The “Auto da fé”
The last scene in this dismal tragedy was the “act of faith” (auto da fé),[198] the most imposing spectacle, probably, which has been witnessed since the ancient Roman triumph, and which, as intimated by a Spanish writer, was intended, somewhat profanely, to represent the terrors of the Day of Judgment. The proudest grandees of the land, on this occasion, putting on the sable livery of familiars of the Holy Office and bearing aloft its banners, condescended to act as the escort of its ministers; while the ceremony was not unfrequently countenanced by the royal presence. It should be stated, however, that neither of these acts of condescension—or, more properly, humiliation—was witnessed until a period posterior to Isabella’s reign. The effect was further heightened by the concourse of ecclesiastics in their sacerdotal robes, and pompous ceremonial which was intended to consecrate, as it were, this bloody sacrifice by the authority of a religion which has expressly declared that it desires mercy and not sacrifice.[199]
The most important actors in the scene were the unfortunate convicts, who were now disgorged for the first time from the dungeons of the tribunal. They were clad in coarse woollen garments, styled san benitos, brought close round the neck and descending like a frock down to the knees. These were of yellow colour, embroidered with a scarlet cross, and well garnished with figures of devils and flames of fire, which, typical of the heretic’s destiny hereafter, served to make him more odious in the eyes of the superstitious multitude.[200] The greater part of the sufferers were condemned to be “reconciled,” the manifold meanings of which soft phrase have been already explained. Those who were to be “relaxed,” as it was called, were delivered over, as impenitent heretics, to the secular arm, in order to expiate their offence by the most painful of deaths, with the consciousness, still more painful, that they were to leave behind them names branded with infamy, and families involved in irretrievable ruin.[201]
It is remarkable that a system so monstrous as that of the Inquisition, presenting the most effectual barrier, probably, that was ever opposed to the progress of knowledge, should have been revived at the close of the fifteenth century, when the light of civilisation was rapidly advancing over every part of Europe. It is more remarkable that it should have occurred in Spain, at this time under a government which had displayed great religious independence on more than one occasion, and which had paid uniform regard to the rights of its subjects and pursued a generous policy in reference to their intellectual culture. Where, we are tempted to ask, when we behold the persecution of an innocent, industrious people for the crime of adhesion to the faith of their ancestors—where was the charity which led the old Castilian to reverence valour and virtue in an infidel, though an enemy, where the chivalrous self-devotion which led an Aragonese monarch, three centuries before, to give away his life in defence of the persecuted sectaries of Provence, where the independent spirit which prompted the Castilian nobles, during the very last reign, to reject with scorn the purposed interference of the pope himself in their concerns, that they were now reduced to bow their necks to a few frantic priests, the members of an order which, in Spain at least, was quite as conspicuous for ignorance as intolerance? True, indeed, the Castilians, and the Aragonese subsequently still more, gave such evidence of their aversion to the institution, that it can hardly be believed the clergy would have succeeded in fastening it upon them, had they not availed themselves of the popular prejudices against the Jews.[202] Providence, however, permitted that the sufferings thus heaped on the heads of this unfortunate people should be requited in full measure to the nation that inflicted them. The fires of the Inquisition, which were lighted exclusively for the Jews, were destined eventually to consume their oppressors. They were still more deeply avenged in the moral influence of this tribunal, which, eating like a pestilent canker into the heart of the monarchy at the very time when it was exhibiting a most goodly promise, left it at length a bare and sapless trunk.
Torquemada and his Successors
Notwithstanding the persecutions under Torquemada were confined almost wholly to the Jews, his activity was such as to furnish abundant precedent, in regard to forms of proceeding, for his successors; if, indeed, the word forms may be applied to the conduct of trials so summary that the tribunal of Toledo alone, under the superintendence of two inquisitors, disposed of 3,327 processes in little more than a year. The number of convicts was greatly swelled by the blunders of the Dominican monks, who acted as qualificators or interpreters of what constituted heresy, and whose ignorance led them frequently to condemn, as heterodox, propositions actually derived from the fathers of the church. The prisoners for life, alone, became so numerous that it was necessary to assign them their own houses as the places of their incarceration.
The data for an accurate calculation of the number of victims sacrificed by the Inquisition during this reign are not very satisfactory. From such as exist, however, Llorente has been led to the most frightful results. In this enormous sum of human misery is not included the multitude of orphans, who, from the confiscation of their paternal inheritance, were turned over to indigence and vice.[203] Many of the reconciled were afterwards sentenced as relapsed; and the curate of Los Palacios[cc] expresses the charitable wish that “the whole accursed race of Jews, male and female, of twenty years of age and upwards, might be purified with fire and fagot!”[204]
The vast apparatus of the Inquisition involved so heavy an expenditure, that a very small sum comparatively, found its way into the exchequer, to counterbalance the great detriment resulting to the state from the sacrifice of the most active and skilful part of its population. All temporal interests, however, were held light in comparison with the purgation of the land from heresy; and such augmentations as the revenue did receive, we are assured, were conscientiously devoted “to pious purposes and the Moorish war”![205]
