Some penances are honorary[honorary], attended with infamy to those who do them. Such are, walking in procession without shoes, in their breeches and shirt, and to receive therein public discipline by the bishop or priest; to be expelled the church, and to stand before the gates of the great church upon solemn days, in the time of mass, with naked feet, and wearing upon their cloak an halter about their neck. At this time they only stand before the gates of the church, with a lighted candle in their hand, during the time of solemn mass on some holy day, as the bell is ringing to church.
Besides these, they now use the punishment of banishment, of beating, and whipping with scourges or rods. Sometimes they are condemned to fines, excluded as infamous from all public offices, prohibited from wearing silver or gold, precious garments and ornaments, and from riding on horses or mules with trappings, as nobles do.
But the most usual punishment of all, is their wearing crosses upon their penitential garments, which is now frequently enjoined penitents in Spain and Portugal. And this is far from being a small punishment; because such persons are exposed to the scoffs and insults of all, which they are obliged to swallow, though the most cruel in themselves, and offered by the vilest of mankind; for by these crosses they are marked to all persons for heresy, or, as it is now in Spain and Portugal, for Judaism: and being thus marked, the they are[they are] avoided by all, and are almost excluded from all human society.
This garment was formerly of a black and bluish colour, like a monk’s cloak, made without a cowl; and the crosses put on them were strait, having one arm long, and the other across, after this manner †. Sometimes, according to the heinousness of the offence, there were two arms across, after this manner ‡. But now in Spain this garment is of a yellow colour, and the crosses put on it are oblique, after the manner of St. Andrew’s cross, in this form X, and are of a red colour. This cloak the Italians call “Abitello,” the Spaniards “Sant Benito,” as though it was “Sacco Benito,” i. e. the blessed sackcloth, because it is fit for penance, by which we are blessed and saved. But Simancas says it is the habit of St. Benedict.
Finally, the most grievous punishment is the being condemned to perpetual imprisonment, there to do wholesome penance with the bread of grief and the water of affliction. This is usually enjoined on the believers of heretics, and such as are difficultly brought to repentance; or who have a long while denied the truth during the trial, or have perjured themselves.
Besides this condemnation to perpetual imprisonment, such persons are also enjoined other penances, viz. sometimes to stand in the habit marked with the cross at the door of such a church, such a time, and so long, viz. on the four principal festivals of the glorious Virgin Mary, of such a church; or on such and such festivals, at the gates of such and such churches. Sometimes before they are shut up in prison they are publicly exposed, viz. being clothed with the habit of the crosses, they are placed upon an high ladder in the gate of some church, that they may be plainly seen by all; where they must stand till dinner time; after which they must be carried, clothed in the same habit, to the same place, at the first ringing to vespers, and there stand till sun-set; and these spectacles are usually repeated on several Sundays and festivals in several churches, which are particularly specified in their sentence. But if they break prison, or do not otherwise fulfil the penances enjoined them, they are condemned as impenitents, and as under the guilt of their former crimes; and and if they fall again into the hands of the inquisitors, they are delivered over as impenitents to the secular court, unless they humbly ask pardon, and profess that they will obey the commands of the inquisitors.
However, if persons remain impenitent till after sentence is pronounced, there is no farther place for pardon. And yet there is one instance of Stephana de Proaudo, extant in the book of the sentences of the Thoulouse inquisition, who, being judged an heretic the day before, and left as an heretic to the secular court (from whence it appears that it was not then usual for those who were left to the secular court to be burnt the same day on which the sentence is pronounced, as is now practised in Spain and Portugal) seeing on the following day, viz. Monday, that the fire in which she was to be burnt was made ready, said on that very day, that she was willing to be converted to the Catholic faith, and to return to the ecclesiastical unity. And when it was doubted whether she spoke this feignedly or sincerely, or through fear of death, and was answered, that the time of mercy was elapsed, and that she should think of the salvation of her soul, and fully discover whatsoever she knew of herself or others concerning the fact of heresy, which she promised to say and do, and that she would die in the faith of the holy church of Rome; upon this the inquisitor and vicars of the bishop of Tholouse called a council on the following Tuesday, and at length it was concluded, that on the following Sunday she should confess the faith of the church of Rome, recant her errors, and be carried back to prison, where it would be proved whether her conversion was real or pretended; and so strictly kept, that she might not be able to infect others with her errors. Emerick[[271]] also gives us an instance at Barcelona, in Catalonia, of three heretics, impenitent, but not relapsed, who were delivered over to the secular arm. And when one of them, who was a priest, was put in the fire, and one of his sides somewhat burnt, he cried to be taken out of it, because he would abjure and repent. And he was taken out accordingly. But he was afterwards found always to have continued in his heresy, and to have infected many, and would not be converted; and was therefore turned over again, as impenitent and relapsed, to the secular arm, and burnt.
The author of the History of the Inquisition at Goa,[[272]] gives us another instance of a very rich new Christian, whose name was Lewis Pezoa, who, with his whole family, had been accused of secret Judaism, by some of his enemies; and who, with his wife, two sons and one daughter, and some other relations that lived with him, were all thrown into the jail of the inquisition. He denied the crime of which he was accused, and well refuted it; and demanded that the witnesses who had deposed against him might be discovered to him, that he might convict them of falsehood. But he could obtain nothing, and was condemned as a negative, to be delivered over to the arm of the secular court; which sentence was made known to him fifteen days before it was pronounced. The Duke of Cadaval, an intimate friend of the Duke d’Aveira, inquisitor general, had made strict inquiry how his affair was like to turn. And understanding by the inquisitor general, that unless he confessed before his going out of prison he could not escape the fire, because he had been legally convicted, he continued to entreat the inquisitor general, till he had obtained a promise from him, that if he could persuade Pezoa to confess, even after sentence pronounced, and his procession in the act of faith, he should not die, though it was contrary to the laws and customs of an act of faith. Upon that solemn day therefore, on which the act of faith was to be held, he went with some of his own friends, and some that were Pezoa’s, to the gate of the inquisition, to prevail with him, if possible, to confess. He came out in the procession, wearing the infamous Samarre, and on his head the Caroch, or infamous mitre. His friends, with many tears, besought him in the name of the Duke de Cadoval, and by all that was dear to him, that he would preserve his life; and intimated to him, that if he would confess and repent, the said duke had obtained his life from the inquisitor general, and would give him more than he had lost. But all in vain; Pezoa continually protesting himself innocent, and that the crime itself was falsely invented by his enemies, who sought his destruction. When the procession was ended, and the act of faith almost finished, the sentences of those who were condemned to certain penances having been read, and on the approach of evening the sentences of those who were to be delivered over to the secular court being begun to be read, his friends repeated their intreaties, by which at last they overcame his constancy, so that desiring an audience, and rising up that he might be heard, he said, “Come then, let us go and confess the crimes I am falsely accused of, and thereby gratify the desires of my friends.” And having confessed his crime, he was remanded to jail. Two years after he was sent to Evora, and in the act of faith walked in procession, wearing the Samarre, on which was painted the fire inverted, according to the usual custom of the Portuguese inquisition; and after five years more that he was detained in the jail of the inquisition, he was condemned to the gallies for five years.
If the person accused is found a relapse by his own confession, he cannot escape death, even though he is penitent. If he be in holy orders, he is first degraded. After sentence is pronounced against him, he is delivered to the secular arm, with this clause added to his sentence by the inquisitors: “Nevertheless, we earnestly beseech the said secular arm, that he will moderate his sentence against you, so as to prevent the effusion of blood, or danger of death:” Thus adding hypocrisy and insult to their devilish barbarity.
If the person accused be an impenitent heretick, but not relapsed, he is kept in chains in close imprisonment, that he may not escape, or infect others; and in the mean while all methods must be used for his conversion. They send clergymen to instruct him, and to put him in mind of the pains of hell-fire. If this will not do, they keep him in chains for a year or more, in a close, hard jail, that his constancy may be overcome by the misery of his imprisonment. If this doth not move him, they use him in a little kinder manner, and promise him mercy, if he will repent. If they cannot thus prevail with him, they suffer his wife and children, and little ones, and his other relations, to come to him, and break his constancy. But if after all he persists in his heresy, he is burnt alive.