The Inquisition, again.

Over at Religious Dispatches, Gordon Haber reviews "God's Jury," which appears to be a book by a modern secularist that tries to make the Inquisition the ur-source of evil in the modern world.

Haber begins his review with a lengthy description of a travesty of humanity and mercy in the form of the judicial torture of a woman named Elvira del Campos for being a suspected "secret Jew" on account of her dislike of pork and unwillingness to change the linen on any day but Sunday.

The description of the torture sessions is not for the weak of stomach, and, frankly, sounds like the Protestant and Anti-Spanish accounts that supplied a demand for crypto-pornography as described in Edward Peters book on the Inquisition.

A problem with Haber's account is that he actually cites to a 19th Century text on the Inquisition by Henry Charles Lea, who starts by pointing out that torture was used less by the Inquisition than by secular authorities, and that abuses of torture by the Inquisition were rare.

That doesn't restrain his readers from indulging in a "two minute hate" against Catholicism, particularly since Haber doesn't mention that part.

So, I wrote the following - thereby opening myself up to a "two minute hate":

First, kudos on the author for citing to some authority in support of his contentions. This area in particular is fraught with legend and misinformation.

Second, nonetheless it seems that the author let the lurid get the better of him. The story he tells about Elvira del Campo is awful, but if we are going to have an intelligent discussion about whether the Inquisition was the cause of the woes of the modern world, oughtn't we be interested in finding out whether the Inquisition represented something new and worse in the annals of humanity's bad behavior? Otherwise, it will look like, maybe, the Inquisition wasn't the source of bad things in the modern world, that the source might be something else that remains with us, such as the state or politics or ideology.

When we look at the source for the author's comments at footnote 2 we are directed to a book written by Henry Charles Lea in the 19th Century. That's something of a bad start since there was a history of the "Black Legend" and anti-catholic know-nothingism that permeated the English-speaking world.

But, surprisingly, with all that baggage, here's what Lea writes:

"We shall see that occasionally tribunals abused the use of torture, but the popular impression that the inquisitorial torture-chamber was the scene of exceptional refinement in cruelty, of specially ingenious modes of inflicting agony, and of peculiar, persistence in extorting confessions, is an error due to sensational writers who have exploited credulity. The system was evil in conception and in execution, but the Spanish Inquisition, at least, was not responsible for its introduction and, as a rule, was less cruel than the secular courts in its application, and confined itself more strictly to a few well-known methods. In fact, we may reasonably assume that its use of torture was less frequent, for its scientific system of breaking down resistance, in its long-drawn procedure, was more effective than the ruder and speedier practice of the secular courts where, as we are told by [3] Archbishop Pedro de Castro of Granada, it was notorious that no one confessed except when overcome by torture. (6)

Lea continues:

"In this respect, the comparison between the Spanish and the Roman Inquisition is also eminently in favor of the former. We shall have occasion presently to see the limitations which it placed on the use of torture, while in Rome it was the rule that all who confessed or were convicted in matters of faith were tortured for the further discovery of the truth and the revelation of accomplices. In addition to this there were many classes of cases in which torture was employed by Rome to extort confession and in which it was forbidden in Spain--those involving mere presumption of heresy, such as solicitation, sorcery, blasphemy etc. Moreover in Rome the in arbitrio judicum applied not only to the kind and duration of the torture but also to its repetition. (7) Spanish writers on practice, therefore, were justified in claiming for their own tribunals a sparing use of torture unknown in Italy, while, as regards its severity, the frequency with which in the trials we find that the accused overcame the torture would indicate that habitually it was not carried to extremity, as it so frequently was in the secular courts. No torture-chamber in the Inquisition possessed the resources of the corregidor who labored for three hours, in 1612, to obtain from Diego Duke of Estrada confession of a homicide--the water torture, the mancuerda, the potro, hot irons for the feet, hot bricks for the stomach and buttocks, garrotillos known as bone-breakers, the trampa to tear the legs and the bostezo to distend the mouth--and all this was an every-day matter of criminal justice. (8)"

So, the "popular impression" of inquisitorial torture is wrong, even though there were "occasional" abuses, but nothing like the use of torture that was institutionalized in contemporary "every-day" matters of criminal justice.

OK...yes...that was certainly the impression that I was left with when I read the article.

Also, given the prior comments, I certainly sense that other readers also formed the understanding that the "popular impression" of inquisitorial torture is wrong, even though there were "occasional" abuses, but nothing like the use of torture that was institutionalized in contemporary "every-day" matters of criminal justice.

But, of course, if people were, you know, restrained from the lurid details and had to focus on the more nuanced reality of the facts, then they wouldn't be able to indulge in that soul-satisfying "two-minute hate" against Catholicism.

The case of Elvira del Campos is awful, and you have to wonder how the Spanish Inquisition would have proceeded in that context when it refused to prosecute witchcraft.

Unlike the Protestant countries that burned witches, there was no burning of witches in Spain because the Spanish Inquisition thought that those claims were nonsense.

As with most things, the answer is probably (a) Elvira del Campos may have been a secret Jew (not that I think there is anything wrong with that) and (b) paranoia and irrationality fluctuates from age to age and culture to culture.

That ought to be the take-away from history, not that there is some particular virus of irrationality in Spanish or Catholic culture.

Here is the Henry Charles Lea source.

I can write the posts, I am going to get - I'm excusing torture, I'm biased, I'm ignoring all the evil that the Catholic Church has done, the Crusades, pedophilia, etc., etc.

*Sigh*

But what about, you know, historical accuracy in this one area?