[1] Lea, op. cit., vol. i, p. 421.
[2] Douais, Documents, vol. i, p. ccxl.
[3] Douais, Documents, vol. ii, p. 115 and seq.
Still the use of torture, especially of the rack and the strappado, was not unknown in southern Europe, even before the promulgation of Innocent's bull Ad Extirpanda.
The rack was a triangular frame, on which the prisoner was stretched and bound, so that he could not move. Cords were attached to his arms and legs, and then connected with a windlass, which, when turned, dislocated the joints of the wrists and ankles.
The strappado or vertical rack was no less painful. The prisoner with his hands tied behind his back was raised by a rope attached to a pulley and windlass to the top of a gallows, or to the ceiling of the torture chamber; he was then let fall with a jerk to within a few inches of the ground. This was repeated several times. The cruel torturers sometimes tied weights to the victim's feet to increase the shock of the fall.
The punishment of burning, "although a very dangerous punishment," as an Inquisitor informs us, was occasionally used. We read of an official of Poitiers, who, following a Toulousain custom, tortured a sorceress by placing her feet on burning coals (juxta carbones accensos). This punishment is described by Marsollier in his Histoire de l'Inquisition. First a good fire was started; then the victim was stretched out on the ground, his feet manacled, and turned toward the flame. Grease, fat, or some other combustible substance was rubbed upon them, so that they were horribly burned. From time to time a screen was placed between the victim's feet and the brazier, that the Inquisitor might have an opportunity to resume his interrogatory.
Such methods of torturing the accused were so detestable, that in the beginning the torturer was always a civil official, as we read in the bull of Innocent IV. The canons of the Church, moreover, prohibited all ecclesiastics from taking part in these tortures, so that the Inquisitor who, for whatever reason, accompanied the victim into the torture chamber, was thereby rendered irregular, and could not exercise his office again, until he had obtained the necessary dispensation. The tribunals complained of this cumbrous mode of administration, and declared that it hindered them from properly interrogating the accused. Every effort was made to have the prohibition against clerics being present in the torture chamber removed. Their object was at last obtained indirectly. On April 27, 1260, Alexander IV authorized the Inquisitors and their associates to mutually grant all the needed dispensations for irregularities that might be incurred.[1] This permission was granted a second time by Urban IV, August 4, 1262;[2] it was practically an authorization to assist at the interrogatories at which torture was employed. From this time the Inquisitors did not scruple to appear in person in the torture chamber. The manuals of the Inquisition record this practice and approve it.[3]
[1] Douais, Documents, vol. i, p. xxv, n. 3.
[2] Regesta, no. 18390.