Lisbon, January 8th, 1707, N.S.
(A copy examined from the original, by J. Blisse.)[b]
INQUISITORIAL DOCUMENTS
That the above affidavit is not a mere party document is only too plainly proved by the very manual of procedure, the Cartilla of the Inquisition at Seville, which W. H. Rule[y] has translated. It was meant for the guidance of all the Spanish inquisitors, and its business-like calm is not its least horrible feature, as is this insistence upon a full report of the torture and its results:[a]
How the Record was Kept
“If the criminal is under age, the guardian must be present at pronouncing sentence, in order that he may appeal if he wishes; but he must not be present at the torture.
“All that the criminal says has to be set down, and the questions that were put to him, and his answers, without omitting anything, and how they ordered him to be stripped, and his arms to be bound, and the rounds of cord that are put on him, and how they ordered him to be placed on a rack, and to bind his legs, head, and arms, and how he was bound, and how they ordered the garrotes to be put on, and how they were put on, and how compressed, declaring if it was on leg, thigh, or shin, or arms, etc., and what was said to him at each of these operations.
“If the torture is of pulley, it must be entered how the irons were put; and the weight or weights, and how he was hoisted, and how many times, and how long he was up each time. If it is of rack, it shall be said how the toca[193] was put on him, and how many pitchers of water were thrown over him, and how much each contained.”[y]
The Proper Form of Torture for Women
Even more ghastly is the blank form for convenience in recording the various steps. The following from the same manual, as translated by Rule,[y] corroborates the testimony of Elizabeth Vasconcellos quoted above, inasmuch as it prescribes the gentler forms of discipline to be used when the errant one was a woman. There is something peculiarly terrible in the very omission of a special name and the consequent thought of the number of wretches whose vain words and torments were thus recorded.[a]