A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4Lea, Henry Charles
History
A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition -- Spain
The use made by the tribunals of the jurisdiction thus secured for them,
under the cautions so sedulously inculcated, may be gathered from a case
in the Toledo tribunal, in 1591, which further shows that witchcraft was
not wholly confined to the mountainous districts of the east and north.
The vicar of Alcalá had arrested three women of Cazar, Catalina Matheo,
Joana Izquierda, and Olalla Sobrina. During the previous four years
there had been four or five deaths of children; among the villagers, the
three women had the reputation of witches, and sixteen witnesses
testified to that effect. The vicar tortured them and obtained from
Catalina a confession that, some four or five years before, Olalla asked
her whether she would like to become a witch and have carnal intercourse
with the demon. Then Joana one night invited her to her house where she
found Olalla; the demon came in the shape of a goat, they danced
together and after some details unnecessary to repeat, Olalla anointed
the joints of her fingers and toes, they stripped themselves and flew
through the air to a house which they entered by a window; placing
somniferous herbs under the pillows of the parents, they choked to death
a female infant, burning its back and breaking its arms. The noise
aroused the parents and they flew with the goat back to Olalla's house.
All this she ratified after due interval and repeated when confronted
with Olalla, who had been tortured without confessing and who denied
Catalina's story. As for Joana, she had likewise overcome the torture,
but she had told the wife of the gaoler that one night some fifteen
witches, male and female, had forcibly anointed her and carried her to a
field where they danced, Catalina being one of the leaders and Olalla a
follower. This she repeated to the vicar, adding stories of being
present when the children were killed, but taking no part in it, after
which she duly ratified the whole. At this stage the vicar transferred
his prisoners to the tribunal. Catalina, at her first audience, begged
mercy for the false witness which, through torture, she had borne
against herself and the others. Sixteen witnesses testified to the
deaths of the children, and she was sentenced to torture, when, before
being stripped, her resolution gave way and she repeated and ratified
the confession made to the vicar. Joana asserted that her confession to
the vicar had been made through fear of torture and she overcame torture
without confessing, as likewise did Olalla. The outcome was that
Catalina was sentenced to appear in an auto with the insignia of a
witch, to abjure _de levi_, to be scourged with two hundred lashes, and
to be recluded at the discretion of the tribunal. The other two were
merely to appear in the auto and to abjure _de levi_, without further
penance. This was not strictly logical, but anywhere else than in Spain,
all three would have been tortured until they satisfied their judges,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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