Heresy: The Spanish Inquisition 2
Abstract
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated:Thursday, 12 December 2002
Confession and Punishment
As far as procedure was concerned, the Spanish Inquisition followed the precedent established in the thirteenth century Inquisition and the secular tribunals, but Mary Ann Collins, a former nun, says the Inquisition used procedures which were banned in regular secular courts. Sworn denunciation of an individual, or even a particular village, started the legal machinery. Notionally, once accused, a defendant was provided the services of a lawyer, and he could not be examined by the officers of the court without the presence of two “disinterested priests,” though in what manner they were supposed to be disinterested is unclear.
Martin gave his own account of what had happened. He was stripped to the waist and led out as the “English heretic.”
A priest read out the sentence:
“Orders are given from the Lords of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, to give unto Isaac Martin 200 lashes, through the public streets. He being of the Church of England, a Protestant, a heretic, irreverent to the host, and to the image of the Virgin Mary, and so let it be executed.”
He was put on a donkey and led through the streets blindfold, being pelted and jeered at, while the executioner whipped him constantly. The crier of the city walked ahead calling out the crime, and behind followed a long procession of officials, the main one on horseback.
The offices of the Inquisition were fine palaces, with courts and salons and apartments for visiting grandees, including nobility and monarchs who visted for the executions. The “apartments” for the victims were less salubrious. Each palace block had hundreds of tiny cells or dungeons, “dark, damp and small.” Each cell had a rough bed, a wash basin and two pitchers, a urinal and a plate. Prisoners had poor and insufficient food, and were punished for breaking the gaol’s rules, including not being allowed to make the least sound. One description by a contemporary, cited by Scott, was that the cells were “the dirtiest, darkest and most horrible, into which the rays of the sun never penetrate… the prisoners live in a common privy.”
Prisoners might be kept in these cells for months without trial to break their spirit, then unexpectedly would be brought before the court. The accused had to swear to speak the truth and never to reveal the secrets of the Holy Office. Refusal meant a return to the dungeons and torture. Agreement meant that the president of the Tribunal asked some questions, and the answers were dutifully recorded by the clerk.
After this modest and harmless preliminary hearing, often played up by apologists as the main hearing, the prisoner was returned to the dungeons before being brought again before the Tribunal. This time the examining judge would imply that the Inquisition had evidence and witnesses to testify to the crime, and the prisoner was urged to confess. The victim, however was told nothing so could not make a defence. The courts rarely considered any defence offered as adequate, and denial was taken to be an admission of guilt.
The Inquisition used anonymous informers and witnesses. The accused man or woman was not allowed to know who accused them, and so could not confront them. People could accuse their personal enemies. Again, notionally false accusations were severely punished, though revisionists do not seem to find many examples. In practice, they were often not allowed to have anybody to defend them. The Spanish Inquisition combined the functions of investigation, prosecution, and judgment.
Anyone arrested by the Inquisition was presumed guilty until proven innocent. Once a person was accused, some kind of punishment was inevitable. If secular officials were reluctant to punish the victims, they were likely to become victims themselves. If enough witnesses testified that the accused person was guilty, then he or she was considered to be guilty. At that point the accused person had to choose between confessing and renouncing their errors or else being burned. If they confessed, then they would stay in prison for the rest of their life, but they would be spared being burned at the stake.
Torture, a commonplace with secular jurisdictions, had notionally been forbidden in the old Roman Inquisition, but Pope Innocent IV issued his Papal Bull in 1252 allowing heretics to be tortured. So, the inquisitors used torture to get accused people to “confess.” Even revisionists do not try to deny that it was widely used, though it was supposed to have been used only once and was not to threaten life or limb! Sixtus IV, deluged with complaints, protested to the Spanish government that the Inquisition was employing torture too freely, but the government and the inquisitors took no notice. Few revisionists deny this either.
After a while the reputation of the torturers was such that the threat of torture was sufficient to bring a confession. If not, the prisoner was taken to see the torture chamber in use. It was a large windowless chamber built underground, and lit by a few candles and hot braziers. The sight of it would bring tough minded people to dread and despair. The torturer was dressed entirely in black. His head and face were covered except for eye holes, and over his head he wore a black cowl. If no confession was yet coming the prisoner was stripped, often naked, and was bound by the wrists. No sensibilities were spared for anyone, male or female, villains or virgins. The victim was again asked the questions, and, if the desired answers were not given the torture, began.
The main tortures were the pulley, the rack and the fire. Flogging was also used but mainly as a minor punishment for breaking the prison rules. The prisoner was stripped and held face down by several men, while another flogged the prisoner mercilessly with a lash hardened by being dipped into molten pitch. Every stroke removed a strip of flesh. Some people had the flesh flogged from their ribs, and the whole of their back was a massive open ulcer.
Few failed to confess to the main tortures, although some passed out and were returned to the cells for a few days to recover. Some confessed under torture then recanted when it ceased. Each time they were brought again to the tribunal, and each time sent again for torture when they did not confess. Confession meant either death or life imprisonment in the foul cells, being equivalent to death unless the sentence was commuted.
Some examples of torture were:
- Tomas de Leon at Valladolid in 1638 was racked until his left arm broke.
- Florencia de Leon was tortured with the balestilla, the mancuerda and the potro but still would not speak.
- Engracia Rodrigues at sixty years old had an arm broken and a toe torn off in the balestilla but would not confess.
- Rochus was burnt alive for heretically despoiling an image of the Virgin. He was a wood carver, and refused to give an inquisitor a fine carving of the Virgin for a trifling sum. Expecting to have it stolen, he spoiled his own carving.
- A dungeon keeper at Triano, Spain, was sentenced to 200 lashes and six years as a galley slave for being too kind to prisoners.
- A maid of the Inquisition was also too kind to prisoners, so she was publicly flogged.
- A Protestant writing master of Toledo decorated his room with the Ten Commandments written in full, even though the Catholic cardinals omitted the part of the second commandment that forbade the worship of graven images. He was burnt alive for it in 1676.
- Protestants were invariably burnt alive unless they recanted, when they were burnt dead, having been strangled.
The walls of the chamber were lined with quilts to deaden the screams. Every examination was by an inquisitor or by a commisioner and only the judges, the registrar and the torturers were allowed into the torture chamber in use. All confessions given under torture were recorded by the registrar and had to be confirmed later when the prisoner was not being tortured. This was when some retracted their confession, and were sent for torture again. Torquemada, in the code issued to the Spanish Inquisition in 1484 approved repeated torture in these cases, and similar approvals were issued to other national inquisitions. Notionally, no other circumstances allowed repeated torture, but no one but the inquisitors had jurisdiction in the centers of the Holy Office, and they used the sophistry that the torture was a continuation of the previous torture, not a repetition of it.
Maria de Coccicas, a young woman of Lisbon, was charged with heresy and tortured on the rack, eventually confessing. She refused to ratify the confession and was again racked, again confessing. Again she refused to sign the confession, and declared that she would not sign any confession forced out of her by torture. Again she was racked, but this time she did not confess, and would not even answer the inquisitors. In this case, the inquisitors gave in. She was flogged through the streets and exiled for ten years. Revisionists claim that stories told by people who escaped the Inquisition with their lives are propaganda by the enemies of the Catholic Church. That the whole of Christianity is propaganda never occurs to them.
The duration of torture varied. Philip III of Spain (1598-1621) limited it to one hour, but regulations like this could not be enforced if the Inquisitors chose to ignore them. If any guilt was felt about it, they absolved each other. When a victim passed out, a doctor was called in to check that the faint was genuine. If the doctor decided the prisoner was faking unconsciousness, the torture continued. H C Lea, in A History of the Inquisition in Spain (1906), says it could go on for three hours. In 1648, at Valladolid, Antonio Lopez was tortured from eight until eleven, leaving him with a crippled arm. He later tried to strangle himself to death. He died in prison within a month.
When a confession was ratified, the sentence was passed. In cases considered minor, it might be a longer term of imprisonment, whipping, banishment or being made to serve forced labour in the galleys. Serious cases meant death either by strangulation of burning at the stake. An immediate confession did not always let the suspect escape torture, the sentence possibly including torture.
The executions were held at the Auto da Fé at times specified by the Holy Office, sometimes several years apart, so that condemned prisoners might be on Death Row for all this time, and those who were to be punished otherwise, had to suffer the imprisonment, unless they knew someone to stand bail, and that might put the benefactor under suspicion. To announce the occasion, the Officers of the Inquisition, preceded by drums, bugles and the banner of the Holy Office marched in cavalcade to proclaim the Auto da Fé in the following month. The ceremony was held without fail on a Sunday, and the whole population were expected to turn out. Spies would note any absences and that would be considered suspicious.
A high scaffold was erected in the main square, and victims of both sexes were dealt with there in a continuous procession lasting all day. The victims were led out with a rope around their necks and holding a yellow wax candle. They wore a “san benito,” a penitential tunic of yellow cloth down to the knees pained with a picture of the victim being burnt, with devils cavorting around fanning the flames. This victim was to be burnt at the stake. When someone intended for the stake confessed at the last minute, the picture was inverted to become a “fuego resuelto.” The victim was then not burnt alive but was first strangled, then burnt.
Those who were to be punished otherwise wore the same garment decorated with a cross. Garments like these were kept on display in churches as warnings. The victims also wore a “coroza,” a pasteboard hat three feet high ending in a point—the sinister hat still seen in Spanish ceremonies, and used by the KKK. It too was painted with crosses, flames and devils. If anyone tried to curse the tribunal or the Church, or praise some heretical sect, they instantly had a gag stuffed in their mouth, the soldiers being ready with them.
At the appointed place, usually the town square, a church service was held with a sermon in which the heresies were condemned, and the Inquisition justified. The prisoner could confess and ask to die in the Catholic faith until the last minutes, in which case they were strangled before the furze and faggots were ignited. Those who insisted in dying in their own faith were roasted alive.
The records of one such occasion in Madrid show that 20 heretics and one Moslem were burnt. Fifty Jews and Jewesses were sentenced to long imprisonments, and to wear a yellow cap. Ten others indicted for witchcraft and bigamy were flogged or sent to the galleys. The whole of the Spanish royal court was present, but the Grand Inquisitor’s chair had pride of place. Some of the nobles had the ceremonial duty of leading out the victims to be burnt alive.
As many stakes as there were victims had been fixed in the ground. They were 13 feet high and had a wooden cross beam as a seat about two feet from the top. Piled around the stake and reaching up to the seat was a mass of dry tinderwood. The victims, attended by two priests, ascended a ladder to sit on a beam where they were regaled before the crowd by the two priests urging them to be reconciled with the Church. On refusal, the priests descended and the executioner chained the victim tightly to the stake. The priests then returned for a final attempt at “reconcilation.” On failing, they declared:
We leave thee to the Devil, who is standing at thine elbow ready to receive thy soul to carry it with him to the flames of hell fire, as soon as it is out of thy body.
The crowd of the faithful cheered and cried:
Let the dog’s beards be made!
These were flaming brands that were thrust into the victim’s faces with long poles. Accompanied by shouts of glee and approval from the faithful dressed in their Sunday best clothes, the singeing of the faces continued until their faces were blackened. Then the pyre was lit. Similar acts occurred all over Europe.
A Dr Geddes who described the Auto da Fé in Madrid on 30 June 1682 was amazed at the behaviour of the victims who all yielded to their fate with such resolution that evven the spectators were silenced, and murmured to each other that it was a pity that such heroic people had chosen not to be faithful! The victims deliberately held their hands and feet into the flames. The king was so near to the pyres that he could not have failed to hear the distressed screams, but the occasion was, for the Church and the state, a religious one so the king’s attendance was obligatory. His coronation vows obliged him to sanction the acts of the tribunal with his presence.
The Holy Garduna
Spanish Christians believed that Christ himself approved his mother, the Holy Virgin Mary, called the Virgin of Cordoba, to appoint an hermit to found the Holy Garduna, to kill anyone who stood in the way of the Spanish driving out the Moors and Jews. The Virgin required everyone on the Spanish side to wear copies of a holy button taken from Christ's own robe, to protect the wearer from death at the hands of the Moors and heretics.
The Moors, and the Jews who came with them, had civilized Spain and founded its universities. A large number of Jews and Moors professed the Catholic faith under the intolerant Christian king and queen, but they were suspected of secretly practising their old religion. The Garduna was dedicated to the extermination or deportation of every non-Catholic. Anyone who might harbour heretical thoughts was to be murdered. Garduna bandits had been active before Ferdinand and Isabela ruled Spain. Ferdinand found them a valuable ally to help in the Inquisition he had invited from Rome. So, the Garduna became an unofficial weapon of the Holy Spanish Inquisition. They looted and burnt heretics and their houses, taking over their land and property.
But, once the Moors and Jews had been expelled, the Garduna became an embarrassment to the King. The gang would not turn over property they had robbed, and they would not give up the fight, beginning to accuse some of Ferdinand's trusted Christian royalists of heresy. Opposed now by the king, the divers Garduna bands federated into one body, still enjoying the favour of the Inquisition. Seville became the headquarters of the movement, and the band reconstituted itself as a secret society.
In 1821, a book was seized from the house of the Grand Master Francisco Cortina. It showed there were branches in most large cities and many towns and villages, including Toledo, Barcelona, and Cordoba. The society was brought before the courts. In the 147 years of co-operation with the Inquisition between 1520 and 1667, it entrusted almost two thousand dubious enterprises to the Garduna, the profits of which were nearly 200,000 gold francs. Garduna activities on behalf of the Holy Office were roughly equally divided into murder, abduction of women, and robbery, perjury and miscellaneous deeds. They covered kidnapping, deportation, false witness, selling enemies as slaves, and falsifying documents, much of it in connivance with the priesthood. If the Garduna promised to murder a man under specific circumstances, he was murdered exactly as promised. One-third of all money earned through “commissions” went straight to the general funds of the Holy Garduna, a similar amount went to running expenses, the rest was shared among the agents of the deed. They had friends in high places and bought off judges and state officials.
On 25 November 1822, the Grand Master and sixteen of his chief officers were publicly hanged in the market of Seville, but the organization did not die with them. South American branches were flourishing in 1846, and later references appear until 1949. It continues to operate under a different guise still.
