The Ordeal of the Prisoners
Of the Examination of the PRISONERS
When the Criminal is put in Jail, he is brought before the inquisitor. The Place where he appears before the inquisitor, is called by the Portuguese, the Table of the holy Office. At the farther End of it there is placed a Crucifix, raised up almost as high as the Ceiling. In the Middle of the Room there is a Table. At that End which is nearest the Crucifix sits the Secretary or Notary of the Inquisition. The Criminal is brought, in by the Beadle (Bailiff), with his Head, Arms and Feet naked, and is followed by one of the Keepers. When they come to the Chamber of Audience, the Beadle enters first, makes a profound Reverence before the Inquisitor, and then withdraws. After this the Criminal enters alone, who is ordered to sit down on a Bench at the other End of the Table over against the Secretary. The Inquisitor sits on his right Hand. On the Table near the Criminal lies a Missal, or Book of the Gospels, and he is ordered to lay his Hand on one of them, and to swear that he will declare the Truth, and keep Secrecy.
After taking this Oath of declaring the Truth both of himself and others, the Inquisitor interrogates him of divers Matters. As, whether he knows why he was taken up, or has been informed of it by one or more Persons? Where, when, and how he was apprehended? If he says that he knows nothing of it, he is asked, whether he can’t guess at the Reason? Whether he knows in what Prisons he is detained ? And upon what Account Men are imprisoned there ? If he says he can’t guess at the Cause of his imprisonment, but Knows that he is in the Prison of the holy Office, where Heretics and Persons suspected of Heresy are confined, he is told, that since he knows Persons are confined there for their Profanation of Religion, he ought to conclude that he also is confined for the same Reason, and must therefore declare what he believes to be the Cause of his own Apprehension and Confinement in the Prison of the holy Office. If he says he cannot imagine what it should be, before he is asked any other Questions, he receives a gentle Admonition, and is put in mind of the Lenity of the holy Office towards those who confess without forcing, and of the Rigor of Justice used towards those who are obstinate.
It the Criminal is persuaded by these, or by more or less such Interrogatories, openly to confess the Truth, his Cause is finished, because ’tis immediately known what will be the Issue of it.
But if after all these Interrogatories the Prisoner persists in the Negative, and says he does not know why he is cited or sent to Prison the Inquisitor replies, that since it appears from his own Words, that he will not speak the Truth, and that there is no Proof of his having such Enmities with any Persons, or that there are no such Causes of Hatred as he alleges, by which others could, or ought to be induced slanderously, and falsely to inform against him, that therefore there arises the stronger Suspicion, that the Depositions against him in the holy Office are true. And therefore he is beseeched and adjured by the Bowels of Mercy of Christ Jesus, to consider better and better, and ingenuously to confess the Truth, and to declare whether he has erred in Words or Deeds in the aforesaid Matter relating to the Faith, and the holy Office, or rendered himself suspect to others.
If by such general Interrogatories the Inquisitor can’t draw from the Prisoner a Confession of the Crime of which he is accused, he comes to particular Interrogatories, which relate to the Matter it fell, or the Crimes or Heresies for which the Criminal was denounced, For Instance if he was accused for denying Purgatory, then one, two, or three Days after his first Examination, he is again interrogated by the Inquisitor, whether he has any Thing, and what, to say besides what he said in his other Examination? Whether he has thought better of the Matter, and can recollect the Cause of his Imprisonment, and former Examination, or has at least any Suspicion who could accuse him to the holy Office, and of what Matters? Whether he has heard any one discoursing of Paradise, Purgatory, and Hell ? What he has believed, and does now believe about Purgatory ? If he answers, that his Faith concerning it has been right, and denies any ill Belief, but that be believes as holy Mother Church believes and teaches, he is ordered to say what the holy Roman Mother Church does think and believe concerning this Article.
If the Prisoner’s Answers don’t agree with his former Answers, he is examined again and again, and, as shall hereafter be shown, they proceed to further Remedies. And whatever the Popish Doctors may write, (they who have been in the Prison of the Inquisition with one Mouth, complain) that they are left in Uncertainty for a long while, what are the Crimes of which they are accused; and that the Inquisitors would willingly draw from their own Mouths a Confession of Crimes to which they are not conscience. And this is cunningly invented for this Reason, that if any Person should have happened to have spoken any thing not agreeable to the Roman Faith, and of which possibly he is not accused, he may discover those Things also, because he is uncertain of what Crime he is accused, on Account of that horrid Silence which is there observed; or that he may accuse himself falsely of certain Things to free himself from that dreadful Jail. So that they all affirm their Accusations are not discovered to them till after a long Confinement, that so being broken and tired out with a continued and horrible Imprisonment, they may confess of themselves Things that never came into their Minds.
During the first ten Days of the Imprisonment, these Admonitions are usually repeated three times by the Inquisitor. But ’tis in the Inquisitor’s Pleasure to admonish and examine them oftener, epically when they think the Prisoners refuse to discover the Truth out of Wickedness, or don’t remember those Things of which they are denounced. Prisoners are detained in the Jails of the Inquisition several Years, and ’tis very often an whole Year, before they, are again examined, after the three first Admonitions.
Arts the INQUISITORS use to draw a Confession from the Prisoners
These Examinations and Admonitions are repeated by the Inquisitors, as often as they think fit, for they are not bound to any certain Number. But in these Examinations the Inquisitors use the greatest Artifice, to draw from the Prisoners Confessions of those Crimes of which they are accused. And although they say that the Inquisition makes use rather of Prudence than Art, yet they suggest several Orders. and Artifices which must be used, and which they generally use in making Inquisition.
First, they observe this exactly, that as often as the Criminals are judicially interrogated, they must so often touch the holy Scriptures, swearing that they will declare the Truth, so that an Oath always precedes the Deposition.
If the Criminal begins to confess, and freely to declare the Truth, the inquisitor must not hinder, disturb, or interrupt him, nor break off his confession, though other Affairs call for him or the Time be elapsed; because, they say, ’tis often found, that those whole Confessions have been once interrupted, will not afterwards confess any more, or will retract what they have begun to confess.
That they may draw from them a Confession, they are at first kind, and pretend the sincerest Affection, and ’tis recommended to the Inquisitors to treat the Criminals tenderly, while they are heard, interrogated and examined, and to remember that they themselves are Men, who might have fallen into the same or like Crimes, unless they had been guarded by the Grace of God, and not to suffer the Criminals, although common and mean Persons, to stand while they are hearing, but to command them to sit down.
But if the Prisoners don’t confess those Things of which they are accused it may often happen, either because the Accusations are false, or because they don’t remember Things, especially if at the Distance of several Years, and what was said was not in the least premeditated, but inadvertently and in common Discourse, they make use of a quite different Method of Inquisition, and try every Art to catch and ensnare these miserable Criminals, already tired out by their vile Imprisonment, Arts not always wholly agreeable to the Admonitions just now mentioned.
And by these flattering Assurances they sometimes overcome the Minds of more unwary Persons, and when they have obtained the designed End, immediately forget them all. Of this Gonsalvius gives us a remarkable Instance. In the first Fire that was blown up at Seville, An. 1558, or 1559, amongst many others who were taken up, there was a certain pious Matron, with her two Virgin Daughters, and her Niece by her Sister who was married. As they endured those Tortures of all Kinds, with a truly manlike Constancy, by which they endeavored to make them perfidiously betray their Brethren in Christ, and especially to accuse one another, the Inquisitor at length commanded one of the Daughters to be sent for to Audience. There he discoursed with her alone for a considerable time, in order to comfort her, as indeed the needed it. When the Discourse was ended, the Girl was remanded to her Prison. Some Days after he acted the same Part again, causing her to be brought before him several Days towards the Evening, detaining her for a considerable while, sometimes telling her how much he was grieved for her Afflictions, and then intermixing familiarly enough plus other pleasant and agreeable Things. All this, as the Event showed, had only this Tendency, that after he had persuaded the poor simple Girl, that he was really, and with a fatherly Affection concerned for her Calamity, and would consult as a Father what might be for her Benefit and Salvation, and that of her Mother and Sisters, she might wholly throw her self into his Protection.
After some Days spent in such familiar Discourses, during which he pretended to mourn with her over her Calamity, and to show himself affected with her Miseries, and to give her all the Proofs of his good Will, in order, as far as he could, to remove them, when he knew he had deceived the Girl, he begins to persuade her to discover what she knew of her self, her Mother, Sisters, and Aunts, who were not yet apprehended, promising upon Oath, that if she would faithfully discover to him all that the knew of that Affair, he would find out a Method to relieve her from all her Misfortunes, and to send them all back again to their Houses. The Girl, who had no very great Penetration, being thus allured by the Promises and Persuasions of the Father of the Faith, begins to tell him some Things relating to the holy Doctrine she had been taught, and about which they used to confer with one another. When the Inquisitor had now got hold of the Thread, he dexterously endeavored to find his Way throughout the whole Labyrinth, oftentimes calling the Girl to Audience, that what she had deposed might be taken down in a legal Manner, always persuading her, this would be the only just Means to put an End to all her Evils. In the last Audience he renews to her all his Promises, by which he had before assured her of her Liberty, and the like.
But when the poor Girl expected the Performance of them, the said inquisitor, with his Followers, finding the Success of his Craftiness, by which he had in part drawn our of the Girl, what before they could not extort from her by Torments, determined to put her to the Torture again, to force out of her what they thought she had yet concealed. Accordingly she was made to suffer the most cruel Part of it, even the Rack, and the Torture by Water, till at last they had squeezed out of her as with a Press, both the Heresies and Accusations of Persons they had been hunting after. For, through the Extremity of her Torture, she accused her Mother and Sisters, and several others, who were afterwards taken up and tortured, and burnt alive in the same Fire with the Girl.
But if they don’t succeed with this Way, the Inquisitor permits some Person or other, who is not unacceptable the Prisoner, to go to him, and converse with him, and if it be needful to feign himself still one of his own Sect, but that he abjured through Fear, and discovered the Truth to the inquisitor. When he finds that the Prisoner confides in him, he comes to him again late in the Evening, keeps on a Discourse with him, at length pretending ’tis too late to go away, and that that therefore he will stay with him all Night in the Prison, that they may converse together, and the Prisoner may be persuaded by the other’s Discourse, to confess to one another what they have committed. In the mean while there are Persons standing at a proper Place without the Jail to hear and to take Notice of their Words, who when there is need, are attended by a Notary.
Next: Procedures Against Prisoners Part III
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