MORE MODERATE THAN IN ROME
We shall see that occasionally tribunals abused the use of torture, but the popular impression that the inquisitorial torture-chamber was the scene of exceptional refinement in cruelty, of specially ingenious modes of inflicting agony, and of peculiar persistence in extorting confessions, is an error due to sensational writers who have exploited credulity. The system was evil in conception and in execution, but the Spanish Inquisition, at least, was not responsible for its introduction and, as a rule, was less cruel than the secular courts in its application, and confined itself more strictly to a few well-known methods. In fact, we may reasonably assume that its use of torture was less frequent, for its scientific system of breaking down resistance, in its long-drawn procedure, was more effective than the ruder and speedier practice of the secular courts where, as we are told byArchbishop Pedro de Castro of Granada, it was notorious that no one confessed except when overcome by torture.[6]
In this respect, the comparison between the Spanish and the Roman Inquisition is also eminently in favor of the former. We shall have occasion presently to see the limitations which it placed on the use of torture, while in Rome it was the rule that all who confessed or were convicted in matters of faith were tortured for the further discovery of the truth and the revelation of accomplices. In addition to this there were many classes of cases in which torture was employed by Rome to extort confession and in which it was forbidden in Spain—those involving mere presumption of heresy, such as solicitation, sorcery, blasphemy etc. Moreover in Rome thein arbitrio judicumapplied not only to the kind and duration of the torture but also to its repetition.[7]Spanish writers on practice, therefore, were justified in claiming for their own tribunals a sparing use of torture unknown in Italy, while, as regards its severity, the frequency with which in the trials we find that the accused overcame the torture would indicate that habitually it was not carried to extremity, as it so frequently was in the secular courts. No torture-chamber in the Inquisition possessed the resources of the corregidor who labored for three hours, in 1612, to obtain from Diego Duke of Estrada confession of a homicide—the water torture, the mancuerda, the potro, hot irons for the feet, hot bricks for the stomach and buttocks, garrotillos known as bone-breakers, the trampa to tear the legs and the bostezo to distend the mouth—and all this was an every-day matter of criminal justice.[8]
The indirect torture of especially harsh imprisonment was not unknown to the Inquisition, and was occasionally employed for the purpose of breaking down obstinacy. It was not, as in the medieval Inquisition, prescribed as an ordinary resource, but it was at the discretion of the tribunal and could at any time be brought into play, as in the case of a pertinacious heretic, in 1512, who was consigned to the most noisome part of the prison, and afflicted in various ways, in the hope of enlightening his understanding.[9]In the later period of leisurely action, protracted imprisonment was frequently resorted to, in the hope of inducing repentance and conversion, when wearing anxiety and despair weakened the will as effectually as the sharper agonies of the pulley and rack. There was also the ingenious device, frequently effective, by which the fiscal concluded his formal accusation with a demand that, if necessary, the accused should be tortured until he confessed. This was unknown in the earlier period, but the Instructions of 1561 recommend it, giving as a reason its good results, and also that torture requires a demand from the prosecutor and a notification to the defendant, who is unprepared for it at this stage of the trial.[10]After this it became the universal custom in all cases admitting of torture, and the profound impression produced on the unfortunate prisoner can be readily conceived.
PRELIMINARIES
Torture itself, however, was regarded as too serious to be left to the arbitrary temper of a baffled or angry inquisitor, and was preceded by formalities designed to prevent its abuse. It was the last resort when the result of a trial left doubts to be satisfied. After the prosecution and defence had closed, and the consulta de fe had assembled to consider the sentence, if the evidence was too weak for condemnation while the innocence of the accused was not clear, it could adopt a vote to torture and postpone the decision to await the outcome. Even in the ferocity of the early period this deliberateness was frequently observed, although in the reckless haste of procedure it was often omitted. Thus, in the case of Diego GarcÃa, a priest accused of having said twenty years before, when a boy, that the sacrament was bread, the consulta held two meetings, January 18 and 19, 1490, and finally voted torture. There was no haste however and it wasnot until February 11th that GarcÃa was exposed to the very moderate water-torture of about a quart of water. No confession was obtained and he was untied, with the protest that he had not been sufficiently tortured, but it was not repeated and, on February 26th, he was acquitted and restored to his fame and honor, though, with the curiously perverse inquisitorial logic, he was made to abjurede vehementiand forbidden to celebrate mass for six months.[11]The vote of the consulta however was not universal and, in 1518, the Suprema ordered it to be always observed, but a clause in the Instructions of 1561, reminding inquisitors that they must not inflict torture until after hearing the defence shows how difficult it was to restrain their arbitrary action.[12]Even in the early eighteenth century, in reviewing a summary of cases of Valencia, from 1705 to 1726, the Suprema rebuked the tribunal for torturing Sebastian Antonio RodrÃguez without previous consultation, but at this period the consulta de fe was becoming obsolete and everything was centering in the Suprema.[13]
The vote of the consulta was still only preliminary. After it, the accused was brought into the audience-chamber, where all the inquisitors and the episcopal Ordinary were required to be present. He was notified of the decision of the consulta; if he was adiminuto, the points in which his confession had failed to satisfy the evidence were pointed out; if anegativo, no explanations were necessary; if it was on intention or incaput alienumhe was made to understand it. He was adjured, in the name of God and the Blessed Virgin, to confess fully, without false evidence as to himself or others and, if this failed to move him, a formal sentence of torture was signed by all the judges and read to him. It recited that, in view of the suspicions arising against him from the evidence, they condemned him to be tortured for such length of time as they should see fit, in order that he might tell the truth of what had been testified against him, protesting that, if in the torture he should die or suffer effusion of blood or mutilation, it should not be attributed to them, but to him for not telling the truth. If the torture was to discover accomplices, care was taken to make no allusion to him and to give him nochance of clearing himself, for he was assumed to be already convicted.[14]
Even this sentence was not necessarily a finality for, if the accused offered a new defence, it had to be considered and acted upon before proceeding further.[15]Moreover he had theoretically a right to appeal to the inquisitor-general from this, as from all other interlocutory sentences. This right varied at different times. A ruling by the Suprema, in 1538, appears to indicate that it was granted as a matter of right, but the Instructions of 1561 tell inquisitors that, if they feel scruple, they should grant it, but if satisfied that the sentence is justified they should refuse the appeal as frivolous and dilatory.[16]Still the right to ask it was so fully recognized that, if the accused was not twenty-five years of age and thus a minor, hiscuradoror guardian was required to be present, in order to interject an appeal if he saw fit, and I have met with an instance of this in the case of Angela Pérez, a Morisco slave, before the Toledo tribunal in 1575, where it was as usual unsuccessful, for the Suprema confirmed the sentence.[17]Tribunals seem not infrequently to have allowed appeals, but, with the growing centralization in the Suprema, they became superfluous and a formula, drawn up in 1690, directs that no attention be paid to them.[18]
CONDITIONS
When the indications of guilt were too slender to justify torture, the consulta de fe sometimes voted to threaten torture.[19]Then the sentence was formally drawn up and read to the accused, he was taken to the torture-chamber, stripped and perhaps tied on thepotroorescalera, without proceeding further. A curious case of this was that of Leonor Pérez who, at the age of seventy, was sentenced, May 3, 1634, in Valladolid, to be placedin conspectu tormentorum. When stripped, on May 10th, the executioner reported marks of previous torture; the proceedings were suspended and, on May 13th, she admitted that, twenty years before, she had been tortured in Coimbra. On June 14ththe sentence was again executed, but, before being stripped, she confessed to some Jewish beliefs and then fainted. A postponement was necessary and two days later she revoked her confession. The case dragged on and it was not until August 1, 1637 that she was condemned to abjurede vehementi, to six years of exile, a fine of two hundred ducats, and to be paraded invergüenza, but we still hear of her as in prison, early in 1639.[20]It required strong nerves to endure this threat of torture, with its terrifying formalities and adjurations, and it was frequently effective.
The conditions held to justify torture were that the offence charged was of sufficient gravity, and that the evidence, while not wholly decisive, was such that the accused should have the opportunity of “purging†it, by endurance proportionate to its strength. From the inquisitor’s point of view, it was a favor to the accused, as it gave him a chance which was denied to those whose condemnation was resolved upon. This is illustrated by a highly significant case in the Toledo tribunal in 1488. Juan del Rio had lived long in Rome, where he was present in the jubilee of 1475; by the arts of the courtier he won the favor of Sixtus IV and returned to Spain about 1483, loaded with benefices—among them a prebend in the Toledo cathedral—which excited cupidity and enmity. He was an Old Christian, of pure Biscayan descent, who could not be suspected of Judaism, but he was a loose and inconsiderate chatterer; in the Spain which he had left there was much licence, in the Rome where he had so long sojourned there was more; he could not, on his return, accommodate himself to the new order of things, and his reckless talk gave the opportunity of making vacancies of his numerous preferments. The evidence against him was of the flimsiest; the most serious charge was that, when a tenant had been unable to pay rent on account of the Inquisition, he had petulantly wished it at the devil. At a later period he would have had a chance to purge the evidence by the water-torture, but this was not permitted him; he was hurried to the stake as a pertinaciousnegativo, leaving his spoils to those who could grasp them.[21]
It was a well-accepted maxim of the civil law that torture should not be employed when the penalty of the crime charged was less severe than the infliction of torture—an equation of suffering which afforded to the doctors ample opportunity of defining the unknown quantity. This was fully accepted by the Inquisition and we are told that torture is not indicated for propositions merely offensive, rash, scandalous or blasphemous, or for the assertion that simple fornication is not a mortal sin, or for heretical blasphemy, or sorcery, or for propositions arising from ignorance, or for bigamy or solicitation in the confessional, or for lying under excommunication for a year, or for other matters which infer only light suspicion of heresy, even though for some of these offences the punishment was scourging and the galleys. Torture is freely alluded to as an irreparable injury the use of which would be unjustifiable in such matters.[22]
CONDITIONS
This, however, was, like everything else in this nebulous region, open to considerable laxity in application. When Francisco de Tornamira, a boy of eighteen and page of the Duke of Pastrana, was tried in 1592, on the charge of having said that Jews and Moors could be saved if they had faith in their respective beliefs, he denied and was tortured till he confessed, and then the triviality of his offence was admitted by subjecting him only to abjurationde levi, to hearing a mass as a penitent in the audience-chamber, and to a reprimand. The same tribunal in 1579, tried Stefano Grillen, an Italian, who, in a discussion with some chance fellow-travellers, maintained that the miracles at the shrines of Our Lady of Atocha and of la Caridad were wrought by the Virgin herself and not by her images. He freely confessed but was tortured—apparently on intention—and was dismissed with the same trivial punishment as Tornamira.[23]Even more suggestive is the case of Juan Pereira, a boy of fifteen, tried, in 1646, for Judaism at Valladolid. The proceedings were dilatory and he gradually became demented; nothing could be done with him and opinions were divided as to the reality of his insanity. The Suprema was applied to and sagely ordered torture to find out. It was administered, April 22, 1648, but the method of diagnosis was not as successful as its ingenuity deserved and, in August, he was sent to a hospitalfor six months, with instructions to observe him carefully. As his name after this disappears from the records, he probably died in the hospital.[24]It is evident that the Inquisition did not take to heart the warning issued by the Suprema, in 1533, that torture was a very delicate matter.[25]
When we come to inquire as to the character of evidence requiring torture for its elucidation, we find how illusory were all the attempts of the legists to lay down absolute rules, and how it all ended in leaving the matter to the discretion of the tribunal. As confession, though desired, was not essential to conviction, thenegativowho was convicted on sufficient evidence was not to be tortured, but was to be relaxed. Even this rule, however, could be set aside at the caprice of the judge, though he was warned, in such cases, to put on record a protest that he did not direct the torture against the matters that had been proved, for the very good reason that endurance of torture might purge them and nullify the proof.[26]It was impossible to reduce to a logical formula that which in its essence was illogical, or to frame an accurate definition of evidence that was insufficient for conviction yet sufficient for torture. It was easy to say thatsemiplenaevidence suffices, but what was semiplena? One authority will tell us that a single witness, even an accomplice, justifies torture, another that three accomplice witnesses are requisite. One impartial and unexceptionable witness, again, is sometimes held to require public fame as an adjuvant, but the records are full of cases in which torture was employed on the unsupported testimony of a single witness. The weight of other more or less confirmatory evidence was also keenly debated, without reaching substantial agreement—whether flight before arrest, or breaking gaol, or vacillation and equivocation when examined, or even pallor, was sufficient justification.[27]It is not surprising, therefore, that, as a practical result, we are told thatall these questions must be left to the discretion of the judge, to be decided in each individual case.[28]Under such conditions it would be useless to expect consistency of practice in all tribunals and at all periods. We have seen above that cases were sometimes suspended because evidence had not been ratified, yet the Toledo tribunal, in 1584, tortured Lope el Gordo for that very reason, because the chief witness against him had not ratified his testimony, and it is satisfactory to add that Lope endured the torments and thus earned suspension of his case.[29]
Thediminuto, whose confession did not cover all the adverse evidence, was, according to rule, to be tortured in order to account for the deficiency. If he endured without further admission, he was to be punished on the basis of what he had confessed, but if he did not thus purge the evidence, he was to be sent to the galleys. This was sometimes done in mere surplusage, apparently to gratify the curiosity of the tribunal, as in the Toledo case of Antonio de Andrada, in 1585, who confessed what was amply sufficient for his punishment, but, as there were some omissions, was tortured to elucidate them. In the seventeenth century, however, we are assured that there was much caution used in torturing diminutos, and that it was not done unless the omitted matters were such as to call for relaxation. If they concerned accomplices, however, whom the culprit was suspected of shielding, he was torturedin caput alienum. Retraction or vacillation of confession necessarily required torture to reconcile the contradiction; this occurred chiefly with timid persons, frightened by the demand of the fiscal for torture, and thus led to make admissions which they subsequently recalled, thus bringing upon themselves what they had sought to avoid.[30]The question of intention, in the performance of acts in themselves indifferent, was, as we have seen, the frequent occasion of torture, as there was no other means known to the jurisprudence of the period, which was bent on ascertaining the secrets of the offender’s mind.
WITNESSES
Yet it is possible that in some cases, when torture appears to be pure surplusage, there may have been the kindly intention of contributing to the salvation of the sufferer, by inducing or confirming his conversion; for habitual persecution for the greater glory of God induced a state of mind precluding all rational intellectual processes, where the faith was concerned. Thus Rojas tells us that there should be no hesitation in the use of torture, when the salvation of the culprit’s soul was involved, so that he might be reconciled to the Church and undergo penance through which he might be saved.[31]This reasoning was urged in the case of Réné Perrault, in 1624, by some of the consultores of the tribunal of Toledo. His crime of maltreating the Host was public and unquestionable, but he had varied in his statements as to his faith; the consulta de fe was unanimous in ordering torture to discover possible accomplices, but some of the members desired a special additional torture in order to confirm him in the faith and save his soul.[32]
That witnesses should be tortured, in order to obtain or confirm their testimony, is an abuse which, repulsive as it may seem to us, has been, with more or less disguise, a practice wherever torture has been used. It is true that the Roman law prohibited that one who had admitted his own guilt should be examined as to that of another, and this principle, adopted in the False Decretals, became a part of the early canon law.[33]The Inquisition, however, regarded the conviction of a heretic as only the preliminary to forcing him to denounce his associates; the earliest papal utterance, in 1252, authorizing its use of torture, prescribed the employment of this means to discover accomplices and finally Paul IV and Pius V decreed that all who were convicted and confessed should, at the discretion of the inquisitors, be tortured for this purpose.[34]Thequestion préalableordéfinitive, in which the convict was tortured to make him reveal his associates, became, through the influence of the Inquisition, a part of the criminal jurisprudence of all lands in which torture wasemployed. It was, in reality, the torture of witnesses, for the criminal’s fate had been decided, and he was thus used only to give testimony against others.
The Spanish Inquisition was, therefore, only following a general practice when it tortured,in caput alienum, those who had confessed their guilt. No confession was accepted as complete unless it revealed the names of those whom the penitent knew to be guilty of heretical acts, if there was reason to suspect that he was not fully discharging his conscience in this respect, torture was the natural resort. Even the impenitent or the relapsed, who was doomed to relaxation, was thus to be tortured and was to be given clearly to understand that it was as a witness and not as a party, and that his endurance of torture would not save him from the stake. The Instructions of 1561, however, warn inquisitors that in these cases much consideration should be exercised and torturein caput alienumwas rather the exception in Spain, than the rule as in Rome.[35]In the case of thenegativo, against whom conclusive evidence was had, and who thus was to be condemned without torture, the device of torturing him against his presumable accomplices afforded an opportunity of endeavoring to secure his own confession and conversion. We have seen this fail, in 1596, in the Mexican case of Manuel Diaz, nor was it more successful in Lima, in 1639, with Enrique de Paz y Mello, although the final outcome was different. He persistently denied through five successive publications of evidence, as testimony against him accumulated in the trials of his associates. He was sentenced to relaxation and torturein caput alienum; it was administered with great severity without overcoming his fortitude, and he persisted through five other publications as fresh evidence was gathered. Yet at midnight before the auto de fe, in which he was to be burnt, he weakened. He confessed as to himself and others and his sentence was modified to reconciliation and the galleys, while good use was made of his revelations against thirty of his accomplices.[36]
NO EXEMPTIONS
The torture of witnesses who were not themselves under trial was permitted when they varied or retracted, or so contradicted other witnesses that it was deemed necessary thus to ascertainthe truth; but whether clerical witnesses could be so treated was a subject of debate. As a rule torture in such cases was directed to be moderate, neither light nor excessive, but when testimony was revoked it could be repeated up to three inflictions.[37]As we have seen above (Vol. II, p. 537) slaves testifying in the cases of their masters could always be tortured if necessary to confirm their evidence. In the prosecution of Juan de la CaballerÃa, in 1488, as accessory to the murder of San Pedro Arbués, his slave-girl LucÃa gave compromising evidence which she was persuaded to retract, with the result that she was twice tortured and confirmed it.[38]
Likemajestas, in heresy there were no privileged classes exempt from torture. Nobles were subject to it and so were ecclesiastics of all ranks, but the latter were to be tortured less severely than laymen, unless the case was very grave, and they were entitled to a clerical torturer if one could be found to perform the office. As in their arrest, so in torture the sentence, by a carta acordada of 1633, had to be submitted to the Suprema for confirmation.[39]
As regards age, there seems to have been none that conferred exemption. Llorente, indeed, in describing a case in which a woman of ninety was tortured at Cuenca, says that this was contrary to the orders of the Suprema which prescribed that the aged should only be placedin conspectu tormentorum,[40]but I have never met with such a rule. In 1540 the Suprema ordered that consideration should be given to the quality and age of the accused and, if advisable, the torture should be very moderate, while the Instructions of 1561, which are very full, impose no limit of age and leave everything to the discretion of the tribunal.[41]Cases are by no means infrequent in which age combined with infirmity is given as a reason for omitting torture or inflicting it with moderation, but age alone offered no exemption. At a Toledo auto de fe we find Isabel Canese, aged seventy-eight,who promptly confessed before the torture had proceeded very far, and Isabel de Jaen, aged eighty who, at the fifth turn of the cords fainted and was revived with difficulty.[42]In 1607, at Valencia, Jaime Chuleyla, aged seventy-six, after confessing certain matters, was accused by a new witness of being an alfaquÃ; this he denied and was duly tortured.[43]
Not much more respect was paid to youth. In 1607, at Valencia, Isabel Madalena, a girl of thirteen, who was vaguely accused of Moorish practices, was tortured, overcame the torture and was penanced with a hundred lashes. In the same year that tribunal showed more consideration for Joan de Heredia, a boy of ten or eleven, whom a lying witness accused of going to a house where Moorish doctrines were taught. On his steadfast denial, he was sentenced to be placedin conspectu tormentorum, which was carried out in spite of an appeal by his procurator, but he persisted in asserting his innocence and the case was suspended.[44]Mental incapacity, short of insanity, was not often allowed exemption and it is creditable to the Valencia tribunal that when, about 1710, the Suprema ordered the torture of Joseph Felix, for intention with regard to certain propositions, it remonstrated and represented that he was too ignorant to comprehend the object of the torture.[45]
CONDITION OF PATIENT
It was a universal law that torture should not endanger life or limb and, although this was often disregarded when the work was under way, it called for a certain amount of preliminary caution to see that the patient was in condition promising endurance—caution admitted in theory but not always observed in practice. When there was doubt, the physician of the Inquisition was sometimes called in, as in the case of Rodrigo Pérez, at Toledo, in 1600, who was sick and weak, and the medical certificate that torture would endanger health and life sufficed to save him, but the Suprema was not so considerate when, in 1636, it ordered the Valencia tribunal to torture Joseph Pujal before transferring him to the hospital, as was done afterwards on accountof his illness.[46]Pregnancy has always been deemed a sufficient reason for at least postponing the infliction, but the Madrid tribunal, in instructions of 1690, only makes the concession of placing pregnant women on a seat, in place of binding them on the rack, while applying the exceedingly severe torture of thegarrote—sharp cords, two on each arm and two on each leg, bound around the limb and twisted with a short lever.[47]Hernia was regarded, at least in the earlier time, as precluding torture, and I have met with several cases in which it served to exempt the patient but, in 1662, the official instructions of the Suprema order that no exceptions be made on that account, save the omission of thetrampazo vigoroso, which causes downward strain; in the other tortures a good strong truss suffices to avert danger and it should always be kept on hand in readiness for such subjects.[48]In accordance with this the Madrid tribunal in 1690, orders for hernia cases the use of the seat provided for pregnant women. As regards women who were suckling, there seems to have been no established rule. In 1575, when the Valencia tribunal proposed to torture MarÃa Gilo, the physician who was called in reported that it would expose the child to imminent risk and the purpose was abandoned. In 1608, however, at Toledo, when the same question arose in the case of Luisa de Narvaez, the consulta voted in discordia and the Suprema ordered her to be tortured.[49]
Besides these generalities, there were occasional special cases in which torture was abandoned in consequence of the condition of the patient—heart disease, excessive debility, repeated faintings during the administration and other causes. The physician and the surgeon were always called in, when the prisoner was stripped, to examine him and they were kept at hand to be summoned in case of accident. The tribunals seem to have been more tender-hearted than the Suprema which, in its instructions of 1662, reproved inquisitors who avoid sentencing to torture on account of weakness or of a broken arm. This, it says, is not proper, because it forfeits the opportunity of obtaining confessionin the various preliminaries of reading the sentence, carrying to the torture-chamber, stripping him and tying him to the trestle; besides, after commencing, the torture is always to be stopped when the physician so orders.[50]There was another salutary precaution—that there should be a proper interval between the last meal and the torture. About 1560, Inquisitor Cervantes says that the patient is not to have food or drink on the evening before or on the morning of the infliction and, in 1722, a writer specifies eight hours for the preliminary fasting.[51]
THE EXECUTIONER
In the administration of torture, all the inquisitors and the episcopal representative were required to be present, with a notary or secretary to record the proceedings. No one else save the executioner was allowed to be present, except when the physician or surgeon was called in. In the earlier period, there was some trouble in providing an official to perform the repulsive work. An effort seems to have been made to compel the minor employees to do it but with doubtful success. Ferdinand, in a letter of July 22, 1486, to Torquemada, complains that the inquisitors of Saragossa had employed a torturer because the messengers had refused to do the work, and he suggests that a messenger be discharged and the torturer serve in his place without increase of salary; if this cannot be done the salary should be reduced. No salaried torturer appears in the pay-rolls; the duties were not constant and doubtless when wanted proper functionaries were called in and paid—but there is suggestiveness in a letter of Ferdinand, in 1498, ordering the restoration of a certain Pedro de Moros, who had been dropped, to serve as messenger and “for such other duties as the inquisitors might order†at five hundred sueldos a year.[52]At one time the alcaide of the prison seems to have been the official torturer for, in 1536, the Suprema writes to the inquisitors of Navarre that, if their alcaide is not skilled in the business, they must find some one who is, and not work the implements themselves, as they seem to have done, for it is not befitting the dignity of their persons or office.[53]In1587, at Valencia, we hear that the messenger and portero served as assistants and the Suprema ordered the work to be entrusted to a confidential familiar.[54]Eventually however the tribunals employed the public executioner of the town, who was skilled in his vocation. When, in 1646, at Valladolid, Isabel López was ordered to be tortured on November 23d, the alcaide reported that the public functionary was absent and the time of his return was uncertain; the torture was necessarily postponed and, on the 27th, Isabel took it into her head to confess and thus escaped the infliction.[55]In Madrid, from March to August, 1681, Alonso de Alcalá, the city executioner, was paid by the tribunal forty-four ducats, for eleven torturings, at four ducats apiece.[56]It seems strange that objection should be made to the torturer being disguised but, in 1524, the Suprema forbade him to wear a mask or to be wrapped in a sheet; subsequently he was permitted to wear a hood and to change his garments and, in the seventeenth century, a mask and other disguise were permissible, if it were thought best that he should not be recognized.[57]
At every stage in the preliminaries, after reading the sentence, taking the prisoner down to the torture-chamber, calling in the executioner, stripping the prisoner and tying him to the trestle, there was a pause in which he was solemnly adjured to tell the truth for the love of God, as the inquisitors did not desire to see him suffer.[58]The exposure of stripping was not a mere wanton aggravation but was necessary, for the cords around the thighs and arms, the belt at the waist with cords passing from it over the shoulders from front to back, required access to every portion of the body and, at the end of the torture, there was little of the surface that had not had its due share of agony. Women as well as men were subjected to this, the slight concession to decency being thezaragüellesorpaños de la vergüenza, a kind of abbreviated bathing-trunks, but the denudation seems to have been complete before these were put on.[59]The patientwas admonished not to tell falsehoods about himself or others and, during the torture, the only words to be addressed to him were “Tell the truth.†No questions were to be put and no names mentioned to him, for the reason, as we are told, that the sufferers in their agonies were ready to say anything that was in any way suggested, and to bear false-witness against themselves and others. The executioner was not to speak to the patient, or make faces at him, or threaten him, and the inquisitors should see that he so arranged the cords and other devices as not to cause permanent crippling or breaking of the bones. The work was to proceed slowly with due intervals between each turn of thegarrotesor hoist in thegarrucha, or otherwise the effect was lost, and the patient was apt to overcome the torture.
It was a universal rule that torture could be applied only once, unless new evidence supervened which required purging, but this restriction was easily evaded. Though torture could not be repeated, it could be continued and, when it was over, the patient was told that the inquisitors were not satisfied, but were obliged to suspend it for the present, and that it would be resumed at another time, if he did not tell the whole truth. Thus it could be repeated from time to time as often as the consulta de fe might deem expedient.[60]The secretary faithfully recorded all that passed, even to the shrieks of the victim, his despairing ejaculations and his piteous appeals for mercy or to be put to death, nor would it be easy to conceive anything more fitted to excite the deepest compassion than these cold-blooded, matter-of-fact reports.
As for the varieties of torture currently employed, it must be borne in mind that the Inquisition largely depended on the public executioners, and its methods thus were necessarily identical with those of the secular courts; while even when its own officials performed the duty, they would naturally follow the customary routine. The Inquisition thus had no special refinements of torture and indeed, so far as I have had opportunity of investigation, it confined itself to a few methods out of the abundant repertory of the public functionaries.
VARIETIES
In the earlier period only two tortures were generally in vogue—thegarruchaor pulleys and the water-torture. These are theonly ones alluded to by Pablo GarcÃa and both of them were old and well-established forms.[61]The former, known in Italy as thestrappado, consisted in tying the patient’s hands behind his back and then, with a cord around his wrists, hoisting him from the floor, with or without weights to his feet, keeping him suspended as long as was desired and perhaps occasionally letting him fall a short distance with a jerk. About 1620 a writer prescribes that the elevating movement should be slow, for if it is rapid the pain is not lasting; for a time the patient should be kept at tiptoe, so that his feet scarce touch the floor; when hoisted he should be held there while the psalm Miserere is thrice repeated slowly in silence, and he is to be repeatedly admonished to tell the truth. If this fail he is to be lowered, one of the weights is to be attached to his feet and he is to be hoisted for the space of two Misereres, the process being repeated with increasing weights as often and as long as may be judged expedient.[62]
The water-torture was more complicated. The patient was placed on anescaleraorpotro—a kind of trestle, with sharp-edged rungs across it like a ladder. It slanted so that the head was lower than the feet and, at the lower end was a depression in which the head sank, while an iron band around the forehead or throat kept it immovable. Sharp cords, calledcordeles, which cut into the flesh, attached the arms and legs to the side of the trestle and others, known asgarrotes, from sticks thrust in them and twisted around like a tourniquet till the cords cut more or less deeply into the flesh, were twined around the upper and lower arms, the thighs and the calves; abostezo, or iron prong, distended the mouth, atoca, or strip of linen, was thrust down the throat to conduct water trickling slowly from ajarraor jar, holding usually a little more than a quart. The patient strangled and gasped and suffocated and, at intervals, the toca was withdrawn and he was adjured to tell the truth. The severity of the infliction was measured by the number of jars consumed, sometimes reaching to six or eight. In 1490, in the case of the priest Diego GarcÃa, a single quart satisfied the inquisitors and he was acquitted.[63]In the Mexican case of Manuel DÃaz, in 1596,the cordeles were applied; then seven garrotes were twisted around arms and legs, the toca was thrust down his throat and twelve jarras of a pint each were allowed to drip through it, the toca being drawn up four times during the operation. In the Toledo case of Marà RodrÃguez, in 1592, the operation was divided, the cordeles being applied while she was seated on thebanquillo, and were given eight turns; she was then transferred to the trestle, and the garrotes were used, followed by the water; at the second jarra she vomited profusely; she was untied and fell to the floor. The executioner lifted her up and put on her chemise; she was told that if she would not tell the truth the torture would be continued; she protested that she had told the truth and it was suspended. For nine months she was left in her cell, then the consulta de fe voted to suspend the case and she was told to be gone in God’s name.[64]
It was probably not long after this that these forms of torture gradually fell into disuse and were replaced by others which apparently were regarded as more merciful. In 1646 the Suprema applied to the tribunal of Córdova for information concerning the garrucha and silla and for a description of thetrampaandtrampazowhich it used, with an estimate of their severity. The tribunal replied that the silla had been abandoned because it could scarce be called a torture and the garrucha on account of the danger of causing dislocations. For more than thirty years the tribunal, as well as the secular courts, had discontinued its use as also the brazier of coals, heated plates of metal, hot bricks, the toca with seven pints of water, thedepiñoncillo,escarabajo,tablillas,sueñoand others. The methods in use were the cordeles and garrotes, of which there were three kinds, thevuelta de trampa, themancuerdaand stretching the accused in thepotroor rack.