Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition: A HistorySabatini, Rafael
History
Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition: A History
Sabatini, Rafael
Inquisition -- Spain; Torquemada, Tomás, de, 1420-1498
Twice on the following day, which was Sunday, was he haled before their
Reverend Paternities. At the first audience his statement of yesterday
is read over to him, and when he has ratified it he is again pressed
with stealthy questions to add a little more of what passed in those
conversations with Benito. But in the course of the second examination
on that Sunday, Yucé is at last induced or betrayed into supplying the
inquisitors with information nearer their requirements.
He says that four years ago he was told by his brother Mosé that the
latter, with Tazarte, Alonso Franco, Juan Franco, Garcia Franco, and
Benito Garcia had obtained a consecrated wafer, and that by certain
incantations they were to contrive that the justice of the Christians
and the inquisitors should not have power to touch them. Mosé invited
him to join in the affair, but he refused to do so, having no
inclination, and being, moreover, on his way to Murcia at the time.
And he knows, from what Mosé told him, that about two years ago the
same men repeated the same enchantment with the same Host.[188]
We do not know whether Yucé is now left in peace for a whole month, but
we cannot suppose it. And we have to explain the absence of any report
of an examination during that period by the assumption that whatever
examinations did take place were entirely fruitless and brought no
fresh particulars to light. As the _dossier_ does not anywhere contain
a single record of a fruitless examination, this assumption--although
we admit its negative character--does not seem unreasonable.
Anyway, on May 7 it is Yucé himself who begs to be taken before the
inquisitors to tell them that he remembers having asked Mosé where he
and his associates assembled to do what they did, so that the wives
of the latter--who were Christian women--should have no knowledge of
the affair, and Mosé had answered him that they assembled in the caves
between Dosbarrios and La Guardia, on the road to Ocaña.[189]
It is difficult to suppose such a statement to be entirely spontaneous
as following upon depositions made a month earlier. Much rather does
it appear to be the result of some fruitless questionings such as we
suggest may have taken place in the interval. Similarly we assume that
the examinations steadily continue, but another month passes before we
get the next recorded one, and this--on June 9[190]--contains a really
important admission.
He says that _he doesn’t remember whether_ he has mentioned that some
four years ago, being ill at Tenbleque and the physician Tazarte having
come to bleed him, he overheard a conversation between his brother
and Tazarte, from which he learnt that the latter, together with the
Francos of La Guardia, had performed an enchantment with a Host and the
heart of a Christian boy, by virtue of which the inquisitors could
take no proceedings against them in any way, or, if they did, the
inquisitors themselves would die.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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