INQI'ISITIUN. THK. 



INQUISITION, 



i to attend the trial* and report to him. The sentence* oi 

 the court were tubjsct to the sanction of tha temporal sovereign. 



The republic of Venice ahowed iteelf the most jealous of lU sove- 

 reign right* in this particular. A series of statute* were issued at 

 variouo time* by the senate to ragulato the proceedings of the inqui- 

 sitor*, which are given by Paolo Sarpi, in his ' History of the Venetian 

 Inquisition,' and by Limboroh, b. L, oh. 17. By a concordat with 

 Pope Julius III., 1551, it wan decreed that three senator* were to 

 attend all the proceedings and judgments of the Inquisition in the 

 city of Venice, and although they took no part in the trial, they had 

 the right to suspend UM execution of the sentence and report to the 

 senate. In the provincial towns lay magistrates were appointed to 

 perform the same duty i the respective court* of the Inquisition. 

 The Inquisition could not molest Jews or other unbelievers, or Greeks 

 living -under the protection of the republic. It could not take cog- 

 nisance of cues of blasphemy or polygamy which belonged to the 

 secular jurisdiction nor of witchcraft, nor of minor infractions of 

 discipline, such as eating or selling of meat on Fridays, 4c. Numerous 

 other check* are provided by the same statutes. In short, although 

 the Venetian senate was obliged by prudential reasons to admit the 

 Inquisition within its territories, it took care to render it as inoffensive 

 aa possible. The famous tribunal of the state Inquisition, was entirely 

 a political institution of the Venetian aristocracy, and must not be 

 confounded with the ecclesiastical Inquisition. 



In Tuscany the grand-dukes Medici had provided that deputies 

 appointed by themselves should attend the trials of the inquisitorial 

 court, and should report to them, and that no sentence should be 

 executed without their sanction. But in the year 1566, Pope Pius 

 V., a sealoua promoter of the Inquisition, demanded of the Grand- 

 duke Cosmo L the parson of Pietro Carnesecchi, a man of mime rank 

 and learning, and well affected to his sovereign, but who had publicly 

 adopted several tenets of the Protestant Reformers. Cosmo gave him 

 up to the officers of Rome, but at the name time wrote earnestly to the 

 pope to save him. Pius was inclined to spare his life, if Carnesecchi 

 had shown signs of repentance, but he boldly persisted in his opinions, 

 and in August, 15(37, he waa convicted by the Roman Inquisition of 

 thirty-four heretical teueta, and condemned to death. The grand-duke 

 again wrote in his behalf, and the pope suspended the execution for 

 tan days, promising to spare his life on condition that Carnesecchi 

 should abjure bis tenets, and he sent him a friar to exhort him to do 

 so. But Carnesecchi remained firm : he argued with the monk, and 

 wanted to gain him over to his own opinions. He was publicly 

 beheaded at Home, and afterwards burnt. In the following century 

 Oalileo was summoned from Florence to Rome, where, however, he 

 was treated with considerable lenity, and after a verbal abjuration and 

 a few months' confinement, he was allowed to return to Florence. 

 The executions in Tuscany in consequence of sentences of the Inqui- 

 sition were comparatively few. The tribunal continued to exist in 

 Tuscany till the reign of Leopold of Austria, who began by curtailing 

 it* jurisdiction, took away its " sbirri," or bailiffs, gave the censorship 

 of books to a lay magistrate, and at last abolished the tribunal alto- 

 gether in 1787. About the same time it was suppressed at Milan by the 

 Emperor Joseph II. In 1769 the Duke of Parma abolished it in his 



. r :.-. 



Pop* Paul III. founded at Rome, by a bull dated April, 1543, the 

 Congregation of the Holy Office, consisting of six cardinals, who \v<n- 

 styled " inquisitors-general of the faith," who had the superintendonce 

 over all other inquisitors, and he gave them full authority to proceed, 

 without the concurrence of the ordinaries or bishope, against all 

 heretic* or persons suspected of heresy, to punish them, confiscate 

 their property, to degrade and deliver to the secular courts all clerical 

 offenders, to call in if required the assistance of the secular arm, to 

 appoint inquisitors with such powers as they thought proper, to 

 appoint fiscal attorneys, notaries, and other official*, and to hear and 

 decide on appeals from the judgment of other inquisitors. The pope, 

 however, declared that by this bull he did not intend to make any 

 alteration in the privileges of the Spanish Inquisition as then 



In 1664 Pope Pius IV. confirmed and extended the powers of 

 the Roman Inquisition, which, however, were resisted in the king- 

 dom of France. In that kingdom there was no regular tribunal of the 

 Inquisition. The Cardinal de Lorraine, under Henri II., had indeed ap- 

 pointed itsUastirt inquisitors who acted as extraordinary judges in the 

 trials of the HuguenoU, but their jurisdiction was not exclusive, as the 

 parliament also took cognisance of the crime of heresy, betides which the 

 kins appointed special commissioners for the same purpose. (' Histoire 

 du Parlement de Paris,' ch. 21.) But the authority of the Inquisition 

 was totally abolished in France a* soon as tolerance was established 

 by the Edit de Nantes under II. m i I V .. Inch allowed the Protestant* 

 tbeexercueof their religion, for tolerance and the Inquisition could 

 not possibly exist together; and although Louis XIV. afterwards 

 revoked that edict and persecuted the Protestant*, be did it by mean* 

 of the secular power, and took care not to allow the introduction into 

 his kingdom of an ecclesiastical tribunal which would cncroacli n]..i 

 hi* own sovereign authority. But he advised his grandnon I'hilip V . 

 whom he placed on the throne of Spain, to maintain the Inquisition as 

 a mean* of ensuring the tranquillity of that kingdom. 



aixtua V. in 1588. baring distributed the cardinal* into fifteen con- 



gregation* or board*, made that which was styled " Holy Roman and 

 Universal Inquisition " to consul of twelve cardinals with several 

 prelate* as assessor*, including the Monter of the sacred palace, (several 

 monk* with the title of " oonsultors," beside* other clergymen and 

 awyers called " qualificators," whose business it was to prepare the 

 cioca. This i* the Inquisition which still subsist* at Rome, but it* 

 jurisdiction doe* not extend beyond the limit* of the 1'ajol States, and 

 it i* generally understood that its powers are exercised with consider- 

 able leniency and caution. 1'ius VIL, after his restoration, u said to 

 liave abolished the use of the torture. The Roman Inquisition watches 

 more particularly over the conduct of the clergy, and has also the 

 censorship of the press ami of the introduction of foreign work*. The 

 territory subject to the dominion of the pope is now the only country 

 in which the tribunal of the Holy Office still remains. 



In I .ii-rmauy .in.l in Poland, the Inquisition hag long since ceased to 

 exist. In Spain it waa suppressed, first by a decree of Napoleon, dated 

 Chamartin, 4 December, 1808, as encroaching upon the right* of the 

 sovereign, "attentoire alasouverainete';" and on the 12th February, 1 M Li, 

 the extraordinary Cortes of Spain assembled at Cadiz definitive: 

 pressed the Inquisition, as being incompatible with the new political 

 constitution of the monarchy. At the same time they restored to the 

 bishops the exercise of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in cases of heresy. 

 Ferdinand VIL, after hi* restoration, re-established the Inquisition by 

 an ordinance of the 21st July, 1814, and appointed thu bishop of 

 Almeria inquisitor-general. In this act Ferdinand stated to the people 

 that one of his objects in re-establishing the Inquisition was to 

 repress the mischief occasioned to the national faith by the presence of 

 the foreign troops which were not Catholic," including of course lus 

 allies the English, who had been the chief means of restoring him to 

 the throne. It continued in Spain till the Revolution of 1820, when 

 it waa again suppressed by the Cortes. During these five years of it* 

 re-establishment, many persons were arrested, but none appear to have 

 been put to death in consequence of its judgment*. When Ferdinand, 

 in 1823, a second time overthrew the constitution, he did not re-esta- 

 blish the Inquisition. In Portugal, the Inquisition, which was like- 

 wise abolished by the Cortes, baa uot been restored. 



\ .ui'ius and often exaggerated accounts have been published of the 

 number of persons put to death by the Spanish Inquisition during the 

 three centuries of its existence. Lloreute, who wrote with rulmnnns 

 and had access to the archives of the tribunal, gives an approximate 

 estimate of the number executed under each inquisitor-general, from 

 which it results that the total amount in Spain is about 32,000 person* 

 burnt, either alive or after being strangled, 17,000 burnt in effigy, and 

 291,000 condemned to various terms of imprisonment, to the galleys, 

 or subjected to other penalties. During the eighteen years of Torque- 

 mada's inquisitorship alone, about 8800 persons were burnt. This 

 calculation does not include the Spanish colonies, nor the islands of 

 Sicily and Sardinia, which were long subject to the Spanish Inquisition. 

 It is impossible to ascertain the amount of the victims of the Inqui- 

 sition in these as well aa in other countries of Europe. The laat 

 person burnt by the sentence of the Inquisition in Spain was a v. 

 accused of having formed a contract with the deviL She was burnt at 

 Seville, on the 7th of November, 1781. The three hut inquisitors- 

 general, from 1783 to 1808, did not sentence any one to death. 



In examining the history of the Inquisition under its various forms 

 two things ought to be carefully distinguished ; thu principle and tin- 

 practice of that remarkable institution. The fundamental principle of 

 the Inquisition is, that heresy, that is to say, dissent from the tenet* 

 of the Roman church, is a heinous crime, and liable to both spiritual and 

 temporal punishment. This principle however is not peculiar to the 

 Inquisition : it is that of the canon law, and it has the countenance of 

 the Roman law in several constitutions of the early Christian emperors. 

 In every country therefore in which the canon law IMS civil or tem- 

 poral force, the principle subsists, although it may lie dormant. A 

 subject of such a country who should openly dissent from the esta- 

 blished Church is liable to prosecution by the episcopal or the secular 

 courts. Thi* i* still the case in several states of Italy, and even in 

 Spain and Portugal under their new constitutional government*, at 

 least until a new code shall be enacted. It must not be forgotten 

 that the Inquisition waa established in Spain while the Cortes of 

 Aragon and Castile were still in full vigour. The minister of 

 justice stated in the Spanish Cortes that laws were still in force by 

 which persons, dying in a state of heresy, cannot bequeath their pro- 

 perty. It is not therefore sufficient for the Inquisition to be abolished 

 in a country, in order to ensure liberty of conscience ; it is not even 

 sufficient for this purpose to establish a representative or republican 

 government, as long a* the canon law remains in force and the m 

 of the people do not tolerate dissent. In the small democracies of the 

 forest cantons of Switzerland, which are exclusively Roman Catholic, 

 no dissent from the church is allowed, and persons accused of heresy 

 are severely punished or obliged to emigrate. 



In speaking of religious liberty, people are apt to confound three 

 things very distinct, such as toleration, liberty of conscience or of 

 opinion, and full religious liberty. Toleration properly applies to 

 foreigners who profess a different faith from that established in the 

 country which they come to vi-it or inhabit for a time, and who are 

 tolerated, that is to say, allowed to remain unmolested, and in some 

 cane* are permitted to have chapels of tlieir own communion. This is 



