A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

In 1568 the Suprema rebuked the Barcelona tribunal for condemning to public scourging penitents reconciled for heresy. This, it said, was contrary to the estilo of the Inquisition, and in future the lash was not to be used unless there was some other crime than heresy.[362] This indicates how completely the scourge had become punitive and how it was dissociated from the ancient discipline, but if such regulation existed it met with scant recognition. All the offences subjected to the Inquisition were constructively heretical, and there never seems to have been any discrimination exercised between them. Indeed, we have seen that the lash was especially indicated for heretics who were tardy or variable in their confessions, and Judaizers are constantly seen to be subjected to it.

SCOURGING

Scourging was a favorite penalty which was lavishly and often mercilessly employed. In the Saragossa auto of June 6, 1585, out of a total of seventy-nine penitents, twenty-two were scourged; in that of Valencia, in 1607, of forty-seven penitents, twenty-four received the lash.[363] This, however, exceeds the average. The Toledo reports, from 1575 to 1610, present a hundred and thirty-three cases of scourging which, allowing for a break in the record, give about four per annum.[364] On the other hand, a collection of autos de fe celebrated between 1721 and 1727, embracing in all nine hundred and sixty-two cases, affords two hundred and ninety-seven sentences of scourging, or about thirty per cent.[365] When we recall that, in the list of officials reported by Murcia, in 1746, there figures Joseph García Bentura as notario de açotaciones—a notary of scourgings—to keep record of the stripes, with a salary of about 2500 reales, we realize how prominent a feature it was in inquisitorial penology.[366] The brutalizing effect on the populace of these wholesale exhibitions of flogging, especially of women, can readily be estimated.

The usual number of lashes prescribed was two hundred, though in occasional cases a hundred sufficed. In the two hundred and ninety-seven just alluded to, two hundred and ninety were of two hundred lashes and only seven of one hundred. It was rare that two hundred were exceeded in any one infliction, though sometimes it was mercilessly duplicated, as in the Seville auto of September 24, 1559, Martin Fernando Saldrian, a shepherd, for blasphemy was scourged in Seville and again in his native town; Alonso Martin of Carmona, for Lutheranism, was scourged in both Seville and Carmona and Juan de Aragon of Málaga, who had pretended to be a familiar, was scourged in Málaga and again in the scene of his offence.[367]

Probably two hundred lashes were about the limit of safety, especially with those enfeebled by prolonged incarceration, for the infliction was excessively severe. We hear of Margarita Altamira reduced to such extremity after a scourging that the viaticum was administered to her.[368] There was no mercy for age or sex. In the Valencia auto of January 7, 1607, Isabel Madalina Conteri, a Morisca girl of 13, after overcoming torture, had a hundred lashes, Jayme Chulayla, a Morisco of 76, who had been tortured, had a hundred and the same was administered to Francisco Marquino, aged 86 for sorcery in treasure-seeking, while Magdalena Cahet, aged 60, who had escaped torture on account of heart-disease, was not spared a hundred.[369]

As the eighteenth century advanced there appears to be more readiness to remit the execution of sentences of scourging on account of age and infirmities and of “accidentes,” which probably mean crippling by torture. Then there developes a tendency to spare women and finally men; the sentences continue to be pronounced, but they are remitted by the inquisitor-general. In 1769, at Toledo, Gerónimo Clos, for bigamy, was pardoned the two hundred lashes of his sentence, which could not have been for infirmity, as he was not released from hard labor for five years in the royal works at Cartagena.[370] From this time scourging may be regarded as obsolescent and soon to become obsolete. Under the Restoration, from 1814 to 1820, in the votos secretos, there is not a case in which the lash was inflicted, for when included in the sentences, it was always remitted by the Suprema.[371]

The clergy, of course, were not subjected to the disgrace of public scourging. In their cases it took the form known as a circular discipline, administered in a convent by all the inmates in turn.

VERGÜENZA.

Vergüenza, or shame, was the same as scourging, with the lashes omitted. The culprit, stripped to the waist and with the pié de amigo, was paraded through the streets, with the insignia of his offence, while the town-crier proclaimed his sentence. It was naturally regarded as less severe than scourging and was sometimes substituted for the latter, when the penitent was too aged or feeble to endure the lash. For the beldams and ruffians who were often its subjects it could have had but few terrors, but it was greatly dreaded by those of sensitive nature. The inquisitors took little count of this, when dealing with Judaizers and Moriscos, who had a keen sense of personal dignity, and Pedraza informs us that those exposed to it regarded death as a mercy, preferring to die rather than to endure a life of infamy.[372] To young women the exposure was especially humiliating, yet, on the whole, it may be regarded as more humane than the pillory of our forefathers, for the penitent was not exposed to the missiles of a brutal populace.

Vergüenza was a comparatively infrequent punishment. In the Toledo reports of 1575-1610 it occurs in but twenty-six sentences, which may be compared with the hundred and thirty-three scourgings, and the records of the same tribunal from 1648 to 1794 present but ten vergüenzas to ninety-two scourgings. In the very severe series of autos de fe between 1721 and 1727, the comparison is thirteen to two hundred and ninety-seven.