A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

A somewhat crude prototype of the Edict of Faith is found in the old Inquisition, when inquisitors visited their districts and, at each town, summoned an assembly of the people, preached to them and caused to be read an edict calling upon all the inhabitants to come forward within a specified time and reveal anything that might tend to the suspicion that any one was a heretic, under pain of ipso facto excommunication, removable only by them or by the pope.[250] While this was nominally preserved in the Aragonese Inquisition, that institution had become so inert that we may assume that the inquisitors no longer visited their districts or had occasion to issue edicts. In Castile, when the Inquisition was founded, this practice was evidently unknown, for the Instructions of 1484 merely order that when the inquisitors open their tribunal in any town, after the sermon they shall publish a monition with censures against all who resist or contradict them.[251] By 1500, however, the efficacy of what became known as the Edict of Faith had been discovered, and Inquisitor-general Deza, in ordering yearly visitations of the districts, specifies that, on arriving at every town or village, a general edict shall be issued, summoning those who know anything of heresy to come forward and reveal it.[252] The form of this was probably the same as that which, in the same year 1500, the inquisitors of Sicily, Dr. Sgalambro and Montoro Bishop of Cefalù, issued, requiring all cognizant of heresy to denounce it within fifteen days, promising secrecy to the informer and threatening with prosecution, as fautors of heresy, those who failed to do so.[253] In Catalonia, the Concordia of 1512, in alluding to the edict requiring the denunciation of all offences against the faith, shows that it was already an established custom,[254] while, in 1514, the Instructions of Inquisitor-general Mercader prove that the various offences included in the expanding jurisdiction of the Inquisition were specifically enumerated, for the general term of heresy no longer sufficed.[255] The effect on the people of these proclamations, with their threats and anathemas, is vividly expressed in the description of the terror excited by the publication of the edict, when the tribunal of Jaen made a raid on Arjona.[256]

DETAILS OF THE EDICT

As, in the course of time, new fields of activity were opened to the Inquisition the enumeration of offences requiring denunciation grew to be a long and detailed catalogue, in which all the acts by which they could be recognized were specified so that there could be no excuse for omission. The simplest and oldest formula which I have met is that published in Mexico at the installation of the Inquisition, in 1571, and, in view of its comparative brevity, it is given in the Appendix. Subsequently the edict grew to portentous dimensions, the purport of which can be gathered from an abstract of that of 1696.

It begins by reciting that the fiscal has represented that for some time there has been no visitation or inquest made in many places of the province, whereby numerous crimes against the faith remain unpunished. Seeing this complaint to be justified, the edict is addressed to every one individually, so that, if he has known or heard say that any one, living or dead, present or absent, has done or uttered or believed any act, word or opinion, heretical, suspect, erroneous, rash, ill-sounding, scandalous or heretically blasphemous, it must be revealed to the tribunal within six days. Then follows an enumeration of all Jewish rites and customs; then similar lists concerning Mahometanism, Protestantism and Illuminism; then, under the heading of “Diversas Heregias,” follow blasphemy, with specimens of heretical oaths; keeping or invoking familiar demons; witchcraft; pacts tacit or expressed with the devil; mixing for this purpose sacred and profane objects and attributing to the creature that which belongs to the Creator; marrying in Orders; solicitation of women in confession; bigamy; saying that there is no sin in simple fornication, or usury, or perjury, or that concubinage is better than marriage; insulting or maltreating crucifixes or images of saints; disbelieving or doubting any article of faith; remaining a year under excommunication or despising the censures of the Church; having recourse to astrology, which is described at length and pronounced fictitious; being guilty of sorcery or divination, the practices of which are described with instructive profusion; possessing books condemned in the Index, including Lutheran and Mahometan works and Bibles in the vernacular; neglecting to perform the duty of denouncing what has been seen or heard, or persuading others to omit it; giving false witness in the Inquisition; concealing or befriending heretics; impeding the Inquisition; removing sanbenitos placed by the Inquisition; throwing off sanbenitos or non-performance of penance by reconciled penitents, or their saying that they confessed in the Inquisition through fear; saying that those relaxed by the Inquisition were innocent martyrs; non-observance of disabilities by reconciled penitents, their children or grandchildren; possession by scriveners or notaries of papers concerning the above-enumerated crimes. Confessors, moreover, were ordered, under the same penalties, to withhold absolution from penitents who had not denounced all offences coming to their knowledge.[257] This was a tolerably searching grand inquest in which the whole population was summoned to assist, and the ceremonies of its publication were designed to render it as impressive as possible.

On the Saturday previous, a proclamation was made by the inquisitors, requiring all persons over the age of twelve (or of fourteen in some texts) to assemble to hear the edict and, on the following Sundays to hear the anathema, under pain of excommunication and of fifty ducats.[258] In the smaller towns this proclamation was made by the town-crier or, if there were none, by house-to-house notification. The next day, at the offertory in the mass, the edict was to be read slowly, distinctly and in a loud voice, after which the priest was to explain the obligation to denounce whatever was known of the living and of the dead, of themselves or of others, and the peril of omitting it; it was not to be talked about but was to be done directly, even if it was known that others had done so, otherwise the penalty was incurred.[259]

In larger cities, especially the seats of tribunals, the ceremonies were more imposing. In Seville, for instance, on the afternoon of Saturday before the second Sunday of Lent, the familiars assembled on horseback at the castle of Triana, where they formed a procession with drummers and trumpeters and the town-crier to escort the alguazil mayor and one of the secretaries of the Inquisition. This wound through the city, stopping at eight principal places, to publish the proclamation and to order that there should be no sermons in other churches on the days of the publication and anathemas. Then, on those Sundays, other processions were timed to meet the inquisitors at the doors of the cathedral and San Salvador—the churches designated for the ceremonies. Inside, the secretary, at the proper time, mounted the pulpit and read the edict; the sermon followed and then the mass was resumed.[260]

THE ANATHEMA

When the six days allowed for denunciation or confession had elapsed, a second proclamation was made, reciting the former one and adding that the fiscal complained that many had not complied with it and he demanded the fulmination of the censures in the most aggravated form. An edict was therefore addressed to all priests requiring them at high mass, when the people were assembled, to denounce as publicly excommunicated and anathematized all who had not obeyed the first edict, sprinkling holy water to drive away the demons who kept them in their toils and praying Christ to bring them back to the bosom of the Church. If they persisted in contumacy, all faithful Christians were ordered within three days to withdraw from all intercourse with them, under pain of similar excommunication. Both those who should have confessed and those who should have denounced, but who continued contumacious, were involved in the anathema pronounced on the third Sunday.

This was an awe-inspiring solemnity. The clergy marched in procession; the cross was covered with black and two flaming torches were on the altar, where the priests stood in profound silence during the reading of the curse.—“We excommunicate and anathematize, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, in form of law, all apostate heretics from our holy Catholic faith, their fautors and concealers who do not reveal them, and we curse them that they may be accursed as members of the devil and separated from the bosom and unity of the holy Mother Church. And we order all the faithful to hold them as such and to curse them so that they may fall into the wrath and indignation of Almighty God. May all the curses and plagues of Egypt which befell King Pharaoh come upon them because they disobey the commandments of God! May they be accursed wherever they be, in the city, or in the country, in eating and in drinking, in waking and in sleeping, in living and in dying! May the fruits of their lands be accursed and the cattle thereof! May God send them hunger and pestilence to consume them! May they be a scorn to their enemies and be abhorred of all men! May the devil be at their right hand! When they come to judgement may they be condemned! May they be driven from their homes, may their enemies take their possessions and prevail against them! May their wives and children rise against them and be orphans and beggars with none to assist them in their need! May their wickedness ever be remembered in the presence of God! May they be accursed with all the curses of the Old Covenant and of the New! May the curse of Sodom and Gomorrha overtake them and its fire burn them! May the earth swallow them alive, like Dathan and Abiram for the sin of disobedience! May they be accursed as Lucifer, with all the devils of hell, where may they remain with Judas and the damned forever, if they do not acknowledge their sin, beg mercy and amend their lives!” Then the people responded Amen! while the clergy again marched in procession, chanting the Psalms Deus laudem meam and Miserere, to the chapel or altar. The great bells tolled as for a death and the bearers of the torches extinguished them in the font of holy water saying “As these torches die in the water, so will their souls in hell!” and the procession was resumed to the sacristy. After this, the edict continues, any one knowing these things and not revealing them, and remaining contumaciously and persistently thus for a year, is held suspect in the faith and shall be prosecuted with all the rigor of the law.[261]

Thus all the resources of religious terrorism were exhausted to impress upon the popular conscience the supreme duty of denouncing kindred and friends for the slightest act or word which might be held to infer suspicion of heresy or of the varied classes of offences over which the Inquisition had succeeded in extending its jurisdiction. It is true that the constant abuse of anathemas in the pettiest quarrels with officials, lay and clerical, must have somewhat blunted their effect. It is also true that casuistry, early in the seventeenth century, had no difficulty in proving that, when the obligation to denounce involved danger to life or reputation, the natural law of self-protection overrode the positive law of denunciation, with its threat of excommunication.[262] Still, to those not trained in such subtilties and who piously believed in the power of the keys, it was impossible that this terrible cumulation of curses, temporal and spiritual, should not overcome natural affection and human kindliness. It was not the fault of the Inquisition if Spain was not converted into a nation of spies and informers, in which no man could trust those nearest and dearest to him.