THE INQUISITION.
Thus was installed, November 4, 1571, the tribunal of the Inquisition in the very loyal and very noble City of Mexico.
From that day terror began among its good inhabitants! Woe to heretics, blasphemers, and Jews! Woe to sharpers, witches and sorcerers!
Fear swept over all, and that frightful secrecy with which the tribunal surrounded itself contributed greatly to increase the terror; that mystery with which it proceeded; that impressive pomp which it displayed in its public sentences—which in time were the favorite diversion of the mob and even of the middle and comfortable class.
No one lived at ease; unknown and secret denunciation threatened everyone; unfortunate was he who gave ground for the least suspicion and unhappy was he who merely failed to wear a rosary.
It is necessary to transport one’s self to those times, to read what history records of that dread tribunal, in order to picture, adequately, to one’s self the terror which must have overwhelmed those who appeared before the Holy Office in the old Cathedral of Mexico.
With time respect diminished, and that which before caused terror now aroused derision.
Some of the sentences were ridiculous—mere travesties. For instance, that celebrated in Santo Domingo on December 7, 1664, and in which conjugal infelicities between the viceroy, Mancera, and his lady secretly had their influence. Guido says: “There were ten condemned and among them one who, according to his sentence, was taken to the patio of the convent and stripped; two Indians smeared him with honey and covered him with feathers; there he was left exposed four hours.”
Such spectacles must have caused at first indignation, then contempt.
No less insulting than such punishments were the penitential garments of those condemned by the Holy Office, called san-benitos. These were a kind of scapulary of linen or other cloth, yellow or flesh-red in color. There were three kinds, known respectively by the names samarra, fuego revolto and san-benito—the latter being also a name common to all.