Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  Nicolaus Eymeric was Grand Inquisitor of Aragon, and he prepared his directory, or manual of procedure, as a guide for his confreres in the business of prosecuting those guilty of heretical pravity.

  The work circulated freely in its manuscript form, and it was one of the first to be printed in Barcelona upon the introduction of the printing-press, so that in Torquemada’s day copies were widely diffused, and were in the hands of all inquisitors in the world.

  The bulk of the “Directorium” is little more than a compilation. It is divided into three parts. The first lays down the chief Articles of the Christian Faith; the second is a collection of the decretals, bulls, and briefs of the popes upon the subject of heretics and heresies, and the decision of the various councils held to determine matters connected with heretics and their abettors, sorcerers, excommunicates, Jews and infidels; the third part, which is Eymeric’s own contribution to the subject, deals with the manner in which trials should be conducted, and gives a detailed list of the offences that come under the jurisdiction of the Holy Office.

  It may be well before proceeding further to give a résumé of the grounds upon which the Inquisition instituted proceedings, as set forth in the “Directorium.”

  All heretics in general are subject to the animadversions of the Holy Office; but there are, in addition, certain offenders who, whilst not exactly guilty of heresy, nevertheless render themselves justiciable by the Inquisition. These are:

  BLASPHEMERS who in blaspheming say that which is contrary to the Christian Faith. Thus, he who says, “The season is so bad that God Himself could not give us good weather,” sins upon a matter of faith.

  SORCERERS AND DIVINERS, when in their sorceries they perform that which is in the nature of heresy — such as re-baptizing infants, burning incense to a skull, etc. But if they confine their sorceries to foretelling the future by chiromancy or palmistry, by drawing the short straw, or consulting the astrolabe, they are guilty of simple sorcery, and it is for the secular courts to prosecute them.

  Amongst the latter are to be placed those who administer love-philtres to women.

  DEVIL-WORSHIPPERS: Those who invoke devils. These are to be divided into three classes:

  (a) Those who worship the devil, sacrificing to him, prostrating themselves, singing prayers and fasting, burning incense or lighting candles in his honour.

  (b) Those who confine themselves to offering a Dulie or Hyperdulie cult to Satan, introducing the names of devils into the litanies.

  (c) Those who invoke the devil by tracing magic figures, placing an infant in a circle, using a sword, a bed, or a mirror, etc.

  In general it is easy to recognize those who have dealings with devils on account of their ferocious aspect and terrible air.

  The invocation in any of the three manners cited is always a heresy. But if the devil should only be asked to do things that are of his office — such as to tempt a woman to the sin of luxury — provided that this is done without adoration or prayer, but in terms of command, there are authors who hold that in such cases the person so proceeding is not guilty of heresy.

  Amongst those who invoke devils are astrologers and alchymists, who when they do not succeed in making the discoveries they seek never fail to have recourse to the devil, sacrificing to him and invoking him expressly or tacitly.

  JEWS AND INFIDELS: The first when they sin against their religion in any of the articles of faith that are the same with them as with us — i.e. that are common alike to Jew and to Christian — or when they attack dogmas that are, similarly, common to both creeds.

  As for infidels, the Church and the Pope, and consequently the Inquisition, may punish them when they sin against the laws of nature — the only laws they know.

  Jews and infidels who attempt to pervert Christians are also regarded as abettors or fautores.

  In spite of the prohibition to succour a heretic, a man would not be regarded as an abettor who gave food to a heretic dying of hunger, since it is possible that if spared the latter might yet come to be converted.

  EXCOMMUNICATES who remain in excommunication during a whole year, by which are to be understood not merely those who are excommunicate as heretics, or abettors of heretics, but excommunicate upon any grounds whatsoever. In fact, the indifference to excommunication renders them suspect of heresy.

  APOSTATES. — Apostate Christians who become Jews or Mohammedans (these religions not being heresies), even though they should have apostatized through fear of death. The fear of torture or death not being one that can touch a person who is firm in the Faith, no apostasy is to be excused upon such grounds.*

  [* Eymeric, “Directorium,” pars iii. Qusest, xli. et seq.]

  With the “Directorium” of Eymeric before him, Torquemada set to work to draw up the first articles of his famous code. Additions were to be made to it later, as the need for such additions came to be shown by experience; but no subsequent addition was of the importance of these original twenty-eight articles. They may be said to have given the jurisprudence of the Spanish Inquisition a settled form, which continued practically unchanged for over three hundred years after Torquemada’s death.

  A survey of these articles and of the passages from Eymeric that have a bearing upon them, together with some of the annotations of the scholiast Francesco Pegna,* should serve to convey some notion of the jurisprudence of the Holy Office and of the extraordinary spirit that inspired and governed it — a spirit at once crafty and stupid, subtle and obvious, saintly and diabolical, consistent in nothing — not even in cruelty, for in its warped and dreadful way it accounted itself merciful, and not only represented but believed that its aims were charitable. It practised its abominations of cruelty out of love for the human race, to save the human race from eternal damnation; and whilst it wept on the one hand over the wretched heretic it flung to the flames, it exulted on the other in the thought that by burning one who was smitten with the pestilence of heresy it saved perhaps a hundred from infection and from purging that infection in an eternity of hell-fire.

  [* The compendious tome including these very ample annotations and commentaries was published first in Rome, 1585.]

  They are rash who see hypocrisy in the priestly code that is to follow. Hypocrites there may have been, there must have been, and many; such a system was a very hotbed of hypocrisy. Yet the system itself was not hypocritical. It was sincere, dreadfully, tragically, ardently sincere, with the most hopeless, intolerable, and stupid of all sincerity — the sincerity of fanaticism, which destroys all sense of proportion, and distorts man’s intellectual vision until with an easy conscience he makes of guile and craft and falsehood the principles that shall enable him to do what he conceives to be his duty by his fellow-man.

  The doctrine of exclusive salvation was the source of all this evil. But that doctrine was firmly and sincerely held. Torquemada or any other inquisitor might have uttered the words which an inspired poet has caused to fall from the lips of Philip II.:

  “The blood and sweat of heretics at the stake

  Is God’s best dew upon the barren field.”*

  [* Tennyson’s “Queen Mary,” Act V. sc. i.]

  And he would have uttered them with a calm and firm conviction, assured that he did no more than proclaim an obvious truth which might serve him as a guide to do his duty by man and God. For all that he did he could find a commandment in the Scriptures. Was burning the proper death for heretics? He answered the question out of the very mouth of Christ, as you shall see. Should a heretic’s property be confiscated? Eymeric and Paramo point to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden as a consequence of their disobedience — the first of all heresies — and ask you what was that but confiscation. Is it proper to impose a garment of shame upon those convicted of lesser heresies, or upon penitents who are reconciled? Paramo will answer you that Adam and Eve wore skins after their fall, and implies that this is a proper precedent for the infamous sanbenito.

  And so on: Moses, David, John the Ba
ptist, and the gentle Saviour Himself are made to afford reason for this course and for that, as the need arises, and each reason is more grotesque than the other, until you are stunned by the blows of these clumsy arguments. You cease to wonder that the translation of the Bible was forbidden, that its study was inhibited. If those who were learned in theology could interpret it so extravagantly, what might not the unlearned achieve?

  TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST PRINTED EDITION OF THE “INSTRUCTIONS” OF TORQUEMADA

  But let us pass on to the consideration of Torquemada’s code.

  Article I

  Whenever inquisitors are appointed to a diocese, city, village, or other place which hitherto has had no inquisitors, they shall — after having presented the warrants by which they are empowered to the prelate of the principal church and to the governor of the district — summon by proclamation all the people and convoke the clergy. They shall appoint a Sunday or holiday upon which all are to assemble in the cathedral or principal church to hear a sermon of the Faith.

  They shall contrive that this sermon is delivered by a good preacher or by one of the actual inquisitors, as they deem best. Its aim shall be to expound the capacity in which they are there, their powers, and their intentions.

  Upon the conclusion of this sermon the inquisitors shall order all faithful Christians to come forward and make oath upon the Cross and the Gospels to favour the Holy Inquisition and its ministers, and to offer them no impediment directly or indirectly in the prosecution of their mission.

  This oath shall be specially imposed upon the governors or other justiciaries of the place, and it shall be witnessed by the notaries of the inquisitors.

  Article II

  After the conclusion of the said sermon the inquisitors shall order to be read and published an admonition with censures against those who are rebellious or who contest the power of the Holy Office.

  Article III

  After the conclusion of the said sermon the inquisitors shall publish an edict granting a term of grace, of thirty or forty days — as they may deem proper — so that all persons who have fallen into the sin of heresy or apostasy, who have observed Jewish rites or any other that are contrary to the Christian Religion, may come forward to confess their sins, assured that if they do so with a sincere penitence, divulging all that is known to them or that they remember, not only of their own sins but also of the sins of others, they shall be received with charity.

  They shall be subjected to a salutary penance, but they shall not suffer death, imprisonment, or confiscation of their property, nor shall they In any way be mulcted unless the inquisitors, in consideration of the quality of the penitents and of the sins they confess, should think well to impose some pecuniary penance upon them.

  Concerning this grace and mercy that their Highnesses consider well to accord to those who are reconciled, the Sovereigns order the delivery of letters-patent, bearing the royal seal, whose tenor shall be included in the published edict.

  It is sufficiently plain, from the terms of this article, that the edict of grace was published by royal command, and that it was not, as Garcia Rodrigo represents it, a merciful dispensation spontaneouslyemanating from the Holy Office.

  Article IV

  Self-delators shall present their confessions in writing to the inquisitors and their notaries with two or three witnesses who shall be officers of the Inquisition or other upright persons.

  Upon receipt of this confession by the inquisitors, let the oath be administered to the penitents in legal form, not only concerning the matters confessed but concerning others that may be known to them and upon which they may be questioned. Let them be asked how long it is since they Judaized or otherwise sinned against the Faith, and how long it is since they abandoned their false beliefs, repented, and ceased to observe those ceremonies. Next let them be examined upon the circumstances of the matters confessed, that the inquisitors may satisfy themselves that these confessions are true. Especially let them be questioned as to what prayers they recite, where they recite them, and with whom they have been in the habit of assembling to hear the law of Moses preached.

  Article V

  Self-delators who seek reconciliation to Holy Mother Church shall be required publicly to abjure their errors, and, penance shall publicly be imposed upon them at the discretion of the inquisitors, using mercy and kindness as far as it is possible for them to do so with an easy conscience.

  The inquisitors shall admit none to secret penance and recantation unless his sin shall have been so secret that none else knows or could know of it save his confessor; such a one all inquisitors may reconcile and absolve in secret.

  Llorente says that the admission to secret penance was a source of much gold to the Roman Curia, as thousands appealed to the Pope offering a secret confession and firm purpose of amendment if secretly absolved, for which a papal brief was necessary.

  A word must here be said on the score of ABJURATION. It was the amende provided by Eymeric (See Eymeric, “Directorium,” pars iii. et seq.) for those who by their speech or conduct should have fallen into suspicion of heresy; those, for instance, who abstained from the sacraments imposed by Mother Church being liable to this suspicion.

  There were three degrees of suspicion into which a man might fall: light, vehement, and violent. The abjuration required was practically the same in all three cases, but the punishment imposed upon the abjurer varied according to the degree. This abjuration must be publicly made in church before the assembled people, the suspects being placed — like all penitents or convicts of heresy — upon a raised platform in full view of the assembled faithful. The inquisitor would read out the Articles of the Christian Faith, and a list of the principal errors against it, laying particular stress upon those errors of which the penitents were suspected, and which they were required to abjure with both hands upon the Gospels, and according to the formula laid down by Eymeric.

  Those who are suspected lightly (leviter) are admonished that should they again fall into error they will be abandoned to the secular arm for punishment. With that admonition, and the imposition of a penance which may take the form of fasts, prayers, or pilgrimages, they are dismissed.

  Those suspected vehemently (vehementer) are similarly admonished, but in addition they may be sent to prison for a time, whereafter they must undergo a heavy penance, such as standing on certain days at the door of the principal church or near the altar during the celebration of Mass holding a candle — but not wearing a sanbenito, as, properly speaking, they are not heretics — or they may be sent upon a pilgrimage.

  He who is violently suspected (violenter) shall be absolved of the excommunication incurred, but as his crime may not go unpunished, and to the end that he may suffer less severely in the next world, he is sentenced to a term of imprisonment, whereafter he shall be condemned to stand at the church door during the great feasts of the year wearing the penitential scapulary known as the sanbenito, that all may be made aware of his infamy.

  After passing sentence, the inquisitor shall admonish the penitent in these terms:

  “My dear Son, be patient and do not despair; if we observe in you the signs of contrition we shall soften your penance; but beware of departing from what we have prescribed for you; should you do so you shall be punished as an impenitent heretic.”

  The punishment for the impenitent was, of course, the fire.

  The inquisitor shall conclude the ceremony by granting an indulgence of forty days to all who have attended it and an indulgence of three years to those who shall have taken part in it.

  The sentence of prison, with its bread-and-water diet, might be relaxed; but never that of the sanbenito, which is considered by Eymeric — and inquisitors generally — as the most salutary of penances for him that undergoes it and the most edifying to the public generally.

  The self-delators admitted by Torquemada to abjuration were treated as suspects of the first degree — leviter.

  Article VI

  Ina
smuch as heretics and apostates (although they return to the Catholic Faith and become reconciled) are infamous at law, and inasmuch as they must perform their penances with humility and sorrow for having lapsed into error, the inquisitors shall order them not to hold any public office or ecclesiastical benefice, and they shall not be lawyers or brokers, apothecaries, surgeons or physicians, nor shall they wear gold or silver, coral, pearls, precious stones or other ornaments, nor dress in silk or camlett, nor go on horseback nor carry weapons all their lives, under pain of being deemed relapsed (relapsos) into heresy, as must all be considered who after reconciliation do not carry out the penances imposed upon them.

  This decree was no more than the revival of the enactment made a century and a half earlier by Alfonso XI in the code known as the Partidas, which had mercifully been allowed to fall into desuetude. It was, Llorente tell us, a considerable source of wealth to the Roman Curia. Frequent appeals for “rehabilitation” were made in consequence, and accorded under an apostolic brief whose heavy charges the appellants were required to defray.

  Torquemada mercifully stops short of ordering the self-delators to wear the sanbenito. Even so, however, by decreeing that they must wear no garments of silk or wool, and therefore none but the very plainest raiment, unadorned by any precious metal or jewel — not to mention the prohibition to use weapons or go on horseback — he imposed upon them a garb that was only some degrees removed from the penitential sack and served the same purpose of marking them out for infamy.

  The wearing of the sanbenito, too, was a custom that had fallen somewhat into desuetude. But the ascetic Torquemada was not the man to allow a form of penance accounted so very salutary to continue neglected. He revived and extended the use of it, adding innovations of his own, so that it came to be imposed not only upon condemned heretics, but upon the reconciled — other than self-delators — and upon suspects, who were required to wear it during the abjuration ceremony.