Jail and Prison Conditions
The severest penance the inquisitor could impose was incarceration. It was, according to the theory of the inquisitors, not a punishment, but a means by which the penitent could obtain, on the bread of tribulation and water of affliction, pardon from God for his sins, while at the same time he was closely supervised to see that he persevered in the right path and was segregated from the rest of the flock, thus removing all danger of infection. Of course it was only used for converts. The defiant heretic who persisted in disobedience, or who pertinaciously refused to confess his heresy and asserted his innocence, could not be admitted to penance, and was handed over to the secular arm.
In the milder form, the prisoners apparently were, if well behaved, allowed to take exercise in the corridors, where sometimes they had opportunities of converse with each other and with the outside world. This privilege was ordered to be given to the aged and infirm by the cardinals who investigated the prison of Carcassonne and took measures to alleviate its rigors. In the harsher confinement the prisoner was thrust into the smallest, darkest, and most noisome of cells, with chains on his feet—in some cases chained to the wall. This penance was inflicted on those whose offences had been conspicuous, or who had perjured themselves by making incomplete confessions, the matter being wholly at the discretion of the inquisitor. I have met with one case, in 1328, of aggravated false-witness, condemned with chains on both hands and feet. When the culprits were members of a religious order, to avoid scandal the proceedings were usually held in private, and the imprisonment would be ordered to take place in a convent of their own Order. As these buildings, however, usually were provided with cells for the punishment of offenders, this was probably of no great advantage to the victim. In the case of Jeanne, widow of B. de la Tour, a nun of Lespenasse, in 1246, who had committed acts of both Catharan and Waldensian heresy, and had prevaricated in her confession, the sentence was confinement in a separate cell in her own convent, where no one was to enter or see her, her food being pushed in through an opening left for the purpose—in fact, the living tomb known as the “in pace.”
The fate of the unfortunate captives was evidently most precarious while their oppressors and despoilers were thus squabbling as to the cost of keeping them in jail and providing them with bread and water.
While the penance prescribed was a diet of bread and water, the Inquisition, with unwonted kindness, did not object to its prisoners receiving from their friends contributions of food, wine, money, and garments, and among its documents are such frequent allusions to this that it may be regarded as an established custom. Collections were made among those secretly inclined to heresy to alleviate the condition of their incarcerated brethren, and it argues much in favor of the disinterested zeal of the persecuted that they were willing to incur the risk attendant on this benevolence, for any interest shown towards these poor wretches exposed them to accusation to fautorship.
The prisons were naturally built with a view to economy of construction and space rather than to the health and comfort of the captives. In fact the papal orders were that they should be constructed of small, dark cells for solitary confinement, only taking care that the “enormis rigor” of the incarceration should not extinguish life. M. Molinier’s description of the Tour de l’Inqui-sition at Carcassonne, which was used as the inquisitorial prison, shows how literally these instructions were obeyed. It was a horrible place, consisting of small cells, deprived of all light and ventilation, where through long years the miserable inmates endured a living death far worse than the short agony of the stake. In these abodes of despair they were completely at the mercy of the jailers and their servants. Complaints were not listened to; if a prisoner alleged violence or ill-treatment his oath was contemptuously refused, while that of the prison officials was received.
Evidently a prisoner who had money could obtain illicit favors but these injunctions make no allusion to one of the most crying abuses which disgraced the establishments —the retention by the jailers of the moneys and provisions placed in their hands by the friends of the imprisoned. Frauds of all kinds naturally grew up among all who were concerned in dealing with these helpless creatures.* The cardinals whom Clement V. commissioned soon after to investigate the abuses of the Inquisition of Languedoc intimate broadly the nature of the frauds habitually practiced, when they required the new jailers whom they appointed to swear to deliver to each captive without diminution the provisions supplied by the king, as well as those furnished by friends—an intimation confirmed by the Decretals of Clement V. Their report shows that they were horror-struck with what they saw. At Carcassonne they took the control of the prison wholly from the inquisitor, Geoffroi d’Ablis, and placed it in the hands of the bishop, ordering the upper cells to be repaired at once, in order that the aged and sick should be transferred. to them; at Albi they struck the chains off the prisoners, commanded the cells to be lighted and new and better ones built within a month; at Toulouse things were equally bad. Everywhere there was complaint of lack of food and of beds, as well as of frequent torture.
As a means of release from the horrors of these foul dungeons was the excessive mortality caused by their filthy and unventilated squalor. Occasionally, as we have seen, the unfortunate were unlucky enough to live through protracted confinement, and there is one case in which a woman was graciously discharged, with crosses, in view of her having been for thirty-three years in the prison of Toulouse. As a rule, however, we may conclude that the expectation of life was very short.
There were two kinds of imprisonment, the milder, and the harsher. All were on bread and water, and the confinement, according to rule, was solitary, each penitent in a separate cell, with no access allowed to him, to prevent his being corrupted or corrupting others; but this could not be strictly enforced, and about 1306 Geoffroi d’Ablis stigmatizes as an abuse the visits of clergy, and laity of both sexes, permitted to prisoners. Husband and wife, however, were allowed access to each other if either or both were imprisoned; and late in the fourteenth century Eymerich agrees that zealous Catholics maybe admitted to visit prisoners, but not women and simple folk who might be perverted, for converted prisoners, he adds, are very liable to relapse, and to infect others, and usually end with the stake.
As a means of release from the horrors of these foul dungeons was the excessive mortality caused by their filthy and unventilated squalor. Occasionally, as we have seen, the unfortunate were unlucky enough to live through protracted confinement, and there is one case in which a woman was graciously discharged, with crosses, in view of her having been for thirty-three years in the prison of Toulouse. As a rule, however, we may conclude that the expectation of life was very short.
* As the Keepers have it in their Power greatly to injure or serve their Prisoners, they must promise by an Oath, before the Bishop and Inquisitor, that they will exercise a faithful Care and Concern in keeping them, and that neither of them will speak to any of them but in Presence of the other, and that they will not defraud them of their Provision, nor of those Things which are brought to them, Their Servants also are obliged to take this Oath
But notwithstanding this Law, a great Part of the Provision appointed for the Prisoners is withheld from them by their covetous Keepers ; and if they are accused for this to the Inquisitors, they are much more gently punished, than if they had used any Mercy towards them. Reginald Goasalve relates, that in his Time, Gaspar Bennaviclias was Keeper of a Jail. He was a Man of monstrous Covetousness and Cruelty, who defrauded his miserable Prisoners of a great Part of their Provision, which were ill dressed, and scarce the tenth Part of what was allowed them, and sold it secrecy, for no great Price. Besides, he wholly kept from them the little Money allowed them to pay for the washing of their Linen, thus suffering them to abide many Days together in a nasty Condition, deceiving the Inquisitor and Treasurer, who put that Money to the Keepers Account, as though it had been expended every Week for the Use of the Prisoners, for whom it is appointed. Neither was it very difficult to deceive them, because they took but little Pains to enquire out the Truth.
If any one of the Prisoners complained, muttered, or opened his Mouth upon account of this Intolerable Usage, the cruel Wretch, who had divested himself of all Humanity, had a Remedy at hand. He brought the Prisoner immediately out of his Apartment, and put him down into a deep Cistern that had no Water in it There he left him for several Days, without any Thing to lie on, not so much as Straw. His Provision for them was so very rotten, that it was more proper to destroy his Health by Sickness, than to preserve it, or support him in Life. All this he did without ever consulting the Inquisitors, and yet fraudulently and villainously pretended their Command to his Prisoner. He kept the miserable Prisoner in that deep Pit twelve or fifteen Days, more or less, till he had fully gratified his Anger and Cruelty. After this he brought him out, and threw him into his former Jail, persuading him that this Favor was owing to his Humanity and Care, having made Intercession for him with their Lordships. In short his Thefts and Injuries with which he plagued his Prisoners, who were otherwise miserable enough, were so numerous, that some Prisoners of Interest with the Inquisitors at length accused him before them. Upon this he was imprisoned himself ; and being found guilty of many false Accusations, he received this Sentence: That he should come out at a public Act of the Faith, carrying a wax Candle in his Hand, be banished five Years from the City, and forfeit the whole Sum of Money, which by Virtue of his Office he was to have received from the holy Tribunal.
This very Man, while he was Keeper, had in his Family, an ancient Servant Maid, who observing the Distress of the Prisoners, laboring under intolerable Hunger and Nastiness, through the Wickedness and Barbarity of her Master, was so moved with pity towards them, being herself well inclined to the Evangelical Piety, that she often spoke to them through the Doors of their Cells, comforted them, and as well as she could exhorted them to Patience, many Times putting them Meat under their Doors, in Proportion to the mean and low Abilities of her Condition. And when she had nothing of her own, by which to shew her Liberality to the Prisoners of Christ, she stole good Part of that Provision from the wicked Thief her Master, which he had stolen from the Prisoners, and restored it to them.
And that we may the more wonder at the Providence of God, who so orders it that the worst of Parents shall not have always the worst of Children, but sometimes even the best ; a little Daughter of the Keeper himself was greatly assisting to the Maid in these pious Thefts. By Means of this Servant the Prisoners had Information of the State of the Affairs of their Brethren and fellow Prisoners, which much comforted them, and was oftentimes of great Service to their Cause, But at length the Matter was discovered by the Lords Inquisitors, by whom she was thrown into Prison for a Year, and underwent the same Fate with the other Prisoners, and condemned to walk in the public Procession with a yellow Garment, and to receive two hundred Stripes, which was executed upon her the following Day through the Streets of the City, with the usual Pomp and Cruelty. To all this was added Banishment from the City and its Territories for ten Years. Her Title was, The Favouress and Aidress of Heretics. From both these Examples, and from their different and unequal Punishment, any one may see, how much safer it is to add to the Affliction of the Prisoners in their Jail, than comfort them by any Act of Humanity and Mercy whatsoever.
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