ADVERTISEMENT.
THE Compiler of the following pages has only attempted to give a condensed translation of a complex and voluminous history, with the hope that it might prove of more utility in its present form than in the original works. Those portions which are not calculated to interest or instruct the general reader, and afford no illustrations of the subject, have been passed over. Those trials have been selected which serve as examples of the various laws of the Inquisition, and of its state at different epochs, and which include the persecutions of the most eminent men.
The curious will be amply gratified by the perusal of the history of the secret tribunal; the man of leisure cannot fail in finding occupation and amusement in the pages of Llorente; and the philosopher will discover in them ample scope for reflection on the aberrations of human reason, and on the capability of our nature, when under the influence of fanaticism, to inflict, with systematic indifference, death, torture, misery, anxiety, and infamy, on the guilty and the innocent.
All the records of the fantastic cruelties of the heathen world do not afford so appalling a picture of human weakness and depravity as the authentic and genuine documents of the laws and proceeding of this Holy Office, which professed to act under the influence of the doctrines of the Redeemer of the World!
I offer, with humility, this abridgement of the work to the public, and while I hope that it will be kindly and favourably received, I believe that it may prove interesting and useful to every class of readers.
June, 1826.
PREFACE.
ALTHOUGH a tribunal has existed for more than three hundred years in Spain, invested with the power of prosecuting heretics, no correct history of its origin, establishment, and progress has been written.
Writers of many countries have spoken of Inquisitions established in different parts of the world, where the Roman Catholic faith is the religion of the state, and yet not one is worthy of confidence. The work of M. Lavallée, entitled the "History of the Inquisitions of Italy, Spain, and Portugal," and published in 1809, has only added to the historical errors of the authors who preceded him. The Spanish and Portuguese writers on the same subject deserve no higher credit; and have not detailed, with accuracy, the circumstances which led to the establishment of this dreadful tribunal. These writers even differ in their statements of the period of its origin, and place it between the years 1477 and 1484. One affirms, with confidence, that the latter date is the true one, because in that year the regulations of the tribunal were enacted; another decides that it originated in 1483, because in that year Thomas Torquemada was appointed inquisitor-general by the Pope.
The inquisition of Spain was not a new tribunal created by Ferdinand V. and Isabella, the queen of Castile, but only a reform and extension of the ancient tribunal, which had existed from the thirteenth century.