Hello, then Welcome to Western Siev Episode two hundred and seventy nine. The Inquisition structure and organization. From its very beginnings, Isabella and Ferdinand expected the Inquisition to be under the control of the Spanish crown. This was a huge change in policy compared to the medieval Inquisition, which was a papal institution. Oddly, Pope Sixtus the Fourth decided to go along with this idea, indicating just how far the power of the pope had fallen since the High Middle Ages.
Thus, the Inquisition was in every way an instrument of royal policy and remained politically subject to the crown. The central organization of the new Inquisition was a council called the Conseijo de la Suprema Eheneral Inquisition. Crucially, this council was dominated by one of our remaining monastic orders, the Dominicans. The Dominicans were generally opposed by the Jesuits, the other major monastic order to survive the
end of the Middle Ages. Often, writers seeking to get books published sought to exploit this rivalry, and in fact, by the late seventeenth century, the Jesuits, thanks to lobbying and politiking efforts, had become influential in the Inquisition as well in terms of its overall structure. The new Inquisition was modeled essentially on the Medieval Though this was a new institution, inquisitors in the fifteenth
century had to rely on the earlier model. There simply wasn't any other precedent to follow, so inquisitors followed right down to the last detail the thirteenth century practices for arrest, trial procedures, confiscations, and even recruitment of personnel. Oftentimes this is why, say, in the seventeenth century, the Inquisition both looks and feels so anachronistic, so out of place. The Council of the Inquisition, sometimes known for short as the Suprema, was presided over by the
Inquisitor General. All authority exercised by inquisitors was at one time held to be direct delegation from the Pope, but later this was modified to the opinion that it was the Visitor General himself who was actually delegating the papal powers. Though he might be nominated by the Crown, only the Pope had the power in the end to appoint him. With The Pope always followed the Spanish crown growth of the Inquisitor General's power was modified by the increasing authority of the Suprema.
The relationship between the Suprema and the Inquisitor General was never satisfactorily settled, because they usually acted in concert and neither disputed the other's supremacy, but there were several occasions when the Council attempted to take an independent line. In the early seventeenth century, the Suprema consisted of about six members. These usually met every morning and three afternoons a week. The afternoon sessions, normally on legal business,
were attended by two members of the Council of Castile. Correspondence was divided between two secretaries, one for Aragon and one for Castile. Members of the Suprema were appointed by the King alone, and the Suprema usually issued orders without need for any vote by the Inquisitor General. When divisions arose in the Council, a decision was taken by majority vote, in which the vote of the Inquisitor General didn't count for any more or any less than any other member.
The growth of the Suprema's authority led to greater centralization. This in turn made the institution even easier for the Spanish crown to dominate. Remember, there were huge legal and procedural differences between Castile and Aragon. The inquisition was the only institution that spanned both with any real success. Now, the tribunals themselves, those that actually tried people for heresy in the early days, were itinerant, that is to say, they traveled much like how judges, maybe in colonial
America wrote the circuits. Each tribunal was to consist of two inquisitors, a jurist and a theologian, or sometimes two jurists. There was also an assessor, a constable, a prosecutor, and all kinds of other necessary subordinates. The number of personnel grew rapidly throughout the centuries. By the end of the sixteenth century, the major tribunals of the Iberian Peninsula had three inquisitors each. Now, contrary to the image still somewhat current, the inquisitors of small minded
clerics and theologians fanatically dedicated to the extripication of heresy. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, inquisitors were nothing more than bureaucrats. Elite bureaucrats, sure, but just bureaucrats. Nonetheless, because the Holy Office was a court. All these administrators had to be trained lawyers, not fanatics. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the administration of the Inquisition was its totally inadequate funding. Though technically
a Spanish governmental agency, the Spanish monarchs left it defend for itself. The Inquisition, in fact, never received a fixed source of revenue, so the Inquisition had to finance itself, and that, my friends, very much dictated how it operated. The incentive was to find people guilty so that you could confiscate their wealth. As you can imagine, that relationship set a very bad precedent. Not surprisingly, many Spaniards came to the conclusion that the Inquisition existed
solely to rob people of their wealth. In fact, one resident of Quenca lamented, quote, they were burnt only for the money they had. They burned the well off because they have property. The others they leave alone end quote. Some of this money went to the Spanish Crown, though determining exactly how much is impossible. Still, by their very nature, confiscations and sequestrations
could never bring in reliable income. The vast majority of all those accused by the Inquisition were people of a humble means, and the inquisitors would need to have a regular annual turnover of hundreds of prisoners in order to get anything even close to a substantial revenue windfalls. Like a couple of the Great Persecutions in
the sixteen eighties, those were exceptions to the rule. The normal picture would have been of tribunals desperately trying to find income for the cost of administration, prosecution, maintenance of prisoners, and increasingly expenses active faiths. The documentation is full of complaints by local inquisitors that they cannot provide either for themselves or for
their prisoners. The regular state of deficit in the tribunals can be seen in the statements of income and expenses for the years sixteen eighteen, sixteen seventy one through seventy eight, and seventeen oh five. Income in Granada in sixteen eighteen, for example, was three percent more than costs, but in sixteen seventy one costs were actually three percent higher than income, and in fact, by the time we get to seventeen oh five, the inquisition was running and the
red with twenty seven percent more costs than income. The figures leave no doubt that the inquisition was often and in perilous financial straits. The most critical source of income for the Inquisition was investment income, or as the sources referred to it, zenus. Now that being said, even with this income, the institution was never wealthy. The estates that it held at the end of the eighteenth century, when the Inquisition finally came to an end, were of modest
value at best. Still, in fifteen seventy three, seventy four percent of the Inquisition's income came from these sinsos, and in fifteen seventy six that number had risen to eighty percent. It's really interesting that the crown never chose to support an institution that it saw primarily as its tool, but that is the case regardless. Later historians came to regard the Inquisition as a secular rather than ecclesiastical institution. They weren't wrong. The Suprema was a Spanish government council.
The Crown had absolute power to appoint and dismiss inquisitors everyone except the Inquisitor General. So interestingly, at least from a superficial perspective, the Papacy was never willing to concede this reality. The papacy went along continuing to confirm the Inquisition's jurisdiction as though it had a lot of influence over the Body, which it didn't, And for its part, the Inquisition seemed content to hedge its bet
and claim both royal and papal jurisdiction. Inevitably, as a result of its secular nature, the Inquisition became involved in a series of political disputes. King Ferdinand endeavored it to use it as a political level as much as possible, though it's arguable as to whether he honestly ever got anything out of it.
The biggest example would be Seesare Borgia. He tried to use the Inquisition to prosecute Cesare, but his death and battle in fifteen oh seven removed our best test case for just how much the Inquisition might have helped the King pursue his political enemies. Now let's turn for a bit to how the Inquisition operated. The coming of the Inquisition to a town was in principle designed to cause fear.
In his commentary on the fourteenth century, Manuel of Emerek stated quote, we must remember that the main purpose of the trial and execution is not to save the soul of the accused, but to achieve public good and put fear into others end quote. The public activity of the whole The office was thus based on the premise common too all policing systems that fear was the best deterrent.
When the inquisitors began operations in a district, they would first present their credentials to the local church and secular authorities, then announce a Sunday or a feast day when the residents would have to go to high Mass together with their
children and servants, to hear an edict read. At the end of the sermon or the creed, the inquisitor or as representative would hold a crucifix in front of the congregation and ask everyone to raise their right hand, cross themselves, and repeat after him a solemn oath to support the Inquisition and its ministers.
Then he would proceed to read the edict. In the early years, this took the form of an edict of grace, modeled on those of the medieval Inquisition, which recited a list of heresies and invited those who wish to discharge their consciences to come forward and denounce themselves or others if they came forward within the quote period of grace end quote. This was usually thirty to forty days, they would be reconciled to the Church without suffering serious penalties. Clearly,
this system was designed to encourage self denunciation. In the earlier period, heresies were principally either listed as Judaic or Islamic, though more were added over time. While the Inquisition itself was feared by the population, like all the other tribunals throughout Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it depended principally on
collaboration to succeed. Hence, what most people seem to fear wasn't that they would be persecuted by the Inquisition, but that they would be denounced by their friends and neighbors. Petty denunciations were the rule rather than the exception. Indeed, for most the Inquisition became an easy way to settle old scores. The
fear of the Inquisition generated had its origins and social disharmony. Its records are replete with instances in which neighbors denounced neighbors, friends denounced friends, and so on and so forth. But there was a flip side to this coin in places where there was less social discord, where the bonds of fellowship were stronger, the Inquisition could not penetrate. In Catalonia, for example, the community utterly rejected the Inquisition's invitation to turn on itself. Hence, in that very
insular region of Spain, the Institution failed to propagate. As a result, even the inquisitors hated traveling on visitations. They often had to go into counties where they were despised and the local authorities hostile. I wouldn't have wanted to go on these trips either. Still, inquisitors spent about half their time traveling on visitations. These were generally done out in the villages, where a few
trials ever took place. Nor were these visitations effective. The Inquisition simply did not have the resources to do them with enough frequency to make them potent expressions of its power. It was easy for distant villagers to weather the occasional visitation and simply move on with their lives. For as much vile as is often
heaped on the Inquisition, the men running it weren't fanatical idiots. They could and often did distinguish between true and false cases, and would reject those denunciations made out of pure malice and without a grain of truth to them. Judicially. Honestly, the inquisition was on par with the secular courts of the time. It wasn't worse, and it wasn't more vicious. I suppose there was one exception. Witnesses names were concealed in the inquisitional courts, and of course
this did increase the incentive for people to come forward. Before an arrest took place, the evidence in the case was presented to a number of theologians who acted as consultants or assessors to determine whether the charges involved heresy. If they decided that there was sufficient proof, the prosecutor actually called the fiscal drew up a demand for the arrest of the accused, who was taken into custody.
Such, at least were the rules that, in numerous cases arrest preceded the examination, so that all the preliminary safeguards against wrongful arrest were dispensed with. As a result, prisoners wound up sitting in inquisitorial jails without any charges ever having been produced against them, making matters worse. Arrest was accompanied by the
immediate seizure of goods held by the accused prior to conviction. This could include everything down to your pots pans, and in some cases we have documentation to show the cutlery. The arrested person was immediately taken to the inquisition prison. Inquisition prisons were actually better than secular ones, which explains why the populace preferred
them to royal prisons or even ordinary ecclesiastical ones. Still, I mean, if you had your druthers, you didn't want to go to prison at all, because prisoners were cut off from communication from the outside world and their accommodations were often overcrowded. Insanity and suicide were regular consequences of such imprisonment. When necessary, interrogations took place in the presence of a notary who recorded as much
as possible. Sadly, because the Inquisition was in this nasty habit of destroying its records, we have little of these remaining today. The use of torture, inherited from the medieval Inquisition was not considered an end in and of itself. The Instructions of fifteen sixty one laid down no rules for its use, but urged that its application should be according to quote the conscience and will of
the appointed judges. Following law, reason and good conscience, Inquisitors should take great care that the sentence of torture is justified and follows precedent end quote. At a time when the use of torture was universal in European criminal courts, the Spanish inquisition followed a policy of circumspection that makes it compare favorably with other institutions. Torture was normally used as a last resort and applies in only a
minority of cases. Often, the accused was merely placed in the sight of the torture instruments to provoke a confession. Confessions gained under torture were never accepted as valid because they had obviously been obtained by pressure. It was therefore essential for the accused to ratify his confession the day after the ordeal. If he refused to do this, a legal trick was involved, as the rules forbade
anyone to be tortured more than once. The end of every torture session was treated as a suspension, and a refusal to ratify the convention will be met with a threat to continue the torture. Besides being compelled to confess their own heresies, accused were often tortured to confess the crimes of others. Now, of course, In statistical terms, it would be correct to say the torture was used infrequently. Out of more than four or one hundred conversos tried by
one tribunal, only two were known to have been tortured. Torture was employed exclusively to illicit punishment, and never used as a punishment. Physicians, interestingly, were usually on hand in case of an emergency. The basic rule in torture was that the accue should suffer no damage to life or limb. By Church law, ecclesiastical tribunes could not kill, nor were they allowed to shed
blood. No distinctive tortures were used by the Inquisition. Those most often employed were in common use in other secular and ecclesiastical tribunals, and any complaints of novel tortures would certainly refer to rare exceptions. The three main ones were the garachu, toka, and porto. The garadsha or pully involved being hung by the wrists from a pulley on the ceiling with heavy weights attached to the feet. Accused was raised slowly and then suddenly allowed to fall with a jerk.
The effect was to stretch and perhaps dislocate arms and legs. The toka or water torture was more complicated. The accused was tied down at a rack, his mouth kept forcibly open, and a toca or linen cloth was put down his throat to conduct water poured slowly from a jar. The severity of the
torture varied with the number of jars of water used. The porto, which was the most common after the sixteenth century, involved being bound tightly on a rack by chords which were passed around the body and limbs were controlled by the executioner, who tightened them by turns of the cords at the end. With each turn, the chords bit into the body and traveled around the flesh.
In all these tortures it was the rule to strip the accused first. Both men and women were stripped naked and left with minimal garments to cover themselves. While the Inquisition did not usually subject the very old or very young to torture, there were cases where that happened. In fact, there are some records
of women between the ages of seventy and ninety having been tortured. It was also standard practice at the time to write down all the details of torture for the record, although again we have lost many of these in terms of the actual trial process. Since the Inquisition normally arrested subjects only after the evidence against them seemed conclusive and had been approved, the accused was naturally presumed guilty from
the start, and it fell on him to prove his own innocence. The sole task of the inquisition was to obtain from its prisoner an admission of guilt. If in the process of inquiry it found that the evidence was false and the prisoner presumably innocent, he was immediately set free. The main task of the tribunal, however, was to act not as a court of justice,
but as a disciplinary body called into existence to meet a national emergency. In these circumstances, and considering the practice of the time, the courts of the Inquisition were adequate for this task. Apart from the much hated insistence on the secrecy of witnesses, in broad terms, they conformed to the principles of the
courts of Castile. One of the peculiarities of the inquisitorial procedure, which brought hardship and suffering to many, was the refusal to divulge the reason for your arrest, so that prisoners went for days and months without knowing why they were in the cells of the tribunal at all. Instead of accusing the prisoner, the inquisitors would approach him and give three warnings over a period of weeks to search his conscience, confess the truth, and trust to the mercy of the
inquisition. The third war n was accompanied by information that the prosecutor intended to present an accusation and that it would be wise to confess before the charges were laid bare. The effect of this enforced ignorance was to depress and break down a prisoner. If innocent, he would be bewildered about what to confess,
or else confess crimes the inquisition was not even accusing him of. If he was guilty, he'd be left to wonder how much of the truth the inquisition really knew, and whether it was a trick to force him to confess. When after three warnings the prosecutor eventually read the articles of accusation, the accused was required to answer charges on the spot, with no time or advocate to help him present his defense. Any reply made in these circumstances could hardly fail
to incriminate himself. Only after this was permission given to enlist legal help for the defense. One important concession made by the Spanish but not by the medieval Inquisition, was that the accused could have the services of an advocate. This was written into the Instructions of fourteen eighty four and generally upheld. The later
modifications to the rules sometimes rendered the use of a lawyer farcical. In the early years, the accused could choose their lawyers freely, but the growing caution of the Holy Office later confined the choice to special lawyers nominated by the tribunal, so that by the mid sixteenth century the prisoner's advocates were recognized as officials
of the Inquisition, dependent on and working with the inquisitors. This new class of lawyers was obviously distrusted by some prisoners, for in fifteen fifty nine we have a case of a prisoner in Valencia telling his cellmate quote, though the inquisitor might give him an advocate, he would give him no one good, but a fellow would only do what the inquisition wanted, And if by chance he asked for an advocate or solicitor not of the Inquisition, they would not
serve, for if they went contrary to the inquisitor's wishes, he would get up to some charge of false belief or want of respect and cast them into prison. End quote. Now this does not mean that those advocates assigned as defense didn't do their duty consciously, but they were of course hindered by the restrictions of the tribunal and the subtle and dangerous task of defending the prisoner while condemning his heresy. Some special cases exist where counsel were allowed of their own
choice, but these were exceptions. When a prisoner was finally accused, he was given a copy of the evidence against him in order to help him prepare a defense. This publication of the evidence was by no means as helpful as it might be today. In the first place, the names of all the witnesses were stricken. Even more important, all evidence that might help identify witnesses was stricken from the record. This meant the prisoner was also just deprived of
any details of the complete case against him. In this way, the inquisitors were free to use his evidence information that had not been communicated to the accused. While this helped protect witnesses against identification and recrimination, it often crippled the defense. The accused had several avenues of defense. Short of proving the complete falsity of an accusation, He could call favorable witnesses disable hostile witnesses by proving
personal enmity or object to his judges. This was a last resort. Several extenuating circumstances, such as drunkenness and sanity, extreme youth, and so on and so forth, could also be pleaded. All these expedients were resorted to regularly, but not always with equal success. In the great majority of trials before the Spanish Inquisition, the defense consisted solely in the resort to witnesses,
since this was the only way to get to unknown sources of evidence. Hence, for the accused to resort to favorable witnesses was a diet See proposition. At best. A defendant's best chance was to undercut the credibility of a hostile witness. Accusations were often made more out of malice than religious zeal for the truth. It wasn't hard in many cases for the defendant to show the financial
gain the accusers might hope to gain if they cooperated. Defendants might also call, as I said, for the judges to accuse themselves, but this was extremely risky. If they did not, well, then you might as well just confess. And given the almost complete lack of oversight, it should not shock you that only rarely did one resort to this defense. Now, there was no such thing as a single trial in the period of the Inquisition.
Rather, over a period of time, the prosecution and defense would present evidence and arguments until each side declared itself done. Then a quote unquote consultation was formed. These consisted of one of the inquisitors, one represents of the local bishop, and one theologian. Together they voted. If the inquisitor and the bishop's representative agreed, then the matter was decided. If not, more representatives
might be called in and another vote held. Of course, the obvious problem with all this was that the Inquisition was both judge, prosecution, and in most cases defense, hence the high conviction rate. As a rule, tribunals did try to bring cases to trial quickly. It was expensive to keep people locked up, but in some cases there was very little the inquisition could do. In fifteen ninety in Lerna, for example, some prisoners had to wait
seven years for a trial because of the sheer number of the denunciations. This was not the Inquisition's fault per se, but it was another indication of why it's poor funding was a major issue for everyone. It is very difficult to say anything specific about the punishments meted out by the Inquisition with any degree of certainty. For the first few years, nearly all the documentation of the Inquisition
no longer exists, beyond that records are incomplete at best. In the Tribunal of Valencia, an estimate for three thousand, seventy five of the trials between fifteen sixty six and sixteen oh nine suggests that they concluded as follows. Forty four percent of those were penanced, forty percent were reconciled, two percent absolved, nine percent were received suspended sentences, two zero point one percent were burnt
in effigy two percent were burnt in person. In Galesia between fifteen sixty and seventeen hundred, of two thy two hundred and three people, eighteen percent were absolved, sixty two percent were penanced, sixty one percent were reconciled, two percent were burnt in effigy, and less than one percent were burnt in person. To be penanced was the least of the punishments imposed. Those who did
penance had to quote abjure and quote their offenses spiritually. For a lesser offense, the penitent swore to avoid his sin in the future, and if he swore again and committed it, any relapse made him liable for severe punishment on the next occasion. Penitents were then condemned to physical penalties, sometimes also fine banishment, or even the galleys. Reconciliation was in theory the return of the
sinner to the church after due spiritual penance had been performed. In practice, it was the most severe punishment the inquisition could inflict, short of being burnt all. The penalties were heavier in reconciliation. In addition to any physical punishment, accused persons could also be condemned to flogging, to long spells in prison,
or the galleys. In most cases, confiscation of goods occurred, so that even if the prisoner escaped with a prison sentence of a few months, he came out of an orthodox Catholic but facing a life of being a beggar. An additional rule frequently enforced was that anyone who committed a further offense after reconciliation was to be treated as a relapsed heretic and would be burnt at the stake. Now, most of the punishments involved something that was called the san
benito, which is a corrupt form of older words sacho benito. It's a penitential garment used in the medieval Inquisition and ultimately taken over by the Spanish one. It was usually yellow with one or two diagonal crosses imposed on it. Penitents were condemned to wear the san benito as a mark of infamy for a
period of a few months, or in some cases for life. Those who were to appear at the attau de fe or the acts of faith had to wear a black san benito, on which there were painted flames and demons and other interesting decorations. Anyone condemned to wearing the ordinary yellow san benito had to put an on whenever he or she went outside, a practice by no means
popular in the first few years of the Inquisition. Now, the order to wear a san benito for life, though wasn't literal, it was ultimately and invariably commuted to a much shorter period at the discretion of the inquisitor. The chief criticism leveled at the time against these garments was less over the deliberate shame they were meant to cast on their wearers, then on the policy of perpetuating infamy by hanging them up in the local church as a permanent record of the
offense. The imprisonment decreed by the Inquisition could be for a short term of months and years, or even for life, the latter usually being classified as quote perpetual and irremissible end quote. Prison. Sentences then as now were not literally observed. By the seventeenth century, perpetual prison normally signified a few months and rarely involved imprisonment for more than three years, especially if the prisoner was
repentant. A lifetime sentence was normally completed in ten years. Despite this, the Inquisition continued to decree perpetual sentences, probably because in canon law it was the custom to condemn heretics to life imprisonment. None of the sentences necessarily involved
actual confinement in a prison. By the instructions of fourteen eighty eight, inquisitors could at their discretion confine a man to his own house or to some other institution, such as a monastery or hospital, with the result that many prisoners
served their sentences in moderate comfort. The main reason for this surprising concession was that the tribunals lacked the prison space because their cells were already full, and it was also just too expensive to keep people in prison for lengthy periods of time. Remember what we're talking about, The inquisition is very much an unfunded
mandate. Important prisoners normally underwent house arrest rather than imprisonment. Oddly, even when prison itself was the sentence, there was very much an open door policy. See, prisoners were free to go often during the day and go about their business. They just had to return to the I guess I'll keep calling it a prison at night. The galleys were a punishment unknown to the medieval Inquisition. These were devised by King Ferdinand, and there was a reason.
King Ferdinand wanted a cheap source of labor for his navy without having to resort to open slavery. By the mid eighteenth century, the Inquisition had ceased using galley terms as sentences, as it had for the sake of argument the Spanish crown. In secular courts, Interestingly, an accused might be sentenced to different punishments simultaneously. For example, one accused in Grenada in sixteen seventy two, was sentenced to four years banishment, six years in the galley, and one
hundred strokes of the lash. Unfortunately, based on the record, I couldn't tell if the first two punishments, the galleys and banishment, were consecutive or concurrent, that is, whether they were served simultaneously, or he was banished and then served six years in the galleys. Of course, the ultimate penalty was burning at the stake. The execution of heretics was by the fifteenth century such a common place event in Christendom that the Spanish Inquisition cannot be accused of
any innovation. It had been the practice hallowed by the medieval Inquisition for the Church courts to condemn a heretic and then hand him over or quote unquote relax him to the secular authorities. These were then obliged to carry out the sentence of blood, which the Holy Office was forbidden by law to carry out. In all of this, there was no pretense that the Inquisition was not the
body fully and directly responsible for the deaths that occurred. Two classes of people qualified for the stake, unrepentant heretics and relapsed heretics, The latter consisted of those who, after being pardoned a first time, had repeated the offense and were adjudged to have relapsed into heresy. Those who were sentenced did not always
die at the stake. They were normally given the choice between repenting before the Atta de fay reached its climax, in which case they were mercifully strangled when the flames were lit, or you could remain unrepentant, in which case you were burnt alive. The vast majority of those who were burned, in fact, were burnt in effigy only because they had either died before the act or
the ata de fay, or because they had saved themselves by fleeing. In the early years of the Inquisition. The large number of accused burnt in effigy testifies to the number of refugees escaping from the tribunal. The proportionately small number of executions is an effective argument against the legend of the blood thirsty Tribunal.
Nothing certainly can efface the horror of the terrible first twenty or sore years, but it is far from clear that the Inquisition was the juggernaut of death that has oftentimes assumed it to be still, we do need to remember that while the overall death rate was low, it fell disproportionately on people of Jewish and Muslim origin. Executions probably had a minor impact on the population at large,
but were a significant burden on the conversos. Most Europeans knew the Inquisition because of the acts of faith, or, as they were called at the time, Autos de fe. These were the public condemnation ceremonies that combined preaching, prayer, denunciations, verdicts and sentences. People flocked to see them. They were truly a novelty throughout Europe, truly uniquely Spanish. The Auto de Fey in its heyday was an event without parallel Visitors from other countries would throng in
when it was announced one would be held. The Auto de fe in sixteen ten at Lorengo attracted, according to an official of the Inquisition, thirty thousand people from countries like France, Aragon, Navarre, Basque Country and Castile. Since the town had only a population of four thousand, the number of visitors would have created a memorable and historic impression. Though the number is clearly exaggerated. The scene would invariably be set at the biggest square or public space available.
The elaborate and impressive staging of the proceedings, depicted clearly in prints of the period, made for heavy expense, and because of this auto's de fe were not frequent. Their frequency depended entirely on the discretion of the individual tribunals and the availability of prisoners. When necessary, prisoners could be brought from the very ends of the peninsula. For the great sixteen eighty Auto in Madrid,
Condemned were brought in from Galicia and Andalasia. When enough prisoners had accumulated to make the holding of an act of faith worthwhile, a date was fixed for the event, and the inquisitors informed the authorities of the municipality and the cathedral. One calendar month before the Auto de fe, a procession consisting of familiars and notaries of the inquisition would march through the streets of the town, proclaiming
the date of the ceremony. Orders went out carpenters and masons to prepare the scaffolding for the occasion, and decorations were made ready. The evening before the Auta da fe, a special proceeding took place, known as the Procession of the Green Cross, during which familiars and others carried the cross of the Holy Office to the site of the ceremony. All that night, prayers and preparations
were made. Then early the next morning, Mass was celebrated, Breakfast was given to all who appeared in the Auta de Fay, including those condemned, and a procession began which led directly to the square where it would be held. There is one contemporary account of the first Attada Fay, held in Toledo on Sunday, the twelfth of February fourteen eighty six, during which over seven hundred Jews were reconciled to the church. At this early epic, ceremonial and
ritual were notably absent. The inquisitors were occupied solely with the task of reconciling large number of heretics quickly and efficiently. Here's the account all the reconciled when in procession to the number of persons seven fifty, including both men and women, they went in procession from the Church of Saint Peter Martyr in the following
way. The men were all together in a group, bare headed and unshod, and since it was extremely cold, they were told to wear souls under their feet, which were otherwise bare, and their hands were unlit candles. The women were together in a group, their heads uncovered and their faces bare, unshod, like the men when with candles. Among all these were many prominent men in high office. With the bitter cold and dishonor and disgrace they
suffered from the great number of spectators. They went along, howling loudly and weeping, and tearing out their hair, no doubt more for the dishonor they were suffering than for any offense they had committed against God. Thus they went in tribulation through the along which the Corpus Christi procession goes, until they came
to the cathedral. At the door of the church were two chaplains who made the sign of the Cross on each other's forehead, saying, quote, received the sign of the cross, which you denied and lost through being deceived end quote. Then they went into the church until they arrived at a scaffolding erected by a new gate, and on it were the further inquisitors. Nearby was another scaffolding, on which stood an altar, at which they sent mass and
delivered a sermon. After this, a notary stood up and began to call each one by name. Quote is ex here end quote. The penitent would raise his candle and say yes. There in the public they read all the things which he had done. The same was done for the women. When this was over, they were publicly allotted penance and ordered to go in procession for six fridays, including scourging their bodies, bare backed, unshown, and
bare headed. They were to also fast for those six fridays. It was also ordered that all the days of their life they were to hold no public office, or to be public scriveners or messengers, and that those who held public office were to lose them, and that they were not to become money changers, shopkeepers or grocers, or hold any post whatsoever. They were not to wear silk or scarlet, or colored cloth, or gold or silver,
or pearls or any jewels, nor could they stand as witnesses. And they were ordered that if they relapsed, that is, if they fell into the same error again and resorted to any of the forementioned things, they would be condemned to the fire. And when all this was over they went away. It was two o'clock in the afternoon end quote. Burning at the stake was even rarer. We have one following account from the Auta de Fay felt at
Laurento in August seventeen nineteen. Around the jew are a number of religious people, who quote pressed the accused with great anxiety and zeal to convert himself. With perfect serenity, he said, I will convert myself to the faith of Jesus Christ, words which he had not been heard to utter until then. This overjoyed all the religious, who began to embrace him with tenderness and gave
finite thanks to God for having opened them a door for his conversion. And as he was making his confession of faith, a learned religious man of the Franciscan order asked him in what law do you die? He turned and looked him in the eye and said, father, I have already told you that I die in the faith of Jesus Christ. This caused great pleasure and joy among all, and the Franciscan, who was kneeling down, arose and embraced
the accused. All the others did the same with great satisfaction, giving thanks for the finite goodness of God. God. At this moment the accused saw the executioner, who had put his head out from behind the stake, and asked him, why did you call me a dog before? The executioner replied, because you denied the faith of Jesus Christ. But now that you have confessed, we are brothers. And if I have offended you by what I
said, I beg pardon on my knees. The accused forgave him gladly, and the two embraced and desirous that the soul which had given so many signs of conversion would not be lost. I went round casually behind the stake to where the executioner was and gave him the order to strangle him immediately, because it was very important not to delay. This. He did with great expedition.
When it was certain he was dead, the executioner was ordered to set fire at the four corners of the pyre to the brushwood and charcoal that had been piled up. He did this at once, and it began to burn on all sides, the flames rising swiftly up the platform and burning the wood and clothing. When the cords binding the accused had been burnt off, he fell through the open trap door into the pire, and his whole body was reduced to ashes. Quote. There was no age limit for those condemned to
the stake. Women in their eighties and boys and their teens were treated the same. By the mid sixteenth century, acts of faith autos de fe were so rare that they had become essentially once in lifetime events. By the second half of that century, they had become obsolete. Only private acts of faith happened during those thirty odd years. Perhaps, as one commenter dryly observed, the heretics had been purged out of existence. So that's it for our look
at the Inquisition in general. Next week, we returned to our Galileo story to wrap up his trial and his confrontation with the Inquisition. Spoiler alert, He's not going to be burned at the stake now. As always, if you're looking for more Western SIEV, I've got links in the show notes.
I have changed a little bit how the support works. We've gone down to just the Patreon account because it's just much easier and it's cheaper, and I'm able to get out additional shows much much faster for those who are willing to support, and as always, I appreciate it. If you can't support the show financially, but you'd like to do something. Rating and review is always greatly appreciated.