The windows of the third floor of the maternity hospital were for some reason taken away with a lattice of thick reinforcing wire, repeatedly painted with oil paint. Either they were afraid that babies would be kidnapped, or they warned against mothers escaping. Be that as it may, it was absolutely impossible to wash the windows through the bars, and the glass was gradually and inevitably covered with dust mixed with gasoline fumes, exhaust gases and all the other filth that the city emitted. As in everything, there was some benefit here - visitors could be clearly seen from the windows, who stupidly crowded in the courtyard not knowing how to behave, where to put themselves and in general what to do with these stupid bouquets packed in cellophane film and tied with some kind of curly ribbons. However, even in this form, the visitors delighted the young mothers, who stood invisible behind the muddy windows.
Anna went to the window, as if sensing that Eugene was about to come up. And indeed - she saw him at the gate, but he behaved strangely - he did not go into the courtyard of the maternity hospital, as if something on the street was holding him, as if some kind of force did not allow him to step over an invisible line.
A few minutes passed, and Anna guessed - Eugene was talking to someone who was standing behind the brick column of the gate and he didn’t dare to cut off the conversation, either he didn’t have the strength for it, or he simply didn’t want to cut off what was important to him talk. And then, suddenly, right before her eyes, something impossible happened - a woman came out from behind a brick column of the gate, quickly hugged Yevgeny on the go and immediately disappeared behind the second column, having managed to wave goodbye, they say, hurry up, I'll wait for you - like this about the meaning was in her swing.
And as if the world staggered under Anna. Grabbing the backs of the bed with her hands, she went to her corner and not so much sat down as collapsed on the crumpled blanket.
And then it started.
Her stomach was literally shaking, there was such an impression that a creature was tossing and turning inside her, which could hardly be called a child. Anna turned pale, and, losing consciousness, fell across the bed.
The newborn was brought an hour after birth. Some sort of shriveled senile physiognomy peeped out of the bundle and smiled disgustingly. It was impossible to call “it” a child, even with a big stretch. The revolving eyes gleamed nastily from under the washed-out cap, the rat's nose was constantly sniffing something out and turning of itself in different directions. But when he opened his displeasedly pursed, thin lips and yelled with a terribly disgusting squeak, his own mother lost her senses.
No less frightened doctors nevertheless brought the mother to her senses, put the bundle with the child on the bed and simply ran away from the ward. “It” again emitted a shrill squeak and crawled, continuously sniffing and smacking its lips. The goal was reached quickly, and he greedily dug into his chest. Champing and constantly spitting up, he began to devour mother's milk.
Nausea rose up in the nurse's throat and she made great efforts to tear this creature from her chest and run to the washbasin to get rid of the remnants of the hospital dinner.
"Go feed the baby, you vile witch!" She heard a disgruntled, irritated voice. I got to you. Now I'll take it out. You can't get away from me.
Anna looked in the direction of the speaker and froze. A newborn was sitting on the bed and with nervous movements he got out of the diapers. Bony knees stuck out in different directions. Eyes of different colors stared angrily at the woman in labor. There was a dark birthmark on his forehead.
-Who are you? - Anna squeezed out of her last strength.
- You don't admit it? Forgotten, devilish whore?! - and he, having fallen off the bed, staggered, walked towards her, waving his ugly limbs.
_______
The jailer roughly pushed Anna into the cell. She could not resist and fell face down on the threshold. The door slammed shut.
After the previous torture, which consisted of continuous walking to speed up her confessions, with sleep deprivation, she felt exhausted and weakened. In addition, a wild desire to drink did not leave his thoughts. All those terrible days that she spent in prison, she was fed only salted food. All drinks were mixed with herring brine. She was not given a sip of water to keep her in a state of constant thirst, which was one of the most sophisticated forms of torture.
But such a cruel, violent, sizzling thirst, the inquisitors did not consider torture. Even when the prisoners were crushed like grapes in a vice or pulled out like a leather skin on a rack, this was also not considered torture. The courts relied on the sadism of witch persecutors. And they were not mistaken in their expectations.
Someone invisible turned the key in the lock. The echo responded with the same rusty, raspy sound. A damp, stale smell wafted into his face. Here, even the walls seemed to be saturated with human suffering, and blood oozed from them.
She found herself in a cramped, stinking dungeon with small arched windows through which the sun barely filtered through. Through the foggy veil, the fuzzy outlines of terrifying contraptions appeared. A prisoner on charges of witchcraft understood where she was.
Suddenly harsh voices made her shudder.
“Because you do not understand our benevolent attitude, you were brought to the torture chamber,” the judge muttered in a disgusting drawl.
“This kind person,” the judge pointed with feigned courtesy in the direction of the person who heated the tongs on an open fire, “will save your sinful soul. If you continue to remain silent and indulge the demons, he will have to apply everything that you see here to you.
The judge nodded to the clerk, who was seated at a table in the corner of the cell, -
-Let's get started. How long have you been a witch?
-I'm not a witch.
-Don't be persistent! - the judge leaned under the table and pulled out a wooden box. - Here is the same box, locked with three locks, into which parishioners threw notes for fifteen days. And your name, with the facts, places and times of sorcery, is extremely common in it. According to public opinion, you are suspected of witchcraft. Thus, the accusation is proven.
- Who accuses me?
“No one will tell you that, so that you don’t harm honorable people with your damned deeds. But what they are accused of - you are obliged to know and confess during interrogation.
- I have nothing to confess.
- Refresh your memory! Didn't you sign a pact with the devil?! Declared submission to him. Renounce the vows given before the Lord?! For this alone you must die!
These accusations do not apply to me.
- For the sake of retribution to the Lord and man, you harmed people and animals with your curses, on which you caused misfortunes and diseases with the help of the power and activity of the devil, your master.
- I have no enemies to curse them.
Whether you confess or not, the result will be the same. Your guilt is obvious - you will be executed. Any renunciation is in vain. The torture will continue - twice, thrice, four times. To infinity. You can't justify. That's not why we arrested you and put you in chains. Your guilt will be proven.
By any means ... - the judge neighed vilely, exchanging glances with his accomplices.
-You will be in prison filth and stench, given over to the ghosts of the devil and endure endless torture until you prefer death to this disgusting existence and confession to all crimes.
“Time to get started,” the Inquisitor said dryly. Her silence is caused by devilish spells.
The long-awaited executioner began his usual work.
To begin with, he undressed her and the participants in the interrogation began to examine the body in order to detect the stigma of the devil. They quickly found what they were looking for. The desired “object” was hidden under the knee with a small birthmark.
- How long has the witch mark been on your body? the inquisitor asked.
- Since birth. Only it's not a witch's mark.
“This stigma is evidence enough that you could be executed for witchcraft even without your confessions,” the inquisitor flashed with his knowledge of witch trials.
There were many of them behind his backbone. Their heartbreaking screams, screams and curses. Anna was about to experience everything. This was just the beginning. She stood naked in front of these non-humans and burned with shame and dishonor, under their longed-for looks. But very soon she forgot about her nakedness. The torture that followed made her forget everything.
With a rope attached to a hook on the ceiling, the executioner tied her hands behind her back, then lifted her into the air, sharply pulling the end of the rope. For greater effect, he tied a weight to her legs to twist her shoulder joint without leaving a trace of rough handling.
While she was held in a hanging position, the inquisitors tried to continue the interrogation again. Interrupting and not hearing each other.
- How did you become a witch, what happened to you in connection with this?
-I'm not a witch.
-What was your master's name among the evil demons?
- I did not have such owners. It wasn’t!” Anna screamed in despair.
- Lying, you devilish spawn! - the inquisitor hit her in the face, and then, grabbing her hair, glared at her with his crazy eyes. And Anna noticed again - his eyes were of different colors.
What is the flying salve you use on your broom made of? - The Inquisitor pulled her hair harder, approached her face even closer, breathing the fetid fumes of daily "communions". - Your persistence will lead you to the fire. But if you confess everything, you will be pardoned. Tell me, what demons and other people participated in the Sabbath?
- I was not at the Sabbath. I don't know the people who participate in them.
- How do you manage to fly through the air, and what magic words do you whisper while doing this?
- I can't fly through the air. Except in dreams.
“Their dreams are reality,” the judge joined in the interrogation. Tell us, in your dreams, who you have chosen as your incubus / roommate /. What was his name?
- I don't have a roommate. All the more so, - even overcoming the ever-increasing pain, Anna blushed.
- Lying, you fucking bitch. What oath were you forced to pronounce to him? What did your incubus give you after intercourse with you?
- I don't know anything, what you're asking me about!
-Go on, the inquisitor said indifferently, turning to the executioner.
The executioner activated the diabolical hanging machine and loosened the rope. The victim was thrown from a height, so that it did not reach several centimeters to the floor. The bones cracked. Anna screamed in unbearable pain.
“The twisting of the hands was successful,” the executioner joked.
"But that's not enough for her," the inquisitor concluded.
The executioner doused her head with alcohol and set fire to her hair. The cell was filled with the acrid smell of burnt hair and the screams of the victim.
"It's time for us to rest," the inquisitor suggested wryly. Her hair smells disgusting. It's impossible to be here.
"Indeed, let's go out to dinner," the others agreed.
They left it hanging for three to five hours.
They returned rested, cheered up after drinking a bottle and ready for new exploits. The inquisitor had the strength to joke. Passing by the hanging Anna, he scratched her behind the ear like a cat.
- Well, how is our witch? Subdued? Will we talk?
She spat in his face with hatred. Despite the inhuman suffering, she still found the strength to resist.
- Ah, y-t-you. D-stuff! - from the anger that gripped the inquisitor, he began to stutter and become covered with scarlet spots.
- All the most terrible torture. Everything! To she is not something to spit. To not be able to breathe! - The playful mood of the tyrants vanished. And the preliminary torture took on a more violent character. To cause torment as retribution.
The executioner removed red-hot tongs from the fire and squeezed her fingers to the base of her nails so that the flattened fingers caused the most acute pain. Anna burst into a wild cry. A flock of startled pigeons flew up from the prison roof.
The executioner took her off the hook. She hoped it was over. But she was gravely mistaken. Now she was awaiting water torture. She was tied to a chair. Rags twisted into a knot were forcefully inserted into her throat and the executioner's assistant began to pour water down her throat to cause suffocation. Then he sharply pulled out a rag so that the insides were torn.
The judges watched the torture, and the clerk wrote everything down.
But in the end, the executioner, who was no stranger to the effectiveness of various types of torture, applied a reliable, effective method.
He sat her on a chair, into which nails were driven and knives were stuck with their sharp ends up. All of a sudden, this butcher hit this chair so hard that it was punctured and bruised.
Anna fainted. The executioner was not concerned about the responsibility for death during torture, his instructions said that witches feigned signs of death. They cannot be trusted. He had one desire - to continue the torture as soon as possible.
Manic passion inflated in his perverted brain more and more variations of torment. In his field, he was a virtuoso, an improviser and, no matter how wild it sounds, a master of his craft. Therefore, in order to continue to enjoy his “work”, he poured ice water on the face of his victim and poured vinegar into the nostrils.
The emaciated girl opened her eyelids for a moment, looked around the damp chamber with a blurred gaze, and again fell into oblivion. The craftsman repeated the "treatment". He grabbed her by the leg and dragged her along the floor to the next instrument of torment. He placed a pair of boots on her feet, placing them close to the fire until the boots heated up to force her to confess to the increasing pain. Anna regained consciousness (as far as it was, of course, possible), but she could no longer resist and endure it. She asked for mercy.
- What am I supposed to confess? - she squeezed out with the last of her strength.
- In everything. You already know. And you will repeat at the execution that you die with repentance and renounce the demon. The endlessly repeated torture brought the interrogated woman to a state in which she was ready to confess to everything that was demanded of her. And don't retract your testimony until the very end.
The girl could not stand it and screamed - Yes, I have committed so many sinful deeds. I have no excuse. I killed people... I drank the blood of murdered children from a flask, expressed respect to the domestic spirit, let in storms, pestilence, diseases, met with an incubus.
“Here, in more detail,” the inquisitor grinned nastily, looked at the executioners conspiratorially. “All witches talk that they don’t get such pleasure with a man as they do with an incubus. Do you think so too?
- We made air trips to devilish dances, - the frightened Anna was ready to say anything, just to avoid the next savage tortures.
The judge, following the example of the inquisitor, lustfully stared at the prisoner,
- Yes, the witches, in fact, talk that nothing on earth compares to him. And I think this happens for several reasons. First, it happens because demons pretend to be deeply in love with witches, which for these vicious, stupid women seems to be the most precious thing in the world. In addition, evil spirits take on an unusually attractive appearance.
- The demon and the bough selects the appropriate ones for himself, - the judge cut in.
- Yeah ... And, secondly, he has ... - then the executioners looked at each other and neighed disgustingly, - however, you understand ...
So what did he do to you?
“He did whatever he wanted with me,” the frightened captive whispered.
“Then come here, you devilish bitch… Now you and I will also do whatever we want.” You'll find out what it's like to be with the Inquisitors.
- Better campfire!
- There will be a fire ... Later ... In the meantime, there will be what will be!
_ You are the devil! I realized! You are the devil!
“Finally, you recognized me… But not completely… Now you recognize me more,” the inquisitor snorted, fiddling with his cassock. “We'll meet again, we'll meet again,” he muttered already in half-consciousness, not even trying to wipe the viscous drool from his chin. She breathed in the stench, thick inhuman hair from the inquisitor's armpits.
Anna lost consciousness. And the last thing she saw was a black birthmark that crossed the forehead of the rapist. And he muttered something completely meaningless ...
- You remembered me... You remembered me well... The time will come - you will give birth to me... Or I will emerge from your womb...
- And you? Anna asked from the other side of life.
-And I'll burn you... For you... We'll meet again...
Now you've made your confessions. If you deny everything again - tell me about it now, while I'm around, - the executioner neighed nastily, and released her from his disgusting grasps, licking his greasy lips, - so that I hang you again. And if you recant again tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or before the trial, you will again fall into my hands, and then you will know that I was only playing with you. I will torment and torture you so that even a stone will cry with pity.
***
- With the help of diabolical art, this woman fraudulently practiced, used and applied various immoral and vicious deeds called witchcraft, spells, conspiracies and sorcery. Which she admitted at the preliminary investigation.
- In exchange for recognition, I was promised pardon, and death, if I deny witchcraft! I've never been to a sabbath! I am not a witch! Not a witch! Have pity on me! - from prolonged torture and humiliation, Anna's legs buckled, and she collapsed to the floor like a stone.
- Not a single person has yet been brought before the court, who, having the stigma of the devil, would lead an impeccable lifestyle. The stigma is the highest proof of guilt! Not a single one of those convicted of witchcraft was without a brand. And he marked this witch with a special sign - the judge, like a predatory beast, abruptly rushed to the girl and, lifting her skirts, began to poke a hooked finger on a birthmark under her knee,
- In order to bind stronger bonds for more blasphemy and betrayal, he put his seal on her body, as a sign that she belongs to him.
- He marked it with the sign of a bat. Your servant! Do you see? - Bat! Burn! Burn this fiend!
The judge delivered his angry speech and, exhausted, flopped into the judge's chair. At first, a dissatisfied roar went through the hall, awakened by separate cries of agreement with the court. But pretty soon the restrained murmur turned into an angry roar of the crowd.
- Burn it! Burn the witch bitch!
The indignation of the dirty crowd did not subside. On the contrary, it intensified, turning into a roar of hungry animals that felt the blood of exhausted prey. At any moment, this pack was ready to rush at the girl and tear her to pieces. Not satiated with it, they could tear each other with the same self-forgetfulness and for some time satisfy the endless thirst for sacrificial blood.
Ugly, shaggy women twisted their shapeless mouths and made terrible grimaces, spat and poked their fingers in her direction.
- She gave our men a witch's potion! - some squealed.
- She seduced our sons with love spells - others supported them.
- Witch! Dirty fucking whore! To the fire! To the fire!
The ugly men waved their fists, shook the air, and also longed for execution.
- Into the fire! Into the fire of this proud harlot!
They could not forgive her for rejecting their obscene advances.
Only one person in this room remained silent. He was silent and could not raise his eyes to her. And he could neither accuse nor defend. Was there indifference in this, thanks to which all crimes are committed? Ordinary cowardice? Or he couldn't forgive her either. Forgive her for loving him. And what he loved (as far as he, of course, could love). And the fact that he was afraid of her all-destroying love.
But, be that as it may, he was silent ...
But everyone who came to this hall of shame had something to hate her and demand death for. People do not forgive if a person has at least one wonderful property that they do not have, but would like to. It can be beauty, health, youth, wealth, or an exceptional mind and soul. Here is the real reason for the accusations.
Or maybe there is nothing obvious, but something weightless, elusive nevertheless indicates to them - different, not like everyone else. And there is a terrible desire to lower to their level.
And if it doesn't work, destroy it.
Peck.
And pounce like a crow.
And they tear.
A person is not forgiven for a different opinion. The desire of the crowd is to trample anyone who thinks otherwise. Don't you dare rise above us, the crowd says. Do not think that you are higher, more worthy than marked. And if you are marked, then by the devil! – and the crowd rages. And rumors are accepted as evidence of guilt.
The notion of a witch as an ugly old woman on a broomstick is just part of folklore. In reality, and this is an irrefutable historical fact, the situation is different. During the three hundred years of the Inquisition, the young, the beautiful, and the daring were more often accused. This is what brought many women to the stake.
1450-1750 period of witchcraft hysteria in Europe. Around 1600, Boge described his impressions as follows: “Germany is completely occupied with building fires for / witches /. Switzerland was also forced to wipe out many of its villages. A traveler in Lorraine can see thousands and thousands of pillars. To which witches were tied.
These legalized murders set back the development of civilization for several centuries. And there is no end to this. In any century.
But the main thing is that the fires of the Inquisition are still blazing. And to this day, the best of us burn in them...
And still!
Yes, they do not smoke, they do not stink of burnt human flesh, they do not carry burnt hair. They smell like luxury perfumes. People on the crosses - with charming smiles and seem to be well dressed ...
But they are at the stake!
They burn and the same crowd is seized with the same hatred!
They burn out. And they know it.
And we know it.
Human envy and hatred is the true cause of all wars, misfortunes and innumerable bonfires of the Inquisition that cannot be extinguished for thousands of years. Poverty stifles decency, the human mind is reduced to complicity in meanness, and base passions are covered with piety. And there is no greater pleasure for them than to find flaws in their neighbors.
Great in spirit, in deeds, in being. History has many examples of the transformation of a human being into the worst animal in existence.
Unfortunately…
________
On the day appointed for the trial, Anna was brought in on a cart, with chains all over her body. His hands were tied so tightly that blood oozed from them. Around her were jailers and executioners, behind her were armed guards.
Various people gathered in the judges' room waiting for entertainment. But in one they were the same - Everything that was supposed to happen here was just innocent fun for them.
Finally, the judge came out with assistants. Importantly sat down in the judge's chair. At his sign, a prisoner was brought in. She was no longer the blooming cheerful girl that she was before prison. A pale, emaciated creature with a dull, indifferent look entered the hall. The crowd began to whistle furiously and swear, but at a sign from the chief assessor fell silent.
The judge undertook to read the indictment in the case of witchcraft and sorcery.
- Common law establishes that a witch cannot be condemned to death except on the basis of her own confession. Therefore, the court is obliged to clarify with the prisoner. Does she confirm what she confessed to during interrogations and signed with her own hand?
The guard pushed Anna in the back with his sword. “Don't sleep,” he growled roughly.
-Yes. I agree with everything,” she replied to the hall. And added mentally, - Now with everything.
- So, we can continue, - without even trying to hide his joy, rubbing his hands, as the judge said after a job well done,
- So ... - Based on the testimony of informants and the confessions of the accused herself, the court proved her guilt in causing damage and damaging people in seven ways:
By suggestion of love, suggestion of hatred, inducing impotence, inducing disease, deprivation of life, deprivation of reason, damage to property and animals. All of these actions are a manifestation of evil, since they were committed contrary to the teachings of the church and our Lord and imply the service of Satan. Guilt in atrocities has been proven by causing storms, storms, bad weather on the sea and land, killing livestock and causing anxiety to men, women and children, the death of crops, poisoning the air, causing strange passions and bodily torments in people and other creatures.
Such crimes correspond to crimes against the Lord, and according to the theory adopted by the church, a detailed Covenant with the Devil. The jurors in the name of the reigning king and queen for committing these ungodly acts, called witchcraft and sorcery, decided that you should be sentenced to be burned at the stake of the Great Inquisition!
The judge raised his hand for silence.
- Is there anyone among you who disagrees with the verdict? Is there a person who can say a kind word about the convict?
The angry roar of the crowd was his answer.
Only one person did not shout or curse her at that moment - Eugene. He was just silent. Without lifting your eyes, without raising your head. He never dared to raise his hand and utter a single word.
Having finished reading the sentence, the judge broke his rod and ordered the executioner to carry out his orders.
The jubilant crowd, as was customary, overturned the tables and chairs in the judges' room. And a procession, led by a group of men with an executioner, dragged Anna to the place of execution, then the priests followed, accompanied by women. On the way to the square, the procession sang the psalms “May the Heavenly Father be with us” and prayed. And their evil wolf cubs got a vacation to witness the death of a witch and throw stones at her.
Church bells rang like they were wrapped in damp cloth. And only in this ringing sounded unearthly sadness.
_______
The bonfire was built from raw wood so that the torture would last as long as possible and prolong the torment. As Anna was led to the platform, the choir accompanied her with the hymn "Now we pray to the Holy Spirit."
. The verdict, which she had been forced to agree to for the last time, was read again so that she would not be taken back to prison to continue the torture. One of the priests delivered a sermon as cold as his colorless eyes. After all these procedures necessary for a humane court, the victim was officially and legally transferred into the hands of her last executioner.
Anna was tied to a pillory. The fire did not flare up for a long time. Volunteers threw dry brushwood, and the fire instantly flared up. Now she could not be afraid of the threats of the executioners. They won't get it here. And she had nothing to lose. Everything she had, believed in and hoped for, she lost. And so, without regret, she surrendered herself to the sizzling fire. engulfed in flames spoke,
“Let all who see me today know that I must now die as a witch on the basis of my own confession. And I forgive everyone guilty in my blood, I take everything upon myself. Let my blood spill on my head. And since I now have to stand before the Lord, I declare that I am free from witchcraft, like a child. But, on the accusation of vicious people, I was placed in prison under the name of a witch. Everything I've confessed to is a lie.
I never thought that with the help of torture a person can be brought to the point that he would tell tall tales like the ones I told you. By subjecting me to these unbearable torments, you forced me to give false testimony under oath.
I'm not a witch, and I've never seen a devil! Everyone renounced me, and not finding any other way to break out of prison or ever restore my good name, at the instigation of the devil, I made this confession with the intention of ending my life, tired of it. I would rather die than live.
The fire grew stronger and brighter. Anna's prayer was heard through the crackling of the burning logs, interrupted by her tears. She read "Our Father", and high flames wrapped around her camp and swallowed deeper and deeper into their insatiable mouths. And finally swallowed up.
And the people, as usual, thirsted for bread and circuses. He received both in full. The witch burned to a handful of ashes. And the bread... Each participant in the process received a few coins from the confiscated property of the victim.
And these cold pieces of iron did not burn anyone's hands ...
Got a few coppers and Eugene..
_______
- Vera, go to the second ward as soon as possible. You have some kind of seizure girl there!
- What else happened there? - Vera asked her colleague displeasedly, chewing her sandwich.
-Complete nonsense! I have never seen such touched people. She hides in a corner, does not approach the child, refuses to feed, screams that he is an executioner. And in general, it carries such nonsense that I have never heard of it.
You are stupid and your jokes are stupid.
- Yes, you are! Get to her already. And then, the hour is not even, he will lay hands on himself. You will still answer for a psycho. In the meantime, I'll call the psychiatric hospital.
You be careful there! You never know what ... - she called after her.
Faith did not stay in the ward - it flew out like an arrow.
- Irka! It is something! I got scared myself. The baby would be taken away. Maybe you can go there. I this, this... I'm afraid of the insane. What to do with them? And if it didn't do any harm to the baby.
- I won't go there either. Move the phone to me.
-Ale-e. Psychiatric? It's the hospital that worries you...
- Are you kidding? - answered at the other end of the wire.
- Yes, what jokes! Leave urgently. Our mother in labor has lost her mind.
- Came to you like this?
-Well no. She acted like she was normal. And now my mind has gone. How she gave birth
and ... that. Wow, that means. Yes, you should leave soon. Grab the nurses stronger, the patient can be violent. Everything, we are waiting.
- Well, Irka, you give her a stronger nurse. Dead.
- I don't see anything funny. I didn't call for myself. I don't need it yet. A bit later.
- Are you sure?
- Come on, you stupid woman. Did you close the door?
- Not…
- Go close, away from sin. Well her.
Vera took a weighty bunch of keys and went to close the unusual patient. As if through a minefield, she went this short way - from the table of the nurse on duty to the ward. Closed. She sighed in relief and returned with a sense of accomplishment.
- All closed. You know, Ir. As soon as I got there, I was thrown into a fever. Terribly there... Next to her. Maybe it's really dirty...
- Come on. Learned person. I took the Hippocratic Oath...
- Not Hippocrates, but Hippocrates. Ignoramus. I didn’t swear anything to Hippocrates, I didn’t promise anything.
- Even big and clean?
- Irka, you should have worked in a circus, not in a maternity hospital.
- Who cares? I don't see much difference. Take even today. Well, why not a circus?
More nurses are coming. If such as I ordered by phone, then I will change the job. Definitely!
-And here they are.
- Well, freaks. I'm staying here. Just gorillas. Dream - do not wave away.
-And if they fall asleep next to each other ... Two from the casket.
- Pip on your tongue.
- What's wrong with you girls? croaked one of the approaching gorillas in a bass voice.
Vera handed them the keys, - Go see for yourself.
______
Have you seen our new patient? - a young sister called Mila from a neighboring box.
- Yes, the head physician says - an exceptional case. And the brain is a dark matter and is not subject to research.
- Such an interesting girl. They say she was fine. What can happen in such a short time?
- I was talking to a friend of hers. She came to visit our prisoner.
-Yes? So what?
- She says the man took her on a spree. Bastard. His wife is pregnant, and it is for women. I hate them all. The bottoms are cheap.
- How did she know?
- Who is she? Friend?
- No, Anna.
- He came to the maternity hospital, allegedly to congratulate on the birth of his son. He handed over banal flowers, fruits and left. With another.
- Were they hugging, kissing?
- Not. They just walked along.
- So maybe this is a friend, what is it?
Anna didn't think so. Here's the roof off. It's you who are still inexperienced and gullible.
- Maybe it's better. But with the head everything will be all right. Why didn't she talk to him?
- He does not want to believe, although he tried to justify himself. But the girl does not believe and that's it. When you truly love, betrayal can neither be forgotten, nor forgiven, nor justified.
- What about people? So they celebrate weddings with diamonds and tell that everything in life was - both good and bad and very bad ...
- It's not love. Yes, life. Common houses, children and the like. They endure, get used to and pull the strap. It's not clear, though, why?
And real life flashes by like flower meadows behind dusty glass
fast train.
- Yes, it's sad... I hope this doesn't happen to me.
- Hope, baby. Hope. Hope, you know, is the last to bend. Although... For some, Love dies last. And these sad-looking knights become guests of our clinic. We are losing the best people!
_______
In the morning, Evgeny was awakened by a phone call. They called from the clinic.
- Are you ready to pick up your wife today?
-Yes of course.
But first we need to talk. Can you come by eleven?
- Yes, as you say.
- Waiting for you. See you soon.
The head physician noticed Yevgeny from the windows of the clinic. Once again, he wondered how such a beauty fell for this nondescript and worthless little man. He does not hold his gaze, his little eyes run. No inner strength. Will sell for a penny. What could attract her to him?
Maybe there really is some kind of karmic connection between people. Unpaid debts from past lives overtake us in the next. And maybe much of what is found within these walls is not a painful deviation of the psyche, but reality. Another reality. Perhaps there is a parallel linking events, centuries, universes, after all.
-Yes, - once again said the doctor, the luminary of medicine in psychiatry,
-The human brain is a dark matter and is not subject to research. And all our "candidate" - up to one place.
He went out to meet Yevgeny in the corridor so as not to delay communication with him, as if he were sitting on leather sofas in his office.
Your wife has postpartum depression, with all the consequences ... Manic-depressive psychosis and a host of other little-studied mental disorders. And, as I know, not without your participation, - the doctor looked reproachfully at Anna's husband.
This often happens with especially impressionable natures. The condition has now stabilized, but relapses are not ruled out. I recommend not to evoke strong emotions of any kind in her, no matter negative or positive. Any feelings are dangerous in the borderline state of the psyche. I ask you to keep her from emotional shocks, it will do good. And, more... The doctor took Evgeny by the elbow and took him aside.
Switching to a whisper, he added, “I want to warn you that Anna has a painful impressionability. If you really love your wife, and don't want it to end in chronic schizophrenia, don't do it again.
This is a tragedy for any woman, but especially for yours. She perceived the betrayal as the fires of the Inquisition. Everyone feels it differently.
Who is more, who is less. Some won't notice at all. She was on fire. For her, it was a harsh reality.
Of course, in some moments I can understand you as a man. But not in all.
Far from all…
In her position, you were obliged not to take such rash steps. At least it's mean. I think we understand each other?
Yevgeny, ashamed, lowering his eyes, tried to smile, but an absurd, flawed grimace came out.
-Oh sure. I will follow all your recommendations.
-Then all the best. Goodbye.
The doctor did not even shake Yevgeny's outstretched hand, and with a sweeping gait went off into the distance along the corridor.
The nurses took Anna out the door of the clinic, and when they saw that they were waiting for her, they hastily said goodbye and left. She paused on the steps of her last residence and looked at Yevgeny. There was no interest in her eyes, there was pain in her eyes. She desperately wanted to remember something. Some terrible pictures of memories were, it seemed, very close ... But no, and this time they did not make their way into consciousness. Maybe a little later. The visions disappeared, and she again saw Eugene with downcast eyes.
But he couldn't see it.
Eugene stood with his eyes downcast. And he could not lift them, could not look at her with a pure, true look. He…
Yes Yes Yes. Certainly.
He stood silent...
He has been silent for five hundred years.
Torture of the Inquisition. Prisons and campfires
Very often it seems to us that we can overcome pain, but how to withstand the incredible torment and truly hellish pain that the inquisitors subjected their victims to? Torture was the most diverse and designed for various degrees of physical pain - from dull aching to acute and unbearable. One has to be amazed and surprised at the ingenuity of the holy fathers, with which these terrible instruments of torture were invented and with which they were able to diversify the torments they inflicted.
Torture began with the simplest and then gradually became more complicated. Often various tortures were "combined", forming a whole system of torture - categories, categories, degrees. It was a real hellish scale of agonizing torments. The witch went from one degree of torment to another, from one category of torture to another, until a confession was torn out of her.
Completely healthy and very courageous people assured him after torture that it was impossible to imagine a stronger, more unbearable pain than the one they experienced, that they would immediately confess to the most terrible crimes, of which they have no remote idea, if they again threatened with torture, and that they would rather die ten times, if it were possible, than be tortured again.
Before direct torture in the dungeons of the Inquisition, the suspect was subjected to some tests to make sure of her guilt.
One such test was the "water test". The woman was undressed, which in itself is already incredibly humiliating and can deprive the remnants of courage, they were tied “crosswise”, so that the right hand was tied to the big toe of the left foot, and the left hand to the toe of the right foot. Naturally, any person in such a position cannot move. The executioner lowered the bound victim on a rope three times into a pond or river. If the alleged witch drowned, she was dragged out and the suspicion was considered unproven. If the victim managed to keep his life in one way or another and not drown, then her guilt was considered undoubted and she was interrogated and tortured in order to force her to confess what exactly the guilt was. This test with water was motivated either by the fact that the devil gives the body of witches a special lightness that does not allow them to drown, or by the fact that water does not accept into its bosom people who, by concluding an alliance with the devil, have shaken off the holy water of baptism.
The water test was also explained by the lightness of the body of the witch. The witch's weight represented a very important indication of guilt. There was even a belief that witches were very light weight. What can be said here? Only that all the current fragile girls - not to mention fashion models, are probably witches!
A trial of guilt was also served by the fact that the suspect was forced to say “Our Father”, and if she stammered in any place and could not continue further, she was recognized as a witch.
The most common test that all suspects were subjected to before they were tortured, and sometimes in those cases when they withstood torture without confessing, was the so-called "test with a needle", to find the "devil's seal" on the body.
There was a belief that the devil, when concluding a contract, puts a seal on some place on the body of the witch and that this place becomes insensitive as a result, so that the witch does not feel any pain from the injection in this place and the injection does not even cause blood. The executioner therefore looked for such an insensitive place on the whole body of the suspect and for this he pricked with a needle in different parts of the body, especially in such places that somehow attracted his attention (birthmarks, freckles, etc.), and made countless injections, to see if blood is flowing. At the same time, it happened that the executioner, interested in convicting a witch (as he usually received a reward for each exposed witch), deliberately stabbed not with the point, but with the blunt end of the needle and announced that he had found the "devil's seal." Or he only pretended to stick a needle into the body, but in fact only touched the body with it and claimed that the place was not sensitive and blood was not flowing from it.
As you know, the human body has a “survival resource” unknown to us, and in some critical situations it can “block” pain. Therefore, the inquisitors describe many cases where the suspects were indeed insensitive to pain.
Before moving on to torture “in a closed room,” they tried to extract voluntary confessions from the defendants - but not with simple questions and persuasion, but with threats of torture. The accused was warned that if he did not admit his guilt, the judge would be forced to obtain the truth by other means. If people, broken and distraught from preliminary “tests” and pain, testified after this threat, then these were “voluntary” testimonies. Such intimidation was called torture. territory, which we would translate into Russian as "psychological terror". The executioner appeared before the accused, prepared all his “tools” for torture, simultaneously explaining to the unfortunate prisoner their purpose, and sometimes twisting some of them on the body of the victim. If the accused confessed after such a "terror", his confession was considered voluntary. Incredible? Of course, but that's the way it was!
The procedure of “preparation for torture” was especially humiliating for women, whom the executioner stripped naked and carefully examined her whole body to make sure that the unfortunate woman had not made herself insensitive to the action of the instruments of torture by magical means, or whether she had hidden a witchcraft amulet somewhere or another magic tool. So that nothing remained hidden from the eyes of the executioner, he shaved off or burned the hair on the whole body with a torch or straw, “even in such places that cannot be pronounced before chaste ears, and examines everything carefully,” as written in the protocols of the inquisition courts. The defendant, naked and maimed, was tied to a bench and proceeded to the torture itself.
One of the first tortures was the “pulp”: the thumb was pinched between the screws; screwing them, they received such strong pressure that blood flowed from the finger.
If this did not lead to the recognition of the victim, then they took the “foot screw”, or “Spanish boot”. The leg was placed between two saws and squeezed in these terrible pincers to such an extent that the bone was sawn and the brain came out. To increase the pain, the executioner hit the screw from time to time with a hammer. Instead of an ordinary foot screw, toothed screws were often used, “because, according to the assurances of the inquisitors-executioners, the pain reaches the strongest degree; the muscles and bones of the leg are compressed to the point that blood flows from them and, in the opinion of many, the strongest person cannot withstand this torture.
The next degree of torture was the so-called "rise", or "rack". The tortured person's hands were tied on his back and attached to a rope. The body was either left to hang freely in the air or was placed on a ladder, one of the steps of which had sharp wooden stakes. The back of the tortured was placed on the spears. With the help of a rope thrown over a block, which was attached to the ceiling, a person was lifted up and pulled out so that often there was a dislocation of the “torsioned” arms, which were above the head. The body was suddenly lowered down several times and then slowly lifted up each time, causing unbearable torment to the person.
Judging by the acts of the Inquisition, only a few could withstand torture. And these few, for the most part, confessed immediately after the torture, under the influence of the exhortations of the judges and the threats of the executioner. The prisoners were persuaded to confess voluntarily, because in this case they could still save themselves from the fire and earn mercy, that is, death by the sword, otherwise the victim would be burned alive.
If a person, even after such terrible tortures, had the strength to deny his guilt, then all sorts of weights were hung to his big toe. In this state, the prisoner was left until the complete rupture of all ligaments, which caused unbearable suffering, and at the same time, from time to time, the executioner flogged the accused with rods. If even then the tortured did not confess, the executioner lifted him to the ceiling, and then suddenly released the body, which fell from a height down, and the protocols describe cases when, after such an “operation”, the hands for which it was hung were torn off.
Then they moved on to the "wooden mare". It was a wooden beam, triangular, with a pointed angle, on which the victim was mounted on horseback and weights were hung on his feet. The sharp end of the "mare" slowly cut into the body as it descended, and the weights on the legs gradually increased after another refusal to make a confession.
There was also torture with a "necklace" - a ring with sharp nails inside, which was worn around the neck. The tips of the nails barely touched the neck, but at the same time the legs were roasted on a brazier with burning coals, and the victim, convulsively writhing in pain, stumbled on the nails of the necklace herself.
Because a prisoner could only be tortured once. Then the judges announced frequent breaks during the torture and retired to refresh their strength with snacks and drinks. The prisoner remained on the rack or mare and suffered for hours. Then the judges returned and continued the torture, changing instruments.
In some places, intoxicants were given to the tortured to weaken their willpower and force them to testify. This is true hypocrisy: those who were tried for preparing magical drinks, the inquisitors themselves did not hesitate to drug them with the same brews.
Between the instruments of torture, we also find a rotating circular plate, which tore the meat out of the back of the tortured.
If the executioner was especially diligent, he would invent new methods of torture, for example, pouring hot oil or vodka on the naked body of the tortured or dripping boiling resin, or holding lighted candles under her hands, soles or other parts of the body.
Other torments were added to this - for example, driving nails between the nails and meat on the hands and feet.
Very often the hanged tortured were flogged with rods or belts with pieces of tin or hooks at the ends.
But the tortured were not only inflicted physical suffering by “material means”. In England, for example, wakefulness torture was used. The accused were not allowed to sleep, they were driven from one place to another without rest, not allowed to stop until their legs were covered with tumors and until people came to a state of complete despair.
Sometimes the detainees were given exclusively salty foods and at the same time they were not allowed to drink anything. The unfortunate, tormented by thirst, were ready for all sorts of confessions and often with a crazy look asked for a drink, promising to answer all the questions that the judges offered them.
Complementing the torment of torture were the prisons in which the victims of the Inquisition were kept. These prisons in themselves were both a test and a punishment for the unfortunate victims.
At that time, places of detention were generally disgusting stinking holes, where cold, dampness, darkness, dirt, hunger, contagious diseases and the complete absence of any kind of concern for prisoners - in a short time turned the unfortunate people who got there, into cripples, into mental patients, into rotting corpses.
But the prisons designated for witches were even worse. Such prisons were built specifically for witches, with special devices designed to inflict the most cruel torment on the unfortunate. The mere detention of these prisons was enough to finally shock and torment the innocent woman who got there and force her to confess to all sorts of crimes of which she was accused.
One of the contemporaries of that era left descriptions of the internal structure of these prisons. He claimed that the prisons were placed in thick, well-fortified towers or in cellars. They contained several thick logs revolving around a vertical post or screw; holes were made in these logs, where the hands and feet of the prisoners were pushed through. To do this, the logs were unscrewed or moved apart, hands were placed in the holes between the upper logs, and the legs of the prisoners were placed in the holes between the lower logs; after which the logs were screwed or nailed with stakes or closed so tightly that the prisoners could not move their arms or legs. In some prisons there were wooden or iron crosses, to the ends of which the heads, arms and legs of prisoners were tightly tied, so that they had to constantly either lie, or stand, or hang, depending on the position of the cross. In some prisons there were thick iron bands with iron wrists at the ends, to which the prisoners' hands were attached. Since the middle of these strips was attached to the wall with a chain, the prisoners could not even move.
Sometimes heavy pieces of iron were attached to the legs so that unfortunate people could neither stretch their legs nor draw them to themselves. Sometimes depressions were made in the walls of such a size that one could hardly sit, stand or lie in them; the prisoners there were locked with iron bars.
In some prisons there were deep pits lined with stone and opening upwards with narrow openings and strong doors. In these very deep pits, the prisoners were lowered on ropes and pulled up in the same way.
In many places, the prisoners suffered terribly from the cold and frostbitten their hands and feet, and even if they were released, they remained crippled for life.
Some prisoners were kept permanently in darkness, had never seen sunlight and could not tell day from night. They were immobile and lay in their own filth. They received disgusting food, could not sleep peacefully, tormented by worries, gloomy thoughts, evil dreams and all sorts of horrors. They were terribly bitten and tormented by lice, mice and rats.
To this was added swearing, cruel jokes and threats from jailers and executioners.
And since all this went on not only for months, but for whole years, people who entered prison vigorous, strong, patient and in a sober mind became very quickly weak, decrepit, crippled, cowardly and insane.
It is not surprising that during their detention in prison, many women fell into a frenzy, they began to have visions, and they imagined that the devil visited them in prison, spoke to them, gave them advice, instructions, had sexual intercourse with them. They later told about these visits during interrogations, trying to stop the unbearable torment of imprisonment and torture, and this served as new evidence of their guilt. Often the devil appeared in the person of the jailers, who committed brutal violence against the imprisoned young women.
Other women fell into a state of apathy and met the torment of torture with surprising indifference, which the judges attributed to the participation of the devil, helping the witch to endure all suffering without pain.
The consequence of the process was punishment - punishment in any case, even if the trials of torture did not lead the accused to a confession and there was not enough evidence to convict.
But even if a miracle happened and the unfortunate woman received freedom, she was completely rejoiced. A physically and morally crippled, despised and disgusting woman was released not as justified, but as a suspect. She was most often awaited by a new accusation and arrest.
Often released prisoners of the Inquisition were forbidden to enter the church, and if allowed, they were given a special place in the church, separated from others. Even in their own home, former prisoners had to be isolated and live in a separate room. Often these unfortunates were repelled by their own families, who were afraid to take them back to them - for fear of incurring suspicion on themselves or because they considered them to be in the power of the devil, although the court acquitted them.
But acquittals were very rare. For the most part, the torture ended in a confession, and the process was followed by execution. The convict was burned at the stake - alive or after strangulation or decapitation. The latter type of execution was considered a mitigation of punishment.
In practice it was accepted as a rule that only those of the witches who persisted and did not show signs of repentance were burned alive; in relation to the repentant, mercy was shown and they were burned after preliminary strangulation or chopping off their heads.
And if in relation to condemned witches "indulgent relief of punishment" was allowed, namely strangulation before burning at the stake, but in relation to werewolves such relief of punishment was not permissible, and they must be burned alive.
The verdict of the court to commit the witch to burning at the stake was usually hung out at the town hall for general information, outlining the details of the witch's crime that had come to light.
A woman sentenced to be burned at the stake was dragged to the place of execution, tied to a cart or to the tail of a horse, face down, through all the streets of the city. The guards and the clergy followed her, followed by a crowd of people. The verdict was read before the execution.
In some cases, a small fire was lit, with a small flame, in order to increase the agony of slow death. Often, to enhance the execution, the condemned were cut off their hands before execution, or the executioner, during the execution of the sentence, tore pieces of meat from their bodies with hot tongs.
Burning was more or less painful, depending on whether the wind drove the suffocating smoke to the person tied to the pole or, on the contrary, drove away this smoke. In the latter case, the convict burned slowly, enduring terrible torment. Many had the moral strength to wait silently for the last beat of their hearts, while others filled the air with tearing cries. To drown out the cries of the unfortunate, they tied their tongues and gagged them. The surrounding crowd heard only the crackle of a burning fire and the monotonous singing of the church choir - until the unfortunate body turned into ashes ...
From the book Unknown War. Secret History of the USA author Bushkov Alexander6. The Bonfires of Richmond In April 1865, everything collapsed. The South physically could not resist any longer. Richmond was besieged. On the square in front of the government building, densely cordoned off by soldiers, huge bonfires were blazing to the roar of guns smashing the fortifications of the capital of the Confederation. black smoke
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In theory, the Inquisition did not apply the death penalty, as well as confiscation. Originally the sentence was only a simple conviction for heresy, and was accompanied by excommunication or a declaration that the culprit was no longer considered within the jurisdiction of the court of the Church; sometimes it was added that he was handed over to a secular court, that "he was set free"; this meant that the direct intervention of the Church in his fate had ended. Over time, it was often mentioned in judgments that there was nothing more the Church could do to make amends for the sins of the guilty; his transfer into the hands of secular power is announced with the words: "let him be punished according to his deserts." The hypocritical appeal, in which the Inquisition implored the secular authorities to spare the life and body of the fallen, is not found in the sentences of the thirteenth century. and was never formulated precisely at a later time.
The appeal to mercy was an empty formality, they resorted to it, only so that it would not seem that the inquisitors agreed to the shedding of blood, since this would be a violation of the canons. But at the same time, the Church vigilantly watched to ensure that her resolution was not misinterpreted, and she taught that there could be no question of any leniency if the heretic did not repent and betray all his like-minded people. One of the theologians of the XIII century. proclaimed: “The purpose of the Inquisition is the destruction of heresy; heresy cannot be destroyed without the destruction of heretics; and heretics cannot be destroyed unless the defenders and supporters of heresy are also destroyed, and this can be achieved in two ways: by converting them to the true Catholic faith, or by reducing their flesh to ashes after they have been handed over into the hands of secular power. In the XIV century. Inquisitor Alonzo de Spina notes that before condemning them to destruction, you need to warn them twice so that they do not threaten peace.
Rice.
The secular authorities, however, believed that by burning heretics they were carrying out the orders of the Inquisition. In an order given on November 9, 1431, by Philip the Handsome of Burgundy to his officials, it is said that it is their duty to punish heretics "as the inquisitor prescribes and according to custom." Sprenger, an inquisitor of the 15th century, no longer hesitates to speak of the victims "which he ordered to be burned."
The Church gave absolution to all those who brought wood for the fire in order to arouse the fury of the common people. Back in the 17th century. the learned Cardinal Albizio stated: “The inquisitors in all processes usually pronounce the final sentence, and if it is a death sentence, then it is directly and necessarily carried out by the doge and the senate” (we are talking about Venice). Even in the XIII century. Gregory IX did not hesitate to assert that the Church was obliged to shed the blood of heretics. Boniface VIII introduced into canon law a reminder to secular authorities, under threat of excommunication, that all who were extradited to them by the Inquisition were subjected to "swift and just" punishment. The inquisitors were ordered to prosecute recalcitrant officials.
The laws of all the states of Europe sentenced heretics to be burned alive; in the person of the inquisitor, they recognized the judge, whose sentences were subject to blind execution. Count Raymond of Toulouse in 1249 ordered eighty heretics who confessed in his presence to be burned alive at Berlège, near Agen.
If, however, for one reason or another, the secular authorities did not dare to execute a heretic, then the Church immediately intervened with all the power of her power to bring them into obedience. Thus, for example, the inquisitors in 1237 condemned ten men and women as heretics; the consuls and vigiers refused to “accept” the condemned, confiscate their property and “treat them as it is customary to deal with heretics,” in other words, they refused to burn them alive. Immediately, the inquisitors solemnly excommunicated officials from the Church. In 1288, Nicholas IV ordered to excommunicate and remove from office the secular authorities of many cities that evaded the execution of the Inquisition's sentences, and also to impose an interdict on their urban communities. In 1458, at Strasbourg, the burgomaster and his comrades refused at first to burn the Hussite missionary and his maid; but the Church forced them to carry out the sentence. In 1486, the city authorities of Brescia refused to burn several sorcerers and witches condemned by the Inquisition; civil lawyers tried to prove that the secular authorities had the right to familiarize themselves with the case. But Innocent VIII was not slow to announce that the desire of the city authorities of Brescia was offensive to the faith, and ordered them to be excommunicated from the Church if they did not execute the condemned within six days; every municipal law contrary to this was declared null and void. In 1521, Pope Leo X confirmed in vigorous terms to the inquisitor and episcopal judges of Venice that their sentences were to be carried out without any revision or investigation, and that they could inflict any spiritual punishment on the disobedient. The secular authorities were obliged to send them to the stake, under the threat of being classified as heretics themselves.
The unrepentant heretic, who preferred martyrdom to apostasy, was not the only victim of the fire. A heretic, also worthy of the fire, was considered the one who refused the confession extorted from him. The man whose solemn conversion was found to be false was an incorrigible heretic, and the fire demanded him.
Already in 1184, the Verona Decree of Pope Lucius III prescribed that every heretic_recidivist, that is, who fell into the same heresy after renunciation, should be extradited to secular courts even without a new interrogation. Frederick II's Edict of Ravenna of 1232 orders the death of all who again fell into heresy, whose conversion was feigned in order to avoid punishment for heresy. In 1244, the Narbonne Council mentions a large number of such cases and orders the transfer of the perpetrators to the secular authorities without a new trial. With the exception of one, all manuals for the legal proceedings of the Inquisition of the XIII century. they order heretics_recidivists to hand over into the hands of secular authorities, moreover, without any trial. Often, secular judges ignored the lenient sentences of the Inquisition and burned the unfortunate victims without any mercy; in their defense, the civil authorities cited the fact that otherwise it would not be possible to cleanse the country of heretics and that indulgence would lead to an increase in heresy. In 1258, Alexander IV ordered the extradition of recidivists into the hands of secular authorities. At the same time, it was argued that the Church is by no means closed to recidivists who have brought repentance, since they can receive Holy Communion even at the stake, but even repentance cannot save them from death. The papal decision thus motivated was entered into the canon laws. In such cases, the promise to give communion at the last minute was included in the sentence, and the victim was always accompanied to the stake by clergy who tried to "save her soul."
Rice.
The imaginary or real crime of returning to heresy became from the middle of the 13th century. the most common reason for the death penalty. Heretics who longed for a martyr's crown were relatively rare, but there were many people who could not sincerely renounce their faith and, having escaped death, hoped that they would be able to better hide their crime against the Church.
All this required a strictly legal definition of the concept of the crime of returning to heresy, when the perpetrator could not even be heard, and also to determine the degree of his guilt for the first and second crimes, the totality of which justified his condemnation as an unrepentant heretic.
There were cases when, at the first conviction, the accused remained only under suspicion without any evidence. Pope Alexander IV stated quite clearly: if the suspicion was serious, then it should be considered as legal evidence of the guilt of the accused, and therefore the accused should be convicted. If the suspicion was light, then the accused should be punished more severely than those punished for the crime for the first time, but not to apply to him the full penalties imposed for recidivists. To establish a secondary crime, it was enough if the accused entered into intercourse with a heretic or showed him some kind of friendly disposition. The condemnation of recidivists was introduced into canon law and became an inviolable law of the Church. In such cases there can be no leniency.
There was another category of criminals: those who escaped from prison or carelessly performed the penance imposed on them. According to the theory, penitents who gladly accepted penance were considered to be sincerely converted, but by not fulfilling it, they showed either that their conversion was insincere, or that their unstable soul had again fallen into old delusions. Therefore, from the very beginning they were looked upon as repeat offenders. The Council of Valenciennes, 1248, decreed that they should first be graciously admonished, after which, if they continued to disobey, they were to be treated as inveterate heretics; this decision was even sometimes included in the sentence, and those who would carelessly perform penance were threatened with the punishment determined for perjurers and unrepentant heretics. The one who escaped from prison was considered a heretic-recidivist, and he should have been burned alive without any trial. The one who converted, if he did not betray all the heretics known to him, having sworn to do so, was often considered a recidivist. A decisive refusal to perform penance was considered a sign of stubborn heresy and led straight to the stake.
The fact that a person is burned just because he believes differently than we do seems to be such a dramatic cruelty and so striking in horror that in the end they began to see it as an essential feature of the activity of the Inquisition. But it must be remembered that among the other punishments imposed by her sentences, the fire was comparatively less common. Bernard Guy during his inquisitorial activity in Toulouse (1308-1323) sent six hundred and thirty-seven heretics to the stake, not counting the sixty-seven sentences of burning the remains of dead heretics. In fact, the inquisitors sought more conversions, exposures, and confiscations than an increase in the number of martyrs. The bonfire, lit from time to time, maintained in the population the horror that was considered salutary. Prisons, mass confiscations, humiliating penances, and, finally, the invisible police, thanks to which she paralyzed the mind and heart of everyone who had the misfortune of once falling into her hands, were the main and most terrible weapon of the holy tribunal, and a terrible weapon at that.
Now about the execution itself. When the crowd gathered to watch the death agony of the martyrs, they tried not to show any pity for them, so as not to soften the fanaticism of the audience. The culprit was not strangled before the wood was set on fire, as was the practice in the later Spanish Inquisition; gunpowder had not yet been invented, and therefore a sack of gunpowder was not yet tied around the neck of the victim in order to shorten his torment when the flames engulfed him. The unfortunate one was tied alive to a post that towered over a pile of firewood so high that the faithful could see everything. The monks accompanied him to the last minute in the hope of wresting, if possible, his soul from the claws of the devil; if he was not a recidivist, he could recant at the last minute and save his body. The monks were strictly forbidden to persuade the unfortunate victim to die without resistance, or to climb the scaffold with a firm step, or courageously give themselves into the hands of the executioner, because by giving such advice, they could hasten its end and thereby allow “wrongness”. As a rule, the execution was carried out on a holiday, so that more people could gather and so that the spectacle would be more instructive; out of fear that the victim would not arouse feelings of pity or sympathy in the audience, silence was imposed on her.
Minor details are known from the report of one witness to the execution of Jan Hus in Konstanz in 1415. The unfortunate man had to stand between two bundles of brushwood, and he was tightly tied with ropes to a thick pole; a chain was put around his neck. Then they noticed that he turned his face to the east, and since this was indecent for a heretic, he was turned to face the west. He was lined up to the chin with bundles of brushwood and straw. After that, the Count Palatine, who was watching the execution, went up to the scaffold together with the Prefect of Constance and for the last time invited Hus to abdicate. When he refused, they moved away and struck in the palm of their hands, which was a sign for the executioners to set fire to the fire. When the fire had consumed everything, they proceeded to the final destruction of the charred corpse; it was torn apart and the bones broken, and then the remains and entrails were again thrown into the fire.
So that those present did not preserve the remains of the martyr, after the fire went out, they carefully collected the ashes and threw them into running water while digging up his body or bones, then the ceremony of burning them was, of course, less solemn, but did not miss anything to make it terrible. In 1237, many corpses of noble people and other dead people were dug up in Toulouse. Their bones and decomposed corpses were dragged through the streets, with a herald walking in front and shouting: “everyone who does this will perish”, then they were burned “for the glory of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, His Mother, and blessed Dominic, their servant." This procedure, despite the fact that it was quite expensive, was maintained throughout the existence of the Inquisition. According to the reports of Arno Assali from 1323, it cost more than five livres to dig up the bones of three heretics, buy a sack for them, buy ropes to tie the sack, hire two horses to drag the sack to the square and buy firewood.
The fire also served the Inquisition in order to cleanse the country of "contagious and heretical writings"; this was the beginning of censorship, which later occupied a prominent place in the activities of the Inquisition. In 1210, an order was issued to burn the heretical writings of Amaury's student, David de Dinan, as well as Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics. By order of James I of Aragon, translations of the Holy Scriptures were burned. The canons of the Narbonne Council of 1229 forbade the laity to have Holy Scripture. They burned the work of Wilhelm de S._Amour "Experiments". The books of the Jews, especially the Talmud, aroused particular hatred, and the Church spared no effort to destroy them. This persecution was initiated by a Jewish convert, Nicholas de Rupella, who around 1236 drew the attention of Gregory IX to the blasphemy contained in Jewish books, especially the Talmud. In June 1239, Gregory wrote to the kings of England, France, Navarre, Aragon, Castile and Portugal, as well as to the prelates of these kingdoms, ordering that on the Saturday of the next Lent, when all the Jews were in their synagogues, all their books should be seized and given to the beggars monks. In May 1248, fourteen cartloads of books were burned in Paris, and then six more. But the Talmud continued to exist. In 1255, Saint Louis again ordered in his instructions to the seneschals of the province of Narbonne that all copies of the Talmud, as well as all books containing blasphemy, be destroyed. In 1267, Clement IV ordered the Archbishop of Aragon to force the King of Aragon and his lords, under pain of excommunication from the Church, to order that the Jews give the Talmud and other books to the inquisitors. Books that do not contain blasphemy must be returned, and the rest sealed and hidden in a safe place. In 1299, Philip the Handsome orders his judges to assist the inquisitors in destroying copies of the Talmud. In 1309, four cartloads of Hebrew books were publicly burned in Paris. In 1319, two carts were needed to carry condemned books to the auto-da-fé at Toulouse. In 1554, Julius III confirmed the decree of the Inquisition: the Jews were ordered, under pain of death, to give out all books containing blasphemous references to Christ; this papal injunction was incorporated into canon law.
The methods invented and approved by the Inquisition were applied by the episcopal courts to heretics; and soon violence and arbitrariness spread to all cases within the jurisdiction of the episcopal courts. Already in 1317, the inquisitor Bernard Guy speaks of torture as a common occurrence in spiritual courts.
The influence of the Inquisition on secular legal proceedings was even more disastrous. Until the end of the XVIII century. in most of Europe, the inquisitorial jurisprudence, which had been developed for the purpose of destroying heresy, became the usual method applied to all accused. In the eyes of a secular judge, the accused was a person outside the law, his guilt was always assumed, and it was necessary to extract a confession from him at all costs by cunning or force. The same was true of witnesses. A prisoner who confessed under torture was subjected to further torture so that he would betray "other criminals" whom he might know. Likewise, the Inquisition introduced into the ordinary court the crime of "suspicion"; if it was not possible to convict the accused of the crime that was attributed to him, then he could be punished as a suspect, and the punishment was left to the discretion of the judge.
All this system generated by the Inquisition until the 18th century. gave the unfortunate and defenseless to the mercy of cruel judges. As early as 1823, a court in Martinique condemned a man to hard labor for life, because he had a "heavy suspicion" that he was a sorcerer. The Valencian "junta of faith" (under this name Ferdinand VII restored the Inquisition in Spain in 1823) on September 29, 1824, arrested the teacher Cayetano Rityul "I on charges of Judaism: he claimed that (according to the Acts of the Apostles, ch. 15 , verses 20 and 29) the essence of religion lies in the saying: “Do not do to another what you do not want them to do to you.” He languished in prison for about two years, and on August 1, 1826, he was solemnly burned at the stake in Valencia. was the last burning, it caused a storm of indignation in Europe, but the activity of religious courts was stopped only on July 1, 1835. The end of the Inquisition, which had been in force for more than six hundred years, came to an end. modes.
In theory, the Inquisition did not apply the death penalty, as well as confiscation. Originally, the sentence was only a simple conviction for heresy, and was accompanied by excommunication or a declaration that the guilty person was no longer considered within the jurisdiction of the court of the church; sometimes it was added that a heretic is handed over to a secular court - that "he is set free"; this meant that the direct intervention of the church in his fate was over. As time passed, judgments often began to mention that the church could do nothing more to atone for the sins of the guilty; his transfer into the hands of secular authorities was accompanied by the words: “May he be punished according to his deserts!” At a later time, they were supplemented by a hypocritical appeal, with which the Inquisition conjured the secular authorities to spare the life and body of the fallen; however, it has never been formulated precisely.
The appeal to mercy was an empty formality, they resorted to it, only so that it would not seem that the inquisitors agreed to the shedding of blood, since this would be a violation of church canons. But at the same time, the church vigilantly watched that its resolution was not interpreted wrongly, that is, in favor of a heretic; she taught that there could be no question of any indulgence if the heretic did not repent and did not betray all his adherents. One of the theologians of the XIII century proclaimed: “The goal of the Inquisition is the destruction of heresy; heresy cannot be destroyed without the destruction of heretics; and heretics cannot be destroyed unless the defenders and supporters of heresy are also destroyed, and this can be achieved in two ways: by converting them to the true Catholic faith, or by reducing their flesh to ashes after they have been handed over into the hands of secular power.
The secular authorities, however, believed that by burning heretics they were fulfilling the orders of the Inquisition. In an order given on November 9, 1431, by Philip the Handsome of Burgundy to his officials, it is said that it is their duty to punish heretics "as the inquisitor prescribes and according to custom." The 15th-century inquisitor Sprenger, no longer embarrassed, speaks of the victims "which he ordered to be burned." In the 17th century, Cardinal Albizio declared: “The inquisitors in all processes usually pass the final sentence, and if it is a death sentence, then it is directly and necessarily carried out by the doge and the senate” (it was about Venice).
The church gave absolution to all those who brought wood for the fire. In the 13th century, Gregory IX did not hesitate to assert that the church was obliged to shed the blood of heretics. Boniface VIII introduced into canon law a reminder to secular authorities, under pain of excommunication, that all who were handed over to them by the Inquisition would be subject to "swift and just" punishment. Inquisitors, however, were instructed to always speak of "doing the law" without mentioning the nature of the punishment, although everyone knew that the only punishment for an unrepentant heretic was death at the stake.
It should be noted that the secular authorities did not show disgust before the performance of their terrible duty. The laws of all the states of Europe sentenced heretics to be burned alive, and even the free republics of Italy recognized in the person of the inquisitor a judge who was to be obeyed without reasoning. Even Raymond of Toulouse, who himself survived the persecution, ordered eighty people to be burned alive in Berlège, near Agen, - however, this happened in a pious impulse that preceded his death.
If, however, for one reason or another, the secular authorities did not dare to execute a heretic, then the church immediately intervened in the matter. So, for example, in 1237 in France, the inquisitors condemned ten men and women as heretics, but the officials refused to “accept” the convicts, confiscate their property and “treat them as it is customary to deal with heretics”, in other words, they refused to burn them alive. The inquisitors immediately excommunicated these officials from the church. In 1288, Nicholas IV excommunicated and ordered the dismissal of the secular authorities of many cities that evaded the execution of the Inquisition's sentences, and also imposed an interdict on the urban communities themselves. In 1458, in Strasbourg, the burgomaster and his comrades refused to burn the Hussite missionary and his maid, but the church forced them to carry out the sentence. In 1486, the city authorities of Brescia made an attempt to give, bypassing the verdict of the Inquisition, the life of several sorcerers and sorceresses; moreover, they wished to familiarize themselves with the case. But Pope Innocent VIII was not slow to declare that this desire was offensive to the faith, and ordered them to be excommunicated from the church if they did not execute the condemned within six days; municipal laws that contradicted this requirement were declared null and void. In 1521, Pope Leo X vigorously confirmed to the inquisitor and episcopal judges of Venice that their sentences must be carried out without any revision or further investigation, and that otherwise they could impose any spiritual punishment on officials. In general, secular authorities were generally required to send people to the stake, otherwise they themselves could be accused of heresy.
The constantly repeated teaching of the church deeply convinced its best representatives that the burning of a heretic is an act of the greatest justice, and a condescending attitude towards heretics is a heresy worthy of the most severe condemnation. Thus it was agreed by all that heretics should be burned; this opinion was the fruit of education, which was subjected to generation after generation in the Middle Ages. Anyone who did not profess the Catholic faith, defended other beliefs and refused to renounce them, was considered a heretic; for the most stubborn and hardened there was only one punishment - a fire.
But the inquisitor was not always in a hurry to condemn the heretic to death. And the point here is not a concern about the possible salvation of the soul; a former heretic converted to Catholicism, betraying his accomplices, was much more useful to the church than a charred corpse; therefore, they spared no effort to achieve renunciation. In addition, the experience of the Inquisition, accumulated over the years, showed that fanatical people often longed for torment and themselves wished for death at the stake; therefore, the inquisitor was not supposed to be the executor of their desires. The Inquisition knew that the first fervor often gave way to the action of time; so she preferred to keep the stubborn heretic, alone and chained, in prison for a year or more. Only theologians and lawyers were allowed to see him, whose task was to influence his mind, and his wife and children, who could soften his will. And only when all efforts did not lead to anything, the heretic was "released"; but even after that, the execution was postponed for a day, so that he could recant, which, however, rarely happened, since those who had not yielded before that time usually did not succumb to any persuasion.
If at the last minute the stubbornness of a heretic was broken and he expressed a desire to repent, then it was recognized that his conversion was caused by fear, and he was left in prison for life. Sometimes renunciation of heresy was accepted right at the stake, although there were no specific rules regarding this. Inquisitor Emeric tells of an incident in Barcelona during the burning of three heretics; one of them, a priest, broken by terrible suffering, when part of his body was already exposed to unbearable heat, cried out that he wanted to recant; the poor fellow was removed from the fire and accepted from him a renunciation, but after fourteen years they learned that he continues to profess heresy and even seduces others; then they burned it without much delay.
As early as 1184, the Decree of Verona of Pope Lucius III prescribed that any recidivist heretic who, after abdication, fell into the same heresy, should be extradited to secular courts without a new interrogation. According to Frederick II's Edict of Ravenna in 1232, all those who fell back into heresy were to be put to death - with particular attention paid to those who renounced heresy, having only one goal - to avoid punishment. In 1244, the Council of Narbonne mentions a large number of such cases and once again confirms the transfer of the perpetrators into the hands of secular authorities without a new trial. Pope Alexander IV speaks of the same in his bull in 1258. Characteristically, the remark made at the same time is that the church is by no means closed to recidivists who have repented for the second time, since they can receive Holy Communion even at the stake, but even repentance cannot save them from death. The papal decision thus motivated was entered into the canon laws. In such cases, the promise to give communion at the last minute was included in the sentence, and the victim was always accompanied to the stake by clergy who tried to "save her soul."
An imaginary or actual return to heresy has become the most frequent reason for the death penalty since the middle of the 13th century. Heretic heroes who longed for a martyr's crown were relatively rare, but there were many people who did not want to renounce their faith and, having escaped death for the first time, hoped that in the future they would be able to better hide their views. All of this has given new meaning to the church's desire to rigorously define the notion of a return to heresy, and has given rise to much controversy. Where guilt itself is almost imperceptible, the task of measuring and defining it is certainly not an easy one.
There were cases when the first trial ended with the acquittal of the accused, but he remained under suspicion without any evidence, and it seemed strange to condemn him to death on the combination of two crimes when he was not caught in the first. Perplexed at the resolution of this issue, the inquisitors turned to Pope Alexander IV, who gave them a very definite answer. If the suspicion in the first case was grave, he replied, then one should, "allowing a kind of legal fiction," consider it as evidence of the guilt of a person, and therefore he should be convicted. If the suspicion was light, then the accused should be punished more severely than those punished for the crime for the first time, but not to apply to him the full penalties laid down for recidivists. In addition, weak evidence was sufficient to establish a secondary crime: it was enough that the accused entered into relations with a heretic or showed him a friendly disposition. This explanation was repeatedly confirmed by Alexander and his successors, with an insistence which shows how many misunderstandings arose on this basis; but in the end the condemnation of recidivists was introduced into canon law and became an inviolable law.
There was another category of criminals: those who escaped from prison or carelessly carried out the penance imposed on him. According to the theory, penitents were considered sincerely converted, “who gladly accepted the penance”, but if one of them did it not zealously enough, it was believed that the conversion was insincere, and this entailed serious sanctions. Those who were seen in non-fulfillment of penance were looked upon as repeat offenders. A resolute refusal to perform penance was considered a sign of malicious heresy and led straight to the stake. The Council of Valenciennes in 1248 decreed that heretics should first be admonished, but if after that they continued to persist in their errors, they should be dealt with in the most severe manner; the fact of non-fulfillment of the penance was sometimes even included in the verdict, and the violators were sometimes equated with perjurers and unrepentant heretics. As for those who escaped from prison, they were considered recidivist heretics, and they were handed over to secular authorities without any trial as the first candidates for the fire. Heretics who converted to Catholicism and swore to extradite all the accomplices known to them, but did not do so, were also ranked among the recidivists.
Burning a person just because he believes differently than others, now seems such a dramatic cruelty and is so amazing that in the end they began to see it as an essential feature of the activity of the Inquisition. But it must be remembered that among the other punishments imposed by her sentences, the fire was comparatively less common. Inquisitor Bernard Guy, during his activity in Toulouse (1308-1323), sent six hundred and thirty-seven heretics to the stake and delivered sixty-seven sentences, according to which the remains of the dead were burned. At the same time, thousands of heretics were converted to Catholicism. The fact is that the inquisitors sought more conversions, exposures and confiscations than an increase in the number of martyrs. Bonfires supported in the population the horror, which was considered saving. Prisons, mass confiscations and humiliating penances were the main punishments of the Inquisition. And the very existence of the invisible, but omniscient police was a living hell for the inhabitants who were in constant fear.
During the execution, when the crowd gathered to watch the death agony of the martyrs, the inquisitors, in order not to soften the fanaticism of the spectators, tried not to show even the slightest pity for the unfortunate. The culprit was not strangled before the wood was set on fire, as was the practice in the later Spanish Inquisition; gunpowder had not yet been invented, and therefore a sack of gunpowder was not yet tied around the neck of the victim in order to shorten his torment when the flames engulfed him. Usually, the executed heretic was tied to a pole, towering over a pile of firewood so high that the audience could see all his torment. The priests accompanied their victim to the last minute in the hope of wresting, if possible, the lost soul from the claws of the devil; if the poor fellow was not a recidivist, he could recant at the last minute and save his body. The participants in the ceremony were strictly forbidden to convince the unfortunate victim to die without resistance, or to climb the scaffold with a firm step, or courageously give themselves into the hands of the executioner, because by giving such advice, they could hasten its end and thereby allow “wrongness”. Usually the execution was carried out on a holiday, so that more people could gather and the spectacle fulfilled its educational function, for the sake of which everything was started; out of fear that the victim would arouse feelings of pity or sympathy in the audience, she was often gagged.
Minor details are known to us from the report of one witness to the execution of Jan Hus in Konstanz in 1415. The heretic stood between two bundles of brushwood; they tied him tightly to a thick post, with ropes around his ankles, knees, waist, between his legs and under his arms; a chain was put around his neck. Then they noticed that he turned his face to the east, and since this was considered indecent for a heretic, he was turned to face the west. He was lined up to the chin with bundles of brushwood and straw. After that, Count Palatine Louis, who was watching the execution, went up to the scaffold together with the Prevost of Constance and for the last time invited Hus to abdicate. When he refused, they moved away and clapped their hands, which was a sign to light a fire. When the fire had consumed everything, they proceeded to the final destruction of the charred corpse; it was torn apart and the bones broken, and then the remains and entrails were again thrown into the fire.
When it was feared that those present would keep the remains of the martyr for worship, then after the fire was extinguished, the ashes were carefully collected and thrown into running water.
Reports have been preserved indicating the costs that were required for the execution of heretics. Here, for example, is a detailed record of expenses for the burning of four heretics in Carcassonne on April 24, 1323: “Firewood - 55 sous 6 deniers; brushwood - 21 sous 3 denier; straw - 2 sous 6 denier; 4 pillars - 10 sous 9 denier; ropes - 4 sous 7 denier; the executioner 20 sous per head - a total of 80 sous ... ”A little more than two livres for each executed heretic.
In 1237, in Toulouse, many people were dug out of the graves, recognized as heretics after death. Their half-decomposed corpses were dragged through the streets, a herald walked in front and shouted: "Whoever does this, this is how he will perish"; then they were burned at the stake "for the glory of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, His Mother, and Blessed Dominic, their minister." This procedure, despite the fact that it was rather expensive, became a tradition and was maintained throughout the existence of the Inquisition, and a lot of money was spent on it.
The fire also served the Inquisition in order to cleanse the country of "contagious and heretical writings"; this was the beginning of censorship, which later occupied a prominent place in the activities of the Inquisition. In 1210, an order was issued to burn the heretical writings of David de Dinan, as well as Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics. By order of James I of Aragon, non-canonical translations of the Holy Scriptures were burned. They burned the essay of William of Saint-Amour "Experiments".
Jews' books, above all the Talmud, aroused particular hatred; the church spared no effort to destroy them. This persecution was initiated by the converted Jew Nicola de Rupella, who around 1236 drew the attention of Gregory IX to the blasphemy contained in Jewish books, especially the Talmud. In June 1239, Gregory demanded from the kings of England, France, Navarre, Aragon, Castile and Portugal, as well as the prelates of these kingdoms, that on the Saturday of the coming Lent, when all the Jews were in their synagogues, all their books were seized and given to the monks of the mendicant orders. . In May 1248, fourteen cartloads of books were burned in Paris, and then six more. In 1255 Saint Louis ordered the seneschals of the province of Narbonne to destroy all copies of the Talmud, as well as all other books "containing blasphemy". In 1267, Clement IV ordered the Archbishop of Aragon to force the King of Aragon and his lords, under pain of excommunication, to order the Jews to give the Talmud and other books to the inquisitors. Books that did not reveal blasphemy were to be returned, and the rest sealed and hidden in a safe place. In 1299, Philip the Handsome ordered his judges to assist the inquisitors in destroying the Talmud. In 1309, four heaps of Hebrew books were publicly burned in Paris. In 1319, two carts were needed to carry Jewish books condemned at the auto-da-fé in Toulouse. In 1554, Pope Julius III confirmed the demand of the Inquisition addressed to the Jews: they were ordered, under pain of death, to give out all books containing blasphemous references to Christ; this papal injunction was incorporated into canon law.
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