Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/377

233 THE INQUISITION. 233 framed by the council of Tarraejona, on the basis of chapter those of 1233, which may properly be considered as the primitive instructions of the Holy Office in Spain. ^ This Ancient Inquisition, as it is termed, bore the same odious peculiarities in its leading features as the Modern ; the same impenetrable secrecy in its proceedings, the same insidious modes of accu- sation, a similar use of torture, and similar penalties for the offender. A sort of manual, drawn up by Eymerich, an Aragonese inquisitor of the fourteenth century, for the instruction of the judges of the Holy Office, prescribes all those ambiguous forms of interrogation, by which the unwary, and perhaps innocent victim might be circumvented.^ The 2 Sismondi, Hist, des Francais, torn. vii. chap. 3. — Limborch, History of the Inquisition, trans- lated by Chandler, (London, 1731,) book 1, chap. 24. — Llorente, His- toire Critique de I'lnquisition d'Es- pagne, (Paris, 1818,) torn. i. p. 110. — Before this time we find a constitution of Peter I. of Aragon against heretics, prescribing in cer- tain 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 Ve- tus, tom. ii. p. 186. — Llorente, Hist, de I'lnquisition, 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 in- quisitor 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 gain- ed 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, hav- ing 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 with- in." Puigblanch, Inquisition Un- masked, translated by Walton, (London, 1816,) vol. i. pp. 238, 239. VOL. I. fiO