A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

It is not to be supposed that, when the Córtes of Cadiz, February 22, 1813, abolished the Inquisition, it was satisfied to permit the continued existence of the sanbenitos which perpetuated so many dreadful memories. A decree of the same day recited that Article 305 of the Constitution provided that no punishment should extend beyond the criminal to his family; that the means by which, in public places, the memory of penalties inflicted by the Inquisition was preserved, brought infamy on families, and even exposed to evil repute persons of the same name. Therefore all portraits, pictures, or inscriptions, recording the punishments imposed by the Inquisition, existing in churches, cloisters, convents and other places, were to be removed or blotted out within three days after receipt of the decree.[489]

The condition of Spain was not such as to insure any wide obedience of this decree, although it is scarce likely that the French armies had left many sanbenitos hanging in towns occupied by them during the war. What occurred elsewhere may probably be guessed by the example of Majorca, when the Constitution of Cadiz was enthusiastically received and the sanbenitos were removed from the church of San Domingo, but they were providently stored away and were again hung up after the Restoration in 1814. In the Revolution of 1820, however, they were torn down and burnt and the Inquisition was levelled to the ground.[490]

The custom of suspending in the churches the habitelli or sanbenitos of the reconciled and relaxed seems to have been borrowed by Italy from Spain, at least in some places. It is to the credit of the Roman Inquisition that it disapproved this barbarous practice, as appears from a decree of 1627 ordering them to be removed from the cathedral of Faenza and to be secretly burnt.[491]

DISABILITIES.

Disabilities have already been considered in their relation to the finances of the Inquisition, arising from the sale of dispensations, but they formed too important a portion of the penal system not to require further treatment in this connection. They differed however from other punishments in that, although specified in the sentences, they were the inseparable consequences of condemnation for heresy and thus, in some sense, self-operative, for the severity of the laws for the suppression of misbelief was not content with confiscating the property of those whose lives were spared. The reconciled heretic was not only turned adrift penniless, but was subjected to restrictions incapacitating him from earning a livelihood. As this refinement of cruelty could not be applied to those who were burnt, it was visited on their descendants.

DISABILITIES

This latter provision was derived from the imperial legislation against treason, which disabled children of traitors from holding office and succeeding to collateral estates.[492] Frederic II, in his Ravenna decree of 1232, made this applicable to the children and grandchildren of heretics, which was eagerly incorporated into the legislation of Alexander IV and Honorius IV, although Boniface VIII mitigated it slightly by exempting grandchildren in the female line.[493] As part of the canon law this of course governed the Spanish Inquisition and, if there were those who questioned the justice of punishing orthodox children for their parents’ heresy, they were triumphantly silenced by Alfonso de Castro, who pointed to Original Sin as an irrefragable proof that this was in accordance with the law of God.[494]

The application of these restrictions to reconciled penitents apparently originated with the Council of Béziers, in 1246, which ordered that penitents should not hold public office, or serve as physicians or notaries, or wear silk garments or gold and silver ornaments or other vanities—in short, that their apparel should befit those whose lives constructively were to be passed in repentance.[495] These provisions were not carried into the canon law but apparently became traditional in the Holy Office.

In the Instructions of 1484 there is nothing said as to the disabilities of descendants, but inquisitors were instructed to order penitents, after completing their penance, never to hold public office or benefices or to serve as procurators, tax-collectors, farmers of the revenue, grocers, apothecaries, physicians, surgeons, bleeders or brokers, thus prohibiting the professions which they had specially made their own. Moreover, they were not to wear gold or silver, coral, pearls or other precious stones or garments of silk or camlet or other finery or to ride on horse-back or bear arms, and all this during life, under penalty of relapse.[496]