Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  Finally, the impenitent heretic bore the same devices as the relapsed penitent, but in his case the tongues of flame pointed upwards to show that he was to die by them, and his sanbenito was further daubed with crude paintings of devils — horrible, grotesque caricatures — to advertise the spirits ruling over his soul.

  Something should by now have been gathered of the spirit of the Inquisition as reflected in the pages of Eymeric and his commentator Pegna in that “Directorium” upon which such copious draught has been made for these chapters upon the Jurisprudence of the Holy Office. It is worth while, before proceeding, to cite another author’s views upon Justice and Mercy as understood by the Inquisition, and to consider an illuminating passage from the pen of Garcia de Trasmiera.

  This Trasmiera — to whom reference has been made already — was an Aragonese, an inquisitor who lived in the seventeenth century — nearly two hundred years after the epoch with which we are here concerned. We might go to a score of other sources, from Paramo downwards, for very similar sentiments, and the only reason for choosing this particular passage from Trasmiera is that it is almost in the nature of an epitome.

  He seems to summarize the very arguments with which Torquemada and his delegates convinced themselves not merely of the righteousness, but of the inevitability — if they were to do their duty by God and man, and fulfil the destinies for which they had been sent into this world — of the task to which they had set their hands.

  “These two virtues of Mercy and Justice,” says the Aragonese writer, with all the authority of an Evangelist, “are so closely united in God, although we imperfectly judge them to be opposed, that Divine Wisdom but avails Itself of the one, the more gloriously to exercise the other. The most proper effect of the Divine Mercy, none doubts, is the salvation of souls, and who can doubt that what in this court of the Inquisition appears to be rigour of Justice is really medicine prescribed by Mercy for the good of the delinquents? Just as it would be a barbarous judgment to attribute to cruelty on the part of the surgeon the cautery of fire which he employs to destroy the contagious cancer of the patient, so it would be crass ignorance to suppose that these laws which appear to be severities are prescribed for any purpose other than that which governs the surgeon in curing his patient, or a father in punishing his child. Says the Holy Ghost: ‘Who does not use the rod hates the child,’ and elsewhere: ‘God punishes whom He loves.’”*

  [* “Vida de Arbués,” .]

  Could perversity of interpretation go further? In Rome, in Torquemada’s day, the Father of Christianity was granting absolutions, commuting the punishment of hanging to pecuniary penances where such penances were solicited, and justifying such commutation by reminding Christianity that God does not desire the death of a sinner, but rather that he should live and be converted.

  It would seem as if Inquisitor and Pontiff did not see eye to eye in this matter of Mercy and Justice. To the credit of the Pontiff be it said.

  Trasmiera, echoing the inquisitorial casuistry of centuries, holds that the rigour of Justice is prescribed by Mercy for the good of the delinquents. The impenitent Judaizer was sent to the stake. How could that redound to his good in this world or the next? We could admit a certain logical consummation of their arguments if the inquisitors had confined themselves to burning those who repented, or those who were innocent even; by burning these whilst they were in a state of grace they would have ensured their salvation by abstracting them from all perils of future sin. But to burn the impenitent upon such grounds as they themselves urged, believing, as they did, that just as surely as his mortal part was burnt there at the stake, just so surely would his immortal part burn through all eternity in hell — that was, clearly, by their own lights, to perpetrate the murder of his soul.

  CHAPTER XIV. PEDRO ARBUES DE EPILA

  There is no difficulty in believing Llorente’s statement — based upon extracts from contemporary chronicles — to the effect that the Inquisition was not looked upon with favour in Castile. It was impossible that a civilized and enlightened people should view with equanimity the institution of a tribunal whose methods, however based fundamentally upon those of the civil courts, were in the details of their practice so opposed to all conceptions of equity.

  In no Catholic country does the cherishing of a fervent faith, in itself, imply respect for the clergy. Nor, for that matter, does the respect of any religion in itself signify respect for those who administer it. It appears to do so; it is even prescribed that it should; but in point of fact it seldom does, other than with simple peasant classes. The ministers, after all, are men; but by virtue of their office they labour under disadvantages greater than the ordinary man’s. When they display the failings to which all men are subject, these failings wear a much graver aspect by virtue of the office they hold and the greater purity which that office implies. Holiness is looked upon as the priest’s trade, and it is expected that he should conduct that trade honestly, as any layman conducts the affairs by which he earns his livelihood. The only test of honesty in the priest, of whatever denomination, lies in his own conduct; and when this falls short of that high standard in which he claims to deal, he earns a contempt akin to that which overtakes the trader who defrauds his creditors. It is remembered then, to his disadvantage, that under his cassock the cleric is a man, and so subject to all the faults that are man’s heritage. But it happens that in addition to these he is subject to other failings that are peculiarly of the cassock, failings which the world has never been slow to discern in him. The worst of these is the ecclesiastical arrogance, the sacerdotal pride which has been manifested by priests of all cults, but which in none is so intolerable as in the Christian, who expounds a gospel of humility and self-abnegation. He is akin to a feudal tyrant who grinds the faces of his serfs whilst he lectures them upon the glories of democracy.

  Of such priests Spain of the fifteenth century had an abundant share. She knew them and mistrusted them, and hence she mistrusted any organization of theirs which should transcend the strict limits of their office.

  Now, the tribunal of the Inquisition laid itself peculiarly open to this mistrust in consequence of the secrecy of its proceedings — a secrecy, as we know, greatly increased by the enactments of Torquemada. Its trials were not conducted in open court; the examination of witnesses took place in secret and under the veil of anonymity, so that the world had no assurance of the honesty of the proceedings. When it happened that a man was arrested, the world, as a rule, knew him no more until he came forth, candle in hand, arrayed in a sanbenito to play his tragic part in an Auto.

  By virtue of this secrecy the Inquisition had invested itself with a power far greater, more subtle, and farther-reaching than that of any civil court. The might of the Grand Inquisitor was almost boundless, and he was unanswerable to any temporal authority for the arbitrariness with which he exercised it. Rivalling the sovereign power in much, in much else the Grand Inqjuisitor’s went above and beyond it, for not even the King himself could interfere in matters of the Faith with one who held his office directly from the Pope.

  The net which Torquemada cast was of the very widest; the meshes of that net were of the closest, so that no man, however humble, could account himself safe; its threads were of the strongest, so that no man, however powerful, could be sure of breaking through were he once brought within its scope.

  What, then, but terror could Torquemada and his grim machinery inspire? It is not difficult to believe the sometime secretary of the Inquisition when he assures us that the Holy Office was not favourably viewed in Spain. The marvel is that whilst the Castilians were chilled by awe into inactivity and meek submission, it should have remained for Aragon, which already had known an inquisition for a century, to rise up in rebellion.

  And yet what may seem at first glance a reason why Aragon should have submitted to Torquemada’s rule in matters of the Faith, may be the very reason of its rash and futile rebellion. For a hundred years already the court of the Holy Office h
ad been operating there; but its operations, never vigorous, had become otiose. In this inactive form Aragon had suffered it to continue. But of a sudden it was roused from that lethargy by Torquemada. It was bidden to enforce its stern decrees and other sterner decrees which he added to those already in existence, and to follow the course of arbitrary procedure which he laid down. Never welcome in Aragon, it now became intolerable. The New-Christians, who knew the fate of their Castilian brethren, went with fear in their countenances, and despair and its fierce courage in their hearts.

  In the spring of 1484 Ferdinand held his Cortes at Tarragona. He was attended on the occasion by Torquemada, and he seized the opportunity to present to his kingdom the gaunt Prior of Holy Cross, its pontifically-appointed Grand Inquisitor.

  Torquemada’s activity matched his boundless zeal. At once he convened a council composed of the ViceChancellor of Aragon, Alonso de Caballeria — himself a New-Christian — the Royal Councillor Alonso Carillo, and some doctors of canon law, that they might decide upon the course to be adopted in Aragon to the end that the Inquisition might be conducted with absolute uniformity there, as in Castile. This done, he proceeded to appoint inquisitors to the Archbishopric of Zaragoza, and his choice fell upon Frey Caspar Yuglar and Frey Pedro Arbués de Epila, Master of Theology and Canon of the Metropolitan Church of Zaragoza.

  After the publication of the “Instructions” drawn up that same year in Seville, Torquemada further appointed to the Holy Office of Zaragoza a fiscal advocate, an apparitor, notaries, and receivers, whereupon that office began immediately to exercise its functions under the new system.

  At once the courage of despair roused the NewChristians to opposition. Amongst them were many who held high positions at court, persons of great influence and esteem, and these immediately determined to send a deputation to the Vatican and another to the Sovereigns to voice their protests against the institution of this tribunal in Aragon, and to beseech that it be abolished, or at least curtailed in its powers and inhibited from proceeding to confiscation, which was contrary to the law of the land.

  This last was a shrewd request, based no doubt upon the conviction that, deprived of the confiscations upon which it battened, the tribunal must languish and very soon return to its former inoperative condition.

  Nor were the converses the only ones to denounce the procedure of the Holy Office. Zurita records that many of the principal nobles of Aragon rebelled against it, protesting that it was against the liberties of the kingdom to confiscate the property of men who were never allowed to learn the names of those who bore witness against them.

  As well might they have appealed against death — for death itself was not more irresistible or inexorable than Torquemada. All the fruit borne by their labours was that those who had lent their names to the petition were ultimately prosecuted as hinderers of the Holy Office. But this did not immediately happen.

  In the meanwhile Torquemada’s delegates, Arbués and Yuglar, went about the business entrusted to them with that imperturbability which the “Directorium” enjoins. They published their edicts, ordered arrests, carried out confiscations, and proceeded with such thoroughness that it was not long before Zaragoza began to present the same lurid, ghastly spectacles that were to be witnessed in the chief cities of Castile.

  In the following May (1485) they celebrated with great solemnity the first Auto de Fé, penancing many and burning some. This was followed by a second Auto in June.

  The despair and irritation of the New-Christians mounted higher at these spectacles. It is believed to have reached its climax with the sudden arrest of Leonardi Eli, one of the most influential, wealthy, and respected converses of Zaragoza.

  Those who had put the petition afoot, abandoning now all hope of obtaining any response either from the Sovereigns or from Rome, met to concert other measures. Their leader was a man of influence named Juan Pedro Sanchez. He had four brothers in influential positions at Court, who had lent their services in the matter of the petition to the Sovereigns.

  A meeting took place in the house of one Luis de Santangel, and Sanchez urged a desperate remedy for their desperate ills. They must strike terror into their terrorizers. He proposed no less than the slaughter of the inquisitors, urging with confidence that if they were slain no others would dare to fill their places. In this he seems to have underestimated the character of Torquemada.

  The proposal was adopted, an oath of secrecy was pledged, plans were laid, measures were taken, and funds were collected to enable these plans to be executed. Six assassins were chosen, among whom were Juan de Abadia and his Gascon servant Vidal de Uranso, and Juan de Esperandeu. This last was the son of a converso then lying in the prisons of the Inquisition, whose property had already been confiscated; so that he was driven by the added spur of personal revenge. There was, too, the further incentive of a sum of five hundred florins promised by the conspirators to the slayer of Arbués, and deposited by them for that purpose with Juan Pedro Sanchez.*

  [* Llorente, “Anales,” vol. i. .]

  Several early attempts to execute this project were baffled by circumstances. It would seem, moreover, that Arbués had received some warning of what was in store for him — or else he was simply conscious of the general hatred he had incurred — for he exercised the greatest prudence, took to wearing body armour, and was careful not to expose himself in any way; all of which does not suggest in him that eagerness for the martyr’s crown with which his biographer Trasmiera would have us believe that he was imbued.

  At last, however, the assassins found their opportunity. Late on the night of September 15 of that year, 1485, they penetrated into the Metropolitan Church to lie in wait for their victims when these should come to the midnight office imposed by the rule of their order.

  Juan de Abadia, with his Gascon servant Uranso and another, entered by the main door. Esperandeu and his companions gained admittance through the sacristy.

  About the pillars of the vast church, in the gloom that was scarcely relieved by the altar-lamp, they waited silently, “like bloody wolves,” says Trasmiera, “for the coming of that gentle lamb.”

  Towards midnight there was a stir overhead; lights beat faintly upon the darkness; the canons were assembling for matins in the choir.

  A note of the organ boomed through the silence, and then Arbués entered the church from the cloisters.

  It seemed that even now chance did not favour them, for Arbués came alone, and their aim was to take both the inquisitors.

  The dominican was on his way to join his brethren in the choir. He carried a lantern in one hand and a long bludgeon in the other. Nor did his precautions end in this. He wore a shirt of mail under his white habit, and there was a steel lining to his black velvet skull-cap. He must indeed have gone in fear, that he could not trust himself to matins save armed at all points.

  He crossed the nave on his way to the staircase leading to the choir. But as he reached the pulpit on the left he halted and knelt to offer up the prescribed prayer in adoration of the Sanctissimum Sacramentum. He set the lantern down upon the ground beside him, and leant his club against a pillar.

  Now was the assassins’ opportunity. He was at their mercy. And although to strike now was to leave half their task undone, they must have resolved that rather than postpone the matter again in the hope of slaying both inquisitors, they had better take the one that was delivered up to them.

  The chanting overhead muffled the sound of their steps as they crept up behind Arbués, out of the blackness into the faint wheel of yellow light cast by his lantern.

  Esperandeu was the first to strike, and he struck clumsily, doing no more than wound the inquisitor in the left arm. But swift upon that blow followed another from Uranso — a blow so violent that it smashed part of the steel cap, and, presumably glancing off, opened a wound in the inquisitor’s neck, which is believed to have been the real cause of his death.

  It did not, however, at that moment incapacitate him. He staggere
d up, and turned to the staircase that led to the choir. But now Esperandeu returned to the assault, and drove at the Dominican so furiously with his sword that, despite the shirt of mail with which Arbués was protected, the blade went through him from side to side.

  The inquisitor fell, and lay still. The organ ceased abruptly, and the assassins fled.

  There was confusion now in the choir. Down the stairs came the friars with their lanterns, to discover the unconscious and bleeding inquisitor. They took him up and carried him to bed. He died forty-eight hours later at midnight on Saturday, September 17, 1485.*

  [* Zurita, “Anales,” lib. xx. cap. lxv.; Amador de los Rios, “Historia Social,” lib. iii. ; Garcia de Trasmiera, “Vida de Pedro Arbués.”]

  By morning all the town had heard of the deed, and the effect which it produced was very different from that for which its perpetrators had hoped. The Old-Christians, some moved by religious zeal, some by a sense of justice, snatched up weapons and went forth to the cry of “To the fire with the converses!”

  The populace — an uncertain quantity, ever ready to be swayed by the first voice that is loud enough, to follow the first leader who points the way — took up the cry, and soon Zaragoza was in turmoil. Through every street rang the clamours of the multitude, which threatened to offer up one of those hecatombs in which fire disputes with steel the horrid laurel of the day.