Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/103

 INQUISITION 93 shameless union in one person of accuser and judge, the unscrupulous hindrances put in the way of the victim s defence, the direct interest of the tribunal in condemning, for condemnation affirmed vigilance and orthodoxy, while it secured to the Holy Office the wealth of the accused, and the accused were usually among the wealthiest in the land. We can trace the absolute injustice of the institution on every page, and must only wonder that even in those days men could endure its existence. In Italy the Inquisi tion was established under Dominican supervision as early as 1224; Simone Memmi s famous fresco of the &quot;Domini Canes &quot; in S. Maria Novella at Florence, with its black and white hounds chasing off the wolves from the holy fold, bears living witness to the power of the institution and its influence over the Italian imagination. If Eymerich s book gives us a view of the rules of procedure, the MS. Liber Sententiarum, or Book of Judgments, printed in part by Limborch, and containing the acts of the Toulouse Office from 1308 to 1322, gives us a full account of those rules reduced to practice in the earliest tribunal of the reconstructed Office. Between the two we can create for ourselves a complete image of the institution, and judge of its power over the intellects, souls, and bodies of the quick witted southerners. Inquisitors were at a later time brought into England to combat the Wickliffite opinions. 3. Though it succeeded, with help of the terrible lay- crusade, in southern France, the Inquisition seemed unequal to the problem laid before it in Spain, where, instead of simple-hearted Albigensians, it had to deal with rich and crafty Jews and highly-trained Moors. Forced to profess a Christianity which they hated, they loathed the worship of virgin or saint, the pictured or graven effigy of the Christ, the thousand objects of mediaeval worship, all which to their eyes were mere idolatries ; their allegiance to such a faith was that of compulsion, which fostered the bitterest sense of wrong. Between them and the old Catholic Spaniards smouldered a perpetual grudge ; the Inquisition seemed unable to overcome the evil. When, however, Castile and Aragon were united by Ferdinand and Isabella, political aims as well as religious fanaticism demanded more stringent measures against independent thought ; the war of Louis XIV. against freedom of opinion was not more distinctly political than that of the two monarchs, although his machinery was more civil and military than theirs. Thiee chief motives led to the reorganization of the Inquisition in Spain : (1) the suspicions and ill-feeling against the new Christians ; (2) the wish of Ferdinand and Isabella to strengthen the compactness of their union, threatened by the separatist tendencies of the wealthy Jews and Moors ; and (3) above all, the hope of a rich booty from confiscations, a characteristic which specially marks the history of the Spanish Inquisition. The motive of strictly religious fanaticism influenced, not the monarchs, but the Dominican instruments of the Holy Office. And so when in 1477 Friar Philip de Barberi, inquisitor for Sicily, came to Seville for the confirmation of his office, and pressed on Ferdinand the great advantages of a revived system on the Sicilian plan, the king, led by his hunger for gold, and the queen, guided by her piety, were easily persuaded, and sent to Rome to solicit the establishment of such a tribunal as Barberi suggested. Sixtus IV. in 1478 acceded to their request ; his bull for this purpose is, however, lost. But as Isabella wished first to try gentler measures, and as both monarchs were rather alarmed by the independence the proposed tribunal claimed, the papal permission was not made known or acted on till 1480. The monarchs bar gained that they should nominate the Inquisitors, hoping thereby to secure a control over the institution ; but the real centre of authority was inevitably Rome, and from its outset the Holy Office was ultramontane. Nor indeed is there good ground for Hefele s contention, in which he is followed by the Benedictine Gams of Ratisbon, that the Inquisition was entirely a state institution ; the state did take part in it, and tried to draw its own selfish advantages from it, and it was also in name a royal tribunal ; but its spirit was completely Dominican, and the impulse of it papal ; nor can the church be relieved from the just odium which presses on the memory of the institution. The first inquisitors named in 1480 were Dominicans; their tribunal was established at Seville, where they were but sullenly received. Early in 1481 they began work, and before that year was out had burnt 298 victims in Seville alone, besides many effigies of those who had happily escaped. The Jesuit historian Mariana assures us that in this year full 2000 were burnt in the archbishopric of Seville and the bishopric of Cadiz ; the Quemadero, or cremation-place, built at this time by the prefect of Seville, not far from that city, a square platform of stone, was a grim altar on which the lives of almost daily victims ascended in clouds of smoke to heaven. This new blessing, however, was but unwillingly welcomed by the Spaniards ; the capital of Castile remembered its ancient learning and splendour, and the wealth and intelligence of its old Moorish inhabitants ; complaints and protests poured in on Sixtus IV., especially from the bishops; and in 1483, in one of his briefs the pope actually ordered a softening of the rigours of the Holy Office ; he also named the arch bishop of Seville, D. Inigo Manriquez, his sole judge of appeals in matters of faith, hoping thereby to still the strong jealousy of the episcopate. He was also somewhat offended because Ferdinand and Isabella held back the papal share of the spoils. Shortly afterwards, October 1483, the Dominican father Thomas of Torquemada (de Turrecremata) was named by Sixtus IV. inquisitor-general for Castile and Leon. From him the institution received its full organization. He became its president ; by his side were two lawyers as asses sors, and three royal counsellors. This scheme was not large enough for the work ; it was shortly amended, and there was now a central court styled the Consejode la Suprema, composed of the grand inquisitor-general, six apostolical counsellors, a fiscal procurator, three secretaries, an alguazil (or head policeman), a treasurer, four servants of the tribunal, two reporters or informers, and as many consultors as might be needful. Under this central tribunal four local tribunals were also appointed. All the officials were well paid from the confiscation-fund ; it was the interest of all that that stream of wealth should never run dry ; Torque mada was to the full as eager as Ferdinand for profit from this unholy source : the chief spoils of the institution fell to the crown ; the true accession of strength was at Rome. This royal council of the Inquisition, as it was now styled, proceeded next to draw up its rules. Torquemada in 1484 summoned to Seville all heads of local tribunals, who presently published a code of thirty-nine articles. The dreary list regulates the procedure of the Holy Office. The articles were originally twenty-eight; of these 1 to 10 deal with the summons to heretics to come forward and confess, and with the penalties to the submissive ; 1 1 to 1 3 with penitents in the prisons of the Office ; 14 to 19 treat of the procedure of trial, including torture; 20 and 21 extend the jurisdiction of the tribunal to dead heretics and the vassals of living nobles ; the remainder are on points of detail in the management. Afterwards eleven more rules were added, on points of less interest: they deal with the organization of the smaller tribunals, guard against bribery of officials, establish an agent at Rome, and make fresh and minute directions as to confiscations and the payment of inquisitors salaries ; the money ques-