The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History by Annie Wood Besant
page 356 of 369 (96%)
page 356 of 369 (96%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
Stripped to his shirt, he was placed on the _chevalet_ (a narrow frame,
wherein the body was laid, with no support save a pole across the middle), and his feet were raised higher than his head; tightly twisted cords cut through his flesh, and were twisted yet tighter and tighter as the torture proceeded; fine linen, thrust into his mouth and throat, added to the unnatural position, made breathing well nigh impossible, and on the linen water slowly fell, drop by drop, from a suspended vessel over his head, till every struggling breath stained the cloth with blood (see "Histoire critique de l'Inquisition d'Espagne," t. II., pp. 20-23, ed. 1818). This Spanish Inquisition, during its existence, punished heretics as follows:-- Burnt alive ....................... 31,912 Burnt in effigy.................... 17,659 Heavily punished................... 291,450 ------- Total 341,021 (Ibid, t. IV. p. 271). Add to this list the ruined families, some of whose members fell victims to the Inquisition, and then--remembering that Spain was but one of the countries which it desolated--let the student judge of the huge total of human agony caused by this awful institution. Nor must it be forgotten that its dungeons did not gape only for those who opposed the pretensions of Rome; men of science, philosophers, thinkers, all these were its foes; Llorente gives a list of no less than 119 learned and eminent scientific men who, in Spain alone, fell under the scourge of the Inquisition (see t. II. pp. 417-483). |
|