Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/395

251 THE INQUISITION. 231 and holding out the illusory promise of absolution to chapter such as should confess their errors within a limited — period. As every mode of accusation, even anony- mous, was invited, the number of victims multi- - plied so fast, that the tribunal found it convenient to remove its sittings from the convent of St. Paul, within the city, to the spacious fortress of Triana, in the suburbs. ^^ The presumptive proofs, by which the charge of Proos oi Judaism was established against the accused are so curious, that a few of them may deserve notice. It was considered good evidence of the fact, if the pris- oner wore better clothes or cleaner linen on the Jewish sabbath than on other days of the week ; if he had no fire in his house the preceding evening ; if he sat at table with Jews, or ate the meat of ani- mals slaughtered by their hands, or drank a certain beverage held in much estimation by them ; if he washed a corpse in warm water, or when dying turned his face to the wall ; or, finally, if he gave Hebrew names to his children ; a provision most whimsically cruel, since, by a law of Henry the Second, he was prohibited under severe penalties from giving them Christian names. He must have found it difficult to extricate himself from the horns of this dilemma. ^^ Such are a few of the circum- red on him by Henry IV., being Deity is one that the persecuted derived from the city of that name, might join in, as heartily as their which had been usurped from the oppressors. " Exurge Domine ; crown. judica causam tuam ; capite nobis 32 The historian of Seville quotes vulpes." Zuiiiga, Annales de Se- the Latin inscription on the portal villa, p. 389. of the edifice in which the sittings 33 Ordenangas Reales, lib. 8, tit. of the dread tribunal were held. 3, ley 26. Its concluding apostrophe to the