Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition 19
V. Any who strip the tallow or fat from meats that they are
to eat and purify it by washing in water, bleeding it, or
extracting the glandule from the leg of lambs or other animals
slaughtered for food.
VI. Any who cut the throats of animals or poultry that
are intended for food, first testing the knife on their
finger-nail, covering the blood with earth, and uttering
certain words that are customary among Jews.
VII. Any who eat meat in Lent and on other days on which it is
forbidden by Holy Church.
VIII. Any who keep the great fast of the Jews known by
different names, or the fast of _Chiphurim_ or _Quipur_ in the
tenth Hebrew month--whereof the proof shall be their having
gone barefoot during the period of the said fast, as is the
custom of the Jews, their having said Jewish prayers, or asked
pardon one of another, or fathers having laid hands upon the
heads of their children without making the sign of the Cross or
saying anything but “By God and by me be thou blessed.”
IX and X. Any who keep the fast of Queen Esther, which is
observed by the Jews in memory and imitation of what they
did in captivity in the reign of Ahasuerus, or the fast of
_Rebeaso_.
XI. Any who shall keep other fasts peculiar to the Jews, such
as those of Monday and Thursday, of which the proof shall be:
their not eating on such days until after the appearance of the
first evening star; their having abstained from meat; their
having washed on the previous day or cut their nails or the
points of their hair, keeping or burning these; their reciting
certain Jewish prayers, raising or lowering their heads with
their faces to the wall, after washing their hands in water or
in earth; their dressing themselves in sackcloth and girding
themselves with cords or strips of leather.
XII, XIII, and XIV concern any who keep the Paschal seasons;
which is to be discovered by their setting up green boughs,
inviting to table and sending presents of comestibles, and the
keeping of the feast of candles.
XV to XIX concern any who observe Hebrew table-customs: whether
they bless their viands according to the Jewish custom, whether
they drink “lawful” wine--_i.e._ wine that has been pressed by
Jews--and eat meat that has been slaughtered by Jews.
XX. Any who recite the Psalms of David without concluding with
the versicle “Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritu Sancto.”
XXI. Any woman who abstains from going to church for forty days
after delivery of child, out of reverence for the law of Moses.
XXII to XXVI concern any who circumcise their children, give
them Hebrew names, or after baptism cause their heads to be
shaven where anointed with the sacred oil, or any who cause
their children to be washed on the seventh day after birth in a
basin in which, in addition to the water, they have placed gold
and silver, pearls, wheat, barley, and other things.
XXVII. Any who are married in the Jewish manner.
XXVIII. Any who hold the _Ruaya_--which is a valedictory supper
before setting out upon a long journey.
XXIX and XXX. Any who carry Hebrew relics or make
burnt-offerings of bread.
XXXI. Any who _in articulo mortis_ have turned or been turned
with their faces to the wall to die in this attitude.
XXXII. Any who wash a corpse in warm water or shave it
according to the Jewish custom, and otherwise dress it for the
grave as is prescribed by the Mosaic law.
XXXIII to XXXVI concern Jewish __EXPRESSION__s of mourning, such as
the abstaining from meat, the spilling of water from the jars
in the dwelling of the deceased, etc.
XXXVII. Any who bury their dead in virgin soil or in a Jewish
cemetery.[71]
Reference has already been made to the inherent character of many
Jewish customs, which even the most sincere of New-Christians retained
despite themselves; these customs, being racial rather than religious,
were very far from signifying Judaic apostasy, since they contained
nothing that was directly opposed to the Christian teaching. In the
list published by the Seville inquisitors it will be seen that such
customs were deliberately included as evidences of apostasy.
Consider Articles IV, V, and VII, concerning the assumption of clean
linen on Saturdays and the stripping of fat from beef and mutton,
which nowise offend against the Christian faith, and might well be the
perpetuation of customs acquired before baptism was received.
Even more flagrant is Article XXXI, which lays it down as evidence
of Judaizing that a man shall turn his face to the wall when at the
point of death; but most flagrant of all is Article XXVIII, concerning
the valedictory meal partaken of before setting out upon a journey,
for it is a custom that at all times has been as much in vogue among
Christians as among men of any other religion.
Clearly not a New-Christian in Seville was safe from the delations of
the malevolent, since such ridiculously slight grounds of suspicion
were set forth by the tribunal. So extravagant and absurd are some
of these articles that one is forced to agree with Llorente, that in
formulating them the inquisitors proceeded with deliberate malice. He
contends that deliberately they cast a wide net that by their heavy
draught they should satisfy the Queen that she had heard no more than
the truth as to the extent to which Judaizing was rampant in Castile,
and the urgent need there was for the introduction of the Inquisition.
Whether in this they proceeded according to instructions received from
Torquemada or Ojeda does not transpire, but there can be little doubt
that the results obtained must have been in accordance with the wishes
of both, since they justified to the Queen the representations these
friars had so insistently made to her.
And the system of espionage which the inquisitors set up to increase
their haul of victims was as sly and cunning as anything in the history
of spying. Conceive the astuteness of the friar who climbed to the roof
of the Convent of St. Paul on Saturday mornings to observe and note the
houses of New-Christians from whose chimneys no smoke was to be seen
issuing, that he might lay the information thus obtained before the
tribunal, which would proceed to arrest the inhabitants upon a strong
suspicion that they were Judaizers who would not desecrate the Sabbath
by lighting fires.[72]
“What,” asks Llorente, “could be expected of a tribunal that began
in this way?” And he at once supplies the answer: “That which
happened--neither more nor less.”
With the methods of procedure that obtained in the trials conducted
by these inquisitors we need not just now concern ourselves. For
the moment it is enough to say that to the vices inherent in such a
judicial system must be added, in the case of the first inquisitors
of Seville, a zeal--not only to convict, but actually to be burning
heretics--so ferociously excessive as to proclaim that they were
gratifying their hatred of these Jews.
This upon the word of that sober chronicler Pulgar, who, whilst in
general terms approving the introduction of the Inquisition, as has
been seen, denounces in the following particular terms the practices of
Morillo and San Martin: “In the manner in which they conducted their
proceedings they showed that they held those people in hatred.”[73]
The Auto of February 6 was followed by another on March 26, at which
seventeen victims were burnt on the fields of Tablada. And now that
the fires were lighted, the inquisitors saw to it that they were well
supplied with human fuel. Burnings followed one another at such a rate
that by the month of November--upon the word of Llorente--298 condemned
had been sent to the flames in the town of Seville alone, whilst 79
others by reconciling themselves to the Church secured the commutation
of their sentence to one of perpetual imprisonment.
Mariana, the historian who gave thanks to God for the introduction of
the Inquisition into Castile, informs us with flagrant calm that the
number of Judaizers burnt in the Archbishopric during that year 1481
amounted to 8,000, whilst some 17,000 were submitted to penance.
In addition to those burnt alive, many who had fled the country were
burnt in effigy, having been tried and found guilty during an absence
described as contumacious. And similarly the court went through the
horrible farce of sitting in judgment upon many who were dead, and,
having convicted them, it dug up their bones and flung these to the
flames.
Such was the prodigious activity of the Holy Office, and to such an
extent did its holocausts promise to continue, that the Governor of
Seville ordered the erection on the fields of Tablada of a permanent
platform of stone of vast proportions known as the Quemadero, or
Burning-place. It was adorned by figures of the four Prophets. At each
of its four corners towered one of these colossal statues of plaster,
and Llorente tells us that they were not merely for ornament. He says
that they were hollow and so contrived that a condemned person might be
placed in each and so die by slow fire.[74]
This Quemadero remained standing, a monument to religious intolerance
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