FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   >>  
and Boniface VIII recommended them to reveal the names of the witnesses to the prisoners if they thought that this revelation would not be prejudicial to any one.[2] In a word, they wished the laws of justice to be scrupulously observed, and at times mitigated.[3] But, examined in detail, these laws were far from being perfect. [1] Clementinae, _De Haereticis_, Decretal _Multorum Querela_, cap. i, sect. i. [2] Sexto, _De Haereticis_, cap. xx; cf. Tanon, op. cit., p. 391. [3] Doellinger is very unjust when he says: "From 1200 to 1500 there is a long uninterrupted series of papal decrees on the Inquisition; these decrees increase continually in severity and cruelty." _La Papaute_, p. 102. Tanon (op. cit, p. 138) writes more impartially: "Clement V, instead of increasing the powers of the Holy Office, tried rather to suppress its abuses." . . . . . . . . Antecedent imprisonment and torture, which played so important a part in the procedure of the Inquisition, were undoubtedly very barbarous methods of judicial prosecution. Antecedent imprisonment may be justified in certain cases; but the manner in which the Inquisitors conceived it was far from just. No one would dare defend to-day the punishment known as the _carcer durus_, whereby the Inquisitors tried to extort confessions from their prisoners. They rendered it, moreover, all the more odious by arbitrarily prolonging its horrors and its cruelty. It is harder still to reconcile the use of torture with any idea of justice. If the Inquisitors had stopped at flogging, which according to St. Augustine was administered at home, in school, and even in the episcopal tribunals of the early ages, and is mentioned by the Council of Agde, in 506, and the Benedictine rule, no one would have been greatly scandalized. We might perhaps have considered this domestic and paternal custom a little severe, but perfectly consistent with the ideas men then had of goodness. But the rack, the _strappado_, and the stake were peculiarly inhuman inventions.[1] When the pagans used them against the Christians of the first centuries, all agreed in stigmatizing them as the extreme of barbarism, or as inventions of the devil. Their character did not change when the Inquisition began to use them against heretics. To our shame we are forced to admit that, notwithstanding Innocent IV's appeal for moderation,[2] the brutality of the ecclesiastical tribunals was often on a par with the tri
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   >>  



Top keywords:
Inquisitors
 

Inquisition

 

tribunals

 
Antecedent
 
Haereticis
 
cruelty
 

decrees

 

inventions

 

imprisonment

 

torture


justice
 
prisoners
 

reconcile

 

horrors

 

considered

 

prolonging

 

greatly

 

scandalized

 

harder

 

episcopal


flogging
 

school

 

domestic

 
Augustine
 

stopped

 
administered
 
Benedictine
 

Council

 

mentioned

 

forced


heretics

 

character

 
change
 
notwithstanding
 

ecclesiastical

 
brutality
 

moderation

 

Innocent

 

appeal

 

goodness


strappado

 

consistent

 
custom
 

severe

 
perfectly
 
peculiarly
 

agreed

 

centuries

 
stigmatizing
 

extreme