After many days, or perhaps months, which the accused dragged out in a loathsome dungeon, the keeper of the prison asked him, as it were accidentally, if he wished to have a hearing. When he appeared before his judges, they inquired, just as if they knew nothing about him, who he was, and what he wanted. If he wished to be informed what offence he had committed, he was admonished to confess his faults himself. If he confessed nothing, time was given him for reflection, and he was remanded to prison. If, after a long time allowed him, he still confessed nothing, he must swear to answer truly to all the questions put to him. If he would not swear, he was condemned without further process. If he swore to give answer, he was questioned in regard to his whole life, without making known to him his offence. He was, however, promised a pardon if he would truly confess his offences; an artifice this, by which his judges often learned more than they knew before against him.
At last the charges against him were presented to him in writing, and counsel also was assigned him, who, however, only advised him to confess fully his faults. The accuser and informer against him were not made known to him, but the real charges against him were put into his hands. He was allowed time for his defence; but his accuser, and the witnesses against him, he could know only by conjecture. Sometimes he was so fortunate as to discover who they were; but rarely were they presented before him, and confronted with him.
If his answers did not satisfy the judges, or if the allegations against him were not adequately proved, resort was had to torture. Each of these tortures was continued as long as, in the judgment of the physician of the Inquisition, the man was able to endure them. He might now confess what he would, but still the torture would be repeated, first to discover the object and motives of the acknowledged offence, and then to make him expose his accomplices.
If, when tortured, he confessed nothing, many snares were laid to elicit from him unconsciously his offence. The conclusion was that the accused, when he seemed to have satisfied the judges, was condemned, according to the measure of his offence, to death, or to perpetual imprisonment, or to the galleys, or to be scourged; and he was delivered over to the civil authorities, who were intreated to spare his life, as the church never thirsted for blood; but yet they would experience persecution if they did not carry the decisions of the court into execution.
What an infernal device is the Inquisition! What innocent person could escape destruction, if an inquisitor were disposed to destroy him? A heretic, even if he had been acquitted by the pope himself, might still be condemned to die by the Inquisition. An equivocal promise of pardon might be given to induce him to make confession, but the promise must not be fulfilled when the object of it was obtained. Even death did not free a person from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition; for a deceased heretic must be burned in effigy. Would not every feeling of humanity be outraged by following such horrid principles? The inquisitorial judges did not deny that by such proceedings many innocent persons unavoidably perished, along with the guilty; but this did not trouble them. “Better,” they said, “that a hundred innocent persons should be cut off and go to paradise, than let one heretic escape, who might poison many souls and plunge them into endless perdition.”[f]
JOHN FOXE ON THE EVILS OF THE INQUISITION
“The abuse of this Inquisition is most execrable. If any word shall pass out of the mouth of any, which may be taken in evil part; yea, though no word be spoken, yet if they bear any grudge or evil will against the party, incontinent they command him to be taken, and put in a horrible prison, and then find out crimes against him at leisure, and in the meantime no man living is so hardy as once to open his mouth for him. If the father speak one word for his child, he is also taken and cast into prison as a favourer of heretics; neither is it permitted to any person to enter in to the prisoner; but there he is alone, in a place where he cannot see so much as the ground where he is, and is not suffered either to read or write, but there endureth in darkness palpable, in horrors infinite, in fear miserable, wrestling with the assaults of death.
“By this it may be esteemed what trouble and sorrow, what pensive sighs and cogitations they sustain, who are not thoroughly instructed in holy doctrine. Add, moreover, to these distresses and horrors of the prison, the injuries, threats, whippings, and scourgings, irons, tortures, and racks which they endure. Sometimes also they are brought out, and showed forth in some higher place to the people, as a spectacle of rebuke and infamy. And thus are they detained there, some many years, and murdered by long torments, and whole days together treated much more cruelly, out of all comparison, than if they were in the hangman’s hands to be slain at once. During all this time, what is done in the process no person knoweth, but only the holy fathers and the tormentors, who are sworn to execute the torments. All this is done in secret, and (as great mysteries) pass not the hands of these holy ones. And after all these torments so many years endured in the prison, if any man shall be saved, it must be by guessing; for all the proceedings of the court of that execrable Inquisition are open to no man, but all is done in hugger-mugger and in close corners, by ambages, by covert ways, and secret counsels. The accuser is secret, the crime secret, the witness secret, whatsoever is done is secret, neither is the poor prisoner ever advised of anything. If he can guess who accused him, whereof and wherefore, he may be pardoned peradventure of his life; but this is very seldom, and yet he shall not incontinent be set at liberty before he hath long time endured infinite torments; and this is called their “penitence,” and so is he let go; and yet not so but that he is enjoined, before he pass the inquisitor’s hands, that he shall wear a garment of yellow colours for a note of public infamy to him and his whole race. And if he cannot guess right, showing to the inquisitors by whom he was accused, whereof, and wherefore (as is before touched), incontinent the horrible sentence of condemnation is pronounced against him, that he shall be burned for an obstinate heretic. And yet the sentence is not executed by and by, but after he hath endured imprisonment in some heinous prison.”[j]
HOW A PENITENT WAS TREATED
