La Santa Inquisición (a.k.a. El Santo Oficio)

The Holy Inquisition is a special religious court, one focused on pursuing heretics, magicians, non-humans, Arabs... Anyone can fall in one of these groups if it interests the Inquisition. It is a feared organization in all the places where it has jurisdiction. Nobody contraries it publicly; although some nobles plot in the shadows against it. It is a dangerous game and more than once a noble disappears during the night. Even the Cult of Verena fear to openly argue with it, instead giving a false public image of unity.

Although it is a powerful institution, it is far from achieving total control of the Estalian Kingdoms. The jurisdiction of the Holy Inquisition is limited to the more rural and poor kingdoms. Here their control on the people is amazing. They don't govern openly, but all the petty kings of the region rule with an inquisitor or have an adviser from the Santo Oficio. So they are largely puppet Kings with an obvious apathy towards the duties of government. The advisors and inquisitors usually allow the King to think that they are the actual ruler, until they deviate from the chosen path. In this case, the King will have to face the raw reality of the situation. What would their reaction be? Abdication? Depression? Open or secret rebellion? No one knows. Only the measure of the man and the power they still hold would determine their course of action. Until now none have dared to attempt an open rebellion, but times are changing.

Creation of the Inquisition

The history and creation of the Inquisition is closely tied to the Arabian invasion of Estalia and the subsequent reoccupation. In this context, just after the Arabs were driven home, numerous Estalian Kingdoms were formed. With the exception of Magritta and the people of the Irrana Mountains, who were not completely conquered by the Arabs, numerous racial and religious laws appeared in the rest of Estalia. Racist measures were also promoted by the advisors of the different Kings. The usually small and poor interior kingdoms started a fierce legislation banning the cult of Ormazd. The remaining Arabs had to choose between conversion or leaving their home and livelihoods. Of course the majority of them chose public conversion while they maintained their real faith. This was noticed by the Church of Verena, whose power and influence was growing in these kingdoms. During some secret conversations with each King, some were persuaded to allow the creation of the Santo Oficio in his kingdom.

At the beginning, the Inquisition was only a court focused on the search of false converts. It had no additional structure supporting it; so it had to rely completely on the watch and other public institutions. All their dark methods came later, so they did not employ torture, spying or denial during the beginning. These became more prolific when the Suprema judged the sister of the Inquisidor General Tomás Ojeda for witchcraft and found her innocent. Sadly Ojeda found his sister sacrificing her son in an sinister ritual two months later. This incident shocked him to the core and he became a fanatic zealot obsessed with the persecution of liars and heretics.

He started a campaign to forbid all uses of magic, a campaign that finally succeeded with a total ban on the free use of magic. Since then a magician needs a special licence from the Crown to practice his art. During that time Ojeda thought on the use of the current interrogation and investigation methods. He made statements on the use of torture and verbal subterfuge, asserting that the truth is hidden in the shadows and the only way to make a liar truly confess is with fire and iron. This discussion opened a widespread debate inside the cult of Verena. The opposition to Ojeda was fierce and numerous, although not amongst the members of the Inquisition who mostly defended Ojeda's ideas.
At the beginning his propositions were rejected and Ojeda gradually ceased his claims. Secretly, he created an organization, La Hermandad. Its purpose was to fight unbelievers and those who protected them. So during some years Ojeda remained quiet, organizing a web of informers and recruiting diversely skilled people that could train promising members.

Once the foundations were set they covertly infiltrated all aspects of the cult of Verena, slowly promoting Ojeda's propositions. One by one, the theories and methods were accepted, while La Hermandad grew in strength. During that time Ojeda wrote "El Proceso Inquisitorial" and "El Código del Inquisidor"; two books stating how an inquisitorial process must work and how an inquisitor has to behave. Since then the structure of the Inquisition has remained unaltered, remaining as stated in Ojeda's writings.

Hierarchy of the Inquisition

Fray Tomás Ojeda was the real creator of the Inquisition as it is known in present day Estalia. He created a complex bureaucratic structure to organize the Inquisition. Heading the Inqusition administration is the Consejo de la Suprema y General Inquisición lead by the Inquisidor General. If the Inquisidor General is charismatic or exerts great influence, he becomes an unopposed 'consultative' organ (like during Ojeda's leadership). On the other hand, with a weak Inquisidor General, the la Suprema may become a real power and the last chance for the accused.

Below la Suprema are a number of organisms called Consejos (Councils), with a defined territorial jurisdiction, usually an entire kingdom. At the top of each of these Councils is an Inquisidor Mayor, and below him are a number of Inquisidores Provinciales organized in Tribunales Provinciales (Provincial Courts). These also organize temporary Tribunales Locales (Local Courts) in those places where heresy has been accused to make the appropriate investigations.

A Local Court consists of one or more Provincial Inquisitors, depending on the importance of the accusation. In extreme cases the Local Court is led by an Inquisidor Mayor, but these are rare. It is also composed of a prosecutor, some notaries, a physician, a cleric or monk and a number of familiares. The familiares are people such as torturers, jailers and constables who have played some important role in an investigation, more usually spies and investigators. A normal practice is that the Local Court officials will arrive in a town some days before the arrival of the Inquisitor, in order to make the first investigations. The common people fear them with an almost superstitious awe.

Sins, Crimes and Censorship

In the beginning the El Santo Oficio could only judge followers of Verena and only for witchcraft and religious matters. That is the official charter as it was stated by the cult of Verena and the governors of those Kingdoms under its influence. When the Inquisition was founded it only had that jurisdiction, but its reach has grown since then. Nowadays the Inquisition can judge most citizens and for a variety of crimes. These extra crimes and sins primarily include bigamy, adultery, Ormazd worshipping and reading books by Arab or non-human authors. Between them a large range of more appropriate crimes are judged by the Inquisition. These are sins like blasphemy, apostasy, heresy, witchcraft including unlicensed magicians, Arabic celebrations or false believers and converts. These crimes are their main duty and the reason for the Inquisition's creation.

Due to the religious conversion of most Arabs and the expulsion of the rest along with non humans, the arm of the Inquisition currently reaches across all Estalian Kingdoms. It is an effective tool of repression present in all social classes.

Though these things are true in a general sense, one must not forget that the powers and jurisdiction of the Inquisition vary from Crown to Crown. A crime prosecuted in one kingdom by the Inquisition, might be under the jurisdiction of secular institutions in other provinces or even be perfectly legal. In a similar vein, the Inquisition is dependant on the different royal or local authorities for manpower. The Inquisitors may find their power limited depending on the mood of the authorities. However, not many officers dare to deny the Inquisitors their requests.

Another right of the Inquisition in some provinces, with the particular agreement and control of the Crown, is the moral and political censorship of ideas, books, pictures, music and all artistic expression. In these places, before a book is published or imported from foreign countries it has to be examined by an inquisitorial censor. This has the right to force changes in the writing, eliminate parts of the text and even forbid it completely, including it in the lists of banned books. Different kingdoms have very different lists. In some places these policies are applied retroactively and the censor have the power to examine private libraries. Despite the diligence of the censors their duties are made difficult by a lack of manpower, the ingenuity of the publishers and the use of the printing press. Writers and publishers use tricks to avoid censorship like printing in a neighbour kingdom or printing a first edition purged by themselves and then print the original text in the second edition. This last trick is one of the most successful because the censors usually only examine the first printing of a book.

The Inquisitorial Process

All the inquisitorial processes start with the accusation. Any citizen of a kingdom where the Inquisition has jurisdiction can make an accusation of heresy. In some kingdoms there are limitations on who has this right and duty. If the accusations are scarce, the inquisitors can provoke them with Edictos de Fe (Faith Edicts) which state that every person of the community must accuse all the heretics he knows or face excommunication. These edicts usually provoke an accusation frenzy in the community, with people accusing each other just by sheer terror to the inquisitorial process.

The inquisitors also have the right to promote Edictos de Gracia (Grace Edicts), which grant every person who recognizes he is guilty of heresy the chance of self-accusation and ask for mercy in 30-40 days. The sinner is sure he won't be heavily punished, but he must pay some money "as alms". As the cynics say the provincial courts usually sign these Edictos when they get short of money.

The accusation is studied by the Calificadores, people specialising in Law and Theology, who decide if the accusation belongs to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. Sometimes they send some familiares to make some initial investigations. If they prove that the accusation is false, the informer is accused of calumny and must pay a fine to the Inquisition.
If there is not evidences of the innocence of the accused they are arrested, without an explanation, and all of their assets as well as their families assets are confiscated to pay for the salary of the inquisitors and the cost of investigations and judgement. Once arrested, the accused is informed vaguely of the terms of the accusation, usually only stating that he is accused of a crime of heresy. In the same vein the name of the accuser is kept in secret to avoid any possible vengeance. The accused has to demonstrate their innocence preparing a defence with the aid of a lawyer provided by the Inquisition itself. In the same way they can collect favourable testimonies but they have to wait until the inquisitors have finished their investigations, including an interrogation of themselves. This means that they usually have less time to prepare the defence, but at least the accused, after the interrogations, will have a better idea of what crimes and sins are imputed against them.

The most feared part of the process involves the extraction of evidence from the accused. Provincial Inquisitors are designated to travel to the location and demonstrate the guilt of the accused with various evidences. These are accusatory testimonies collected by the Familiares and the accused own confession. If the accused deny their guilt during the first interrogation, they are tortured until they confesses. The accused is given the chance to reject a confession obtained under torture three days after the confession. If the confession is denied, it is annulled... and the accused can be tortured again.

Although torture is always applied in the presence of a physician, the accused is told that all the temporary and permanent damage and pain he'll suffer is his own responsibility. This is due to their refusal to confess and discharge their conscience. The frightened and half-alienated accused doesn't know the exact terms of the accusation, basically they have no idea of what charges they must confess. So they start a process of trial and error trying to get the charges right. Sometimes this is a short process, but with some of the more insidious accusations the accused can confess almost everything in order to put an end to the torture. All the "extra" self-accused crimes and sins are also judged in the same inquisitorial process.

Once all the evidences from two sides are collected the process begins with the reading of the defence and accusation (in that order). After that the court deliberates in the named Consulta de Fe and decides a verdict. Due to the confession being considered irrefutable evidence, those accused are rarely absolved. The sentencing is performed during an Auto de Fe, a ritual very similar to a mass. This supposes that the heretic is reformed and reconciled with Verena and Mórr for extension.

In the privacy of their homes many Estalians recognize that the inquisitorial process is an excellent tool for eliminating rivals and enemies. The accused is arrested, humiliated by the crowd and his worldly goods confiscated just for starters. Even in the case that the accused is absolved he will always bear the stigma of having been investigated by the Inquisition. Watching from his anonymity the accuser smiles whenever he remembers that his well planned vengeance is completely free.