INQUISITION, 



95 



conical cap (caroza) on their beads. The Domini- 

 cans, with the banner of the inquisition, led the way. 

 Then came the penitents, who were to be punished 

 by fines, &c., and after the cross, which was borne 

 behind the penitents, walked the unfortunate wretches 

 who were condemned to death. The effigies of 

 those who had fled, and the bones of the dead who 

 had been condemned, appeared in black coffins, 

 painted over with flames and hellish forms ; and the 

 dreadful procession was closed by monks and priests. 

 It proceeded through the principal streets of the city 

 to the church, where a sermon was preached, and 

 ihe sentence was then pronounced. The convicted 

 stood, during this act, before a crucifix, with an 

 extinguished taper in their hands. As " the church 

 never pollutes herself with blood," a servant of the 

 inquisition, when this ceremony was finished, gave 

 each of those who had been sentenced a blow with 

 the hand, to signify that the inquisition had no longer 

 any power over them, and that the victims were 

 abandoned (relaxados) to the secular arm. A civil 

 officer, " who was affectionately charged to treat 

 them kindly and mercifully," now received the con- 

 demned, bound them with chains, and led them to 

 the place of execution. They were then asked in 

 what faith they would die. Those who answered 

 the Catholic, were first strangled; the rest were 

 burnt alive. The autos da fe were spectacles to 

 which the people thronged as eagerly as to the cele- 

 bration of a victory. Even the kings considered it a 

 meritorious act to be present, with their courts, and 

 to witness the agonies of the victims. 



In this manner did the inquisition proceed, in the 

 times of its most dreadful activity. The Spaniards 

 found their personal freedom so much restrained, 

 even in the early period of the existence of this 

 office, that one of the principal requests of the dis- 

 affected, in the reign of Charles I. was, that the king 

 should compel the inquisition to act according to the 

 principles of justice. But the important influence 

 which this court had, in the course of the following 

 century, both on the state and on the moral character 

 of the Spaniards, could not, at that time, have been 

 anticipated. This noble and high-spirited people 

 were more debased by the dark power of the inquisi- 

 tion than by any other instrument of arbitrary govern- 

 ment, and the stagnation of intellectual action, which 

 followed the discovery of America, concurred, with 

 other fatal causes, to diminish the industry of the 

 people, to weaken the power of the state, and to 

 prevent, for a long time, any progress to higher 

 degrees of moral and intellectual improvement. In 

 more modern times, when the spirit of persecution 

 was restrained in almost all other countries of 

 Europe, the original organization of the inquisition 

 was but little changed ; still the dread of this dark 

 court gradually diminished. The horrible spec- 

 tacle of an auto da fi was seldom witnessed during 

 the last century, and the punishments of the inquisi- 

 tion were confined, in a considerable degree, to those 

 men who had become obnoxious to justice. In 1762, 

 the grand inquisitor having, contrary to the express 

 will of the king, published a bull, excommunicating 

 a French book, was exiled to a monastery at a dis- 

 tance from Madrid. A royal decree forbade the 

 inquisition to issue any commands without the consent 

 of the king, and required the grand inquisitor, in the 

 condemnation of books, to conform to the laws of 

 the bind, and to make known his prohibition only 

 by virtue of the power given him by his office, and 

 not with the citation of bulls. The decree also 

 ordered that, before prohibiting any book, the author 

 should be cited, that his defence might be heard. 

 In 1770, during the administration of Aranda, the 

 power of the inquisition was limited to the punish- 



ment of obstinate heretics and apostates, and it was 

 forbidden to imprison any of the king's subjects, 

 without first fully proving their guilt. In 1784, 

 it was determined that, if the inquisition instituted a 

 process against a grandee, a minister, or, in short, 

 against any officer of rank, its acts must be subjected 

 to the royal inspection. 



If we consider the principal acts of the inquisition 

 during the eighteenth century, we shall see that, not- 

 withstanding the restraint exercised over it, it still 

 remained an instrument which, under favourable 

 circumstances, might exert a terrible influence. 

 There were sixteen provincial inquisitions in Spain 

 and the colonies, all subject to the supreme tribunal. 

 As late as 1763, we find that, at an auto da fi at 

 Llerena, some obstinate heretics were committed to 

 the flames, and, in 1777, the inquisition armed itself 

 with all its terrors against a man who was guilty ol 

 nothing more than imprudence the celebrated Ola- 

 vides (q. v.) ; and, in 1780, a poor woman of Seville 

 was declared guilty of witchcraft, and was burnt alive 

 at the stake. With all the limits which had been set 

 to its power, with all the mildness of the tribunal, 

 whose principal officers, under the preceding reigns, 

 had been mostly men of intelligence and moderation, 

 still the odious spirit of the institution, and the unjust 

 form of procedure, survived ; and, until the moment 

 when it was abolished by Napoleon (December 4, 

 1808), the inquisition continued to be a powerful 

 obstacle to the progress of the human intellect. 

 The inquisition published annually a catalogue of 

 prohibited books, in which, among some infidel and 

 immoral works, many excellent or innocent books 

 were included. All the attempts of enlightened 

 men, towards effecting the destruction of this anti- 

 quated instrument of a dark policy, during the two 

 last reigns, were without connexion, and therefore 

 without effect, and they sank under the artifices 

 which an all-powerful favourite, the clergy and the 

 inquisition employed for their common advantage. 

 The process, concluded as late as 1806, against two 

 learned and excellent canons Antonio and Gero- 

 nimo Cuesta, whose destruction their unworthy 

 bishop, under the protection of the prince of peace, 

 had striven to effect was the last sign of life in this 

 terrible court, and plainly shows that intrigue, when 

 united with the secret power of the inquisition, had 

 great influence in Spain, even in recent times ; and 

 the decision of the king, which declared the accused 

 innocent, and condemned the proceedings of the 

 inquisition as contrary to law, was yet tender towards 

 the inquisitors, and confirmed the general opinion, 

 which punished those who had fallen into the power 

 of the inquisition with the loss of public esteem. 



According to the estimate of Llorente, the number 

 of victims of the Spanish inquisition, from 1481 to 

 1808, amounted to 341,021. Of these, 31,912 were 

 burnt, 17,659 burnt in effigy, and 291,456 were sub- 

 jected to severe penance. Ferdinand VII. re-estab- 

 lished (1814) the inquisition, which had been 

 abolished during the French rule in Spain ; but, on 

 the adoption of the constitution of the cortes (1820), 

 it was again abolished, and was not revived in 1823, 

 by the advice of the European powers. 



In Portugal, the inquisition was established, after 

 a long contest, in 1557. The supreme tribunal was 

 in Lisbon ; inferior courts, established in the other 

 cities, were subject to this. The grand inquisitor 

 was nominated by the king, and confirmed by the 

 pope. John of Braganza, after the delivery of the 

 country from the Spanish yoke, wished to destroy the 

 inquisition. But he succeeded only in depriving it ot 

 the right of confiscating the property of the con- 

 demned On this account, he was excommunicated 

 after his death, and his wife was obliged to permit his 



