What were the Inquisitions?

Previous to the reign of Constantine, or to the union of Church and State, heresy and spiritual offences were punished by excommunications only; but shortly after his death capital punishments were added. Theodosius is generally allowed to have been the first of the Roman Emperors who pronounced heresy to be a capital crime. But the inquisitors at that time did not belong to the clerical order, they were laymen appointed by Roman prefects. Priscillian, the Spanish heretic, was put to death about 385. Justinian in 529 enacted penal laws against heretics, and as centuries rolled onward, the proceedings against them were marked by increasing severity. It was not, however, as we have just seen, until the thirteenth century that the court of Inquisition was established by canon-law. Then it became a criminal tribunal, charged with the detection, prosecution, and punishment of heresy, apostasy, and other crimes against the established faith. Whether Dominic or Innocent is to have the credit of the invention, it evidently had its origin in the Albigensian war. The papal legate discovered that the open slaughter of heretics would never accomplish their utter extermination. This difficulty led to the creation of a new fraternity, called the order of the Holy Faith the members of which were bound by solemn oaths to employ their utmost powers for the repression of free inquiry in matters of religion and for maintaining the unity of the faith, for the destruction of all heretics and for the rooting out of all heresy from the homes, the hearts and the souls of men. But it was reserved for Gregory IX., in the Council of Toulouse to fix the establishment of the Inquisition in the form of a tribunal, and at the same time to give it positive laws.

This terrible tribunal was gradually introduced into the Italian states, into France, Spain, and other countries; but into the British islands it never was allowed to force its way. In France and Italy it required strenuous and persevering efforts to organize and establish it; Germany successfully resisted a permanent Inquisition; in Spain, however, though it met with some opposition at first, it speedily gained a footing, and in time attained a magnitude which, from a variety of causes, it never reached in any other country.

At a council held at Toulouse in 1229, it was ordered that a permanent Inquisition should be established against heretics; but it was not till pope Gregory IX., in 1233, had deprived the bishops of the power of punishing heretics, and entrusted the work to the Dominicans, that it took a permanent form as a separate tribunal. It was called the Holy Inquisition, and its officers Inquisitors of the Faith.

At first it was comparatively simple in its action, and acted as an ordinary court of Justice; but by degrees the Inquisitors extended their powers, and degenerated into tyrants. They not only professed to judge actions and words, but thoughts and intentions. If they wanted to convict an accused person, they would apply torture, and if they could get a confession of even a thought against the church of Rome, it was enough to convict of heresy. And it was always easy to suspect one of heresy, and then to deny that such a one had cleared himself.

It was necessary in a former chapter to explain the words pope, priests, popery, and heresy. Another name, well-known only a few hundred years ago, comes under our notice now. I refer to the wicked Court of the Inquisition established by the Church of Rome, and with which Spain was very intimately connected. The object of the Court was the punishment and destruction of "heretics," and many faithful children of God were tortured and put to death by its means. This Court was composed of a number of men who made a show of justice, but from the moment that a person suspected as a heretic came before it, persecution and revenge � not justice � marked its course.

The following brief notice of the statues against heresy, will give the reader some idea of the unrelenting cruelties of the Catholics, and the oppressed state of the feeble remnant in Languedoc. "The archbishops, bishops, and abbots, were to appoint in every parish one priest, and three or four lay inquisitors, to search all houses and buildings, in order to detect heretics, and to denounce them to the archbishop or bishop, the lord of his bailiff, so as to ensure their apprehension. The lords were to make the same inquisition in every part of their states. Whoever was convicted of harbouring a heretic forfeited the land to his lord, and was reduced to personal slavery. Every house in which a heretic was found was to be razed to the ground, the farm confiscated, the bailiff who should not be active in detecting heretics was to lose his office, and be incapacitated from holding it in future. Heretics who recanted were to be removed from their homes and settled in Catholic cities, to wear two crosses of a different colour from their dress, one on the right side, one on the left. Those who recanted from fear of death were to be imprisoned for life. All persons, males of the age of fourteen, females of twelve, were to take an oath of abjuration of heresy, and of their catholic faith, if absent, and not appearing within fifteen days, they were held suspected of heresy. "

The above extracts from a Catholic code of persecution are sufficient to show the reader what the spirit of popery was in those days, and what it would be today if it had the same power. And these laws were considered by the legate not strict enough; and so he summoned a Council at Melun, where new statutes were enacted more rigorous and efficient. But as the heretics could only be judged by a bishop or an ecclesiastic, and the work becoming so laborious from the number of apprehensions, Pope Gregory IX. in the year 1233, committed this formidable jurisdiction into the hands of the Dominicans, and the Inquisition was then erected into a distinct institution. Having said so much about the Inquisition as to its origin, it may be interesting to glance for a moment at the gradual expansion of the inquisitorial idea in the church from its commencement.

At the beginning of these wars, the Inquisition, that most awful of earthly tribunals, was opened, through the influence of Dominic, in a castle near Narbonne. This was its first appearance, but before many months, similar provisionary tribunals had been opened in all the chief towns and districts of Languedoc. At first its work was done secretly, but in the year 1229, its extreme usefulness in the detection of heretics was publicly acknowledged, and the council of Toulouse made it a permanent institution. It was now commanded that lay inquisitors should be appointed in every parish for the detection of heretics; with full power to enter and search all houses and buildings, and to subject the suspected to whatever examination was thought necessary.

It is difficult to realise all the frightful consequences which the exercise of such a power involved. We do not attempt to go into it; but as truth about the ways of Rome is important, we will endeavour to give the reader, in a few words, some idea of the doings of this awful tribunal. Let him picture to himself a man, the father of a numerous family, who is being watched by the spies of the Inquisition. He has just returned from his day's toil, and his children are playing about his chair. His cheerful and devoted wife is spreading the evening meal, and humming over a simple air which she has learnt from the wandering troubadours. A knock is heard; and the wife turns towards her husband with a look of startled inquiry. Even the children pause in their play, and gaze into their father's face half wondering. His wife goes to the door, and opens it with shaking hand. Three or four men now enter the house unbidden — one of them a Dominican friar. In a few moments they are gone again, but during those few moments a change has taken place in the home circle. The woman is wringing her hands, the children are sobbing piteously around her — and her husband is no longer near to comfort them. It is his absence they are all lamenting, for he has just left the house with the friar, a trembling and unwilling prisoner. When the door has closed upon them, and their footseps have died away in the streets, you ask the woman whither they are taking him, but she cannot tell you; you ask her as to the nature of his crime, but she can throw no light upon your question. The man himself is as dark on this point as his wife; but he is hurried away, and after being robbed of his money, is thrust into a foul dungeon, where he is confined in irons for several days. The gaoler (himself a most useful tool of the Inquisition), having meanwhile insinuated himself with the prisoner, recommends him to "petition for an audit," and the advice is adopted. He is accordingly summoned before the consistory, and the inquiry is put, "What is your request?" The prisoner replies that all he desires is a hearing; and thereupon he is told, "Your hearing is this — confess the truth, conceal nothing, and rely on our mercy."

But he has nothing to confess. He is not conscious of having committed any offence against the pope, or against his most holy religion; but, on the contrary, has always been a good catholic. Yet this very declaration of his innocence is a crime; for the Holy Inquisition cannot err, and the mere fact of his appearing before the court is a proof of his guilt. He is forthwith taken to the torture-room, a dismal chamber lighted by two candles, the walls of which have been padded in order to stifle the groans of the tortured. He is then stripped by command of the presiding inquisitor, and stretched upon the rack. A surgeon is ready to bathe his temples when necessary, and to set the dislocated bones, as well as to advise as to the amount of pain which the patient is capable of sustaining. The rack is then applied, and every word which the prisoner utters while under this torture is scrupulously noted down in a book. At a fitting time it will be used as evidence against him.

The intent of this fresh outrage was not to be mistaken; the unhappy count, in defiance of the council's order, rode away, in company with his intercessor, the king of Arragon. Judgment was then given. "The Count of Toulouse was condemned as a declared heretic — an enemy of the church, and an apostate from the faith, and his domains and property, public or personal, were adjudged to the first occupants who should seize and appropriate them." These terms and decrees will give the reader some faint idea of how the church, under the most sanctified language and pretensions, accomplished the ruin of a nobleman in those days, in order to obtain possession of his lands and his wealth. It was everywhere so. The prince and his people must be drowned in blood or consumed in fire, if his possessions cannot be obtained by milder means. Every Naboth must deliver up his field to Jezebel if she covets it. And before leaving this point, let the reader bear in mind, that, just at this moment, when the pope and his legates were working the ruin of the count and his vassal chiefs, the inquisitors Dominic and Reinerius were busily engaged in a "religious reconnaissance of the whole area of heresy," having full authority from the pope himself to inflict capital punishment upon heretics. That dreadful tribunal, which then obtained, and yet retains, the name of the Inquisition was first opened this year — a year of awful memory, A.D. 1210, in a castle near Narbonne.

Gradually the authority of the inquisitors was extended, and they were called upon to pronounce judgment, not only upon the words and actions, but even upon the thoughts and intentions of the accused. During the fourteenth century, its progress was steady, whilst its rigour and energy were continually on the increase. But it was not till the close of the fifteenth century; when Isabella, wife of Ferdinand of Arragon, had ascended the throne of Castile, and when the different kingdoms of Spain — Castile, Navarre, Arragon, and Portugal — were united under these sovereigns, that the Inquisition became general in the country, and assumed that form which it retained until the period of its dissolution in 1808.*

The prisoner, the helpless victim, is now within the gates of the Inquisition; and few who ever entered there left it absolved and acquitted; not more, it is said, than one in a thousand. Certain forms were gone through as to the question of the alleged guilt of the accused, but all were a gross mockery of justice. "The court sat in profound secrecy, no advocate might appear before the tribunal, no witness was confronted with the accused; who were the informers, what the charges, except the vague charge of heresy, no one knew. The suspected heretic was first summoned to declare on oath that he would speak the truth, the whole truth, of all persons living or dead, with himself, or like himself, on suspicion of heresy, or Waldensianism. If he refused, he was cast into a dungeon, the most dismal, the most foul, the most noisome, in those dreary ages. No falsehood was too false, no craft too crafty, no trick too base, for this deliberate, systematic moral torture which was to wring further confession against himself, denunciation against others. It was the deliberate object to break the spirit; the prisoner's food was to be slowly, gradually, diminished till body and soul were prostrate. He was then to be left in darkness, solitude, and silence." The next part of the procedure of the Holy Office in these secret prisons was the application of bodily torture. The helpless victim was charged with the culpable concealment and denial of the truth. In vain did he affirm that he had answered every question fully and honestly to the utmost extent of his knowledge; he was urged to confess if ever he had entertained an evil thought in his heart against the church, or the Holy Office, or anything else they chose to name. No matter what answer he gave, he was denounced as an obstinate heretic. After some hypocritical expressions as to their love for his soul, and their sincere desire to deliver him from error, that he might obtain salvation, a vast apparatus of torturing instruments were shown to him, the rack must now be applied to make him confess his sin.

Were it not that truth and impartial history demand that the real nature of the papacy should be told, we would much rather not describe, even in the briefest way, those scenes of torture; but few of our young readers in these peaceful times have any idea of the cruel character of popery, and of its thirst for the blood of God's saints. And that nature, let it be remembered, is unchanged. As late as 1820, which may be said to be our own day, when the Inquisition was thrown open in Madrid by the orders of the Cortes, twenty-one prisoners were found in it: not one of them knew the name of the city in which he was; some had been confined for three years, some a longer period, and not one knew perfectly the nature of the crime of which he was accused. One of these persons was to have suffered death the following day by the Pendulum. This method of torture is thus described. The condemned is fastened in a groove, upon a table, on his back suspended above him is a pendulum, the edge of which is sharp, and it is so constructed as to become longer with every movement. The victim sees this implement of destruction swinging to and fro above him, and every moment the keen edge approaches nearer and nearer; at length it cuts the skin of his face, and gradually cuts through his head, until life is extinct." This was a punishment of the Secret Tribunal in 1820, and may be so today in some places in Spain and Italy!

The penances and punishments to which the accused were subjected, in order to obtain such a confession as the inquisitors desired, were many and various; the rack was usually the first. The naked arms to which a small hard cord was fastened, were turned behind the back, heavy weights were tied to the feet; and then the sufferer was drawn up by the action of a pulley to the height of the place he was in. Having been kept suspended for some time, he was suddenly let down with a jerk to within a little distance of the floor, this done several times, the joints of the arms were dislocated whilst the cord, by which he was suspended, cut through the skin and flesh, and penetrated to the bone, and by means of the weights appended to the feet, the whole frame was violently strained. This species of torture was continued for an hour and sometimes longer, according to the pleasure of the inquisitors present, and to what the strength of the sufferer seemed capable of enduring. The torture by fire was equally painful. The prisoner being extended on the floor, the soles of his feet were rubbed with lard, and placed near the fire, until, writhing in agony, he was ready to confess what his tormentors required. A second time the judges doomed their victims to the same torture, to make them own the motives and intentions of their hearts for their confessed conduct or sayings; and a third time, that they might reveal their accomplices or abettors.

When cruelties failed to wring a confession, artifices and snares were resorted to. Persons were sent into the dungeons, pretending to be prisoners like themselves, who ventured to speak against the Inquisition, but only with the view of ensnaring others that they might witness against them. When the accused was held to be convicted, either by witnesses or by his own forced confession, he was sentenced according to the heinousness of his offence. It might be to death, to perpetual imprisonment, to the galleys, or to flogging. Those sentenced to death by fire were allowed to accumulate, that the sacrifice of a great number at once might produce a more striking and terrible effect.

When a man was slightly suspected of heresy, spies, called the Familiars of the Inquisition, were employed narrowly to watch him, with the view of discovering the least possible excuse for handing him over to the tribunal of the Holy Office. The man may have been a good Catholic, for Llorente assures us that nine-tenths of the prisoners were true to the Catholic faith, but, perhaps, he was suspected of holding liberal opinions, or he may have shown in conversation that he knew more of theology than the illiterate monks, or differed with them on some point of doctrine. Any of these things would be enough to create suspicion; for nothing was more to be dreaded than new light or truth; he was now marked and denounced by the familiars.