[2] Practica, 4a pars. ed. Douais, p. 192.
[3] Directorium, p. 414. col. 1.
The secrecy of the Inquisition's procedure was one of the chief causes of complaint.
But the Inquisition, dreadful as it was, did not lack defenders. Some of their arguments were most extravagant and far-fetched. "Paramo, in the quaint pedantry with which he ingeniously proves that God was the first Inquisitor, and the condemnation of Adam and Eve the first model of the Inquisitorial process, triumphantly points out that he judges them in secret, thus setting the example which the Inquisition is bound to follow, and avoiding the subtleties which the criminals would have raised in their defence, especially at the suggestion of the crafty serpent. That he called no witnesses is explained by the confession of the accused, and ample legal authority is cited to show that these confessions were sufficient to justify the conviction and punishment."[1]
[1] Lea, op. cit., vol. i, p. 406.
. . . . . . . .
The subtlety of the casuists had full play when they came to discuss the torture of the prisoner who absolutely refused to confess. According to law, the torture could be inflicted but once, but this regulation was easily evaded. For it was lawful to subject the prisoner to all the various kinds of torture in succession; and if additional evidence were discovered, the torture could be repeated. When they desired, therefore, to repeat the torture, even after an interval of some days, they evaded the law by calling it technically not a "repetition" but a "continuance of the first torture:" Ad continuandum tormenta, non ad iterandum, as Eymeric styles it.[1] This quibbling of course gave full scope to the cruelty and the indiscreet zeal of the Inquisitors.
[1] Eymeric, Directorium, 3a pars, p. 481, col. 2.
But a new difficulty soon arose. Confessions extorted under torture, had, as we have seen, no legal value. Eymeric himself admitted that the results obtained in this way were very unreliable, and that the Inquisitors should realise this fact.
If, on leaving the torture chamber, the prisoner reiterated his confession, the case was at once decided. But suppose, on the contrary, that the confession extorted under torture was afterwards retracted, what was to be done? The Inquisitors did not agree upon this point. Some of them, like Eymeric, held that in this case the prisoner was entitled to his freedom. Others, like the author of the Sacro Arsenale, held that "the torture should be repeated, in order that the prisoner might be forced to reiterate his first confession which had evidently compromised him." This seems to have been the traditional practice of the Italian tribunals.