A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

Censorship of the press was not the least effective function of the Inquisition in arresting the development of the Spanish intellect. That it should suppress the utterance of h...

We have seen that, in the progress of the Reconquest, as Moorish territories were successively won, the inhabitants were largely allowed to remain, under guarantees for the free...

As the apostasy of the enforced converts from Judaism was the proximate cause of the establishment of the Spanish Holy Office, so they continued to be almost the exclusive objec...

The fate of the little band of Spanish Protestants has, not unnaturally, excited the earnest sympathy of modern students. Much has been written about them; their works have been...

The procedure of the Inquisition was directed to procuring conviction rather than justice, and in some respects it bore a resemblance to that of the confessional. The guilt of t...

Although at first sight the use of the lash, as a persuasive to correct religious belief, may appear somewhat incongruous, it must be borne in mind that, under the euphemy of th...

To the modern mind the judicial use of torture, as a means of ascertaining truth, is so repellant and illogical that we are apt to forget that it has, from the most ancient time...

In the infliction of punishment, the Inquisition differed from secular courts in one important respect. Public law provided for impenitent heresy death by fire and confiscation,...

The condemnation of a human being to a death by fire, as the penalty of spiritual error, is so abhorrent to the moral sense and so oppugnant to the teachings of Christ, that mod...

The Act of Faith--the Auto de Fe--was the name by which the Spanish Holy Office dignified the _Sermo_ of the Old Inquisition. In its full development it was an elaborate public...

In the preceding chapter the general penal system of the Inquisition has been considered, but for its proper comprehension a brief exposition of its several penalties is requisi...