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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The celebration of " this most famous and holy auto" was attended by < uch multitudes of priests , monks and friars and by such crowds of the devout Who came " even from far distant countries , " as had never been collected nn anv former occasion- A host of « minstrels , musicians and ministers accompanied the procession of the " holy green cross" ( the standard of the inquisition ) , vSfixch was afterwards planted on a high scaffold ,-and surrounded by torches . A religious guard paraded about it till the dawn of the following day , when fifty-three culprits were brought forth from the prisons of " the holy office . " Twenty-one , who had recanted , marched first in " the
vestments of degradation , " and some with ropes round their necks , with which they were to be scourged . Twenty-one others followed , condemned to various punishments . Next came the bones and the figures in effigy of five individuals who had been already
executed ; and at last six other persons , who , at the end of the ceremony , were to be delivered up to be burnt alive . "They were all so appropriately and beautifully clad" ( the relation sa . ys ) , " that it was truly well worth seeing . " A mule bearings a coffer covered with
velvet , in which the sentences were enclosed , was next in rank , and then the inquisitors , the magistrates and the different religious orders , all arranged with " great authority and gravity . " On arriving at the scaffold , the " worst criminals were stationed at
the top , and the rest at different elevations according to their crimes . " The inquisitors , officers of the civil power , ecclesiastics of rank and other dignified individuals to the number of a thousand , were seated in the lower benches
of the scaffold ; and a place was erected for the criminals after they had been long enough exhibited , in which were two pulpits from whence their sentences were to be read to them .
After a sermon from a Dominican friar , the whole of the first day was emp loyed in reading the sentences of eleve n of the most atrocious of the
capitally condemned , six of whom were given up to be immediately burnt , and ° » these no further mention is made . . On the following Monday the other cnimn ais were brought forth ; every twngwas arranged as before ; a sermon Wa » preached by a Franciscan monk , * nd the reading the sentences was con-
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tinued- —first * of two famous cheats who had " committed great enormities in the name of the holy inquisition , ?* ( as if the imitators could exceed the original !) one was fined and expatriated , the other received two hundred lashes
and was condemned to be kept five years at the galley-oar . Fourteen were variously punished for different blasphemies and heretical opinions . " Six of a . Jewish sect of Christians , who put on clean shirts on Saturdays , and performed other ceremonies of the law of
Moses , " after having abjured their errors , were ordered to suffer banishment and other punishments . One was transported for having sung , " Yes , the promised Christ is come , no ! yes ! no !" Another who " had been Jndaizing for five and twenty years , " having sued for pardon " with tears and true
repentance , " was " - only imprisoned for life . A Moor ( Mahometan ) who owned he had apostatized , was reconciled and , condemned to receive one hundred lashes . In the details of the evidence against these convicts , /* such fearful and horrible things were related as had
never before reached the ears of man ;" and though a great deal of the narrative was omitted , they could hardly finish by close of day . The reporter goes on to sa 3 , ' < towards all these wretches the greatest mercy was shown , and more account was taken of their penitence than of their crimes . "
Eighteen persons who were to be reconciled , were next brought to the highest floor of the scaffold , and while they were on their knees , they were * ' received into the communion of the church by a most devbut and solemn service / ' All who witnessed it Were
inspired by the holiest feelings ; ** nor did they cease giving grateful praises to God and to the most noly inquisition . " And thus the auto was concluded . The " green cross" was borne to the church amidst anthems of " Te JDeum laudamus ; " the convicted were handed over to the civil power to receive ** the inerciful award" of their devout judges ; and so the day closed upon the pious actors in this dark tragedy .
In another communication some detail shall be given of the incredible evidence which was received against these victims of superstition ~ -rthe ' evidence indeed of a host of witnesses . The records of human credulity can perhaps furnish no parallel . JB .
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Narrative of a celebrated Auto de Ti insthe City of Logrond . 577
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1816, page 577, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2457/page/13/
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