All the gods have been addicted to jealousy. Their worshippers have accordingly usually felt and often acted towards heretics with the characteristic ruthlessness of the most merciless of passions.

Egypt was not free from religious reigns of terror, nor yet India, nor China, and even the genial creeds of Greece brought the mildly unorthodox Socrates to his death. Rome was comparatively tolerant of alien religions for political convenience, but there were laws against foreign rites in Rome; the prætor Hispalus was banished for worshipping Jupiter Sabasius, and the temples of Isis and Serapis were thrown down after they had been erected in the city. Augustus and Tiberius proscribed Egyptian and Jewish worship in Rome, the latter sending four thousand Jews to Sardinia. The hideous sufferings of the early Christians and the martyrdoms they underwent in the arenas are well known.

When at length the victims became the victors and the emperor Constantine was persuaded to Christianity, the same intolerant zeal from which the Christians had suffered now turned the tables on the pagans. At this time the Christians had not developed an idolatry of their own such as later brought on the terrors of the war of the image-breakers, so they heaped contempt upon the objects of worship revered by the pagans. The Jews were as usual the first and the worst sufferers. Then, again, as usual, the bitterest of all punishments were spent upon those who differed only slightly in doctrine. Constantine tried confiscation and exile on the Donatists, in 316 A.D.; he branded Arius as an infamous outlaw and had his writings burned.a

All the laws of Constantine were subsequently renewed by his successors, and applied with more or less rigour to the different heretical sects. By an edict published in January, 381 A.D., Theodosius the Great deprives heretics of all their churches, and annuls all edicts to the contrary into which preceding emperors had been surprised. In this edict he condemns by name the Photinians, Arians, and Eunomians; he recommends the Nicene Creed, and prohibits all assemblies of heretics within the walls of cities; adding, moreover, that if they attempted to cause any disturbance, they should be even banished from the cities.

In the same year he published a much more severe law against the Manichæans; he declared them infamous; deprived them totally of the power of making a will, or even of succeeding to their paternal or maternal property; and ordered all such property to be confiscated, except in the case of children, who were qualified, if they embraced a more holy religion, to inherit their father’s or mother’s property. Another law of Theodosius treats still more rigorously those Manichæans who disguised themselves under the names of Encratites, Saccophori, and Hydroparastates; he subjected them to capital punishment. To insure the execution of this law the emperor orders the prefect of the prætorium to appoint inquisitors, charged to discover heretics and to inform against them.

This is the first time that the name of an inquisitor against heretics occurs; but the Inquisition itself was of older standing, for we have already seen Constantine institute one precisely similar against the Arians and the other heretics of his time. These severe measures were provoked by the abominable doctrine of the Manichæans, which had drawn down on them, from the very origin of their sect, the severity of even the pagan emperors.c

When the Arians secured an emperor of their creed they enforced on the Athanasians a heavy usury of exile, punishment, torture, and even death, till the emperor Julian was driven to exclaim, according to Ammianus,h “Even beasts are not so cruel to men as the generality of Christians to each other.”

This work is not the place for an account of all the heresies that have complicated Christianity without cessation. The great feud of iconoclasm has already been described and the major disagreements between the Greek and Roman churches have been recounted in the history of the papacy, where it was also shown how the growth of papal supremacy brought about a constant duel with the kings and the emperor.a

Whilst the hierarchy, unmindful of its spiritual calling, was entangling itself in ceaseless warfare, in order to bring all secular power under its sway; whilst the system of ecclesiastical doctrines, with its progressive development, was enclosing the reason with bonds ever narrowing; whilst the means of salvation held out by the church were at the same time ever more and more losing their spiritual character and their moral power, by the one-sided speculations of the schoolmen, and also sinking to a lifeless mechanism in their administration by a coarse priesthood which had lost all respect for morality; lastly, while this tortuous church system, despairing of any spiritual influence, was endeavouring to win consideration for itself by continual acts of external aggression; it could not but be that the rebellious against the church, who in earlier times came forward but one by one, should now be growing more numerous and more powerful.

The earlier divisions in the church employed themselves for the most part only in speculations of the understanding; and even for this very reason the church always succeeded, as soon as she could adopt strong measures, in bringing back the recusants, for the interest taken in a moral conception of nearly equivalent meaning seldom remained for many generations unconquered by persecution. But there lay at the root of the opposition to the church, which now began to feel its way forward, a living moral interest, which felt itself injured by the whole condition of the church; and even for this very reason this opposition was rather strengthened than weakened by the bloodshed resorted to as a means to destroy it. It stood always unconquered, although the opposing parties differed widely from each other in the peculiarities of their systems, and modified them in many ways.

THE CATHARI

At the same time that two frantic enthusiasts, Tanchelm, who wandered about from 1115 to 1124 in the Netherlands, and Eudes de Stella or Eon, who roved till 1148 in Brittany, perplexed the minds of men, two ecclesiastics in southern France, the priest, Pierre de Bruis or Bruys (from 1104-1124, Petrobrusiani) and Henry, formerly a monk of Cluny and deacon (from 1116-1148, Henriciani), declaimed zealously against the mechanical organisation of the church and the immorality of the clergy. But besides these, the Manichæans who trace their origin to the period of time before this were continually on the increase. The most common names for them now, were in Germany Cathari or Ketzer, in Italy Paterini, in France Publicani, though many other names were in use; not only did they make their appearance permanently in most distant quarters of France, but they also planted themselves in the neighbouring countries. The Cathari reached England in the year 1159; they were, however, quickly exterminated.

But the headquarters of the Cathari were those countries in which at that time, along with civic freedom, civilisation, and education, discontent at the wanton and avaricious clergy had grown up in a remarkable manner; such were southern France and northern Italy. In southern France, where Toulouse was their central point, the interest awakened by Pierre de Bruis and Henry worked for their advantage. The synodal decrees issued against them remained without effect, for almost all the barons of this country protected them, and so their numbers here received a very considerable increase. The bishops of the district vainly endeavoured in the council at Lombers (1165) to bring back these bonos homines, as they were here usually called, to the church; little more effect was produced by the cardinal-legate Peter of St. Chrysogonus in Toulouse (1178), and the severe decree of Alexander III, in the Third Lateran Council (1179). Against Roger II, viscount of Béziers, Carcassone, Albi, and Rasez, who protected the Cathari, the cardinal-legate Henry, abbot of Clairvaux, already headed a crusading army (in 1181), but he could produce no lasting effect. [See the history of the Crusades.] In the beginning of the thirteenth century the greater part of the daughters of the nobility were brought up in the educational establishments of the Perfectæ, who lived together in monastic style.

THE WALDENSES

From the scriptural and reforming turn of mind which had been spread by means of Pierre de Bruis and Henry, along with the sect of the Cathari, in southern France, there arose from the year 1170 the party of the Waldenses [or Vaudois]:[188] free from all speculative enthusiasm they consecrated all their energies to realise once again apostolic Christendom, with all its simplicity and all its inward devotion. About that year began the founder of the sect, Peter Waldo or Waldensis from Lyons, with several companions, to preach the Gospel in the manner of the apostles. At first they had so little intention of separating from the church that, when the archbishop of Lyons forbade them to preach, they petitioned the pope Alexander III in 1179 for his permission. But when Lucius III (in 1184) pronounced sentence of excommunication against them, then they thought they must obey God rather than man, and withdrew from a church which cursed that which seemed to them a call from heaven. At first the only question at issue between them and the Roman church was on the exclusive right of the clergy to preach; and they spread themselves more easily in those countries where the deficiency of the church was exposed plainly enough for the conviction of all, but where many still felt themselves not less repulsed by the Catharism, which was set up in opposition; for instance in France, particularly the southern parts, down as far as Aragon, and in northern Italy, particularly in Milan. And in every place where they came fresh zeal went forth from them among the people, to learn to understand Holy Scripture for themselves.

The earlier measures taken against the heretics in southern France had caused so little hindrance to their extension that they constituted the dominant party at the end of the twelfth century in many parts of this country. For this reason Innocent III, immediately after his accession to the see in 1198, was induced to send legates thither armed with the most unlimited powers for the suppression of heretics. After they had produced, by forcible measures, effects more apparent than real, Diego, bishop of Osma, with Dominic, the subprior of his cathedral, persuaded them in the year 1206 to adopt a more apostolic way of proceeding. Now the two legates, the Cistercians Peter of Castelnau and Raoul, with these two Spaniards, wandered barefoot from place to place and held conferences with the heretics on the disputed points (1206 and 1207). When however all this continued without effect, they returned again to the old method with tenfold cruelty.

CRUSADE AGAINST THE ALBIGENSES

Raymond VI. count of Toulouse, though outwardly a Catholic, had fallen out with the ambitious legate Peter of Castelnau. So when the latter in 1208 was murdered by an unknown hand, the monks threw the blame on the count; and Innocent III seized this opportunity to have a crusade preached against him by Arnold, abbot of Citeaux; for which national jealousy and the allurements of the delicious south procured great popularity in northern France. In order to avert the threatening danger, Raymond sought for reconciliation. Innocent granted this with a view to weaken the resistance of the victims by division. When, in June, 1209, the count submitted to the most humiliating conditions which Milo the papal legate prescribed to him, and even took the cross himself from his hands, he only effected the delay of the blow destined for himself, that it might strike with so much the greater certainty.

The crusading army assembled against the Albigenses, with the frantic Arnold[189] as papal legate at its head, first marched upon the domain of Raymond Roger, viscount of Béziers (1209). After the fall of Béziers and Carcassonne, the devastated land was conquered. But among the noble crusaders only Simon de Montfort was willing to receive the spoil from the legate. Next they turned against Raymond of Toulouse, who had been spared till now. Extravagant demands, which he could not satisfy, formed the pretext for excommunicating and attacking him (1211). The pope himself was no longer able to check his own instruments; the crusade was preached with fresh ardour; the territory of the count was conquered by Simon de Montfort, and formally adjudged to him by a council at Montpellier in 1215 for his own possession.

Innocent III did not only confirm this grant at the great Lateran Council in this same year, but also held up the principle of the method of procedure hitherto adopted against these countries, as a precedent in similar cases. Then at length Raymond sought for help in the attachment of his former subjects, and after Simon’s death (1218) he made a considerable advance in the reconquest of his country, although the pope, without ceasing, used every means of resistance. When, after the death of Raymond VI (1222), Raymond VII regained his whole ancestral heritage, and had even forced his enemy Amaury, son of Simon, to a complete surrender, then Honorius III, elsewhere so mild, still thought it due to the papal honour to hate the father in the son, however guiltless. He stirred up Louis VIII, king of France, to conquer Toulouse for himself in a new crusade. Hostilities began on the 6th of June, 1226, but they were greatly crippled by the death of Louis VIII on the 18th of November of the same year; at length Raymond obtained peace on the hardest conditions, by which a part of his domain passed into the power of France, and the annexation of the rest to this kingdom was furthered.

THE INQUISITION ESTABLISHED

The unhappiness of this country was accomplished by the horrors of the Inquisition which now rose up.[190] In order to perpetuate the work of blood begun by the papal legate in a permanent institution, the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 made it the chief business of the episcopal synodal tribunals to search out and punish heretics; and the Council of Toulouse (1229) achieved the organisation of this episcopal Inquisition. However, soon after it was in fact almost annihilated; for in 1232 and 1233 Gregory IX appointed the Dominicans to be the standing papal inquisitors, and forthwith they began their hideous work in the countries tainted with heresy. In order that the church may not seem to soil herself with blood, the secular princes must serve the office as executioner. Louis IX in 1228, Frederick II in 1232, the ill-fated Raymond VII in 1233, each passed the requisite laws.

That the new Inquisition might strike more of the guilty, a way of proceeding was prescribed for it, to which of necessity many of the guiltless must fall victims. Thus armed, this monster raged with most frightful fury in southern France, where the heretics had only learned from former events to keep themselves more secret. Germany for a short space of time (1231-1233) was taught to know the Inquisition in its maddest rage in Conrad of Marburg, and in the Dominican monk Conrad Dorso who came to Strasburg; and at the same time acquired the most fearful experience of the abuse of the new laws against heretics in the crusade on the Stedinger, the lovers of freedom, in 1234. But by these events so universal a resistance against every Inquisition was aroused, that Germany for a long time after remained free from this monster.

In the twelfth century the executions of heretics were for the most part the handiwork of the irritated populace, and even found much opposition among the clergy. However, the theory of religion, which in the thirteenth century was especially flexible, in this case also adapted itself to the practice of the church by the vindication of the new laws against heresy.

Another no less evil result of this period, so fraught with outrage, was that the laity were entirely forbidden Holy Scripture, so that the possession of a translation of the Bible was forthwith accounted a token of heresy, and only translations prepared for the purpose of supporting the Romish church were tolerated.

The regulations which were adopted against the heretics, and the cruel manner in which their so-called conversion was pursued, could only produce exactly the contrary effect to that they had in view upon their convictions. This, however, they did accomplish, that the persecuted persons, filled with exaggerated hatred and horror of the church, spread themselves with the greatest secrecy over other countries also. Thus in the thirteenth century public feeling was roused ever more and more against Rome, against the clergy, and against the abuses of the church, and from time to time there rose a stirring sense of the necessity of a reformation to counteract them. On comparison of the morals of the clergy with those of the heretics, the advantage is decidedly in favour of the latter; so it cannot seem strange if in the thirteenth century we find the earlier parties more widely spread than before, and fresh sects springing up alongside of them. Yet the number of new names of heretics in this period is far greater than that of new parties.

The Cathari, or as they are now more commonly called the Albigenses or Bulgarians, did not only maintain their ground in southern France, but increased in number chiefly in upper Italy, where the political distraction of the country was advantageous to them, and where Milan continued to be their principal abode. But they spread themselves also into the rest of Italy as far as Spain, and throughout Germany; they were very numerous in Bosnia and the adjoining countries, often the prevailing party, and they maintained in all lands a close connection with each other.

When the persecutions began, the Waldenses were standing so near the Catholic church that a reconciliation seemed to be by no means difficult. But the horrors of the persecution had no further effect on the Waldenses than to confirm them more and more in their anti-hierarchical system, and to place their doctrine and ecclesiastical constitution on a more independent footing. The more plainly their departure from church teaching could vindicate itself as a purification of the church, the more easy acceptation they found with the thoughtful of their time. As early as in the thirteenth century they showed themselves in the valleys of Piedmont, in which they have maintained themselves until now. Still, not only did they spread in other countries, as for instance as far as Germany, but also put in circulation among numbers, who did not come over to their society, ideas unfavourable to the prevailing faith of the church.

Besides the old sects, new ones were engendered in the thirteenth century. The pantheistic system introduced by Amalric of Bène, after the persecution it underwent in Paris in the year 1210, only spread more widely than before. In the course of the thirteenth century its disciples might be found in different places; at the end of this century they were already so numerous among the Beghards on the Rhine that the people understood them only to be meant by the name of Beghards, although they called themselves brothers and sisters of the Free Spirit. In the beginning of the fourteenth century they made their appearance also in Italy.

Other sects pass quickly in review before us. As the universal discontent of the advancing tyranny of the hierarchy aroused isolated resistances in England and in France, so the ill usage of the Hohenstaufen family gave rise to a sect in Halle in Swabia (about 1248), which declared the hierarchy to be abolished in consequence of its moral corruption of the entire purpose of the church. After the extermination of the Hohenstaufen family the detestation caused by this deed of the hierarchy was maintained for centuries by the expectation that one time an emperor Frederick would wreak vengeance in blood on the papacy. This expectation also found place among the manifold superstitions, chiefly borrowed from the Fratricelli, with which the apostolic brothers from 1260 to 1307 disquieted the north of Italy.d

The statutes of the Council of Toulouse (1229), framed after the successful termination of the war against the Albigenses, in order to absolutely extirpate every lingering vestige of heresy, form the code of persecution, which not merely aimed at suppressing all public teaching but the more secluded and secret freedom of thought. It was a system which penetrated into the most intimate sanctuary of domestic life; and made delation not merely a merit and a duty, but an obligation also, enforced by tremendous penalties.

The archbishops, bishops, and exempt abbots were to appoint in every parish one priest, and three or more lay inquisitors, to search all houses and buildings, in order to detect heretics, and to denounce them to the archbishop or bishop, the lord, or his bailiff, so as to insure their apprehension. The lords were to make the same inquisition in every part of their estates. Whoever was convicted of harbouring a heretic forfeited the land to his lord, and was reduced to personal slavery. If he was guilty of such concealment from negligence, not from intention, he received proportionate punishment. Every house in which a heretic was found was to be razed to the ground, the farm confiscated. The bailiff who should not be active in detecting heretics was to lose his office, and be incapacitated from holding it in future. Heretics, however, were not to be judged but by the bishop or some ecclesiastical person.

Anyone might seize a heretic on the lands of another. Heretics who recanted were to be removed from their homes, and settled in Catholic cities; to wear two crosses of a different colour from their dress, one on the right side, one on the left. They were incapable of any public function unless reconciled by the pope or by his legate. Those who recanted from fear of death were to be immured forever. All persons, males of the age of fourteen, females of twelve, were to take an oath of abjuration of heresy, and of their Catholic faith; if absent, and not appearing within fifteen days, they were held suspected of heresy. All persons were to confess, and communicate three times a year, or were in like manner under suspicion of heresy. No layman was permitted to have any book of the Old or New Testament, especially in a translation, unless perhaps the Psalter, with a breviary, or the Hours of the Virgin. No one suspected of heresy could practise as a physician. Care was to be taken that no heretic had access to sick or dying persons. All wills were to be made in the presence of a priest. No office of trust was to be held by one in evil fame as a heretic. Those were in evil fame who were so by common report, or so declared by good and grave witnesses before the bishop.

But statutes of persecution always require new statutes rising above each other in regular gradations of rigour and cruelty. The legate found the canons of Toulouse to be eluded or inefficient. He summoned a council at Melun, attended by the archbishop of Narbonne and other prelates. The unhappy count of Toulouse was compelled to frame the edicts of this council into laws for his dominions. The first provision showed that persecution had wrought despair. It was directed against those who had murdered, or should murder, or conceal the murderers of persecutors of heretics. A reward of one mark was set on the head of every heretic, to be paid by the town, or village, or district to the captor.

It was evident that the heretics had now begun to seek concealment in cabins, in caves, and rocks, and forests; not merely was every house in which one should be seized to be razed to the ground, but all suspected caves or hiding-places were to be blocked up; with a penalty of twenty-five livres of Toulouse to the lord on whose estate such houses or places of concealment of evil report should be found. Those who did not assist in the capture of heretics were liable to punishment. If any one was detected after death to have been a heretic, his property was confiscated. Those who had made over their estates in trust, before they became heretics, nevertheless forfeited such estates. Those who attempted to elude the law by moving about, under pretence of trade or pilgrimage, were ordered to render an account of their absence. A council at Béziers (1233) enforced upon the clergy, under pain of suspension or of deprivation, the denunciation of all who should not attend divine service in their churches on the appointed days, especially those suspected of heresy.g

METHOD OF PROCEDURE WITH A SUSPECT

The method of proceeding in the courts of the Inquisition was at first simple, and not materially different from that in the ordinary courts. But gradually the Dominicans, guided by experience, rendered it far more complex; and so shaped their proceedings that the mode of trying heretical causes (if the phrase be allowable) became altogether different from that usually practised in judicial proceedings. For these good friars, being wholly unskilled in forensic affairs, and acquainted with no other tribunal than that which in the Romish church is called the penitentiary tribunal, regulated these new courts of the Inquisition, as far as possible, according to the plan of those religious proceedings. And hence arose that strange system of jurisprudence, bearing in many respects the most striking features of injustice and wrong. Whoever duly considers this history of their origin will be able to account for many things that seem unsuitable, absurd, and contrary to justice, in the mode of proceeding against offenders in the courts of the Inquisition.e

When the Inquisition discovered a transgressor of their laws, either by common report, or by their spies, or by an informer, he was cited three times to appear before them; and if he did not appear, he was forthwith condemned. It was safest to appear on the first citation; because the longer a man delayed the more guilty he would be; and the Inquisition had their spies, and a thousand concealed ways for getting an absconding heretic in their power.

When a supposed heretic was once in the hands of the Inquisition, no one dared to inquire after him, or write to him, or intercede for him. When everything belonging to the person seized was in their hands, then the process began; and it was protracted in the most tedious manner.

After many days, or perhaps months, which the accused dragged out in a loathsome dungeon, the keeper of the prison asked him, as it were accidentally, if he wished to have a hearing. When he appeared before his judges, they inquired, just as if they knew nothing about him, who he was, and what he wanted. If he wished to be informed what offence he had committed, he was admonished to confess his faults himself. If he confessed nothing, time was given him for reflection, and he was remanded to prison. If, after a long time allowed him, he still confessed nothing, he must swear to answer truly to all the questions put to him. If he would not swear, he was condemned without further process. If he swore to give answer, he was questioned in regard to his whole life, without making known to him his offence. He was, however, promised a pardon if he would truly confess his offences; an artifice this, by which his judges often learned more than they knew before against him.

At last the charges against him were presented to him in writing, and counsel also was assigned him, who, however, only advised him to confess fully his faults. The accuser and informer against him were not made known to him, but the real charges against him were put into his hands. He was allowed time for his defence; but his accuser, and the witnesses against him, he could know only by conjecture. Sometimes he was so fortunate as to discover who they were; but rarely were they presented before him, and confronted with him.

If his answers did not satisfy the judges, or if the allegations against him were not adequately proved, resort was had to torture. Each of these tortures was continued as long as, in the judgment of the physician of the Inquisition, the man was able to endure them. He might now confess what he would, but still the torture would be repeated, first to discover the object and motives of the acknowledged offence, and then to make him expose his accomplices.

If, when tortured, he confessed nothing, many snares were laid to elicit from him unconsciously his offence. The conclusion was that the accused, when he seemed to have satisfied the judges, was condemned, according to the measure of his offence, to death, or to perpetual imprisonment, or to the galleys, or to be scourged; and he was delivered over to the civil authorities, who were intreated to spare his life, as the church never thirsted for blood; but yet they would experience persecution if they did not carry the decisions of the court into execution.

What an infernal device is the Inquisition! What innocent person could escape destruction, if an inquisitor were disposed to destroy him? A heretic, even if he had been acquitted by the pope himself, might still be condemned to die by the Inquisition. An equivocal promise of pardon might be given to induce him to make confession, but the promise must not be fulfilled when the object of it was obtained. Even death did not free a person from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition; for a deceased heretic must be burned in effigy. Would not every feeling of humanity be outraged by following such horrid principles? The inquisitorial judges did not deny that by such proceedings many innocent persons unavoidably perished, along with the guilty; but this did not trouble them. “Better,” they said, “that a hundred innocent persons should be cut off and go to paradise, than let one heretic escape, who might poison many souls and plunge them into endless perdition.”f

JOHN FOXE ON THE EVILS OF THE INQUISITION

“The abuse of this Inquisition is most execrable. If any word shall pass out of the mouth of any, which may be taken in evil part; yea, though no word be spoken, yet if they bear any grudge or evil will against the party, incontinent they command him to be taken, and put in a horrible prison, and then find out crimes against him at leisure, and in the meantime no man living is so hardy as once to open his mouth for him. If the father speak one word for his child, he is also taken and cast into prison as a favourer of heretics; neither is it permitted to any person to enter in to the prisoner; but there he is alone, in a place where he cannot see so much as the ground where he is, and is not suffered either to read or write, but there endureth in darkness palpable, in horrors infinite, in fear miserable, wrestling with the assaults of death.

“By this it may be esteemed what trouble and sorrow, what pensive sighs and cogitations they sustain, who are not thoroughly instructed in holy doctrine. Add, moreover, to these distresses and horrors of the prison, the injuries, threats, whippings, and scourgings, irons, tortures, and racks which they endure. Sometimes also they are brought out, and showed forth in some higher place to the people, as a spectacle of rebuke and infamy. And thus are they detained there, some many years, and murdered by long torments, and whole days together treated much more cruelly, out of all comparison, than if they were in the hangman’s hands to be slain at once. During all this time, what is done in the process no person knoweth, but only the holy fathers and the tormentors, who are sworn to execute the torments. All this is done in secret, and (as great mysteries) pass not the hands of these holy ones. And after all these torments so many years endured in the prison, if any man shall be saved, it must be by guessing; for all the proceedings of the court of that execrable Inquisition are open to no man, but all is done in hugger-mugger and in close corners, by ambages, by covert ways, and secret counsels. The accuser is secret, the crime secret, the witness secret, whatsoever is done is secret, neither is the poor prisoner ever advised of anything. If he can guess who accused him, whereof and wherefore, he may be pardoned peradventure of his life; but this is very seldom, and yet he shall not incontinent be set at liberty before he hath long time endured infinite torments; and this is called their “penitence,” and so is he let go; and yet not so but that he is enjoined, before he pass the inquisitor’s hands, that he shall wear a garment of yellow colours for a note of public infamy to him and his whole race. And if he cannot guess right, showing to the inquisitors by whom he was accused, whereof, and wherefore (as is before touched), incontinent the horrible sentence of condemnation is pronounced against him, that he shall be burned for an obstinate heretic. And yet the sentence is not executed by and by, but after he hath endured imprisonment in some heinous prison.”j

HOW A PENITENT WAS TREATED

It was a peculiar horror of the Inquisition that while almost anyone might be haled before it, even on an anonymous complaint, hardly anyone ever escaped certain penalties. If the fate of the wretch was heavy, who, being innocent of heresy would not confess his guilt and therefore was tortured until he confessed imaginary guilt, and was then burned to death, hardly less was the misery of the victim who repented or recanted and was freed from the death penalty. The penalty for recantation can hardly be more plainly stated than an actual order quoted by Llorente,k giving the punishment awarded by St. Dominic himself to a repentant heretic even before the actual organisation of the Inquisition.a

“To all faithful Christians to whom these presents may come. Friar Dominic, canon of Osma, the least of the preachers, greeting in Christ. By the authority of the lord abbot of Cister (Citeaux), legate of the apostolic see (whose power we exercise) we have reconciled the bearer of these presents, Poncio Roger, converted from the sect of the heretics by the grace of God; and we have enjoined him in virtue of the sworn promise which he has made to comply with our precepts that on three Sunday festivals he be led, stripped, by a priest, who shall scourge him from the gates of the city to those of the church.

“We further lay upon him, by way of penance, that he abstain from eating flesh meat, eggs, cheese, and other foods derived from animals, forever. Save only on the day of the resurrection, of Pentecost, and of the Lord’s nativity, on which days we command him to partake thereof as a mark of his detestation of his former error. He shall observe four Lents in the year, abstaining from fish, and shall forever fast and abstain from fish, oil, and wine three days in the week, save only when physical infirmities or the labours of his station require a dispensation. He shall wear religious garments both in shape and colour, with two small crosses sewn on each side of his breast. He shall hear mass every day when occasion serves, and on feast days he shall assist at vespers in the church. Every day he shall recite the Hours for the day and night, and shall repeat the prayer ‘Our Father’ seven times during the day, ten times in the night, and twenty times at midnight. He shall observe chastity, and shall present this letter one day, in the morning, every month, in the town of Cereri to his parish priest, whom we enjoin to watch over the conduct of Poncio, who shall faithfully observe all that is here expressed until the lord legate shall manifest his will. And should Poncio fail in his observance we command that he be held perjured, heretic, and excommunicated, and be separated from the company of the faithful.”k

THE HISTORY OF TORTURE

If the above document gives a foreshadowing of the rigours of the Inquisition towards those whose only error was a temporary wavering of opinion, what can be expected as the fate of those who persisted in their error, or denied it in spite of witnesses?—surely some distinguished form of punishment. Death was not enough, for thus the heretic instantly escaped the clutches of the disciplinarians. Torture was the resource. Before taking up this blackest subject on the page of human history, it is desirable to trace briefly its evolution, for torture was by no means the invention or monopoly of the Inquisition, though it has come to be thought so in the popular mind.

It is only justice to the church and to the zealots of that time to emphasise the fact that when the inquisitors sought a tool for special punishment, they found it ready at hand, made familiar and natural by the civil law of the day. Furthermore torture was a venerable institution.

The Greeks used torture for cross-examining slaves and at times nonresidents and even free citizens; the Romans under the republic practised it on slaves, and under the empire on citizens; the man accused of treason was always liable to it, as well as those whose testimony was open to the charge of confusion or inconsistency. Even in Cicero’s time there was a grim machinery for the purpose. Torture in England though not legal was practised, as it was on the continent, and in Scotland where it had the best civil sanction. Even in the United States there is one instance of torture, but that was during the Salem witchcraft insanity, though, like the inquisitorial processes, it was conducted by the church and civil government, and like so many of the inquisitorial punishments was due to an accusation of sorcery. The belief in witchcraft, now obsolete among even the common people, was once supported by a papal bull and by Sprenger’sl tremendous work, called The Hammer of Witches, which Henry C. Lean calls “the most portentous monument of superstition which the world has produced.”

The civil powers had then used torture from time immemorial. The people were as used to it in that day as we of to-day are to certain torments of animals cooked alive or otherwise worried to death. The crime of treason was specifically devoted to torture. As heresy was in the days of temporal church power distinctly a crime of treason, the secular authorities were ordered to punish it. In fact the church took the stand that it was simply hunting for justice, and when it found the accused innocent, it technically “intervened” in his behalf and “stayed the arm of the law.”[191]

But while using these facts to prevent us from thinking of the inquisitors as men of diabolical invention unlike their kind or their time in manner of thought or action, and while giving these facts their due weight in palliation of the personal offences of the inquisitors against fundamental principles of justice and mercy, we must not forget that, though the church took the idea of torture from the civil law and compelled the civil officials to administer it, yet the church enlarged the methods of torment and the causes for its use; the church forced upon the law and upon the monarchs many extremes of cruelty to which they were reluctant and against which they often mutinied.

And finally, seeing that the best men of the time were supposed to enter the church, and that the church appointed as inquisitors only its most exemplary members,[192] the defence of the Inquisition by some of its apologists on the ground of its origin in the customs of the period, really amounts to the astounding implication that the best men of the church were only a little worse than the average of their time.

It is stupefying to reflect on the character of the torments which crowds of people once watched for hours with joy, and which the supposedly best and gentlest spirits, the church fathers, inflicted day after day with all the fascination of ingenuity put to its utmost test. Such torments we of to-day can neither approve nor permit, and can hardly read of without nausea. None the less, lest we forget the horrors to which the doctrine of religious intolerance can drive mankind, and lest we lose the lesson of all history that no excess of punishment ever yet stopped the human hunger for liberty of thought and action, it will be well to place here a few of the more authentic instances of inquisitorial outrage.

We may well begin with the description from contemporaries, such as the history of Gonsalvius Montanuso or Gonzalez de Montés, a Spanish Protestant, who narrowly escaped death, whose friend was martyred, and who published a book on the Inquisition at Heidelberg in 1597. He is quoted with others in the history of Limborch,b which was published in 1692, and based almost solely on the church’s own accounts.a

A Contemporary Account of the Preliminaries to Torture

The place of torture in the Spanish Inquisition is generally an underground and very dark room, to which one enters through several doors. There is a tribunal erected in it, where the inquisitor, inspector, and secretary sit. When the candles are lighted, and the person to be tortured is brought in, the executioner, who was waiting for the other, makes an astonishing and dreadful appearance. He is covered all over with a black linen garment down to his feet, and tied close to his body. His head and face are all hid with a long black cowl, only two little holes being left in it for him to see through. All this is intended to strike the miserable wretch with greater terror in mind and body, when he sees himself going to be tortured by the hands of one who thus looks like the very devil.o

Whilst the officers are getting things ready for the torture, the bishop and inquisitor by themselves, and other good men zealous for the faith, endeavour to persuade the person to be tortured freely to confess the truth, and if he will not, they order the officers to strip him, who do it in an instant. Clergymen however must not be tortured by a lay officer or torturer unless they cannot find any clergymen who know how to do it, or are willing, because it would be in vain for the judges to order any clergyman or monk to the torture, if there was nobody to inflict it; and therefore in such a case it is usual to torture them by lay officers.

Whilst the person to be tortured is stripping, he is persuaded to confess the truth. If he refuses it, he is taken aside by certain good men, and urged to confess, and told by them that if he confesses, he will not be put to death, but only be made to swear that he will not return to the heresy he hath abjured. The inquisitor and bishop promise the same, unless the person be a relapse.

If he is persuaded neither by threatenings nor promises to confess his crime, he is tortured either more lightly or grievously, according as his crime requires, and frequently interrogated during the torture, upon those articles for which he is put to it, beginning with the lesser ones, because they think he will sooner confess the lesser matters than the greater. According to the directions of Royas,u one of the Spanish inquisitors: “The criminals are with great care and diligence to be admonished by the inquisitors, and especially when they are under torture, that they should not by any means bear false witness against themselves or others, through fear of punishment or torments, but speak the truth only. Nor may the inquisitors promise pardon or forgiveness of the offence, to compel the criminals to confess crimes which they have not committed, out of their great zeal to inquire out the truth. And such a false confession the accused person may safely revoke.”

The inquisitors themselves must interrogate the criminals during their torture, nor can they commit this business to others, unless they are engaged in other important affairs, in which case they may depute certain good and skilful men for the purpose. Although in other nations criminals are publicly tortured, yet in Spain it is forbidden by the royal law for any to be present whilst they are torturing, besides the judges, secretaries, and torturers. The inquisitors must also choose proper torturers, born of ancient Christians, who must be bound by oath by no means to discover their secrets, nor to report anything that is said. The judges also usually protest that if the criminal should happen to die under his torture, or by reason of it, or should suffer the loss of any of his limbs, it is not to be imputed to them, but to the criminal himself, who will not plainly confess the truth before he is tortured. A heretic may not only be interrogated concerning himself, but in general also concerning his companions and accomplices in his crime, his teachers and his disciples, for he ought to discover them, though he be not interrogated; but when he is interrogated concerning them, he is much more obliged to discover them than his accomplices in any other the most grievous crimes.

A person also suspected of heresy, and fully convicted, may be tortured upon another account, i.e., to discover his companions and accomplices in the crime. This must be done when he hesitates, or it is half fully proved at least that he was actually present with them, or he hath such companions and accomplices in his crime; for in this case he is not tortured as a criminal, but as a witness. But he who makes full confession of himself is not tortured upon a different account; whereas if he be a negative, he may be tortured upon another account, to discover his accomplices and other heretics, though he be full convicted himself, and it be half fully proved that he hath such accomplices. The reason of the difference in these cases is this, because he who confesses against himself would certainly much rather confess against other heretics if he knew them. But it is otherwise when the criminal is a negative.

Whilst these things are doing, the notary writes everything down in the process, as what tortures were inflicted, concerning what matters the prisoner was interrogated, and what he answered. If by these tortures they cannot draw from him a confession, they show him other kind of tortures and tell him he must undergo all of them, unless he confesses the truth. If neither by this means they can extort the truth, they may, to terrify him and engage him to confess, assign the second or third day to continue, not to repeat, the torture, till he hath undergone all those kinds of them to which he is condemned.

The degrees of tortures formerly used were five, which were inflicted in their turn, and are described by Julius Clarusv [member of the council to Philip II of Spain]. “Know therefore,” says he, “that there are five degrees of torture, viz., first, the being threatened to be tortured; secondly, being carried to the place of torture; thirdly, by stripping and binding; fourthly, the being hoisted upon the rack; fifthly, squassation.”

The stripping is performed without any regard to humanity or honour, not only to men, but to women and virgins, though the most virtuous and chaste, of whom they have sometimes many in their prison. For they cause them to be stripped, even to their very shifts, which they afterwards take off, forgive the expression, and then put on them straight linen drawers, and then make their arms naked quite up to their shoulders.

As to squassation, it is thus performed: the prisoner hath his hands bound behind his back, and weights tied to his feet, and then he is drawn up on high till his head reaches the very pulley. He is kept hanging in this manner for some time, that by the greatness of the weight hanging at his feet all his joints and limbs may be dreadfully stretched, and on a sudden he is let down with a jerk, by the slacking the rope, but kept from coming quite to the ground, by which terrible shake his arms and legs are all disjointed, whereby he is put to the most exquisite pain; the shock which he receives by the sudden stop of the fall, and the weight at his feet stretching his whole body more intensely and cruelly.b

The inquisitors sometimes shamefully and rashly proceed to the torture of innocent persons, as will evidently appear by one instance, not to mention more, given us by Gonsalvius.o “They apprehended in the Inquisition at Seville a noble lady, Joan Bohorquia, the wife of Francis Varquius, a very eminent man, and lord of Higuera, and daughter of Peter Garsia Xeresius, a wealthy citizen of Seville. The occasion of her imprisonment was that her sister, Mary Bohorquia, a young lady of eminent piety, who was afterwards burned for her pious confession, had declared in her torture that she had several times conversed with her sister concerning her own doctrine. When she was first imprisoned, she was about six months gone with child, upon which account she was not so straightly confined, nor used with that cruelty which the other prisoners were treated with, out of regard to the infant she carried in her.

“Eight days after her delivery, they took the child from her, and on the fifteenth shut her close up, and made her undergo the fate of the other prisoners, and began to manage her with their usual arts and rigour. In so dreadful a calamity she had only this comfort, that a certain pious young woman, who was afterwards burned for her religion by the inquisitors, was allowed her for her companion. This young creature was, on a certain day, carried out to her torture, and being returned from it into her jail, she was so shaken, and had all her limbs so miserably disjointed, that when she laid upon her bed of rushes it rather increased her misery than gave her rest, so that she could not turn herself without the most excessive pain. In this condition, as Bohorquia had it not in her power to show her any, or but very little outward kindness, she endeavoured to comfort her mind with great tenderness. The girl had scarce begun to recover from her torture, when Bohorquia was carried out to the same exercise, and was tortured with such diabolical cruelty upon the rack, that the rope pierced and cut into the very bones in several places, and in this manner she was brought back to prison, just ready to expire, the blood immediately running out of her mouth in great plenty. Undoubtedly they had burst her bowels, insomuch that the eighth day after her torture she died.

“And when, after all, they could not procure sufficient evidence to condemn her, though sought after and procured by all their inquisitorial arts, yet as the accused person was born in that place, where they were obliged to give some account of the affair to the people, and indeed could not by any means dissemble it, in the first act of triumph appointed her death, they commanded her sentence to be pronounced in these words: ‘Because this lady died in prison (without doubt suppressing the causes of it), and was found to be innocent upon inspecting and diligently examining her cause, therefore the holy tribunal pronounces her free from all charges brought against her by the fiscal, and absolving her from any further process, doth restore her both as to her innocence and reputation, and commands all her effects, which had been confiscated, to be restored to those to whom they of right belonged,’ etc. And thus, after they had murdered her by torture with savage cruelty, they pronounced her innocent!”o

LIMBORCH’S ACCOUNT OF THE FATE OF A JEW

The method of torturing and the degree of tortures used in the Spanish Inquisition will be well understood from the history of Isaac Orobio, a Jew, and doctor of physic, who was accused to the Inquisition as a Jew by a certain Moor, his servant, who had by his order before this been whipped for thieving; and four years after this he was again accused by a certain enemy of his for another fact, which would have proved him a Jew. But Orobio obstinately denied that he was one. I will here give the account of his torture, as I had it from his own mouth. After three whole years which he had been in jail, and several examinations, and the discovery of the crimes to him of which he was accused, in order to his confession and his constant denial of them, he was at length carried out of his jail, and through several turnings brought to the place of torture. This was towards the evening.

It was a large underground room, arched, and the walls covered with black hangings. The candlesticks were fastened to the wall, and the whole room enlightened with candles placed in them. At one end of it there was an enclosed place like a closet, where the inquisitor and notary sat at a table, so that the place seemed to him as the very mansion of death, everything appearing so terrible and awful. Here the inquisitor again admonished him to confess the truth before his torments began.

When he answered he had told the truth, the inquisitor gravely protested that, since he was so obstinate as to suffer the torture, the Holy Office would be innocent, if he should shed his blood, or even expire in his torments. When he had said this, he put a linen garment over his body, and drew it so very close on each side, as almost squeezed him to death. When he was almost dying, they slackened at once the sides of the garment, and after he began to breathe again, the sudden alteration put him to the most grievous anguish and pain. When he had overcome this torture, the same admonition was repeated, that he would confess the truth in order to prevent further torment.

And as he persisted in his denial, they tied his thumbs so very tightly with small cords as made the extremities of them greatly swell, and caused the blood to spurt out from under his nails. After this he was placed with his back against a wall and fixed upon a little bench. Into the wall were fastened little iron pulleys, through which there were ropes drawn, and tied round his body in several places, and especially his arms and legs. The executioner drawing these ropes with great violence, fastened his body with them to the wall so that his hands and feet, and especially his fingers and toes being bound so straightly with them, put him to the most exquisite pain, and seemed to him just as though he had been dissolving in flames. In the midst of these torments the torturer, of a sudden, drew the bench from under him, so that the miserable wretch hung by the cords without anything to support him, and by the weight of his body drew the knots yet much closer.

After this a new kind of torture succeeded. There was an instrument like a small ladder, made of two upright pieces of wood and five cross ones sharpened before. This the torturer placed over against him, and by a certain proper motion struck it with great violence against both his shins, so that he received upon each of them at once five violent strokes, which put him to such intolerable anguish that he fainted away. After he came to himself, they inflicted on him the last torture.

The torturer tied ropes about Orobio’s wrists and then put those ropes about his own back, which was covered with leather, to prevent his hurting himself. Then falling backwards and putting his feet up against the wall, he drew them with all his might till they cut through Orobio’s flesh, even to the very bones; and this torture was repeated thrice, the ropes being tied about his arms about the distance of two fingers’ breadth from the former wound, and drawn with the same violence.

But it happened that, as the ropes were drawing the second time, they slid into the first wound, which caused so great an effusion of blood that he seemed to be dying. Upon this the physician and surgeon, who are always ready, were sent for out of a neighbouring apartment to ask their advice whether the torture could be continued without danger of death, lest the ecclesiastical judges should be guilty of an irregularity if the criminal should die in his torments.

They, who were far from being enemies to Orobio, answered that he had strength enough to endure the rest of the torture, and hereby preserved him from having the tortures he had already endured repeated on him, because his sentence was that he should suffer them all at one time, one after another. So that if at any time they are forced to leave off through fear of death, all the tortures, even those already suffered, must be successively inflicted to satisfy the sentence. Upon this the torture was repeated the third time, and then it ended. After this he was bound up in his own clothes and carried back to his prison, and was scarce healed of his wounds in seventy days. And, inasmuch as he made no confession under his torture, he was condemned, not as one convicted, but suspected of Judaism, to wear for two whole years the infamous habit called sambenito, and it was further decreed that after that term he should suffer perpetual banishment from the kingdom of Seville.

OTHER FORMS OF TORTURE

Gonsalviuso tells us of another kind of torture. There is a wooden bench, which they call “the wooden horse,” made hollow like a trough, so as to contain a man lying on his back at full length, about the middle of which there is a round bar laid across, upon which the back of the person is placed, so that he lies upon the bar instead of being let into the bottom of the trough, with his feet much higher than his head. As he is lying in this posture, his arms, thighs, and shins are tied round with small cords or strings, which being drawn with screws at proper distance from each other, cut into the very bones, so as to be no longer discerned.

The Tormento di Toca

Besides this, the torturer throws over his mouth and nostrils a thin cloth, so that he is scarce able to breathe through them, and in the meanwhile a small stream of water like a thread, not drop by drop, falls from on high upon the mouth of the person lying in this miserable condition and so easily sinks down the thin cloth to the bottom of his throat, so that there is no possibility of breathing, his mouth being stopped with water and his nostrils with the cloth, so that the poor wretch is in the same agony as persons ready to die, and breathing out their last. When this cloth is drawn out of his throat, as it often is, that he may answer to the questions, it is all wet with water and blood, and is like pulling his bowels through his mouth.

The Chafing-dish; The Water-cure

There is also another kind of torture peculiar to this tribunal, which they call the fire. They order a large iron chafing-dish full of lighted charcoal to be brought in and held close to the soles of the tortured person’s feet, greased over with lard, so that the heat of the fire may more quickly pierce through them.

This is inquisition by torture, when there is only half full proof of their crime. However, at other times torments are sometimes inflicted upon persons condemned to death, as a punishment preceding that of death. Of this we have a remarkable instance in William Lithgow,w an Englishman, who, as he tells us in his travels, was taken up as a spy in Malaga, and was exposed to the most cruel torments upon the Wooden Horse. But when nothing could be extorted from him, he was delivered to the Inquisition as an heretic. He was condemned, in the beginning of Lent, to suffer the night following eleven most cruel torments, and after Easter to be carried privately to Grenada, there to be buried at midnight, and his ashes to be scattered into the air; when night came on his fetters were taken off, then he was stripped naked, put upon his knees, and his head lifted up by force; after which, opening his mouth with iron instruments, they filled his belly with water till it came out of his jaws. Then they tied a rope hard about his neck, and in this condition rolled him seven times the whole length of the room, till he almost quite strangled. After this they tied a small cord about both his great toes, and hung him up thereby with his head down, letting him remain in this condition till all the water discharged itself out of his mouth, so that he was laid on the ground as just dead, and had his irons put on him again. But beyond all expectation, and by a very singular accident, he was delivered out of jail, escaped death, and fortunately sailed home to England.b

Details of another revolting case are quoted by Limborch from an official contemporary document, which may best be reproduced here in its original form.a

THE PROCEEDINGS AGAINST AN ENGLISHWOMAN

Elizabeth Vasconcellos, now in the city of Lisbon, doth, on the 10th day of December, anno 1706, in the presence of John Milner, Esq., her majesty’s consul-general of Portugal, and Joseph Willcocks, minister of the English factory at Lisbon, declare and testify:

That she was born at Arlington, in the county of Devon, and a daughter of John Chester, Esq., bred up in the church of England; and in the eleventh year of her age her uncle, David Morgan, of Cork, intending to go and settle in Jamaica as a physician, by her father’s consent, he having several children, took her with him to provide for her.

In 1685, they went in an English ship, and near the island they were attacked by two Turkish ships; in the fight her uncle was killed, but the ship got clear into Madeira, and she, though left destitute, was entertained by Mr. Bedford, a merchant, with whom, and other English, she lived as a servant till 1696. In that year she was married by the chaplain of an English man-of-war to Cordoza de Vasconcellos, a physician of that island, and lived with him eight years, and never in the least conformed to the Romish church.

In 1704, her husband being gone on a voyage to Brazil, she fell dangerously ill, and, being light-headed, a priest gave her the sacrament, as she was told afterwards, for she remembered nothing of it. It pleased God she recovered, and then they told her she had changed her religion, and must conform to the Romish church, which she denied and refused to conform; and thereupon, by the bishop of that island, she was imprisoned nine months, and then sent prisoner to the Inquisition at Lisbon, where she arrived the 19th of December, 1705. The secretary of the house took her effects, in all above £500; she was then sworn, that that was all she was worth, and then put into a straight dark room, about five feet square, and there kept nine months and fifteen days.

That the first nine days she had only bread and water, and a wet straw bed to lie on. On the ninth day, being examined, she owned herself a Protestant, and would so continue; she was told she had conformed to the Romish church, and must persist in it or burn, she was then remanded to her room; and after a month’s time brought out again, and persisting in her answer as to her religion, they bound her hands behind her, stripped her back naked, and lashed her with a whip of knotted cords a considerable time, and told her afterwards that she must kneel down to the court, and give thanks for their merciful usage of her, which she positively refused to do.

After fifteen days she was again brought forth and examined, and a crucifix being set before her, she was commanded to bow down to it and worship it, which she refusing to do, they told her that she must expect to be condemned to the flames, and be burned with the Jews, at the next auto da fé, which was nigh at hand. Upon this she was remanded to her prison again for thirty days, and being then brought out, a red hot iron was got ready, and brought to her in a chafing-dish of burning coals, and her breast being laid open, the executioner, with one end of the red hot iron, which was about the bigness of a large seal, burned her to the bone in three several places, on the right side, one hard by the other, and then sent her to her prison, without any plaster, or other application, to heal the sores, which were very painful to her.

A month after this she had another severe whipping, as before; and in the beginning of August she was brought before the table, a great number of inquisitors being present, and was questioned, whether she would profess the Romish religion or burn. She replied, she had always been a Protestant, and was a subject of the queen of England, who was able to protect her, and she doubted not would do it, were her condition known to the English residing in Lisbon; but as she knew nothing of that, her resolution was to continue a Protestant, though she were to burn for it. To this they answered that her being the queen of England’s subject signified nothing in the dominions of the king of Portugal; that the English residing in Lisbon were heretics, and would certainly be damned; and that it was the mercy of that tribunal to endeavour to rescue her out of the flames of hell, but if her resolution were to burn rather than profess the Romish religion, they would give her a trial of it beforehand.

Accordingly the officers were ordered to seat her in a fixed chair, and to bind her arms and her legs, that she could make no resistance, nor motion, and the physician being placed by her, to direct the court how far they might torture her without hazard of life, her left foot was made bare, and an iron slipper, red hot, being immediately brought in, her foot was fastened into it, which continued on burning her to the bone, till such time as by extremity of pain she fainted away, and the physician declaring her life was in danger, they took it off, and ordered her again to her prison.

On the 19th of August she was again brought out, and whipped after a cruel manner, and her back was all over torn, and being threatened with more and greater tortures, and, on the other hand, being promised to be set at liberty if she would subscribe such a paper as they should give her, though she could have undergone death, yet not being able to endure a life of so much misery, she consented to subscribe, as they would have her, and accordingly, as she was directed wrote at the bottom of a large paper, which contained she knew not what; after which they advised her to avoid the company of all English heretics, and not restoring to her anything of all the plate, goods, or money she brought in with her, and engaging her by oath to keep secret all that had been done to her, turned her out of doors, destitute of all relief, but what she received from the help and compassion of charitable Christians.