The Inquisition - Torture
The Church was responsible for having introduced torture into the proceedings of the Inquisition. This cruel practice was introduced by Innocent IV in 1252. Torture had left too terrible an impression upon the minds of the early Christians to permit of their employing it in their own tribunals. The barbarians who founded the commonwealths of Europe, with the exception of the Visigoths, knew nothing of this brutal method of extorting confessions. The only thing of the kind which they allowed was flogging, which, according to St. Augustine, was rather akin to the correction of children by their parents.
Gratian, who recommends it in his Decretum, lays it down as an "accepted rule of canon law that no confession is to be extorted by torture." Besides, Nicholas I, in his instructions to the Bulgarians, had formally denounced the torturing of prisoners. He advised that the testimony of three persons be required for conviction; if these could not be obtained, the prisoner's oath upon the Gospels was to be considered sufficient.
The ecclesiastical tribunals borrowed from Germany another method of proving crime, viz., the ordeals, or judgments of God. There was the duel, the ordeal of the cross, the ordeal of boiling water, the ordeal of fire, and the ordeal of cold water. They had a great vogue in nearly all the Latin countries, especially in Germany and France. But about the twelfth century they deservedly fell into great disfavor, until at last the Popes, particularly Innocent III, Honorius III, and Gregory IX, legislated them out of existence.
At the very moment the Popes were condemning the ordeals, the revival of the Roman law throughout the West was introducing the customs of antiquity. It was then that jurists began to feel the need of torture, and accustom themselves to the idea of its introduction. The earliest instances occur in the Veronese code of 1228, and the Sicilian constitutions of Frederic II in 1231, and in both of these the references to it show how sparingly and hesitatingly it was employed. Even Frederic, in his ruthless edicts, from 1220 to 1239, makes no allusion to it, but in accordance with the Verona decree of Lucius III, prescribes the recognized form of canonical purgation for the trial of all suspected heretics.
Innocent IV, feeling undoubtedly that it was a quick and effective method for detecting criminals, authorized the tribunals of the Inquisition to employ it. In his bull Ad Extirpanda, he says: "The podesta or ruler (of the city) is hereby ordered to force all captured heretics to confess and accuse their accomplices by torture which will not imperil life or injure limb, just as thieves and robbers are forced to accuse their accomplices, and to confess their crimes; for these heretics are true thieves, murderers of souls, and robbers of the sacraments of God."
Besides flogging, the other punishments inflicted upon those who refused to confess the crime of which they were accused were antecedent imprisonment, the rack, the strappado, and the burning coals. The rack was a triangular frame, on which the prisoner was stretched and bound, so that he could not move. Cords were attached to his arms and legs, and then connected with a windlass, which, when turned, dislocated the joints of the wrists and ankles.
The strappado or vertical rack was no less painful. The prisoner with his hands tied behind his back was raised by a rope attached to a pulley and windlass to the top of a gallows, or to the ceiling of the torture chamber; he was then let fall with a jerk to within a few inches of the ground. This was repeated several times. The cruel torturers sometimes tied weights to the victim's feet to increase the shock of the fall.
The punishment of burning, "although a very dangerous punishment," as an Inquisitor wrote, was occasionally used. First a good fire was started; then the victim was stretched out on the ground, his feet manacled, and turned toward the flame. Grease, fat, or some other combustible substance was rubbed upon them, so that they were horribly burned. From time to time a screen was placed between the victim's feet and the brazier, that the Inquisitor might have an opportunity to resume his interrogatory.
Torture was not to be employed until the judge had been convinced that gentle means were of no avail. Even in the torture chamber, while the prisoner was being stripped of his garments and was being bound, the Inquisitor kept urging him to confess his guilt. On his refusal, the vexatio began with slight tortures. If these proved ineffectual, others were applied with gradually increased severity; at the very beginning, the victim was shown all the various instruments of torture, in order that the mere sight of them might terrify him into yielding.
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