auto-da-fé

Representation of an Auto de fe, (1475).
The painting is inaccurate: even though burning at the stake occurred in some cases, it never took place during this religious ritual.

The phrase auto de fe refers to the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the Spanish Inquisition or the Portuguese Inquisition had decided their punishment (that is, after the trial). Auto de fé in medieval Spanish means "act of faith". The phrase also commonly occurs in English in its Portuguese form auto da fé.

History

The auto de fe involved: a Catholic Mass; prayer; a public procession of those found guilty; and a reading of their sentences (Peters 1988: 93-94). They took place in public squares or esplanades and lasted several hours: ecclesiastical and civil authorities attended.^[1] Artistic representations of the auto de fe usually depict torture and the burning at the stake. However, this type of activity never took place during an auto de fe, which was in essence a religious act. Torture was not administered after a trial concluded, and executions were always held after and separate from the auto de fe (Kamen 1997: 192-213). However, in his book Jewish Pioneers and Patriots published in 1942 by The Jewish Publication Society of America draws attention to information that raises a contradiction in some areas as to the above paragraph. Beginning on page 75, chapter 6 entitiled "The Martyrdom of Francisco Maldonaldo De Silva"; it details an AVTO DE LA FE and has a picture of the announcement being held by The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition of Peru, on the 23rd of January,103 years after the discovery of Peru. Diego Nunez de Silva is the person in question. The account is too lengthy to relate. The first recorded auto de fe was held in Paris in 1242, under Louis IX (Stavans 2005:xxxiv) The first Spanish auto de fe took place in Seville, Spain, in 1481; six of the men and women that participated in this first religious ritual were later executed. The Inquisition enjoyed limited power in Portugal, having been established in 1536 and officially lasting until 1821, although its influence was much weakened with the government of the Marquis of Pombal, in the second half of the 18th century. Autos de fe also took place in Mexico, Brazil and Peru: contemporary historians of the Conquistadors such as Bernal Díaz del Castillo record them. They also occurred in the Portuguese colony of Goa, India, following the establishment of Inquisition there in 1562-1563.

Cultural references

Voltaire's popular satire Candide contains a chapter (chapter VI) where an Auto-da-fe is held after a destructive earthquake in Lisbon. In this chapter an Auto-da-fe is proclaimed as "no surer means of avoiding total ruin..." Pangloss is seized for speaking and Candide for "listening with an air of approval." Candide is flogged and Pangloss is hanged, after which another tremendous earthquake occurs.

The Leonard Bernstein operetta Candide contains a song entitled "Auto Da Fe" in which the residents of Lisbon witness the hanging of Jews, heretics, and the philosopher Pangloss in an auto de fe, singing "what a day for an auto da fe." The residents encourage the inquisitors to hang the accused, and then express happiness and relief after their executions.

It is also referenced in Mel Brooks' History of the World Part 1. In which during a song, Tomás de Torquemada (played by Brooks) sings "I just got back from the Auto de fe" to which his guards reply "Auto de fe? Whats an auto de fe?" Torquemada responds, "It's what you oughtn't to do but you do anyway".

In the song Televators by The Mars Volta there is the lyric "Auto de fe, A capillary hint of red". The entire album is written in metaphors and the particular lyric seems to mean that the main character Cerpin Taxt has committed suicide on a supposed "act of faith".

The song "Democracy Coma" by the Manic Street Preachers refers to the coronation as "another auto-da-fe", adding "taught in schools to see her as a glorious being."

Auto-Da-Fe is the English title of Nobel Prize-winning author Elias Canetti's sole work of fiction, Die Blendung.

Damon Knight is the author of a science-fiction story titled "Auto da Fe" (1961) and Roger Zelazny the author of a science-fiction story titled "Auto-da-Fé" (1967). In both cases, the story has very little to do with the term's original meaning; in Zelazny's story, the title is a punning reference to an automobile.

Referenced in 'Fear' by L. Ron Hubbard - 1940 (pg. 11) in passing description of a college dean's imperious tone with a faculty member.

British writer Fay Weldon published an autobiography of her early years called Auto de Fay in 2002 - a pun on "auto de fe"

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" also refers to autos-da-fe:

"The condemned to death, I knew, perished usually at the autos-da-fe, and one of these had been held on the very night of the day of my trial."

In Mel Brooke's History of the World, Part I, an auto-de-fe is satirized in the manner of a Broadway Musical.

Herman Melville dedicated his last published novel, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade - concerned mainly with questions of faith and doubt, charity and inhumanity -, to the victims of the auto-de-fe.

Notes

1. ^ Many of the public autos were described in contemporary published works listing the dignitaries in attendance, the condemned and their sentences. See for example, Matias de Bocanegra, Auto general de la fee..., Mexico: 1649

References

• Peters, Edward. (1988) Inquisition. New York: The Free Press.
• Kamen, Henry. (1997) The Spanish Inquisition : A Historical Revision. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. - This revised edition of his 1965 original contributes to the understanding of the Spanish Inquisition in its local context.
• Lea, Henry Charles (1906–1907). A History of the Inquisition of Spain (4 volumes). New York and London.
• Stavans, Ilan. (2005) The Schocken Book of Modern Sephardic Literature. Random House, Inc. New York
• Whitechapel, Simon (2003). Flesh Inferno: Atrocities of Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition. Creation Books. ISBN 1-84068-105-5

External links

• Jewish Encyclopedia
• (Spanish) La Inquisición Española: origen, desarrollo, organización, administración, métodos y proceso inquisitorial

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