Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  At last the doomed clerics stood stripped of all insignia of their office. And now the sanbenito — that chasuble of infamy — was flung upon the shoulders of each; their heads were crowned with the tragically grotesque coroza, a rope was put about each neck, and their hands were pinioned. The sentence was fulfilled at last by their being abandoned to the secular authorities, who seized them and bore them away to the stake.

  On Sunday, October 16, a proclamation was read in the Cathedral, pronouncing several deceased persons to have been heretics, and setting forth that, although dead themselves, their reputations lived as those of Christians. Therefore it became necessary to publish their heresy, and their heirs were summoned to appear within twenty days and render to the inquisitors an account of their inheritances, from the enjoyment of which they were disqualified, since all property that had belonged to the deceased was, by virtue of Torquemada’s decree, confiscate to the royal treasury.

  On December 10 900 persons were admitted to public reconciliation. They were self-delators from remote country districts who had responded to a recent edict of grace published in those districts.

  The notary announced the forms of Judaizing of which each had been guilty and proclaimed it as their intention henceforth to live and die in the faith of Christ. He then read out the Articles of Faith, and they were required to say “I believe” after each, and lastly to make oath upon the Gospels and the crucifix never again to fall into the error of Judaism, to denounce any whom they knew to be Judaizers, and ever to favour and uphold the Holy Inquisition and the Holy Catholic faith.

  The penance imposed was that they should be scourged in procession for seven Fridays, and thereafter on the first Friday of every month for a year. This in their own districts. In addition, they were required to come to Toledo and be scourged in procession on the Feast of St. Mary of August and on the Thursday of Holy Week. Two hundred of them were further ordered to wear a sanbenito over their ordinary garments for a year from that date, and never to appear in public without it under pain of being deemed impenitent and punished as relapsed.

  Another 700 came to be reconciled on January 15, 1487, and yet another 1,200 on March 10. These last, Orozco says, were from the districts of Talavera, Madrid, and Guadalajara; and he adds that some amongst them were penanced to the extent of being condemned to wear the sanbenito for the remainder of their lives.

  In the Auto of May 7 fourteen men and nine women were burnt. Amongst the former was a Canon of Toledo who was accused of horrible heresies, and who, writes Orozco, had confessed under torture to abominable subversions of thewords of the Mass. Instead of the prescribed formula of the consecration, he had stated that he was in the habit of uttering the absurd and almost meaningless gibberish—” Sus Periquete, que mira la gente.”

  On the following day there was held a supplementary Auto, especially for the purpose of dealing with deceased and fugitive heretics, conducted with a ceremony of an unusual and singularly theatrical order, which is not so much typical — as are the other Autos described — of what was taking place throughout Spain, as indicative of a morbid inventiveness on the part of the Toledan inquisitors.

  On the scaffold usually occupied by the accused a sepulchral monument of wood had been erected and draped in black. As each accused was cited by the notary, the familiars opened the monument and drew out the effigy of the dead man dressed in the graveclothes peculiar to the Jews.

  To this dummy of straw the detailed account of his crimes and the sentence of the court whereby he was condemned as a heretic were solemnly read out. When all the condemnations had thus been proclaimed, the effigies were flung into a bonfire that had been kindled in the square; and together with the effigies went the bones of the deceased, which had been exhumed to that end.

  After that the next Auto of importance was held on July 25, 1488, when twenty men and seventeen women were sent to the stake, with a supplementary Auto upon the morrow in which they burnt the effigies of over a hundred dead and fugitive heretics.

  And so it goes on, as recorded by the licentiate Sebastian Orozco, and cited by Llorente* and Fidel Fita.* From now onwards the burnings increase in number. Indeed, all edicts of grace having expired, and no new ones being permissible, sentencing to the flames — through the medium of the secular arm — and to perpetual imprisonment becomes the chief business of the Inquisition in Toledo and elsewhere.

  [* See “Anales” under the dates given.]

  [* * “Boletin de la Academia, etc.,” vol. xi. et seq.]

  The sanbenitos of the burnt were preserved in the churches of the parishes where they had lived. They were hung in these churches as banners won in battle are hung — trophies of victory over heresy.

  CHAPTER XVIII. TORQUEMADA AND THE JEWS

  During that first year of the Inquisition’s establishment in Toledo, twenty-seven persons there convicted of Judaizing were burnt and 3,300 were penanced. And what was taking place in Toledo was taking place in every other important city in Spain.

  Numerous now and vehement were the protests against the terrible and excessive rigour of Torquemada. Already, upon the death of Pope Sixtus IV, a vigorous attempt had been made by some Spaniards of eminence to procure the deposition of the Prior of Holy Cross from the office of Grand Inquisitor. It was argued that as his appointment had been made by Sixtus, so it was automatically determined by that Pope’s decease. But whatever hopes may have been founded upon such an argument were very quickly overthrown. Innocent VIII, as we have already seen, not only confirmed Torquemada in his office, but considerably increased his powers and the scope of his jurisdiction.

  Indeed, not only was he given jurisdiction over all the Spains, but Innocent’s bull of April 3, 1847, motu proprio, commanded all Catholic princes that, upon being requested by the Grand Inquisitor so to do, they should arrest any fugitives he might indicate and send them captive to the Inquisition under pain of excommunication.*

  [* Lumbreras, quoted by Llorente, “Anales,” i. . The bull is quoted in full by M. Fidel Fita, “Boletin,” xvi. .]

  256

  Torquemada and the Jews 257

  Notwithstanding the threat by which it was backed, this command from the Vatican appears to have been generally disregarded by the Governments of Europe.*

  [* Llorente, “Historia Critica,” tom, ii, .]

  That such a bull should have been solicited gives us yet another glimpse of the terrible rancour against the Jews which fanaticism had kindled in the soul of Torquemada. Had his aim been merely, as expressed, to weed the tares of heresy from the Catholic soil of Spain, the self-imposed exile of those wretched fugitives would fully have satisfied him, and he would not have thought it necessary to hound them out of such shelter as they had found abroad that he might have the satisfaction of hurling them into the bonfire he had kindled.

  His position being so greatly strengthened by the wider and ampler powers accorded to him by the new Pontiff, Torquemada gave a still freer rein to the terrible severity of his nature, and thus occasioned those frequent and very urgent appeals to the Vatican.

  Many New-Christians who secretly practised Jewish rites, being repelled from taking advantage of the edict of grace by the necessity it imposed of undergoing the horrible verguenza already described, applied now to the Pontiff for secret absolution. This required special briefs. Special briefs brought money into the papal coffers, and procured converts to the Faith. Two better reasons for granting these requests it would have been impossible to have urged, and so the Curia acceded.

  But the result of this curial interference with the autonomous jurisdiction of the Holy Office in Spain was to provoke the resentment of Torquemada. Wrangles ensued between the Grand Inquisitor and the Pontifical Court — wrangles which may be likened to those of two lawyers over a wealthy client.

  Torquemada arrogantly demanded that this Roman protection of heretics should not only cease in future but be withdrawn where already it had been granted in the past, and his demand had the full
support of Catholic Ferdinand, who did not at all relish the spectacle of the gold of his subjects being poured into any treasury other than his own. Rome, having meanwhile pocketed the fees, was disposed to be amenable to the representations of the Catholic Sovereigns and their Grand Inquisitor; and the Pope proceeded flagrantly to cancel the briefs of dispensation that had been granted.

  There was an outcry from the swindled victims. They protested appealingly to the Pope that they had confessed their sins against the Faith, and that absolution had been granted them. Very rightly they urged that this absolution could not now be rescinded — for not even the Pope had power to do so much — and they argued that, being in a state of grace, they could not now be prosecuted for heresy.

  But they overlooked the retrospective power which — however unjustifiable by canon or any other law — the Inquisition had arrogated to itself. By virtue of this, as we have seen, the inquisitors could take proceedings even against one who had died in a state of grace, at peace with Holy Mother Church, if it were shown that an offence of heresy committed at some stage of his life had not been expiated in a manner that the Holy Office accounted condign.

  These protests of the unfortunate Judaizers, who by their own action had achieved — as they now realized — no more than self-betrayal, were met by the priestly answer that their sins had been absolved in the tribunal of conscience only, and that it still remained for them to seek temporal absolution in the tribunal of the Holy Office. This temporal absolution would accord them, as we know — and as they knew — the right to live in perpetual imprisonment after the confiscation of their property and the destitution and infamy of their children.

  The answer, crafty and sophistical as it was, did not suffice to silence the protests. Clamorously these continued, and the Pope, unable to turn a deaf ear upon them, fearful lest a scandal should ensue, effected a sort of compromise. With the royal concurrence, Innocent VIII issued several bulls, each commanding the Catholic Sovereigns to admit fifty persons to secret absolution with immunity from punishment. These secret absolutions were purchased at a high price, and they were granted upon the condition that in the event of the re-Judaizing of a person so absolved, he would be treated as relapsed, the secret absolution being then published.

  These absolutions were particularly useful in the case of persons deceased, several of whom, at the petition of the heirs, were included among the secretly reconciled — the inheritance being thereby secured from confiscation.

  Altogether Pope Innocent granted four of these bulls in 1486.* In the last one issued he left it at the discretion of the Sovereigns to indicate those who should be admitted to this grace, and they were permitted to include the names even of persons against whom proceedings had already been initiated.

  [* Lumbreras, quoted by Llorente, “Anales,” vol. i. p. iii.]

  With what degree of equanimity Torquemada viewed these bulls of absolution we do not know. But very soon we shall see him vexed by papal interference of a fresh character.

  Simoniacal practices were never more rampant in Rome than under the rule of Innocent VIII. His greed was notorious and scandalous, and a number of alert baptized Jews bethought them that this might be turned to account. They slyly submitted to the Holy Father that although they were good Catholics, such was the harshness of the Grand Inquisitor towards men of their blood that they lived in constant dread and anxiety lest the mere circumstance of their having originally been Jews should be accounted a sufficient reason to bring them under suspicion or should lay them open to the machinations of malevolent enemies. Hence they implored his Holiness to grant them the privilege of exclusion from inquisitorial jurisdiction.

  At a price this immunity was to be obtained; and soon others, seeing the success that had attended the efforts of the originators of this crafty idea, were following their example and setting a drag upon the swift wheels of Torquemada’s justice.

  That it stirred him to righteous anger is not to be doubted, however subservient and injured the tone in which he addressed his protest to the Pontiff.

  Innocent replied by a brief of November 27, 1487, that whenever the Grand Inquisitor found occasion to proceed against one so privileged, he should inform the Apostolic Court of all that might exist against the accused, so that his Holiness should determine whether the privilege was to be respected.*

  [* Lumbreras, quoted by Llorente in “Anales,” vol. i. .]

  It follows inevitably that if there was heresy, or the suspicion of it, the Pope must allow the justice of the Holy Office to run its course. So that the Jews who had purchased immunity must have realized that they were dealing with one who understood the science of economics (and the guile to be practised in it) even better than did they, famous as they have always been for clear-sightedness in such matters.

  Meanwhile, with the power that was vested in him, Torquemada was amassing great wealth from the proportion of the confiscations that fell to his share. But whatever his faults may have been, he was perfectly consistent in them, just as he was perfectly, terribly sincere.

  Into the sin of pride he may have fallen. We see signs of it. And, indeed, it is difficult to conceive of a man climbing from the obscurity of the monastic cell to the fierce glare of his despotic eminence and remaining humble at heart. Humble he did remain; but with that aggressive humility which is one of pride’s worst forms and akin to self-righteousness — the sin most dreaded by those who strive after sanctity.

  We know that he unswervingly followed the stern path of asceticism prescribed by the founder of his order. He never ate meat; his bed was a plank; his flesh never knew the contact of linen; his garments were the white woollen habit and the black mantle of the Dominican. Dignities he might have had, but he disdained them. Paramo says* that Isabella sought to force them upon him, and that, in particular, she would have procured his appointment to the Archbishopric of Seville when this was vacated by the Cardinal of Spain. But he was content to remain the Prior of Holy Cross of Segovia, as he had been when he was haled from his convent to direct the affairs of the Holy Office in Spain. The only outward pomp he permitted himself was that whenever now he went abroad he was attended by an escort of fifty mounted familiars and two hundred men on foot. This escort Llorente admits* * was imposed by the Sovereigns. It is possible, as is suggested, that it was to defend him from his enemies, since the death of Arbués had shown to what lengths the New-Christians were prepared to go. But it is more probable that this escort was accepted as an outward sign of the dignity of his office, and perhaps also to serve the terrorizing purpose which Torquemada considered so very salutary.

  [* “De Origine,” .]

  [* “Historia Critica,” tom. ii. .]

  That he practised the contempt for worldly riches which he preached is beyond all doubt. We cannot discover that any of the wealth that accrued to him was put to any worldly uses or went in any way to benefit any member of his family. Indeed, we have already seen him refusing suitably to dower his sister, allowing her no more than the pittance necessary to enable her to enter a convent of the Tertiary Order of St. Dominic.*

  [* Paramo, “De Origine,” .]

  He employed the riches which his ofifice brought him entirely to the greater honour and glory of the religion which he served with such terrible zeal. He spent it lavishly upon such works as the rebuilding of the Dominican Convent of Segovia, together with the contiguous church and offices. He built the principal church of his family’s native town of Torquemada and half of the great bridge over the River Pisuerga.*

  [* See H. del Castillo, “Historia General de Santo Domingo.”]

  Fidel Fita quotes an interesting letter of Torquemada’s, dated August 17, 1490, in which he thanks the gentry of Torquemada for having sent him a sumpter-mule, but rather seems to rebuke the gift.

  “To me,” he writes, “it was not, nor is necessary to send such things; and it is certain that I should have sent back the gift but that it might have offended you; for I, praised be our Lord,
possess nine sumpter-mules, which suffice me.”*

  [* “ Boletin de la Academia,” vol. xxiii. .]

  In sending the gift they had asked him for assistance towards the work being carried out in the church of Santa Ollala, the contribution he had already made not having proved sufficient. He replies regretting that he can do nothing at the moment, as he is not with the Court, but promises that upon his return thither he will do the necessary with the Sovereigns so as to be able to send them the further funds they require.”*

  [* Castillo. “Historia de Sto. Domingo,” pt. i. ]

  As early as 1482 he began to build at Avila the church and monastery of St. Thomas. This pleasant little country town, packed within its narrow red walls and flanked with towers so that it presents the appearance of a formidable castle, stands upon rising ground in the fertile plain that is watered by the River Adaja. Torquemada built his magnificent monastery beyond the walls, upon the site of a humbler edifice that had been erected by the pious D. Maria de Avila. It was completed by the year 1493, and what moneys came to him thereafter appear to have gone to the endowment of this vast convent — a place of handsome, spacious, cloistered courts and splendid galleries — which became at once his chief residence, tribunal, and prison.*

  [* Ariz, “Historia de Avila,” vol. i. .]

  Again his fanatical hatred of the Israelites displays itself in the condition he laid down — and whose endorsement he obtained from Pope Alexander VI — that no descendant of Jew or Moor should ever be admitted to these walls, upon which he engraved the legend: