THE INQUISITION IN THE 13TH CENTURY.
By A. O. Burrill
[The following from Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History, b. 3, chap. 5, p. 2, may be of interest to the readers of the Review. A. O. Burrill.] “The persons arraigned before this tribunal, besides those mentioned in the text, were the abettors, encouragers, and protectors of heretics, the blasphemers, and such as resisted the officers of the Inquisition, or interrupted them in the discharge of their duties. A person became suspected of heresy if he said anything that might offend others; if he missed the sacraments or other sacred things; if he treated the images with disrespect; if he possessed, read, or gave to others to read, books prohibited by the Inquisition; if he said mass or heard confessions without being in orders; if he attended, even for once, the preaching of heretics; if he did not appear before the Inquisition as soon as he was cited; if he showed any kindness to a heretic, or aided him in making his escape. Abettors of heresy were those who harbored heretics or did not give them up; those who spoke to arrested heretics, without permission, or even trafficked with heretics. “When the Inquisition discovered a transgressor of their laws, either by common report or by their spies or by an informer, he was cited three times to appear before them; and if he did not appear he was forthwith condemned. It was safest to appear on the first citation; because the longer a man delayed, the more guilty he would be; and the Inquisition had their spies and a thousand concealed ways for getting an absconding heretic into their power. When a supposed heretic was once in the hands of the Inquisition, no one dared to inquire after him, or write to him, or intercede for him. When everything belonging to the person seized was in their hands, then the process began; and it was protracted in the most tedious manner. “After many days, and perhaps months, which the accused dragged out in a loathsome dungeon, the keeper of the prison asked him, as if it were accidentally, if he wished to have a hearing. When he appeared before his judges, they inquired, just as if they knew nothing about him, who he was, and what he wanted. If he wished to be informed what offense he had committed, he was admonished to confess his faults himself. If he confessed nothing, time was given him for reflection, and he was remanded to prison. If after a long time allowed him he still confessed nothing, he must swear to answer truly to all the questions put to him. If he would not swear, he was condemned without further process. If he swore to give answer, he was questioned in regard to his whole life, without making known to him his offense. “He was however promised a pardon if he would truly confess his offenses,—an artifice this by which his judges often learned more than they knew before, against him. At last the charges against him were presented to him in writing; and counsel also was assigned him, who, however, only advised him to confess fully his faults. The accuser and informer against him were not made known to him, but the real charges against him were put into his hands. He was allowed time for his defense, but his accuser and the witnesses against him, he could know only by conjecture. “Sometimes he was so fortunate as to discover who they were; but rarely were they presented before him, and confronted with him. If his answers did not satisfy the judges or if the allegations against him were not adequately proved, resort was had to torture, a transaction which well-nigh exceeded the sufferings endured by the first Christians when persecuted by the pagans. The torture was by ropes, by water, and by fire. The rope was passed under the arms, which were tied behind the back of the accused. By this rope he was drawn up into the air with a pulley, and there left to swing for a time, and then suddenly let fall to within half a foot of the ground, by the shock of which fall all his joints were dislocated. “If he still confessed nothing, the torture by water was tried. After making him drink a great quantity of water, he was laid upon a hollowed bench; across the middle of this bench a stick of timber passed, which kept the body of the offender suspended and caused him most intense pain in the backbone. The most cruel torture was by fire, in which his feet, being smeared with grease, etc., were directed towards a hot fire and the soles of them left to burn till he would confess. “Each of these tortures was continued as long as, in the judgment of the physician of the Inquisition, the man was able to endure it. He might now confess what he would, but still the torture would be repeated, first to discover the object and motives of the acknowledged offenses, and then to make him expose his accomplices. If when tortured he confessed nothing, many snares were laid to elicit from him unconsciously his offenses. The conclusion was that the accused, when he seemed to have satisfied the judges, was condemned, according to the measure of his offenses, to death, or to perpetual imprisonment, or to the galleys, or to be scourged; and he was delivered over to the civil authorities, who were entreated to spare his life, as the church never thirsted for blood; but yet they would experience persecution if they did not carry the decision of the court into execution. “What an infernal device is this Inquisition! What innocent person could escape destruction if an inquisitor was disposed to destroy him? A heretic, even if he had been acquitted by the pope himself, might still be condemned to die by the Inquisition. An equivocal promise of pardon might be given to induce him to make confession; but the promise must not be fulfilled when the object of it was obtained. “Even death did not free a person from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition; for a deceased heretic must be burned in effigy. The inquisitorial judges do not deny that by such proceedings many innocent persons unavoidably perish, along with the guilty; but this does not trouble them. Better, say they, that a hundred good Catholics should be cut off and go to paradise, than to let one heretic escape, who might poison many souls and plunge them in endless perdition.”