A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3Lea, Henry Charles
History
A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition -- Spain
It is not to be supposed that, when the Córtes of Cadiz, February 22,
1813, abolished the Inquisition, it was satisfied to permit the
continued existence of the sanbenitos which perpetuated so many dreadful
memories. A decree of the same day recited that Article 305 of the
Constitution provided that no punishment should extend beyond the
criminal to his family; that the means by which, in public places, the
memory of penalties inflicted by the Inquisition was preserved, brought
infamy on families, and even exposed to evil repute persons of the same
name. Therefore all portraits, pictures, or inscriptions, recording the
punishments imposed by the Inquisition, existing in churches, cloisters,
convents and other places, were to be removed or blotted out within
three days after receipt of the decree.[489]
The condition of Spain was not such as to insure any wide obedience of
this decree, although it is scarce likely that the French armies had
left many sanbenitos hanging in towns occupied by them during the war.
What occurred elsewhere may probably be guessed by the example of
Majorca, when the Constitution of Cadiz was enthusiastically received
and the sanbenitos were removed from the church of San Domingo, but they
were providently stored away and were again hung up after the
Restoration in 1814. In the Revolution of 1820, however, they were torn
down and burnt and the Inquisition was levelled to the ground.[490]
The custom of suspending in the churches the _habitelli_ or sanbenitos
of the reconciled and relaxed seems to have been borrowed by Italy from
Spain, at least in some places. It is to the credit of the Roman
Inquisition that it disapproved this barbarous practice, as appears from
a decree of 1627 ordering them to be removed from the cathedral of
Faenza and to be secretly burnt.[491]
DISABILITIES.
Disabilities have already been considered in their relation to the
finances of the Inquisition, arising from the sale of dispensations, but
they formed too important a portion of the penal system not to require
further treatment in this connection. They differed however from other
punishments in that, although specified in the sentences, they were the
inseparable consequences of condemnation for heresy and thus, in some
sense, self-operative, for the severity of the laws for the suppression
of misbelief was not content with confiscating the property of those
whose lives were spared. The reconciled heretic was not only turned
adrift penniless, but was subjected to restrictions incapacitating him
from earning a livelihood. As this refinement of cruelty could not be
applied to those who were burnt, it was visited on their descendants.
[Sidenote: _DISABILITIES_]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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