1708 Augustin Nicholas, op. cit. pp. 169, 178.

1709 Even this, however, was not deemed necessary in cases of conspiracy and treason “qui fiunt secreto, propter probationis difficultatem devenitur ad torturam sine indiciis”—Emer. a Rosb. Tit. V. cap. x. No. 20.

1710 Fama frequens et vehemens facit indicium ad torturam (Zanger. c. II. No. 80. Cf. Alberti de Gandino de Quæst. § 39). Reus ante accusationem vel inquisitionem fugiens et citatus contumaciter absens, se suspectum reddit ut torqueri possit (Ibid. No. 91. Cf. Simancæ Cathol. Instit. Tit. LXV. Nos. 28-30). Inconstantia sermonis facit indicium ad torturam (Zanger. Nos. 96-99). Ex taciturnitate oritur indicium ad torturam (Ibid. No. 103). Physiognomia malam naturam arguit, non autem delictum (Ibid. No. 85). How exceedingly lax was the application of these rules may be guessed from a remark of Damhouder’s, that although rumor was sufficient to justify torture, yet a contrary rumor neutralized the first and rendered torture improper.—Damhouder. Rer. Crimin. Praxis cap. xxxv. Nos. 14, 15.

1711 Deinde a pallore et similibus oritur indicium ad torturam secundum Bartol. (Emer. a Rosbach Tit. V. c. vii. Nos. 28-31). Whereupon von Rosbach enters into a long dissertation as to the causes of paleness.

1712 Godelmanni de Magis Lib. III. cap. x. § 29.

1713 Scialojæ cap. iii. Nos. 5, 6.

1714 Judicis arbitrio relinquitur an indicia sint sufficientia ad torturam (Zanger. cap. II. Nos. 16-20). An indicia sufficiant ad torturam judicis arbitrio relictum est.... Indicia ad torturam sufficientia relinquuntur officio judicis (Emer. a Rosbach Tit. V. c. ii. p. 529). Damhouder, indeed, states that no rules can be framed—“neque ea ullis innituntur regulis: sed universum id negotium geritur penes arbitrium, discretionem ac conscientiam judicis.”—Rer. Crimin. Praxis cap. xxxvi. Nos. 1, 2. Cf. Braune Dissert. de Tortura Valetudin. Halæ Cattor. 1740.

So Grillandus (De Quæstione et Tortura Q. iii.)—“Quæ autem indicia dicantur esse sufficientia ad torturam certa regula tradi non potest, sed hoc relinquitur arbitrio et discretioni boni judicis.”

And Albertus de Gandino (De Quæstionibus § 14)—“Nec de his possit dari certa doctrina sed hoc committitur arbitrio judicantis.”

1715 Sunt tamen nonnulli prætores et judices sanguine fraterno adeo inexsaturabiles ut illico quemvis malæ famæ virum, citra ulla certa argumenta aut indicia, corripiant ad sævissimam torturam, inclementer dicentes, cruciatum facile ab illis extorturum rerum omnium confessionem.—Damhouder. Rer. Crimin. Praxis cap. xxxv. No. 13.

1716 Hipp. de Marsiliis Singularia, No. 455 (Venet. 1555).

1717 Godelmanni de Magis Lib. III. cap. v. § 26.—Emer. a Rosbach Tit. V. c. x. No. 25.

1718 Groot, Historia Eclesiastica y Civil de Nueva Granada, Bogotá, 1869, T. I. pp. 114-5, 116-20. Cf. Scialojæ Praxis torquendi Reos, cap. i. No. 25.

1719 Rosbach Tit. V. cap. x. No. 2.

1720 Ibid. Tit. V. cap. xiv. No. 16.—Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 54.—Grillandi de Quæst. et Tortura, Q. vii.

1721 Scialojæ cap. xiv. Nos. 5-20.—Jo. Frid. Werner Dissert. de Tortura Testium, Erford. 1724, pp. 72 sqq.

1722 Passerini Regulare Tribunal, Quæst. XV. Art. ix. No. 115 (Colon. Agripp. 1665).

1723 Process. contr. Card. de Caraffa (Hoffman. Collect. Script. I. 632).

1724 Scialojæ c. xiv. No. 2.

1725 Statuta Criminalia Communis Bononiæ (Bononiæ 1525, p. 15 b).

1726 Damhouder, op. cit. cap. xlvii. No. 3.

1727 Passerini, loc. cit. Nos. 122-3.

1728 Ibid. No. 118.

1729 Simancæ de Cathol. Instit. Tit. LXV. No. 73.

1730 Zangeri, op. cit. I. Nos. 8-25.

1731 Zangeri cap. IV. Nos. 25-30.—Damhouder, op. cit. cap. xxxvii. Nos. 15, 16.—Baldi de Periglis de Quæstionibus, cap. i. § 7.—Alberti de Gandino de Quæstionibus § 11.

1732 Grilland. de Quæstione et Tortura Q. iv. §§ 2-10. “Quod tunc corpus ipsius rei dilaniatur membraque et ossa quodammodo dissolvuntur et evelluntur a corpore.”

1733 Zangeri, op. cit. cap. III. No. 3.

1734 Process. Criminal. Tit. V. cap. x. No. 7.

We have already seen (p. 514) that in France the accused was not allowed to see the evidence against him; and the same rule was in force in Flanders—“Toutes depositions de tesmoins en causes criminelles demeureront secrètes à l’égard de l’accusé.”—Coutume d’Audenarde, Stile de la Procedure, Art. 10. (Le Grand, Coutumes de Flandre, Cambrai, 1719, p. 103).

1735 Diss. Inaug. cap. I. § xii.

1736 Goetzii, op. cit. p. 36.

1737 Zangeri, op. cit. cap. III. Nos. 1, 4, 5-43.

1738 Process. Crim. Tit. V. cap. xi. No. 6.

1739 Goetzii, op. cit. p. 35.

1740 Zangeri cap. II. Nos. 49-50.—Cum enim confrontatio odiosa sit et species suggestionis, et remedium extraordinarium ad substantiam processus non pertinens, et propterea non necessaria.

1741 Zangeri, cap. IV. Nos. 1-6.

1742 Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 34.

1743 Braune Dissert. de Tortura Valetudin. p. 16.

1744 Process. Crimin. Tit. V. cap. ix. No. 10.

1745 Zangeri cap. I. No. 37.

1746 Rer. Crimin. Praxis cap. xxxviii. Nos. 6, 7.

1747 Boden de Usu et Abusu Torturæ Th. XII. Damhouder declares this practice to be unjustifiable, though not infrequent (Rer. Crimin. Praxis cap. xxxvii. No. 12).—Bonifazio de’ Vitaliani speaks of it as a common but evil custom.—De Quæstionibus, Rubr. Quæ indicia, § 7.

1748 He represents the judge as addressing his victim “Tu sei il reo di un delitto, dunque è possibile che lo sii di cent’ altri delitti: questo dubbio mi pesa, voglio accertarmene col mio criterio di verità: le leggi ti tormentano, perche sei reo, perche puoi esser reo, perche voglio che tu sii reo.”—Dei Delitti e delle Pene, § XII.

1749 Martini Bernhardi Diss. Inaug. de Tortura cap. I. § 4. Scialoja, in 1653, assures us that this torture after confession to prevent appeals was no longer permitted in the Neapolitan courts, and that it was only allowed for the discovery of accomplices (Praxis torquendi Reos. c. i. Nos. 8-10).

1750 Scialojæ, op. cit. cap. i. No. 14.

1751 Damhouder, Rer. Crimin. Prax. cap. xxxv. No. 9, cap. xxxviii. No. 14.—Werner Dissert. de Tortura Testium, pp. 76 sqq.

1752 Damhoud. cap. xxxix. No. 6.

1753 Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 26.

1754 Emer. a Rosbach Process. Criminal. Tit. V. cap. x. Nos. 8-16.—Simancæ Cath. Inst. LXV. 17.

1755 Bernhardi, loc. cit. The difference between the practice and principles of the law is shown by the rules laid down in 1647 by Brunnemann, coexisting with the above. He directs that the proceedings are to be exhibited to the accused or his friends, and then submitted to a college of jurists who are to decide as to the necessity of torture, and he warns the latter that they can have no graver question placed before them—“Et sane nullam graviorem puto esse deliberationem in Collegiis Juridicis quam ubi de tortura infligenda agitur.”—Brunneman. de Inquisitionis Processu cap. VIII. Memb. iv. No. 10; Memb. v. No. 1.

1756 Passerini Regulare Tribunal; Praxis, cap. viii. No. 170.

1757 Louïse, Sorcellerie et Justice Criminelle à Valenciennes (Valenciennes, 1861, pp. 121-125).

1758 Goetzii Diss. de Tortura, p. 71.

1759 Bodin de Magor. Dæmonom. (Basil. 1581, p. 325).

1760 Zangeri cap. V. Nos. 79-81.

1761 Bernhardi Diss. Inaug. cap. I. § xi.

1762 Emer. a Rosbach, op. cit. Tit. V. cap. xviii. No. 13.—Godelmanni de Magis L. III. cap. x. § 52.—Gerstlacheri Comment. de Quæst. per Tormenta, p. 35.—Grillandi de Quæst. et Tortura Q. vii. § 11. So Beccaria (Delitt. e Pene, § XII.)—“Alcuni dottori ed alcune nazioni non permettono questa infame petizione di principio che per tre volte; altre nazioni ed altri dottori la lasciano ad arbitrio del giudice.”

1763 This custom prevailed in Electoral Saxony until the abrogation of torture (Goetzii Diss. de Tort. p. 33), and was especially the case at Amsterdam. Meyer (Institutions Judiciaires, IV. 295) states that the registers there afford scarcely an instance of a prisoner discharged without conviction after enduring torture.

1764 Zanger. loc. cit.

1765 Bernhardi, cap. I. § xii.—Goetzii op. cit. p. 74.—Cf. Caroli V. Const. Crim. cap. XX. § 1.—Goetz (p. 67) derives urpheda from ur before, and fede enmity.

1766 Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 31.

1767 Werner. Dissert. de Tortura, pp. 91-2.

1768 Zangeri cap. II. Nos. 9-10; cap. V. Nos. 19-28.—Damhouder. op. cit. cap. xxxvi. No. 36.—Baldi de Periglis de Quæstionibus cap. ii. § 9.

1769 Zangeri cap. V. Nos. 1-18.—Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, pp. 67-9.

1770 Damhouder. op. cit. cap. xl. No. 3.—Bigotry and superstition, especially, did not allow their victims to escape so easily. In accusations of sorcery, if appearances were against the prisoner—that is, if he were of evil repute, if he shed no tears during the torture, and if he recovered speedily after each application—he was not to be liberated because no confession could be wrung from him, but was to be kept for at least a year, “squaloribus carceris mancipandus et cruciandus, sæpissime etiam examinandus, præcipue sacratioribus diebus.”—Rickii Defens. Aq. Probæ cap. I. No. 22.

1771 Alberti de Gandino de Quæstionibus § 21.

1772 Zangeri cap. V. No. 53-61.—Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 57.

1773 Boden, op. cit. Th. V. VI.

1774 Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 72.

1775 Boden, op. cit. Th. V. VI.

1776 Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 76. Distinction was sometimes made between crimes involving death or corporal punishment and those of lighter grade, but Goetz states that in his time (1742) in Saxony the above was the received practice.

1777 Dissert. Mor. et Jurid. sur la Torture, pp. 36-7.

1778 Ibid. p. 169.

1779 Damhoud. Rer. Criminal. Prax. cap. 34, § 7.

1780 Const. 7 Cod. IX. xviii.

1781 Concil. Emeritan. ann. 666 can. xv.

In the middle of the thirteenth century, the Emperor Theodore Lascaris invented a novel mode of torture in a case of this kind. When a noble lady of his court was accused of sorcery, he caused her to be inclosed naked in a sack with a number of cats. The suffering, though severe, failed to extort a confession.—Georg. Pachymeri Hist. Mich. Palæol. Lib. I. cap. xii.

1782 Bodini de Magorum Dæmonoman. Lib. IV. cap. 2.

1783 Boguet, Discours des Sorciers, chap. lv. (Lyon, 1610).

1784 Louïse, La Sorcellerie et la Justice Criminelle à Valenciennes (Valenciennes, 1861, pp. 133-64).—For other similar instances see Bodin, op. cit. Lib. IV. cap. 1, 2.

1785 Bodin. Lib. I. cap. 2.

1786 Per legales testes hujus rei ad convincendum fides certa haberi non potest.—Rickii Defens. Aquæ Probæ cap. III. No. 117.

1787 Idque facilius in excepto et occulto difficilisque probationis crimine nostro sortilegii admiserim quam in aliis.—Disquisit. Magicar. Lib. V. Sect. iii. No. 8.

1788 Boguet, Instruction pour un juge en faict de Sorcelerie, art. xxxii.

1789 Soit pour ne trouver les délitz suffisament vérifiez, ou pour savoir tous les complices, ou autrement.—Chart. nouv. du Haynau, chap. 125, art. xxvi. (Louïse, p. 94).

1790 Nicolas, p. 145. The curious reader will find in Del Rio (Lib. V. Sect. ix.) ample details as to the arts of the Evil One to sustain his followers against the pious efforts of the Inquisition.

1791 “Qu’après qu’on eut lavé ses jambes, qui avoient été déchirées par la torture, et qu’on les eut présentées au feu pour y rapeller quelque peu d’esprits et de vigueur, il ne cessa pas de s’entretenir avec ses Gardes, par des discours peu sérieux et pleins de railleries; qu’il mangea avec apétit et but avec plaisir trois ou quatre coups; et qu’il ne répandit aucuns larmes en souffrant la question, ni après l’avoir souffert, lors même qu’on l’exorcisa de l’exorcisme des Magiciens, et que l’Exorciste lui dit à plus de cinquante reprises ‘præcipio ut si sis innocens effundas lachrymas.’”—Hist. des Diables de Loudon, pp. 157-8.

1792 Rerum Crimin. Praxis Cap. xxxvii. Nos. 21, 22. Cf. Brunnemann. de Inquisit. Process. cap. VIII. Memb. v. No. 70.

1793 Rickii op. cit. cap. I. No. 24.

1794 Grillandi de Quæstione et Tortura, Art. iii. §§ 12-16. One of the conjurations is an allusion to the Crucifixion,

Another “Quemadmodum lac beatæ gloriosæ Mariæ virginis fuit dulce et suave domino nostro Jesu Christo, ita hæc tortura sit dulcis et suavis brachiis et membris meis.”

1795 Boguet, Instruction pour un juge, art. xxix.—Damhouderi Rer. Crim. Prax. cap. xxxviii. No. 19.

1796 Sprenger Mall. Maleficar. P. III. q. xvi. This was directly in contradiction to the precepts of the civil lawyers. Ippolito dei Marsigli says positively that a confession uttered in response to a promise of pardon cannot be used against the accused (Singularia, Venet. 1555, fol. 36 b). The Church, however, did not consider itself bound by the ordinary rules of law or morality. Marsigli in another passage (fol. 30 a) relates that Alexander III. once secretly promised a bishop that if he would publicly confess himself guilty of simony he should have a dispensation, and on the prelate’s doing so, immediately deposed him.

1797 Bodin. Lib. IV. cap. I.

1798 Boguet, Instruction, art. xxvii.

1799 De Cathol. Instit. Tit. XIII. No. 12.

1800 Disquisit. Magicar. Lib. V. Sect. x.

1801 Father Tanner states that he had this from learned and experienced men.—Tanneri Tract. de Proc. adv. Veneficas, Quæst. II. Assert. iii. § 2.

1802 Ibid. loc. cit.

1803 Nicolas, p. 164.

1804 Chabot, Encyclopédie Monastique, p. 426 (Paris, 1827). For instances see Angeli Rumpheri Hist. Formbach. Lib. II. (Pez, I. III. 446).—A. Molinier in Vaissette, Ed. Privat, IX. 417.

1805 “Ita torquatur ut nec plagam referat nec color cutis livescat.”—Grágás, Festathattr cap. xxxiii.

1806 Grágás, Vigslothi cap. cxi.

1807 Ibid. Vigslothi cap. lxxxviii.

1808 Schlegel Comment. ad Grágás § xxix.

1809 Legg. Cimbric. Woldemari Lib. II. cap. i. xl. (Ed. Ancher, Hafniæ, 1783).

1810 Christiani V. Jur. Danic. Lib. I. cap. xx. (Ed. Weghorst, Hafniæ, 1698). Senckenberg (Corp. Jur. German. T. I. Præf. p. lxxxvi.) gives the chapter heads of a code in Danish, the Keyser Retenn, furnished to him by Ancher, in which cap. iv. and v. contain directions as to the administration of torture. The code is a mixture of German, civil, and local law, and probably was in force in some of the Germanic provinces of Denmark.

1811 Legg. Opstalbomicæ ann. 1323 (ap. Gärtner, Saxonum Leges Tres. Lipsiæ, 1730).

1812 Raguald. Ingermund. Leg. Suecor. Stockholmiæ, 1623.

1813 Ll. Henrici I. cap. v. § 16.

A curious disregard of this principle occurs in the Welsh laws, which provide that when a thief is at the gallows, with the certainty of being hanged, his testimony as to his accomplices is to be received as sufficient without requiring it to be sworn to on a relic—the inseparable condition of all other evidence. By a singular inconsistency, however, the accomplice thus convicted was not to be hanged, but to be sold as a slave.—Dimetian Code, Bk. II. ch. v. § 9 (Owen I. 425).

1814 Many interesting details on the influence of the Roman law upon that of England will be found in the learned work of Carl Güterbock, “Bracton and his Relation to the Roman Law,” recently translated by Brinton Coxe (Philadelphia, 1866). The subject is one which well deserves a more thorough consideration than it is likely to receive at the hands of English writers.

It is curious to observe that the crimen læsæ majestatis makes its appearance in Bracton (Lib. III. Tract. ii. cap. 3, § 1) about the middle of the thirteenth century, earlier than in France, where, as we have seen, the first allusion to it occurs in 1315. This was hardly to be expected, when we consider the widely different influences exerted upon the jurisprudence of the two countries by the Roman law.

1815 The passage which has been relied on by lawyers is chap. xxx.: “Nullus liber homo capiatur, vel imprisonetur, aut dissaisiatur, aut utlagetur, aut aliquo modo destruatur; nec super eum ibimus, nec super eum mittemus, nisi per legale judicium parium suorum, vel per legem terræ.” If the law just above quoted from the collection of Henry I. could be supposed to be still in force under John, then this might possibly be imagined to bear some reference to it; but it is evident that had torture been an existing grievance, such as outlawry, seizure, and imprisonment, the barons would have been careful to include it in their enumeration of restrictions. Moreover, Magna Charta was specially directed to curtail the royal prerogative, and at a later period was not held by any one to interfere with that prerogative whenever the king desired to test with the rack the endurance of his loving subjects.

1816 Et come ascuns felons viendrount en Jugement respondre de lour felonie, volons que ils viegnent dechausses et descients sauns coiffe, et a teste descouverte, en pure lour cote hors de fers et de chescun manere de liens, ïssint que la peine ne lour toille nule manere de rason, selon par force ne lour estouva mye respondre forsque lour fraunche volunte.—Britton, chap. v.

1817 Per volunté aussi se fait ceste pesché [homicide] si come per ceux qui painent home tant que il est gehist pur avouer pesché mortelment.—Horne, The Myrror of Justice, cap. I. sect. viii.—See also Fleta, Lib. I. cap. xxvi. § 5.

1818 Ou faussement judgea Raginald ... ou issint; tant luy penia pur luy faire conoistre, approver il se conoist faussement aver pesché ou nient ne pescha.—Horne, cap. II. sect. xv.

1819 Pike (Hist. of Crime in England I. 427) quotes a document of 1189 which seems indirectly to show that torture could be inflicted under an order of the king. The expression is somewhat doubtful, and as torture had not yet established itself anywhere in Europe as a judicial procedure the document alleged can hardly be received as evidence of its legality.

1820 See Fortescue de Laud. Legg. Angliæ. cap. xxxiii.—The jealousy with which all attempted encroachments of the Roman law were repelled is manifested in a declaration of Parliament in 1388. “Que ce royalme d’Engleterre n’estait devant ces heures, ne à l’entent du roy nostre dit seignior et seigniors du parlement unque ne serra rulé ne governé par la ley civill.”—Rot. Parl., II Ric. II. (Selden’s Note to Fortescue, loc. cit.).

1821 De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, cap. xxii.

1822 See Jardine’s “Reading on the Use of Torture in the Criminal Law of England,” p. 7 (London, 1837), a condensed and sufficiently complete account of the subject under the Tudors and Stuarts.

1823 Partim tormentis subjecti, partim crudelissime laniati, et partim etiam furca suspensi fuerant.—Wilkins Concil. III. 617.

1824 Jardine, op. cit. pp. 8-9, 24-5. It is due to Sir Thomas to add that he earnestly begs Lord Burghley to release him from so uncongenial an employment.

1825 Ibid. pp. 8, 47.

1826 Bacon’s Works, Philadelphia, 1846, III. 126.

1827 Strype’s Eccles. Memorials, III. 101.

1828 Burnet, Hist. Reform. Bk. III. pp. 341-2.

1829 According to Nicander Nucius (Travels, Camden Soc. 1841, pp. 58, 62), the investigation of these deceptions with the severest tortures, Βασάνοις ἀφορήτοις, was apparently the ordinary mode of procedure.

1830 Diarium rerum gestarum in Turri Londinensi (Sanderi Schisma Anglicanum, ad calcem, Ingolstadt, 1586).

1831 Sir William Skevington, a lieutenant of the Tower, under Henry VIII., immortalized himself by reviving an old implement of torture, consisting of an iron hoop, in which the prisoner was bent, heels to hams and chest to knees, and was thus crushed together unmercifully. It obtained the nickname of Skevington’s Daughter, corrupted in time to Scavenger’s Daughter. Among other sufferers from its embraces was an unlucky Irishman, named Myagh, whose plaint, engraved on the walls of his dungeon, is still among the curiosities of the Tower:—