ART. IV. THE HOLY INQUISITION AT GOA
BY E. REHATSEK.

The tribunals.

the Portuguese dominions there were four Inquisitions : three in Portugal itself, namely, in Lisbon, Coimbra, and Devora, and the fourth in India, at Goa, where it had been established in 1560. These were all sovereign tribunals from which no appeal could be made, and all their decisions were final. The jurisdiction of the Inquisition of Goa extended over all the Portuguese dominions beyond the Cape of Good Hope. Besides these four tribunals there was also a grand council of the Inquisition, presided over by the Inquisitor-General. This tribunal was the highest of all, and was informed of everything done by the others. Besides the honour, the great authority, and the salaries attached to the offices of all the Inquisitors, they enjoyed also two other sources of income: the first was the despatch of their menials to make bids in auctions when any rare or costly objects belonging to prisoners were being sold, on which occasions nobody would have been bold enough to bid against them; the second was the privilege of sending orders to the royal treasury on the goods confiscated from prisoners and kept there for the secret service of the Holy Office, which orders were always paid in cash without any one daring to ask for what purposes the sums were required.

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All the Inquisitors were nominated by the king, and confirmed by the Pope, from whom they obtained their bulls, and whom alone they obeyed. In Goa the Grand Inquisitor was much more respected than the Archbishop, or even the Viceroy. His authority extended over all the laity and the clergy, excepting only the Archbishop, his Vicar, who was usually a Bishop, and the Viceroy; but even these he could throw into prison after previously informing the Court of Portugal, and after having received secret orders to that effect from the Supreme Council of the Inquisition of Lisbon the Conselho Supremo.

As the Archbishops of Goa with their canons were on several occasions accused of having disturbed the peace, the Viceroy was in such cases authorised, by an apostolical brief, dated the 10th March

1635, and communicated to him in a royal letter of the saine month and year, to cause the diocese to be governed by the Inquisitor (Portugal_eos estrangeiros T. I. P. 69 Pov. M. B. Bramo. Lisbon, 1879.)

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The house of the Inquisition, the santa casa, or, better, santo officio, was large and magnificent. The natives The Inquisition in Goa. still remember it with awe and trembling, pointing out its ruins in old Goa as those of the "Great House" which they call Orlem gur in their own language. There were two Inquisitors in Goa: the first of them, the Inquisidor mor (contracted from maior), or Grand Inquisitor, was always a secular priest, and the second a monk of the order of St. Dominic. The Holy Office had also functionaries called deputados (deputies) do santo officio, who belonged to every kind of religious order, were present at the examinations and judgments of prisoners, but never came to the tribunal unless invited by the Inquisitors. There were others, the calificadores do santo officio, whose duty it was to examine books supposed to contain sentiments contrary to the faith, and to make their reports. There were also advocates for such prisoners as asked for them; they served, however, much less for defending the accused than for ascertaining their most secret feelings, and for deceiving them. Even if no grounds for suspecting the honesty of these advocates had existed, their services could not have been of much use to the accused, because they spoke to them always in the presence of their judges, or of persons appointed by the latter to give them an account of such conferences. The Inquisition had also other officers, called familiares do santo officio, who might be called the police-constables of the tribunal. Every body in Goa, even of the highest class, felt honoured by being employed on such a noble duty. The accused were arrested by these familiares, and usually one of the same condition of life with the accused was sent to make him prisoner. These officers had no salary, but considered themselves sufficiently rewarded by the honour they imagined themselves to enjoy by serving so holy a tribunal. All of them wore, as a badge of honour, a golden medal, on which the arms of the Holy Office were engraved. They made their arrests quite alone, and as soon as a man was informed that the Inquisitors wanted him, he at once followed the officer without any reply, because even the smallest resistance would not fail to enlist the services of every body to enforce the execution of the orders of the Holy Office. Besides these officers, there were also secretaries, real police-men called Meirinhos; an Alcaide or jailor, and guards to watch the prisoners and to carry them their food as well as other necessaries.

As all the prisoners occupied separate cells, and it happened but seldom that two were put into one; four men were found more than sufficient to guard two hundred of them. The Inqui

sition enforced complete and perpetual silence to such a degree that prisoners complaining, weeping, or even praying to God aloud, were in the greatest danger of being chastised with sticks by the guards, who came running at the least noise they heard and warned the transgressors to remain silent. If the second admonition was not obeyed, the watchmen opened the doors and struck the prisoners mercilessly, not only to chastise them, but to intimidate the others, all of whom heard the blows and their cries, in the deep silence prevalent everywhere. The Alcaide and the watchmen were always in the corridors, and slept there in the night.

The Inquisitor, accompanied by a secretary and an interpreter, visited the prisoners every two months, to ask them whether they stood in need of anything, whether they received their food at the stated hours, and whether they had any complaints to make against the officers with whom they came in contact. As soon as these three questions had been answered, the door was promptly shut again; and the visits were made only for the purpose of parading the kindness and justice of which this tribunal boasted; they were of no use, and procured no relief to the prisoners who proffered their complaints, and who were not treated more kindly than before. The rich prisoners fared no better than the poor. All were supported from the property of the accused, which the Holy Office very seldom failed to confiscate whether they were guilty or not. When a person was arrested, he was first asked his name,

Formalities which were observed.

profession, and condition of life; then he was exhorted to make an accurate declaration of all his property, and, to induce him to do so more easily, he was informed that if he were found innocent, everything he possessed would again be honestly restored to him, but that in the contrary case, even if he should be proved innocent, everything that might afterwards be discovered to belong to him which he had not avowed, would remain confiscated. As nearly everybody was convinced of the holiness and integrity of the tribunal, persons whose conscience reproached them with no crime, had no doubt that their innocence would ultimately be found out and their liberty restored, and they never scrupled to reveal to the officials of the Inquisition even the most private affairs concerning themselves and their families.

As far as external appearances were concerned there was no tribunal in the world which meted out justice with more meekness and charity.

Although the Inquisition considered two or three witnesses sufficient to imprison a man, it never contented itself with less than

seven to condemn him. No matter how heinous his crime might have been, the Holy Office contented itself with the ecclesiastic punishment of excommunication and confiscation of property, and interceded for the criminal with the civil jurisdiction for his temporal punishments; if he was to suffer capital punishment, it must at least take place without effusion of blood-he was burnt at the stake. A European was always strangled before being committed to the flames; but a native was tied alive to the stake and thus burnt!

The clemency implied by the number of witnesses required for condemnation was nugatory, inasmuch as they were never confronted with the accused. All sorts of persons were accepted as those witnesses, even whose interest it was to see the accused condemned. The testimony of even the most notoriously unworthy witnesses could not be invalidated, and no body was allowed to depose against them. Supposed accomplices were made witnesses, and tortured* to confess crimes never committed, and, to save their lives, inculpated innocent men. Some prisoners could not be committed without accomplices, for instance, such as were accused of having assisted at the Jewish Sabbath, or having taken part in superstitious ceremonies. Hindu converts were often accused of magic and sorcery, because they were believed to be intent on dis. covering secret matters, and predicting future events by such means only. The origin of the term cristam novo, or new Christian, applied to native converts, had its origin in Europe. When

There were three principal kinds of torture, namely, by the rope, by water, and by fire. In the first kind, which was called corda, the arms of the prisoner were tied behind with a rope, by which he was hoisted by a pulley to various heights, and suddenly dropped to the ground; this operation lasted for an hour or longer, according to his strength. When this torture did not produce the required confession, the accused was subjected to the trial by water, a great quantity of which he was compelled to swallow, in a recumbent position, on a kind of bed which had an iron bar beneath; if he was recalcitrant, this was withdrawn, so that he fell to the ground, and the process was repeated till he yelled with incredible pain. But the fire-torture was yet more horrible, as the soles of

the poor wretch's feet were exposed to the flames, till he confessed whatever was desired.

When a prisoner was condemned to be tortured, the guards led him into a subterraneous apartment, the casa dos tormentos, so arrranged that his lamentations could not be heard. By the scanty light entering through an aperture from above, the accused could discern the Inquisitors, who exhorted him to confess the crime imputed to him, and a spectre-like masked figure to apply the torture, in case of refusal. The pains inflicted were so excruciating and weakening, that it became sometimes necessary to call in the doctor of the Inquisition in order to consult him whether the prisoner could endure yet further tortures without expiring under them.

the Jews were expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella, many took refuge in Portugal, where they were received on condition of embracing Christianity, which they did, and obtained the sobriquet above named; this distinction survived and was carried even to Goa, where persons whose great-grandfathers had already been Christians, and who had intermarried with old Christians, or cristams velhos, still bore this stigma, and were alluded to as being partly new Christians, tem parte de cristam novo. Thus even in the capital of Portuguese India two factions often furnished the Holy Inquisition with victims, by incriminating each other. Thus it happened that not seldom a so-called new Christian was arrested by the Holy Inquisition, accused not only by seven, but by seventy-seven witnesses, if required, and brought before his judges. Being convinced of his own innocence, he made a full declaration of his property on the understanding that it would soon again be restored to him, but he was scarcely shut up in prison, than it was all sold by auction and lost to him for ever.

Let us now follow the career of this unfortunate man after he has been imprisoned:-Several months having been allowed to elapse before he was brought to what was called the audience, where he was asked why he had been cast into prison, he naturally replied that he did not know, and was exhorted seriously to consider the matter and voluntarily to reveal the cause, because he could only thus hope to recover his liberty speedily. Then he was sent back to his dungeon. He was from time to time again brought before the audience, but no other reply could be got out of him. Meanwhile the time of the duto du fé, or Act of Faith, was approaching, the Promoter made his appearance, and declared to him that he was accused by a good many witnesses, of having judaized, that is to say, of having observed the ceremonies of the Law of Moses, such as not eating pork, of having kept solemnly the Sabbath-day, partaken of the Paschal lamb, and the like. He was then adjured "by the bowels of mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ" to confess his crimes of his own accord, as the only means of saving his life, and was told that the Holy Office would use all possible means to preserve it. The innocent man persisted in excusing himself, whereon he was condemned, as convicto negativo (namely, as a criminal who had been found guilty without his own fession), to be delivered to the secular power in order to undergo punishment according to Law; that is to say, to be burned.

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For all that, however, the man was still exhorted to accuse himself, and told that, if he did so on the eve of the Act of Faith, he might yet save his life. If, however, he still obstinately persisted in asserting his innocence, in spite of all the solicitations made to him to accuse himself, his sentence of death was