The Inquisition was introduced into Poland by pope John XXII in 1327, but it did not subsist there very long ; and all attempts of Rome to introduce it into Enrj- land were in vain.
Spanish Inquisition. — " The life of ever}' devout Span- iard," says Milman {Latin Christianity, v, 239), "was a perpetual crusade. B\' temperament and by position he was in constant adventurous v,-arfare against the ene- mies of the Cross : hatred of the Jew, of the Jlohamme- dan, was the banner under which he served ; it was the oath of his chivalrj' : that hatred, in ail its intensitj', was, soon and easily extended to the heretic." No won- der, then, that pope Gregory IX, after the Inquisition had assumed general form in France and Germany, in- troduced it into Spain, and that it jiroved to be a plant on a most congenial soil; for it was in Spain that "it took root at once, and in times attained a magnitude which it never reached in any other country." It was first introduced into Aragon, v.here, in 1242, the Coun- cil of Tarragona gave the instructions which were to serve the " holy office" erected here as elsewhere by the Dominicans. "Accustomed, in the confessional, to pen- etrate into the secrets of conscience, they (the Doniini- icans) converted to the destruction of the bodies of men all those arts which a false zeal had taught them to em- ploy for the saving of their souls. Infianied with a pas- sion for extirpating heresy, and persuading themselves • that the end sanctified the means, they not only acted upon, but formally laid down, as a rrJe for their conduct,
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maxims founded on the grossest deceit and artifiee, ac- cording to wliich they sought in every way to ensnare their victims, and by means of false statements, delusory promises, and a tortuous course of examination, to be- tray them into confessions which proved fatal to their lives and fortunes. To this mental torture was soon af- ter added the use of bodily tortures, together with tlie concealment of the names of witnesses" (M'Crie, Bef. in Spain, p. 85 sq.). The arm of persecution was directed with special severity, in the 13th and 14th centuries, •against the Albigenses (q. v.), who, from the proximity and political relations of Aragon and Provence, had be- come numerous in the former kingdom. Indeed, the persecutions appear to have been chiefly confined to this unfortunate sect, "and there is no evidence that the 'Violy office,' notwithstanding papal briefs to that effect, was fully organizoil in Castile liclore the reign of Isa- bella. This is, i)C'rhaps, imputable to the paucity of heretics in that kingdom. It cannot, at any rate, be charged to any lukewarmness in its sovereigns, since they, from the time of St. Ferdinand, who heaped the fagots on the blazing jjile with his own hands, down to that of John the Second, Isabella's father, who hunted the unhappy heretics of Biscay, like so many wild beasts, among the mountains, had ever evinced a lively zeal for the orthodox faith." Upon the whole, the progress of the Inquisition during the 14th century Avas steady, and its vigor and energy constantly on the increase. Its jurisdiction the inquisitors succeeded in enlarging, and they severally multiplied its ramifications; autos da fe (q. V.) were celebrated in a number of places, and its victims were not a few. "By the middle of the 15th century the Albigensian heresy had become nearly ex- tirpated by the Inquisition of Aragon, so that this in- fernal engine might have been suffered to sleep undis- turbed from want of sufficient fuel to keep it in motion, when new and ample materials were discovered in the unfortunate race of Israel." " The ' new Christians,' or 'converts,' as tliose wl\ii had renounced the faith of their fathers were deunminntcd. were occasionally preferred to high ecclesiastical (liguitics, which they illustrated by their integrity and learning. They were intrusted with municipal offices in the various cities of Castile; and as their wealth furnislieil an ol)vious resource for repairing, by way of marriage, the decayed fortunes of the nobil- ity, there was scarcely a family of rank in the land whose blood had not been contaminated at some pe- riod or other by mixture with the mala saiif/re, as it came afterwards to be termed, of the house of Judah ; an ignominious stain which no time has been deemed suflicient wholly to purge." INIany of these noble men, of a race that can lay claim to the highest nobility that exists among men, felt that the irksome task of dissim- ulation which they had undertaken was too much below the dignity of a true Israelite, and rather than enjoy the favors of a nation as apostates from a religion which they still held to be the only true one (and who woulil expect that Komish treatment and Romish Christian ex- ample could instill confidence and produce impressions favorable to the cause of Christ ?), preferred an ojien con- fession of the opinions which they cherished in their hearts, even at the expense of losing positions of promi- nence to which they were ably fitted.but Irom which, as is too often the case even in our own day, tluir religious convictions, if openly avowed, not only debarred them, but which even endangered their very life. But Rom- ish priests could not, of course, be expected to toler- ate heresy in any form, "especially the Dominicans, who seem to have inherited the quick scent for heresy which distinguished their frantic founder; they were not slow in sounding the alarm, and the superstitious populace, easily roused to acts of violence in the name of religion, began to exhibit the most tumultuous move- ments, and actually massacred the constable of Castile in an attempt to suppress them at .Jaen, the year pre- ceding the accession of Isabella" (Proscott. Ferdinand ami Isabella, i, 235 sq.). After the union of Spain under