Most historians have said little or nothing about the money side of the Inquisition. Lea was the first to give it the attention it deserved. He writes "In addition to the misery inflicted by these wholesale confiscations on the thousands of innocent and helpless women and children thus stripped of everything, it would be almost impossible to exaggerate the evil which they entailed upon all classes in the business of daily life."[1] There was indeed very little security in business, for the contracts of a hidden heretic were essentially null and void, and could be rescinded as soon as his guilt was discovered, either during his lifetime or after his death. In view of such a penal code, we can understand why Lea should write: "While the horrors of the crowded dungeon can scarce be exaggerated, yet more effective for evil and more widely exasperating was the sleepless watchfulness which was ever on the alert to plunder the rich and to wrench from the poor the hard-earned gains on which a family depended for support."[2]
This summary of the acts of the Inquisition is at best but a brief and very imperfect outline. But a more complete study would not afford us any deeper insight into its operation.
Human passions are responsible for the many abuses of the Inquisition. The civil power in heresy trials was far from being partial to the accused. On the contrary, it would seem that the more pressure the State brought to bear upon the ecclesiastical tribunals, the more arbitrary their procedure became.
We do not deny that the zeal of the Inquisitors was at times excessive, especially in the use of torture. But some of their cruelty may be explained by their sincere desire for the salvation of the heretic. They regarded the confession of the suspects as the beginning of their conversion. They therefore believed any means used for that purpose justified. They thought that an Inquisitor had done something praiseworthy, when, even at the cost of cruel torments, he freed a heretic from his heresy. He was sorry indeed to be obliged to use force; but that was not altogether his fault, but the fault of the laws which he had to enforce.
Most men regard the _auto-da-fé_ as the worst horror of the Inquisition. It is hardly ever pictured without burning flames and ferocious looking executioners. But an _auto-da-fé_ did not necessarily call for either stake or executioner. It was simply a solemn "Sermon," which the heretics about to be condemned had to attend.[1] The death penalty was not always inflicted at these solemnities, which were intended to impress the imagination of the people. Seven out of eighteen _autos-da-fé_ presided over by the famous Inquisitor, Bernard Gui, decreed no severer penalty than imprisonment.