Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/61

 INQUISITION INQUISITION mentioned in the records of inquisition trials — but once, for example, in 636 condemnations between 1309 and 1323; this does not prove that torture was rarely applied. Since torture was originally inflicted outside the court room by lay officials, and since only the voluntary confession was valid before the judges, there was no occasion to mention in the records the fact of torture. On the other hand it is historically true that the popes not only always held that torture must not imperil life or limb, but also tried to abolish particularly grievous abuses, when such became known to them. Thus Clement V ordained that inquisitors should not apply the torture without the consent of the diocesan bishop. From tlie middle of the thirteenth century, they did not disavow the principle itself, and, as their restrictions to its use were not always heeded, its severity, though often exaggerated, was in many cases extreme. The consuls of Carca-ssonne in 12S6 complained to the pope, the Iving of France, and the vicars of the local bishop against the inquisitor Jean Galand, whom they charged with inflicting torture in an absolutely in- human manner, and this charge was no isolated one. The case of Savonarola (q. v.) has never been alto- gether cleared up in this respect. The official report says he had to suffer three anil a half traiti da June (a sort of strappado). When Alexander VI showed discontent with the delays of the trial, the Florentine government excused itself by urging that Savonarola was a man of extraordinary sturdiness and endurance, and that he had been vigorously tortured on many days (assidua qiue^tione muUis diebus, the papal pro- thonotary, Burchard, says seven times) but with little effect. It is to be noted that torture was most cruelly used, where the inquisitors were most exposed to the pressure of civil authority. Frederick II, though al- ways boasting of his zeal for the purity of the Faith, abused both rack and Inquisition to put out of the way his personal enemies. The tragical ruin of the Templars is ascribed to the abuse of torture by Philip the Fair and his henchmen. At Paris, for instance, thirty-six, and at Sens twenty-five, Templars died as the result of torture. Blessed Joan of Arc could not have been sent to the stake as a heretic and a recalci- trant, if her judges had not been tools of English policy. Anil the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition are largely due to the fact that in its administration civil purposes overshadowed the ecclesiastical. Every reader of the " Cautio criminalis " of the JesuitTather Friedricli Spee knows to whose account chiefly must be set down the horrors of the witchcraft trials. Most of the punishments that were properly speaking in- quisitional were not inhuman, either by their nature or by the manner of their infliction. Most frequently certain good works were orderetl, e.g. the building of a church, the visitation of a church, a pilgrimage more or less distant, the offering of a candle or a chalice, participation in a crusade, and the like. Other works partook more of the character of real and to some ex- tent degrading punishments, e.g. fines, whose proceeds were devoted to such public purposes as church-build- ing, road-making, and the like; whipping with rods during religious service; the pillory; the wearing of coloured crosses, and so on. The hardest penalties were imprisonment in its various degrees, exclusion from the communion of the Church, and the usually consequent surrender to the civil power. "Cum ecclesia", ran the regular expression, "ultra, non habeat quod faciat pro suis demeritis contra ipsum, idcirco eundem relinquimus brachio et iudicio s^culari " — i.e. since the Church can no farther punish his misdeeds, she leaves him to the civil authority. Naturally enough, punish- ment as a legal sanction is always a hard and painful thing, whether decreed by civil or eg- y'astical jus- tice. There is, however, always an essei^ 'al distinc- tion between civil and ecclesiastical {^ nishment. VIII.— 3 ttliile cliastisement inflicted by secular authority aims chiefly at punishing violation of the law, the Church seeks primarily the correction of the delin- quent ; indeed his spiritual welfare is frequently so much in view that the element of punishment is almost entirely lost sight of. Commands to hear Holy Mass on Sundays and hoUdays, to frequent re- ligious services, to abstain from manual laoour, to receive Communion at the chief festivals of the year, to forbear from soothsaying and usury, etc., can scarcely be regarded as punislmients, though very efficacious as helps towards the fulfilment of Chris- tian duties. It being furthermore incumbent on the inquisitor to consider not merely the external sanc- tion, Init also the inner change of heart, his sentence lost the quasi-mechanical stiffness so often charac- teristic of civil condemnation. Moreo'er, the pen- alties incurred were on numberless occasions remitted, mitigated, or commuted. In the records of the In- quisition we very frequently read that because of old age, sickness, or poverty in the family, the due punishment was materially reduced owing to the in- quisitor's sheer pity, or the petition of a good Catho- lic. Imprisonment for life was altered to a fine, and tliis to an alms; participation in a crusade was com- muted into a pilgrimage, while a distant and costly pilgrimage became a visit to a neighbouring shrine or church, and so on. If the inquisitor's leniency were abused, he was authorized to revive in full the original pimislmient. On the whole, the Inquisition was humanely conducted. Thus we read that a son obtained his father's release by merely asking for it, without putting forward any special reasons. Li- cence to leave prison for three weeks, three months, or an unlimited period — say until the recovery or decease of sick parents — was not infrequent. Rome itself censured inquisitioners or deposed them be- cause they were too harsh, but never because they were too merciful. Imprisonment was not always accounted punish- ment in the proper sense: it was rather looked on as an opijortunity for repentance, a preventive against backsliding or the infection of others. It was known as immuratioH (from the Latin 7»urus, a wall), or in- carceration, and was inflicted for a definite time or for life. Immuration for life was the lot of those who had failed to profit by the aforesaid term of grace, or had perhaps recanted only from fear of death, or had once before abjured heresy. The murus strictus sew arctus, or career strlctissimiis, im- plied close and solitary confinement, occasionally aggravated by fasting or cliains. In practice, how- ever, these regulations were not always enforced lit- erally. We read of immured persons receiving visits rather freely, plajang games, or dining with their jailors. On the other hand, solitary confinement was at times deemed insufficient, and then the im- mured were put in irons or chained to the prison wall. Members of a religious order, when condemned for life, were immured in their own convent, nor ever allowed to speak with any of their fraternity. The dungeon or cell was euphemistically called "In Pace"; it was, indeed, the tomb of a man buried alive. It was looked upon as a remarkable favour when, in 1330, through the good offices of the Archbishop of Toulouse, the French king permitted a dignitary of a certain order to visit the "In Pace" twice a month and comfort his imprisoned brethren, against which favour the Dominicans lodged with Clement VI a fruitless protest. Though the prison cells were directed to be kept in such a way as to endanger neither the life nor the health of occupants, their true condition was sometimes deplorable, as we see from a document published recently by J. B. Vidal (Annales de St-Louis des Franfais, 1905, p. 362). " In some cells the unfortunates were bound in stocks or chains, unable to move about, and forced to sleep