons underneath had bereft
them of intellect. The company soon began to move,
but slowly, as one by one the alcayde led them towards
the door of the great hall, where the grand inquisitor sat,
and his secretary called the name of each as he came,
and the name of a sponsor, who also presented himself
from among a crowd of the bettermost inhabitants of
Goa, assembled there for that service. " The general of
INDIA. 279
the Portuguese ships in the Indies" had the honour of
placing himself beside our Frenchman. As soon as the
procession was formed, it marched off in the order de
scribed in a preceding chapter. Poor Dellon went bare
foot, like the rest, through the streets of Goa, rough with
little flint-stones scattered about ; and sorely were his feet
wounded during an hour s march up and down the prin
cipal streets. Weary, and covered with shame and con
fusion, the long train of culprits entered the church of
St. Francis, where preparation was made for the Auto,
the climate of India not permitting a celebration of that
solemnity under the burning sky. They sat, with their
sponsors, in the galleries prepared ; sambenitos, grey
zamarras with painted flames and devils, corozas, (or
carrochas, as the Portuguese call them,) tapers, and all
the other paraphernalia of an Auto, made up a woful
spectacle. The inquisitor, the viceroy, and other per
sonages, having taken their seats of state, the great cru
cifix being erected on the altar between massive silver
candlesticks, with tapers contrasting their glare with the
deadly black of dress and skin, the provincial of the
Augustinians mounted the pulpit, and delivered the
sermon. Dellon preserved but one note of it. The
preacher compared the Inquisition to Noah s ark, which
received all sorts of beasts wild, but sent them out tame.
And the appearance of the hundreds who had been in
mates of that ark, certainly justified the figure.
After sermon, two readers " went up, one after another,
into the same pulpit," one person in the same pulpit
might at any time suffice, and, between them, they
read the processes, and pronounced the sentences, the
person concerned standing before them, with the alcayde,
and holding a lighted taper in his hand. Dellon, in
280 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
turn, heard the cause of his long suffering. He had
maintained the invalidity of baptismus flaminis, or desire
to be baptized, when there is no one to administer the
rite of baptism by water. He had said that images
ought not to be adored, and that an ivory crucifix was a
piece of ivory. He had spoken contemptuously of the
Inquisition. And, above all, he had an ill intention.
His punishment was to be confiscation of his property,
banishment from India, and five years service in the
galleys in Portugal, with penance, as the inquisitors
might enjoin. As all the prisoners were excommunicate,
the inquisitor, after the sentences had been pronounced,
put on his alb and stole, walked into the middle of the
church, and absolved them all at once. Dellon s sponsor,
who would not even answer him before when he spoke,
now embraced him, called him brother, and gave him a
pinch of snuff, in token of reconciliation. But there
were two persons, a man and a woman, for whom the
Church had no more that they could do ; and these, with
four dead bodies, and the effigies of the dead, were taken
to be burnt on the Campo Santo Lazaro, on the river
side, the place appointed for that purpose, that the vice
roy might see justice done on heretics, as he surveyed
the execution from his palace-windows.
The remainder of Dellon s history adds nothing to
what we have already heard of the customs of the In
quisition. He was taken to Lisbon, and, after working
in a gang of convicts for some time, was released on the
intercession of some friends in France with the Portu
guese government. With regard to his despair, arid at
tempts at suicide, when in the holy house, we may ob
serve, that, as he states, suicide was very frequent there.
The contrast of his disconsolate impatience with the
INDIA. 281
resignation and constancy of Christian confessors in
similar circumstances, is obvious; and affords valuable
illustration of the difference between those who suffer
without a consciousness of divine favour, and those who
can rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
CHAPTER XXL
INDIA (CONCLUDED).
THE Inquisition of Goa continued its Autos for a century
after the affair of Dellon. That at which he was present
followed an interval of two years, or rather more ; but so
long an interval was unusual ; and an aged Franciscan
friar, whom Dr. Buchanan found there, stated that from
the years 1770 to 1775 he had witnessed five annual
celebrations. In the last year the King of Portugal, in
" humanity and tender mercy," as the same friar said,
abolished the tribunal. But immediately after his death,
the power of the priests acquired the ascendant ; and the
queen-dowager reestablished it, after a bloodless period
of five years, in 1779, subject, indeed, to certain restric
tions, but not in the slightest degree better than the
former. One of them was, that a greater number of
witnesses should be required to convict a criminal.
There were to be seven, indeed, in the time of Dellon ;
but as any one, irrespective of character, might witness
against a criminal accused of heresy, and as it required
great courage to refuse to testify according to the wish
of the inquisitors, and as the notary made the utmost of
every word that might be condemnatory, that departure
282 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
from the established rule of the Church concerning in
quisitorial examinations availed very little on the side of
humanity. Another restriction was, " that the Auto de
Fe should not be held publicly, as before, but that the
sentences of the tribunal should be executed privately,
within the walls of the Inquisition." This only made
the secret perfect, and augmented the power, while it di
minished the odium, of the institution " in the presence
of British dominion and civilization."
In the summer of 1808 Dr. Claudius Buchanan visited
that city, and had been unexpectedly invited by Joseph
a Doloribus, second and most active inquisitor, to lodge
with him during his visit. Not without some surprise,
Dr. Buchanan found himself, " heretic, schismatic, and
rebel " as he was, politely entertained by so dread a per
sonage. Regarding his English visitor merely as a
literary man, or professing so to do, friar Joseph, himself
well educated, seemed to enjoy his company, and was
unreservedly communicative on every subject not per
taining to his own vocation. When that subject was
first introduced by an apparently incidental question, he
did not scruple to return the desired information, telling
Dr. Buchanan that the establishment was nearly as ex
tensive as in former times. In the library of the chief
inquisitor he saw a register containing the names of all
the officers, who still were numerous.
On the second evening after his arrival the doctor was
surprised to see his host come into his apartment clothed
in black robes, from head to foot, instead of white, the
usual colour of his order (Augustinian). He said that
he was going to sit on the tribunal of the holy office ;
and it transpired that, so far from his " august office" not
occupying much of his time, he sat there three or four
INDIA. 283
days every week. After his return, in the evening, the
doctor put Dellon s book into his hand, asking if he had
ever seen it. He had never seen it before, and, after
reading aloud and slowly Relation de I Inquisition de
Goa, began to peruse it with eagerness. While Dr. Bu
chanan employed himself in writing, friar Joseph de
voured page after page ; but, as the narrative proceeded,
betrayed evident symptoms of uneasiness. Then he
turned to the middle, looked at the end, skimmed
over the table of contents, fixed on principal passages,
and at one place exclaimed, in his broad Italian accent,
Mendacium ! Mer.dadum ! The doctor requested him
to mark the passages that were untrue, proposed to dis
cuss them afterwards, and said that he had other books
on the subject. The mention of other books startled him :
he looked anxiously on some books that were on the
table, and then gave himself up to the perusal of Dellon s
"Relation" until bed-time. Even then he asked per
mission to take it to his chamber.
The doctor had fallen asleep under the roof of the in
quisitor s convent, confident, under God, in the protection
at that time guaranteed to a British subject, his servants
sleeping in a gallery outside the chamber-door; and,
about midnight, he was "waked by loud shrieks and
expressions of terror from some one in the gallery." In
the first moment of surprise, he concluded it must be the
alguacils of the holy office seizing his servants to carry
them to the Inquisition. But, on going out, he saw the
servants standing at the door, and the person who had
caused the alarm, a boy of about fourteen, at a little
distance, surrounded by some of the priests, who had
come out of their cells on hearing the noise. The boy
said he had seen a spectre; and it was a considerable
284 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
time before the agitations of his body and voice sub
sided. Next morning, at breakfast, the inquisitor apolo
gized for the disturbance, and said the boy s alarm pro
ceeded from a phantasma animi, phantom of the
imagination. "
It might have been so. Phantoms might well haunt
such a place. As to Dellon s book, the inquisitor ac
knowledged that the descriptions were just; but com
plained that he had misjudged the motives of the inquis
itors, and written uncharitably of Holy Church. Their
conversation grew earnest; and the inquisitor was anx
ious to impress his visiter with the idea that " the Inqui
sition had undergone a change in some respects, and
that its terrors were mitigated." At length Dr. Bu
chanan plainly requested to see the Inquisition, that he
might judge for himself as to the humanity shown to
the inmates, according to the inquisitor, and gave, as
a reason why he should be satisfied, his interest in the
affairs of India, on which he had written, and his pur
pose to write on them again, in which case he could
scarcely be silent concerning the Inquisition. The
countenance of his host fell ; but, after some further ob
servations, he reluctantly promised to comply.
Next morning, after breakfast, Joseph a Doloribus
went to dress for the holy office, and soon returned in
his black robes. He said he would go half an hour
before the usual time, for the purpose of showing him
the Inquisition. The doctor fancied that he looked
more severe than usual, and that his attendants were not
so civil as before. But the truth was, that the midnight
scene still haunted him. They had proceeded in their
palanquins to the holy house, distant about a quarter of
a mile from the convent; and the inquisitor said, as
INDIA. 285
they were ascending the steps of the great entrance, that
he hoped the doctor would be satisfied with a transient
view of the Inquisition, and would retire when he should
desire him so to do. The doctor followed, with " tolera-
able confidence," towards the great hall aforementioned,
where they were met by -several well-dressed persons,
familiars, as it afterwards appeared, who bowed very low
to the inquisitor, and looked with surprise at the stran
ger. Dr. Buchanan paced the hall slowly, and in
thoughtful silence ; the inquisitor thoughtful too, silent
and embarrassed. A multitude of victims seemed to
haunt the place ; and Dr. Buchanan could not refrain
from breaking silence. " Would not the Holy Church
wish, in her mercy, to have those souls back again, that
she might allow them a little further probation ?" The
inquisitor answered nothing, but beckoned him to go
with him to a door at one end of the hall. By that
door he conducted him to some small rooms, and thence
to the spacious apartments of the chief inquisitor. Hav
ing surveyed those, he brought him back again to the
great hall, and seemed anxious that the troublesome
visiter should depart ; and only the very words of Dr.
Buchanan can adequately describe the close of this extra
ordinary interview.
" Now, father, said I, lead me to the dungeons be
low : I want to see the captives. No, said he, * that
cannot be. I now began to suspect that it had been in
the mind of the inquisitor, from the beginning, to show
me only a certain part of the Inquisition, in the hope of
satisfying my inquiries in a general way. I urged him
with earnestness ; but he steadily resisted, and seemed
offended, or, rather, agitated, by my importunity. I in
timated to him plainly, that the only way to do justice
286 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
to his own assertion and arguments regarding the pres
ent state of the Inquisition, was to show me the prisons
and the captives. I should then describe only what I
saw ; but now the subject was left in awful obscurity.
Lead me down, said I, to the inner building, and let
me pass through the two hundred dungeons, ten feet
square, described by your former captives. Let me
count the number of your present captives, and converse
with them. / want to see if there be any subjects of the
British government, to whom we owe protection. I want
to ask how long they have been here, how long it is
since they have seen the light of the sun, and whether
they ever expect to see it again. Show me the chamber
of torture, and declare what modes of execution, or of
punishment, are now practised inside the walls of the
Inquisition, in lieu of the public Auto da Fe. If, aftei
all that has passed, father, you resist this reasonable re
quest, I shall be justified in believing that you are afraid
of exposing the real state of the Inquisition in India.
" To these observations the inquisitor made no reply ;
but seemed impatient that I should withdraw. My
good father, said I, I am about to take my leave of
you, and to thank you for your hospitable attentions;
and I wish always to preserve on my mind a favourable
sentiment of your kindness and candour. You cannot,
you sav, show me the captives and the dungeons : be
pleased, then, merely to answer this question, for I shall
believe your word : How many prisoners are there now
below in the cells of the Inquisition ? The inquisitor
replied, That is a question which I cannot answer. On
his pronouncing these words, I retired hastily towards the
door, and wished him farewell. We shook hands with
as much cordiality as we could, at the moment, assume ;
INDIA. 287
and both of us, I believe, were sorry that our parting
took place with a clouded countenance."
After leaving the inquisitor, Dr. Buchanan, feeling as
if he could not refrain from endeavouring to get another,
and perhaps nearer, view, returned to avail himself of
the pretext afforded by a promise, from the chief inquisi
tor, of a letter to the British resident in Travancore,
in answer to one which he had brought him from that
officer. The inquisitors he expected to find within, in
the " board of the holy office." The door-keepers sur
veyed him doubtfully, but allowed him to pass. He
entered that great hall, went up directly to the lofty
crucifix described by Dellon, sat down on a form, wrote
some notes, and then desired an attendant to carry in his
name to the inquisitor. As he was walking across the
hall, he saw a poor woman sitting by the wall. She
clasped her hands, and looked at him imploringly. The
sight chilled his spirits ; and, as he was asking the at
tendants the cause of her apprehension, for she was
awaiting trial, Joseph a Doloribus came, in answer to
his message, and was about to complain of the intrusion,
when he parried the complaint by asking for the letter
from the chief inquisitor. He promised to send it after
him, and conducted him to the door. As they passed
the poor woman, the doctor pointed to her, and said
with emphasis, " Behold, father, another victim of the
Holy Inquisition." The other answered nothing : they
bowed, and separated without a word.
When Dr. Buchanan published his "Christian Re
searches in Asia," in the year 1812, the Inquisition still
existed in Goa ; but the establishment of constitutional
government in Portugal put an end to it throughout the
Portuguese dominions.
288 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
CHAPTER XXII.
SOUTH AMERICA.
THE court of Rome is not wont to make gift or grant
but for some consideration. Accordingly, when Alexan
der VI. made a pecuniary concession to Ferdinand and
Isabella (A. D. 1501), he did so on the consideration
that it was their desire " to acquire and recover the isl
ands and countries of the Indies," America being included
in the Indies, "that in them, every condemned sect beiny
cast down, the Most High might be worshipped and re
vered." At Rome, however, the most high Altissimus
is none other than the Pope ; and the bull itself
acknowledges that it was not only the desire of the Pa
pacy to extirpate heathenism in America, even by the
extirpation of the heathen themselves, but to destroy all
condemned sects. Even before Luther there were con
demned sects ; and the document just quoted betrays an
apprehension that, in the wilderness of the new world,
sects might flourish which could not be utterly sup
pressed at home, even by the aid of troops and inquisi
tions. In America, therefore, while troops destroyed the
natives, inquisitions were to put down the sects.
The races of New Christians were the objects of
earliest pursuit across the ocean. That they might not
find refuge in America, the Spanish inquisitor-general,
Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros, nominated (May 7th,
1516) Fray Juan Quevedo, Bishop of Cuba, to be his
delegate in the kingdom of Terra Firma, as the Spanish
American territories were then called, and empowered
him to appoint the necessary ministers. Charles L (or,
SOUTH AMERICA. 289
as emperor, Charles V.) gave permanence and ex
tended power to the new institution, by desiring the
Cardinal Adrian to nominate inquisitors, to be indepen
dent of the Spanish Inquisition ; and, on that nomination,
he appointed Alonso Manso, Bishop of Puerto Rico, and
Pedro de Cordova, Vice-Provincial of the Dominicans, to
be " Inquisitor of the Indies and islands of the ocean,"
with powers for the establishment of an Inquisition
there. The royal order to that intent was signed on the
20th of May, 1520. The New Christians of America
were not only the fugitives from Europe, but natives of
those vast regions who had been compelled to submit to
baptism so far as the Spanish conquests placed them
under the power of the invaders ; and as they were no
less heathen than before, and observed forbidden rites of
the old idolatry as relics of their ancient state when
under kings of their own, they practised those rites with
an enthusiastic attachment, so far as secrecy or hope of
impunity encouraged them so to do. The newly-created
Inquisition, although not yet stationed within fixed
boundaries, but administered by wandering Dominicans
from place to place, pushed its power to the utmost, and,
after beginning its peculiar work of death, so alarmed
the Indians that they retreated by masses into the inte
rior, renounced the profession of Christianity, joined with
yet unconquered tribes ; and the viceroys, alarmed at the
general desertion, and fearing that the newly-acquired ter
ritories would be depopulated, and that combinations of
Indians would grow too powerful to be resisted, entreated
Charles to put a stop to the proceedings of the inquisi
tors. His majesty, partaking of their apprehension, com
manded (October 15th, 1538) the inquisitors not to inter
fere, on any account, with aboriginal natives of America,
13
290 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
but only with Europeans and their descendants. Yet the
Indians were not exempted from inquisition of heresy,
but placed under the control of the bishops, a set t>f men
practically inferior to the inquisitors, and seldom so mur
derous as they, and, in this instance, instructed to pro
ceed with gentleness and caution. But the inquisitors
could not so easily be displaced. Still permitted to fol
low their vocation as to the Europeans by descent, they
soon transgressed that limit, evaded the royal order by
means of their secret, and the evil, after palliation for a
few years, became almost as flagrant as before, and the
inhibition had to be renewed (October 18th, 1549).
The vigilance of the temporal authorities, and the torrent
of popular hatred that the barbarous insolence of the
holy office had drawn forth, made the position of an in
quisitor scarcely less perilous than odious, and few per
sons could be found willing to undertake the charge.
The humbled inquisitors then cried out in their turn
for succour ; and Philip II., even after having renewed
the more politic* restriction of his predecessor, and after
having feasted his eyes on the martyrdoms of Spain, as
he had gloated over those of England, issued a royal or
der (January 25th, 1569), complaining that the heretics,
by books and conversation, introduced their new doctrine
into America; said that the Council of the Supreme,
with the inquisitor-general at their head, had resolved to
name inquisitors and ministers, not to perambulate the
country, as formerly, but to be intrenched amidst palaces
I would gladly write more humane; but the efforts of
Charles V. to establish the Spanish Inquisition in the Nether
lands, at the same time that his orders mitigated its horrors
in America, forbid the employment of that adjective, He was
ever noted for a heartless and temporizing policy.
SOUTH AMERICA. 291
and prisons, and obeyed, as in Spain, by the magistrate
and the soldier, and commanded accordingly. Then in
Panama (June 20th, 1569), and next in Lima (January
29th, 1570), inquisitors were installed as chiefs of dis
tricts. The inquisitors made solemn entries into those
places, and the authorities, again reduced to abject sub
mission, received them with every demonstration of honour
that could be devised. Mexico followed next (August
18th, 1570); and the process of organization reached
yet another stage, when it was ordained that at three
central tribunals, in Lima, Mexico, and Cartagena de
Indias, inquisitors-g*eneral should preside, and guide the
operations of secondary establishments (December 26th,
1571), subject, however, to the Supreme Council at Mad
rid. There is reason to believe that persecutions were
renewed on a very large scale, although, through poverty
of record, they cannot be reduced to history.
It is known, however, that in the very year that Her-
nan Cortes, conqueror of Mexico, died (1574), the first
Auto was celebrated in that capital with extreme pomp,
and was not inferior in grandeur, unless by the absence
of royalty, to that of Valladolid, where Philip, as the
reader may remember, so rigidly and ostentatiously ful
filled his vow to take vengeance on the heretics. At this
first Mexican Auto, it is related that a Frenchman, who
had probably escaped the Bartholomew massacres, and
an Englishman were burnt as "impenitent Lutherans,"
and eighty "penitents" were exhibited, some punished
for Judaizing, and some for holding the opinions of
Luther or of Calvin. A few did penance for bigamy,
the sorry Christianity of Spain not having sufficed to
overcome the customs of Paganism, customs which the
gospel itself only eradicates with the spread of experi-
292 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
mental piety. And a few did sore penance for magic
and superstition. As if the religion of the Reformation
were a plague, and as if the plague might be kept within
bounds by cutting off communication, infected persons
were forbidden to cross the seas. The laws relating to
America abound in provisions of the kind ; but a royal
ordinance of the beginning of the seventeenth century
may be taken as a pattern of them all. " We ordain
and command," says Philip III., "that no one newly
converted to our holy faith, from being Moor or Jew,
nor his child, shall pass over into our Indies, without our
express licence. And we also prohibit and command
that no one who has been reconciled," (by the usual in
quisitorial penance,) " nor the child or grandchild of any
one who has publicly worn a sambenito, nor the child or
grandchild of a person burnt or condemned as a heretic,
for the crime of heretical pravity, through male or female
descent, shall pass over to the Indies, under penalty of
loss of goods for our chamber and fisc, and their persons to
be placed at our mercy, and to be perpetually banished
from our Indies ; and, if he have no property, let them
give him a hundred lashes, publicly."* Lashes were
given, doubtless, and property confiscated ; but as a way
of egress might be opened by means of a royal licence,
Spanish merchants of impure blood might pay their fees
of office, and pass beyond the ocean ; or through petty
bribery to underlings, persons of inferior class could effect
an embarcation ; and thus a rapidly-increasing popula
tion of New Christians is found to have mingled with
the Spanish Americans. These provided constant work
for the inquisitors, who not only demanded aid of the
Ordenanzas Reales para la Contratacion de Sevilla, &c.
Valladolid, 1604.
SOUTH AMERICA. 293
secular arm, but were ever encroaching on the jurisdic
tion of the magistrates, which rendered it necessary for
the court of Madrid to interpose by the gentler method
of agreement, under sanction of the crown, between the
rival powers beyond sea, or by the mandate of the
sovereign.
This rivalry served one good end. It diminished the
power of the Inquisition ; for viceroys, in their jealousy
of ecclesiastical pretension, were not sorry to see public
indignation burst on those holy officers, who were obliged
to content themselves with particular acts of faith, where
they alone officiated, the civil authorities taking no part.
And here, again, an authentic document affords a de
scription. It is a small volume, printed in Mexico in
1648, intituled, "Relation of the third Particular Auto
de Fe that the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inqui
sition of the Kingdoms and Provinces of New Spain
celebrated in the Church of the professed House of the
Sacred Religion of the Company of Jesus, on the thirtieth
of March, 1648, the very illustrious Lords Doctor Don
Francisco de Estrada y Escovedo, Doctor Don Juan
Saenz de Manozca, and Licentiate Don Bernabe de la
Higuera y Amarilla, being Inquisitors therein."* This
rare volume consists of the summaries that were pub
lished by the reader on that occasion, and has a preface,
equally authentic, of course, from the pen of one of the
said lords, or of a secretary. This is written in grave,
lengthened, and sonorous old Castilian, of which a close
translation shall speak in dreary English.
" As indefatigable for vigilance of the care, and awake
to the duties of the labour, the upright, just, and holy
It may be found in the British Museum, by referring to
the " Old Catalogue ;; under the head INQUISITION.
294 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
tribunal of the Inquisition of this New Spain, always de
siring to manifest to the Christian people, amidst the
accustomed piety that is an attribute of their profession,
and to make known to the world, in view of the clemency
that is the boast of their glories, the necessary punish
ment and inevitable chastisement that is done on the
heretical perfidy and rebellious obstinacy of the cruel and
sanguinary enemies of our sacred religion ; who, blind to
its light, deny it, and, deaf to its voice, flee from it. The
lords inquisitors, who act therein, anxious to gain, in rich
perfection," (en sazonado colmo,) "the foreseen toil of
their wakefulness, and the fruit of their unwearied labour,
have celebrated two particular acts of faith in the past
years 1646 and 164Y, in which, with all attention and
good order, were despatched and went forth to public
theatre seventy-one causes ; the greater part of them of
Jews observant of the dead and detestable law of Moses.
And now, for particular and convenient ends, not open
to the investigation of curiosity," (or we should know
what prevented them from burning some of the com
pany,) "and not without well-advised resolution, this
holy tribunal determined to ceiebrate another particular
act of faith in the church of the Professed House of the
Sacred Religion of the Company of Jesus, one of the
most capacious and convenient for the purpose that there
are in this city, on March 30th, 1648. In which were
put to penance and punished, (manifesting its severity no
less than its clemency and pity,) twenty-eight persons, as
well men as women, for the atrocious delinquencies and
grave crimes, by them perpetrated, that in this brief and
summary relation shall be told. The guilty penitents
going out of the prisons of the Inquisition, each one be
tween two ministers of this holy tribunal, at six o clock
SOUTH AMERICA. 295
in the morning*, without any obstruction of the way, or
disturbance of good order, from the numerous multitudes
of people that were packed close on both sides of the
broad streets," (a circumstance sufficiently remarkable to
be recorded,) " but who gave good way to the criminals
until they reached the said church, where, after the
orderly procession of penitents was brought in, and the
lords inquisitors were seated in their tribunal," (who
afterwards departed in their carriages, attended by their
ministers and officers,) "it being then seven o clock in
the morning, the noise of the people that attended being
hushed," (yells and hootings, on the appearance of the
heretics,) " in good and prescribed order began the read
ing of the causes, and continued until six o clock in the
evening, and the guilty having abjured, and they with
whom that business had to be done being absolved and
reconciled, they took them back in the same form and
order to the house of the Inquisition, whence they had
come by different streets, with the same accompaniment.
And the day following, the justice of lashes was executed,
all this kingdom remaining in hope of another more
numerous and general act, for exaltation and glory of
our Holy Catholic faith, punishment and warning of her
enemies, edification and instruction of the faithful"
The summaries are lively pictures of the moral state
of society in Mexico at that time ; and some of them
have peculiar value as disclosing the manner in which
Jews persisted, from generation to generation, in ob
serving that "dead and detestable law of Moses," as
the doctors were pleased to call it. Others exhibit spe
cimens of clerical depravity, and vulgar superstition.
Among the vagrants who found their way to New
Spain, was one Gaspar de los Reyes, a layman, who had
296 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
cleverly acted the part of priest, said mass, absolved, im
posed penance, baptized, married, given extreme unction,
buried, and also swindled very extensively. As to the
burying and the swindling, there could be no doubt of
their being facts accomplished ; but seeing that sacra
mental acts depend for validity on intention, there must
have been great perplexity in this case. Did he intend
to do as the Church intends ? No one could trust in
the rectitude of his intentions ; therefore, transubstantia-
tion, absolution, regeneration, legitimacy of children, and
final salvation of penitents, were all sunk into the category
of uncertainties under his hands. It was a bad case.
The man must have been a heretic. He was contuma
cious, and should have been burnt. But in default of a
secular arm to inflict that penalty, he was made to carry
a green taper, a rope round his neck, and a white coroza.
Then he was abjured de vehementi only suspected, al
though vehemently ; for it would have been scandalous
to class a living man with convicted heretics received
three hundred lashes, and was to be shipped off to the
galleys of Spain, " perpetual and irrernissible." Another
case of the same kind was to be punished with two hun
dred lashes, and five years in the galleys.
Fray Josef de Santa Cruz, forty-three years of age,
monk, priest, and confessor, had come to Mexico from
Seville without license, thrown off his habit, changed his
name, married twice, become the father of several children,
and was in practice as a physician ; when, after the lapse
of many years, he was discovered, arrested, imprisoned,
brought out to this Auto, and sentenced to carry a green
candle, be abjured de vehement^ save the funds of a hos
pital in Mexico by serving the sick poor there for four
years without pay, and then, from being a prisoner at
SOUTH AMERICA. 297
large, be given up to his prelates to be dealt with accord
ing to the canons and rules. This sentence obviously
tended to reserve him for the fire when a general Auto,
so earnestly desired by the Inquisition, might be grant
ed for the exaltation and glory of the faith.
Alexo de Castro, eighty-two years of age, native of
Manilla in the Philippines, a concealed Mohammedan, was
accused of Moorish practices in private. As he could
not be burnt, he was imprisoned in a monastery, there to
serve, and there to perish.
The case of Sebastian Domingo, sixty years of age, a
negro slave, cannot be read without compassion. He
had married when a young man, his wife and he had
been separately sold, and his second owner compelled
him to marry another woman, supposing that by that
means he might be attached to the estate, and prevented
from running away to seek his lawful wife. But for this
compulsory marriage he was delated, and imprisoned in
the Inquisition of La Puebla de los Anjeles. There, in
consequence of a large increase in the number of prison
ers, he was taken from the dungeon, sworn to fidelity
and secrecy, and compelled to be a servant in the
holy house. It would appear from his defence, that he
did not understand the extent of his obligation, as to se
crecy, but, yielding to a feeling that did him no discredit,
spoke to a prisoner through the grating of his prison-
door, carried a message to his wife, who was soon im
prisoned and punished for receiving it, and brought him
letters, with pen, ink, and paper. The grateful woman
gave him money for the service, and the receiving it was
added to the list of his transgressions. They sentenced
him to a green candle, rope, abjuration de levi, two hun
dred lashes, six years labour in the Spanish galleys, or,
298 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
if he could not go and the tribunal knew, " in secret," a
reason why he could not he was to be sold for a hun
dred dollars, to be applied for the ordinary expenses of
the holy office, for a time, which would, of course, be
long enough to make sure of him for life ; and, on th*
expiration of that time, whatever it might be, he was to
be restored to his owner. Suppose him to outlive the
infliction of two hundred lashes, or suppose that, not to
lower his value, the lashes were forgiven, and that some
one would buy him for ten years, and get the utmost
possible amount of service from him during that time,
how much would he be worth, if alive, at the age of
seventy ? But this fraud upon his owner was committed
by "the upright, just, and holy" Inquisition.
Ana Xuarcz, twenty-five years of age, a native of
Mexico. Both her parents had been punished as Juda-
izers. Her marriage with a first husband had been an
nulled on some account a year before, and he was still
alive in the galleys, for five years, wearing a sambenito,
and further sentenced to perpetual confinement to one
place of abode. She married a second time; but she
and her new husband were soon separated and imprison
ed. After a few days incarceration, she asked for mercy,
was admitted to audience, and confessed that, from the
age of fourteen, she had observed the fasts and customs
of the law of Moses. Her maternal grandmother is said
to have attended at secret meetings in the house of
one Simon Vaez, at Seville, to converse concerning the
precepts, fasts, rites, and ceremonies of Judaism. At
those meetings all present were accustomed to take part,
each bringing evidence of his own perseverance, and all
encouraging each other to stand fast in the same observ
ance. They formed, says the summary, a sort of concilia-
SOUTH AMERICA. 299
bulum, or pretended council, where " Catholics" were de
clared to be under eternal condemnation, and their devo
tions, processions, and usages spoken of with insolent pro
fanity, showing "the lively hatred that those perfidious and
obstinate Jews cherished in their bad hearts." That aged
Jewess and " famous dogmatizer" used to take the lead,
talk with pride of her children and grandchildren that
were good Jews, instructed from childhood by herself,
who had made proficiency, fasted admirably, and already
attained to high reputation as good Jews and Jewesses
throughout the Hebrew nation. Ana Xuarez had been
one of her most zealous pupils, and displayed intense
enthusiasm in attachment to her religion. She loved
her second husband, say they, much better than the first,
and married him far more willingly, not because he was
a better Jew, but because his father had been burnt in
one of the Inquisitions of Portugal. When in prison,
she carried on written correspondence with fellow-prison
ers, under a feigned name, and, eluding the vigilance of
the alcaydes, sent messages, received and forwarded mes
sages to other prisoners, made jest about the sambenitos
they would have to wear, and agreed with them to make
up those garbs of infamy so gay that they would be or
namental, and be rather a credit to the wearers than a
disgrace. By this it would seem that the discipline of
the prisons in Mexico was not so severe as that of Goa,
or that there were classes of prisoners employed in the
service of the house, the women to make dresses, and the
men sometimes taken from the cell to serve in the kitchen,
as was the negro Sebastian Domingo. Her punishment
consisted of appearance in the possession of the Auto in
the garb of a penitent, carrying a green candle, confisca
tion of goods, formal abjuration, perpetual confinement
300 THE BllAND OF DOMINIC.
to one place, the sambenito, perpetual banishment from
all the West Indies, transportation to Old Spain in the
first fleet that might sail from the port of S. Juan de
Ulua, perpetual banishment from Sevilla, the home of
her family, and from the court of Madrid, and obligation
to present herself at the Inquisition immediately on land
ing in Spain, that her person might be known, and that she
might receive orders for the fulfilment of all particulars of
the allotted penance and confinement. If she failed as to
any of those particulars, she would be punished, as an
impenitent, with death.
A minute examination of the document before us
would elicit proof that the inquisitors of Mexico fully
participated in the spirit of slavery, drawing the utmost
possible advantage to themselves from the value of their
prisoners, whom they sold, or compelled to labour, so
as to meet the current expenses of the holy house.
Equally ingenious in government, in policy, and in trade,
they contrived to recover lost ground, and gained the
desire of their heart in the revival of general Autos.
One they held, certainly, in the year 1659, when Wil
liam Lambert, an Irishman, was burnt in Mexico, being
suspected of the heresies of Luther, Calvin, Pelagius,
Wiclif, and Huss. But renewed favour with the tem
poral authorities, as it gave them a wider field, and en
couraged them to greater insolence, brought them into
increased disfavour with the clergy of the diocese, until
the venerable Palafox, and the Bishop of Cartagena in
America, appealed so earnestly against them at Rome,
that Clement XL gave a bull (January 19th, 1706) for
the suppression of the tribunal. But it soon sprang into
life again ; and in Mexico, as in all other parts of Span
ish America, was numbered with the establishments that
SOUTH AMERICA. 301
were thought to impart honour to those countries, until
the political convulsions of Europe spread into the trans
atlantic world, and, after many alternations of defeat and
victory, the institution fell in all the states. The latest
efforts of the inquisitors there were directed against the
propagators of new political opinions ; and so late as the
year 1815, a priest was put to death in Mexico for hav
ing taken part in a movement for separation of the colony
from Old Spain. That was his real offence ; but it was
preferred to throw him into the secret prisons of the In
quisition, and proceed against him for atheism. One
proof of the atheism of this priest, Josef Maria Morellos,
was, that he had two children. If having children
proves a Romish priest to be an atheist, few of that
body can have the credit of being exempt from the taint
of atheism, either in the Old World or the New.
For such atrocities as those of the papacy, committed
through its Inquisition, shall not God be avenged ? The
denunciations of prophets, and the events of history, de
clare that the priesthood cannot escape His avenging
retribution ; and we have ourselves witnessed their hu
miliation in countries where they had domineered for
ages. In South America, during the struggles of Old
Spain for constitutional freedom, after the fall of Bona
parte, and when the Spanish colonies were demanding
independence, the clergy took part against the people on
the side of absolute government, and, not content with
using the legitimate influence of their position, dimin
ished as it was by their own misconduct, expended the
wealth of their churches in carrying on a civil war.
Ammunition was laid up in the houses of priests and
bishops; and preachers, from their pulpits, assailed
those who promoted the new order of things. Then
302 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
popular fury burst upon the clergy. The Archbishop
of Mexico, Don Juan de la Serna, was banished ; the
Bishop of Honduras was put to death ; and most, if not all
the bishops, were driven from their sees. One brief para
graph translated from the Spanish of the Canon P. A. F.
de Cordova, an apologist of their own, may serve to
intimate what it remains with political historians to nar
rate. " The bishop of the capital " (Lima), " Don Be-
nito de Lue y Riega, the Lord Archbishop Moxo of
Charcas, and Videla, Lord Bishop of Salta, have died
in consequence of sufferings in banishment. They"
(the republicans) " obliged Orellana, Bishop of Tucuman,
to betake himself to flight through deep forests and
trackless wilds. The present Bishop of Paraguay
has quite lost his reason through the treatment he
suffered. Senor Otondo, Bishop elect of Santa Cruz,
lies in prison at Salta ; and Rodriguez, Lord Bishop of
Santiago of Chile, is exiled in Mendoza."* The Bishop
of Truxillo, who had concealed himself in " a solitary
place, called Torche," was traced, apprehended, and
banished ; and the warlike stores found in his palace were
transferred to the magazine of artillery in Truxillo.
Thus were the weapons of violence, which they and
their predecessors had used so actively for seven cen
turies, turned against themselves, and the world saw a
solemn exemplification of the Saviour s words: "They
that take the sword shall perish by the sword."
Memorias para servir a la Historia de las Persecuciones
de la Iglesia en America. Lima, 1821.
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 303
CHAPTER XXIII.
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION.
To popular apprehension the Inquisition is rather Span
ish than Roman. We have heard so much of Spanish
inquisitors, that we scarcely disengage our thoughts
from the association of that particular country with the
atrocities of the dungeon and the rack. But the reader
of the preceding pages will have seen that this institu
tion is not provincial, but metropolitan ; and that if it
were to be distinguished by any patronymic, we should
most properly call it Roman. Its earliest and its latest
operations have been conducted by the popes and cardinals,
and the Roman See alone gives authority to all its laws,
and governs, directly or by delegation, all its operations.
It is true that the earliest act of the Church of Rome
that can strictly be called inquisitorial, was that of the
Council of Tours, in France,* and that the first efforts
of Dominic were also spent in France ; but so far are
those facts from suggesting a provincial origin, that they
lead us to historical evidence of the contrary. Alexan
der III., a native of Sienna, an Italian priest, and after
wards a Roman cardinal, and chancellor of "the
holy Roman Church," presided at the council, which
would not have been holden in France had he not
been driven from Rome. The cardinals of his party
who surrounded him, and with him ruled the council,
were princes of the court of Rome ; and the French and
English ecclesiastics present, although prepared by the
barbarism of the age, were instructed by the doctrine of
Sec Frontispiece.
304 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
the popes to perpetrate any deed of persecution for the
exaltation of the Church. And although Dominic was
a Spaniard, it must be remembered that he began his
career as inquisitor after attending a council in the
Lateran, and not until he had received a commission
from the Pope.
That fiery pontiff, Innocent III., made persecution of
heretics the business of his life. His pontificate was like
himself: it was a time of confusion and calamity. A
great earthquake shook the Italian peninsula in all its
length. A hurricane rooted up forests, swept away
palaces and churches, and under the ruins of their houses
multitudes of people perished. After the hurricane
came famine, spreading its horrors chiefly over Lom-
bardy, Tuscany, Romagna, the Campagna di Roma,
and the Terra di Lavoro. That year (1202) was long
remembered as the year of famine. The Romans, as if
persuaded that the wickedness of Innocent had brought
down the vengeance of Heaven on the land, expelled
him from their city : he fled, as popes have often fled,
before the indignation of the people, and took refuge in
Ferentino. War followed, and, for the space of seven
teen years, irregular bands of Germans and hordes of
Italian malcontents ravaged the country, and pillaged
the towns. Yet Innocent persisted in his enormities;
and, withal, promoted cardinals, levied troops, waged
war, imposed contributions, and feasted luxuriously as
ever. After beating the Germans, the soldier-pope,
regardless of the profound wretchedness of the Italia ns,
made a pompous progress from Rome to Anagni, where
fifty soldiers were made to entertain him by a gladiato
rial exhibition, after which a company of clergy ap
proached his presence in procession, at Ceccano, singing
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 305
hymns, and chanting high the responsory, " Thine is the
glory." At this stage, according to the chronicler, the
monks bring forth provisions out of their abundance
that war and famine have not exhausted, and feast the
hungry population, in honour of his holiness, in the
streets of Ceccano, "with bread, and wine, and veal,
and beef, and mutton, and pork, and fowls, and geese,
and pepper, and cinnamon, and saffron, and honeycomb,
and barley, and vegetables." And after the feast Signor
Giovanni, Lord of Ceccano, with his knights, play at
buffoonery, in presence of Innocent (burburando). At
another stage he finds accommodation and provender in
a convent for himself and two hundred horse. After
this manner he prosecuted his imperial progress, dis
tributing benedictions, honours, and privileges, and then
returned to Rome, there to spend his winter (A. D.
1208.) (Chronicon Fossa3 Novae, inter Anecdota Ughel-
liana.)
While wielding the sword against the Germans, Inno
cent spared not the pen ; for in epistolary productions he
surpassed most popes, fighting with both sword and pen
against the Waldenses. To the Archbishop of Auch, in
France, he wrote a brief, commanding him to engage the
help of his bishops to stay the plague of heresy, that
was raging, as he said, more fiercely than ever. They
were to extirpate all heresies, and those infected by them.
They were to expel such from the borders of the province,
as well as all who held any sort of communication with
them. Any means that the bishops could find were to
be employed, without scruple ; and if those means failed,
the forces of princes and the violence of mobs were to
be called in aid. Princes and people should be incited
to coerce heretics with the material sword. A brief to
306 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
the Archdeacon of Milan bears us information, that a
cardinal deacon had gone into Lombardy as legate, and
convened a council at Verona, where it was determined
that no heretic should be admitted to any place of trust
or dignity, nor allowed a voice in the election of others.
The legate had deputed the archdeacon to swear the ma
gistrates, consuls, and councillors of Lombardy to cause
that decision to be observed, excommunicating the contu
macious, and placing their territories under interdict.
Innocent confirmed those powers. Forgetting that our
Lord had said, that tares and wheat should grow to
gether in the world until the harvest, he wrote to the
Cistertians of Metz an instruction to pluck up the tares,
but without hurting the wheat. The tares, in that in
stance, were a considerable multitude of laymen and of
women, who met in secret congregations at Metz and in
other parts of the diocese, to read a French translation
of the Bible, who troubled the priests by arguments un
answerable, and who despised them said the Pope
for their simplicity, trusting in the skilfulness of that
new translation. The bishop and chapter of Metz he
constituted a Board of Inquisition for ascertaining who
was the author of that version, what was his intention in
translating, what was the faith of those who had read it,
and whether they reverenced the apostolic see and hon
oured the " Catholic Church." The bishop had reported
that some of the inhabitants openly, and others privately,
refused submission to the Pope, and said that they would
obey none but God alone. In spite of bishops and arch
bishop, those laymen had presumed to read the French
Bible and to preach ; and they had also declared, that if
the Pope refused them their Bible, they would separate
from his Church. Innocent directed that the leaders of
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 30 7
those dissidents should be convened, and that, the ver
sion having been examined, they should submit to have
it corrected, and be punished if they refused.* In the
year 1216, this pope laid the foundation of the horrible
tribunal, by appointing Domingo de Guzman first in
quisitor. Domingo died at Bologna; and after his
embalmed body had lain in the grave twelve years, the
Dominicans perfumed it, trumpeted a miracle, and
had him canonized (A. D. 1233). These Dominicans
were now intrusted with the work of making inquisi
tion of heresy.
It is amusing to observe how liberally the historiog
raphers of those times bestowed the honours of sanctity
upon their heroes. If those writers tell the truth, we
must confess that each inquisitor was radiant with a halo
of purity, that supernatural powers waited on their
steps, that they preached with the energy of apostles,
and, like apostles, to say the least, produced, in every
place, miraculous evidences of a divine commission.
The prince of those sanguinary apostles, next after Domi
nic, was friar Peter, of Verona, afterwards distinguished
as " Holy Peter, the new martyr." His demerit, on ac
count of sensual indulgences, which led to a temporary
suspension of his functions, with penance in a monastery,
was forgotten in consideration of his merits as a defender
of the Romish faith. Not less ingenious than severe, he
managed, for many years, to parry the blow that at last
dismissed him to his Judge. Let the reader accept an
instance of his wonder-working ability.
In the neighbourhood of Brescia, one of the heretics
that then infested Lombardy and Venice had lived for
Litteras Apostolicee pro Officio Sanctissimas Inquisitionis ;
apud Eimeric. Direct. Inquisit. in Appendice.
308 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
many years, with so great integrity and seventy of life,
that people said he was raised up to be a second John
the Baptist ; and when he died, they showed him pro
found veneration. The inquisitor of the faith, informed
by the testimony of the faithful that he had died in
a state of heresy, and separate from the communion of
believers, took counsel with the bishop, and then ordered
that his body should be exhumed and given to the fire.
The grave was opened. The multitude stood around,
witnesses of the disinterment, and followed those who
carried it away to the place of burning. The flesh had
rotted off the bones, and the corpse was little more than
a clammy skeleton, which the bearers hastily threw into
the fire. At that instant devils came. They caught out
the carcass, climbed on some elevation overhanging the
pile, and held it up in the air. The people were astound
ed, and even the bishop trembled. Some, incredulous,
shouted, "Kill the bishop;" crying out that he deserved
to die for having violated the remains of so good a man.
The inquisitor then suggested that, on the altar erected
for the act,* the bishop should say a mass to the Virgin
Mary. With much trepidation the bishop proceeded to
celebrate, the devils still holding up the bones of the good
man, until the elevation of the host, when they cried
aloud, " 0, Guido di Lacha, we defended thee as long as
we could *, but a greater than we is here ; we cannot now
defend thee any longer ;" and, thus saying, they dropped
the bones of Guido into the fire, wherein they were con
sumed leaving the public to conjecture that the Inqui
sition was in league with hell, but serving the Church to
boast that even devils were in subjection to herself, and
So early was the custom of placing an altar for the use of
the priest officiating at an Auto.
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 309
paid reverence to " the sacrament of the altar." (Bzo-
vius, A. D. 1233.)
But while the Pope decreed that one inquisitor should
be worshipped, the Italians displayed their hatred of that
kind of saintship towards another, and the men of Pi-
acenza gave a salutary example, which other cities often
followed, by driving away Fra Rolando, whose opera
tions had rendered him obnoxious to public indignation
(A. D. 1234).
Not lingering over the few scattered fragments of in
telligence that might be gathered from the scanty histo
ries of the thirteenth century, it may suffice to note that
the work of extirpation was carried on with unrelenting
rigour. Lombardy was the province most widely occu
pied by the preachers of evangelical doctrine, or, at least,
of doctrine forbidden at Rome. This is not the occasion
for examining the peculiar belief of Cathari, Patarenes,
Poor Men of Lyons, Passagines, Josephines, Arnaldists,
and Speronists, whom Gregory IX. enumerates in one of
his anathemas, archived in the Inquisition of Bologna.
There can be no doubt that the injunctions of that docu
ment were fulfilled, so far as the clergy could find secular
help to enforce their sentences. To that extent the her
etics, whose denominations were notes of infamy, were
incapacitated from holding any civil office, possessing
property, prosecuting or bearing witness in any court,
making bequests, or obtaining civil protection. Even
their corpses were denied interment in consecrated
ground ; and if a priest, through ignorance or humanity,
gave Christian burial to such an one, he was to dig up
the body with his own hands, and throw it to the open
field, the dunghill, or the ditch. Confessors, too, were
required to make inquisition, and report the guilty to
310 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
their prelates, notwithstanding the seal of silence which
every confessor was enjoined to keep. And the same
pope, in the eleventh year of his pontificate, advanced on
his predecessors by instructing the provincial prior of the
Dominicans, and the other inquisitors of heretical pravity
in Lombardy, the March of Trevigi and Romagna, how
to call on the secular magistrates for assistance. So did
Innocent IV.; and their rescripts or bulls, with the
constitutions of the latter, constitute no small part of
the basis of inquisitorial rules, as they were afterwards
compendiated and enlarged on by Eymeric and his
successors.
It is remarkable, that the constitutions of Innocent
were addressed to the governors, magistrates, and munic
ipal bodies in the provinces of Italy, who were regarded
as children and vassals of the papal see. They suffered
themselves to be so regarded, and condescended so to
act ; and but one state, the Republic of Venice, refused
to accept the ignoble designation, or to allow the Bishop
of Rome to control the magistrates in the exercise of
their domestic jurisdiction.
"After that, Pope Innocent IV.," says Fra Paolo
Sarpi, " tried to deprive the emperor, Frederic II., of the
empire, kingdoms, and states that he possessed ; and a
great part of Christendom being thereupon in arms, and
all Lombardy in debate with the March of Trevigi and
Romagna, then divided into favourers of the Pope and
of the Emperor, they were infected with various perverse
opinions," (as the Venetian calls evangelical doctrines,)
" and retreating to Venice, there to live in security, the
wisdom of this government, in the year 1249, found a
remedy to guard the city from being infected with that
contagion that infected the rest of Italy. Wherefore
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 311
they determined to choose honest, discreet, and Catholic
men, to inquire against heretics ; and that the Patriarch
of Grado, the Bishop of Castello, and the other bishops
of the Doge of Venice, from Grado to Caverzere, should
judge of their opinions, and that those that by an} - of
the bishops were given out to be heretics, should be con
demned to the fire by the duke and councillors, or the
major part of them." (History of the Inquisition of
Venice, by Paolo Sarpi.) Thus it is evident that the
doge and councillors of Venice took it for granted, even
as a fundamental truth of Christianity, that heretics
ought to be punished, and that the punishment should
be capital, but said that they would not allow a foreigner
to intermeddle either in the sentence or the execution.
Neither did they; and although the Venetian territory
ceased to afford refuge to the persecuted, inquisition was
not made, or death inflicted, by any foreign prince or
prelate. And the Inquisition there began under an ex
clusively civil authority and administration.
Where the magistrates did not resist for the sake of
honour, the people resisted for the sake of liberty. Of
two Dominicans appointed to conduct the operations of
the Lombard Inquisition, one was killed in the execution
of his office; and although the record of such a fact
ought to be accompanied with a note of disapprobation,
it is remembered that priests were instructed to raise the
mob for the purpose of murdering the heretics ; and we
must acknowledge that if the mob, so taught, and so em
ployed, fell upon their teachers, this was but a merited
retribution on those who, as they suffered the conse
quence of their own doctrine, also deserved the blame.
After this event, the nobles and magistrates feared to
enforce the decrees of the Emperor Frederic against the
312 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Patarenes, and others, as Innocent IV. still required
them to do ; and the Inquisition was therefore empow
ered, by the Pope, to lay them under ecclesiastical cen
sures until they had inserted the pontifical and imperial
statutes of which copies appear to have been sent to
them for that purpose among the statutes of their
" cities and places," and sworn to observe the same, and
caused them to be observed with all their might. And
as for private persons, against whom the terrors of inter
dict could not be launched, he commanded his dear sons,
the inquisitors, to exact caution-money from the aiders
and abettors of heretics, to be forfeited to the holy office,
if they were detected in rendering the least succour or
encouragement to excommunicated, or even to suspected,
persons. This award of prize-money to the scrutators
of the faith could not but quicken their diligence, and
revive their courage.
And now the mandates of the so-called vicars of Christ
breathed defiance against all the world. The empire
and the papacy were in arms against each other, almost
dividing Europe between Guelphs and Ghibelines. Italy
was divided, state against state ; and the general confu
sion was aggravated by the horrors of a religious war.
On the inquisitors was devolved the conduct of this war
on the part of the Church of Rome, and pope after pope
instructed them how to enlist prelates in the service, and
how to raise troops of crusaders to fight against Chris
tians in the name of Christ. Those inquisitors travelled
from place to place, delivering inflammatory harangues,
and then enlisting volunteers^ for the murderous enter
prise. For wages they offered plenary indulgences, and
the common recompense of marauders in the booty to be
found in the dwellings of the persecuted. For honour
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 313
they gave them crosses, desecrating the sign of human
redemption by making it a badge of butchery.
The annals of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
consist, in great part, of narratives of the conflict between
the Inquisition, or its agents, and the civil powers of
Europe, but most of all with those of Italy. But the
isolation of states, the ignorance of populations, and the
perfect organization of the ecclesiastical army, determined
the victory, in most cases, to the aggressors. In Genoa,
for example, one Anselmo, an inquisitor-general, per
sisted in requiring the governor of the city, Filippo di
Torino, to insert the numerous decrees of the emperors
and constitutions of the popes, in the tables of civic law,
and to publish them throughout the city and state, for
universal observance. The governor, supported by the
magistracy in general, refused to do so, and thereby in
curred condemnation as a hinderer of the holy office, and
suspicion of being a favourer of heretics. The inquisitor
summoned him to appear at his tribunal, there to un
dergo examination as to his faith ; but he indignantly
refused to come. Anselmo solemnly excommunicated
him, and placed Genoa under interdict. Filippo appealed
to Alexander IV. for redress, and his holiness deigned to
suspend the interdict until a certain day, merely to give
the recalcitrant governor space for repentance. Before
the appointed day came, he tendered his obedience,
caused all the constitutions that the inquisitor pleased to
specify to be inscribed among the laws of Genoa, and
had capital punishment inflicted on all whom the in
quisitor delivered over to him under sentence for heresy.
During this unsuccessful effort to cast off the yoke of the
Inquisition, some one had written a " Short Tract con
cerning the Perils of the Last Times," disclosing the
14
314 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
abominations of the Dominican and Franciscan inquisi
tors ; and Alexander employed a mode of suppression
which afterwards became general, and still forms the
constant business of a Roman congregation. He com
manded three cardinals to read the book, received their
censure, gave that censure sanction, and required the
copies that had circulated to be given up to the inquisi
tors within eight days, and publicly burnt. Thus Genoa
was made quiet for a time ; and there can be no doubt
that many of the readers of the book, as well as the
book itself, were committed to the flames. (Bzovius, A. D.
1256.) Let Genoa be taken as a fair specimen of the
state of all Italy.
The silent abjection of Italy, and the inquisitorial tri
umphs achieved throughout Europe, gave Alexander
leisure to revise the existing code, and to issue new man
dates to the inquisitors and clergy everywhere, assigning
to each class of ecclesiastics their peculiar part in the
general service, and thus imparting uniformity to the
administration of the tribunal, and making the secular
clergy more and more subservient for the general inqui
sition of heretical pravity. No language can be more
sternly imperative than that of Alexander IV. to his
" beloved children, the podestas, councillors, and commu
nities of the cities and other places of Italy." After
health and apostolic benediction, he confirms the orders
of his predecessor, Innocent, and proceeds thus : " We
command the whole of you (universitati vestrce), by
apostolic writings, that so far as we have explained to
you the laws of the Emperor Frederic against heretical
pravity, of which copies are sent herewith, you every one
of you cause them to be made known in your capitulars
against heretics of all sects whatever, and proceed in con-
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 315
formity thereunto with exact diligence. And we have
directed our beloved children, the friars inquisitors of he
retical pravity, and in our letters to each of them have
enjoined, that, if you do not, they compel you by excom
munication of your persons, and interdict on your land,
without appeal." Litterce Apostolicce, ut supra. It
would seem that the civil authorities were not sufficiently
prompt in rendering obedience to this mandate, conveyed
in terms so general and absolute ; and, to leave them
without excuse, he sent them, the next year (1259), large
and minute instructions, or, in other words, a law which
they were to execute in all their states, as auxiliaries to
the Inquisition. The instructions were, in fact, a tran
script of the constitutions of Innocent IV. And that the
inquisitors migjit save themselves from any trouble of
conscience during the commission of rapine and murder
by wholesale, he gave them a bull, setting forth that
"the God of indulgences and Father of mercy," valuing
their services in the cause of the faith, had empowered
him to refresh them with salutary rewards, and that,
therefore, relying on the authority of God, and of the
blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, he gave them a full
pardon of all sins. (Litterae ApostolicaB, ut supra.) Being
thus booted, they could less uncomfortably wade through
blood.
Whoever shall write a history of the religious state of
Italy under the pontificate of Alexander IV., may find
the first suggestions in his letters apostolic. In spite of
all those fulminations, and in defiance of all the coercion
that the papacy could exert, the laity would not yield
general obedience to his pleasure ; arid the inquisitors
reported, from almost all quarters, that they were not
supported to the extent of their necessity, or were pre-
316 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
vented, by passive resistance, from rooting the tares out
of the field. Some few cities, on the other hand, were
made to seem loyal to the Pope; and one of them is
marked as worthy of everlasting honour on that account.
But that was Viterbo, a place under the preponderation
of ecclesiastical influence. At Chiana, in the province
of Romagna, Capello di Chiana, as he is called, having
been convicted of heresy, and condemned accordingly,
but probably supported by his people, had refused to
yield, and the inquisitors could not gain possession of his
person. Some of the authorities of Viterbo doubtless
themselves ecclesiastics came to the help of the in
quisitors by raising "an army" to march against him ;
and the " father or the faithful " hastened to laud their
zeal, and exhort them to attack the town without loss
of time, and lay his lands waste. The senators of Viterbo,
indeed, had forbidden the troops to march ; but Alex
ander bade them go, notwithstanding, and commanded
the senators to revoke the prohibition. " Be careful thus
to obey our admonitions and commands," said he, " that
you may increase in merits with God, in grace from us,
and in glorious fame with men." Litterce Apostolicce, ut
supra. At this rate Alexander proceeded until his death ;
but I refrain from pursuing further even this brief sketch
of his proceedings.
It is important to observe, that in the latter half of
the thirteenth century the papal thunders rolled more
widely, the bulls not being addressed to those provinces
only where opinions contrary to the Church of Rome
were most prevalent, and the inquisitors most active, but
to "all believers in Christ," under the assumption that
the whole world was amenable to them. A bull of
Nicholas III., thus addressed in the year 1280, and
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 31 7
archived in the Inquisition of Bologna, as, of course, in
other houses of the same kind, was published by Pegna
among the documents already quoted.
In Parma, Honorius IV. being our witness, the in
habitants rescued a woman from the stake, whither the
chiefs of the city had led her, in pursuance of a sentence
of the holy office, dispersed the executioners, went to the
Franciscan convent, burst open the doors, battered in
the roof of the church, took away vestments and other
valuables, and administered such a castigation on the
bodies of as many friars as they could catch, that
fraternity being invested with the office of inquisitors,
that the whole of them fled, one alone excepted, who died
of wounds received. Gladly would the podesta, the cap
tain, and other magistrates of Parma have been released
from obligation to burn their fellow-citizens, and for some
time they refused to acknowledge the authority of the
bishop, who cited them to answer for the riot ; but the
usual application of an interdict brought them to the
dust again, and, thanking the Pope for his lenity in
sparing them from the fury of a crusade, they paid a fine
of a thousand marks of silver, that Honorius imposed on
the community of Parma, And many persons having
emigrated to Sicily, in hope of finding refuge there, the
vigilant pontiff sent a party of inquisitors to that island,
who pursued them into their most remote retreats ; nor
did they relinquish the pursuit so long as a fugitive could
be tracked. But that was not until the lapse of nearly
seventy years, when a few survivors escaped into Calabria
(A. D. 1353), and there preached Christ with consider
able acceptance, rousing again the ire of Rome, whence
Innocent VI. despatched a Dominican inquisitor to coun
teract their influence, and subjected the whole kingdom
318 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
of Sicily to his censure, in revenge for any degree of
humanity in the laity who might have connived at the ex
istence of Christians among them. (Bzovius, A. D. 1353.)
The political action of the Inquisition was nowhere
more manifest than in the Italian states, all of which re
tained a strong feeling of national independence, and
would certainly have succeeded in casting off the yoke
of papal supremacy if it had not been for the Inquisition.
And by the Inquisition we are not only to understand
the members of particular tribunals, but also the entire
fraternities of Dominican and Franciscan monks, who
rendered service in Italy, similar to that performed by
the familiars in Spain, and who constituted, together with
sworn crusaders, a formidable army, strong enough to
conquer opposition by main force in any of the weaker
states, even without troubling the Pope to enforce the
terrors of an interdict.
But Venice, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
was the strongest, most flourishing, and most important
state of all, on account of its commercial prosperity,
and position as a bulwark of Christendom against the
Turks. To subdue Venice by a single stroke was there
fore impossible. The popes used stratagem. Nicholas
IV., himself a minor friar, on coming to the throne in
1288, besought the doge and senate to allow the
brethren of his order to exercise their function as inquisi
tors within the republic. The Venetians, foolishly imagin
ing that popes might be bound by stipulations, and
trusting in their own power to resist future encroach
ments, yielded to his importunity after some reluctance,
and suffered the Franciscans to assume the office; but
in conjunction with, or, as they fancied, in subordination
to, the doge, to whom was reserved the dignity of in-
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 319
quisitor-general, inasmuch as he sanctioned the prosecu
tions, received the spoils, fed the prisoners, and paid the
inquisitors very handsomely. The Pope readily assented.
The doge fancied himself an Alexander, able to mount
and rein the Bucephalus that none had mastered. The
Venetians were content, and even gloried in being the
only people in the world whose magistrates were per
mitted to look into the dungeons, and exert some
influence in managing the affairs, of the Inquisition.
Twelve years passed away quietly ; the inquisitors being
active, and the council of state complacent, until Friar
Anthony, inquisitor, issued a monitory to the doge, re
quiring him to swear to observe the papal and im
perial constitutions against heretics constitutions, as we
scarcely need to repeat, that would have reduced all civil
power to a nullity, except for killing victims marked for
execution. The doge refused obedience ; but the erection
of a lay inquisition in the first instance, and the subse
quent admission of the friars to share in its administra
tion, laid the foundation of troubles that will soon have
to be related.
Among other chiefs of the Ghibelines, or adherents of
the emperor in opposition to the Pope, Matteo Visconti,
Lord of Milan, incurred his displeasure. To overcome
him by crusade was not yet possible ; and as for inter
dict, he had already almost laid an interdict on the
Milanese clergy by preventing no small number of them
from performing their ordinary duties. We cannot enter
into the history of this quarrel, but merely observe that
the Inquisition settled it. Other means having failed,
Matteo was accused of heresy, and information taken by
the inquisitors to show that he had been guilty of many
wicked actions ; and, among them, the following : 2. He
320 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
had for many years prevented the inquisitor Placentino
from appointing officers to arrest heretics, and had im
peded the office of the Holy Inquisition. 3. He had forcibly
arrested the inquisitor-bishop Placentino and many other
prelates, and sent them into exile. 11. He had violated
the interdict at Milan, by compelling priests to minister
against their will. 17. And he had followed the sect of
one Manfreda. (Bzovius, A. D. 1322.) Being now con
demned for heresy, Frederic of Austria, Louis of Bavaria,
and the Marquis of Monferrato, declared war on Visconti,
and, under this plea of heresy, deprived him and his
children of their dignity and their dominions.
It is to be regretted that we have no truly religious
history of those times, and cannot therefore enliven and
hallow the present sketch by reciting the triumphs of our
Lord s martyrs. The inquisitors themselves, however,
afford us a slight glimpse into the scenes of murder, by
placing some brief notices thereof on record.
Geraldo Segarvlli, a native of some part of the Duchy
of Parma, of humble parentage, made his appearance in
the capital, probably about the year 1270. A friar
Salimbeno, whose manuscript was found in the library
of Cardinal Sabelli, " Supreme Inquisitor in the universal
Christian republic," describes him as little better than an
idiot; which means that he was much like a thorough
monk. He says that he sold his property, went into the
city and gave away the money to the rabble, and then
devoted himself to preaching, to the delusion, as he says,
of the lowest and most licentious of the people. It ap
pears to be certain, however, that his followers multiplied
exceedingly, that he was for some time imprisoned by the
bishop in his palace, and then sent away from Parma,
but returned, and continued to propagate his doctrine in
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 321
the city. The inquisitorial summary of his doctrine is as
follows :
That the Church of Kome has utterly lost the authority
received from the Lord Jesus Christ, on account of the
wickedness of the prelates. That the Church governed
by pope, cardinals, clerks, and monks is not the Church
of God, but is reprobate and barren. That the Ro
man Church is the apostate harlot, of whom St. John
speaks in the Apocalypse. That the authority originally
given to the Roman Church has passed over to the
Apostolics, as they are called, a spiritual congregation,
raised up by God in these last times. That he, Geraldo
Segarelli, was divinely commissioned to bring back the
Church to its original purity. That the Apostolics are
the only Church of God that resembles the apostles;
and therefore they owe no obedience to the Pope, nor to
any other person ; but they have their law from Christ,
the law of a free and perfect life. That the Pope cannot
compel them to desert their sect, nor has he power to
excommunicate them. That all persons are at liberty to
enter their sect, wife without permission of her husband,
and husband without consent of his wife ; and that in
such cases the Pope cannot dissolve the marriage, but,
according to the friar, the Apostolics say they can. That
no one can leave them without mortal sin, nor any be
saved that is not one of them. That all their persecu
tors commit mortal sin, and are in danger of perdi
tion. That unless the Pope were as holy as St. Peter,
he could not absolve. That all the popes and prelates,
since the time of Silvester, have been deceivers; and
that all the ecclesiastical orders are a detriment to
the faith of Christ. That the laity should not pay
tithes until the prelates are as poor as the apostles.
14*
322 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
That life is more perfect without a monkish vow than
with it. That God can be worshipped anywhere better
than in a (Romish) church. That no man should swear,
not even when required to do so by an inquisitor. And
he is charged, as usual, with immoral opinions and
practices.
His doctrine may have been unsound in some points ;
but as the sole object of those summaries was to estab
lish accusations of heresy, even by the admission, if not
the invention, of calumnious charges, we may fairly de
duct something in allowance for exaggeration. His
offence really consisted in denying the holiness and
authority of the Church of Rome ; and for this he was
burnt alive in Parma, on the 18th of July, 1300.
Whatever Geraldo may have taught, the effects of
his teaching survived him. Seven years afterwards Dul-
cino and Mar gar eta his wife (consors), as Eymeric
acknowledges her to have been, fled from Milan and
took refuge in the mountain-country of Novara. Into
those retreats no fewer than six thousand fugitives
followed them. The Inquisitor-General of Lorabardy
sent crusaders to hunt them down ; who took many,
how many, our authority does not say, and brought
them to Vercelli, where Dulcino and his wife were torn
limb from limb, by direction of the inquisitors, arid their
disjointed bodies were then burnt. This brutal execu
tion was followed by a renewed crusade, undertaken by
command of Clement V., who offered a plenary indul
gence to each crusader. The bishops and the Dominicans
united for the extirpation of the pseudo-apostolics, as
they called them, with perfect unanimity and with ter
rible success.
Thus did the Inquisition ravage Italy, not so much by
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 323
the ordinary procedure of its tribunal, as by making use
of every occasion of political disquiet, and by fanning
the flames of cupidity and fanaticism. A remnant of
those who had been driven from Sicily in the preceding
century, sprang up there again, and we find Gregory XL
praising the city of Palermo for having bestowed an an
nual salary of twelve ounces of gold on their inquisitor,
Simon Pureano (A. D. 1375), while he urges the Bishop
of Turin to crush a sect called Bricaraxii, who had mul
tiplied in that diocese. The result of this injunction was
not very agreeable to the Inquisition. One Fra Antonio,
a Dominican, famous both as preacher and inquisitor, in
Turin and the neighbourhood, after delivering a sermon
and saying mass, on the Sunday after Easter (A. D.
1375), was leaving church, when a party of twelve men
surrounded him, plunged their daggers into his body,
and left him dead on the spot. Less than two months
before, another inquisitor had been assassinated at Susa ;
but the avengers of the blood shed by the Inquisition,
instead of delivering their countrymen from its oppres
sion aggravated the evil by providing the Pope and
his clergy with pretence for proclaiming a renewed
crusade.
Little more work seemed to remain for the crusaders.
The resorts of heretics were broken up in Italy, and the
Inquisition gave its attention to those writings that
might revive the sects it had suppressed. .The writings
of the kind most widely circulated at that time, appear
to have been those of Raymond Lulli, a native of Ma
jorca, by birth a Jew, but, after his conversion to the
spurious Christianity of Rome, a Franciscan friar ; a
man who had spent his life in striving to convert tke
Moo v s in Africa, and to lay the foundation of Oriental
324 THE BKAND OF DOMINIC.
studies in Europe, and who had fallen a victim to his
zeal for the conversion of the African Mussulmans, some
of whom stoned him to death. He had composed
twenty-one works, philosophical, religious, and miscella
neous, which appeared too suggestive of new ideas to be
allowed to circulate. Nicholas Eymeric, inquisitor of
Arragon and Majorca, author of the famous " Directory
of Inquisitors," and eminent for profound knowledge of
canon and civil laws, presented the books to Gregory
XI., requesting that they might be examined. Twenty-
four men of repute for knowledge of theology, with the
Bishop of Ostia at their head, were appointed by the
Pope to read those books, which they did accordingly,
and condemned them as containing many things hereti
cal and blasphemous. This assemblage of censors at
Rome confirmed the precedent, as I should suppose, for
the congregation of the Index subsequently created, and
acting in agreement with the congregation of the Inqui
sition. Then, as now, it was understood to be a part of
the Universal Inquisition, was mentioned as such by
Eymeric himself, and ought always to be so considered.
The congregations, indeed, are separate, but their opera
tions are artfully intermingled. That of the Index now
serves to cover that of the Inquisition from public obser
vation ; and the latter, by exercising an ostensible juris
diction over books, seems to be less occupied with persons.
At that time, however, the Roman censors could not
command reverence in Spain; and Peter of Arragon,
incensed at the officiousness of Eymeric, banished him
from his dominions.
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 325
CHAPTER XXIV.
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION (CONCLUDED).
DISHONOURED by contentions, and weakened by schism,
the papacy could not act so vigorously against heresy
as in happier times. During a full century neither
Pope nor anti-Pope could rouse his adherents to a cru
sade in Italy. The Waldensian Church in the Alpine
and sub- Alpine regions was in a state nearly approach
ing to repose, except on the side of France, and under
the Dukes of Savoy. Martin V. sent forth his fulmina-
tions from Rome against the English Lollards, and the
Hussites of Bohemia and Moravia, and summoned the
bishops and inquisitors, wherever the latter were estab
lished (uUlibet constitutis), to undertake the extirpation
of those people : but the bolts passed over Italy ; and as
for England, Bohemia, and Moravia, there were no
inquisitors, except the priests and monks, who proved
themselves to be zealous enough, albeit they were not
strong enough, to destroy the work of God. The bull
of Martin followed the Council of Constance, and was
published in the year 1418.
Calixtus III. did his best to revive the dormant ener
gies of the Italian Inquisition, and to that intent repub-
lished (A. D. 1458), with his own sanction, a bull of
Innocent IV., empowering the inquisitors in Lombardy
to publish a crusade, and to confer on the cross-bearers
against heretics at home indulgences equal to those
which had been granted to crusaders against infidel
Mussulmans in the Holy Land. But the spirit of that
age had changed ; and although the scandal of the
326 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
cross was undiminished, and the few confessors of Christ
still suffered tribulation in the world, there was, in the
world, a growing indisposition to fight the battles of the
priesthood, and many of the more eminent clergy, from
the time of the Council of Florence,* and the immigra
tion of the Greeks, became more diligent in prosecuting
Grecian and Latin studies than in reading theology,
censuring religious books, or making inquisition concern
ing faith.
After the cessation of the great schism, and after the
vehement controversy concerning the comparative pow
ers of popes and councils had subsided, the pontifical
government, although no less autocratic in theory than
before, underwent considerable modification in practice.
We now trace the beginnings of those institutions in the
court of Rome which give it such immense power, and
enable the supreme pontiff, having the concurrence of
the college of cardinals, a concurrence regulated by a
multitude of provisions, to act with less independence,
indeed, but with far greater certainty and power. The
revocation of cases to the Pope for ultimate decision,
with reservation of certain offences to be absolved by
him alone, but, in reality, by the courts established at
Rome for that very purpose, brings a stream of wealth
into the Roman coffers from day to day, and raises the
administration of discipline above the power of local op
position. One of those reservations is of the power of
absolution from "crimes of heresy," which Paul II.
made for himself and his successors (A. D. 1468). The
law is to be found in the Extravagantes, (Extravagantes
Communes, lib. v, cap. ix, tit. 3,) is quoted by the canon-
Opened at Ferrara in 1438, and closed in Florence the
year following.
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 327
ists, is acted on at present, and is at the foundation of the
supremacy and universality of the Inquisition. Those
attributes could not be found in the provincial tribunals
that we have surveyed, but will henceforth become very
apparent to the reader of these Italian chapters.
After several ineffectual efforts to establish a regular
Inquisition in the Alps, a bold, yet cautious and persever
ing man, John, Archbishop of Ernbrun (A. D. 1461),
undertook to extirpate the Waldensian Church by dint
of " monitions, exhortations, and injunctions ;" but diffi
culties arose at every step, and he prudently delayed the
employment of any violent measures. Eleven years
afterwards a minorite friar, deputed, by " apostolic au
thority," to act as inquisitor in the valleys, pursued the
usual routine, succeeded so far as to frame a few proc
esses, and thereby arrived at certain knowledge of the
doctrines that multitudes of the inhabitants confessed.
But he presumed not to go any further, the whole popu
lation being hostile to measures of persecution. Again
the indefatigable archbishop, having waited for opportu
nities during no less a time than twenty-one years, and
surrounded himself with ninety " Catholic men," without
counting many who aided them secretly, " took new in
formations," by which it appeared that all the inhabi
tants of the valley of Fraissiniere, and many in the other
valleys, were of "most infamous repute," and vehemently
suspected to be members of "the said heretical sect."
Following out this information, and making the best use
of his body of familiars, the archbishop ventured (A. D.
1486) to publish what we should have called in Spain
an edict of the faith, commanding all who were conscious
of heresy to come with a spontaneous confession within
a time appointed. But " they neglected to obey." That
328 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
monition was published on the 18th day of June. It
was repeated on the 29th of the same month, and again
on the 9th of July, but without effect. In the month of
August " the aforesaid most reverend Lord Archbishop
John commanded all that were suspected mentioning
them by name to be cited to answer for their faith,
offering them grace if they would return to the bosom of
the Church ; but they all contumaciously neglected."
On the 15th of September the archbishop "gave letters
patent and excommunicatory," on account of their " per
fidy and stubborn contumacy." Two days were spent
in publishing the excommunication, " which they sus
tained until the 6th of February, 1487, and continued
yet much longer deaf to the excommunication. Among
them was one called Angellino Palloni, who now laboured
with all his might to conceal the truth with lies. And
this is true" as the inquisitor who made the record*
asseverates at the close of every paragraph.
On the Italian side the Inquisition had more power.
Giordano Tertian was burnt at Susa, and Hippolito
Roussiere at Turin. In the same city Hugo Champ de
Fenestrelles was disembowelled, and his mutilated body
exposed to public insult. In one valley three thousand
persons were murdered, either by the sword, or smoth
ered by fires lighted at the mouths of the caves into
which they had gone for refuge.
The report of those butcheries overawed many, no
doubt ; but it also aroused the indignation of every Italian
whose spirit was not utterly broken. This was manifest
Scriptum inquisitoris cujuspiam anonymi de Valdensibus,
ex Codici M. S. G. in publica Bibliotheca Cantabrigiensi. Given
at length by Dr. Allix, in his " Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical
History of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont."
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 329
in Brescia, where the inquisitor, Antonio di Brescia, in
conjunction with the bishop, " or his vicar-general," con
demned some men and women, as impenitent heretics, to
be delivered to the secular arm for burning, " and re
quired the officers of the city of Brescia to fulfil the ap
pointed execution ; but the said officers," I quote from
a brief of Innocent VIIL, " to the no small scandal of
the orthodox faith, refused to minister justice, and execute
the said sentences, unless they might first see the proc
esses which had been carried on by the bishop and in
quisitor." This drew a mandate from the Pope, who
contended that as the crime of heresy was " merely eccle
siastical," and as crimes of the sort should not, on any
account, go unpunished, he instructed the inquisitor and
bishop to command them, under pain of excommunica
tion, to kill the persons condemned within six days.
The brief was dated at Rome, September 30th, 1486.
I do not know the effect of this injunction.
My plan does not allow me to narrate the crusade
against the Waldenses in the archdiocese of Embrun,
conducted by Albertus de Capitaneis, whom Innocent
VIIL sent to the Duke of Savoy as nuncio from the
Apostolic See, to demand troops for the intended massacre.
For his guidance, however, he was accompanied by an
inquisitor (A. D. 1487) ; and if the nuncio and his com
panion had been demons, not men, they could scarcely
have exhibited a more exquisitely malignant and mur
derous fanaticism.
It happened, when the Jews were driven from Spain,
and a remnant that survived the perils and wreck of
transport made their appearance on the shore of the Tiber,
that the Pope was pleased to allow them to enter on the
patrimony of the Church, and live. Some writers,
330 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
caught by this appearance of charity in the supreme
pontiff, compared his conduct with that of Ferdinand
and Isabella, to the great disadvantage of the latter ; and
many, by repeating the encomium then circulated, and
further deceived, perhaps, by a show of comparative
lenity in the Inquisitions of the papal state, have con
tributed to strengthen an erroneous impression, that the
Roman Inquisition has been distinguished from others by
a moderation approaching to humanity. A fact or two
of history, related by one of their great annalists, (Bzovius,
A. D. 1498,) might suffice to remove the false impres
sion.
In the year 1498, very soon after the extension of
Roman hospitality to those poor Jews, two hundred
and thirty Marranos, or Moors who had renounced a
compulsory profession of Christianity, so called, in Spain,
and were therefore driven from the country, came to
Rome, but were soon detected, delated to the holy office,
and thrown in prisons. At length, however, they once
more submitted to make an ecclesiastical confession, and
were solemnly received into the Church by Alexander
VI. If any of them had persisted in refusing to do so,
they would have suffered sudden death by burning, or
slow death by perpetual imprisonment. The " reconcilia
tion" was performed thus: On Sunday, July 29th, a
spacious platform being erected before the portico of the
Basilica* of the Prince of the Apostles, de urbe, between
galleries extending from the steps of the said Basilica,
the two hundred and thirty exiles were brought out from
the dungeons, and exhibited thereon. They sat down on
the floor of the platform, in their accustomed Moorish
Basilica royal palace. A name given to a principal
church.
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 331
garb. On chairs of state appeared a large company of
reverend lords, whose names and titles it is not necessary
to transcribe. All being thus assembled, a certain master
in theology, of the order of preachers, delivered a sermon
in vulgar Italian concerning the faith, and against the
aforesaid Spanish Marranos, amongst whom was one dis
tinguished by the habit of St. Francis, which he had
formerly assumed, but afterwards openly cast off. The
orator harangued them concerning their notorious errors
in faith, pronounced words of reproof, and recited the
dogma which they were then required to believe. Ser
mon being ended, the Marranos, who, at best, could have
but a very obscure apprehension of the Italian sentences,
prayed for pardon and absolution, uttering piteous cries,
no doubt. Then the master of the sacred palace conde
scended to admonish them, in a Latin sermon, concerning
the rules for authorized believing and good living, and at
the same time described the punishment they might
righteously be made to suffer ; and, the oration being
finished, pronounced a few hasty words in Spanish, to
give them some general notion of what they were at
liberty to suppose it might have contained. Having
heard this, the whole company fell upon their knees,
heard sentence of the penance to be performed, received
sambenitos, and, in that livery, walked processionally
into the church of St. Peter, there to pray. From St.
Peter s they proceeded, in the same order, to the convent
of St. Mary on Minerva, whence, laying aside the peni
tential habit, they might be dismissed to their houses.
The Pope saw the ceremony of the theatre from his
windows ; and, when the inquisitors had absolved and
reconciled the Marranos, he gave them his benediction.
An offender of superior station was at the same time
332 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
under discipline. Pedro de Aranda, Bishop of Cala-
horra in Spain, and majordomo of the Pope, lay in prison,
under accusation of the heresy of the Marranos. Alex
ander VI. appointed a board of high ecclesiastics to hear
and determine on his case. Many witnesses were ex
amined on part of the fiscal, and no fewer than a hundred
and one on part of Aranda. From such a multitude of
depositions the judges could easily gather enough to
serve their purpose ; and, at length, on Friday, Septem
ber 14th, the day of the holy cross, the commissaries laid
their summary before the Pope, as chief inquisitor, in
secret consistory ; the honour of being judged in that
court being rendered to an officer of the apostolic palace.
" Which being heard, Alexander, with counsel of the
most reverend lords the cardinals, deprived Aranda of the
episcopal dignity, and of all benefices and offices, and
deposed him and degraded him from every order. The
said Peter, being thus deprived, deposed, and degraded,
was at length thrown into a chamber of the Castle of St.
Angelo, there to endure an imprisonment" that was, of
course, perpetual. His theology was probably unsound,
but his practices were yet more offensive to the licentious
pontiff and his court. "He laughed at indulgences,"
says Miravel y Casadevante ; " ate flesh on Friday and
Sabbath (Saturday) ; breakfasted before saying mass ;
and denied purgatory."
During the latter part of the fifteenth century, and the
first thirty years of the sixteenth, we find little to relate
concerning Italy, beyond what may be summed up in a
few words. In Sicily the King of Spain, then sovereign
of the island, endeavoured to introduce the Spanish In
quisition ; but his emissaries were obliged to retreat, the
inhabitants being united in resistance. The spirit of in-
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 333
dependence in Italy had been strong enough to obtain
seats for the bishops on the tribunals, and the inquisito
rial secret, perhaps in consequence of their intervention,
was not enforced so rigidly as in Spain. In the Venetian
territory, inquisitors, who attempted to act alone, could
not obtain help of the magistrates, who refused to execute
sentences passed without their concurrence ; and at
Brescia, again, the people, emboldened by the refusal of
the magistrates, had, once at least, cut short the processes
by driving away the inquisitors. Naples, although a
realm of Spain, like Sicily, also refused to admit the
Spanish Inquisition, or any other tribunal conducted by
a distinct body, apart from the ordinaries. Lombardy,
Piedmont, and the states of northern and central Italy,
had been surrendered to the inquisitorial fury, renewed
after the consolidation of the papal government, and
the aliter credentes, or persons differing from the domi
nant religion, hid themselves in the mountains, or, by
outward conformity to the rites of Romanism, an arti
fice resembling that which is practised by the gipsies in
Spain, and perhaps in other countries, concealed their
dissent ; and, by a habit of concealment continued from
one generation to another, they must have lost the truth
ful and manly simplicity of their fathers. Nor were they
the only sufferers. The confessional and clerical celibacy
demoralized Italy, as they have demoralized every other,
country where they prevail ; but the Inquisition induced
a reaction against all that bore the name of Christianity,
and while a pagan infidelity prevailed among the higher
classes, Pope Leo X., who issued a bull for the mainte
nance of orthodoxy in universities (A. D. 1513), not ex-
cepted, the lower classes were pervaded with the
grossest superstitions. If the censures of the clergy were
334 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
not utterly calumnious, magic, sorcery, witchcraft, infanti
cide, incest, devil- worship, and every conceivable kind of
abomination, was as familiar to the lower classes as was
atheism to Leo X., and levvdness to Alexander VI. Nor
could it be otherwise. The natural result of an Inquisi
tion is the extinction of all faith.
Leo X., notwithstanding his admiration of excellence
in painters, and his disposition to patronize poets, enter
tained as profound a dislike of innovation on the doctrine
of his Church as became a pope. Acknowledging, in
deed, that learning might be easily attained by the read
ing of books, and that the art of printing might be of
great advantage, inasmuch as many printed books might
be had for little money, and that even profane literature,
which he loved so ardently, might be skilfully made
subservient to the cause of Christianity, he said that a
complaint had fallen on his ear that certain masters of
this art of printing, in various parts of the world, had
printed books, translated from Greek, Hebrew, Arabic,
and Chaldee into Latin, and that they had dared to
publish others, both in Latin and in vulgar tongues, con
taining errors in faith, and pernicious dogmas contrary to
Christianity, and injurious to the fame of persons illus
trious in dignity. Lest thorns should choke the good
seed, and poisonous herbs grow up together with the
medicinal, it behooved him to be vigilant. With the ap
probation, therefore, of the Fifth Council of Lateran, then
sitting, he wished to provide an opportune remedy," and,
that the business of printing books might thenceforth be
conducted more happily, determined and ordained " that,
in all times to come, no one should print, or cause to be
printed, any book or other writing, either in Rome or
any other city or diocese whatever, unless it were first ap-
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 335
proved, if in Rome, "by the Pope s vicar and master of
the sacred palace, or, in other cities and dioceses, by the
bishop, or some other person having understanding* of
science. Books or writings proposed to be printed were
to be diligently examined by the bishop or his delegate,
and by the inquisitor of heretical pravity, in the city or
diocese where it was to be put to press, and approved by
subscription under their own hand, to be given without
fee, without delay, and under sentence of excommunica
tion." The penalties of disobedience were loss of the
books unlawfully printed, and therefore to be burnt pub
licly, a fine of a hundred ducats to the fund for building
the church of St. Peter, suspension froffi the exercise of
printing for one year, and such other inflictions as he
might incur by contumacy. This order was given in
public session of the council on May 12th, 1515. This
Fifth of Lateran is acknowledged by the Church of
Rome to be a general council ; the regulation then made
A reasonable qualification. But even in the pontificate
of Leo X. it must have been easier to prescribe than to ad
minister. But a few years earlier, when the Prince Giovan
Pico della Mirandola had maintained nine hundred proposi
tions at Rome, derived from Chaldean, Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin authors, and relating to theology, mathematics, natural
history, magic, the cabala, and other sciences, real or reputed,
the Roman scholars, dazzled and bewildered by his erudition,
surmised that he must assuredly be a heretic. The censors
of the faith laboured hard over his nine hundred propositions,
and extracted thirteen which they thought capable of affording
witness of heresy. The prince was censured as temerarious,
and suspected ; but he presumed to write a defence of himself,
and even to put some questions to the censors. " What," said
he, " is cabala ?" " Cabala/ answered one of the learned in
quisitors, " was a wicked heretic, who wrote against Christ.
The Cabalists are a sect who follow him."
336 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
for placing the universal press at the mercy of inquisi
tors was adopted by the Council of Trent, is amplified
in the rules of the indexes of prohibited books, pub
lished by successive pontiffs at Rome and by the Spanish
Inquisition, and is now cited as the fundamental authority
for all such coercive proceedings as the clergy can ven
ture upon in countries where they have any degree
of power. It is a part of canon-law, which the Pope
now reigning declares to be binding on his clergy in
these realms, and which they are sworn to enforce, so fur
as by their influence or their assumed position they may
find it practicable.
The last Council of Lateran did not confine itself to
approving the Constitution of Leo X. as to printers and
books, but also made full provision for the punishment
of heretics by the holy office, or by the usual substitutes
in countries where it did not exist. It ordained as fol
lows: "That all false Christians, and those who think
ill concerning faith, of whatever people or nation they
may be, as well as heretics, or persons polluted with any
stain of heresy, or Judaizers, be utterly excluded from
the company of believers in Christ, and expelled from
every place, and especially from the Roman court, and
punished with due severity. We ordain that proceed
ings be taken against them with diligent inquisition
everywhere, and in the said court especially, by judges
who shall be deputed by us." (the Pope,) " and they
who are guilty of this crime, and legitimately convicted,
shall be punished with the penalties due. But it is our
pleasure that the relapsed be dealt with without any
hope, of pardon or of rem&sion"*
This may be read in the orginal Latin in the acts of the
council; or in Raynaldus, A. D. 1514.
ITALY THE OLD INQUISITION. 337
Leo X., Adrian VI., and Clement VIL, followed up
these enactments of the Roman Synod, miscalled (Ecu
menical, by continuing the struggle of the Papal See with
the civil powers of the popedom, when unwilling, and
by flattering them with apostolic letters and blessed
trinkets, when willing, to extirpate the followers of
Christ. The bulls of Leo X. against Luther, frustrated
though they were at the time, are still documents of high
authority in the Inquisition. They were issued in the
year 1520; and scarcely had Luther thrown them into
the fire when Leo had the audacity to instruct the in
quisitors at Brescia, a Venetian city, to proceed against
heretics without so much as allowing the magistrates to
see the processes, much less to be present at the examina
tions, and to compel the civil officers to kill those whom
they might condemn. But, with the doge and council,
his anathemas and interdicts had no force ; and Clement
VII. (A. D. 1528), seeing that evangelical doctrines
found great acceptance at Brescia, and that the Venetian
state would soon be evangelized unless the civil and
ecclesiastical authorities were united in persecution, un
said the previous utterance of the Holy See by instructing
the inquisitors not to refuse to act in copj unction with
the magistrates, and even to allow themselves to be sum
moned by them to make inquisition into such cases as
three lay-inquisitors, elected by their own lay-constituents,
might bring before them for their judgment. Herod
and Pilate were again reconciled. We now proceed to
survey the Roman Inquisition under its assumed charac
ter of " supreme and universal," and to observe how it
rose into a position of central power, absorbing, and even
rendering less necessary, the provincial courts.
15
338 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
CHAPTER XXV.
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS.
THE Lutherans in Germany were demonstrating the
necessity of a reformation of the head and members of
the Church at Rome. Many princes who yet continued
in the communion of that Church demanded such a ref
ormation, and importuned the Roman See for a speedy
convocation of a general council. When the general
dissatisfaction was at its height, the Cardinal Farnese,
dean of the Sacred College, was elected Pope, and took
the name of Paul III. He had been an active servant
of six popes, he well understood the state of Europe, and
was thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Roman
court. To put the Protestants off their guard, he pre
tended to be very anxious for the convocation of a
council, and appointed three cardinals to prepare for its
assembling; but those three cardinals were the most
dilatory members of the college. He spoke of the pro
jected council incessantly in consistory,* but accom
panied his arguments for a council with distasteful exhor
tations to his " venerable brethren" to amend their own
ways first, and to relinquish the abuses of the court be
fore sitting in council to reform the Church. They began
to think that he was in earnest, and were perplexing
themselves with the question of reform at home, when
he dispelled the illusion by promoting two boys to be
cardinals, Alessandro Farnese, aged fourteen, son of
A Consistory, at Rome, is an assembly of cardinals, with
the Pope at their head. If the Pope meets them before his
coronation, they are only said to form a congregation.
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS. 339
Luigi Farnese his natural son ; and Guid Ascanio Sforza,
aged sixteen, son of liis natural daughter. From that day
tile fear of reformation at home no more troubled the court.
Pursuing the same ambidextrous policy doing things
contrary to each other at the same time, in order that
whatever he did by concession might be undone by
another contrary deed of choice he published a bull of
indiction, for the assemblage of a council in Trent, on
the 1st day of November, 1542, to which Protestants
were invited, under a safe-conduct; and on the 26th of
August, sent three cardinals to Trent, in order to under
take the necessary correspondence, and receive members
as they might arrive; whereas, on the 21st of July, he
had set his hand to constitutions for the appointment
and the direction of a new body, whose peculiar duty it
should be to crush nonconformity by force, rather than
prevent it by counsel. This was THE CONGREGATION OF
THE HOLY INQUISITION.
His bull began by saying that, from the beginning of
his pontificate, he had entertained a fixed purpose to
drive away all heresy ; but that, in spite of all that he
could do, bad men still persisted in their wickedness.
Nevertheless, hoping that the authority of a general
council might awe them into submission to the faith, he
had " put oft the business of inquisition of that kind of
heretical pravity" (Protestantism) "until that day."
Why he was that day in so great haste to take the mat
ter out of the hands of the expected council, he did not
condescend to say ; but all the world knows that a ma
jority of the Council of Trent, even under Italian influ
ences, would hardly have been found that would agree to
a universal Inquisition, governed by the curials at Rome,
or to any court of similar pretensions ; and it is further
340 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
notorious that the Pope s legates at that council proposed
every subject of deliberation, determining afterwards to
manage the debate, or to stop it when they could nt
guide ; and that this subject of Inquisition was one of
those that they never ventured to introduce. He lost
sight, then, of the council, after merely observing that it
could not yet be convened ;* and, " lest, while a council
was expected, all things should grow worse and worse,"
and being himself unable to transact all business, especi
ally while under the pressure of so many arduous cares,
he named and appointed six cardinals to be commissaries
and inquisitors-general and most-general (generalissimos),
in all cities, towns, lands, and places of the Christian
Republic, on both sides of the Alps, to act, under apos
tolical authority, as his delegates. Whoever wandered
" from the way of the Lord," and from the paths of
" Catholic faith," thinking evil of that faith, or were in
any way, or in any degree, suspected of heresy, together
with their followers, abettors, or defenders, who gave
them aid or counsel, directly or indirectly, publicly or
privately all persons of whatever state or dignity, low
or high were to be subject to their universal jurisdiction.
And lest persecution should be delayed, or inquisitorial
fury mitigated ; lest the clergy in any " city, town, land, or
place," should interpose to shield their flocks from the
incursion of Roman robbers, Paul ordained that the six
cardinals should act "even without the ordinaries of
places, and that even in causes wherein those ordinaries
had a right to intervene." By his own supreme right,
he decreed that the "most general" inquisitors should
proceed officially by way of inquisition, investigation, or
More than three years elapsed before the first session,
December 13th, 1545.
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS. 341
otherwise, imprisoning all guilty or suspected persons,
proceeding against them until final sentence, punishing
with due penalties those whom they convicted, and, " as
was just, taking possession of the property of condemn
ed persons who had suffered death.
The new universal Roman Inquisition was to have a
fiscal, a proctor, notaries public, and other necessary
officers, who might be priests or monks of any order.
After they had condemned any priest or other ordained
person as impenitent or as relapsed, it would be their
duty to require some bishop or other dignitary (antistes)
to degrade him ; and, in case of disobedience or delay,
they might compel obedience by ecclesiastical censures.
For putting condemned heretics to death, Paul armed
them with spiritual power so far as that power could
avail to command and compel the secular arm to slay
the victims whom they marked. Their new prerogative
extended to the appointment of inquisitors where, and
when, and as often as they pleased, to hear appeals and
give ultimate decision the graces of absolution- and rec
onciliation being reserved to the Pope himself to cite
and inhibit in all parts of the world. Then followed a
withdrawal of power and authority from all other judges,
and the usual derogation of all constitutions of preced
ing popes to the contrary.
To obviate jealousy, the Spanish Inquisition was ex
empted from the control of this congregation ; an ex
emption suggested by the known unwillingness of that
body to submit to the dictation of the court of Rome,
and by the spirit of national independence that has often
been repressed, but never quenched in the bosom of the
Spaniard. Neither was direct control needed by the
congregation in regard to heretics, so long as the Pope
342 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
himself appointed the Spanish inquisitor-general, and
so long as the king and court of Spain were preeminent
in bigotry. The Pope was the acknowledged head, and
was sure to act in agreement with the congregation.
But the Italian clergy were not so trustworthy as the
Spanish then seemed to be; yet only seemed, for the
extension of evangelical doctrine in the parishes and
convents of Spain was not yet known. While, therefore,
inquisitorial powers were concentrated within the walls
of Rome, new orders were thence communicated to the
inquisitors in the extra-Roman States of Italy. Clement
VII. had pointed out the friars of Lombardy as infected
with heresy. It was reported to him that they had
preached it openly, and he commanded (in a brief dated
January 15th, 1530) the inquisitors to take active
measures against those concealed Lutherans. The clergy
of Bologna and Milan, like the corporate bodies of
chartered towns, enjoyed many exemptions from foreign
jurisdiction, some granted by popes, and others, perhaps,
in order to obtain their assistance against the laity, by
inquisitors ; but Paul III. had opened the way for his
universal Inquisition by abolishing those privileges (Jan
uary 14th, 1542), under the pretence that they had
presumed to maintain scandalous and heretical proposi
tions in disputations and in sermons. To extinguish the
memory of ancient superstition, and to establish the su
perstition of his Church more expeditiously in the neo-
ophytes, or newly-proselyted Jews, he stirred up the
clergy and inquisitors everywhere to a minute and vigor
ous examination of their domestic habits (March 21st,
1542). And he induced Charles V., perhaps in return
for the gratification of a general council, to decree the
establishment of an Inquisition, after the Spanish model,
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS. 343
in Sicily (A. D. 1543). The Sicilians then resisted, but
eventually gave way.
But the cardinal-inquisitors were not slow in exercising
their new powers. Not failing to make inquisition of liv
ing heretics, as we shall presently see, they sought to
make their ground good by silencing the press, which
speaks while authors die. Multitudes of books, pam
phlets, and letters were circulated throughout Italy, in
spite of all existing prohibitions. There were clandestine
presses at work in all parts of Italy, but most of all in
the northern States. Printers, when forbidden to carry
on their labours, walked abroad during the years of sus
pension, like men who had no vocation at home ; but
their wives, and daughters, and servants composed the
forms and worked the presses in secret. Books without
name of printer or of place were in every hand, and
people read them the more attentively because they were
forbidden. The public by willing ignorance covered the
printers and kept the secret. The cardinals, unable, as
they said, to make perquisition in person, confided that
service to the Reverend Father Tommaso Maria di Bo
logna, inquisitor over the cities of Ferrara and Modena.
They empowered him and his substitutes to visit all
libraries, offices, churches, monasteries and private
houses, search for books, burn the bad ones, and enforce
on all booksellers, printers, officers of customs, and
other delinquents, the penalties of forfeiture, stripes, fine,
suspension from trade, imprisonment or banishment, in
proportion to the degree or the number of their offences
(July, 1543). It is not improbable that this search after
prohibited books was one of the first measures, perhaps
it was the chief, that led to the direct inquisition on per
sons of which we shall find a few examples.
344 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
The Venetian magistrates, flattered by the singular
privilege of superintending the inquisition of their fellow-
citizens, gave Rome no occasion to deprive them of that
honour; yet it was incessantly disputed. The state of
things at Venice is thus described in a letter to Luther
from Baltassare Altieri, an Italian, attached to the British
legation in that city. He wrote just four months after
the appointment of the Roman congregation, in these
words:* "The fury of Antichrist rages here daily more
and more against the elect of God. Many are proscribed,
of whom some are said to have gone to the distant
provinces, some to Basil and other parts of Switzerland,
others into the neighbouring regions" (of the Alps), " and
many have been seized and are pining away in perpetual
imprisonment ; but there is no one to deliver the inno
cent, none to do justice to the poor man and the orphan,
none to maintain the glory of Christ. All conspire to
gether to oppress the Lord and his anointed ; and no
where is this calamity more cruel and more prevalent
than in Venice itself, where Antichrist is dominant, and,
while using open violence, possesses all his goods in
peace. Wicked one that he is, son of perdition, author
of sin ! That signal thief and most ferocious of wolves
slaughters and destroys the Lord s flock at his pleasure,
and without restraint. But we cease not to pray the
Lord that he would send a stronger than he, who may
come and bind him, take away all his weapons, in
which he now trusts so confidently, and strip him of the
I venture to adduce this incidental evidence, although it
comes from one whom the Inquisition would have condemned
for correspondence with the great heresiarch. His general
statement is in perfect consistence with records that no Ro
manist could reject.
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS. 345
spoils." We further gather from this letter that the
preachers had been silenced, but that many of them were
concealed in the city, hoping for the effect of intercession
by Protestant princes of Germany with the doge and his
government, or for some favourable change when the
promised council should assemble. (Seckendorf. Comm.
de Luth., lib. iii, sect. 25, xcvii.) But no help came
from those quarters. From the correspondence of the
Cardinals Pole and Contarini, we gather that they had a
"sacred piece of work" sanctum quoddam negotium,
says Pole to do at Modena. This is explained, by an
Italian editor of Pole s Epistles, to be the suppression of
an insurrection in Modena, provoked by the doings of
the inquisitors there. Father Tommaso Maria did his best,
no doubt, and the civil authorities helped him according
to the measure of their zeal, or the extent of their ability ;
but it required an apostolic letter from Paul III. to induce
them to arrest one whom the Pope describes as the
leader of an insurrection against his inquisitor, to throw
him into prison, and to send his books and papers up to
Rome. (Gerdes. Spec. Ital. Reform, xxxvii.)
In Tuscany the secular arm was uplifted to inflict the
sentences of those keepers of the faith. Severe penalties
were enacted on the possessors of heretical books, as well
as on the printers ; and, after the usual searchings, arrests,
and processes, it was determined to edify the Tuscans by
an act of faith at Florence, resembling an Auto of Spain.
Twenty-two persons were therefore brought out in pro
cession, with the usual apparel of ignominious penance ;
and it is noted that among them was Bartolommeo
Panchiarichi, a gentleman who had served the duke as
ambassador at the court of France. They underwent
exhibition and reconciliation in the cathedral ; and a
15*
346 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
company of women, by way of giving diversity to the
inquisitorial triumph, appeared in like ceremonial, in the
church of St. Simone (A. D. 1556). But commercial
prosperity and the Inquisition could not exist on the same
ground. Florence was filled with terror and mistrust.
Foreigners, being suspected as innovators in religion, and
pursued with incessant vexations, ceased to frequent a
mart where familiars dogged their steps, and their ships
no longer gladdened the course of the Arno. The mer
chants were impoverished, the inhabitants emigrated,
artists and literary men shunned the halls of the Medici,
the more eminent Protestants sought refuge in Germany
and England, and the less instructed, left without a
shepherd, perished for lack of knowledge.
The desperate resistance of the Neapolitans to the at
tempted introduction of the Roman Inquisition into that
city in 1547, furnished a terrific episode in Italian history.
The viceroy endeavoured to compel the citizens to accept
the tribunal by military force. He marched a body of
three thousand Spanish soldiers into Naples to quell a
riot which his proclamation for the erection of the tribu
nal, as a branch of that recently enlarged in Rome, had
occasioned. The soldiers fought desperately: but the
people were infuriated ; and before the bells could ring
for evening prayer for the souls in purgatory, the last of
the three thousand had fallen, and their bodies, heaped
with those of a greater number of Italians, choked the
streets. This carnage was to testify at the same time to
the brutality of the inquisitors, and to the horror of the
so-called gentle and equitable and holy Roman Inquisi
tion entertained in Italy, where it was too well known to
be thought a shade less nefarious than that of Lisbon or
Valladolid.
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS. 347
By the indefatigable activity of the congregation,
headed by the Pope, who called on the civil power
throughout Italy to support the Inquisition, Lutheranism,
as they called it, rapidly died away, and Socinianism,
that had for some time been springing up, ate away
most of the vitality that remained. Philip II. of Spain
outran his predecessor, being yet swifter-footed to shed
blood ; and the chief men of the island, the very men
who twelve years before had driven away the inquisitor,
burnt his papers, and attacked his underlings, were now
charmed by privileges offered by the Spanish Nero, be
came themselves familiars and patrons of the renovated
institution, built prisons at their own expense, and salaried
the officers. Vain is the help of man ! Over violence
Romanism can always triumph by violence of its own,
combined with greater skill; but when Protestantism
degenerates into Socinianism, it becomes a spurious
Christianity, that may as well die as live.
A few good men, however, survived the wreck of
Protestantism in Italy, and were sacrificed by the In
quisition, one by one. We briefly mention some of
them.
On the Pope s demand, Fannio, a pious and learned
man, was hung at Ferrara, and then burnt. About the
same time (A. D. 1550), another, named Domenico,
suffered violent death at Piacenza, praying for his per
secutors. Galeazzo Treccio, after enduring imprisonment
and questioning, probably with torture, bore witness to
the truth as it is in Jesus, and was burnt alive in a town
of the Milanese (A. D. 1551). Giovanni di Montalcino,
an eminent man, once professor of metaphysics in the
University of Bologna, and a faithful expositor of the
New Testament, was burnt alive in Rome (A. D. 1553).
348 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
Francisco Gambia, of Brescia, for having joined in an
act of evangelical communion at Geneva, was taken,
when crossing the Lake of Como on his way homeward,
condemned by the inquisitors of Como, strangled, and
then beheaded, and his body burnt (A. D. 1554). Pom-
ponio Algieri, of Capua, a devout Christian, became
known in the academy of Padua, was arrested and im
prisoned in Venice ; but, not being a Venetian, was given
up to the cardinal-inquisitors, and burnt alive at Rome
for their entertainment and that of Paul IV. (A. D. 1555.)
Varaglia, a capuchin friar, inquisitor, and son of an in
quisitor, one who had signalized himself in persecuting
and killing Waldenses, while striving to make himself
master of the controversy between Rome and the Re
formed Churches, was converted to the truth and service
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and soon fell into the hands of
his former brethren, who burnt him in Turin (A. D. 155*7).
Luigi Pascal, an itinerant preacher among the scattered
Christians of Calabria, was taken to Rome, condemned
by their eminences, and burnt outside the castle of St.
Angelo, in their presence, the Pope presiding at the
ceremony, (A. D. 1560.) From time to time inquisitorial
spies, at Venice, detected members of the secret societies
of worshippers in that city, whom the Inquisition con
demned in course. The usual mode of execution there
was by drowning in the sea. Gerdes collects the names
of four whom they drowned.*
I cannot fully sketch the history of Pietro Carnesecchi,\
one of the most illustrious victims of the Roman Inquisi-
Giovanni Guirlanda, Antonio Ricetto, Francesco Sega,
Francesco Spinola. From 1562 to 1567.
f But may refer my readers to the " Martyrs of the Refor
mation, p. 498.
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS. 349
tion, but borrow a few details from an Italian, who,
knowing nothing of his religion, cannot be supposed to
misrepresent the circumstances of his persecution and
death. " The ecclesiastical tribunal, that is, the Inquisi
tion," says Botta, (Storia d ltalia, libro xii,) " also kept a
strict eye on those scandalous practices," (of treating
popish ceremonies with disrespect, which it is most un
likely that many persons would have dared to do in such
times,) " and thundered processes now on one, and again
on another. The friar who was intrusted with the busi
ness, not content with receiving information brought him
by persons actuated with sincere zeal for religion, or with
malignant revenge, or with cupidity, went about or sent
others to do the same interrogating simple and ignorant
people concerning doctrines of religion ; and if any one,
perhaps not knowing what he said, answered unsoundly,
he forthwith proceeded against him as one suspected."
(And in all the inquisitor only followed his instruc
tions.)
" This came to pass, not only in Tuscany, but in all
parts of Italy. Yet, as the princes wished their deputies
to assist at the processes of the Inquisition, and Cosimo"
(Duke of Tuscany) "had ordered that the nuncio should
give him an account of them, and that the sentences
should not be executed without his "consent, the Pope
thought that the tribunal, thus bridled, would not be a
sufficient check upon the innovators, and resolved to take
another method for the attainment of his end. To strike
at the chiefs, in order to terrify their followers, and to
draw them from foreign countries to the Inquisition at
Rome, seemed the measure most conducive to that end.
The lordship of Venice readily gave up into his power
Giulio Zanetti, who had fled to Padua when under an
350 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
accusation of heresy. The republic excused itself, for an
act that was not unlike brutality, by alleging that Zanetti
was born at Fano, and was therefore a subject of the
Pope. Through almost all the dominions of Italy he
sought after such persons, to the alarm of the people,
who broke out into riot in some places, as at Mantua, for
example. The princes seconded the will of Pius V.,
some to seem religious, some through fear of the Pope,
and some, after hearing of events in Germany, from fear
that reform of religion would bring rebellion into the
state.
" Among the principal persons infected was Pietro
Carnesecchi, whose case affords fearful proof that either
one should not vary from general belief, or should flee
to some place where it is not professed. He showed,
also, by his mournful end, how vain, in such cases, is the
friendship of princes, and how uncertain a protection
from the thunders of the Vatican." Carnesecchi is de
scribed as a person of high family and great learning.
He had been protonotary at Rome under the reign of
Clement VII., but was also a friend of many of the most
eminent of the reformed. On this account he had been
once in the hands of the Inquisition ; but the Duke of
Florence managed to get him released. Then he went
to France, and held correspondence with the chiefs of the
reform there. Paul IV. cited him to appear at Rome :
but he came not, and was therefore considered contuma
cious ; and his contumacy soon became undoubted when
he wrote againt the papacy. Trusting, however, in the
friendship of Cosimo, Duke of Florence, he ventured to visit
him ; but Pio V. commanded the duke to surrender his
guest. The Tuscan would have thought himself bound,
as he said, to give up even his own child to the Pope, if
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS. 351
he were demanded ; and, without a blush, he saw Car-
nesecchi arrested, when sitting at his table, and carried
away by force to Rome.
"On the 26th of August, 1567, he was sentenced to
death, having been convicted of thirty-four condemned
opinions. The sentence was publicly read to him on the
21st of the month following. Having consigned him to
the secular arm, they put on him the sambenito, painted
with flames and devils. At that last stage, Cosimo did
not despair of moving the pontiff to compassion. Pius
suspended the execution of the sentence for ten days,
promising grace if the condemned would renounce the
heretical opinions, and return to the Catholic faith. He
also sent a capuchin to exhort him : but that was in
vain ; for, so far was he from being converted, that he
wished, by disputation, to convert the capuchin, and he
despised death. He was beheaded, and then burnt. To
the last he bore the terrible preparation, and the aspect
of death itself, with singular constancy. He even chose
to walk to the scaffold, as if in pomp, wearing fine linen,
and new and elegant gloves, since the sambenito did not
allow the use of other garments. The ecclesiastical
writers, and especially Baronius, (he means Laderchius,
a continuator of Baronius,) find fault with one who wrote
that Carnesecchi was burnt alive; and even affirm that
the Roman Inquisition never inflicted such a cruel punish
ment, which was true, at least, in the case of Carne
secchi. They will have it that the holy office, before
burning heretics, caused them to be beheaded or hung ;
but certainly the sambenito was burnt before the death
of the condemned ; and while that was burning, they
took off his head, or hanged him. The reader may
judge what amount of pity and moderation that was,
352 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
and whether the Inquisition has reason to boast of it.
These are terrible passages of history.
"Great terror, great consternation, followed this
tragedy of Carnesecchi, not only in Tuscany, but in all
Italy. Every one feared for himself, for his parents, for
his friends. Pleasant and confidential conversation was
banished, even from the most secret colloquies of families."
And the terror of such executions extended beyond
Italy. In the year preceding, an Englishman, named
Thomas Reynolds, resident or visiting at Naples, had
been accused to the bishop, together with three Neapoli
tan gentlemen; and Rome being now the inquisitorial
centre of the world, the bishop sent them all thither.
The cardinals threw the Englishman into prison, and
laid him on the rack. From torture, and other sufferings
in prison, he died in the month of November. (Strype,
Annals of the Reformation, chap, xlviii.)
The name of Aonio Paleario is again familiar to us in
England. That great and good man, after many years
of persecution, driven from place to place, was teaching
Greek and Latin at Milan. The writings by which we
know him are of posthumous publication, and had not
been seen by the inquisitors. They condemned him to
be hung, and his body burnt, on account only of the
following opinions : 1. That there is no purgatory.
2. That the burial of the dead in churches was injurious to
public health. 3. That Monachism was of pagan origin.
4. "That, as it appeared, he attributed justification to
faith alone in the mercy of God, who pardons our sins
through Christ." For this he suffered in " the metropolis
of Christendom," at the age of seventy, -October 5th,
1568. (Aonii Palearii Epistolae. Laderchius, A. D. 1568.)
The majority of my readers would not thank me for
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS. 353
pursuing the series of papal ordinances for the Inquisi
tion in Italy. I therefore refrain from noticing much
that lies before me, and merely observe that the congre
gation of cardinals, from the year 1542 onwards, issued
in the name of the popes a multitude of regulations,
either new or else reiterated, all tending to bring the
secular clergy, the regulars, the civil powers, the people,
and the press, into utter subjection to themselves.
Paul IV., to the latest hour of his life, displayed an
inordinate zeal in the cause of the Inquisition. On that
alone, he said, rested his hopes for the continued existence
of the Church ; and he exhorted the cardinals who stood
around his bed to give it their chief and unremitted care.
As soon as he was known to be dead, the inhabitants of
Rome, as usual at such times, but then with an extraor
dinary and resistless vehemence, rejoiced at his departure.
The common prisons of the city were opened, according
to an ancient custom ; but the new prison of the Inqui
sition was kept strictly shut. Thither the people ran,
forced the gates, released the prisoners, and set the build
ing on fire. With great difficulty they were prevented
from treating the Dominican convent delta Minerva in
the same manner, and from taking vengeance on the
monks, who, beyond all other orders, were devoted to
the service of the Inquisition. The crowd moved towards
the capitol, broke down a fine statue of the defunct pon
tiff, knocked off its head, and rolled it through the
streets during three days, when they dropped the un-
visaged boulder into the Tiber. They would have treated
the body of Paul in a similar manner, but it was hastily
hidden in a vault. The commissary of the Inquisition
was wounded, and his house burnt. The arms of the
Caraffe it was Cardinal Caraffa who advised Paul III.
354 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
to create the congregation of the Inquisition were
everywhere torn down (A. D. 1559). But popular tem
pests lull almost as quickly as they rise, and the cardinals
resumed their legal station without any effectual hinder-
ance. They learnt, however, that the buildings of the
holy office were not sufficiently substantial ; and, in due
time, the princes of the faith fortified themselves within
a more solid edifice.
The indignation of the Romans could scarcely have
risen so high, if the Inquisition had not perpetrated
many deeds of cruelty. I could cite Protestant authori
ties to show that, in the year 1568, some were every day
burnt, hanged, or beheaded ; that the prisons overflowed,
and new ones were in course of erection. The character
of Pius V., the persecution then raging throughout
Europe, every glimpse that the historian can catch of the
history of the Italian Inquisition, confirms the probability.
But I am willing to sacrifice effect to the self-imposed
condition of drawing my history out of materials found
within the Church of Rome herself. And if, by any
oversight, other witnesses are introduced, let their testi
mony, however accurate, be set aside. We can do with
out them. New prisons, and a better-defended establish
ment, were certainly thought necessary ; and the present
palace of the Roman Inquisition, erected by Pius V.,
bears an inscription to attest the year of its foundation,
1569.
ITALYINQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS. 355
CHAPTER XXVI.
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS (CONCLUDED).
" BLESSED father," said Baronius to Paul V., " the minis
try of Peter is twofold to feed, and to kill. For the
Lord said to him, 4 Feed my sheep ; and he also heard
a voice from heaven, saying, Kill and eat. To feed
sheep is to take care of obedient, faithful Christians, who,
in meekness, humility, and piety, show themselves to be
sheep and lambs. But when he has no longer to do
with sheep and lambs, but with lions and other wild, re
fractory, and troublesome beasts, Peter is commanded to
kill them, that is to say, to attack, fight, and slaughter
them, until there be none such left."* This notion of
killing was not peculiar to Baronius. Pius V. acted up
to it thoroughly ; and, among many butcher-like doings,
confirmed all the privileges and graces granted to crusad
ers of both sexes, by two Innocents, one Leo, one Julius,
one Clement, and other of his predecessors, constituted
them a distinct society, for the purpose of helping in
quisitors whenever necessary, and bade them do so with
out the least scruple or limitation as to means (A. D.
1570). There is reason to believe that the Bartholomew
massacre was contrived about this time, partly at Rome,
during a visit of the Cardinal of Lorraine, and partly by
the instigation of the inquisitors at Madrid. It is not
surprising, therefore, that when intelligence of that crime
reached the various courts of Europe, it should have been
Sententia Baronii Card, super excommunicatione Vene-
tiarum, apud " Controversies Memorabilia inter Paul V. et
Venetos," &c. In Villa Sanvincentiana. 1608.
356 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
celebrated by those of Pius V., his familiars, Cosimo of
Tuscany and Philip II., with public rejoicings and Te
Deums, whereas it awakened horror in all others.
Of the Maltese Inquisition there is little to be noted,
except that when Charles V. gave Malta to the Knights
of St. John of Jerusalem in 1522, there was no Inquisi
tion established in Sicily, of which island Malta had been
a dependency, and therefore the Inquisition is not men
tioned in the charter; but the grand-master of Malta
was required to send traitors and heretics to the viceroy
of Sicily, and the see of Malta was also to continue in
relation to the parent state. But after the tribunal was
established at Palermo, the inquisitors required heretics,
detected in Malta, to be sent to them for punishment.
The grand-master, La Cassiera, resisted this demand,
and quarrels between the order of St. John and the holy
office became frequent and long-continued. This, how
ever, gave the court of Rome occasion to extend their
inquisitorial jurisdiction into Malta, so far, at least, as the
jealousy of the masters, and the resistance of the people,
would allow (A.D. 1574).*
The diocese of Milan, bounding on the territories of
reformed Switzerland, was kept under the searching
vigilance of the congregation, of which the acts of a pro
vincial Synod in the year 1582 are evidence. For the
" preservation of the faith," that Synod commanded the
inhabitants of the province of Milan, 1. To shun com
merce with heretics ; 2. And declared it desirable that
no person should be admitted into their country who
came from lands infected with heresy ; or, 3. If that
could not be prevented, that no one should be allowed to
Vertot, Histoire de 1 Ordre de Malthe, liv. xiv. Malta
Illustrata, lib. ii, not. 14.
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS. 357
lodge in a private house, but confined to an inn, or to
the house of his agent, if he had one. 4. If any such
came into the diocese, "whoever received him should
give immediate notice of his arrival and of his habita
tion to the bishop, the inquisitor, or the parish priest.
But no ecclesiastical person whatever should receive him
into his house." 5. The stranger was not to enter a
church, except at sermon-time. 6. No one was to send his
son into a country of heretics, not even for instruction in
commerce, while under twenty-five years of age. 7. Nor
was any one to go thither without license obtained from
his bishop or the inquisitor. 8. A license only to be ob
tained by recommendation of the parish priest. 9. Nor
even reside in the neighbourhood of heretics without
license; nor, 10. Sell an estate in order to remove to an
infected country. 11. Under peril of being proceeded
against according to the canons. And after these regu
lations were added others for the government of printers
and booksellers, and the extirpation of Jewish blasphemy
and perfidy. The Swiss, on the other hand, were on the
alert to prevent encroachments on their .cantons ; and on
one occasion the Cardinal Borromeo, itinerating in the
cause of the Inquisition, very narrowly escaped imprison
ment, and had to make speed back to Rome again. (Fra
Paolo, Inquis. Venice, chap, i.)
At Rome the cardinals were absolute, and, in revenge
for being unable to exercise authority in England, cruelly
persecuted English heretics, throwing some into prison,
and sending others to the galleys. (Strype, Annals, chap,
xvi.) Gregory XIIL, while suffering the Jews to dwell
at Rome, for the sake of revenue, compelled them to
attend at sermons delivered against Jewish perfidy ; (Con-
stitutio, Aug. 29, 1584;) and Xystus V. made an on-
358 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
slaught on astrologers, (Jan. 5, 1585,) whose art had for
many centuries been of great authority with both clergy
and laity in Italy.
Passing over entirely the controversy between Rome
and Venice, in which the Inquisition did not fail to take
part, by persecuting those who maintained the indepen
dence of that state, especially Fra Paolo Sarpi, theologian
of the senate, whom they censured, and who, wounded
at the altar by hired assassins, exclaimed, Agnosco stylum
JRomanum, " I know the Roman style," and narrowly
escaped death, I proceed to notice an important docu
mentary evidence of the control exercised by the congre
gation of cardinals over all the Inquisitions of Italy, in
pursuance of the design of its appointment.
In the year 1588, Xystus V. had instituted fifteen
congregations at Rome, placing that of the Inquisition
first, as being most important, and enlarged the number
of cardinals to twelve, he being their prefect, or inquisi
tor-general of Christendom ; and the officer who would
have been called chief-inquisitor in any other city, was
there known only as his " commissary." Bearing date of
1608, twenty years after this enlargement, a manual was
published, probably one of many similar, containing
" Brief Instructions in the manner of treating causes of
O
the Holy Office, for the Very Reverend Vicars of the
Holy Inquisition, appointed in the Dioceses of Modona"
(Modena), "Carpi, Nonantola, and the Garfagnana."
It was printed at Modena, and bears the signature of
F. Michel Angelo Lerri, inquisitor of Modena. The
manual is very brief, and looks insignificantly small, if
compared with the folio of Eymeric and Pegna, to which
it refers as the standard authority. It is in Italian, for
the benefit of the very reverend vicars, to whom Latin
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS. 359
might not have been intelligible ; and repeats the direc
tions which I have corapendiated at greater length in
preceding chapters. Lerri exhorts his vicars to encourage
the denouncers of heretics to persevere, heedless of the
reproach of being " spies of the holy office," because they
would not be discovered, or if by any means they were
detected, they ought not to fear the name, since, in time
of plague, men would do anything to stay the contagion,
regardless of consequences ; and for what they do now,
in zeal for the Lord, they should be rewarded in heaven.
With extreme earnestness he enforces the usual injunc
tions on all concerned to observe the most profound
secrecy, and instructs the notary how to disguise, or
falsify, the summaries of evidence, that the prisoners may
not have the slightest clue for conjecturing who has tes
tified against them. As to the methods of self-accusa
tion he is explicit enough, so far as he goes, but stays at
the point where torture would be mentioned, as if he
wished it to be employed sparingly by the subalterns,
arid rather inflicted under his own eye. " Many other
things," he writes, " have to be observed concerning the
defences of the criminal ; but as it is our intention that
the cases shall be despatched in the holy office of this
city, and that when they reach this stage, and defences
have to be made, processes ended, and sentence given,
the criminals be in prison here, we add no more." And,
in every case, he reserves to himself the ultimate decision
on their reports.
Among the general directions to the vicars, is one to
publish, or cause to be published, the general edict of the
holy office three times every year in all places subject to
his jurisdiction, on Corpus-Christi day, on the first
Sunday in Advent, and on the first in Lent. They are
360 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
to send him monthly reports of all their proceedings,
omitting no particular, however minute. They are " ad
monished that, when they have received any information,
or formed any process, they are not to speak of it, nor
make the slightest allusion to it, to any one except the
notary concerned. If any one comes to ask a question
concerning the holy office, they are to rebut the question,
and reprove the inquirer, telling him that the affairs of
the holy office cannot be disclosed to any one, and
always affirming that they know nothing about it.
Above all, they are not to allow it to be known who has
given information, or borne witness, or they will be
severely punished for divulging what is to be concealed,
and of this they must warn their notaries ; and if any
one comes to ask favour for any criminal, they are to
answer him vaguely, that his case will be disposed of as
early as possible, and such mercy as the holy office is
wont to use will be shown him. And if any person
writes letters on behalf of any criminal, they shall, on
no account, answer them, except after express permis
sion had from their lord, Pope Paul V." That is to say,
they are to make inquisition on others, but no one is to
make it on them.
Clement VIII., be it observed, had said that the
judges and officers of the Inquisition were not to do
everything gratuitously, and Inquisitor Lerri said some
thing of the same kind. But he appended to this
manual, for the government of his vicars, the table of
fees which appears literally translated at the foot of
page 361. In the manual it comes under the head of
" Instructions from the Congregation at Rome." For pay
ment, he informed them, lands were not to be seized, but
the amount of charges might be levied on fruits and
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS. 361
rents.* For being torn from the bosom of his family, for
each act of malignant accusation, for every stage of suffer
ing, for imprisonment, for torture, and even for being car
ried to the stake, the victim was to pay ! Ruffians and
tormentors were to be bribed at his own cost, to murder
him by piece-meal, and then to keep the secret. Who can
wonder, after this, at assassinations done, in Italy, for hire ?
The perusal of this, as of all documents relating to
the Inquisition, and of incidental allusions to it, occurring
in other writings, leaves the impression that it was very
active, and meddled with all the affairs of political, do-
To the Notary.
For making out the summary scudo 1. of gold.
And, if the process be long, the labour shall be
considered.
For [copying] each page of the summary... bol. 4.
For each letter bol. 3.
For any citation of witnesses bol. 2.
For the citation of the criminal bol. 3.
For the decree of defence bol. 2.
For each witness in defence bol. 6.
For any kind of security bol. 20.
For every page of the copy of the process. ..bol. 4.
And when a copy of the process itself is not given
(to the criminal), for every page of the saifl
process bol. 2.
For every page of the copy of the defensive
process bol. 5.
For the decree of torture bol. 2.
For the torture bol. 10.
For the citation to the sentence bol. 4.
For the sentence scudo 1. of gold.
For the copy of the sentence bol. 20.
For the relaxation (delivery to the stake) ...bol. 10.
For the congregation bol. 10.
For the visit to the house of the criminal... bol. 26.
16
362 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
mestic, and social life. But it is also certain, that
popular and tumultuary resistance had given place to
another kind of reaction, and that the acts and preten
sions of inquisitors were canvassed in relation to the con
troversy between the secular and ecclesiastical powers
a controversy which contributes abundantly to the history
of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Paul V. had excommunicated the Venetians (April
17th, 1606), and, notwithstanding a superficial reconcili
ation, the disagreement between Rome and Venice, real
but latent, was revived ; when the senate, complying with
a request of the English ambassador, opened the prison
To the Signor Fiscal.
For any witness, at instance of the criminal bol. ] 2.
For the torture bol. 20.
For the congregation bol. 20.
For the visit to the house bol. 40.
For the sentence scudo 1. of gold.
To the Serjeants.
For the capture of the criminal in the city... scudo 1. of gold.
When this takes place out of town, regard must
be had to the distance.
For the torture bol. 40.
For the visit to the house bol. 20.
For accompanying the criminal to the sen
tence bol. 40.
And for this regard shall be had to their trouble
and danger.
As for the jailer, that is left to the discretion of the inquis
itor, and in the said list of fees (tassa} there is not any men
tion made of it. That the inquisitors, or vicars, for the
future, may not apply pecuniary penalties for the benefit of the
holy office, or of any other places, without first giving a state
ment of the same to the sacred congregation of Home. And
this is by order of the said congregation.
And let this suffice for tho present, &e.
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS. 363
of the Inquisition in their city, without a word of pre
vious notice or demand, either to the inquisitor or the nun
cio, and released Lodovico Castelvetro, a very learned
man who lay there condemned for heresy, and doomed
to perpetual imprisonment, if not to fire (A. D. 1612).
lie had translated into Italian a work of a German her-
esiarch.* Such a direct attack on the tribunal had never
been made before at Venice ; and it showed that, thence
forth, the Doge was resolved to be chief-inquisitor in the
State of St. Mark, leaving the Pope to exercise a similar
prerogative elsewhere, so long as his power over states
and princes might continue.
The case of Galileo is too notorious to be passed over
without notice. Urban VIIL, by the fires he kindled in
the squares of Milan, was already the terror of Italy ;
and public dread was by no means diminished when
men saw that the Inquisition not only meddled with re
ligious opinions, but extended its vigilance into the do
main of natural science. At Florence, still a great city,
in spite of the persecution that spoiled its commerce,
Galileo Galilei taught mathematics, under the patronage
of the grand duke. During many years he had endeav
oured, both from the professional chair and by the press,
to prove that the earth revolves around the sun,, and not
the sun around the earth. The friars declared his theory
to be absurd, false, and heretical. The holy office caught
this rumour of heresy, and the congregation of cardinals
at Rome, by command of the Pope, required their con-
suiters to report on the writings of Galileo. Their
sentence was condemnatory, of course ; and Galileo was
Botta, lib. xvi. The liberation of captives from other
Italian inquisitions by civic authority or military power be
came, at this time, not unfrcfjuent.
364 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
summoned to Rome, there to receive the censure or en
dure the consequence. He went. Cardinal Bellarmino
called him into his presence, and commanded him to
abandon the suspected " doctrine" under pain of impris
onment, and never more to teach it by word or by writ
ing. He promised, and the sacred congregation seemed
to be satisfied. But Galileo could not keep his promise.
He applied himself to the composition of a dialogue
between three persons ; one in doubt, a second addicted to
the Ptolemaic system, and a third believing in the Co-
pernican. He trusted that by venturing an hypothesis
rather than propounding a theory, he might escape the
charge of dogmatizing. The interlocutors merely in
clined to the speculations of Copernicus ; and the
author feared not to present himself at Rome, and ask
licence of the master of the sacred palace to print the
dialogues. And, by special intercession of the Grand
Duke of Tuscany, he obtained it.
But no sooner did his book see the light, than the
monkhood was in an uproar, and the congregation were
on the point of condemning the master as a heretic for
having given the licence. To Urban they pointed out
that the Tuscan philosopher had caricatured the Pope
himself in the person of "Simplicius" the Peripatetic;
and his holiness kindled into wrath against the insolent
contemner of the apostolic chair. Galileo was then
summoned to present himself before the holy office in
Rome, within the month of October, 1632. Thither he
prepared to go, poor, old, sickly, and appalled with re
collection of the fate of Carneseochi ; but, overwhelmed
with fear, he fell sick, and appeared to be on the point
of death. Nicolini, ambassador of the grand duke, in
terceded earnestly with the Pope for a prorogation of the
ITALY INQUISITION OF THE CARDINALS. 365
cause, and physicians certified that he was unable to
travel from Florence to Rome. The cardinals treated the
certificates as untrue, and insisted on his appearance.
The grand duke, Ferdinand, being reminded of the per
fidy of Cosimo I. towards Carnesecchi, at first refused to
give him up ; but the grand duchess, Christina, ruled by
priests, implored her husband to gratify the Church by
surrendering the heretic. The rest is soon told. Galileo
was dragged away to Rome (A. D. 1633), where the
congregation of the holy office declared him strongly
suspected of heresy, prohibited his books, and condemn
ed him to prison and to penance. The great astronomer
knelt down,* and renounced his " errors," swearing on
the holy Gospels; and the congregation graciously re
laxed their severity by confining him to a monastery in
stead of a dungeon, and eventually permitting him to
sojourn in the houses of some of his friends, a prisoner
at large, until death withdrew him from their eye.
The Archduke Ferdinand II., who surrendered Galileo
to the cardinals, was a man of extreme and impudent
licentiousness, and a staunch friend of the inquisitors,
whose cruelties he promoted, and whose profligacy he
favoured. In his reign an incident occurred which adds
another line of deformity to the picture of society in
Florence, and contributes an illustration to our review of
the holy office. One Faustina Mainardi had formed a
school of girls, and Pandolfo Ricasoli, a canon, attended
it under the character of master. " Both he and she,
being persons of grossly dissolute habits, instead of
But it is related of him, that on rising from the pave
ment in the palace of Pius V., burning with shame and indig
nation, he stamped with his foot, and muttered, Eppur si
muove" But yet it moves."
366 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
teaching the children good conduct, taught them, and
practised with them, the most infamous obscenities.
This became known by the revelation of a confessor.
The Inquisition proceeded against them on the 21st of
November, 1641, in the refectory of the friars of Holy
Cross: a platform was erected, hung with black, like
one of the structures prepared for the celebration of a
funeral service. Galuzzi relates that there were present
at the ceremony the cardinal Carlo de Medici, the young
princes, all the priests of Florence, the nobility and other
persons of rank, as many as the place would hold. The
two culprits were on the platform, dressed in pazienze"
(as they call sambenitos in Italy,) " with devils and flames
embroidered, kneeling before the inquisitor, who sat in
magisterial state. A friar in the pulpit read the process
aloud, not hesitating nor blushing to relate minutely,
and in a loud voice, all the abominations confessed by
each of them, so much to the disgust of the audience,
for many young persons of both sexes were there, at
tracted by the unusual, or rather the usual, spectacle,
that most of them went away more scandalized at the
impudence of the friar than at the impurity of the de
linquents. Faustina and Pandolfo were not condemned
to the fire, but to die immured in prison ; and other ac
complices, to suffer punishments in proportion. The in
quisitor was reproved from Rome, not for having con
ducted himself so indecently, but for having awarded so
gentle a sentence." It does not appear that the inquisi
tor was either lenient or inactive, but that most of his
punishments were terribly severe, But for not burning
those two wretched persons, he was displaced by a fiercer
agent of the sacred congregation. (Botta, lib. xxvii.)
This single instance of inquisitorial lewdness must suf-
ITALY THE INQUISITION AS IT IS. 367
fice. To collect others would be easy indeed, but could
not be justified.
And here it may be said, in confidence that the asser
tion can be fully sustained, that so long as the Inquisi
tion could keep up its authority by terror, it never cared
for morals. True it is, indeed, that at one time it laid
some slight restraint on " solicitant confessors" in Spain ;
but the delinquents were handled very gently, and that
show of inquisitorial vigilance wa-s absolutely necessary
to save the credit of the Church. In reality, there was
a collusion between the inquisitors and their brethren of
the confessional, just to blind the public, and fling the
veil of discipline over a flagrant scandal.
CHAPTER XXVII.
ITALY THE INQUISITION AS IT IS.
As cultivation advances, wolves diminish. But there is
a district still uncultivated, a region still impervious to
that which elsewhere ameliorates the condition of man
kind ; and intolerance, like the deadly exhalation of the
Pontine Marshes, there overspreads the land. The
Tibrine wolf yet lingers in its ancient haunts. Humanity
and mercy find entrance everywhere else; but at Rome,
while there are laws for the government of common
prisons worthy of admiration for humanity, those laws
do not extend to the cells of the holy office, which are
under a distinct and awfully secret administration.
A careful examination of inquisitorial proceedings
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries would
368 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
show, as we have already intimated, that the Venetian
controversy, with the struggle between the court of Rome
and the king and clergy in France, and the influence of
Protestantism, even in popish countries, had weakened
the agency and contracted the operations of the holy
office. Castelvetro, as we have seen, was released from
the Inquisition in Venice, on the demand of the repre
sentative of England; and in the year 1662, two de
voted Quakeresses, true Christian heroines, were brought
safely to England in a British ship-of-war, after four
years imprisonment in Malta. The inquisitor there
seems to have had the use of cells in a common prison
in Valletta, where heretics, so called, were incarcerated.
The Quakeresses, Catherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers,
were thrown into a dark and close dungeon there, where
they must soon have perished, if a physician had not
certified that it was impossible for them to live in such a
place much longer. Their skin became dry as parch
ment, and the hair fell from their heads, in consequence
of extreme heat; while the stench, with stinging of
mosquitoes, and an exhausted atmosphere, induced as try
ing a torture as if they had been racked. Through all
this suffering they endured as seeing Him who is invisi
ble, and never ceased to commune with God in prayer,
and to preach Christ to their inexorable tormentors. If
they had been taken in Italy, instead of Malta, it is not
likely that they would have escaped with life ; but the
grand masters generally restrained the ecclesiastical au
thorities, in jealousy of all that might derogate from
their own sovereignty in the island.
The escape of Archibald Bower from Macerata, in
1726, is marked by writers on the Inquisition as an in
teresting event ; but there are some details in his ac-
ITALY THE INQUISITION AS IT IS. 369
count of the constitution and proceedings of the tribunal
there which seem to require confirmation. That the
Inquisition was active at that time, and that torture and
death were frequently inflicted, is notorious ; but the
statements of Mr. Bower, however accurate, add nothing
essential to our knowledge of its customs.
Universal dissatisfaction with the absolutism of the
continental governments encouraged the spread of se
cret societies, which were spoken of under the general
designation of masonic lodges, and which appear to
have been, in reality, political clubs. The Inquisition
undertook to disperse those lodges; and some of the
" brethren" who suffered persecution in Spain and Portu
gal, favoured the world with narratives of their experi
ence in the audience-chambers and the cells. The fact
that the Inquisition took cognizance of them tends to
confirm our persuasion that it is, chiefly, a political insti
tution, carrying on its operations under pretence of a
spiritual reason, and speaking in the dialect of religion.
Freemasonry entered Italy, it is said, at Florence, and
there, as in other countries, it was prohibited by the
government. But the institution described on these
pages is a society secret above all others ; and Clement
XII., unwilling, of course, that two secret societies should
exist side by side, in any part of popedom, published a
condemnatory bull (A. D. 1738), and in the year fol
lowing the cardinal vicar of Rome issued an edict, de
nouncing the penalty of death on all freemasons de
tected within the papal state. Such an edict could
scarcely have been committed for execution to the in
quisitors without causing many to perish at their hands.
Neither could a new society ramified throughout
Europe, everywhere professing to be constituted for pur-
370 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
poses of mutual benevolence, and sometimes numbering
with its members persons of high station, who sought
admission for the sake of becoming privy to proceedings
that could not otherwise be known, and perhaps of pre
venting conspiracies against themselves fail to acquire
considerable influence. And such a confederation could
not be assailed with great severity without bringing
upon the persecutors a return of hatred and revenge.
Control of religion, science, and politics besides, was
now attempted by the holy office, an attempt which
quickly verified the truth of an Italian proverb, that il
soverchio rompe il coperchio aiming to compass too
much, you lose all. And all was quickly lost, except in
the Roman state. Suppressions of Inquisitions rapidly
succeeded one another. The inquisitors had plunged
into a stream of political partisanship, which, swelling
into a torrent, eventually swept them from their footing 1
in every country beyond the territory of the Church.
The Empress Maria Theresa, in common with other
sovereigns, abolished many dangerous ecclesiastical privi
leges, and in Milan she required the archbishop and the
inquisitor to refrain from vexatious prohibition of books.
She saw that it was no less absurd than troublesome ;
that good books were suppressed, while demoralizing
and otherwise hurtful publications were allowed free cir
culation; and she desired that the holy office should
cease from prohibitory censure. Archbishop arid inquisi
tor failing to satisfy so reasonable a desire, her majesty
took the reins into her own hand, and commanded that
the censorship of books should thenceforth be exercised
by the magistrates alone. About the same time (Feb
ruary 21st, 1769), the Duke of Parma published a de
cree, lamenting that an alien tribunal, administered by
ITALY THE INQUISITION A3 IT IS. 37 1
foreigners and monks, under the title of " Inquisition of
the Holy Office," had been introduced into that state;
declared that it belonged to him alone, as protector of
religion and the Church, to provide for the conservation
of sound doctrines ; and ordained that, on the death of
the inquisitor of Parma, causes of faith should be brought
to the bishops for decision, none other presuming to in
terfere therewith. But he promised to afford the bishops
the aid of the secular arm when it became necessary to
inflict capital punishment on heretics, and, on the death
of the inquisitor, declared the inmates of the dungeons
to be his own prisoners, subject to the ducal jurisdiction.
Similar measures were taken in Tuscany by the Grand
Duke Pietro Leopoldo, and his ministers. The Tuscan
Inquisition was eminently hateful on account of iniquitous
imprisonments, atrocious cruelties, and a censorship no
longer to be suffered. Good and bad were alike the
victims, and judgment was given for the profit of the
court of Rome, rather than for the reformation of man
ners, or conservation of " the faith :" every one declared
it to be no longer tolerable. The regency, during the
minority of the grand duke, had appointed a civil dele
gate to examine books, without the intervention of an
inquisitor. And when the inquisitors proceeded to ex
ercise jurisdiction over " sinners against the holy office,"
they were commanded to admit two lay-assessors. Rome
complained of persecution, the name she always gives to
legal restraints. Florence answered by producing facts
in j ustification of those restraints. The inquisitor of Pisa,
they said, by way of example, had attempted to dis
honour a young female, whose father protected her
against his villany, and in revenge he had caused the
man to be flogged until he nearly died. Many other
372 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
enormities of the same kind had filled the city with dis
gust. They therefore began by depriving the inquisitors
of their sbirri, or familiars. They also abolished con
ventual prisons, or, in other terms, monastic Inquisitions.
(Botta, lib. xlvii.)
And it cannot be inopportune to observe in this place,
that in whatever coup try the secret monastic discipline
exists, an Inquisition is established there under another
name. On this point I say nothing, but leave a cele
brated Benedictine* to bear witness. Referring to a
work of Mabillon on " the Prisons of Religious Orders,"
he speaks thus : " God wills not the death of a sinner,
but rather that he should be converted and live. St.
Benedict, although he commanded delinquents to be re
strained by penalties, with excellent discretion, made no
mention of prisons in his sacred rule. Then who first
constructed prisons ? Matthew, a prior of St. Martin de
Campis, not a bad man in other respects, but one who
punished persons in error with extreme severity, and was
accustomed to thrust into the blackest dungeon those
whom he thought incorrigible. But as examples of that
kind are often of most fearful consequence, other abbots,
more inflamed with zeal than with charity, forthwith con
structed black, horrid, death-like, sickening, dark, narrow
holes, in which they shut up offending monks with such
inhuman severity, that Stephen, Archbishop of Toulouse,
through his vicar, complained to John, King of France,
of the horrible rigour that monks used on monks of end
ing gravely, shutting them up for life in a dark and
concealed prison, a punishment which they call VADE IN
PACE." (Go in peace !) " In consequence of which
many lose their reason, or die despairing of salvation.
Ziegelbauer, Hist. Rei Lit. Ord. S. Ben. pars iv, cap. iv, 8.
ITALY THE INQUISITION AS IT IS. 373
But more, and more distinctly, another time." We
cannot here enter into any disquisition on monastic dis
cipline, but must proceed.
Ferdinand VI., King of the Two Sicilies, abolished the
Sicilian Inquisition in the year 1782, declaring that it
had been ever hateful to the people, disobedient to the
sovereign, and hostile to the laws. His majesty marked
a confession of the inquisitor-general, that " the inviola
ble secret is the soul of the Inquisition ;" and, after
showing that it could no longer be suffered without
violation of reason and humanity, he decreed that it was
" forever abolished and extinguished" in that kingdom.*
We now come to Rome.
The reader will remember that Napoleon Bonaparte
dispersed the Spanish inquisitors on his approach towards
Madrid in 1808. The French troops entered Rome in
1809; and, whatever mischief they otherwise did, per
formed an act of humanity in demolishing, in part, at
least, the prisons of the Inquisition. And if, as people
fancied, the tribunal had fallen into disuse, or if it could
not be revived in this enlightened age, even under
shadow of the pontifical throne, they might have been
undeceived when another set of prisons, equally numerous
and substantial, rose under the direction of Leo XII. in
the year 1825. That erection gave evidence to the
world that pretensions to unlimited power, which had
been made during the interval on behalf of the court of
Rome, were not meant to be an empty boast. Those
pretensions, with heartiest concurrence of the papal
nuncio, and the majority of the Spanish prelates and
clergy, were put forth in open cortes at Cadiz, in 1813,
by many of the clerical members. They contended
Cited in the Discusion del Proyecto de Decreto, &c., p. 33.
374 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
that, " beyond all doubt, the pontifical authority sub
sisted entire in Spain," as in every other country, " so
that it could not be suspended, revoked, nor diminished
in the exercise of its functions, by the inhibition of any
other tribunal, without peril of committing notable con
tempt and scandalous transgression of the decrees and
regulations of the vicar of Jesus Christ, sacred head of
the Church militant."* They maintained that all authori
ties, civil and ecclesiastical, were bound to render " the
most submissive obedience to the apostolic precepts,"-
that is to say, the papal, and described certain demands
for the " prompt reintegration of the tribunal of the faith
in all its functions" as an evidence of their Catholicism.
" The apostolical precepts," be it noted, were to come
from Rome, or from the court of cardinals, wherever that
court might be able to assemble. Soon after these pre
tensions were made for them in Spain, their eminences
were reinstated at Rome ; and the restoration of the
prisons was the natural consequence of the resumption of
their functions by the congregation of the Inquisition.
A work, authenticated by the master of the sacred
palace, f lies before me, printed at Rome in 1824 ; and I
understand that it is still sufficiently exact to serve the
Roman clergy as a manual of ordinary information. It
contains an account of this congregation. Roman eccle
siastics assure me that it represents the present practice
of this particular branch of government, and it may now
be had to order in the Holy City.
The words of Don Francisco Riesco are here quoted.
f Relazione della Corte di Roma gia pubblicata del Cav.
Lunadoro, quindi ritoccata, accresciuta ed illustrata da Fr. An
tonio Zaccaria, ora nuovamenle corretta. Roma, MDCCCXXIV.,
nella Stamperia dc Romania, Con Liccnza di Sup.
ITALY THE INQUISITION AS IT IS. 375
After describing the original constitution of " the con
gregation of the sacred Inquisition," and stating the
number of cardinals to be twelve, unless the Pope shall
otherwise determine, our authority proceeds to say, that
"this congregation takes cognizance of all causes that
relate to those offences by which suspicion arises of a
false belief, as of heresy, heretical blasphemies, sortileges,
abuses of sacraments, and other like foul and wicked
maxims; and concerning those persons who maintain
fallacious dogmas, or divulge wicked instructions, and
bad writings. Hence it is wont to revoke to scrutiny
and examination ; it proscribes criminal books, and their
authors ; although that properly belongs to the congre
gation of the index, as we shall see in its place ; and,
finally, takes part in matrimonial dispensations, and
treats of all those matters that can in any way relate to
the faith, according to the standard of the many pon
tifical constitutions cited by the advocate Danielli in his
work under this title. And because the affairs which
have to be discussed in the said congregation are frequent
and infinite, it was holden three times every week, the
first on Monday, in the palace of the holy office, at which
assembled the consulters, the assessor, and the commis
sary ; the processes and the letters of the inquisitors in
partibus were read there, and opportune provisions were
made. On Wednesday, generally, the second congrega
tion is in the convent of St. Mary, commonly called the
Convent of the Minerva, where the cardinals attend, to
whom the resolutions taken on Monday by the consulters
are referred. And, lastly, the congregation assembles on
Thursday, the third time, in the apostolic palace,"
(either the Quirinal or Vatican,) " where the supreme
pontiff, as head, presides with the cardinals, and by him,
3*76 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
if there be nothing to the contrary, the decrees prepared
by the two congregations are confirmed, and there is
always decided there some particular case. Let us now
speak of the officers of this congregation.
"Besides the cardinals, who compose the above-said
congregation, there are other ordinary ministers who
manage this tribunal, exercising actual jurisdiction,
framing and examining the processes of criminals. There
is the inquisitor, called commissary of the holy office,
who is of the order of St. Dominic. He acts as ordinary
judge of the congregation. The assessor is an eminent
prelate and counsellor of this court, and renders, so to
speak, the same service in its business as does the com
missary ; for, indeed, just as many causes are submitted
to the judgment of the assessor, as there arise civil con
troversies in respect to the said tribunal; and, at one
time, the civil and criminal causes that related to per
sons empowered by letters patent of the said congrega
tion. It is his duty to report to the pontiff the resolutions
of the congregation.
" Various theologians and learned canonists, and also
members of the secular clergy, elected by the pontiff, and
called consulters of the holy office, also take part in the
affairs of the said congregation. Among the consulters,
the general of the Dominicans, the master of the sacred
palace, who is also of the same order, and a professed of
the order of Minors Conventuals of St. Francis, occupy a
fixed place. They attend in the congregations, and give
their votes. Sometimes the said congregation also com
mits affairs, books, or writings to be examined by some
theologian who is not included in the number of con-
suiters, and has not a place in the congregation, except
on that occasion, when he presents a report on the affairs
ITALY THE INQUISITION AS IT IS. 377
confided to him. Such a personage has the title of
qualifier (or reporter).
" Besides these, there is the depositary, who has care
of the revenues of this tribunal ; the advocate, who de
fends the causes of criminals ; the fiscal proctor, who
represents the accuser ; and the notary. And there was
also another subaltern minister, commonly called the
captain* All these are persons appointed to the service
of the tribunal."
The Roman Inquisition, therefore, is acknowledged to
have an infinite multitude of affairs constantly on hand,
which necessitates its assemblage thrice every week.
Still there are criminals, and criminal processes. The
body of officials are still maintained on established
revenues of the holy office. So far from any mitigation
of severity or judicial improvement in the spirit of its
administration, the criminal has now no choice of an
advocate ; but one person, and he a servant of the In
quisition, performs an idle ceremony, under the name of
advocacy, for the conviction of all. And let the reader,
remembering that he is an Englishman, mark that as
there are bishops in partibus, so, in like manner, there
are inquisitors of the same class appointed in every coun
try, and chiefly in Great Britain and the colonies, who,
sworn to secrecy,f of course, communicate intelligence
to this "sacred congregation" of all that can be con-
At Rome, a chief jailer enjoys the honourable title of
captain. In relation to these prisons we have hitherto intro
duced him to the reader under the Spanish, or Saracenic, title
of alcayde.
| Every bishop, as an inquisitor natus, swears to keep secret
every counsel intrusted to his confidence. The promise is in
terms most absolute : Nernini pandam. See the Pontificale
Romanum, Forma Juramenti Electi in Episcopum.
378 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
ceived capable of comprehension within the infinitude of
its affairs. We must, therefore, either believe that the
court of Rome is not in earnest, and that this apparatus
of universal jurisdiction is but a shadow, an assumption
which is contrary to all experience, or we must under
stand that the spies and familiars of the Inquisition are
listening at our doors, and intruding themselves on our
hearths. How they proceed, and what their brethren at
Rome are doing, events may tell ; but we may be sure
that they are not idle.
They were not idle in Rome in 1825, when they re
built the prisons of the Inquisition. They were not idle
in 1842, when they imprisoned Dr. Achilli, for heresy,
as he assures us ; nor was the captain, or some other of
the subalterns, who, acting in their name, took his watch
from him as he came out. They were not idle in 1843,
when they renewed the old edicts against the Jews, of
which Dr. Achilli gives us evidence in a decree issued by
Fr. Vincenzo Salva, inquisitor-general of the holy office of
Ancona, Sinigaglia, Jesi, Osimo, &c. And all the world
knows that the inquisitors on their stations throughout
the pontifical states, and the inquisitorial agents in Italy,
Germany, and eastern Europe, were never more active
than during the last four years, and even at this mo
ment, when every political misdemeanour that is deemed
offensive to the Pope, is, constructively, a " sin against
the Inquisition," and visited with punishment accordingly.
A deliberative body, holding formal sessions thrice every
week, cannot be idle. And although it may please them
to deny that Dr. Achilli saw and examined a black
book, containing the praxis now in use, the criminal
code of inquisitors in force at this day, as Archibald
Bower had an abstract of such a book given to him for
ITALY THE INQUISITION AS IT IS. 379
his use about one hundred and thirty years ago, they
cannot convince me that I have not seen and handled,
and used in the preparation of this volume, the compen
dium of an unpublished Roman code of inquisitorial
regulations, given to the vicars of the inquisitor-general
of Modena. They may be pleased to say that the mor-
dacchia, or gag, of which Dr. Achilli speaks, as men
tioned in that BLACK BOOK, is no longer used ; but that
it is mentioned there, and might be used again, is more
than credible to myself, after having seen that the
" sacred congregation" has fixed a rate of fees for the
ordering, witnessing, and administration of torture. There
was, indeed, a talk of abolishing torture at Rome ; but
we have reason to believe that the congregation will not
drop the mordacchia, inasmuch as, instead of notifying
any such reformation to the courts of Europe, this con
gregation has kept silence. For although a continuation
of the bullary has just been published at Rome, contain
ing several decrees of this congregation of the Inquisition,
there is not one that announces a fulfilment of that illu
sory promise, a promise imagined by a correspondent
to French newspapers, but never given by the inquisitors
themselves. And as there is no proof that they have yet
abstained from torture, there is a large amount of cir
cumstantial evidence that they have delighted themselves
in death. And why not? When public burnings be
came inexpedient, as at Goa, did they not make pro
vision for private executions ?
For a third time, at least, the Roman prisons I am
not speaking of those of the provinces were broken
open, in 1849, after the desertion of Pius IX., and two
prisoners were found there an aged bishop, and a nun.
Many persons then in Rome reported the event; but,
380 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
instead of copying what is already before the public, I
translate a letter addressed to myself by P. Alessandro
Gavazzi, late chaplain-general of the Roman army, in
reply to a few questions which I had put to him. All
who have heard his statements may judge whether his
account of facts be not marked with every note of accu
racy. They will believe that his power of oratory does
not betray him into random declamation. Under date
of "March 20th, 1852," he writes thus:
" MY DEAR SIR, In answering your questions con
cerning the palace of the Inquisition at Rome, I should
say that I can only give a few superficial and imperfect
notes. So short was the time that it remained open to
the public, so great the crowd of persons that pressed
to catch a sight of it, and so intense the horror inspired
by that accursed place, that I could not obtain a more
exact and particular impression.
" I found no instruments of torture ;* for they were
destroyed at the time of the first French invasion, and
The gag, the thumb-screw, and many other instruments of
severe torture, could easily be destroyed, and others as easily
procured. There is reason to believe that the most important
records were burnt as soon as the Dominicans apprehended that
the Roman people would, once more, make a forcible entrance
into the palace. The non-appearance of instruments is not
enough to sustain the current belief that the use of them is
discontinued. So long as there is a secret prison, and while
all the existing standards of inquisitorial practice make tor
ture an ordinary expedient for extorting information, not even
a bull, prohibiting torture, would be sufficient to convince the
world that it has been discontinued. The practice of false
hood is enjoined on inquisitors. How, then, could we believe
a bull, or a decree, if it were put forth to-morrow, to release
them from suspicion, or to screen them from obloquy? It
would not be entitled to belief.
ITALY THE INQUISITION AS IT IS. 381
because such instruments were not used afterwards by
the modern Inquisition. I did, however, find, in one of
the prisons of the second court, a furnace, and the re
mains of a woman s dress. I shall never be able to be
lieve that that furnace was used for the living, it not
being in such a place, or of such a kind, as to be of
service to them. Everything, on the contrary, combines
to persuade me that it was made use of for horrible
deaths, and to consume the remains of the victims of in
quisitorial executions. Another object of horror I found
between the great hall of judgment and the luxurious
apartment of the chief jailer (primo custode), the Do
minican friar who presides over this diabolical establish
ment. This was a deep trap, a shaft opening into the
vaults under the Inquisition. As soon as the so-called
criminal had confessed his offence, the second keeper,
who is always a Dominican friar, sent him to the father
commissary to receive a relaxation* of his punishment.
With hope of pardon, the confessed culprit would go
towards the apartment of the holy inquisitor ; but in the
act of setting foot at its entrance, the trap opened, and
the world of the living heard no more of him. I ex
amined some of the earth found in the pit below this
trap: it was a compost of common earth, rottenness,
ashes, and human hair, fetid to the smell, and horrible
to the sight and to the thought of the beholder.
" But where popular fury reached its highest pitch,
was in the vaults of Saint Pius V. I am anxious that
In Spain, relaxation is delivery to death. In the estab
lished style of the Inquisition it has the same meaning. But
in the common language of Rome it means release. In the lips
of the inquisitor, therefore, if he used the word, it has one
meaning, and another to the ear of the prisoner.
382 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
you should note well that this pope was canonized by
the Roman Church especially for his zeal against here
tics. I will now describe to you the manner how, and
the place where, those vicars of Jesus Christ handled the
living members of Jesus Christ, and show you how they
proceeded for their healing. You descend into the vaults
by very narrow stairs. A narrow corridor leads you to the
several cells, which, for smallness and for stench, are a
hundred times more horrible than the dens of lions and
tigers in the Colosseum. Wandering in this labyrinth
of most fearful prisons, that may be called graves for
the living, I came to a cell full of skeletons without
skulls, buried in lime ; and the skulls, detached from the
bodies, had been collected in a hamper by the first visi
tors. Whose were those skeletons ? and why were they
buried in that place, and in that manner ? I have heard
some popish ecclesiastics, trying to defend the Inquisition
from the charge of having condemned its victims to a
secret death, say that the palace of the Inquisition was
built on a burial-ground belonging, anciently, to a hospi
tal for pilgrims, and that the skeletons found were none
other than those of pilgrims who had died in that hospi
tal. But everything contradicts this papistical defence.
Suppose that there had been a cemetery there, it could
not have had subterranean galleries and cells, laid
out with so great regularity ; and even if there had been
such, against all probability, the remains of bodies
would have been removed on laying the foundations of
the palace, to leave the space free for the subterranean
part of the Inquisition. Besides, it is contrary to the use
of common tombs, to bury the dead by carrying them
through a door at the side; for the mouth of the
sepulchre is always at the top. And, again, it has
ITALY THE INQUISITION AS IT IS. 383
never been the custom in Italy to bury the dead, singly,
in quick-lime; but, in time of plague, the dead bodies
have been usually laid in a grave until it was sufficiently
full, and then quick-lime has been laid over them to pre
vent pestilential exhalations, by hastening the decomposi
tion of the infected corpses. This custom was continued,
some years ago in the cemeteries of Naples, and espe
cially in the daily burial of the poor. Therefore, the
skeletons found in the Inquisition of Rome could not be
long to persons who had died a natural death in a hospi
tal ; nor could any one, under such a supposition, explain
the mystery of all the body being buried in lime, with
exception of the head. It remains, then, beyond doubt,
that that subterranean vault contained the victims of one
of the many secret martyrdoms of the butcherly tribunal.
The following is the most probable opinion, if it be not
rather the history of a fact.
" The condemned were immersed in a bath of slaked
lime, gradually filled up to their necks. The lime by
little and little enclosed the sufferers, or walled them up
all alive. The torment was extreme, but slow. As the
lime rose higher and higher, the respiration of the vic
tims became more and more painful, because more diffi
cult. So that what with the suffocation of the smoke,
and the anguish of a compressed breathing, they died in
a manner most horrible and desperate. Some time after
their death, the heads would naturally separate from the
bodies, and roll away into the hollows left by the shrink
ing of the lime. Any other explanation of the fact that may
be attempted, will be found improbable and unnatural.
" You may make any use of these notes of mine, in
your publication, that you please, since I can warrant
their truth. I wish that writers, speaking of this in-
384 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
famous tribunal of the Inquisition, would derive their in
formation from pure history, unmingled with romance ;
for so many and so great are the historical atrocities of
the Inquisition, that they would more than suffice to
arouse the detestation of a thousand worlds. I know
that the popish impostor-priests go about saying that the
Inquisition was never an ecclesiastical tribunal, but a laic.
But you will have shown the contrary in your work, and
may also add, in order quite to unmask those lying
preachers, that the palace of the Inquisition at Rome is
under the shadow of the palace of the Vatican ; that the
keepers of the Inquisition at Rome are, to this day, Do
minican friars ; and that the prefect of the Inquisition at
Rome is the Pope in person.
" I have the honour to be your affectionate servant,
" ALESSANDRO GAVAZZI."
The Roman parliament decreed the erection of a pillar
opposite the palace of the Inquisition, to perpetuate the
memory of the destruction of that " nest of abomina
tions ;" but before that or any other monument could be
raised, the French army besieged and took the city, re
stored the Pope, and with him the tribunal of the faith.
Not only was Dr. Achilli thrown into one of its old
prisons on the 29th of July, 1849 ; but, the violence of
the people having made the building less adequate to
the purpose of safe keeping, he was transferred to
the castle of St. Angelo, which had often been employ
ed for the custody of similar delinquents, and there he
lay in close confinement until the 19th of January, 1850,
when the French authorities, yielding to influential repre
sentations from this country, assisted him to escape in
disguise as a soldier, thus removing an occasion of
ITALY THE INQUISITION AS IT IS. 385
scandal, but carefully leaving the authority of the con
gregation of cardinals undisputed. Indeed, they first ob
tained the verbal sanction of the commissary, who saw it
expedient to let his victim go, and hush an outcry.
Yet some have the hardihood to affirm that there is
no longer any Inquisition ; and as the inquisitors were
instructed to suppress the truth, to deny their knowledge
of causes actually passing through their hands, and to
fabricate falsehoods for the sake of preserving the secret
because the secret was absolutely necessary to the preser
vation of their office, so do the inquisitors in partibus fal
sify and illude without the least scruple of conscience, in
order to put the people of this country off their guard.
The writer of anonymous pamphlets, printed in Glasgow
in 1851,* and intended for circulation among the lower
classes, whose ignorance he endeavours to abuse, ventures
on such denials and affirmations as the following : " I
deny, and fearlessly deny, that there exists at this day
any such tribunal in the length and breadth of Chris
tendom." " The Pope and religious authorities did every
thing in their power to prevent its establishment, and
have ever laboured to restrain its operations within the
bounds of the most scrupulous humanity. 1 (!) "The
Church has not only disavowed its rigours, but opposed
them." " St. Dominic never had anything to do with
the Inquisition." " Were it not for its forms, it might
be held up to the world as a model of equity and human
ity." " It took nearly fifty years before the Spanish gov
ernment could wring out of the Pope authority to es
tablish the Inquisition." " Nor am I afraid of being called
Coroner s Inquest and Post Mortem Examination of the
Inquisition. Glasgow : Printed by Hugh Margey, 14 Great
Clyde-street, 1851.
17
386 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
upon to defend the Roman Inquisition, which, like the
Spanish, no longer exists ; but which, when it did exist,
can defy the world to show that it ever spilled one drop
of blood." And he finishes with the following remark
able profession : " Whatever old women, whose nerves
have been perfectly unhinged by the bugbears held up to
them, may think of the Inquisition, or whatever design
ing, infidel, or immoral rogues, who dread its clear-sight
edness in discovering, and its power of punishing, may
say, for my own part, I say, with Count de Maistre, that
whether as a court of equity, a court of high police, or
a censorship of the press, its influence would be found
most beneficial to society in any country ; that we may
roar, ! the detestable institution ! but I seek in vain
for anything detestable in it. What Count de Maistre
says, I likewise say that the Inquisition is good, mild,
and conservative ; to which I add, that, in my humble
opinion, never did court of penal justice repress so much
crime at the expense of so small an amount of infliction."
This person, who withholds his name because he is
too aged, he says, to enter into controversy, must cer
tainly be an inquisitor in partibus ; for none other could
betray such mendacious earnestness in the cause. As to
the character of the Inquisition, it may be left to the ab
horrence of the world. As to its past state and proceed
ings, Romanists themselves have given their witness, and
it is their testimony that appeals to my readers. And
that the Inquisition really exists, is placed beyond doubt
by its daily action as a visible institution at Rome. But
if any one should fancy that it was abolished after the
release of Dr. Achilli, and that it had ceased to be on
the 23d day of May, 1851, when the Glasgow apologist
dated the sentences here quoted, let him hear a sentence
ITALY THE INQUISITION AS IT IS. 38*7
contradictory from a bull of the prefect himself, Pius IX.,
a document that was dated at Rome just three months
later (August 22d, 1851), where the pontiff, condemn
ing the works of Professor Nuytz, of Turin, says, " After
having taken the advice of the doctors in theology and
canon law, after having collected the suffrages of our
venerable brothers the cardinals of the congregation of
THE SUPREME AND UNIVERSAL INQUISITION." And SO
recently as March 18th, 1852, by letters of the Secretariate
of State, he appointed four cardinals to be "members
of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Roman and Uni
versal Inquisition ;" giving incontrovertible evidence that
necessary provision is made for attending to the commu
nications of inquisitors in partibus from all parts of the
British empire and the world. As the old cardinals die
off, their vacant seats are filled by others. The "im
mortal legion" is punctually recruited.
After all, have we in Great Britain, Ireland, and the
colonies, and our brethren on the foreign mission-stations,
any reason to apprehend harm to ourselves from the In
quisition as it is ?
In reply to this question let it be observed :
1. That there are inquisitors in partibus, is not to be
denied. That the letters of these inquisitors are laid be
fore the Roman Inquisition every week, is equally certain.
Even in the time of Leo XIL, when the Church of Rome
was much weaker and far less active in the British em
pire than it is now, some particular case was always de
cided on Thursday, when the Pope, in his character of
Universal Inquisitor, presided in the congregation. It
cannot be thought that now, in the height of its exulta-
388 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
tion, daring, and aggression, this congregation has fewer
emissaries, or that its emissaries are less active or less
communicative than they were at that time. We also
see that the congregation is replenished constantly. The
cardinals Delia Genga-Sermattei, De Azevedo, Fornari,
and Lucciardi have just been added to it.
2. Besides a cardinal in England, and a delegate in
Ireland, there is, both in England and Ireland, a body of
bishops, " natural inquisitors," as they are always
acknowledged, and have often claimed, to be ; and these
natural inquisitors are all sworn to keep the secret the
soul of the Inquisition. Since, then, there are inquisitors
in partibus, appointed to supply the lack of an avowed
and stationary Inquisition, and since the bishops are the
very persons whom the court of Rome can best com
mand, as pledged for such a service, it is reasonable to
suppose that they act in that capacity. An inquisitor, be
it noted, is not, like a consul ter, merely called on to give
an opinion or a report on some particular case, perhaps
not knowing who are the persons then under inquisition ;
but he is, in relation to a distant tribunal, the fiscal, or
accuser, who must have his own agents to collect infor
mation, and to delate the guilty; He is formally ap
pointed by the congregation to be their vicar within an
allotted province or district. We have read history in
vain, if we do not perceive that the appointment of any
but bishops, or persons acting under their jurisdiction,
would provoke discontent among the clergy, and en
danger the unity of counsel and action, and the loyalty
towards the court of Rome, which are now essentially
necessary to the success of their enterprize in the coun
tries in subjection to the British crown. Therefore, until
other persons are known to be the inquisitors in these
ITALY THE INQUISITION AS IT IS. 389
" parts," we must take it for granted that the bishops, or
their nominees, are they who sustain that office.
3. Some of the proceedings of these bishops confirm
the assurance that there is now an inquisition in activity
in England. It is notorious that secret societies have
always been subject to persecution by the Inquisition.
And while speaking of societies, we cannot here distin
guish between good societies and bad, nor forget that, on
the continent of Europe, the Popes and the Jesuits have
been accustomed to call assemblies for evangelical wor
ship, lodges, and that in France and other countries,
those assemblies have been dispersed by the police, be
cause it pleased the priests to denounce them as clubs.
But the English inquisitors, like the French, prohibit all
associations that displease them. The Bishop "of Bever-
ley, for example, in a pastoral just now circulated in his
diocese, speaks of cases of sin which are ordinarily re
served to be pardoned by " a higher authority" than that
of the confessor. And a note to that part of the pas
toral, (Tablet, April 3d, 1852,) explains that, in the
diocese of Beverley, the cases of sin so great that a
confessor cannot absolve one who confesses himself guilty,
" are those of Freemasons, Hibernians, and other con
demned societies, and also of Catholic parties getting
married at a Protestant church." The higher authority,
then, must receive communication concerning such cases.
I know that the confessor who applies for an indulgence
for a penitent, is not obliged to name that penitent ; but
what is to be done if the offender does not confess, or will
not repent ? Not the confessor, but the inquisitor, com
municates his name. The Bishop of Hexham evidently
has offenders of the kind in view, and (Tablet, April 3d)
employs language that would be utterly unintelligible, if
390 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
there were not an inquisition at work in the land. " We
are informed that for some time past a very considerable
section of one of those secret societies has assumed the
fictitious name of the Hibernian Sick Club, in order to
conceal their identity with the Hibernian Society, which
we, in common with our episcopal brethren in England
and Ireland, have denounced as one of those which have
been, and still continue to be, so destructive of the peace
and social happiness of Ireland. We would then
solemnly warn our beloved children to avoid all con
nexion with those dangerous societies, under whatever de
nominations they may seek to conceal their real char
acter ; and we once more repeat to our clergy the
injunction issued in the first year of our episcopacy
That all members of secret societies, among which we
number the Hibernian societies, the Knights of St.
Patrick, Freemasons, <fec., &c., are not to be admitted to
a participation in the holy sacraments. " That a Chris
tian minister should endeavour to dissuade the members
of his flock from uniting themselves with secret societies,
would be no more than the fulfilment of an obvious duty ;
and in so doing he could scarcely be too earnest. But
that the whole body of Romish ecclesiastics, to whom
the title of Christian minister does not belong, and who
display so little earnestness in showing displeasure at
prevalent immorality, except in mere pulpit declamation,
should unite in excommunicating the members of asso
ciations where political or doctrinal opinions unfriendly to
Romanism are maintained, is, to say the very least, an
approach towards inquisitorial discipline. And, after the
members are excommunicated, the exercise of discipline
upon them does not cease.
4. The marriage of Romanists in Protestant churches
ITALY THE INQUISITION AS IT IS. 391
is objectionable, no doubt, as would be the marriage of
Protestants in mass-houses. But the real object of cen
sure is mixed marriage, over which the sacred congrega
tion of the holy Roman and universal Inquisition is a
board that exercises prerogative. It " takes part in ma
trimonial dispensations," and must therefore obtain some
knowledge of every case of that kind occurring in this
country. The vigilance exercised over families, also, the
intermeddling of priests with education, both in families
and schools, and with the innumerable relations of
civil society, can only be traced back to those inquis
itors in partibus, whose peculiar duty, whether by
help of confessors or familiars, is to worm out every
secret of affairs, private and public, and to organize and
conduct measures of repression or of punishment.
Where the secular arm cannot be borrowed, and where
offenders lie beyond the reach of excommunication,
irregular methods must be resorted to, not rejecting any
as too crafty or too violent. Discontented mobs, or indi
vidual zealots, are to be found or bought. What part
the inquisitors in partibus play in Irish assassinations, or
in the general mass of murderous assault that is perpe
trated in the lower haunts of crime, it is impossible to
sav. Under cover of confessional and inquisitorial
secrets, spreads a broad field of action a region of mys
tery only visible to the eye of God, and to those
"most reverend and most eminent" guardians of the
papacy, who sit, thrice every week, in the Minerva and
the Vatican, and there manage the hidden springs of in
quisition on the heretics, schismatics, and rebels, no less
than on " the faithful" of these realms. Who can calcu
late the extent of their power over these " religious
houses," where so many of the inmates are but neo-
392 THE BRAND OF DOMINIC.
phytes, unfitted by British education for the intellectual
and moral abnegation, the surrender of mind and con
science, which monastic discipline exacts? Yet they
must be coerced into submission, and kept under penal
discipline. Who can tell how many of their own clergy
are withdrawn to Rome, and there delated, imprisoned,
and left to perish, if not "relaxed" to death, in punish
ment of heretical opinions or liberal practices? We
have heard of laymen too, taken to Rome by force, or
decoyed thither under false pretences, there to be pun
ished by the universal Inquisition ; and whatever of in
credibility may appear in some tales of inquisitorial ab
duction, the general fact, that such abductions have
taken place, seems to be incontrovertible. But now that
inquisitors in partibusarQ distributed over Christendom,
and that they provide the Roman Inquisition with daily
work from year s end to year s end, is among the things
most certain, even the most careless of Englishmen
must acknowledge that we have all reason to apprehend
much evil from the Inquisition as it is. And no Christian
can become aware of this fact, without feeling himself
more than ever bound to uphold the cause of Christian
ity, both at home and abroad, as the only counteractive
of so dire a curse, the only remedy of so vast an evil.
May God speed the day when that Church, whose
episcopate is essentially inquisitorial, and whose emis
saries now pursue their odious and dark vocation
throughout Christendom, shall cease to be, and when,
instead of this horrible tribunal, the kingdom of our
blessed Saviour, who destroys the works of the devil,
shall be " supreme and universal."
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