Inquisition - Use of Torture

Use of Torture

Torture was previously forbidden by canon law but in 1252 Pope Innocent IV sanctioned the use of torture and also granted dispensation for the inquisitors to be present during its application.

• Psychological Torture: was a potent weapon in the hands of the inquisitors. Prisoners were confronted with friends and relatives begging a confession;canon law still only permitted torture to be used once but actually it could be repeated after a delay by the use of the legal device of continuance the psychology of delay including continuance was common, lifting and lowering hopes sometimes over a period of years; prisoners were kept in a state of ignorance of their fate and that of their families and often a strict regime of confinement in chains or other devices on a meagre diet was employed.
• Physical torture: In Spain the usual method was to bind the arms tightly behind the back, attach heavy weights to the legs, lift the victim from the ground by means of a pulley and then jerk down. An alternate waterboarding method was to strap the victim by the arms, waist, thighs and calves to a trestle like a ladder with sharp rungs and tighten the ropes, lacerating the flesh. The trestle was sloped head down, the head restrained and the mouth forced open with iron devices. Water was then intermittently introduced into the throat inducing gagging and vomiting. The more familiar rack was also used in later years, along with thumbscrews and other instruments.
• Humiliation: Victims, both men and women, were usually tortured naked. In addition, the victim were told that if they died under torture, that the Church would consider that they had committed suicide and would go straight to hell; whereas from the point of view of the torturers they had merely made a mistake or accident.
• Relationship with Civil Law: Since the Church 'shed no blood' the guilty had to be handed over to the civil authorities for final punishment. Civil authorities only usually used torture as a means of actual punishment to the guilty, or as a means of gaining forensic information from criminals. And unlike the inquisition often forbade the torture of women with its sexual overtones. However, most of the torture methods the inquisition used were the same; the exception being those used in Germany and the Low Countries where other devices were used.