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
On the following Wednesday it is Juan Franco’s turn to be put to the
torture.
Under it he gives a general confirmation of what has already been
extracted from the others. He confesses that he and Yucé Franco and
the other Christians and Jews crucified a boy in the cave of Carre
Ocaña, which is on the right going from La Guardia to Ocaña; that
they crucified him on a cross made of two beams of olive-wood lashed
together by a rope of hemp; that they whipped him with a rope; and that
Yucé was present when the deponent himself cut out the boy’s heart--as
is more fully contained in the deponent’s confession (of which, again,
this is no more than an extract relating to Yucé’s share in the crime).
He states that an enchantment was performed with the heart, so that the
Inquisition might not proceed against them.
This confession was duly ratified upon the morrow.[199]
On the Friday of the same week they torture Juan de Ocaña and extract
from him a confession that is, in the main, in agreement with those
already obtained. He relates how he and the others crucified a boy in
the caves of Carre Ocaña; that they whipped him with ropes when he
was crucified; that they cut out his heart and caught his blood in a
cauldron; that it was night and that they had a light; and that when
they took the body down they buried it near Santa Maria de la Pera, as
fully set forth in his confession.[200]
As a consequence of his having in the course of this confession spoken
of the Host that was sent to Zamora for delivery to Abenamias, Ocaña is
questioned again--on October 11--touching this particular. He is asked
how he knows that this was done. He replies that he heard Alonso Franco
and the Jews--_i.e._ Ça Franco and his sons (Yucé and Mosé), Tazarte
and Perejon--say that such was the intention, but he doesn’t know
whether the Host was actually delivered or otherwise disposed of.
The persistence with which this apparently trivial question
arises--particularly when it is remembered that the inquisitors were,
themselves, in possession of the Host found upon Benito at the time
of his arrest--leads us to suppose that they were probing to discover
whether this consecrated wafer was the identical one dispatched upon
the occasion to which the confessions refer. Considering the lapse of
time between the dispatch of that wafer and Benito’s arrest, they may
reasonably have been concluding that the Host found upon the latter
relates to some similar, later affair. Such an impression is confirmed
by the fact that no letter--such as was addressed to Abenamias--had
been discovered upon Benito.
The question again crops up in an examination to which Yucé is
submitted on that same day.
“Did any of the Jews or Christians,” he is asked, “go to Zamora to
Abenamias in this matter?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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