That it should be used by the Inquisition was a matter of course, for the crime of heresy was often one peculiarly difficult to prove; confession was sought in all cases and, from the middle of the thirteenth century, the habitual employment of torture by the Holy Office had been the most efficient factor in spreading its use throughout Christendom, at the expense of the obsolescent Barbarian customs. It is true that Spain was loath to admit the innovation. In Castile, which rejected the Inquisition, Alfonso X, notwithstanding his admiration of the Roman law, required that confession must be voluntary and insisted that, if obtained by torture, it must subsequently be freely ratified, without threats or pressure.[2] In the kingdoms of Aragon, which admitted the Inquisition, torture remained illegal, and it was only by the positive commands of Clement V that it was employed, in 1311, on the Templars.[3] By the time that the Spanish Inquisition was organized, however, torture in Castile was in daily use by the criminal courts, and there could be no question as to the propriety of its employment by the Holy Office. In Aragon, Peña tells us that, although it was forbidden in secular jurisprudence, it was freely permitted in matters of faith. Yet its use was jealously watched, for when the aid of torture was sought in the case of a prisoner accused of the murder of a familiar, the Córtes of 1646 complained of it as an unprecedented innovation, which was only prevented by the active intervention of the diputados and viceroy.[4] Valencia had been less rigid in excluding torture from its courts, but so limited its use that, in 1684, the tribunal reported that, in cases of unnatural crime (of which it had cognizance, subject to the condition of trial by secular process), it no longer used torture, because the methods permitted by the fueros were so light that the accused felt no fear of them, and they were useless in extracting confession.[5]
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 Archbishop Pedro de Castro of Granada, it was notorious that no one confessed except when overcome by torture.[6]