FOOTNOTES
[1] Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History, translated by Maclaine, (Charlestown, 1810,) cent. 13, p. 2, chap. 5.—Sismondi, Histoire des Français, (Paris, 1821,) tom. vi. chap. 24-28; tom; vii. chap. 2, 3.—Idem, De la Littérature du Midi de l'Europe, (Paris, 1813,) tom. i. chap. 6.—In the former of these works M. Sismondi has described the physical ravages of the crusades in southern France, with the same spirit and eloquence, with which he has exhibited their desolating moral influence in the latter.
Some Catholic writers would fain excuse St. Dominic from the imputation of having founded the Inquisition. It is true he died some years before the perfect organization of that tribunal; but, as he established the principles on which, and the monkish militia by whom, it was administered, it is doing him no injustice to regard him as its real author.—The Sicilian Paramo, indeed, in his heavy quarto, (De Origine et Progressu Officii Sanctae Inquisitionis, Matriti, 1598,) traces it up to a much more remote antiquity, which, to a Protestant ear at least, savors not a little of blasphemy. According to him, God was the first inquisitor, and his condemnation of Adam and Eve furnished the model of the judicial forms observed in the trials of the Holy Office. The sentence of Adam was the type of the inquisitorial reconciliation; his subsequent raiment of the skins of animals was the model of the san-benito, and his expulsion from Paradise the precedent for the confiscation of the goods of heretics. This learned personage deduces a succession of inquisitors through the patriarchs, Moses, Nebuchadnezzar, and King David, down to John the Baptist, and even our Saviour, in whose precepts and conduct he finds abundant authority for the tribunal! Paramo, De Origine Inquisitionis, lib. 1, tit. 1, 2, 3.
[2] Sismondi, Hist. des Français, tom. vii. chap. 3.—Limborch, History of the Inquisition, translated by Chandler, (London, 1731,) book 1, chap. 24.—Llorente, Histoire Critique de l'Inquisition d'Espagne, (Paris, 1818,) tom. i. p. 110.—Before this time we find a constitution of Peter I. of Aragon against heretics, prescribing in certain cases the burning of heretics and the confiscation of their estates, in 1197. Marca, Marca Hispanica, sive Limes Hispanicus, (Parisiis, 1688,) p. 1384.
[3] Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Vetus, tom. ii, p. 186.—Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. pp. 110-124.—Puigblanch cites some of the instructions from Eymerich's work, whose authority in the courts of the Inquisition he compares to that of Gratian's Decretals in other ecclesiastical judicatures. One of these may suffice to show the spirit of the whole. "When the inquisitor has an opportunity, he shall manage so as to introduce to the conversation of the prisoner some one of his accomplices, or any other converted heretic, who shall feign that he still persists in his heresy, telling him that he had abjured for the sole purpose of escaping punishment, by deceiving the inquisitors. Having thus gained his confidence, he shall go into his cell some day after dinner, and, keeping up the conversation till night, shall remain with him under pretext of its being too late for him to return home. He shall then urge the prisoner to tell him all the particulars of his past life, having first told him the whole of his own; and in the mean time spies shall be kept in hearing at the door, as well as a notary, in order to certify what may be said within." Puigblanch, Inquisition Unmasked, translated by Walton, (London, 1816,) vol. i. pp. 238, 239.
[4] Mariana, Hist. de España, lib. 12, cap. 11; lib. 21, cap. 17.— Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 3.—The nature of the penance imposed on reconciled heretics by the ancient Inquisition was much more severe than that of later times. Llorente cites an act of St. Dominic respecting a person of this description, named Ponce Roger. The penitent was commanded to be "stripped of his clothes and beaten with rods by a priest, three Sundays in succession, from the gate of the city to the door of the church; not to eat any kind of animal food during his whole life; to keep three Lents a year, without even eating fish; to abstain from fish, oil, and wine three days in the week during life, except in case of sickness or excessive labor; to wear a religious dress with a small cross embroidered on each side of the breast; to attend mass every day, if he had the means of doing so, and vespers on Sundays and festivals; to recite the service for the day and the night, and to repeat the pater noster seven times in the day, ten times in the evening, and twenty times at midnight"! (Ibid., chap. 4.) If the said Roger failed in any of the above requisitions, he was to be burnt as a relapsed heretic! This was the encouragement held out by St. Dominic to penitence.
[5] Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, liv. 28, chap. 1.—See the canon of the 17th council of Toledo, condemning the Israelitish race to bondage, in Florez, España Sagrada, (Madrid, 1747-75,) tom. vi. p. 229.—Fuero Juzgo (ed. de la Acad. (Madrid, 1815,) lib. 12, tit. 2 and 3,) is composed of the most inhuman ordinances against this unfortunate people.
[6] The Koran grants protection to the Jews on payment of tribute. See the Koran, translated by Sale, (London, 1825,) chap. 9.
[7] The first academy founded by the learned Jews in Spain was that of Cordova, A. D. 948. Castro, Biblioteca Española, tom. i. p. 2.—Basnage, History of the Jews, translated by Taylor, (London, 1708,) book 7, chap. 5.
[8] In addition to their Talmudic lore and Cabalistic mysteries, the Spanish Jews were well read in the philosophy of Aristotle. They pretended that the Stagirite was a convert to Judaism and had borrowed his science from the writings of Solomon. (Brucker, Historia Critica Philosophiae, (Lipsiae, 1766,) tom. ii. p. 853.) M. Degerando, adopting similar conclusions with Brucker, in regard to the value of the philosophical speculations of the Jews, passes the following severe sentence upon the intellectual, and indeed moral character of the nation. "Ce peuple, par son caractère, ses moeurs, ses institutions, semblait être destiné à rester stationnaire. Un attachement excessif à leurs propres traditions dominait chez les Juifs tous les penchans de l'esprit: ils restaient presque étrangers aux progrès de la civilisation, au mouvement général de la société; ils étaient en quelque sorte moralement isolés, alors même qu'ils communiquaient avec tous les peuples, et parcouraient toutes les contrées. Aussi nous cherchons en vain, dans ceux de leurs écrits qui nous sont connus, non seulement de vraies découvertes, mais même des idées réellement originales." Histoire Comparée des Systèmes de Philosophie, (Paris, 1822,) tom. iv. p. 299.