CHAPTER X THE JURISPRUDENCE OF THE HOLY OFFICE—THE FIRST “INSTRUCTIONS” OF TORQUEMADA

The first manual for the use of inquisitors was probably written somewhere about 1320. It was the work of the Dominican friar Bernard Gui—“Practica Inquisitionis Heretice Pravitatis—Bernardo Guidonis, Ordinis Fratrum Predicatorum”—and it summarised the experience gathered during a hundred years by the inquisitors of Southern France.

It is divided into five parts. The first three are directly concerned with procedure, and the formulæ are given for every occasion—citation, arrest, pardon, commutation, and sentence—with the fullest particulars for the guidance of inquisitors. The fourth part treats of the powers vested in the tribunal of the Inquisition, and cites the authorities—i.e. the decrees of pontiffs and of councils. The fifth part surveys and defines the various heretical sects of Gui’s day, gives particulars of the doctrines, rites, and ceremonies by which each one may be known, and lays down methods by which heretical guile may be circumvented in examination.

The work was used by French inquisitors in general and those of Toulouse in particular, and it is more than probable that it inspired Nicolaus Eymeric to compile his voluminous “Directorium Inquisitorum” towards the middle of the fourteenth century.

Nicolaus Eymeric was Grand Inquisitor of Aragon, and he prepared his directory, or manual of procedure, as a guide for his confrères in the business of prosecuting those guilty of heretical pravity.

The work circulated freely in its manuscript form, and it was one of the first to be printed in Barcelona upon the introduction of the printing-press, so that in Torquemada’s day copies were widely diffused, and were in the hands of all inquisitors in the world.

The bulk of the “Directorium” is little more than a compilation. It is divided into three parts. The first lays down the chief Articles of the Christian Faith; the second is a collection of the decretals, bulls, and briefs of the popes upon the subject of heretics and heresies, and the decision of the various councils held to determine matters connected with heretics and their abettors, sorcerers, excommunicates, Jews and infidels; the third part, which is Eymeric’s own contribution to the subject, deals with the manner in which trials should be conducted, and gives a detailed list of the offences that come under the jurisdiction of the Holy Office.

It may be well before proceeding further to give a résumé of the grounds upon which the Inquisition instituted proceedings, as set forth in the “Directorium.”

All heretics in general are subject to the animadversions of the Holy Office; but there are, in addition, certain offenders who, whilst not exactly guilty of heresy, nevertheless render themselves justiciable by the Inquisition. These are:

Blasphemers who in blaspheming say that which is contrary to the Christian Faith. Thus, he who says, “The season is so bad that God Himself could not give us good weather,” sins upon a matter of faith.

Sorcerers and Diviners, when in their sorceries they perform that which is in the nature of heresy—such as re-baptizing infants, burning incense to a skull, etc. But if they confine their sorceries to foretelling the future by chiromancy or palmistry, by drawing the short straw, or consulting the astrolabe, they are guilty of simple sorcery, and it is for the secular courts to prosecute them.

Amongst the latter are to be placed those who administer love-philtres to women.

Devil-worshippers: Those who invoke devils. These are to be divided into three classes:

(a) Those who worship the devil, sacrificing to him, prostrating themselves, singing prayers and fasting, burning incense or lighting candles in his honour.

(b) Those who confine themselves to offering a Dulie or Hyperdulie cult to Satan, introducing the names of devils into the litanies.

(c) Those who invoke the devil by tracing magic figures, placing an infant in a circle, using a sword, a bed, or a mirror, etc.

In general it is easy to recognize those who have dealings with devils on account of their ferocious aspect and terrible air.

The invocation in any of the three manners cited is always a heresy. But if the devil should only be asked to do things that are of his office—such as to tempt a woman to the sin of luxury—provided that this is done without adoration or prayer, but in terms of command, there are authors who hold that in such cases the person so proceeding is not guilty of heresy.

Amongst those who invoke devils are astrologers and alchymists, who when they do not succeed in making the discoveries they seek never fail to have recourse to the devil, sacrificing to him and invoking him expressly or tacitly.

Jews and Infidels: The first when they sin against their religion in any of the articles of faith that are the same with them as with us—i.e. that are common alike to Jew and to Christian—or when they attack dogmas that are, similarly, common to both creeds.

As for infidels, the Church and the Pope, and consequently the Inquisition, may punish them when they sin against the laws of nature—the only laws they know.

Jews and infidels who attempt to pervert Christians are also regarded as abettors or fautores.

In spite of the prohibition to succour a heretic, a man would not be regarded as an abettor who gave food to a heretic dying of hunger, since it is possible that if spared the latter might yet come to be converted.

Excommunicates who remain in excommunication during a whole year, by which are to be understood not merely those who are excommunicate as heretics, or abettors of heretics, but excommunicate upon any grounds whatsoever. In fact, the indifference to excommunication renders them suspect of heresy.

Apostates.—Apostate Christians who become Jews or Mohammedans (these religions not being heresies), even though they should have apostatized through fear of death. The fear of torture or death not being one that can touch a person who is firm in the Faith, no apostasy is to be excused upon such grounds.84

With the “Directorium” of Eymeric before him, Torquemada set to work to draw up the first articles of his famous code. Additions were to be made to it later, as the need for such additions came to be shown by experience; but no subsequent addition was of the importance of these original twenty-eight articles. They may be said to have given the jurisprudence of the Spanish Inquisition a settled form, which continued practically unchanged for over three hundred years after Torquemada’s death.

A survey of these articles and of the passages from Eymeric that have a bearing upon them, together with some of the annotations of the scholiast Francesco Pegna,85 should serve to convey some notion of the jurisprudence of the Holy Office and of the extraordinary spirit that inspired and governed it—a spirit at once crafty and stupid, subtle and obvious, saintly and diabolical, consistent in nothing—not even in cruelty, for in its warped and dreadful way it accounted itself merciful, and not only represented but believed that its aims were charitable. It practised its abominations of cruelty out of love for the human race, to save the human race from eternal damnation; and whilst it wept on the one hand over the wretched heretic it flung to the flames, it exulted on the other in the thought that by burning one who was smitten with the pestilence of heresy it saved perhaps a hundred from infection and from purging that infection in an eternity of hell-fire.

They are rash who see hypocrisy in the priestly code that is to follow. Hypocrites there may have been, there must have been, and many; such a system was a very hotbed of hypocrisy. Yet the system itself was not hypocritical. It was sincere, dreadfully, tragically, ardently sincere, with the most hopeless, intolerable, and stupid of all sincerity—the sincerity of fanaticism, which destroys all sense of proportion, and distorts man’s intellectual vision until with an easy conscience he makes of guile and craft and falsehood the principles that shall enable him to do what he conceives to be his duty by his fellow-man.

The doctrine of exclusive salvation was the source of all this evil. But that doctrine was firmly and sincerely held. Torquemada or any other inquisitor might have uttered the words which an inspired poet has caused to fall from the lips of Philip II.:

“The blood and sweat of heretics at the stake
Is God’s best dew upon the barren field.”86

And he would have uttered them with a calm and firm conviction, assured that he did no more than proclaim an obvious truth which might serve him as a guide to do his duty by man and God. For all that he did he could find a commandment in the Scriptures. Was burning the proper death for heretics? He answered the question out of the very mouth of Christ, as you shall see. Should a heretic’s property be confiscated? Eymeric and Paramo point to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden as a consequence of their disobedience—the first of all heresies—and ask you what was that but confiscation. Is it proper to impose a garment of shame upon those convicted of lesser heresies, or upon penitents who are reconciled? Paramo will answer you that Adam and Eve wore skins after their fall, and implies that this is a proper precedent for the infamous sanbenito.

And so on: Moses, David, John the Baptist, and the gentle Saviour Himself are made to afford reason for this course and for that, as the need arises, and each reason is more grotesque than the other, until you are stunned by the blows of these clumsy arguments. You cease to wonder that the translation of the Bible was forbidden, that its study was inhibited. If those who were learned in theology could interpret it so extravagantly, what might not the unlearned achieve?

But let us pass on to the consideration of Torquemada’s code.