Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the RenaissanceJacob, P. L.
History
Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance
Jacob, P. L.
Europe -- Social life and customs; Manners and customs -- History; Middle Ages; Renaissance
Fac-simile of Engravings on Copper in the work of Philip of
Limborch, entitled “Historia Inquisitionis:” in folio, Amsterdam,
1592.]
The third, worn by those who died impenitent, had at the lower end the
head of a man in the midst of fire and enveloped in flames. The other
parts of the garment were covered with forked flames shooting upwards,
as a token that the heretic would actually be burnt alive. Grotesque
figures of demons were also represented upon the san-benito and upon
the coroza as well.
At the church whither the cortége repaired, chanting prayers on
its way, ten white tapers were alight in silver candlesticks upon
the high altar, which was hung in black; to the right, there was a
kind of raised dais for the Inquisitor and his councillors; to the
left, another such a one for the king and his court. Facing the high
altar was a scaffolding covered with black cloth upon which the
_reconciled_ stood to make their abjurations upon missals which
had been opened and arranged beforehand.
After the reconciliation of these latter, the impenitent heretics were
handed over to the secular power, together with the prisoners who had
been guilty of ordinary misdemeanour. The Auto-da-fé was then over, and
the Inquisitors withdrew. An historian, in giving a detailed account
of a trial before the tribunals of the Inquisition, tells us that the
civil punishment was not inflicted until the day after the Auto-da-fé.
Nor was it always the case that it was followed by execution, for
Llorente cites that of February 12th, 1486, at Toledo, when there were
seven hundred and fifty heretics brought up for punishment, not one of
whom was put to death, though they had to do public penance. At another
great Auto-da-fé, also held at Toledo in April of the same year, out
of nine hundred repentant or condemned persons none underwent the
extreme penalty. A third, on the 1st of May, comprised seven hundred
and fifty persons; and at a fourth, on the 10th of December, there
were nine hundred and fifty, but in both these instances no blood was
shed. Out of a total of three thousand three hundred persons who had
to do penance for transgressing the rules of the Church at this epoch,
Llorente states that only twenty-seven were put to death. It must be
remembered that the Spanish Inquisition, in conformity with the royal
decree, had to try not only heretics, but those accused of unnatural
crimes, brigands, lay or clerical seducers, blasphemers, persons guilty
of sacrilege, usurers, and even murderers and rebels. In addition to
this, those who supplied the enemy with horses and stores in time of
war, together with the then frequent cases of sorcery, magic, and
other similar frauds, were also brought within the jurisdiction of the
tribunals of the Inquisition. Thus the twenty-seven individuals who
were executed in 1486 may have been made up of malefactors of every
class.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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