The Inquisition

by Michael Baigent

  The Procedures of the Inquisition

  In its methodology and techniques, the Spanish Inquisition emulated the original Papal Inquisition of the thirteenth century. If anything, it implemented its methodology and techniques even more stringently – and even more cynically. Among themselves at least Inquisitors curbed their hypocrisy and spoke with a bluntness that made little accommodation for piety – a bluntness quite worthy of Dostoevsky's fictional creation. In 1578, for example, one Inquisitor went on record to his colleagues, declaring ‘we must remember that the main purpose of the trial and execution is not to save the soul of the accused but to achieve the public good and put fear into others’.8

  In pursuit of this goal, the Spanish Inquisition, like its medieval predecessor, would descend on a town or village at regular intervals – in 1517, for example, every four months – though this frequency gradually decreased as Inquisitors grew lazy, comfortable and reluctant to travel. On arriving at a locality, the Inquisitors would present their credentials to the local ecclesiastical and civic authorities. A day would then be proclaimed on which everyone would be compelled to attend a special Mass and there hear the Inquisition's ‘edict’ read in public. On the appointed day, at the end of the sermon, the Inquisitor would raise a crucifix. Those in attendance would be required to raise their right hands, cross themselves and repeat an oath to support the Inquisition and its servants. After these preliminaries, the ‘edict’ was solemnly read. It adumbrated various heresies, as well as Islam and Judaism, and called forward all who might be guilty of ‘infection’. If they confessed themselves within a stipulated ‘period of grace’ – generally thirty to forty days, although, being at the Inquisitors' discretion, it was often less – they might be accepted back into the Church without any unduly serious penalties. They would be obliged, however, to denounce any guilty parties who had not come forward. Indeed, this was a crucial prerequisite for being allowed to escape with nothing more severe than a penance.

  To denounce oneself as a heretic was not enough to be able to benefit from the terms of the edict. It was also necessary to denounce all those accomplices who shared the error or had led one into it.9

  It is easy to see how the psychological mechanism involved in this process functioned. In Spain as elsewhere, people would avail themselves of the Inquisition's apparatus to settle old scores, to exact personal vengeance on neighbours or relatives, to eliminate rivals in business or commerce. Anyone could denounce anyone else, and the burden of vindication would lie with the accused. People began increasingly to fear their neighbours, their professional associates or competitors, anyone with whom they might have a grievance, anyone they might have alienated or antagonised. In order to preempt a denunciation from others, people would often bear false witness against themselves. Not infrequently, whole sections of a community might confess en masse, thus binding themselves with fetters of paranoia and dread to the Inquisition's control.

  In the late fifteenth century, when the Inquisition's edict was read for the first time in Mallorca, 337 individuals denounced themselves. In Toledo in 1486, 2,400 did likewise. But people still lived in terror of business rivals, neighbours, even their own relatives. ‘Petty denunciations were the rule rather than the exception.’10 In Castile during the 1480s, upwards of 1,500 victims are said to have been burned at the stake as a result of false testimony, often unable even to determine the source of the accusation against them. Witnesses for the Inquisition's investigations were kept anonymous, and their testimonies were edited for any items that might betray their identities. The Inquisition thus derived its energy and impetus from the very populace it persecuted. Its power stemmed from a blatant exploitation of the weakest and most venal aspects of human nature.

  In theory, each case was supposed to be examined by a conclave of theologians – the visiting Inquisitors and at least one local assessor. Only if the evidence were deemed sufficiently valid was the accused supposed to be arrested. In practice, however, many people were arrested even before their cases were assessed. The Inquisition's prisons were crammed with inmates, a substantial number of whom had not yet had any charges brought against them. They might be incarcerated for years, without so much as knowing the transgression of which they were alleged to be culpable.

  In the meantime, they and their families would have been stripped of all property, for an arrest was invariably accompanied by the immediate confiscation of all the accused's belongings – everything from his house down to his pots and pans. And while he languished in prison, still without any charges being brought against him, his possessions would be sold off to pay for his maintenance in captivity. On occasion, he might be eventually released, only to find himself bankrupt or destitute. And there were instances of the children of rich prisoners dying from starvation as a result of their property having been sequestered. Only in 1561 were the rules modified slightly to allow dependants to be supported, at least in part, from the sale of confiscated goods.

  Each tribunal of the Inquisition's twenty-one provincial headquarters possessed its own prison, located in its official ‘palace’. Inmates were generally kept in solitary confinement in chains, and allowed no contact whatever with the outside world. If they were ever released, they were required to ‘take an oath not to reveal anything they had seen or experienced in the cells’.11 Not surprisingly, many victims went mad in captivity, died or committed suicide if they could. And yet, paradoxically, the Inquisition's prisons were often considered preferable to those of the secular authorities. There were instances of ordinary common criminals voluntarily confessing to heresy, in order to get themselves transferred from a secular prison to one of the Inquisition's.

  At the Inquisition's investigation and interrogation sessions, a notary and secretary would always be in attendance, along with the Inquisitors, a representative of the local bishop, a doctor and the torturer himself, who was usually the secular public executioner. Everything would be noted down punctiliously – the questions posed, the accused's answers and his reactions. The Spanish Inquisition, like its medieval precursor, used lofty rhetoric and hypocrisy to mask and justify the unpalatable reality of torture. The Inquisition's instructions of 1561 stipulated that torture should be applied in accord with

  the conscience and will of the appointed judges, following law, reason and good conscience. Inquisitors should take great care that the sentence of torture is justified and follows precedent.12

  For the Spanish Inquisition, as for its medieval precursor, a confession extracted in the throes of torture was not in itself deemed valid. Inquisitors recognised that an individual subjected to extreme pain could be persuaded to say anything. In consequence, the accused was obliged to confirm and ratify his confession a day later, so that it could be labelled spontaneous and voluntary, offered without duress. Under the Spanish Inquisition, as under its medieval precursor, a victim was only supposed to be tortured once. And like their predecessors elsewhere, Spanish Inquisitors circumvented this restriction by describing the end of each torture session as a mere ‘suspension’. It could thus be claimed that a victim was indeed tortured only once, even if that ‘single’ instance of torture included a multitude of sessions and suspensions extended over a considerable period of time. And, of course, the victim was deprived of the hope that the end of any given session marked the end of his ordeal.

  Whatever sadistic gratification the Inquisitors derived, it must be stressed that their primary objective was less to extract a confession from a single victim than to obtain evidence with which to consolidate control over the populace as a whole. The accused was expected not only to confess his own transgressions, but also to provide evidence, however tenuous, with which to incriminate others. It is hardly surprising that individuals in the anguish of torture would volunteer any name that came to mind – or any name their tormentors wished to hear.

  In 1518, la Suprema, the governing council of the Spanish Inquisition, decided that torture should not be automatic or routine. In
theory at least, its application was to be determined in each specific case by a vote of the presiding local tribunal. In practice, this made little difference, since each local tribunal could vote to apply torture automatically and routinely in every case it tried. When a tribunal had voted to apply torture, the accused would be brought into an audience chamber, with Inquisitors and local ecclesiastical representatives in attendance. The result of the vote would be announced, and the accused would be given another chance to confess. If he still refused to do so, the full formal sentence of torture would be read out.

  It recited that, in view of the suspicions arising against him from the evidence, they condemned him to be tortured for such length of time as they should see fit, in order that he might tell the truth… protesting that, if in the torture he should die or suffer effusion of blood or mutilation, it should not be attributed to them, but to him for not telling the truth.13

  In its attenuation – in the time it took to perform – the ritual would constitute a psychological torture of its own. This would be intensified at each stage of the subsequent proceedings by further delays, further periods of waiting. Anticipation of agony would sometimes produce results as effectively as agony itself.

  Inquisitors in Spain, like their medieval precursors, endeavoured to avoid deliberate shedding of blood, and were forbidden to perform executions themselves. Methods of torture were devised to accommodate the prevailing restrictions. In Spain, three were particularly favoured. There was the toca, or water torture, whereby water was forced down a victim's throat. There was the potro, wherein the victim was bound to a rack by tight cords which could be tightened further by the torturer. And there was the garrucha, or pulley, the Spanish version of the Italian strappado. In this procedure, the victim's hands would be tied behind his back, after which he would be hung by his wrists from a pulley in the ceiling with weights fastened to his feet. He would be raised very slowly so as to maximise pain, then dropped a few feet with an abruptness and violence that dislocated his limbs. Not surprisingly, many victims were left permanently maimed, or with their health chronically impaired. It was certainly not unusual for death to occur. If it did, it was deemed to have done so ‘incidentally’, as an unfortunate concomitant or by-product of torture, rather than as a direct consequence of it.

  Later in the career of the Spanish Inquisition, other techniques came into use. A victim might be tied to a rack, for instance, with bindings that were progressively tightened until they cut through to the bone. And there were numerous additional refinements, too obscene to be transcribed. Anything the Inquisitors' depraved imaginations could devise was eventually sanctioned. A regulation of 1561 states that

  in view of the difference in bodily and mental strength among men… no certain rule can be given, but it must be left to the discretion of judges, to be governed by law, reason and conscience.14

  Not surprisingly, there were sometimes great difficulties in finding individuals prepared to enact the Inquisitors' whims and administer the torture. Whenever possible, the municipality's public executioner would be dragooned into the task. In the late seventeenth century, he was paid four ducats for every session of torture – the equivalent of half an ounce of gold, worth around £90 in today's currency. The work he performed for this fee, needless to say, did nothing to endear him to his neighbours. In consequence, he would usually want to conceal his identity. An edict of 1524 forbade the torturer to wear a mask or wrap himself in a sheet. Subsequently, as a compromise, a hood and a change of garments were allowed. By the seventeenth century, complete disguises including masks were again permitted the torturer, ‘if it were thought best that he should not be recognised’.15

  The death penalty itself was reserved primarily for unrepentant heretics, and for those who had relapsed after a nominal conversion to Catholicism. As will be seen shortly, it was reserved most frequenty for Jews – for practising Jews and for those suspected of reverting to their faith after having ostensibly embraced the Cross. Like its medieval precursor, the Spanish Inquisition would hand the condemned man over to the secular authorities for execution. If he repented during his last moments at the stake, he would be ‘mercifully’ strangled before the flames were lit. If he failed to repent, he would be burned alive.

  Anti-Semitism and the Inquisition

  In methodology, techniques and procedures, the Spanish Inquisition closely copied its medieval precursor. It differed in being accountable not to the Papacy, but directly to the Spanish Crown. It differed in another important respect as well. The primary targets of the medieval Inquisition in France and Italy had been Christian heretics, such as the Cathars, Waldensians and Fraticelli, or putative heretics, such as the Knights Templar. The primary target of the Spanish Inquisition was to be the Iberian Peninsula's Judaic population. In the virulence and systematic nature of its anti-Semitic activities, the Inquisition in Spain was to anticipate the pathology of twentieth-century Nazism.

  In the middle of the fourteenth century, more than a hundred years before the creation of the Spanish Inquisition, Castile had been riven by civil war. Both factions had sought a scapegoat and found one in the Judaic community – particularly numerous in Spain, owing to the laudable tolerance of the earlier Islamic regimes. Pogroms had ensued, and the flames had been further fanned by zealous Christian preachers. The violence had intensified until it attained a climax in 1391, with the murder of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Jews.

  During the last decade of the fourteenth century, many Jewish families in Spain, intimidated by the persecution directed against them, had renounced their faith and embraced Christianity. They became known as ‘conversos’. In many cases, however, the enforced nature of their conversion was well known; and it was widely assumed that they continued to adhere to their original faith clandestinely. Undoubtedly, a substantial number of them did; but most seem simply to have become lukewarm Christians to the same extent that they had previously been lukewarm Jews. In any case, and whatever the sincerity of their Catholicism, ‘converso’ families invariably provoked suspicion and mistrust, and continued to be targeted by anti-Semites. The greatest antipathy was reserved for so-called ‘Judaisers’ – ‘conversos’ suspected of still practising Judaism in secret, or, even worse, leading Christianised Jews back to Judaism.

  Despite the prejudice around them, many ‘converso’ families prospered. During the years that followed, a number of them were to rise to prominence in the royal administration, in the civic bureaucracy, even in the Church. In 1390, for example, the rabbi of Burgos converted to Catholicism. He ended his life as Bishop of Burgos, Papal legate and tutor to a prince of the blood. He was not alone. In some of the major cities, the administration was dominated by prominent ‘converso’ families. At the very time the Spanish Inquisition was formed, King Ferdinand's treasurer was ‘converso’ in his background. In Aragón, the five highest administrative posts in the kingdom were occupied by ‘conversos’. In Castile, there were at least four ‘converso’ bishops. Three of Queen Isabella's secretaries were ‘conversos’, as was the official court chronicler. One of Torquemada's own uncles was a ‘converso’. Even Santa Teresa, so beloved subsequently for her pathological Catholicism, was not ‘untainted’. In 1485, her grandfather was compelled to perform penance for having maintained Judaic practices – an indication that the future saint herself was of Judaic ancestry.

  On the whole, ‘conversos’ and their families tended to be among the best educated people in Spain. As they rose in prominence, they also tended to become some of the wealthiest. Perhaps inevitably, their social and economic status provoked envy and resentment among their neighbours. It was also to exacerbate the hostility of the Inquisition.

  From the moment of its creation, the Spanish Inquisition had cast covetous eyes on Judaic wealth. It also regarded Jews themselves with implacable antipathy, simply because they lay outside its official legal jurisdiction. According to its original brief, the Inquisition was authorised to deal with heretics – that
is, with Christians who had deviated from orthodox formulations of the faith. It had no powers, however, over adherents of altogether different religions, such as Jews and Muslims. Judaic and Islamic communities in Spain were large. In consequence, a considerable portion of the population remained exempt from the Inquisition's control; and for an institution that sought to exercise total control, such a situation was deemed intolerable.

  The Inquisition's first step was to act against so-called ‘Judaisers’. A ‘converso’ who returned to Judaism after having embraced Christianity could conveniently be labelled a heretic. By extension, so could anyone who encouraged him in his heresy – and this transgression could be further extended to include, by implication, all Jews. But the Inquisition was still handicapped because it had to produce – or concoct – evidence for each case it sought to prosecute; and this was not always easy to do.

  The Inquisition enthusiastically endorsed the virulent anti-Semitism already being promulgated by a notorious preacher, Alonso de Espina, who hated both Jews and ‘conversos’ alike. Mobilising popular support behind him, Alonso had advocated the complete extirpation of Judaism from Spain – either by expulsion or by extermination. Embracing Alonso's programme, the Inquisition embarked on its own assiduous anti-Semitic propaganda, using techniques that would be adopted some four and a half centuries later by Josef Goebbels. Outrageous accusations would be reiterated and repeated, for example, with the knowledge that they would eventually come to be accepted as valid. Citing the anti-Semitism it had thus contrived to provoke in the populace at large, the Inquisition petitioned the Crown to adopt ‘appropriate’ measures. The proposal to expel all Jews from Spain stemmed directly from the Inquisition. The text advocating the proposal has been described by one historian as ‘a ferocious document’ which ‘reeks of a virulent anti-Semitism’.16