Pegna warns inquisitors against delinquents who feign madness to avoid the torture. They should not, he says, delay on that account, for the torture may be the best means of ascertaining whether the madness is real or simulated.[114]
Finally let it be added upon this gruesome subject that it was not only the accused who was liable to be put to the question. A witness suspected of falsehood, or one who had lapsed into contradictions in the course of his evidence, might be put to torture in caput alienum.[115]
CHAPTER XIII
THE JURISPRUDENCE OF THE HOLY OFFICE—THE SECULAR ARM
The comparatively light sentences imposed upon those who came forward to abjure heresies which they were suspected of harbouring, and upon those who submitted to canonical purgation to cleanse them of “evil reputation,” have already been considered.
It remains to be seen how the Holy Office dealt with negativos—i.e. those who persisted in refusal to confess a first offence of heresy or apostasy after their guilt had been established to the satisfaction of the court—and with relapsos—i.e. those who were convicted of having relapsed into error after once having been penanced and pardoned.
Offenders in either of these two classes were to be abandoned to the secular arm—the ecclesiastical euphemism for death by fire. The same fate also awaited impenitent heretics and contumacious heretics.
He who after having been convicted by sufficient witnesses persisted in denying his guilt should, says Eymeric, be abandoned to the secular arm upon the ground that he who denies a crime which has been proved against him is obviously impenitent.[116]
The impenitence is by no means obvious. It is possible, after all, that the accused might deny because he was innocent and a good Catholic. And whilst, as we shall see, this possibility is not altogether ignored, yet it is given very secondary consideration. It was the inquisitor’s business to assume the guilt of any one brought before him.
It is true, however, that Eymeric urges the inquisitors to proceed very carefully in the examination of the witnesses against such a man; he recommends them to give the accused time in which to resolve himself to confess, and to employ every possible means to obtain such confession.