§ 80. THE TORTURE. 351
generally introduced in Europe, and took the place of the ordeal.
The church, true to her humanizing instincts, was at first hostile to the whole system of forcing evidence. A Synod of Auxerre (585 or 578) prohibited the clergy to witness a torture.1 Pope Gregory I. denounced as worthless a confession extorted by incarceration and hunger.2 Nicolas I. forbade the new con verts in Bulgaria to extort confession by stripes and by pricking with a pointed iron, as contrary to all law, human and divine (86G).3 Gratian lays down the general rule that " confcssio cruciatibus extorquenda non est. "
But at a later period, in dealing with heretics, the Roman church unfortunately gave the sanction of her highest authority to the use of the torture, and thus betrayed her noblest instincts and holiest mission. The fourth Lateran Council (1215) in spired the horrible crusades against the Albigenses and Waldenses, and the establishment of the infamous ecclesiastico-political courts of Inquisition. These courts found the torture the most effective means of punishing and exterminating heresy, and invented new forms of refined cruelty worse than those of the persecutors of heathen Rome. Pope Innocent IV., in his in struction for the guidance of the Inquisition in Tuscany and Lombardy, ordered the civil magistrates to extort from all heretics by torture a confession of their own guilt and a be trayal of all their accomplices (1252).4 This was an ominous precedent, which did more harm to the reputation of the papacy than the extermination of any number of heretics could possibly do it good. In Italy, owing to the restriction of the ecclesias-
1 Can. 33 : " Non licet presbytero nee diacono ad trepalium vbi rei torquentur, stared See Hefele III. 46.
2 Epist. VIII. 30.
8 Responsa ad ConsuJta Bulgarornm, c. 86. Hefele IV. 350. Lea, p. 305.
4 In the bull Ad extirpanda: "Teneatur potestas sen rector, omnes haereticos . . . cogere citra membri diminutionem et mortis periculum, tamquam vere latrones et homicidas animarum . . . errores suos expresse fateri et accusare alios haereticos quos sciunt, et bona eorum." . . . Innoc. IV. Leg. et Const, contra Haeret. $ 26. (Bullar. Magn. in Innoc. IV. No. 9). Comp. Gieseler II. 504-569.
352 FOURTH PERIOD. A.D. 590-1049.
tical power by the emperor, the inquisition could not fully display its murderous character. In Germany its introduction was resisted by the people and the bishops, and Conrad of Marburg, the appointed Inquisitor, was murdered (1233). But in Spain it had every assistance from the crown and the people, which to this day take delight in the bloody spectacles of bull fights. The Spanish Inquisition was established in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella by papal sanction (1478), reached its fearful height under the terrible General Inquisitor Torquemada (since 1483), and in its zeal to exterminate Moors, Jews, and her etics, committed such fearful excesses that even popes protested against the abuse of power, although with little effect. The Inquisition carried the system of torture to its utmost limits. After the Reformation it was still employed in trials of sorcery and witchcraft until the revolution of opinion in the eighteenth century swept it out of existence, together with cruel forms of punishment. This victory is due to the combined influence of justice, humanity, and tolerance.
NOTES.
I. "The whole system of the Inquisition," says Lea (p. 331), "was such as to render the resort to torture inevitable. Its proceedings were secret ; the prisoner was carefully kept in ignorance of the exact charges against him, and of the evidence upon which they were based. He was pre sumed to be guilty, and his judges bent all their energies to force him to confess. To accomplish this, no means were too base or too cruel. Pre tended sympathizers were to be let into his dungeon, whose affected friendship might entrap him into an unwary admission ; officials armed with fictitious evidence were directed to frighten him with assertions of the testimony obtained against him from supposititious witnesses ; and no resources of fraud or guile were to be spared in overcoming the cau tion and resolution of the poor wretch whose mind had been carefully weakened by solitude, suffering, hunger, and terror. From this to the rack and estrapade the step was easily taken, and was not long delayed." For details see the works on the Inquisition. Llorente (Hist. crit. de r Inquisition d'Espagne IV. 252, quoted by Gieseler III. 409 note 11) states that from 1478 to the end of the administration of Torquemada in 1498, when he resigned, " 8800 persons were burned alive, 6500 in effigy, and 90,004 punished with different kinds of penance. Under the