Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition: A History

by Rafael Sabatini

There is not the slightest warrant for such an assumption. In the records the notary very clearly states that the inquisitors were present throughout those confrontations, and it is of importance to remember that these records were not prepared for publication, but were to be consigned to the secret archives of the Inquisition—so that any notion of a fraud having been deliberately perpetrated may once for all be dismissed as entirely idle.

But even were it not the recorded fact that the inquisitors were present at the confrontations, and that the prisoners were afforded no opportunity of coming to any understanding, it would still be extremely difficult to believe that they should have come to an understanding to get themselves all burnt.

M. Loeb’s attempt to make this appear reasonable is the least convincing thing in a very able but quite unconvincing article. It certainly seems to display his own want of confidence in the general acceptance of such a situation.

“We could understand,” he says, “that guilty men should come to an understanding to deny the crime committed, or to attenuate the fault, or to cast it upon others. But what should be the meaning of an understanding whose object, as would be the case here, is to make truthful avowals of a real crime? The accused would be taking unnecessary trouble. But all is explained if, on the contrary, they prepared confessions of a crime that was never committed.”

M. Loeb has vitiated his argument by the absolute assumption that an understanding did take place. This we cannot admit upon the evidence before us. But if we do, is the position materially altered? M. Loeb says that “all is explained if they prepared confessions of a crime that was never committed.” To our mind, nothing is explained by such a procedure. What possible object could have induced them to come to an understanding to make an uncommitted crime the subject of a unanimous confession that must infallibly send them to the stake? What possible advantage could they hope to derive from a falsehood of that description?

One of the chief obstacles to the rejection of the story as a fabrication is Yucé’s confession to “the Rabbi Abraham” in the prison of Segovia. M. Loeb recognizes it, and although he makes a determined attempt to overcome it, his arguments are too arbitrary and do not materially affect the point even if they are admitted.

But if M. Loeb is entirely unconvincing in his attempts to prove that the crucifixion of the boy is a fable, nothing could be more convincing than his first contention: that even if we account the story true as contained in Yucé’s dossier, the deed is not to be looked upon as ritual murder, but purely as an operation in magic.

It is a conclusion with which you must come to agree, although at first glance you may be tempted to form the opinion that the crucifixion of the child served both purposes. Some such opinion had been formed by the inquisitors when they asked why the boy had been crucified rather than put to death in some other fashion, since his heart was all that was required for the enchantment.

The answer was that crucifixion was chosen in derision and vituperation of the Passion of Jesus Christ. But this is a very different thing from ritual murder or “the hanging of Haman.” If we turn to the actual vituperative phrases employed,[223] we find the expression of a desire to wound the Redeemer Himself, through that form of magic, common in all ages, known as envoûtement. Instead of the waxen or wooden effigy usually employed, a living body is used in this case. For the rest the immolation of a child plays its part in the magic ritual of other than Jews. We need mention but the notorious instance of the Black Masses celebrated by the infamous Abbé Gribourg in the eighteenth century.

There seems, indeed, no doubt at all that we are justified in rejecting the theory that the crucifixion of the Holy Child of La Guardia is to be accepted as an instance of Jewish ritual murder. So far we can accompany M. Loeb, but no farther. We cannot say with him that no such crime was ever committed. To convince us of that it would be necessary to show that the whole of the dossier we have considered is a forgery to serve the purposes of Torquemada. And this we have proof that it is not. Had it been that, had it been manufactured for popular consumption, it would not have lain concealed for four centuries in the secret archives of the Inquisition.