INQUISITIOX
600
IXQUISITION-
while the inquisitors were to extirpate heresy and pun- ish heretics, the vicar of Clirist reserved for himself the graces of reconciliation and absolution. In the arro- gance which Kome has ever manifested, the power whicli belonged to the judge was witlubawn, and the power of life and death over the subjects of the different governments of the world asserted to belong to the pa- pal see. Of course the new cardinal inquisitors made full use of their powers, and soon became the terror not only of Kome and Italy, but of all the countries over which they could possibly exert any influence. The Inquisition was especially severe against the press. "Books were destroyed, and many more disfigured; printers were forbidden to carry on their business with- out licenses from the Holy Office." See Index. The terror-stricken pQople, however, soon gained their foot- hold again, and oppositions against the encroachments of Rome were everywhere manifest. The greatest re- sistance to it was offered in Venice. The republic re- fused to submit to an inquisitorial tribunal responsible solely to the pope, and, after long negotiations, permit- ted only the establishment of an inquisitorial tribunal on condition that, with the papal ofScers, a certain number of magistrates and lawyers should always be associated, and that the definitive sentence should not, at least in the case of laics, be pronounced before it was submitted to the senate (Busdragi Epistola: Scrinium Aniiquar. i, 321, 326 sq.; Thuani, Hist, ad an. 1548). In Naples lilie ditficulties between the government and the pope arose on the endeavor of the latter to establish the in- quisitorial tribunal. Twice the Neapolitans had suc- cessfidly resisted its establishment in their country at the beginning of the 16th century. In 1546, the em- peror Charles Y, with the view of extirpating the Lu- theran heresy, renewed the attempt, and gave orders to set up that tribunal in Naples, after the same form in which it had long been established in Spain. The people rose in arms, and although Rome would have been only too glad to see this formidable tribunal estab- lished in Naples, yet, rather than to forego the intro- duction of an inquisitorial tribunal altogether, she took the part of the people against the government, and en- couraged them in their opposition by telling them that they had reason for their fears, because the Spanish Inquisition (see below) was extremely severe. Here it may be well to quote M'Crie (Rpf. inltal;/, p. 253 sq.) on the truth of this assertion, which manj- I'rotestant as well as Roman Catholic writers have not failed to re- peat and urge in favor of the tendency to mercy at Rome. Says M'Crie : " Both the statement of the" fact and the reasons l)y which it is usually accounted for re- quire to be qualified. One of these reasons is the policy with which the Italians, including the popes, have al- ways consulted their pecuniary interests, to w/iich they postponed <v(-ry other consideration. (Compare the op- position of the papacy to the Inquisition as a state institution in Portugal, below.) The second reason is that the popes, being temporal princes in the States of the Church, had no occasion to employ the Inquisi- tion to undermine the rights of the secular authorities in them, as in other countries. This is unquestionably true ; and it accounts for the fact that the court of the Inquisition, long after its operations had been suspended in Italy, continued to be warmly supported by papal in- fluence in Spain. But at the" time of which I write, and during the remainder of the 16th century, it was in full and constant operation, and the popes "found that it enabled them to accomplish what would have baffled their power as secular sovereigns. The chit f difference between the Italian and Spanish Inquisitions at that period consisted in their respective lines of policy as to the mode of punishment. The latter sought to inspire tenor by the solemn spectacle of a public act of justice, in which the scaffold was crowded with criminals. . . . The report of the autos da fe (q. v.) of Seville and Yal- ladolid blazed at once over Europe; the executions of liome made less noise in the city, because they were
less splendid as well as more frequent, and the rumor of them died away before it could reach the ear of foreign- ers." But all that Rome could accomplish in Naples, in spite of her cunning, was the establishment of an inde- pendent Inquisition, such as Venice had permitted. In Sicily, on the other hand, Spain furnished a general in- quisitor, and, though abolished for a time, the oflice was restored in 1782, and remained in force until Napoleon, as king of Italy, did away with it throughout the realm in 1808. The fall of Napoleon, of course, at once ena- bled the papal see to re-establish the Inquisition, but, though Pius VII improved the opportiuiitj (in 1814), it did not spread far, and met with great opposition. In Sardinia, where Gregory XVI restored it in 1833, it was not discontinued until the Revolution of 1848 again did away with it. '■ In Tuscanj' it was arranged that three commissioners, elected by the congregation at Rome, along with the local inquisitor, should judge in all causes of religion, and intimate their sentence to the duke, who was bound to cany it into execution. In addition, it (the Holy Office) was continually soliciting the local authorities to send such as were accused, espe- cially if they were either ecclesiastical persons or stran- gers, to be tried by the Inquisition at Rome." Everj'- where within the territory persecution was let loose. Especially during the political reactions of 1849 the in- quisitorial tribunal was perhaps nowhere so active and so severe in its dealings as in Tuscany (compare Ranke, History of the Papacy, ii, 156 sq.). It is only since the embodiment of that province with Italy (1859) that the country got rid of this great curse, from which all Italy suffered; and ''popish historians" certainly "do more homage to truth than credit to their cause when they say that the erection of the Inquisition was the salva- tion of the Catholic Church in Italy." It certainly does not verify itself in oiu- own days, though the tribunal of the Inquisition still exists at Rome, under the direc- 1 tion of a congregation, and though the last oecumenical council, which the landless pope, Pius IX, has just de- clared adjourned sine die, has but lately passed two can- ons (canon vi and canon xii. Be Ecclesia Christi) in its favor. Its action, by the circumstances of the day, is mainly confined to the examination of books, and to the trial of ecclesiastical offences and questions of Church law, as in the late case of the Jewish boy Mortara; and its most remarkable prisoner in recent times was an Oriental impostor, who, liy means of forged credentials, succeeded in obtaining his ordination as a bishop.