“Every inquisitor hath annually allowed him 60,000, which is now increased to an hundred thousand pieces, every one of which is worth two of those brass pieces of money, which they commonly call Albi. The judges of the forfeited effects have each of them 30,000. The promoter fiscal as many. The scribe or notary the same. The executor 60,000. The receiver as many. The messenger 20,000. The door-keeper 10,000. The physician 5,000. These salaries may be increased at the pleasure of the inquisitor general, and are to be paid by the receiver at the fixed times; which if he neglects to do, he may be deprived of his office by the inquisitors.
“The assessors and counsellors have no stipend, but must give their advice gratis, when the inquisitors desire it, as some lawyers affirm; and though they may receive a salary freely offered them, yet they cannot demand it, because all Christians are bound to support and defend the affair of the Catholic faith. However, these assessors, who are the eyes of the judges in every cause, even though it be spiritual, justly receive a salary for their service and labour: for many things are justly received, which it would be injustice to demand.
“Those advocates who defend the causes of the poor, have a stipend out of the treasury, which is usually very small, though honourable. But if the criminals are not poor, the advocates are paid out of their effects.”
It is also provided in Spain, by many constitutions, that inquisitors, who receive gifts, incur the sentence of excommunication, and are deprived of their office, and fined double the value of what they take. However, as the author of the History of the Inquisition at Goa informs us, the inquisitors know how to amass vast riches, by two methods. When the effects of the prisoners, after confiscation, are sold by the cryer, the inquisitors, notwithstanding the interdict to the contrary, usually send one of their domestics, who bids a low price for such things as his master wants, being pretty secure that nobody else will out-bid them; and by this means they buy very valuable things for half price, or less. Besides this, the inquisitors have a right to demand the payment of the expences, and other necessary charges they have been at, when, and in what sums they please, whenever the money arising from the confiscations is carried into the royal treasury; without ever giving any reason, or any one’s daring to ask them for what purposes they employ it.
Gonsalvius Montanus also tells us, in his Arts of the Spanish Inquisition, cap. 10. that the inquisitors are sometimes prevailed with to use their prisoners a little more kindly, by some pretty presents made by their friends and relations. But this matter must be dextrously managed, that so the inquisitor may not refuse the offer. The first thing, therefore, is, to bribe one of his servants; in which there is no difficulty, provided it be done privately. When the inquisitors themselves are tampered with, they generally answer, that holy tribunal is incorrupt, and suffers no manner of gifts whatsoever to be received. But they have generally, amongst their attendance, some child of their brother or sister; or, at least, a servant that they greatly esteem, and who is to be highly respected, and who only sees the inquisitor refuse the presents offered to him. This servant comes to the prisoner’s friend, and privately points out to him the relation of the lord inquisitor. This is giving him to understand, unless the person be a stock, that though before he in vain attempted to corrupt the integrity of this holy tribunal, he may by this conveyance prevail upon the inquisitor, though he would refuse to accept the same present when more openly offered him.
SECT. III.
Of the crimes cognizable by the Inquisition, and the punishment annexed to them.
The first and principal crime is heresy. Three things are required to make any one properly an heretic. 1. That he hath been baptized. 2. That he err in his understanding in matters relating to the faith, i. e. differ in those points which are determined by a general council, or the pope, as necessary to be believed, or enjoined as an apostolic tradition. 3. Obstinacy of will; as when any one persists in his error, after being informed by a judge of the faith that the opinion he holds is contrary to the determination of the church, and will not renounce it at the command of such a judge, by abjuring it, and giving suitable satisfaction. This crime is so widely extended by the doctors of the Romish church, that they esteem every thing as heresy, that is contrary to any received opinion in the church, though it be merely philosophical, and hath no manner of foundation in the scripture.
The punishments ordained against heretics are many, and most grievous. The first is excommunication; by which heretics are driven from the church, and expelled the company of all Christians. The ceremony of it is thus: when the bishop pronounces the anathema, twelve priests stand round him, and hold lighted torches in their hands, which they throw down on the ground, and tread under foot at the conclusion of the excommunication; after which a letter is sent to the proper parishes, containing the names of the excommunicated persons, and the reason of their sentence. Persons thus excommunicated, are deprived of all ecclesiastical benefices and dignities, and are not to receive Christian burial.
Being excommunicated, all their effects are forfeited, all donations by them are null and void, and even portions paid to children must be revoked, and all legacies to wives forfeited. The treasury of the inquisition devours all. The consequence of this is, that the children of heretics are absolutely disinherited; excepting only when a child accuses his heretical parents. Heretics are also deprived of their natural power over their children, and of that civil power they have over their servants; so that slaves and servants are, ipso facto, freed from servitude the moment their masters fall into heresy. Subjects are also freed from obedience to heretical princes and magistrates, and absolved from their oaths of allegiance. In a word, heretics lose all right and property in every thing that they have. Hence proceeds the maxim, “that faith is not to be kept with heretics,” because it ought never to be given them; and because the keeping it is against the public good, the salvation of souls, and contrary, as they say, to the laws of God and man. Farther, all places of refuge, which are open to malefactors, and the worst of villains, are denied to heretics. Another punishment is imprisonment; or if they cannot be apprehended, they are put under the ban; so that any one, by his own private authority, may seize, plunder, and kill him as an enemy, or robber. The last penalty is death, the most terrible one that can be inflicted, viz. the being burnt to death. Such as are obstinate and impenitent, are to be burnt alive; others are to be first strangled, and then burnt.