You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (24 page)

The Inquisition was officially limited to heresies—that is, false beliefs of
church members. However, any act in violation of the Church’s canons could be creatively interpreted as false belief. For example, a priest who had a concubine was not punished for his lechery, but for his belief that putting on the sacred vestments purified him in his daily conduction of mass.

Those found guilty by the Inquisition were not punished. As mentioned above, the Inquisition only prescribed penance. Penance was a “voluntary” deed to redeem oneself with God. Interestingly, the harshest penance was burning at the stake.
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This was reserved for those who failed to complete their original penance, relapsed into heresy, or refused to confess. Burnings were not common, although it did not take many public mass burnings (
autos da fé
) to have the desired effect.
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Other penances were used more frequently. Flogging was commonplace. Every Sunday the heretic was stripped in front of the congregation and lashed by the priest during mass. This could go on for her entire life, or until the Inquisitor remembered/decided to liberate her. Another prevalent penance was wearing conspicuous orange or red cloth crosses on the chest and back for the rest of one’s life.
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The stigma of these made ridicule common, and employment difficult if not impossible.

The guilty would also be sent on pilgrimages to holy places or on crusades (soldier missions for the Church). Pilgrimages to holy destinations in distant places were no easy task and could take years. Usually the pilgrim would be flogged by a priest at the holy destination, given documentation of his arrival, and then sent back. Families back home could perish without the protection and support of the penitent. However, the Church forbid mitigating penance for age, sickness, pregnancy, or dependents. For socializing with heretics, one ninety-year-old man was required to travel over one thousand miles round-trip from Southern France to Northwest Spain.

Imprisonment was also a common penance. The horrible conditions of medieval prisons meant that inhabitants frequently died of illness or went insane. Because these penances were “voluntary,” the request to other jurisdictions for an escapee’s capture and return would describe the fugitive as “one insanely led to reject the salutary medicine offered for his cure, and to spurn the wine and oil which were soothing his wounds.”
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The torture used to judge one’s innocence and to root out fellow heretics was even worse than the penances. The most common method of torture was called the hoist or “the queen of torments.”
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In the hoist, a person’s wrists were tied behind his or her back with a rope. The person was then lifted by this rope and held elevated for a period of time. In addition to the excruciating pain, the hoist could dislocate one’s shoulders and cut the flesh of their wrists. Weights could be added to the person’s feet for added effect. Sometimes the victim would be partially lowered with a sudden jerk halting their descent. This could tear limbs asunder.

The Inquisition’s form of water torture was called the “Wooden Horse.” The Wooden Horse was developed and favored by the Dutch Inquisition. It involved tying someone horizontally to a wooden bench, known as the “horse.” An iron band kept the person’s head immobile and an iron prong kept their mouth open. The nostrils were plugged, and a strip of linen was shoved down the throat. Water was then dripped onto the linen. As the linen became totally damp the person would be forced to inhale the linen, choking themselves. The linen, often bloodied, would be pulled out before death would occur, and the process repeated.
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Another common method was the rack. The rack was a structure on which the accused was laid and secured. Cords would tie the wrists and ankles to beams. A rod would be placed between the cord and the person’s limb and then twisted. This twisting constricted the cord, and as it got progressively tighter caused the tearing away of skin and flesh.

Other torture used in the Inquisition included rubbing body parts with lard or grease and roasting them, or lighting aflame only certain body parts through the use of sulfur. Leg-screws, thumb-screws and toe-screws would crush bone. Slowly dripping water on a forehead would bring about insanity.
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One creative torture technique involved putting a large dish of mice upside down on a victim’s stomach. A fire was then lit on top of the dish and the alarmed mice would then burrow into the stomach. Those tortured were often stripped completely naked,
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and the tools used would frequently be blessed with holy water and inscribed with “Glory be only to God.”
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It is difficult to appreciate the effect the Inquisition had on the psychology of the people. Anyone could accuse anyone of anything. Children were to inform on parents, spouses on each other. This backstabbing was encouraged by the fact that merely interacting with heretics was heresy. In 1322 an Inquisitor sentenced three men to perform seventeen pilgrimages. Their malfeasance was that fifteen to twenty years earlier they had seen heretical teachers in their fathers’ homes without knowing what they were.
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Informants were also entitled to a portion of the heretic’s confiscated property, thus adding incentive to anyone looking to settle a grudge.
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One historian wrote about the Spanish Inquisition, “Petty denunciations were the rule rather than the exception.”
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He gave as an example a woman who was reported to the Inquisition for smiling when hearing the Virgin Mary mentioned.

A Spaniard wrote in the 1490s that: “[People] were deprived of the liberty to hear and talk freely, since in all the cities, towns, and villages there were persons to give information of what went on. This was considered by some the most wretched slavery and equal to death.”
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As no one could be certain of the piousness of another, distrust seeped into every daily interaction. In 1538 a writer wrote of the Spanish Inquisition’s effects in the city of Toledo:

Over time, the ruthless Inquisition helped transform rational and natural sexual attitudes into those filled with anxiety and guilt.
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The Inquisition did not end until 1816.

The Church’s harsh treatment of the general populace did not extend to the rulers of medieval Europe. Although extremely wealthy and powerful, the Church’s papal army was insignificant, and relied on the secular authorities to enforce its edicts.
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The cooperation varied widely from area to area, and from time period to time period. However, the Church’s ability to manipulate this situation was critically hampered in the fifteenth century by deepening corruption.

Foul play and malfeasance had been rife in the Church ever since its bureaucratic inception with Constantine. Less than thirty years after his death in 337 A.D., Damasus became pope only after his supporters trapped 137 supporters of his rival in a church and killed them.
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Other examples of papal corruption included the ninth century’s Pope Stephen VII, who exhumed his predecessor and put the eleven-month-old rotting corpse on trial after garbing it in full pontifical vestments.
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The tenth century had John XII, who was charged with accepting payments for ordaining bishops, blinding one member of the clergy, killing another by castration, and bedding numerous women, including his own niece. He later had one of his accusers’ tongue pulled out, another lost a hand, and another lost a nose and some fingers.
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However, John XII was merely ahead of his time in selling an ordination. By the fourteenth century everything was for sale. This not only included positions in the Church (simony), but also rulings, adjudications, indulgences, absolutions, and relics.
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The papacy’s degradation hit its nadir at the end of the fifteenth century with Alexander VI, formerly known as Rodrigo Borgia. As a young Cardinal, Borgia received a sharp rebuke from Pope Pius II for throwing an unruly party/orgy in
Siena, Italy, in which Siena’s most beautiful young women had been invited but their male relations had not.
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Borgia would eventually have ten known children.

Four notable children were fathered by Rosa Vannozza dei Catanei, the young daughter of one of his favorite mistresses. According to Roman legend, when Borgia was copulating with Vannozza dei Catanei’s mother, his attention was drawn to Vannozza dei Catanei’s naked adolescent body lying beside them. Her spread legs were mimicking her mother’s thrusts, but with a rhythmic rotation of the hips that so enticed Borgia he swapped partners mid-stroke.

Borgia enjoyed bedding married women and was particularly aroused if he had been the one to officiate her vows. He married Vannozza dei Catanei off to two of her eventual husbands. Despite keeping a stable of women on hand, he did have favorites. When he was fifty-nine, he replaced Vannozza dei Catanei in this role with the “breathtakingly lovely” Giulia Farnese.
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Conforming to his
modus operandi
, Borgia married the fifteen-year-old off, and following the ceremony, the new husband was told he was needed elsewhere. Farnese was then led to Borgia’s bedchamber and as his favorite mistress she was soon known throughout Italy as the bride of Christ.
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When Borgia bought the papacy in 1492 and became Pope Alexander VI, his theme parties became stupendous spectacles. The most notorious was the Ballet of the Chestnuts. Approaching the papal palace for a Borgia party one would see living statues, gilded young men and women striking erotic poses devoid of clothing. After the Ballet of Chestnuts’ banquet, the fifty most beautiful prostitutes of Rome danced with the guests and simultaneously disrobed. Candelabras and chestnuts were then scattered on the floor and the prostitutes crawled around the candles picking the chestnuts up. The male guests then stripped and ran out on the floor to congress. Servants kept track of each man’s orgasms. After everyone was satiated the Pope and his daughter, Lucrezia, gave out awards for those who were able to orgasm the most.

Borgia’s children would further his legacy. His beautiful daughter by Vannozza dei Catanei, Lucrezia Borgia, was bright, learned, and had inherited her father’s prodigious sex drive. Her father took advantage of the fact that men found her ravishing to cement his political alliances. He first married her off at thirteen and then used his power of annulment to remarry her when it was advantageous. By the age of twenty-one she was renowned for her “orgasmic exploits,” with all the positions, groupings, and situations that could entail.
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Her brother, Cesare Borgia, was just as sensational. He was an eloquent and gallant killer, skilled at the Italian politics of the time, which were rife with back-dealings and assassinations. Cesare was made a cardinal by his father, an unprecedented maneuver for an illegitimate child. Cesare also employed Leonardo da Vinci and was the model for
The Prince
, written by his acquaintance Machiavelli.

In 1497, Borgia divorced Lucrezia from her first husband by publicly calling him impotent. This was a grave insult and the husband responded that the real reason was because Borgia wanted Lucrezia for himself. Whether or not this was Borgia’s motive, it is now known that Borgia was sleeping with her. As this gossip electrified Italy, it was also reported that Lucrezia was caught in a love triangle between her brothers, Cesare and Juan. That summer Juan was found in the Tiber River stabbed to death. Cesare, as a known murderer, was generally assumed responsible.

Lucrezia became pregnant during the absence of her first husband. The original Borgia plan was to hide Lucrezia in a convent during her pregnancy. Unfortunately, Lucrezia’s scandalous behavior continued at the convent, and spread to the nuns, whose convent soon became notorious. The formal annulment ceremony of her first marriage occurred when Lucrezia was six months pregnant. Despite wearing a loose dress, the crowd was aware of her incestuous dalliances and when she was officially declared a virgin it broke into guffaws.

Whether the baby boy, Giovanni, belonged to her father or her brother is uncertain. Borgia made two proclamations. The public one announced the boy, Giovanni, to be the son of Cesare and an unmarried woman. A second secret bull declared Giovanni to be the son of Borgia and the unmarried woman. The next husband that Borgia strategically arranged for Lucrezia was eventually murdered by Cesare. Lucrezia would eventually outlive her father, her son, and her brother, Cesare, who was assassinated in 1507, to become a respectable princess.