"Briefly we may say," added the Doctor, "that the Inquisition was formally established in the thirteenth century, and came to an end in the first part of the nineteenth; but trials and punishment for heresy had taken place as early as the fourth century. The Inquisition was more powerful in Spain than in any other country of Europe; and it never had any hold of consequence outside of Spain, Italy, and France, and the colonies of Spain. One historian (Llorente) says that during the whole period of the Spanish Inquisition—from 1483 to 1808—31,912 persons were burned alive, 17,659 were burned in effigy, and 291,456 were subjected to rigorous pains and penalties. The accuracy of his statements is doubted, Prescott considering them greatly exaggerated and his figures most improbable; and other writers share Prescott's opinion.
"The decree by which the Inquisition was established in Mexico especially exempted the Indians from its operations, and thereby secured its popularity among them, as the public burning of Spanish and other heretics afforded much amusement to the natives, and was a sort of substitute for the human sacrifices of the Aztecs, which the Conquest had abolished. The Mexican Inquisition was under the special charge of the Dominican order, the same as in Spain, and hence was associated with the Church of San Domingo.
"There is," continued the Doctor, "a popular misapprehension concerning the auto-da-fé, or profession of faith. It is generally believed to be the burning of the condemned, whereas the auto-da-fé was simply the public ceremony that followed the secret trial by the Inquisition. The members of the tribunal, and all others assembled with them, made a public auto-da-fé, or profession of their faith in Christianity and the doctrines of the Church. After this was done the list of the condemned was read, together with the punishments accorded to them, and then the victims were handed over to the civil authorities for punishment. The trial and sentence were the work of the Church, but the punishment was that of the civil power only.
"The first auto-da-fé in Mexico was in 1574, when 'twenty-one pestilent Lutherans' were burned, and from that time on the public burnings were frequent. How many people perished in these affairs is not known; but it must not be understood that all the victims who suffered were burned alive. In most instances, even where the body of the condemned man was burned, he was killed by strangling; thus in one case where fifteen persons perished, fourteen were first strangled, and only one was burned alive. The penalty of death by burning was visited only upon heretics and sorcerers.
"And here," added the Doctor, "is a photograph of four victims of the Inquisition, whose skeletons were found in the wall of the building which was the seat of the tribunal in Mexico. They are supposed to have been built into the wall at the time of its construction, but nothing is actually known concerning them.
TORTURE CHAMBER.
"The trials of accused persons were always held in secret; the unfortunates were not permitted to see their accusers, or even know their names. The punishments were death by fire or on the scaffold, imprisonment for life or shorter terms, with or without hard labor, forfeiture of property, civil infamy, and in mild cases public retraction and penance. Accused persons might be tortured to make them confess their guilt, and an accomplice might be a witness against an accused individual."