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Moreover Innocent -- what an ironic name! -- Completed the foundations of the Inquisition by reaffirming, with heavier emphasis, that the bishops were not to wait for charges of heresy, but were to seek out heresy, or make an inquisitio, They were to have special officials, or "inquisitors," for this purpose. Innocent drew up explicit instructions for the procedure, and between 1204 and 1213 he issued four decretals ordering such searches in various places.
In 1224 the Constitution of Lombardy formally enacted sentence of death for heresy, and the next Pope, Gregory IX, endorsed this penalty and founded what is commonly called the Inquisition. Heretics were to be handed over to the secular arm for "adequate punishment" -- of which we find the definition in the words I quoted from Innocent III -- and, as bishops had shown themselves very remiss in the nasty work of seeking out heretics, the Pope took the job from them and entrusted it to the tender mercies of the newly founded Dominican and Franciscan friars, who took to it like blood-hounds to a scent. Among the wits of the time the Dominicans were known as the Domini canes, "the hounds of the Lord," a very neat Latin pun on their name.
Thus the Inquisition, which meant originally a search for heretics conducted by the bishops, became a separate institution under the direct control of the Papacy. This was not done at one stroke. Its birth is variously put by historians in 1229, 1231, and 1232. By the latter year, at all events, the Inquisition was established, and the hounds of the Lord felt the bloody rag at their nostrils.
Rome had discovered the solution of its dilemma. It did not want to stain its own fair robes with bloodshed, but it certainly did not want to leave the detection of heretics to secular powers, or few would be detected. Moreover, if heretics were tried by civil law, the law would not move until a charge was laid before it, and there would be a comparatively fair trial, the accuser facing the accused in open court; and again few would be condemned. In fine, these "confiscations" which Innocent III had recommended were becoming a very profitable source of revenue, and the Papacy wanted its share. The sordid scramble for gold amongst the bones of the dead had already begun.
Hence the Inquisition. These monastic agents of the Pope were to have independent courts, of the most monstrous description, and to ensure the condemnation of secret heretics; and they were then to hand them over to the secular arm and keep a sharp eye on any secular prince or official who failed to do his bloody work.
All this modern talk about heresy as "a crime against the State" is loathsome. There were in the thirteenth century few countries in Europe which the Popes did not claim to be fiefs of the Papacy, and few princes who were not held to be, in the literal political sense, vassals of the Pope. Gregory VII and Innocent III and their successors asserted that they were actually the feudal sovereigns of England, France, Spain, and other countries. A crime against the State was what they chose to call a crime against the State. The great majority of the secular rulers hated and thwarted the Inquisition -- it was never admitted to England -- and it was only priest-ridden rulers like Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain or those whose greed was interested, who would carry out the Pope's orders. Christianity was forcibly thrust upon Europe for the second time, as it had been in the fourth century.
The one material exception is the enactment of the death- penalty in the secular Constitution of Lombardy in 1222 and 1224. Here, at first sight, is an historical fact of great value to the apologist: while Canon Law did not clearly prescribe the death- sentence, an emperor, Frederick II, introduced it. But the joy of the apologist will be brief if he looks up the record of Frederick II. He was scarcely even a Christian. Instead of heresy deeply offending him, he hardly concealed the fact that he thought the Mohammedan religion superior to the Christian. What political motive he had for obliging the Pope -- it is admitted that clerics induced him to do it -- by thus enacting a law which the Papacy had then merely to adopt cannot be studied here. Canon Vacandard observes that Frederick merely copied the common German law in his new constitution. Professor Turberville is frankly puzzled. But it is admitted that the law, savage as it was in form -- the heretic was to be put to death or else have his tongue cut out -- was not applied before the Pope adopted it; and that, as Canon Vacandard reminds us, in his first declaration on the subject in the year 1220, Frederick expressly based his law upon the words of Innocent III which I have previously quoted. A skeptical monarch borrowing, for political reasons, the words of one blood-thirsty Pope to oblige another blood-thirsty Pope, is not a very good basis for the claim that heresy was regarded as a crime against the State.
Pope Gregory IX had this law inscribed in the papal registry, compelled the secular authorities at Rome and in most of the Italian cities to enforce it, and, as Vacandard assures us, "did his utmost to enforce everywhere the death-penalty for heresy" ("The Inquisition," p. 132). In other words, as soon as there was a secular law prescribing the death-penalty, the Popes, with great delicacy, handed over heretics to the "secular arm" and tried to get the law adopted everywhere. It was made an imperial law by Frederick in 1237.
Venice almost alone in Italy defied the Papacy. Heretics were burned at Rome and at Milan, and the most fanatical monks were sent by Gregory as Inquisitors to other countries. Conrad of Marburg was sent to Germany, where he burned whole batches of heretics. The king of Aragon, later the king of Castile, were induced to ask the Pope for Inquisitors. Four Inquisitors were appointed by Gregory to various parts of Italy; and others were sent to Bohemia. As to France, even the sordid and comprehensive massacre had not crushed the spirit of the rebels and the Dominican monk "Robert le Bougre" (I may not translate the name, but you need know little French to understand that), as he was commonly called, was sent with ghastly powers. In 1239 he burned a hundred and twenty-three "Bulgars" in one town. Mr. C.H. Hoskins has published in America a short account of "Robert le Bougre and the Beginnings of the Inquisition in France." But you may read all these and further details in the history of the Inquisition by Canon Vacandard: the same gentleman who assures us in the "Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics" that "the death-penalty was never included in any system of repression!" It had been included for more than eight hundred years, and it was merely disputed by canon lawyers how far the old law applied in the Middle Ages.
The Infamy of Its Procedure
The Inquisition is an indelible disgrace to the religion which created it; the horrors of the Roman amphitheater were in comparison only a misguided exhibition of manliness; the amorous license of Paphos or of Corinth was, contrasted with it, an amiable and innocent indulgence of human nature; in its procedure this holy court, presided over by the holiest of men, under the direct control of their holinesses the Popes, was the most infamous instrument of injustice and the worst fomenter of murderous cupidity that the world has ever seen.
And, lest any he tempted to think, as the simple-minded believer thinks, that, after all, these repressions merely removed, let us say, a million rebels, and thus proved the remaining fifty million Europeans to be orthodox and docile Christians, we must study the procedure of the Inquisition more closely. Its methods were so barbarous and stupid from the juridical point of view that we really cannot say how many of its "heretics" were real rebels. In one respect the situation was simple: if you were denounced for heresy to the Inquisitors, the best thing you could do was to go at once and declare yourself a heretic and abjure your supposed heresy. Denial meant, whatever your views really were, horrible torture and, if you still honestly denied the charge, certain death. We must make allowance for this. It is, in fact, part of the indictment of the Inquisition that it must have fined, imprisoned, tortured, and even slain a large number of Christians.
However, even allowing for this, the figures are significant. The modern apologists for the Inquisition, who ask us to smile and rub our hands and acquit the Church because they discover (they say) that the men and women murdered numbered only fifty thousand instead of three hundred thousand, take the line of proving that the Inquisitors generally tried immensely more prisoners than they executed. Vacandard points out how the famous Inquisitor Bernard Gui had nine hundred and thirty cases in one district between 1308 and 1325, and he handed over only forty-two to the secular arm. At Poniers five out of forty-two accused were put to death. And so on. What this really means is that nine-tenths or nineteen-twentieths of the men and women charged with heresy confessed that they were heretics and abjured the heresy. In other words, there were at least ten times as many heretics as those executed; the Inquisition was a monument of intimidation to put an end to the growth of rebellion against Rome.
Its procedure will make this clear, and the account I give of it in this chapter is based entirely upon Canon Vacandard's book "The Inquisition" (1908) and the article on the Inquisition by the Jesuit Father Blotzer in the "Catholic Encyclopedia" The Jesuit, of course, Jesuitizes here and there, but fortunately the Canon, unconsciously, gives away his colleague. It will be seen that, in spite of all the Catholic reviling of Lea's historical works, these writers have to agree with him in every word in this most important section. In fact, Vacandard bases his own work largely upon Lea's most careful research, and Blotzer generally follows Vacandard.
When the friar-Inquisitors arrived at a town, they convened a solemn meeting of bishop, clergy, and people and announced that secret heretics were to be reported to them. There would be a "time of grace," usually a month, and heretics who voluntarily came forward, and confessed and abjured, during that period received only the lighter penances: prayers, fasts, pilgrimages, fines, etc. Meantime the Inquisitors, who were to "act with the bishop" (though he had no power), had to choose an advisory council of "good and experienced men" -- twenty to fifty in number -- and come to a decision only in conjunction with these.
A most beneficent provision, says the Jesuit! Actually the beginning of the jury-system in Europe, says the Canon! But who were these men, and what did they do? They were, as a rule, mostly priests and monks, with a few very orthodox laymen. In a few places quite a number of local pious lawyers -- the decree stipulated that they must be "zealous for the faith" -- were found amongst the "good men." They considered the names of the accusers, says the Jesuit; and, being local men, they might thus detect enmity or cupidity.
But Vacandard gives the show away. He quotes two of the leading Inquisitors telling us that it is the common practice to conceal the names of the accusers even from these men, and that they usually saw only a summary of the evidence carefully prepared for them. "Very few of them," the writers of the time say, "ever knew the name of the accused or the accuser, or saw all the evidence." An abstract case and selected evidence are laid before them. "They did not," says Vacandard, honestly, "have data enough to decide a concrete case." In point of fact, they did not decide it. They gave their opinion, and the Inquisitors decided. And when the Jesuit and the Canon assure us that the Inquisitors usually adopted their opinion, unless it was too severe (!), their only authority is another modern apologist.
The "jury" never hampered the Inquisitors. They took up their quarters, generally in a Dominican monastery, and received secret denunciations. At an early date it was decided by the Popes that two accusers sufficed. These are generally called "witnesses," but that is a parody of a judicial term. They were secret accusers, and not only were they never confronted with the accused, but their names were concealed. "Boniface VIII," says the Jesuit, "set aside this usage ... and commanded that at all trials, even inquisitorial, the witnesses must be named to the accused." That statement of the "Catholic Encyclopedia" is a lie. Vacandard gives the words of Boniface, and I will translate them: "Where there is no such danger, the names of accusers and witnesses must be published, as is done in other trials." What danger? There is the rub. The Inquisitors pretended that there was always danger of revenge, and Boniface's words would not affect their procedure in the least.
The accused are notified, and the terror begins; it has begun, in fact, the day the terrible monks have marched with their golden cross into the town. The Inquisitors had three ways of influencing the accused before it came to torture. The fear of death was the first. Do not imagine a man going to face a trial as he does today. If he was denounced, he was guilty. Impossible, you say; no Catholic writer, at least, would admit that. But it is a truism. Listen to the Canon: "If two witnesses, considered of good repute by the Inquisitors, agreed in accusing the prisoner his fate was at once sealed; whether he confessed or not, he was at once declared a heretic" (p. 128). Trial by the Inquisition did not mean an examination to find out if a man was a heretic. If two secret witnesses said that he was, he was; and all the "third degree" and torture was merely to make him confess that he was and abjure his heresy. Bernard Shaw's theatrical representation of a trial is quite absurd.
If this certain knowledge that he would die a horrible death unless he came and abjured his (perhaps imaginary) heresy did not move a denounced man, he was confined to his house and harried and weakened in various ways. If this was not enough, two visitors were sent to put him through what is now known as "the third degree." If he still denied that he was a heretic, he received the grim summons to the Inquisition.
It was no use asking who accused him. Gregory IX, Innocent IV, and Alexander IV forbade the Inquisitors to tell the names; and the declaration of Boniface VIII did not alter matters. All that the man could do was to name any enemies be had in the town. By another refinement of clerical procedure, unknown in mere human law, slaves, women, children, and convicted criminals could lodge an accusation. Religion alone listened to such witnesses; but then religion is so very important, the apologists say. Moreover, it was no use the man protesting that he had attended mass regularly, and so on. Outward conformity did not count. He was denounced for secret heresy; he was guilty of it -- all that he had to do was to abjure it.
He could not bring a lawyer. That good and great Pope, Innocent III, had in 1205 sternly forbidden lawyers to help heretics "in any way"; and any lawyer who ventured to do so would very soon be on trial. A saintly friar in France who defended a rich and pious patron of his order, whose goods the Inquisitors wanted (and got), ended in prison. Father Blotzer, it is true, tells us that the rule of excluding lawyers was soon relaxed, and "universal custom" allowed a legal adviser. And Vacandard, the real authority, explains that this is the opposite of the truth. Pope Innocent had referred to confessed heretics, and at first Inquisitors allowed lawyers to suspected or accused, but the law was soon taken to apply to all heretics.
A man could not bring witnesses: or they would be on the list of heretics the next day. On the other hand, witnesses could be put to the torture to give evidence against him. If one witness cared to say that his charge could be supported by so-and-so, the man was brought and tortured until he told the desired lie. In practice one witness would suffice; and in Spain, at least, he got his share of the spoils.
Unless, therefore, a man had in him the rare stuff of a real martyr, he meekly acknowledged that he was a heretic, and he abjured the heresy. He was then required to denounce others, or "name his accomplices." If he thus confessed his heresy and named a few others, he merely got: a heavy penance, a pilgrimage, orders to fast for years, to build a church, pay a heavy fine, wear a hideous cross sewn on his clothes, etc. If he persisted in denying that he was a heretic, or refused to name others, he was taken into the next room.
The Inquisitors, with great humanity, always showed the man (or woman) the instruments of torture first. These were, as a rule, a horrible scourge for flogging, a rack (for pulling out the limbs until the joints cracked), a strappado, and a brasier of burning coals to be applied to his bare feet. The strappado was a pleasant little arrangement by which a man was suspended by the wrists from the ceiling, and jerked downward whenever he refused to say that he was a heretic. As a further inducement heavy weights would be tied to his feet. Strong men died from it.
I have told how torture was deliberately introduced into the procedure, at the request of the Inquisitors by Pope Innocent IV. No one disputes that. "The Church is responsible for having introduced torture into the proceedings of the Inquisition," says Vacandard (p. 147). But, says the Jesuit, airily, curiously enough, torture was not regarded as a mode of punishment, but purely as a means of eliciting the truth; and, of course, it was the naughty civil courts which gave the Pope the idea. What is curious enough is that the Jesuits and Paulists of the twentieth century, demanding "liberty" in Protestant countries, can write so callously and insincerely about the horrors perpetrated by their Church when it had the power. "Torture is," says the Jesuit, "seldom mentioned in the records"; and he himself admits that, as it was done outside the court, one would not expect to find it in the records.
Torture was habitual and appalling. "On the whole," says this gentle Jesuit, "the Inquisition was humanely conducted"; and the Canon tells us that Savonarola (an orthodox and most pious Puritan) was tortured seven times, certain witches of Arras were tortured forty times, thirty-six Knights Templars -- tough folk, one would imagine -- died under torture at Paris and twenty-five at Sens, and so on. The rack, thumbscrews, strappado, and burning coals are certainly "humane" instruments.
But the Popes (who introduced torture) did their best to check the excessive zeal of Inquisitors, both apologists say. Clement V said that the accused must be tortured only once. Yes; and no Pope moved a finger when, all over Christendom, the Inquisitors found that, though torture could not be "repeated," it could be "continued," on the next day and as many days as they thought fit. Clement had spoken only of the accused. Then, said the Inquisitors, we are quite free to torture witnesses, to make them denounce people; and again not a single Pope rebuked or checked them. The Popes at first said that no cleric, being of a holy estate, must be present at the torture; and Alexander IV and Urban IV said that they might be present so that everywhere the Inquisitor bent over the writhing victim and shrieked his "Do you confess?" There was generally a political reason when Popes restrained the local zeal of the Inquisition anywhere.
If the victim persisted in denying that he was a heretic, in spite of torture, he was handed over to the secular arm; that is to say, after Gregory IX had succeeded everywhere in having the secular authorities adopt the death sentence for heresy. In face of the horrible death in front of them many now "confessed, and they were imprisoned for life. Imprisonment was quite a humane business on the whole, the Jesuit says. They often had good cheer, saw their friends, and so on. Yes -- sometimes. There were two kinds of prisons, strict and less strict. Rich heretics generally got the latter, and money will buy comforts and privileges in most places. But it is disgusting even in their case to make light of their lot. Without trial, on the mere denunciation of two men who might be enemies or tortured witnesses or men bribed to bring about the confiscation of their property, they have, for a "heresy" which they have abjured, if it ever existed, lost all their property, seen wife and children reduced to beggary, and been imprisoned for life.
A word about this confiscation. It is, Professor Alphandery rightly says, "of supreme importance for the economic history of the Inquisition"; and Vacandard admits that it was Lea who first brought out its importance. The goods of a fugitive or of a man imprisoned for life or condemned to death were confiscated. Moreover, the Inquisitors within ten years of the establishment of the inquisition got from the Popes the right to impose fines, or to commute the lighter sentences for money-payments. If you did not want to wear a yellow cross on your coat for life, to spend three years in jail, to live on bread and water for two years -- pay up. Then there were the appeals to Rome against excessive sentences: that merciful safety valve against injustice of which the apologists make so much. It meant that you paid at Rome.
Is there even a Roman Catholic business man who does not now see the Inquisition in a new and ghastly light? It was a scramble for gold on a soil red with human blood. Who got the profit? We know quite well. First the secular authority; and that is, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the main reason why heresy was "a crime against the State." That is why the kings of France permitted tens of thousands of their subjects in the south to be imprisoned for life or burned, why Venice dealt with its own heretics, why the Popes so readily denounced Inquisitors, like the Spanish, who were not under their own control. Secondly, the bishop and the Inquisitors got a share. Thirdly, the Papacy, which published no balance-sheet, got its share. Oh, everybody hated heresy in those pious days! Segni, a distinguished Catholic writer of the sixteenth century, said: "The Inquisition was invented to rob the rich of their possessions."
By a refinement of this "humane" procedure, which did so much for "the general civilization of mankind," the "Catholic Encyclopedia" says -- look it up, article "Inquisition," if you cannot believe me -- even dead men could be accused of heresy. Let two unknown witnesses say that a man, even forty years dead, had been a secret heretic, and his children or even grandchildren were ruined. For him there was no chance of "repentance." He was an unrepentant heretic. His bones were dug up, paraded through the street, and burned. His widow and children were robbed of every dollar. Vacandard tells us of one famous Inquisitor, Bernard Gui, who had eighty-eight of these posthumous cases in six hundred and thirty-six! But, of course, they were on their guard against any mere feeling of greed. The Popes warned them. Inquisitors and secular rulers sternly resisted temptation. Yet Vacandard quotes the Inquisitor Eymeric bemoaning: "There are no more rich heretics, so that princes, not seeing much money in prospect, will not put themselves to any expense."
To finish with the prisons. The common sentence was "strict prison": solitary confinement, often in chains, on bread and water in the foulest dungeons conceivable. I have been in the medieval dungeons at Venice -- into which those wicked Voltaireans of the French Revolution let a little daylight -- and can imagine the horror of life imprisonment in them. We shall see that the king of France, who had no tenderness for heretics, forced the Pope to interfere with his Inquisitors in the south of France for the barbarity of their prisons. Hundreds died in them.
And now let us take a glance at the solemn ceremony which closed the work of the Inquisitors. On a Sunday morning they gathered the culprits, the clergy, and the people in some great church or public square, and read out the sentences. The unrepentant were then handed over to the secular authorities with a recommendation to mercy -- and a stern assurance, from the Pope, that unless those men and women were burned at the stake within five days the magistrate or prince would be excommunicated and the city or kingdom laid under the appalling blight of an interdict. Then the Dominican or Franciscan agents of the Pope washed their hands, and these modern Catholic apologists ask us to observe how clean they were.
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