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Title: A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

Author: Henry Charles Lea

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF
THE INQUISITION OF SPAIN; VOL. 3 ***

Every attempt has been made to replicate
the original book as printed.
No attempt has been made to correct or
normalize words in Spanish or other
languages.
Contents of Volume III
(etext transcriber's note)

THE INQUISITION OF SPAIN

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

A HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION OF THE MIDDLE AGES. In three
volumes, octavo.
A HISTORY OF AURICULAR CONFESSION AND INDULGENCES IN
THE LATIN CHURCH. In three volumes, octavo.
AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF SACERDOTAL CELIBACY IN THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Third edition. (In preparation.)
A FORMULARY OF THE PAPAL PENITENTIARY IN THE THIRTEENTH
CENTURY. One volume, octavo. (Out of print.)
SUPERSTITION AND FORCE. Essays on The Wager of Law, The Wager
of Battle, The Ordeal, Torture. Fourth edition, revised. In one volume,
12mo.
STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY. The Rise of the Temporal Power,
Benefit of Clergy, Excommunication, The Early Church and Slavery.
Second edition. In one volume, 12mo.
CHAPTERS FROM THE RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF SPAIN,
CONNECTED WITH THE INQUISITION. Censorship of the Press,
Mystics and Illuminati, Endemoniadas, El Santo Niño de la Guardia,
Brianda de Bardaxí.
THE MORISCOS OF SPAIN. THEIR CONVERSION AND EXPULSION.
In one volume, 12mo.

A HISTORY
OF THE

INQUISITION OF SPAIN
BY
HENRY CHARLES LEA. LL.D.

———
IN FOUR VOLUMES
———

VOLUME III.

———

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1907
All rights reserved

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Copyright, 1907,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
——
Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1907.

CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
BOOK VI—PRACTICE (Continued).
Chapter VII—Torture.
PAGE

General Use of Torture in Secular Courts 1
The Inquisition not exceptionally cruel 2
More moderate than the Roman Holy Office 3
Formal Preliminaries to prevent its Abuse 4
The Threat of Torture 6
Conditions justifying torture 7
Torture of Witnesses—Torture in caput alienum 11
No exemptions admitted 13
Limitations of Torture 14
The Administration of Torture 16
Varieties of Torture 18
Severity of Torture 22
Record of Administration 24
Confession under Torture must be ratified 27
Repetition of Torture 28
Endurance without Confession 30
Frequency of Use of Torture 33
Fees of the Torturer 35
Chapter VIII—The Trial.
Gradual development of Procedure 36
The Audience—The Three Monitions 37
The Charges Withheld 39
The Accusation 41
The Advocate for the Defence—His Function 42
The Curador for Minors 50
The Patrones Teólogos 51

Publication of Evidence 53
The Defence—Recusation of Judges 56
Insanity 58
Tacha and Abonos 63
Evidence for the Defence 64
The Argument of the Advocate 69
Examination of the Accused 70
The Consulta de Fe 71
Delays 75
Prosecution of the Dead 81
of the Absent 86
BOOK VII—PUNISHMENT.
Chapter I—The Sentence.
The two Forms of Sentence 93
The Culprit kept in Ignorance 94
Appeals 95
Modification of Sentence 97
Severity or Benignity 99
Enforcement of the Sentence 101
Acquittal 105
Suspension 108
Admission to Bail 111
Compurgation or Wager of Law 113
Used by the Inquisition in Doubtful Cases 114
Formula of Procedure 117
Chapter II—Minor Penalties.
Reprimand 121
Abjuration 123
Exile 126
Razing Houses 128
Spiritual Penances 131
Unusual Penalties 132

Chapter III—Harsher Penalties.
The Scourge 135
Vergüenza 138
The Galleys—The Presidio 139
Reconciliation 146
The Perpetual Prison 151
Commutations 160
The Sanbenito 162
Its display in Churches 164
Disabilities 172
Clerical Offenders 180
Chapter IV—the Stake.
Burning for heresy in the Public Law of Europe 183
Responsibility of the Church 184
Conversion before or after Sentence—Strangling
before Burning 190
Conditions entailing relaxation—Pertinacity 195
Denial—the Negativo 198
Partial confession—the Diminuto 199
The Dogmatizer or Heresiarch 200
Relapse 202
Disappearance of relaxation 208
Chapter V—the Auto de Fe.
Impressiveness of the Auto Publico General 209
Preparations and Celebration 213
The Auto Particular or Autillo 220
It Replaces the General Public Auto 221
Celebration in Churches 224
The Auto de fe as a spectacular Entertainment 227
BOOK VIII—SPHERES OF ACTION.
Chapter I—Jews.
Neglect of Instruction of coerced Converts 231

Slenderness of Proof required for Prosecutio 232
Gradual Disappearance of Judaism 234
Influx of Portuguese Judaizers after the
Conquest of Portugal 237
Portugal—Treatment of Jewish Refugees 237
João III resolves to introduce the Inquisition 238
Struggle in Rome between João and the New
Christians 239
João obtains an unrestricted Inquisition 253
Activity of the Inquisition 259
Tribunal established in Goa but not in Brazil 261
Organization of the Portuguese Inquisition 262
Cases of George Buchanan and Damião de
Goes 263
Increased activity after the Spanish Conquest 265
The General Pardon of 1604 267
The Portuguese New Christians in Spain 270
Active Persecution in Portugal 273
Discussions as to Expulsion 275
Rebellion of 1640—João IV favors the New
Christians 280
Padre Antonio Vieira S. J. appeals for them to
Rome 284
Innocent XI orders Modifications of
Procedure 289
Unabated Prejudice in Spain—Olivares opposes
the Inquisition 290
Dread of Jewish Propaganda—Case of Lope de
Vera 293
Persistent Persecution of Portuguese 296
Gradual Obsolescence of Jewish Observances 300
Restriction of Emigration or Expulsion 303
Catastrophe of Majorca 305
Recrudescence of Persecution after the War of
Succession 308

Extinction of Judaism in Spain 311
Exclusion of Foreign Jews 311
Readmission to Spain under Constitution of
1869 315
Chapter II—Moriscos.
Toleration of the Mudéjares—Capitulations of
Granada 317
Talavera and Ximenes in Granada 319
Rising of the Moors—Enforced Conversion 322
Isabella compels Conversion in Castile—
Instruction neglected 324
Persecution of the new Converts 328
Situation in Granada 331
Oppressive Edict of Philip II in 1567 334
Rebellion of the Moriscos 338
They are deported and scattered—their
Prosperity 339
The Moors under the Crown of Aragon 342
Valencia—Coercive Baptism by the Germanía 346
Investigation as to its Extent and Character 348
Decision to enforce Adhesion to the Faith 351
Charles V gives all Moors the Alternative of
Exile or Baptism—they submit 352
The Concordia of 1528 grants them Exemption
from the Inquisition 357
The Inquisition disregards the Agreement 358
Fines substituted for Confiscation 360
Activity of the Inquisition—Case of Don Cosme
Abenamir 362
Futile Efforts at Instruction and Conversion 365
Edicts of Grace—their Failure 371
Intermittent Trials of Moderation 373
Deplorable Condition of the Moriscos—
Emigration forbidden 375

Questions as to Baptism, Marriage, Slaughtering
Meat 380
Dangerous Discontent of the Moriscos 382
Ravages of Moorish Corsairs on the Coast 383
Plots with foreign Powers for a Rising 384
Plans to avert the Danger—Expulsion resolved
on 388
Its execution in Valencia, September, 1609 393
Expulsion from Granada and Andalusia in
January, 1610 398
simultaneously from Castile 399
from Aragon and Catalonia in May, 1610 401
Final rooting out of the Moriscos antiguos 403
Expulsion delayed in Murcia until January, 1614 404
Number and Fate of the Exiles 406
Squandering of the Confiscations 409
Chapter III—Protestantism.
Exaggeration of the Protestant Movement in
Spain 411
Pre-Reformation Freedom of Speech—Erasmus 412
First Efforts of Repression, in 1521 413
The Enchiridion of Erasmus—Persecution of
Erasmists—of Catholics 414
Protestant Foreigners 421
Native Protestants 423
Dr. Egidio and the Seville Protestants—the
Protestant Propaganda 424
The Protestants of Valladolid—General Alarm
exploited by Valdés 429
The Autos de fe of May 21, and October 8, 1559 437
Prosecutions in Seville—Autos of 1559, 1560,
1562, 1564 and 1565 442
Native Protestantism crushed—Dread of foreign
Propaganda and Ideas 448

Few scattering cases of native Protestants 452
Prosecution of Foreigners for real or suspected
Protestantism 457
Obstruction of commercial Intercourse—
Treaties with England, Holland and France 462
Exclusion of Foreigners, except in the Army 472
Conversion of foreign Heretics 476
Chapter IV—Censorship.
Censorship originally a Function of the State 480
The Lutheran Revolt leads the Inquisition to
assume it in 1521 482
Papal power granted in 1539 482
Licences to print issued by the State—Books
condemned by the Inquisition 483
The Index Librorum Prohibitorum or
Expurgandorum 484
Examination of all Libraries and Book-shops 487
Savage law of Philip II in 1558 488
Use of the Edict of Faith and of the Confessional 490
Triviality of Expurgation 491
Divergence between the Inquisition and the Holy
See 492
Successive Indexes—of Quiroga, Sandoval,
Zapata, Sotomayor,
Vidal Marin, Prado y Cuesta and the Indice
Ultimo 493
Practice of Expurgating Books and Libraries—
the Escorial 497
Vigilant Supervision over Book-shops and
Libraries—Estates of the Dead 501
Supervision over Importations and internal
Traffic 504
Impediments to Commerce and Culture 508
Precautions against Smuggling—Visitas de
Navíos 510

Interference with Commerce—The Case of
Bilbao 513
Become purely financial—Effort to revive
them in 1819 519
Licences to read prohibited Books 521
Penalties for Disregard of the Censorship 525
Prohibition of vernacular Bibles 527
Various Abuses of Censorship 530
Quarrel with Rome over the Regalistas—The
Inquisition secures its Independence 533
It turns against the Crown—Carlos III controls
its Censorship 539
Censorship directed against the Revolution 542
Censorship of Morals and Art 545
Influence of Censorship 548
Appendix—Statistics of Offences and Penalties 551
Documents 555

THE INQUISITION OF SPAIN.

BOOK VI. (Continued).

CHAPTER VII.

TORTURE
TO the modern mind the judicial use of torture, as a means of
ascertaining truth, is so repellant and illogical that we are apt to forget that
it has, from the most ancient times, been practised by nearly all civilized
nations. With us the device of the jury has relieved the judge of the
responsibility resting upon him in other systems of jurisprudence. That
responsibility had to be met; a decision had to be reached, even in the most
doubtful cases and, where evidence was defective and conflicting, the use
of torture as an expedient to obtain a confession, or, by its endurance, to
indicate innocence, has seemed, until modern times, after the disuse of
compurgation and the judgements of God, to be the only means of relieving
the judicial conscience. It was admitted to be dangerous and fallacious, to
be employed only with circumspection, but there was nothing to take its
place.[1]
That it should be used by the Inquisition was a matter of course, for the
crime of heresy was often one peculiarly difficult to prove; confession was
sought in all cases and, from the middle of the thirteenth century, the
habitual employment of torture by the Holy Office had been the most
efficient factor in spreading its use throughout Christendom, at the expense
of the obsolescent Barbarian customs. It is true that Spain was loath to
admit the innovation. In Castile, which rejected the Inquisition, Alfonso X,
notwithstanding his admiration of the Roman law, required that confession
must be voluntary and insisted that, if obtained by torture, it must
subsequently be freely ratified, without threats or pressure.[2] In the
kingdoms of Aragon, which admitted the Inquisition, torture remained
illegal, and it was only by the positive commands of Clement V that it was
employed, in 1311, on the Templars.[3] By the time that the Spanish
Inquisition was organized, however, torture in Castile was in daily use by
the criminal courts, and there could be no question as to the propriety of its
employment by the Holy Office. In Aragon, Peña tells us that, although it

was forbidden in secular jurisprudence, it was freely permitted in matters of
faith. Yet its use was jealously watched, for when the aid of torture was
sought in the case of a prisoner accused of the murder of a familiar, the
Córtes of 1646 complained of it as an unprecedented innovation, which was
only prevented by the active intervention of the diputados and viceroy.[4]
Valencia had been less rigid in excluding torture from its courts, but so
limited its use that, in 1684, the tribunal reported that, in cases of unnatural
crime (of which it had cognizance, subject to the condition of trial by
secular process), it no longer used torture, because the methods permitted
by the fueros were so light that the accused felt no fear of them, and they
were useless in extracting confession.[5]
We shall see that occasionally tribunals abused the use of
torture, but the popular impression that the inquisitorial MORE
MODERATE
torture-chamber was the scene of exceptional refinement in THAN IN
cruelty, of specially ingenious modes of inflicting agony, ROME
and of peculiar persistence in extorting confessions, is an
error due to sensational writers who have exploited credulity. The system
was evil in conception and in execution, but the Spanish Inquisition, at
least, was not responsible for its introduction and, as a rule, was less cruel
than the secular courts in its application, and confined itself more strictly to
a few well-known methods. In fact, we may reasonably assume that its use
of torture was less frequent, for its scientific system of breaking down
resistance, in its long-drawn procedure, was more effective than the ruder
and speedier practice of the secular courts where, as we are told by
Archbishop Pedro de Castro of Granada, it was notorious that no one
confessed except when overcome by torture.[6]
In this respect, the comparison between the Spanish and the Roman
Inquisition is also eminently in favor of the former. We shall have occasion
presently to see the limitations which it placed on the use of torture, while
in Rome it was the rule that all who confessed or were convicted in matters
of faith were tortured for the further discovery of the truth and the
revelation of accomplices. In addition to this there were many classes of
cases in which torture was employed by Rome to extort confession and in
which it was forbidden in Spain—those involving mere presumption of
heresy, such as solicitation, sorcery, blasphemy etc. Moreover in Rome the
in arbitrio judicum applied not only to the kind and duration of the torture
but also to its repetition.[7] Spanish writers on practice, therefore, were

justified in claiming for their own tribunals a sparing use of torture
unknown in Italy, while, as regards its severity, the frequency with which in
the trials we find that the accused overcame the torture would indicate that
habitually it was not carried to extremity, as it so frequently was in the
secular courts. No torture-chamber in the Inquisition possessed the
resources of the corregidor who labored for three hours, in 1612, to obtain
from Diego Duke of Estrada confession of a homicide—the water torture,
the mancuerda, the potro, hot irons for the feet, hot bricks for the stomach
and buttocks, garrotillos known as bone-breakers, the trampa to tear the legs
and the bostezo to distend the mouth—and all this was an every-day matter
of criminal justice.[8]
The indirect torture of especially harsh imprisonment was not unknown
to the Inquisition, and was occasionally employed for the purpose of
breaking down obstinacy. It was not, as in the medieval Inquisition,
prescribed as an ordinary resource, but it was at the discretion of the
tribunal and could at any time be brought into play, as in the case of a
pertinacious heretic, in 1512, who was consigned to the most noisome part
of the prison, and afflicted in various ways, in the hope of enlightening his
understanding.[9] In the later period of leisurely action, protracted
imprisonment was frequently resorted to, in the hope of inducing
repentance and conversion, when wearing anxiety and despair weakened
the will as effectually as the sharper agonies of the pulley and rack. There
was also the ingenious device, frequently effective, by which the fiscal
concluded his formal accusation with a demand that, if necessary, the
accused should be tortured until he confessed. This was unknown in the
earlier period, but the Instructions of 1561 recommend it, giving as a reason
its good results, and also that torture requires a demand from the prosecutor
and a notification to the defendant, who is unprepared for it at this stage of
the trial.[10] After this it became the universal custom in all cases admitting
of torture, and the profound impression produced on the unfortunate
prisoner can be readily conceived.
Torture itself, however, was regarded as too serious to be
left to the arbitrary temper of a baffled or angry inquisitor, PRELIMINAR
IES
and was preceded by formalities designed to prevent its
abuse. It was the last resort when the result of a trial left doubts to be
satisfied. After the prosecution and defence had closed, and the consulta de
fe had assembled to consider the sentence, if the evidence was too weak for

condemnation while the innocence of the accused was not clear, it could
adopt a vote to torture and postpone the decision to await the outcome.
Even in the ferocity of the early period this deliberateness was frequently
observed, although in the reckless haste of procedure it was often omitted.
Thus, in the case of Diego García, a priest accused of having said twenty
years before, when a boy, that the sacrament was bread, the consulta held
two meetings, January 18 and 19, 1490, and finally voted torture. There was
no haste however and it was not until February 11th that García was
exposed to the very moderate water-torture of about a quart of water. No
confession was obtained and he was untied, with the protest that he had not
been sufficiently tortured, but it was not repeated and, on February 26th, he
was acquitted and restored to his fame and honor, though, with the
curiously perverse inquisitorial logic, he was made to abjure de vehementi
and forbidden to celebrate mass for six months.[11] The vote of the consulta
however was not universal and, in 1518, the Suprema ordered it to be
always observed, but a clause in the Instructions of 1561, reminding
inquisitors that they must not inflict torture until after hearing the defence
shows how difficult it was to restrain their arbitrary action.[12] Even in the
early eighteenth century, in reviewing a summary of cases of Valencia, from
1705 to 1726, the Suprema rebuked the tribunal for torturing Sebastian
Antonio Rodríguez without previous consultation, but at this period the
consulta de fe was becoming obsolete and everything was centering in the
Suprema.[13]
The vote of the consulta was still only preliminary. After it, the accused
was brought into the audience-chamber, where all the inquisitors and the
episcopal Ordinary were required to be present. He was notified of the
decision of the consulta; if he was a diminuto, the points in which his
confession had failed to satisfy the evidence were pointed out; if a negativo,
no explanations were necessary; if it was on intention or in caput alienum
he was made to understand it. He was adjured, in the name of God and the
Blessed Virgin, to confess fully, without false evidence as to himself or
others and, if this failed to move him, a formal sentence of torture was
signed by all the judges and read to him. It recited that, in view of the
suspicions arising against him from the evidence, they condemned him to
be tortured for such length of time as they should see fit, in order that he
might tell the truth of what had been testified against him, protesting that, if
in the torture he should die or suffer effusion of blood or mutilation, it

should not be attributed to them, but to him for not telling the truth. If the
torture was to discover accomplices, care was taken to make no allusion to
him and to give him no chance of clearing himself, for he was assumed to
be already convicted.[14]
Even this sentence was not necessarily a finality for, if the accused
offered a new defence, it had to be considered and acted upon before
proceeding further.[15] Moreover he had theoretically a right to appeal to the
inquisitor-general from this, as from all other interlocutory sentences. This
right varied at different times. A ruling by the Suprema, in 1538, appears to
indicate that it was granted as a matter of right, but the Instructions of 1561
tell inquisitors that, if they feel scruple, they should grant it, but if satisfied
that the sentence is justified they should refuse the appeal as frivolous and
dilatory.[16] Still the right to ask it was so fully recognized that, if the
accused was not twenty-five years of age and thus a minor, his curador or
guardian was required to be present, in order to interject an appeal if he saw
fit, and I have met with an instance of this in the case of Angela Pérez, a
Morisco slave, before the Toledo tribunal in 1575, where it was as usual
unsuccessful, for the Suprema confirmed the sentence.[17] Tribunals seem
not infrequently to have allowed appeals, but, with the growing
centralization in the Suprema, they became superfluous and a formula,
drawn up in 1690, directs that no attention be paid to them.[18]
When the indications of guilt were too slender to justify
torture, the consulta de fe sometimes voted to threaten CONDITIONS
torture.[19] Then the sentence was formally drawn up and
read to the accused, he was taken to the torture-chamber, stripped and
perhaps tied on the potro or escalera, without proceeding further. A curious
case of this was that of Leonor Pérez who, at the age of seventy, was
sentenced, May 3, 1634, in Valladolid, to be placed in conspectu
tormentorum. When stripped, on May 10th, the executioner reported marks
of previous torture; the proceedings were suspended and, on May 13th, she
admitted that, twenty years before, she had been tortured in Coimbra. On
June 14th the sentence was again executed, but, before being stripped, she
confessed to some Jewish beliefs and then fainted. A postponement was
necessary and two days later she revoked her confession. The case dragged
on and it was not until August 1, 1637 that she was condemned to abjure de
vehementi, to six years of exile, a fine of two hundred ducats, and to be
paraded in vergüenza, but we still hear of her as in prison, early in 1639.[20]

It required strong nerves to endure this threat of torture, with its terrifying
formalities and adjurations, and it was frequently effective.

The conditions held to justify torture were that the offence charged was
of sufficient gravity, and that the evidence, while not wholly decisive, was
such that the accused should have the opportunity of “purging” it, by
endurance proportionate to its strength. From the inquisitor’s point of view,
it was a favor to the accused, as it gave him a chance which was denied to
those whose condemnation was resolved upon. This is illustrated by a
highly significant case in the Toledo tribunal in 1488. Juan del Rio had
lived long in Rome, where he was present in the jubilee of 1475; by the arts
of the courtier he won the favor of Sixtus IV and returned to Spain about
1483, loaded with benefices—among them a prebend in the Toledo
cathedral—which excited cupidity and enmity. He was an Old Christian, of
pure Biscayan descent, who could not be suspected of Judaism, but he was
a loose and inconsiderate chatterer; in the Spain which he had left there was
much licence, in the Rome where he had so long sojourned there was more;
he could not, on his return, accommodate himself to the new order of
things, and his reckless talk gave the opportunity of making vacancies of his
numerous preferments. The evidence against him was of the flimsiest; the
most serious charge was that, when a tenant had been unable to pay rent on
account of the Inquisition, he had petulantly wished it at the devil. At a later
period he would have had a chance to purge the evidence by the water-
torture, but this was not permitted him; he was hurried to the stake as a
pertinacious negativo, leaving his spoils to those who could grasp them.[21]
It was a well-accepted maxim of the civil law that torture should not be
employed when the penalty of the crime charged was less severe than the
infliction of torture—an equation of suffering which afforded to the doctors
ample opportunity of defining the unknown quantity. This was fully
accepted by the Inquisition and we are told that torture is not indicated for
propositions merely offensive, rash, scandalous or blasphemous, or for the
assertion that simple fornication is not a mortal sin, or for heretical
blasphemy, or sorcery, or for propositions arising from ignorance, or for
bigamy or solicitation in the confessional, or for lying under
excommunication for a year, or for other matters which infer only light
suspicion of heresy, even though for some of these offences the punishment

was scourging and the galleys. Torture is freely alluded to as an irreparable
injury the use of which would be unjustifiable in such matters.[22]
This, however, was, like everything else in this nebulous
region, open to considerable laxity in application. When CONDITIONS
Francisco de Tornamira, a boy of eighteen and page of the
Duke of Pastrana, was tried in 1592, on the charge of having said that Jews
and Moors could be saved if they had faith in their respective beliefs, he
denied and was tortured till he confessed, and then the triviality of his
offence was admitted by subjecting him only to abjuration de levi, to
hearing a mass as a penitent in the audience-chamber, and to a reprimand.
The same tribunal in 1579, tried Stefano Grillen, an Italian, who, in a
discussion with some chance fellow-travellers, maintained that the miracles
at the shrines of Our Lady of Atocha and of la Caridad were wrought by the
Virgin herself and not by her images. He freely confessed but was tortured
—apparently on intention—and was dismissed with the same trivial
punishment as Tornamira.[23] Even more suggestive is the case of Juan
Pereira, a boy of fifteen, tried, in 1646, for Judaism at Valladolid. The
proceedings were dilatory and he gradually became demented; nothing
could be done with him and opinions were divided as to the reality of his
insanity. The Suprema was applied to and sagely ordered torture to find out.
It was administered, April 22, 1648, but the method of diagnosis was not as
successful as its ingenuity deserved and, in August, he was sent to a hospital
for six months, with instructions to observe him carefully. As his name after
this disappears from the records, he probably died in the hospital.[24] It is
evident that the Inquisition did not take to heart the warning issued by the
Suprema, in 1533, that torture was a very delicate matter.[25]
When we come to inquire as to the character of evidence requiring
torture for its elucidation, we find how illusory were all the attempts of the
legists to lay down absolute rules, and how it all ended in leaving the matter
to the discretion of the tribunal. As confession, though desired, was not
essential to conviction, the negativo who was convicted on sufficient
evidence was not to be tortured, but was to be relaxed. Even this rule,
however, could be set aside at the caprice of the judge, though he was
warned, in such cases, to put on record a protest that he did not direct the
torture against the matters that had been proved, for the very good reason
that endurance of torture might purge them and nullify the proof.[26] It was
impossible to reduce to a logical formula that which in its essence was

illogical, or to frame an accurate definition of evidence that was insufficient
for conviction yet sufficient for torture. It was easy to say that semiplena
evidence suffices, but what was semiplena? One authority will tell us that a
single witness, even an accomplice, justifies torture, another that three
accomplice witnesses are requisite. One impartial and unexceptionable
witness, again, is sometimes held to require public fame as an adjuvant, but
the records are full of cases in which torture was employed on the
unsupported testimony of a single witness. The weight of other more or less
confirmatory evidence was also keenly debated, without reaching
substantial agreement—whether flight before arrest, or breaking gaol, or
vacillation and equivocation when examined, or even pallor, was sufficient
justification.[27] It is not surprising, therefore, that, as a practical result, we
are told that all these questions must be left to the discretion of the judge, to
be decided in each individual case.[28] Under such conditions it would be
useless to expect consistency of practice in all tribunals and at all periods.
We have seen above that cases were sometimes suspended because
evidence had not been ratified, yet the Toledo tribunal, in 1584, tortured
Lope el Gordo for that very reason, because the chief witness against him
had not ratified his testimony, and it is satisfactory to add that Lope endured
the torments and thus earned suspension of his case.[29]
The diminuto, whose confession did not cover all the adverse evidence,
was, according to rule, to be tortured in order to account for the deficiency.
If he endured without further admission, he was to be punished on the basis
of what he had confessed, but if he did not thus purge the evidence, he was
to be sent to the galleys. This was sometimes done in mere surplusage,
apparently to gratify the curiosity of the tribunal, as in the Toledo case of
Antonio de Andrada, in 1585, who confessed what was amply sufficient for
his punishment, but, as there were some omissions, was tortured to
elucidate them. In the seventeenth century, however, we are assured that
there was much caution used in torturing diminutos, and that it was not
done unless the omitted matters were such as to call for relaxation. If they
concerned accomplices, however, whom the culprit was suspected of
shielding, he was tortured in caput alienum. Retraction or vacillation of
confession necessarily required torture to reconcile the contradiction; this
occurred chiefly with timid persons, frightened by the demand of the fiscal
for torture, and thus led to make admissions which they subsequently
recalled, thus bringing upon themselves what they had sought to avoid.[30]

The question of intention, in the performance of acts in themselves
indifferent, was, as we have seen, the frequent occasion of torture, as there
was no other means known to the jurisprudence of the period, which was
bent on ascertaining the secrets of the offender’s mind.
Yet it is possible that in some cases, when torture appears
to be pure surplusage, there may have been the kindly WITNESSES
intention of contributing to the salvation of the sufferer, by
inducing or confirming his conversion; for habitual persecution for the
greater glory of God induced a state of mind precluding all rational
intellectual processes, where the faith was concerned. Thus Rojas tells us
that there should be no hesitation in the use of torture, when the salvation of
the culprit’s soul was involved, so that he might be reconciled to the Church
and undergo penance through which he might be saved.[31] This reasoning
was urged in the case of Réné Perrault, in 1624, by some of the consultores
of the tribunal of Toledo. His crime of maltreating the Host was public and
unquestionable, but he had varied in his statements as to his faith; the
consulta de fe was unanimous in ordering torture to discover possible
accomplices, but some of the members desired a special additional torture
in order to confirm him in the faith and save his soul.[32]

That witnesses should be tortured, in order to obtain or confirm their
testimony, is an abuse which, repulsive as it may seem to us, has been, with
more or less disguise, a practice wherever torture has been used. It is true
that the Roman law prohibited that one who had admitted his own guilt
should be examined as to that of another, and this principle, adopted in the
False Decretals, became a part of the early canon law.[33] The Inquisition,
however, regarded the conviction of a heretic as only the preliminary to
forcing him to denounce his associates; the earliest papal utterance, in 1252,
authorizing its use of torture, prescribed the employment of this means to
discover accomplices and finally Paul IV and Pius V decreed that all who
were convicted and confessed should, at the discretion of the inquisitors, be
tortured for this purpose.[34] The question préalable or définitive, in which
the convict was tortured to make him reveal his associates, became, through
the influence of the Inquisition, a part of the criminal jurisprudence of all
lands in which torture was employed. It was, in reality, the torture of
witnesses, for the criminal’s fate had been decided, and he was thus used
only to give testimony against others.

The Spanish Inquisition was, therefore, only following a general practice
when it tortured, in caput alienum, those who had confessed their guilt. No
confession was accepted as complete unless it revealed the names of those
whom the penitent knew to be guilty of heretical acts, if there was reason to
suspect that he was not fully discharging his conscience in this respect,
torture was the natural resort. Even the impenitent or the relapsed, who was
doomed to relaxation, was thus to be tortured and was to be given clearly to
understand that it was as a witness and not as a party, and that his endurance
of torture would not save him from the stake. The Instructions of 1561,
however, warn inquisitors that in these cases much consideration should be
exercised and torture in caput alienum was rather the exception in Spain,
than the rule as in Rome.[35] In the case of the negativo, against whom
conclusive evidence was had, and who thus was to be condemned without
torture, the device of torturing him against his presumable accomplices
afforded an opportunity of endeavoring to secure his own confession and
conversion. We have seen this fail, in 1596, in the Mexican case of Manuel
Diaz, nor was it more successful in Lima, in 1639, with Enrique de Paz y
Mello, although the final outcome was different. He persistently denied
through five successive publications of evidence, as testimony against him
accumulated in the trials of his associates. He was sentenced to relaxation
and torture in caput alienum; it was administered with great severity
without overcoming his fortitude, and he persisted through five other
publications as fresh evidence was gathered. Yet at midnight before the auto
de fe, in which he was to be burnt, he weakened. He confessed as to himself
and others and his sentence was modified to reconciliation and the galleys,
while good use was made of his revelations against thirty of his
accomplices.[36]
The torture of witnesses who were not themselves under
trial was permitted when they varied or retracted, or so NO
EXEMPTIONS
contradicted other witnesses that it was deemed necessary
thus to ascertain the truth; but whether clerical witnesses could be so treated
was a subject of debate. As a rule torture in such cases was directed to be
moderate, neither light nor excessive, but when testimony was revoked it
could be repeated up to three inflictions.[37] As we have seen above (Vol. II,
p. 537) slaves testifying in the cases of their masters could always be
tortured if necessary to confirm their evidence. In the prosecution of Juan
de la Caballería, in 1488, as accessory to the murder of San Pedro Arbués,

his slave-girl Lucía gave compromising evidence which she was persuaded
to retract, with the result that she was twice tortured and confirmed it.[38]

Like majestas, in heresy there were no privileged classes exempt from
torture. Nobles were subject to it and so were ecclesiastics of all ranks, but
the latter were to be tortured less severely than laymen, unless the case was
very grave, and they were entitled to a clerical torturer if one could be
found to perform the office. As in their arrest, so in torture the sentence, by
a carta acordada of 1633, had to be submitted to the Suprema for
confirmation.[39]
As regards age, there seems to have been none that conferred exemption.
Llorente, indeed, in describing a case in which a woman of ninety was
tortured at Cuenca, says that this was contrary to the orders of the Suprema
which prescribed that the aged should only be placed in conspectu
tormentorum,[40] but I have never met with such a rule. In 1540 the
Suprema ordered that consideration should be given to the quality and age
of the accused and, if advisable, the torture should be very moderate, while
the Instructions of 1561, which are very full, impose no limit of age and
leave everything to the discretion of the tribunal.[41] Cases are by no means
infrequent in which age combined with infirmity is given as a reason for
omitting torture or inflicting it with moderation, but age alone offered no
exemption. At a Toledo auto de fe we find Isabel Canese, aged seventy-
eight, who promptly confessed before the torture had proceeded very far,
and Isabel de Jaen, aged eighty who, at the fifth turn of the cords fainted
and was revived with difficulty.[42] In 1607, at Valencia, Jaime Chuleyla,
aged seventy-six, after confessing certain matters, was accused by a new
witness of being an alfaquí; this he denied and was duly tortured.[43]
Not much more respect was paid to youth. In 1607, at Valencia, Isabel
Madalena, a girl of thirteen, who was vaguely accused of Moorish
practices, was tortured, overcame the torture and was penanced with a
hundred lashes. In the same year that tribunal showed more consideration
for Joan de Heredia, a boy of ten or eleven, whom a lying witness accused
of going to a house where Moorish doctrines were taught. On his steadfast
denial, he was sentenced to be placed in conspectu tormentorum, which was
carried out in spite of an appeal by his procurator, but he persisted in
asserting his innocence and the case was suspended.[44] Mental incapacity,

short of insanity, was not often allowed exemption and it is creditable to the
Valencia tribunal that when, about 1710, the Suprema ordered the torture of
Joseph Felix, for intention with regard to certain propositions, it
remonstrated and represented that he was too ignorant to comprehend the
object of the torture.[45]

It was a universal law that torture should not endanger
life or limb and, although this was often disregarded when CONDITION
the work was under way, it called for a certain amount of OF PATIENT
preliminary caution to see that the patient was in condition promising
endurance—caution admitted in theory but not always observed in practice.
When there was doubt, the physician of the Inquisition was sometimes
called in, as in the case of Rodrigo Pérez, at Toledo, in 1600, who was sick
and weak, and the medical certificate that torture would endanger health
and life sufficed to save him, but the Suprema was not so considerate when,
in 1636, it ordered the Valencia tribunal to torture Joseph Pujal before
transferring him to the hospital, as was done afterwards on account of his
illness.[46] Pregnancy has always been deemed a sufficient reason for at
least postponing the infliction, but the Madrid tribunal, in instructions of
1690, only makes the concession of placing pregnant women on a seat, in
place of binding them on the rack, while applying the exceedingly severe
torture of the garrote—sharp cords, two on each arm and two on each leg,
bound around the limb and twisted with a short lever.[47] Hernia was
regarded, at least in the earlier time, as precluding torture, and I have met
with several cases in which it served to exempt the patient but, in 1662, the
official instructions of the Suprema order that no exceptions be made on
that account, save the omission of the trampazo vigoroso, which causes
downward strain; in the other tortures a good strong truss suffices to avert
danger and it should always be kept on hand in readiness for such subjects.
[48] In accordance with this the Madrid tribunal in 1690, orders for hernia
cases the use of the seat provided for pregnant women. As regards women
who were suckling, there seems to have been no established rule. In 1575,
when the Valencia tribunal proposed to torture María Gilo, the physician
who was called in reported that it would expose the child to imminent risk
and the purpose was abandoned. In 1608, however, at Toledo, when the
same question arose in the case of Luisa de Narvaez, the consulta voted in
discordia and the Suprema ordered her to be tortured.[49]

Besides these generalities, there were occasional special cases in which
torture was abandoned in consequence of the condition of the patient—
heart disease, excessive debility, repeated faintings during the
administration and other causes. The physician and the surgeon were
always called in, when the prisoner was stripped, to examine him and they
were kept at hand to be summoned in case of accident. The tribunals seem
to have been more tender-hearted than the Suprema which, in its
instructions of 1662, reproved inquisitors who avoid sentencing to torture
on account of weakness or of a broken arm. This, it says, is not proper,
because it forfeits the opportunity of obtaining confession in the various
preliminaries of reading the sentence, carrying to the torture-chamber,
stripping him and tying him to the trestle; besides, after commencing, the
torture is always to be stopped when the physician so orders.[50] There was
another salutary precaution—that there should be a proper interval between
the last meal and the torture. About 1560, Inquisitor Cervantes says that the
patient is not to have food or drink on the evening before or on the morning
of the infliction and, in 1722, a writer specifies eight hours for the
preliminary fasting.[51]

In the administration of torture, all the inquisitors and the
episcopal representative were required to be present, with a THE
EXECUTION
notary or secretary to record the proceedings. No one else ER
save the executioner was allowed to be present, except when
the physician or surgeon was called in. In the earlier period, there was some
trouble in providing an official to perform the repulsive work. An effort
seems to have been made to compel the minor employees to do it but with
doubtful success. Ferdinand, in a letter of July 22, 1486, to Torquemada,
complains that the inquisitors of Saragossa had employed a torturer because
the messengers had refused to do the work, and he suggests that a
messenger be discharged and the torturer serve in his place without increase
of salary; if this cannot be done the salary should be reduced. No salaried
torturer appears in the pay-rolls; the duties were not constant and doubtless
when wanted proper functionaries were called in and paid—but there is
suggestiveness in a letter of Ferdinand, in 1498, ordering the restoration of
a certain Pedro de Moros, who had been dropped, to serve as messenger and
“for such other duties as the inquisitors might order” at five hundred
sueldos a year.[52] At one time the alcaide of the prison seems to have been

the official torturer for, in 1536, the Suprema writes to the inquisitors of
Navarre that, if their alcaide is not skilled in the business, they must find
some one who is, and not work the implements themselves, as they seem to
have done, for it is not befitting the dignity of their persons or office.[53] In
1587, at Valencia, we hear that the messenger and portero served as
assistants and the Suprema ordered the work to be entrusted to a
confidential familiar.[54] Eventually however the tribunals employed the
public executioner of the town, who was skilled in his vocation. When, in
1646, at Valladolid, Isabel López was ordered to be tortured on November
23d, the alcaide reported that the public functionary was absent and the time
of his return was uncertain; the torture was necessarily postponed and, on
the 27th, Isabel took it into her head to confess and thus escaped the
infliction.[55] In Madrid, from March to August, 1681, Alonso de Alcalá, the
city executioner, was paid by the tribunal forty-four ducats, for eleven
torturings, at four ducats apiece.[56] It seems strange that objection should
be made to the torturer being disguised but, in 1524, the Suprema forbade
him to wear a mask or to be wrapped in a sheet; subsequently he was
permitted to wear a hood and to change his garments and, in the
seventeenth century, a mask and other disguise were permissible, if it were
thought best that he should not be recognized.[57]
At every stage in the preliminaries, after reading the sentence, taking the
prisoner down to the torture-chamber, calling in the executioner, stripping
the prisoner and tying him to the trestle, there was a pause in which he was
solemnly adjured to tell the truth for the love of God, as the inquisitors did
not desire to see him suffer.[58] The exposure of stripping was not a mere
wanton aggravation but was necessary, for the cords around the thighs and
arms, the belt at the waist with cords passing from it over the shoulders
from front to back, required access to every portion of the body and, at the
end of the torture, there was little of the surface that had not had its due
share of agony. Women as well as men were subjected to this, the slight
concession to decency being the zaragüelles or paños de la vergüenza, a
kind of abbreviated bathing-trunks, but the denudation seems to have been
complete before these were put on.[59] The patient was admonished not to
tell falsehoods about himself or others and, during the torture, the only
words to be addressed to him were “Tell the truth.” No questions were to be
put and no names mentioned to him, for the reason, as we are told, that the
sufferers in their agonies were ready to say anything that was in any way

suggested, and to bear false-witness against themselves and others. The
executioner was not to speak to the patient, or make faces at him, or
threaten him, and the inquisitors should see that he so arranged the cords
and other devices as not to cause permanent crippling or breaking of the
bones. The work was to proceed slowly with due intervals between each
turn of the garrotes or hoist in the garrucha, or otherwise the effect was
lost, and the patient was apt to overcome the torture.
It was a universal rule that torture could be applied only once, unless
new evidence supervened which required purging, but this restriction was
easily evaded. Though torture could not be repeated, it could be continued
and, when it was over, the patient was told that the inquisitors were not
satisfied, but were obliged to suspend it for the present, and that it would be
resumed at another time, if he did not tell the whole truth. Thus it could be
repeated from time to time as often as the consulta de fe might deem
expedient.[60] The secretary faithfully recorded all that passed, even to the
shrieks of the victim, his despairing ejaculations and his piteous appeals for
mercy or to be put to death, nor would it be easy to conceive anything more
fitted to excite the deepest compassion than these cold-blooded, matter-of-
fact reports.

As for the varieties of torture currently employed, it must be borne in
mind that the Inquisition largely depended on the public executioners, and
its methods thus were necessarily identical with those of the secular courts;
while even when its own officials performed the duty, they would naturally
follow the customary routine. The Inquisition thus had no special
refinements of torture and indeed, so far as I have had opportunity of
investigation, it confined itself to a few methods out of the abundant
repertory of the public functionaries.
In the earlier period only two tortures were generally in
vogue—the garrucha or pulleys and the water-torture. These VARIETIES
are the only ones alluded to by Pablo García and both of
them were old and well-established forms.[61] The former, known in Italy as
the strappado, consisted in tying the patient’s hands behind his back and
then, with a cord around his wrists, hoisting him from the floor, with or
without weights to his feet, keeping him suspended as long as was desired
and perhaps occasionally letting him fall a short distance with a jerk. About

1620 a writer prescribes that the elevating movement should be slow, for if
it is rapid the pain is not lasting; for a time the patient should be kept at
tiptoe, so that his feet scarce touch the floor; when hoisted he should be
held there while the psalm Miserere is thrice repeated slowly in silence, and
he is to be repeatedly admonished to tell the truth. If this fail he is to be
lowered, one of the weights is to be attached to his feet and he is to be
hoisted for the space of two Misereres, the process being repeated with
increasing weights as often and as long as may be judged expedient.[62]
The water-torture was more complicated. The patient was placed on an
escalera or potro—a kind of trestle, with sharp-edged rungs across it like a
ladder. It slanted so that the head was lower than the feet and, at the lower
end was a depression in which the head sank, while an iron band around the
forehead or throat kept it immovable. Sharp cords, called cordeles, which
cut into the flesh, attached the arms and legs to the side of the trestle and
others, known as garrotes, from sticks thrust in them and twisted around
like a tourniquet till the cords cut more or less deeply into the flesh, were
twined around the upper and lower arms, the thighs and the calves; a
bostezo, or iron prong, distended the mouth, a toca, or strip of linen, was
thrust down the throat to conduct water trickling slowly from a jarra or jar,
holding usually a little more than a quart. The patient strangled and gasped
and suffocated and, at intervals, the toca was withdrawn and he was adjured
to tell the truth. The severity of the infliction was measured by the number
of jars consumed, sometimes reaching to six or eight. In 1490, in the case of
the priest Diego García, a single quart satisfied the inquisitors and he was
acquitted.[63] In the Mexican case of Manuel Díaz, in 1596, the cordeles
were applied; then seven garrotes were twisted around arms and legs, the
toca was thrust down his throat and twelve jarras of a pint each were
allowed to drip through it, the toca being drawn up four times during the
operation. In the Toledo case of Marí Rodríguez, in 1592, the operation was
divided, the cordeles being applied while she was seated on the banquillo,
and were given eight turns; she was then transferred to the trestle, and the
garrotes were used, followed by the water; at the second jarra she vomited
profusely; she was untied and fell to the floor. The executioner lifted her up
and put on her chemise; she was told that if she would not tell the truth the
torture would be continued; she protested that she had told the truth and it
was suspended. For nine months she was left in her cell, then the consulta

de fe voted to suspend the case and she was told to be gone in God’s name.
[64]

It was probably not long after this that these forms of torture gradually
fell into disuse and were replaced by others which apparently were regarded
as more merciful. In 1646 the Suprema applied to the tribunal of Córdova
for information concerning the garrucha and silla and for a description of
the trampa and trampazo which it used, with an estimate of their severity.
The tribunal replied that the silla had been abandoned because it could
scarce be called a torture and the garrucha on account of the danger of
causing dislocations. For more than thirty years the tribunal, as well as the
secular courts, had discontinued its use as also the brazier of coals, heated
plates of metal, hot bricks, the toca with seven pints of water, the
depiñoncillo, escarabajo, tablillas, sueño and others. The methods in use
were the cordeles and garrotes, of which there were three kinds, the vuelta
de trampa, the mancuerda and stretching the accused in the potro or rack.
The letter proceeds to describe at great length and in
much detail these somewhat complicated processes. In VARIETIES
abandoning the pulleys and the water-jar, the patient gained
little. He was adjusted for torment by a belt or girdle with which he was
swung from the ground; his arms were tied together across his breast and
were attached by cords to rings in the wall. For the trampa or trampazo the
ladder in the potro had one of its rungs removed so as to enable the legs to
pass through; another bar with a sharp edge was set below it and through
this narrow opening the legs were forcibly pulled by means of a cord
fastened around the toes with a turn around the ankle. Each vuelta, or turn
given to the cord, gained about three inches; five vueltas were reckoned a
most rigorous torture, and three were the ordinary practice, even with the
most robust. Leaving him stretched in this position, the next step was the
mancuerda, in which a cord was passed around the arms, which the
executioner wound around himself and threw himself backward, casting his
whole weight and pushing with his foot against the potro. The cord, we are
told, would cut through skin and muscle to the bone, while the body of the
patient was stretched as in a rack, between it and the cords at the feet. The
belt or girdle at the waist, subjected to these alternate forces was forced
back and forth and contributed further to the suffering. This was repeated
six or eight times with the mancuerda, on different parts of the arms, and
the patients usually fainted, especially if they were women.

After this the potro came in play. The patient was released from the
trampa and mancuerda and placed on the eleven sharp rungs of the potro,
his ankles rigidly tied to the sides and his head sinking into a depression
where it was held immovable by a cord across the forehead. The belt was
loosened so that it would slip around. Three cords were passed around each
upper arm, the ends being carried into rings on the sides of the potro and
furnished with garrotes or sticks to twist them tight; two similar ones were
put on each thigh and one on each calf, making twelve in all. The ends were
carried to a maestra garrote by which the executioner could control all at
once. These worked not only by compression but by travelling around the
limbs, carrying away skin and flesh. Each half round was reckoned a vuelta
or turn, six or seven of which was the maximum, but it was usual not to
exceed five, even with strong men. Formerly the same was done with the
cord around the forehead, but this was abandoned as it was apt to start the
eyes from their sockets. All this, the Cordova tribunal concludes, is very
violent, but it is less so and less dangerous than the abandoned methods.
These remained practically the tortures in use. In 1662 the Suprema, in
ordering the tribunal of Galicia to “continue” the torture of Antonio
Méndez, called upon it to report as to its manner of administering torture.
Its answer of May 13th shows that it was using the mancuerda and potro,
though after a somewhat primitive fashion. To this, by order of the
Suprema, Gonzalo Bravo replied, May 22d with elaborate instructions,
especially as to the trampazo, indicating that substantially the methods
described by Córdova were recognized officially. Galicia appears to have
puzzled over this until September 19th, when it apologized for its lack of
experience and asked for detailed plans and drawings of the form of potro
required. It is fairly presumable from all this that thenceforward these new
methods were adopted in all the tribunals.[65]

There was and could be no absolute limitation on the
severity of torture. The Instructions of 1561 say that the law SEVERITY
recognizes it as uncertain and dangerous in view of the
difference in bodily and mental strength among men, wherefore no certain
rule can be given, but it must be left to the discretion of judges, to be
governed by law, reason and conscience.[66] All that Gonzalo Bravo can say,
in the Instructions of 1662, is that its proper regulation determines the just
decision of cases, and the verification of truth; the discretion and prudence

of the judges must look to this, tempered by the customary compassion of
the Holy Office, in such way that it shall neither exceed nor fall short. How
this discretion was exercised depended wholly on the temper of the tribunal.
One authority tells us that torture should never be prolonged more than half
an hour, but the cases are numerous in which it lasted for two and even
three hours. In that of Antonio López, at Valladolid, in 1648, it commenced
at eight o’clock and continued until eleven, leaving him with a crippled
arm; in a fortnight he endeavored to strangle himself, and he died within a
month.[67] Such cases were by no means rare. Gabriel Rodríguez, at
Valencia, about 1710, was tortured thrice and condemned to the galleys, but
this was commuted on finding that he was crippled “por la violencia de la
tortura.”[68] Nor was death by any means unknown. In 1623, Diego
Enríquez, at Valladolid, was tortured December 13th. In the process an
“accident” occurred and he was carried to his cell. On the 15th the
physician reported that he should be removed to a hospital, which was done
with the greatest secrecy and he died there. There is something hideously
suggestive in such a matter of fact record as that of Blanca Rodríguez
Matos, at Valladolid, which simply says that she was voted to torture, May
21, 1655, and it having been executed she died the same day; the case was
continued against her fame and memory and, in due course, was suspended,
November 19th.[69]
The very large number of cases recorded in which the accused overcame
the torture without confession would argue that it was frequently light. This
is doubtless true to a great extent, but the surprising endurance sometimes
displayed shows that this was not always the case. Thus Tomás de Leon, at
Valladolid, November 5, 1638, was subjected to all the successive varieties
and overcame them, although at the end it was found that his left arm was
broken. So, in 1643, in the same tribunal, Engracia Rodríguez, a woman
sixty years of age, had a toe wrenched off while in the balestilla.
Nevertheless the torture proceeded until, in the first turn of the mancuerda,
an arm was broken. It then was stopped without having extorted a
confession, but her fortitude availed her little, for fresh evidence
supervened against her and, some ten months later, she confessed to Jewish
practices. Another of the same group, Florencia de Leon, endured the
balestilla, three turns of the mancuerda and the potro without confessing,
but she did not escape without reconciliation and prison.[70]

The process and its effects on the patient can best be understood from
the passionless business-like reports of the secretary, in which the incidents
are recorded to enable the consulta de fe to vote intelligently. They are of
various degrees of horror and I select one which omits the screams and cries
of the victim that are usually set forth. It is a very moderate case of water-
torture, carried only to a single jarra, administered in 1568 by the tribunal of
Toledo to Elvira del Campo, accused of not eating pork and of putting on
clean linen on Saturdays. She admitted the acts but denied heretical intent
and was tortured on intention. On April 6th she was brought before the
inquisitors and episcopal vicar and, after some preliminaries, was told that it
was determined to torture her, and in view of this peril she should tell the
truth, to which she replied that she had done so. The sentence of torture was
then read, when she fell on her knees and begged to know what they wanted
her to say. The report proceeds:
She was carried to the torture-chamber and told to tell the
REPORTS
truth, when she said that she had nothing to say. She was
ordered to be stripped and again admonished, but was silent. When stripped,
she said “Señores, I have done all that is said of me and I bear false-witness
against myself, for I do not want to see myself in such trouble; please God,
I have done nothing.” She was told not to bring false testimony against
herself but to tell the truth. The tying of the arms was commenced; she said
“I have told the truth; what have I to tell?” She was told to tell the truth and
replied “I have told the truth and have nothing to tell.” One cord was
applied to the arms and twisted and she was admonished to tell the truth but
said she had nothing to tell. Then she screamed and said “I have done all
they say.” Told to tell in detail what she had done she replied “I have
already told the truth.” Then she screamed and said “Tell me what you want
for I don’t know what to say.” She was told to tell what she had done, for
she was tortured because she had not done so, and another turn of the cord
was ordered. She cried “Loosen me, Señores and tell me what I have to say:
I do not know what I have done, O Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!”
Another turn was given and she said “Loosen me a little that I may
remember what I have to tell; I don’t know what I have done; I did not eat
pork for it made me sick; I have done everything; loosen me and I will tell
the truth.” Another turn of the cord was ordered, when she said “Loosen me
and I will tell the truth; I don’t know what I have to tell—loosen me for the
sake of God—tell me what I have to say—I did it, I did it—they hurt me

Señor—loosen me, loosen me and I will tell it.” She was told to tell it and
said “I don’t know what I have to tell—Señor I did it—I have nothing to tell
—Oh my arms! release me and I will tell it.” She was asked to tell what she
did and said “I don’t know, I did not eat because I did not wish to.” She was
asked why she did not wish to and replied “Ay! loosen me, loosen me—take
me from here and I will tell it when I am taken away—I say that I did not
eat it.” She was told to speak and said “I did not eat it, I don’t know why.”
Another turn was ordered and she said “Señor I did not eat it because I did
not wish to—release me and I will tell it.” She was told to tell what she had
done contrary to our holy Catholic faith. She said “Take me from here and
tell me what I have to say—they hurt me—Oh my arms, my arms!” which
she repeated many times and went on “I don’t remember—tell me what I
have to say—O wretched me!—I will tell all that is wanted, Señores—they
are breaking my arms—loosen me a little—I did everything that is said of
me.” She was told to tell in detail truly what she did. She said “What am I
wanted to tell? I did everything—loosen me for I don’t remember what I
have to tell—don’t you see what a weak woman I am?—Oh! Oh! my arms
are breaking.” More turns were ordered and as they were given she cried
“Oh! Oh! loosen me for I don’t know what I have to say—Oh my arms!—I
don’t know what I have to say—if I did I would tell it.” The cords were
ordered to be tightened when she said “Señores have you no pity on a sinful
woman?” She was told, yes, if she would tell the truth. She said, “Señor tell
me, tell me it.” The cords were tightened again, and she said “I have already
said that I did it.” She was ordered to tell it in detail, to which she said “I
don’t know how to tell it señor, I don’t know.” Then the cords were
separated and counted, and there were sixteen turns, and in giving the last
turn the cord broke.
She was then ordered to be placed on the potro. She said “Señores, why
will you not tell me what I have to say? Señor, put me on the ground—have
I not said that I did it all?” She was told to tell it. She said “I don’t
remember—take me away—I did what the witnesses say.” She was told to
tell in detail what the witnesses said. She said “Señor, as I have told you, I
do not know for certain. I have said that I did all that the witnesses say.
Señores release me, for I do not remember it.” She was told to tell it. She
said “I do not know it. Oh! Oh! they are tearing me to pieces—I have said
that I did it—let me go.” She was told to tell it. She said “Señores, it does
not help me to say that I did it and I have admitted that what I have done

has brought me to this suffering—Señor, you know the truth—Señores, for
God’s sake have mercy on me. Oh Señor, take these things from my arms—
Señor release me, they are killing me.” She was tied on the potro with the
cords, she was admonished to tell the truth and the garrotes were ordered to
be tightened. She said “Señor do you not see how these people are killing
me? Señor, I did it—for God’s sake let me go.” She was told to tell it. She
said “Señor, remind me of what I did not know—Señores have mercy upon
me—let me go for God’s sake—they have no pity on me—I did it—take me
from here and I will remember what I cannot here.” She was told to tell the
truth, or the cords would be tightened. She said “Remind me of what I have
to say for I don’t know it—I said that I did not want to eat it—I know only
that I did not want to eat it,” and this she repeated many times. She was told
to tell why she did not want to eat it. She said, “For the reason that the
witnesses say—I don’t know how to tell it—miserable that I am that I don’t
know how to tell it—I say I did it and my God how can I tell it?” Then she
said that, as she did not do it, how could she tell it—“They will not listen to
me—these people want to kill me—release me and I will tell the truth.” She
was again admonished to tell the truth. She said, “I did it, I don’t know how
I did it—I did it for what the witnesses say—let me go—I have lost my
senses and I don’t know how to tell it—loosen me and I will tell the truth.”
Then she said “Señor, I did it, I don’t know how I have to tell it, but I tell it
as the witnesses say—I wish to tell it—take me from here—Señor as the
witnesses say, so I say and confess it.” She was told to declare it. She said
“I don’t know how to say it—I have no memory—Lord, you are witness
that if I knew how to say anything else I would say it. I know nothing more
to say than that I did it and God knows it.” She said many times, “Señores,
Señores, nothing helps me. You, Lord, hear that I tell the truth and can say
no more—they are tearing out my soul—order them to loosen me.” Then
she said, “I do not say that I did it—I said no more.” Then she said, “Señor,
I did it to observe that Law.” She was asked what Law. She said, “The Law
that the witnesses say—I declare it all Señor, and don’t remember what Law
it was—O, wretched was the mother that bore me.” She was asked what
was the Law she meant and what was the Law that she said the witnesses
say. This was asked repeatedly, but she was silent and at last said that she
did not know. She was told to tell the truth or the garrotes would be
tightened but she did not answer. Another turn was ordered on the garrotes
and she was admonished to say what Law it was. She said “If I knew what

to say I would say it. Oh Señor, I don’t know what I have to say—Oh! Oh!
they are killing me—if they would tell me what—Oh, Señores! Oh, my
heart!” Then she asked why they wished her to tell what she could not tell
and cried repeatedly “O, miserable me!” Then she said “Lord bear witness
that they are killing me without my being able to confess.” She was told
that if she wished to tell the truth before the water was poured she should do
so and discharge her conscience. She said that she could not speak and that
she was a sinner. Then the linen toca was placed [in her throat] and she said
“Take it away, I am strangling and am sick in the stomach.” A jar of water
was then poured down, after which she was told to tell the truth. She
clamored for confession, saying that she was dying. She was told that the
torture would be continued till she told the truth and was admonished to tell
it, but though she was questioned repeatedly she remained silent. Then the
inquisitor, seeing her exhausted by the torture, ordered it to be suspended.
It is scarce worth while to continue this pitiful detail. Four days were
allowed to elapse, for experience showed that an interval, by stiffening the
limbs, rendered repetition more painful. She was again brought to the
torture-chamber but she broke down when stripped and piteously begged to
have her nakedness covered. The interrogatory went on, when her replies
under torture were more rambling and incoherent than before, but her limit
of endurance was reached and the inquisitors finally had the satisfaction of
eliciting a confession of Judaism and a prayer for mercy and penance.[71]
It is impossible to read these melancholy records without
amazement that the incoherent and contradictory admissions RATIFICATIO
N OF
through which the victim, in his increasing agonies, sought CONFESSION
to devise some statement in satisfaction of the monotonous
command to tell the truth, should have been regarded by statesmen and
lawgivers as possessed of intrinsic value. The result was a test of endurance
and not of veracity. In one case we find a man of such fibres and nerves that
all the efforts of the torturer fail to elicit aught but denial—the cords may
rasp through the flesh to the bone and limbs be wrenched to the breaking
without affecting his constancy. In another, when a few turns of the garrote
have twisted a single cord into his arm—or even at the mere aspect of the
torture-chamber, with its grimly suggestive machinery—he will yield and
confess all that is wanted as to himself and all the comrades whose names
he can recall in the dizziness of his suffering. Yet, with full knowledge of

this, for centuries the secular and ecclesiastical courts of the greater part of
Christendom persisted in the use of a system which, in the name of justice,
perpetrated an infinite series of atrocities.

Yet, as though still more effectually to deprive the system of all excuse,
the confession obtained at such cost was practically admitted to be in itself
worthless. To legalize it, a ratification was required, after an interval of at
least twenty-four hours, to be freely made, without threats and apart from
the torture-chamber. This was essential in all jurisdictions, and the formula
in the Inquisition was to bring the prisoner into the audience-chamber,
where his confession was read to him as it had been written down. He was
asked whether it was true or whether he had anything to add or to omit and,
under his oath, he was expected to declare that it was properly recorded,
that he had no change to make and that he ratified it, not through fear of
torture, or from any other cause, but solely because it was the truth. Such
ratification was required even when the confession was made on hearing the
sentence of torture read or when placed in conspectu tormentorum.[72] This
was customarily done on the afternoon of the next day, to allow the full
twenty-four hours to expire, but there was sometimes a longer interval.
Thus, in the case of Catalina Hernández, at Toledo, who confessed on being
stripped, July 13, 1541, it was not until the 27th that her ratification was
taken, the inquisitors explaining that press of business had prevented it
earlier.[73]
The declaration in the ratification, that it was not made through fear of
torture was a falsehood, for, in all jurisdictions, a retraction of the
confession called for a repetition of torment, and in fact we sometimes find
that when the confession was made the prisoner was warned not to retract
for, if he did so, the torture would be “continued.”[74] This was possibly to
evade a singularly humane provision in the Instructions of 1484, to the
effect that, if the confession is ratified, the accused is to be duly punished,
but if he retracts, in view of the infamy resulting from the trial, he is to
abjure publicly the heresy of which he is suspect and be subjected to such
penance as the inquisitors may compassionately assign. The mercy of this,
however, is considerably modified by a succeeding clause that it is not to
deprive them of the right to repeat the torture in cases where by law they
can and ought to do so.[75] Still, it was probably the first portion of the
provision that guided the Toledo tribunal, in 1528, in the case of Diego de

Uceda, on trial for Lutheranism. At the sight of the torture-chamber he
broke down and admitted all that the witnesses had testified, but could not
remember what it was. As this was evidently inspired by fear, the torture
went on when, at the first turn of the garrote, he inculpated himself so
eagerly that he was warned not to bear false-witness against himself. He
declared it to be the truth and was untied. Before he was called upon to
ratify, he asked for an audience in which he ascribed his confession to fear
and declared himself ready to die for the faith of the Church, and a week
later he ratified this revocation, saying that he was out of his senses under
the torture. He was not tortured again and his sentence, some months later,
was in accordance with the Instructions of 1484—to appear in an auto de fe,
to abjure de vehementi and to be fined at the discretion of the inquisitors.[76]
Such cases, however, were exceptional and the regular
practice was to repeat the torture, when a confession REPETITION
followed by another revocation, subjected the victim to a
third torture.[77] Whether the process could be carried on indefinitely was a
doubtful question which some legists answered in the negative on the
general philosophic assumption that nature and justice abhorred infinity, but
this reasoning, however, academically conclusive, was not respected in
practice when a conviction was desired. There was one dissuasive from
revocation, which was brought to bear when culprits gave unreasonable
trouble, which was the penalty incurred by revocantes. This is illustrated, as
also the troublesome questions which sometimes perplexed the tribunals, by
the case of Miguel de Castro, tried for Judaism, at Valladolid, in 1644. As a
negativo, he was tortured and confessed, after which he ratified, revoked
and ratified again. A process was commenced against him for revoking; he
was tortured again, until an arm was dislocated and he lost two fingers,
during which he confessed and then revoked the confession. He would have
been tortured a third time had not the physician and surgeon declared him to
be unable to endure it. The Suprema ordered him to be relaxed to the
secular arm, if he could not be induced to repent and return to the Church,
when, under the persuasion of two calificadores, he begged for mercy and
confessed as to himself and others. Finally he was sentenced to
reconciliation and irremissible prison and sanbenito, with a hundred lashes
as a special punishment for revocation, which was executed January 21,
1646.[78]

Some culprits, we are told, cunningly took advantage of the opportunity
of retraction, by confessing at once, as soon as subjected to torture, then
recanting and repeating this process indefinitely, to the no small disgust of
the inquisitors. A writer of the close of the seventeenth century, who
mentions this, shows that the subject was then in an indeterminate
condition, by suggesting as a remedy that they should be subjected to
extraordinary penalties.[79] A case at Cuenca, in 1725, in which these tactics
were successful, indicates that by that time a third torture was not
recognized as lawful. Dr. Diego Matheo López Zapata, as soon as the
torturer was ready to begin, exclaimed that he was ready to confess, and
made a detailed confession of Judaic practices followed for nearly fifty
years. The next day he revoked and, when the torture was resumed, he
repeated his confession, only to revoke it as before. The tribunal appears to
have been powerless and contented itself with making him appear in an
auto de fe as a penitent, with a sanbenito to be immediately removed,
abjuration de vehementi and twenty years’ exile from Cuenca, Murcia and
Madrid.[80] At an earlier period he would scarce have escaped without
scourging, galleys and irremissible prison.

When torture was administered, without eliciting a confession, the
logical conclusion, if torture proved anything, was that the accused was
innocent. In legal phrase, he had purged the evidence and was entitled to
acquittal.[81] Such, indeed, was the law, but there was a natural repugnance
to being baffled, or to admit that innocence had been so cruelly persecuted,
and excuses were readily found to evade the law. On such a subject there
could be no definite line of practice prescribed, and the situation is reflected
by the Instructions of 1561, which tell the inquisitor that, in such cases, he
must consider the nature of the evidence, the degree of torture employed,
and the age and disposition of the accused; if it appears that he has fully
purged the evidence, he should be fully acquitted, but if it seems that he has
not been sufficiently tortured he can be required to abjure either for light or
vehement suspicion, or some pecuniary penalty can be imposed, although
this should be done only with great consideration.[82] Thus the matter was
practically left to the discretion of the tribunal, with the implied admission
that, when torture proved unsuccessful, it was merely surplusage.
The authorities naturally are not wholly at one with regard to the
practical applications of these principles—except that acquittal should

rarely be granted and, in fact, while the records are full of
cases in which torture was overcome, it is somewhat ENDURANCE
WITHOUT
unusual to find the parties acquitted, or their cases even CONFESSION
suspended. About 1600 a writer tells us that these cases are
to be treated with some extraordinary penalty or with acquittal or
suspension, according to the degree of suspicion that remains, but that
Moriscos, however light the suspicion, must appear in an auto de fe and
abjure de vehementi and, if there has been evidence by single witnesses,
they must be sent to the galleys for three years or more; with other culprits,
if the suspicion is light, there may be acquittal or suspension, but
suspension is the more usual. It all depends upon the degree in which the
evidence has been purged by the torture.[83] As this degree was a matter
purely conjectural, inquisitorial discretion was unlimited.
The rule as to Moriscos is borne out by the Valencia auto de fe of 1607,
in which there appeared sixteen who had overcome the torture, most of
whom were visited with imprisonment, scourging or fines.[84] With their
expulsion in 1609-10, there was no further call for discrimination, and the
general practice is expressed about 1640, by an experienced inquisitor, who
tells us that, when there have been several single witnesses, the accused
who overcomes the torture should be subjected to some severe
extraordinary punishment, such as abjuring de vehementi, with confiscation
of half his property, or a heavy fine—the latter being preferable as it is more
easily collected and the culprit endures it better in order to preserve his
credit.[85] That this reflects the current practice would appear from a Cuenca
auto de fe, June 29, 1654. Don Andrés de Fonseca had been required to
abjure de vehementi, at Valladolid in 1628; the evidence of his relapse was
strong, but insufficient for conviction; he endured torture without
confessing; then further evidence supervened and he was again tortured
with the same ill-success; he appeared in the auto as a penitent, abjured de
levi, with ten years’ exile and a fine of five hundred ducats. Doña Theodora
Paula had overcome the torture and had abjuration de lev, six years’ exile
and a fine of three hundred ducats. Doña Isabel de Miranda had been
unsuccessfully tortured and was sentenced to two years’ exile and three
hundred ducats. So, after fruitless torture, Doña Isabel Henríquez had the
same punishment, and Manuel Lorenzo Madureyra was sentenced to
abjuration de vehementi, ten years’ exile and five hundred ducats fine.[86] It
is to the credit of the Valladolid tribunal that, in 1624, it showed itself more

lenient and suspended six cases in which torture proved fruitless, inflicting
no punishment except six years of exile on María Pérez, who was charged
with false-witness.[87]
Perhaps the frequency with which torture was overcome may be partially
explained by bribery of the executioner. This was rendered difficult by the
secrecy surrounding all the operations of the tribunals, yet it was possible,
and the kindred of one who was arrested would naturally seek to propitiate
the minister of justice in case the prisoner should fall into his hands. At a
Valencia auto de fe, in 1594, there appeared ninety-six Morisco penitents of
whom fifty-three had been tortured without extracting confessions.[88] It
may possibly be only a coincidence that, in 1604, Luis de Jesus, the torturer
of the tribunal was prosecuted for receiving money from Moriscos, but we
may readily imagine that communities, living in perpetual dread of the
Inquisition, might tax themselves to subsidize the executioner regularly.[89]
A similar case occurs in the Córdova auto of June 13, 1723, in which
appeared the executioner, Carlos Felipe, whose offence is discreetly
described as fautorship of heretics and unfaithfulness in their favor, in the
discharge of his office.[90]

It is a little remarkable that, although the use of torture
was so frequent and must have been generally known, there FREQUENCY
appears to have been a shrinking from admitting it in the
sentences publicly read in the autos de fe, which habitually recited the
details of the trials—possibly attributable, in part at least, to a desire to
preserve secrecy, although it is particularly marked in the early period when
secrecy had not become so rigid as it was subsequently. Indeed, in the
sentence of Juan González Daza, who confessed under torture in 1484, at
Ciudad Real, it is mendaciously asserted that he pertinaciously denied until
he learned that his accomplice, Fernando de Theba, had confessed, when he
did so freely.[91] This continued as a rule, though occasionally there is less
reticence. In one sentence I have found it alluded to—that of Mari Gómez,
at Toledo, in 1551.[92] Sometimes there is a veiled allusion to it, as though
the inquisitors could not conceal it wholly, but felt a certain shame in
admitting it openly. Thus in the sentence of Elvira del Campo (see p. 24),
which gives a very detailed account of the incidents of the trial, it is stated
that, on using “mas diligencias,” with her she admitted the charges, and in

the sentence of Doctor Zapata, in 1725, “cierta diligencia” is alluded to as
having been employed.[93]

It would of course be impossible to compile statistics of the torture-
chamber, or to form a reasonably accurate estimate of the number of cases
in which it was employed during the career of the Inquisition. Some
fragmentary data, however, can be had, as in the record of the Toledo
tribunal between 1575 and 1610. During this period it tried four hundred
and eleven persons for heretical offences admitting of the use of torture, and
in these it was used once on one hundred and nine, and twice on eight,
besides two cases in which it had to be stopped on account of the fainting of
the patient, and seven in which confession was obtained before it
commenced. There were also five cases in which the accused was placed in
conspectu tormentorum.[94] In all, we may say that here its agency was
invoked in about thirty-two per cent. of heretical prosecutions. This is
probably less than the average. In a number of cases tried by the tribunal of
Lima between 1635 and 1639, nearly all the accused appear to have been
tortured, while the report of the tribunal of Valladolid for 1624 shows that
of eleven cases of Judaism and one of Protestantism, eleven were tortured
and, in 1655, every case of Judaism, nine in number, was subjected to
torture.[95]
After all, numbers, however they may impress the imagination, are not
supremely important. They are simply a measure of the greater or less
activity of the tribunals and not of the principles involved. Whenever there
was a doubt to solve, whether as to the sufficiency of the evidence, the
intention of the accused, the completeness with which he had denounced his
associates, or other inscrutable matter, recourse to torture was a thing of
course. In not a few cases, indeed, there seems to have been an almost
infantile confidence in its power as a universal solvent. About 1710,
Fernando Castellon, on trial at Valencia for Judaism, claimed not to be
baptized and was promptly tortured to find out, but without success.[96] In
1579 the Toledo tribunal had to deal with Anton Moreno, an aged peasant,
accused of entertaining views too liberal as to salvation; torture seemed the
only means of definition and, between the turns of the garrote, he was made
to express his opinions as to the saving effects of death-bed repentance and
the viaticum on a sinner who had been duly baptized with the water of the
Holy Ghost. There was ghastly ludicrousness in the attempt, under such

persuasion, to ascertain the beliefs of an untutored old man, on these subtle
questions of scholastic theology, ending with the result that he was
adjudged to be worthy only of abjuration de levi, with a reprimand and
hearing of a mass in the audience-chamber.[97]

As the activity of the Inquisition diminished, in the latter
half of the eighteenth century, the use of torture naturally FEES
decreased but, until, the suppression in 1813, the formal
demand for it was preserved in the accusation presented by the fiscal. One
of the early acts of Fernando VII, on his restoration in 1814, was the issue
of a cédula, July 25th, addressed to all officers of justice, reciting that, in
1798, when the Royal Council learned that, in the courts of Madrid, the
accused were subjected to the severest pressure to extort confessions, it
investigated the matter and found that thumb-screws and other methods
more or less rigorous were employed, and that this was without authority of
law: consequently on February 5, 1803, the discontinuance of these was
ordered, except fetters to the feet, and at the same time inquiries made of all
courts in the kingdom showed that various kinds of compulsion were used
whereby the innocent were sometimes compelled to convict themselves
falsely. In view of all of this Fernando now ordered that in future no judge
should use any kind of pressure or torment to obtain confession from the
accused or testimony from witnesses, all usages to the contrary being
abolished.[98] This can scarce have applied to the Inquisition but, under the
Restoration, it had little to do with actual heresy and, before it was
thoroughly reorganized, all doubts were removed by Pius VII. Llorente tells
us that the Gazette de France of April 14, 1816, contained a letter from
Rome of March 31st, stating that the pope had forbidden the use of torture
in all tribunals of the Inquisition, and had ordered that this be
communicated to the ambassadors of France and Portugal.[99] I see no
reason for doubting this, although no such brief appears in the Bullarium of
Pius VII, and we may assume that at last the Spanish Holy Office closed its
career relieved of this disgrace.

According to an arancel, or fee-list, of 1553, the executioner was
entitled to one real for administering torture, or to half a real if the infliction
was only threatened. In the lay courts the sufferer was obliged to pay his
tormentor, for there is a provision that, if he is poor, the executioner is to
receive nothing and is not allowed to take his garments in lieu of the money.
[100] In the Inquisition where, for offences justifying torture, arrest was
accompanied with sequestration, the tribunal necessarily took upon itself
the payment and, as we have seen, in 1681, the fee had increased to four
ducats. In cases which did not end with confiscation, the outlay was

undoubtedly included among the costs of the trial charged against the
sequestrated estate. In the Roman Inquisition, where torture was used so
much more indiscriminately, a decision of the Congregation, in 1614,
relieved the accused from payment of the fee.[101]

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TRIAL
THE procedure of the Inquisition was directed to procuring conviction
rather than justice, and in some respects it bore a resemblance to that of the
confessional. The guilt of the accused was assumed, and he was treated as a
sinner who was expected to seek salvation by unburdening his conscience
and contritely accepting whatever penance might in mercy be imposed on
him. Pressure of all kinds, mental and bodily, was scientifically brought to
bear upon him to induce confession, and his refusal to confess, in the face
of what was considered sufficient evidence, was treated as hardened and
pertinacious impenitence, aggravating his guilt and rendering him worthy of
the severest penalty.
The arrest, as we have seen, was preceded by careful preliminaries.
Evidence was accumulated, in some cases for years, and, when the accused
was thrown into the secret prison, he was to a great extent prejudged. It was
the business of the tribunal, while preserving outward forms of justice, to
bring about either confession or conviction; the defence was limited and
embarrassed in every way and, when the outcome of all this was doubt, it
was settled in the torture-chamber, always with the reservation that, if
suspicion remained, that in itself was a crime deserving due punishment.

In the earliest period there were few formalities and no
absolute estilo, or recognized method of procedure. In the AUDIENCES
enormous work crowded upon the inexperienced tribunals,
the main object was the despatch of business, and the success attained in
this is seen in the frequent and enormous autos de fe. The records of the
trials are hasty and imperfect, showing that little attention was paid to forms
that might cause delay. The Instructions of 1484 are crude, merely meant to
supplement the traditional system of inquisitorial procedure with such

regulations as should adapt it to the needs of the situation and to the
intentions of Ferdinand and Isabella. They are largely devoted to the
questions of confiscation and the fines accruing under the Edicts of Grace
and, for the rest, they conclude by saying that, as all circumstances cannot
be foreseen and provided for, everything is left to the discretion of the
inquisitors who, in all that is not especially prescribed, must conform
themselves to the law and act according to the dictates of their consciences
for the service of God and the sovereigns.[102] The result of this discretion
was that, in the assembly of the inquisitors in 1488, a long debate was
required to reach the conclusion that there should be uniformity in the
procedure and acts of all the tribunals, the existing diversity having led to
many embarrassments.[103]
It is therefore scarce worth while to examine in detail the simple and
varying forms of this period, except as we shall find them interesting in
comparison with later practice. The desired uniformity was gradually
attained by the Suprema which, under the independent organization of the
Spanish Holy Office, developed an elaborate system of procedure, set forth
in the Instructions of 1561 and furnished, in 1568, with all necessary
formulas in the Orden de Processar of Pablo García. Subject to such
changes as subsequent experience demanded, this remained the standard to
the last and was followed, with more or less exactitude by the tribunals.

When the accused was thrown into the secret prison his case, in the
hurry of the earlier period, was heard and despatched with promptitude, but
subsequently it became the custom for the inquisitors to exercise their
discretion as to when they would call him before them, and we shall see
what exasperating and calculated delays they sometimes interposed. He
could, however, ask for an audience at any time, and it was an invariable
rule to grant such requests, for the reason that he might have an impulse to
repent and confess which might be transitory. Such audiences, however, did
not count in the progress of the case. When summoned to his first regular
audience, he was sworn to tell the truth in this and all future hearings and to
keep silence as to all that he might see or hear, and as to everything
connected with his own affair. He was made to declare his name, his age,
his birthplace, his occupation and the length of time since his arrest. After
these formalities, if the case was one of heresy, there came an investigation
into his genealogy. This, which accumulated a mass of information as to all

infected families, and facilitated greatly researches into limpieza, was not a
feature of the early trials; in those of from 1530 to 1540, it was still very
informal, but by the middle of the century it had become minute, extending
back to two generations and including all uncles, aunts and cousins,
describing of what race they were, whether any of them had been tried by
the Inquisition and, if so, how punished. The punctilious observance of this
takes a somewhat ludicrous aspect in the trial at Lima, in 1763, of a
Mandingo negro slave for superstitious cures. He was seventy years of age
and had been brought from Guinea when a child, but was interrogated
minutely as to parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts, and was made to
declare that they were all of the race and caste of negroes, and that none of
them had been penanced, reconciled or punished by the Inquisition.[104] The
accused was then interrogated as to his baptism, confirmation and
observance of the rites of religion; he was made to sign and cross himself,
repeat the creed and usual prayers, and finally to give an account of his past
life.
After these preliminaries, of which the results were carefully recorded,
he was asked whether he knew, presumed or suspected the cause of his
arrest. With rare exceptions, the reply was in the negative and then followed
what was known as the first of three monitions. There is no trace of these in
the earliest trials, but toward 1490 an informal monition makes its
appearance and the Instructions of 1498, in requiring the formal accusation
to be presented within ten days after arrest, prescribed that within that time
the necessary admonitions shall be given.[105] In 1525 a letter of Manrique
shows that these monitions then were three, but they still were negligently
observed, and in trials from that time until 1550 they vary from none to
three.[106]
After the Instructions of 1561, the three monitions
became the established rule in cases of heresy, while one THE THREE
sufficed in lighter matters. The formula was formidable. The MONITIONS
accused was told that, in the Holy Office, no one was arrested without
sufficient evidence of his having done or witnessed something contrary to
the faith or to the free exercise of the Inquisition, so that he must believe
that he has been brought hither on such information. Therefore, by the
reverence due to God and his glorious and blessed Mother, he was
admonished and charged to search his memory and confess the whole truth
as to what he feels himself inculpated, or knows of other persons, without

concealment or false-witness, for in so doing he will discharge his
conscience as a Catholic Christian, he will save his soul and his case will be
despatched with all speed and befitting mercy, but otherwise justice will be
done. At intervals a second and a third monition were given, the last one
ending with the warning that the fiscal desired to present an accusation
against him, and it would be for his benefit, both for the relief of his
conscience and for the favorable and speedy despatch of his case, if he
would tell the truth before its presentation, as thus he could be treated with
the mercy which the Holy Office was wont to show to good confessors;
otherwise he was warned that the fiscal would be heard and justice would
be done.[107]
This brought an exceedingly effectual pressure to bear upon the anxious
prisoner, especially when the system of delay, whether calculated or merely
procrastinating, left him for months, and perhaps years, to lie in his cell,
shut out from the world, brooding over his fate, and torturing himself with
conjectures as to the evidence so confidently assumed to be conclusive
against him. He was simply admonished to discharge his conscience, being
kept in the dark as to the crimes of which he was accused, and left to search
his heart and guess as to what he had done to bring him before the terrible
tribunal. This had the further utility that in many cases it led to confession
of derelictions unknown to the prosecution, his impassible judges coldly
accepting his revelations and remanding him to his cell with fresh
adjurations to search his memory and clear his conscience.
This cruel device of withholding all knowledge of the charge appears to
have been introduced gradually. In some cases, of about 1530, slight
intimations of the nature of the accusation are given, but by 1540 complete
reticence seems to be general. There was no formal instruction prescribing
it, but it became the universal custom, based perhaps on the principle that
the confession, like that to a priest, to be trustworthy must be spontaneous,
showing the change of heart and conversion which alone could render the
culprit worthy of mercy. Yet, towards the end of its career, under Carlos III
and after the Restoration, the Inquisition occasionally granted an audiencia
de cargos, in which the accused was apprized of the charges against him
and, in trivial matters, this frequently took the shape of summoning him
under some pretext that would save his reputation, informing him of the
alleged offences and, after hearing his explanations, determining what
course to pursue. Even in so serious a matter as the celebration of mass by a

married layman, the Santiago tribunal, in 1816, after throwing Angel
Sampayo into the secret prison, gave him an audiencia de cargos before
proceeding further.[108]
How systematic reticence sometimes succeeded is indicated by the case
of Angela Pérez, before the Toledo tribunal in 1680. After lying in prison
for eleven months she asked an audience, May 19th, to inquire why she had
been brought to Toledo. She was admonished that she had already been told
that no one was arrested who had not said or done something contrary to the
faith; if she wished to discharge her conscience she would be heard, and, on
her asserting that she had nothing to confess, she was sent back to her cell
with an admonition to think it over and discharge her conscience. On June
13th she sought another audience, for the same purpose and with the same
result. Then, on June 22d she was transferred from the carceles medias to
the secret prison and, on the 25th, she obtained another audience in which
she entreated the inquisitors, in the name of the Virgin, to bring the charges,
but all that she obtained was to have her genealogy taken and to receive the
first monition. To this she replied that she had nothing to confess and
wanted her case despatched as she had been thirteen months in prison. The
implacable methods of the Inquisition triumphed, however, for the next day
she sought an audience in which she confessed that for eight years she had
observed the Law of Moses.[109]
Even more suggestive, though in a different way, is the
Mexican case of the priest Joseph Brunon de Vertiz, who THE
was one of the dupes of some women pretending to have ACCUSATION
revelations. They were all arrested and he was thrown in prison September
9, 1649. In repeated audiences he vainly sought to learn the charges against
him; he fairly grovelled at the feet of the inquisitors; he made profuse
statements of everything concerning himself and his accomplices; he
submitted himself humbly to the Church and was ready to confess whatever
was required of him, but all to no purpose. The strain proved too great for a
mind not overly well-balanced, and it began to give way. The first
symptoms were complaints of demoniacal possession, followed, after an
incarceration of two years and a half, by his writing a paper full of the wild
imaginings of a disordered brain, in which he denounced the Inquisition as
a congregation of demons and the Jesuits as the most detestable enemies of
God. Then he lay in his cell for more than two years, until, July 23, 1654,
he presented another incoherent paper. Finally he died, April 30, 1656, after

more than six and a half years of imprisonment, without ever learning of
what he was accused. His body was thrust into unconsecrated ground and
the prosecution was continued against his fame and memory. On May 11,
1657, the fiscal at last presented an informal accusation for the purpose of
summoning the kindred to defend the case; on October 22, 1659, more than
ten years after the arrest, the formal accusation was presented and, as
defence was impracticable, Brunon de Vertiz was condemned and his effigy
was burnt in the auto de fe of November of the same year.[110]

When, in the third monition, the accused was warned that, if he did not
confess, the fiscal would present an accusation, there was implied deceit
for, whether he confessed or not, the trial went on in its inevitable course. It
was usually in the same audience, after he had replied to the monition, that
the fiscal was introduced with the accusation, to which he swore and then
retired. This formidable document was framed so as to be as terrifying as
possible. In cases of heresy it represented that the accused, being a
Christian baptized and confirmed, disregarding the fear of the justice of
God and of the Inquisition, with great contempt for religion, scandal of the
people and condemnation of his own soul, had been and was a heretic, an
impenitent, perjured negativo and feigned confessor; that he had committed
many and most grievous crimes against the divine majesty and the free
exercise of the Inquisition, and was a fautor and receiver of heretics. Then
followed the recital of the acts developed by the evidence, arranged in
articles, reduplicated and exaggerated and presented in the most odious
light. Besides this he was a perjurer, by refusing to confess in the audiences,
after swearing to tell the truth, from which it was presumable that he was
guilty of other and greater crimes, of which he was now accused generally
and would be specifically in due time. Wherefore the fiscal prayed that the
accused should be found guilty of the crimes recited, condemning him to
confiscation and relaxing his person to the secular arm and declaring him to
have incurred all the other penalties and disabilities provided by papal
letters, instructions of the Holy Office, and pragmáticas of the kingdoms,
executing them with all rigor so as to serve as a punishment for him and an
example to others. After this followed the terrible clause, known as the
Otrosi, demanding that he be tortured as long and as often as might be
necessary to force him to confess the whole truth.

One thoroughly unjustifiable feature of the accusation was that, if there
was evidence of other misdoings of the accused, wholly outside of the
jurisdiction of the Inquisition, they were inserted because, as the
Instructions of 1561 remark, they serve as an aggravation of his heresies
and show his unchristian life, whence may be derived indications as to
matters of faith.[111]
As soon as the accusation was read, it was gone over again, article by
article, and the accused, while still confused by its menaces, taken at
advantage, wholly unprepared and without assistance of any kind, was
required to answer each on the spot, his replies or explanations being taken
down by the secretary as part of the record of the case. After this he was
told to choose an advocate to aid in his defence.

The custom of allowing counsel in criminal cases is so
comparatively recent in English law that their admission by THE
ADVOCATE
the Inquisition may be regarded as an evidence of desire to FOR THE
render justice. In Spain, however, it was customary, and DEFENCE
defendants too poor to retain them were supplied at the
public expense. In the royal chancellería, as organized by Ferdinand and
Isabella, there were two abogados de los pobres.[112] In the medieval
Inquisition, during its earlier centuries, counsel were not allowed to the
accused and it became a settled principle of the canon law that advocates
who undertook the defence of heretics were suspended from their functions
and were perpetually infamous.[113] Towards the close of the fifteenth
century, however, in witchcraft trials, we find advocates admitted, but under
the strict limitations that we shall see in Spain, and those who showed
themselves too zealous in defence of their clients were subject to
excommunication as fautors of heresy.[114]
When the Spanish Inquisition was founded, it was therefore a matter of
course that the accused should be allowed the assistance of trained lawyers
and not only this but of procurators, who attended to the business of the
defence, performing the functions, in some sort, of the English solicitor,
while the letrado represented the barrister and drew up the argument. In a
number of trials at Ciudad Real, in 1483, there appears to have been
considerable freedom of choice, the accused selecting both advocates and
procurators. During the persecution at Guadalupe, in 1485, the defendants

were mostly represented by Doctor de Villaescusa as advocate and by Juan
de Texeda as procurator, and the arguments in defence were well and
forcibly presented.[115] This was in accordance with the Instructions of
1484, which order that if the accused shall ask for an advocate and
procurator, the inquisitors shall grant the request, receiving from the
advocate an oath to assist him faithfully, without cavils or malicious delays,
but that if, at any stage of the case, he finds that his client has not justice on
his side, he will help him no longer and report to the inquisitors; if the
accused has property, they shall be paid from it, but if he has none they
shall be paid out of other confiscations, for such are the orders of the
sovereigns.[116] Yet this liberality was nullified by the clause requiring
advocates to betray their clients, thus destroying all confidence between
them and fatally crippling the defence. It was, however, in accordance with
the ethics of the age, and we shall see how it developed in a manner to
render illusory the services of the advocate.
It would seem that the tribunals sometimes chafed under these rules and
asserted discretion to disregard them for, in the case of the priest, Diego
García, in 1488, when he was told to select an advocate and a procurator,
the fiscal refused consent, and he had to conduct his own defence, though,
at a subsequent stage of the trial, Diego Tellez appeared for him.[117] It was
possibly in consequence of such cases and of other impediments to the
defence, that the Suprema issued a provision that all prisoners should be
allowed to take a procurator and advocate, provided they were fitting
persons. Also that the children and kindred of the accused should not be
prohibited from consulting as freely as they pleased with the counsel, and
that he should have copies of the accusation, the depositions of the
witnesses and other papers in conformity with the Instructions.[118] All this,
which was demanded by the simplest demands of justice, became, as we
shall see, a dead letter.
That the danger awaiting a too zealous advocate was not
purely hypothetical is seen in the case of Casafranca, deputy OFFICIAL
ADVOCATES
of Ferdinand’s treasurer-general of Catalonia, who was
burnt in the auto de fe of January 17, 1505, and his wife in that of June 23d;
his father-in-law had been reconciled and his mother, after condemnation,
died in the secret prison. Francisco Franch, the royal advocate-fiscal, had
defended Casafranca, and the Inquisition prosecuted him for his
unsuccessful attempt to avert his client’s fate, although at that time he had

risen to the position of Regent of the royal Chancellery. Ferdinand, who felt
much interest in his behalf, made Inquisitor-general Deza write in his favor
to Francisco Pays de Sotomayor, an inquisitor specially deputed to hear the
case, but this did not save him from bitter humiliation and dishonor.
February 28, 1505, Sotomayor pronounced sentence in which his offence
was described as endeavoring to induce a witness to revoke his testimony,
and as impeding the Inquisition by useless and procrastinating delays, by
which he had incurred excommunication, and moreover he was guilty of
perjury by asserting a false and erroneous conclusion, for all of which he
had humbly begged pardon and mercy. After obtaining absolution from a
priest he was to stand the next day before the high altar of Santa María de
Jesu during mass, with a lighted candle, in penitential guise, and forfeit all
payment for his services—which would have come out of Casafranca’s
confiscated estate. Both he and the fiscal accepted the sentence, but there
was delay in his public penance, for he refused to utter certain words
interlined in the sentence, which he asserted had been inserted since it was
read to him. The fiscal threatened to appeal to the inquisitor-general and
demanded that Franch be detained in prison until the appeal was decided,
whereupon he yielded and the ceremony was performed on March 1st.[119]
When the efforts of counsel in behalf of their clients were thus
effectually discouraged, nothing but the most perfunctory services could be
expected from them, and the inquisitors need apprehend little trouble. Even
this, however, was thought to give the accused too much chance, and all
risk of inconvenient zeal was averted by depriving him of the right to select
his defender and confining the function to one or two appointees of the
tribunal, who could be relied upon to favor the faith. The first intimation of
this policy comes in the memorials of Jaen and Llerena in 1506, which
complain bitterly that the inquisitors refuse to allow the accused to select
their advocates and procurators, forcing them to take such as they appoint
who will do their bidding. The Jaen memorial describes them as enemies of
the people, who desire arrests to be multiplied, as they charge three
thousand maravedís in every case which, for the two hundred prisoners,
amounts to six hundred thousand.[120] This abuse, probably originating with
Lucero, was so conformable to the tendencies of the Holy Office that it
gradually became the rule. In 1533, one of the petitions of the Córtes of
Monzon was that prisoners should be allowed to select their advocates and
procurators, and to this no direct answer was made.[121] In 1537 the

abogados de los presos were already recognized as officials appointed by
the tribunals. They were exclusively entitled to conduct the defence and, in
1540, the Suprema, in reply to a petition, said that, if the party desired a
different advocate, it could only be on condition that he should act in
consultation with the official one. Even this poor privilege was withdrawn
for, in 1562, Valdés decreed that the official counsel should communicate
with no other advocate.[122] It is true that, in 1551, the Suprema had
admitted that, if the tribunal had not been able to find a fitting lawyer for
appointment, the accused could select one, but this was merely yielding to
necessity.[123]
The chief qualification for an abogado de los presos was his limpieza
and that of his wife; his subservience to the tribunal was assured by his
dependent position, but, to render this more absolute, about 1580 the
Suprema ordered the Lima tribunal—and probably all others—to make its
advocates familiars, an office which bound them to the strictest obedience.
[124] Allowing for natural exaggeration, there is probably truth in the
description given, in 1559, by Antonio Nieto, a prisoner in Valencia, to his
cell-mate Pedro Luis Verga, who, after his first audience, was felicitating
himself on Inquisitor Arteaga’s promise to give him an advocate and a
procurator. Nieto told him not to count upon it for, though the inquisitor
might give him an advocate he would give him nothing good, but a fellow
who would do only what the inquisitor wanted and, if by chance he asked
for an advocate or a procurator not of the Inquisition, they would not serve
for, if they went contrary to the inquisitor’s wishes, he would get up some
charge of false belief or want of respect and cast them into prison.[125]
The advocate thus became one of the officials of the
tribunal, duly salaried and working in full accord with the FUNCTION
OF THE
inquisitors. In 1584, we find him of Valencia petitioning to ADVOCATE
have a place assigned to him in the autos de fe, where he
could be recognized as such and, at his ease, see his clients sentenced. The
petition was granted and he was allotted the last place among the salaried
and commissioned officers.[126] This became the established rule, but in
time professional dignity was wounded at thus being relegated to a position
inferior to the messengers and apparitors and gaolers.
In Valladolid and Granada the advocates obtained promotion to outrank
the physicians and surgeons and, in 1670, the Licentiate Juan Márquez,
advocate in the Seville tribunal, addressed to the Suprema a formidable

memorial of seventy-five quarto pages of text and fifteen of index,
representing the slight thus put upon them, and setting forth the dignity of
the legal profession, the respect due to its learning and, as regards the
advocates of prisoners, the confidential position occupied and the fidelity
with which they served the tribunals. It seems never to have occurred to
him to put forward a claim based upon fidelity to their clients.[127]
In fact, the so-called advocate was simply an official instrument for
securing confession and conviction, for which his ostensible position of
friendly adviser gave him peculiar opportunity. No communication between
him and his client was allowed, except in presence of the inquisitors and of
the secretary, who made record of all that passed between them, thus
keeping watch to see that he performed his duty. It is true that he was sworn
to defend the prisoner with all care and diligence and fidelity, if there was
ground for it, and if not to undeceive him, but his real duty is described as
urging the prisoner to confess fully as to himself and others, and to throw
himself upon the mercy of the tribunal, for by denial he would only
prejudice his case and suffer in the end.[128] How any deviation from this
was treated, appears in the case of Benito Ferrer, in 1621, before the Toledo
tribunal. In the consultation, his advocate Argendona suggested some points
of defence displeasing to the inquisitors, who promptly ordered him out of
the audience-chamber and sent Benito back to his cell to refresh his
memory and discharge his conscience, and two days later Argendona had to
put in the written defence without further opportunity of conference. The
Licentiate Egas had a more accurate conception of his duty, when serving as
advocate for Isabel Reynier, tried, in 1571, for Protestantism in Toledo. The
official record states that, after unavailing efforts to induce her to confess,
he asked whether she had any enemies to disable, on which he could frame
a defence, when she named several, but, as the Señores Inquisidores wanted
to despatch the case, he told her that this would avail her nothing, for there
was no presumption that enmity had caused false-witness, and he went on
to persuade her that she had already confessed enough to render her case
hopeless. The impatience of the inquisitors was gratified, for the
unfortunate woman was sent to the stake without Egas troubling them by
putting in a written defence.[129]
The old rule remained in force forbidding the advocate to defend an
impenitent heretic. It made no difference of course in the result, but still
permission to do so would have saved appearances. Such cases occasionally

occurred, like that of Benito Peñas at Toledo in 1641, a harmless lunatic
with some vague speculative heresies. His advocate, Juan Díaz Suelto, after
a conference in which his client obstinately rejected his advice to forsake
his errors and beg for mercy, reported that his efforts had been in vain, so
that it was necessary for him to abandon the defence, in order not to incur
the censures and other penalties imposed by the papal briefs, and also for
the speedier despatch of the case.[130] Even as late as 1753, at Valencia, the
same occurred in the trial of a swindling German named Horstmann.[131]
If, even under these shackles, an advocate desired really
to defend his client, he was deprived of the means to do so. PROCURATO
RS NOT
Originally, as we have seen, the kindred and children were ADMITTED
allowed freely to communicate with him, to furnish
indispensable assistance and information, and to gather witnesses, and he
was also supplied with copies of the depositions of the witnesses and other
necessary papers. It seems to have been Lucero, the evil inquisitor of
Córdova, who changed all this, for the memorials of Jaen and Llerena
complain bitterly of such denial of justice, rendering nugatory all the means
of defence, and depriving the kindred of all knowledge of the nature of the
accusation.[132] It expedited business however and facilitated conviction,
and its usefulness overcame all scruples. In 1522 Cardinal Adrian forbade
all communication between the advocate and the children or kinsmen of the
accused, and this prohibition was repeated until it became the invariable
rule. In the same spirit, the only document, that he was allowed to have,
was a copy of the publication of evidence, which was a very different thing
from the original depositions. To repress all initiative on his part he was
prohibited from putting forward any defence save what the accused might
suggest, in their open consultations in the audience-chamber, or to call for
any witnesses whom the latter did not name, and the inquisitors were
instructed to punish any infractions of this rule because they were
troublesome and impeded the course of business.[133] If an advocate was
suspected of undue zeal, the inquisitors had a right to interrogate him as to
the measures taken for the defence, the sources of his information and other
details; the defence in every way was obliged to play cartes sur table, while
the fiscal’s hand was carefully guarded, and only such knowledge was
permitted as served to confuse and mislead. It would seem scarce likely,
under such regulations, that advocates would be guilty of really assisting
their clients, but to guard against such possible derelictions of duty,

inspectors were ordered, when visiting tribunals, to inquire whether they
defend the accused “maliciously” and employ cavils for delay and finally,
whether or not they are necessary.[134]
At the same time, in its affectation of fairness, the Inquisition insisted on
the accused having counsel. When, in 1565, Pedro Hernández was tried at
Toledo for Calvinism, he confessed at once, professed conversion and
begged for mercy. When told to select an advocate he refused, until
informed that it was imperative for him to have one to conduct his defence.
Of course this was a mere formality for he was duly burnt in the auto de fe
of June 17th.[135] Inquisitors, moreover, were required to admit all
documents offered to them, and to listen to any one who might have the
hardihood to appear in favor of a prisoner.[136]
Simultaneously with the development of restrictions on the advocate, the
disappearance of the procurator completed the system of enabling the
inquisitor to control the defence as well as the prosecution. One of the latest
references to the procurator is a regulation of 1545, which infers that, if the
accused made application, the tribunal would grant him one, with the
reservation that this did not entitle the kindred to aid in the defence.[137]
This jealousy of outside assistance constantly increased and some tribunals,
such as Seville and Córdova, commenced to refuse admission to
procurators, except in prosecutions of the absent and dead; the kindred
might suggest the names of witnesses to the inquisitor, who would summon
and examine them. Finally Inquisitor Cervantes, when in 1560 he made a
report on Barcelona, took the opportunity of pointing out the disadvantages
of such representatives of the accused; through them, he argued, the case
became known, they anticipate the witnesses before they give evidence,
they are able to identify them and furnish to the accused reasons for
disabling them. The Bishop of Avila, a member of the Suprema, promptly
admitted the force of this, and declared that procurators ought no longer to
be allowed. This opinion prevailed and, in the Instructions of 1561, their
admission was forbidden, although in case of necessity, special powers
might be given to the advocate.[138] They continued, however, to be
appointed in trials of the absent and dead, where it was unavoidable. The
Roman Inquisition did not follow this example of the Spanish and allowed
the employment of procurators.[139]
Besides the advocate there appears in many trials a personage known as
the curador, or guardian, a living evidence of the fatherly care of the

Inquisition toward the helpless. Following the traditions of
the Roman law, Spanish jurisprudence provided that, in suits THE
CURADOR
and actions involving those who had not attained the full age
of twenty-five years, the assent of a curador, either permanent or temporary
ad hoc, was necessary to validate the legal acts of the minor.[140] This
provision, intended for the protection of the youthful and incapable, was
retained in the practice of the Inquisition, because it was necessary to render
valid the various compulsory acts of the accused in the successive steps of
his trial, but in order that it might not by any chance be of value to him, and
to preserve the secrecy of the Holy Office, the custom was adopted of
appointing the advocate or preferably the gaoler, or messenger, or some
other underling of the tribunal to serve as curador. As it was thus wholly
subversive of the object for which the function was created, there is
grotesque cynicism in the pompous formalities through which the curador
was interjected into the proceedings. He took a solemn oath that he would
diligently and faithfully defend his ward, alleging all that was to his
advantage and preventing all that was injurious, advising with his advocate
and doing all that a good guardian could do for a ward. And, if the latter,
through his negligence, suffered injury, he pledged his person and property
to make it good, giving as security another person (a fellow subordinate)
who united with him in the liability, jointly and severally, renouncing all
legal defence and placing themselves and all their possessions in the hands
of the inquisitors.[141] Being thus a mere formality, or rather a deception,
involving the perjury of those who took the formidable oath, it may be
dismissed from further consideration, except to cite a case illustrative of the
rigid formalism of procedure. In 1638, at Valladolid, Blanca Enríquez, on
trial for Judaism, represented herself as twenty-two years of age and as
usual was given a curador. She confessed to having been reconciled at
Córdova, nine or ten years before; a vote in discordia carried the case to the
Suprema, which discovered that her previous trial had occurred in 1623,
when she was fifteen and consequently she was now thirty. The curador
therefore had rendered the trial irregular, and the Suprema ordered it to be
repeated from the beginning.[142]
There was another form of assistance allowed to the accused, when the
questions at issue involved nice theological points, beyond the capacity of
the ordinary advocates. Learned doctors were called in as patrones
teólogos, to aid the accused, after he had been heard in defence of his

incriminated propositions. In ordinary practice, the propositions and his
answers were read to them; to each one they said whether he had
satisfactorily explained it or not; or whether he ought to retract, or whatever
other conclusion they might reach; then the whole was submitted to the
calificadores, who pronounced their final censure.[143] Nominally the
patrones were selected by the accused but in this, as in everything else, the
Inquisition sought to control the defence. When, in 1574, Fray Luis de Leon
was told that he could have patrones, he named four from various places.
The Valladolid tribunal referred the nominations to the Suprema, which
replied by asking whom it was accustomed to give from among its
calificadores and, on being informed, ordered that the routine custom
should be followed. Fray Luis’s protest that he did not want calificadores,
who had already pronounced against him, was set aside; patrones were not
meant to defend the accused in his heresies, but to undeceive him and tell
him what he should believe. It is true that the Suprema finally receded from
this position but, by a juggle continued for months, Fray Luis was forced to
take a man whom he did not want, and who was only a new and disguised
calificador; conference between them was denied, and the opinion which
the patron rendered was withheld from him.[144] The wisest course for a
theologian, in the hands of the Inquisition, was that adopted by Fray
Thomas de Nieba, in 1642, when on trial at Valladolid for certain
conclusions defended by him in scholastic debate. He refused both advocate
and patrones, saying that he was subject to correction by the Church and by
learned theologians, and he did not propose to defend the inculpated
propositions.[145]

We have seen that, after the accusation was read and
answered, the prisoner was told to choose an advocate. PUBLICATIO
N OF
Possibly two names were mentioned to him, both equally EVIDENCE
unknown; more often only a single name. He was not at
liberty to refuse and, on his giving assent, the advocate, who had been kept
in readiness in the antechamber, was called in. The proceedings up to that
point were read to him, and he at once performed the duty of urging his
client to confess. Whether successful or not in this, he stated that the next
thing in order was to conclude; the fiscal was called in, who similarly
announced that he concluded, and the inquisitors notified both parties of the
conclusion. These formalities being over, the case was formally received to

proof. The fiscal asked that his witnesses be ratified and publication of
evidence be made.
Ratification, as we have seen, frequently caused considerable delay, until
the device was invented of ratifying at the time of deposition. When the
evidence was thus in proper shape, the next move was its so-called
publication. This might or might not be the final step of the prosecution, for
it never was precluded from bringing in new evidence, and there might be
half a dozen or more successive publications, especially when a group of
Judaizers were on trial and they broke down one by one and told what they
knew about their associates. The effectiveness of this is illustrated by the
case of Engracia Rodríguez at Valladolid, in 1643. After her case had
apparently reached its end, the consulta de fe voted her to torture, which
was duly administered, without eliciting a confession. Then from time to
time came new publications of evidence, until her resolution gave way and,
at the seventh publication, eleven months after her torture, she confessed to
Judaism. She probably recognized that her kindred and friends were
yielding, one after another and incriminating her, and that it was useless to
resist longer, with the certainty—of which her advocate doubtless informed
her—that persistence would indubitably end in her burning alive as an
impenitent negativa.[146]
As this publication of evidence was the only inkling afforded to the
accused of what was the case against him, and as it was assumed to give
him ample opportunity of defence, it is worth a little special consideration.
We have seen that the pretext of protecting witnesses was held as justifying
the suppression of their names and of all circumstances that might lead to
their identification. Even under the most rigid construction, this crippled
greatly the defence, but rigid construction of their powers was not common
among the tribunals. When once it was admitted that portions of the
evidence could lawfully be suppressed, the selection of what should be
made known became largely discretional.
The endeavor to lay down rules for guidance as to this led to an infinity
of instructions, more or less rigid or lax. In 1498, the Suprema called
attention to the evils that had hitherto followed publication, wherefore in
future care must be taken to omit all circumstances giving a clue to the
identity of the witnesses, and this was repeated in 1499.[147] Yet the glaring
injustice of withholding from the accused a knowledge of details that might
enable him to disprove the charges was recognized, but all instructions

forbidding this were framed with an “if” that virtually authorized the
wrong. For instance, the specification of time and place at which an act was
said to have been performed was indispensable, if the accused were to have
a chance of detecting false swearing, yet such details might possibly lead
him to identify the witness, and these opposing reasons gave rise to a series
of varying orders which indicate how the Suprema vacillated between the
desire to secure the advantage and the consciousness of the wrong. In 1525
it condemned the practice of the Toledo tribunal in omitting time and place.
It was difficult to make the inquisitors observe this and, in 1527, a general
order was issued to state the evidence as the witnesses had given it, neither
more nor less. In 1530 it made a concession by ordering that it should be
consulted when there was “inconvenience” in stating the month or year.
Then, in 1532, it laid down the positive rule that place and time and persons
must be stated, for the principle that the witness must be protected was to be
construed as preventing only direct recognition and not inferential. This was
again modified, in 1537, when, while again ordering that all the evidence
must be given, this was qualified by the old injunction to suppress all
circumstances by which the witnesses could be identified. About 1560,
some instructions to Barcelona order that the time should be stated, while
place is to be indicated in such general terms as shall not betray the witness.
Finally, in the definitive Instructions of 1561, time and place are ordered to
be given, but at the same the omission is prescribed of all that may betray
the witness. A caution that no evidence is to be used that is not in the
publication gives a hint of other irregularities of even a more serious nature.
[148]

The publication being a matter of supreme importance, it was the duty of
the inquisitors personally to draw it up, and not entrust it to subordinates,
least of all to the fiscal, who was technically the prosecutor. Orders to this
effect were issued in 1529; they were repeated in the Instructions of 1561
but, in 1568, the Suprema was obliged to take the Barcelona tribunal to task
for allowing the fiscal to do it, and a later writer informs us that inquisitors
continued to shirk the labor and threw it upon the secretaries.[149]
The labor was doubtless great, when the witnesses were numerous and
loquacious, and the delicate duty was apt to be recklessly performed by
subordinates, fearful of rebuke if they allowed too much to be known. The
custom was to give the evidence of each witness separately, as deposed by
“a certain person” and, when practicable, to divide it up into articles, each

covering a separate charge or fact. In this process the elimination of all
circumstances that might give a clue to the identity of the witnesses was
easy, and there was little scruple in misleading the defendant or in omitting
whatever might be thought to weaken the case. In the publication read to
Marí Gómez la Sazeda, when on trial at Toledo in 1544, the evidence of one
witness is divided and represented as given by two, with the object, as noted
on the margin, of preventing her from identifying him.[150] In the case of
Gaspar de Torralva, before the same tribunal in 1531, the publication bears
such notes as “the evidence of the seventh witness omitted,” “the evidence
of the eighth witness omitted.”[151] There was no possible supervision or
control over this; the discretion of the inquisitors was absolute and the
prisoner was at their mercy.
In many cases the publication was scarce more than a
slovenly repetition of the fiscal’s accusation and afforded to PUBLICATIO
N OF
the accused no possible aid in his defence, as in that given to EVIDENCE
Juan de la Barra, tried for Lutheranism at Toledo, in 1656.
[152] When it was drawn up more elaborately, it became confusing in the
highest degree. One reads the long array of the assertions, or the
conjectures, or the gossip retailed by twenty-five or thirty witnesses,
vaguely set forth as what a “certain person” said or thought about another
certain person, with no specifications of time or place, and one wonders
how the prisoner could even grasp it sufficiently to form any definite
conception of the character and weight of the evidence against him. And,
with his life perhaps hanging in the balance, he was required to answer all
this on the spot, article by article, and was closely cross-examined on his
replies. That even an innocent man should compromise himself in the
pitfalls thus cunningly laid for him was not unlikely, and yet this
publication of evidence was represented as a special favor granted in view
of the other restrictions imposed on the defence—a favor not always
conceded in the secular courts.[153]

After this ordeal was passed the advocate was called in and furnished
with the publication and the answers of the accused. The two conferred
together, under the eye of the inquisitor and pen of the secretary; if the
accused rejected the renewed advice of the advocate to confess and
discharge his conscience, the plan of defence was concerted. What this was,
as a rule, made little difference. When, in 1499, the inquisitors-general felt

it necessary to instruct inquisitors that they must pay attention to the
defences and exceptions alleged by the accused, it indicates how they were
recognized as prosecutors rather than judges. Yet it was freely admitted that,
in view of the limitations of the defence, they should be most zealous in
considering whatever it presented.[154]
The defence was so perfunctory a routine that the systematic writers
mostly dismiss it with the curt observation that its witnesses must be
zealous Christians and in no way connected with the defendant. Simancas,
however, treats it at greater length, and his enumeration of its possibilities
shows how restricted they were. He admits at the start the legal maxim that
it is impossible to prove a negative, which was virtually, in most cases, the
task imposed on the accused. Then he proceeds to define what the
defendant can do. He can call on witnesses to prove his religious character
or to disable for enmity the opposing witnesses, or to show that at a certain
time or place he did not say what was attributed to him. Then there are
general pleas in abatement, extreme youth, second childishness, insanity,
drunkenness, thoughtless speech, ignorance, jocularity, the pressure of fear
under threats, or intense grief. Or he may recuse the judge, which should be
referred to the Suprema and not to arbiters, who cause much delay.[155]
Recusation of a judge was a right recognized in the
traditional legislation of Spain.[156] It was admitted in the THE
DEFENCE—
Inquisition and we have seen, in the cases of Carranza and RECUSATION
Villanueva, how little the accused profited thereby, even
when nominally successful. It was a recourse practically open only to the
powerful or to the trained, at best but a dangerous expedient, and of
necessity had to be done at the commencement of a trial. It evidently was
not employed often enough for a definite form of procedure to have been
provided. The Instructions of 1561 require that, if an inquisitor be recused,
he must abandon the case to his colleague; if he has none, or if both are
recused, the matter must await the decision of the Suprema.[157] This would
indicate that the recused judge retired as a matter of course, but the
Carranza and Villanueva cases prove that the objections of the prisoner had
to be demonstrated as legitimate and this is further indicated when the
troublesome Jesuit, Padre Juan Bautista Poza’s extravagant Mariolatry was
condemned at Rome and approved in Spain. It took seven years after his
Elucidarium Deiparæ had been placed on the Roman Index, in 1628, before
the Spanish Inquisition could be compelled by the nuncio to prosecute him

for his rebellious defiance. When on trial by the Toledo tribunal, he recused
the Inquisitor Cienfuegos; his reasons were examined by the Suprema,
which consulted the other inquisitors and the recusation was sustained. How
unusual was this proceeding is indicated by the boast of his triumphant
brethren that this was one of the remarkable events that had occurred in
Spain.[158] Yet an incident in the trial of Fray Luis de Leon shows the
advantage taken of any obstacle to prevent recusation. After two and a half
years of seclusion in prison from the world, he asked to know the names of
the existing inquisitor-general and members of the Suprema, in order that he
might recuse any whom he regarded as inimical, yet this elementary piece
of information was denied, in spite of repeated applications, in which his
counsel joined, showing that the latter was debarred from telling him what
was of public notoriety.[159] Strictly speaking, recusation was not a defence
but merely a preliminary to it, and its rarity renders it of minor importance.
Of the pleas in abatement enumerated by Simancas, that of youth
amounted to little for, as we have seen, as soon as the age of responsibility
was reached, the offender was liable to punishment, and there was little
mercy shown. In fact, there was a device, when the culprit was below the
age of fourteen, of postponing the sentence until he had attained that age.
[160]

Insanity was of much greater moment. The insane were
recognized as irresponsible and were sent to hospitals. It THE
DEFENCE—
was not infrequently pleaded, and the tribunals were INSANITY
constantly on the watch to protect themselves against
deception, yet it was long before definite rules were adopted with regard to
the matter. In the enlightened view taken by the Inquisition regarding
witchcraft, instructions of 1537 indicate a disposition to regard reputed
witches as insane; whenever the inquisitors considered this to be the case,
all acts and words leading to such conclusion were to be scrupulously
detailed in the records. Barcelona at the time had on hand a witch named
Juana Rosquells, whom the physician and consultors considered to be out of
her mind; not knowing what to do they referred to the Suprema, which
ordered her discharge and somewhat inconsistently required her to be put
under bail.[161] Even more tentative was the case of Toledo, in 1541, of Juan
García, a day-laborer, favored with revelations of the wildest kind. In his
audiences he replied unintelligibly to the questions asked and, when the
case came before the consulta de fe, it summoned him and asked whether

he would take a hundred lashes or confinement in a hospital. He very
sensibly declined both, and the session terminated with a vote that his sanity
be investigated. This was done in the most superficial way, the consulta de
fe when reassembled voted to acquit him, with a warning that if he persisted
in his wild talk he should have a hundred lashes, whether insane or not. He
was accordingly told to be gone in God’s name.[162]
There evidently was as yet no method prescribed for dealing with such
cases and it is somewhat remarkable that the Instructions of 1561 allude
only to those, by no means infrequent, in which prisoners became demented
during trial, and in these it is only ordered that they be provided with a
curador, which infers that the trial was to be continued.[163] In conformity
with this, at Granada, in 1665, a prisoner who had become insane after
confessing, was furnished with a curador under whose auspices the case
was carried to conclusion. He was condemned as a heretic and his property
was confiscated; as he had confessed and begged for mercy while still in his
senses, he was absolved from censures so that he might enjoy the suffrages
of the Church, while as to the penances requiring sanity for their
performance, such as reconciliation, abjuration, exile, etc., their
determination was postponed till he should regain his reason.[164] When
madness occurred after conviction and sentence, Peña tells us that the
execution should be postponed until the reason is restored, for perhaps the
culprit may repent and he is sufficiently punished by the madness. Even
when it is feigned this should be done, for it is a less evil that the crime
should be unpunished than to destroy his soul by putting him to death
impenitent. In any event confiscation is to be enforced.[165]
When the accused was decided to be insane the plan adopted was to
transfer him to a hospital, but in 1570 the Suprema required to be consulted
before this was done. Hospitals were not always willing to receive such
patients, but they were constrained to do so, as appears by an order of the
Suprema in 1574, in such a case.[166]
The diagnosis of insanity is sufficiently obscure to modern science, and
it is not surprising that the Inquisition experienced difficulty in protecting
itself against attempts at imposition, which were regarded as frequent. Peña
informs us that insanity was always looked upon with suspicion, as
probably fictitious, but he can only suggest that the gaolers should keep
careful watch, and the inquisitors threaten or employ torture, to which there
was no objection, unless there was risk of death, and which was an effective

means of detecting imposture.[167] There was, in fact, as we have seen, no
hesitation in having recourse to it when other means failed, but it is to the
credit of the Inquisition that it was ready to exhaust all its resources in
doubtful cases, to determine the question of sanity, however much its
ultimate conclusions might be warped by prejudice or preconceptions.
An exceedingly illustrative case was that of Benito Ferrer, a wandering
beggar, wearing priestly garments, arrested in Madrid, August 24, 1621, by
the archiepiscopal police and confined in the spiritual prison. He was about
to be discharged when, on September 20th, while mass was being
celebrated in the oratory, he sprang forward at the elevation of the Host,
snatched it from the hands of the celebrant, crushed it and cast part of it on
the floor, exclaiming “O traitor God, now you shall pay me!” The sacrilege
of course caused the greatest excitement and indignation. The
archiepiscopal court took cognizance of the matter and was about to
discharge Benito as crazy, when the Inquisition claimed him and sent him to
Toledo for trial, with orders to push the case. Before leaving Madrid he was
examined by the commissioner, when he asserted his entire sanity and
explained his act by asserting that the Host was not consecrated, for the
priest and everyone else whom he saw were enchanted demons.
Benito was undoubtedly a monomaniac for, in his
subsequent audiences, he stated that, in 1609, he had been THE
DEFENCE—
bewitched, since when everyone he met was a demon, with INSANITY
much other wild talk. His advocate asked for an
investigation into his sanity, which was performed somewhat perfunctorily
with the result that his extravagance was pronounced to be feigned. Still the
consulta de fe, on November 23d, voted in discordia and the Suprema
ordered further examination into his record and antecedents. Twenty years
before, in his native Catalonia, he had endeavored to enter religion; two
convents had refused to receive him and two others had expelled him after a
few months. The tribunals of Valencia and Barcelona were set to work on
these faint traces; the friars of that time were dead or scattered, but, after six
months of search, two or three were found who vaguely remembered him as
a melancholy person of little sense, who seemed to be possessed. Then
followed further examinations of fellow-prisoners and physicians,
concurring in the belief that his insanity was a fiction, and fruitless efforts
were made to induce him to admit it. Another consulta de fe, held
September 10, 1622, voted unanimously for relaxation, but the Suprema

was not yet satisfied and ordered torture as a last resort. When the sentence
was read to him he simply said that he was ready for what the Divine
Majesty might be pleased to do with him. Then for three hours he was
exposed to the extremity of torment, the blood dripping to the floor from his
lacerated flesh, but, amid his shrieks and groans, nothing more could be
extracted from him than “God suffered more; I am here to serve his
pleasure” and an offer that, if they would give him a Bible, he would prove
them all to be demons. If torture meant anything as a test, this proved his
insanity to be real, but two days later a consulta de fe unanimously voted
his relaxation as an impenitente negativo. Still the Suprema was not
satisfied; it thought that the torture had been insufficient and it ordered him
to be confined with persons of confidence, who should keep strict watch
over him. Accordingly, on November 23d, his cell was changed and he was
given as companions two friars and a physician awaiting trial, duly sworn
and instructed. February 8, 1623, they were examined and pronounced him
sane, but Dr. Antonio Gómez, who examined him, thought him liable to
delusions; many persons, he said were sane in everything but one topic, on
which they were insane. Still the Suprema hesitated and ordered continued
observations, which were prolonged until November 4th, with the same
result, when another consulta de fe unanimously voted for relaxation. The
Suprema could hold out no longer against these repeated convictions; it
confirmed the sentence and he was burnt alive as an impenitent, January 21,
1624.[168] Erroneous as the conclusion may seem to us, it was not reached
without a prolonged and conscientious investigation, such as no other
tribunal of the period would have given to such a case, though the
archiepiscopal authorities were wiser, when they promptly recognized
Benito’s madness.
A nymphomaniac, in 1688, caused the Valencia tribunal
an even longer term of perplexity. Francisca García was THE
DEFENCE—
arrested, March 28th, as an alumbrada—one of the mystics INSANITY
against whom the Inquisition waged unrelenting warfare.
She frankly admitted her sexual excesses, which she said were in obedience
to the voice of God. During audiences at long intervals her talk was so
irrational that insanity was suspected. Physicians were called in, who
reported that she seemed to suffer from some mental weakness, and the
alcaide said that he could not determine whether it was weakness or malice.
Calificadores were consulted, who postponed for further decision the

question whether she was hallucinated, crazy, or possessed. So it went on
for two years and a half until, on September 19, 1690, it was resolved to
keep her in prison but that, before presenting the accusation, another
consultation with calificadores should be had. They examined her and
reported that she cried aloud and wept and ejaculated and answered no
questions directly, but still asserted that carnal indulgence was embracing
God, so they reserved their opinions till another time. Eighteen months
passed away and, in March, 1692, she sought an audience in which she
threw herself on the ground and with tears begged to be taught; she knew
that she ought to be content with her husband and, with screams and cries
she declared that she could not resist temptation save with the aid of God. A
consulta de fe was promptly held, and another in January, 1693, which
could only recommend her detention, in view of the evils to be apprehended
if she were allowed to communicate with others. Then two years and a half
more elapsed, with occasional reports from the alcaide and secretary, to the
effect that latterly the poor creature no longer talked lasciviously, in view of
which it was voted, July 1, 1695, that the accusation should be presented
and that calificadores should again examine her. To the report of this the
Suprema replied in vigorous language, pointing out that this was only
recommencing the eternal round, and that the case promised to be immortal;
it ordered that the prosecution should be promptly carried on in the usual
way and the sentence be submitted for its approbation. Here the record
before us breaks off and the final action is unknown, but it is evident that
the unfortunate woman was to be treated as responsible, the hesitation of
the tribunal having only resulted in her incarceration for more than seven
years in a dungeon (calabozo) where, if not insane at first, she probably
became so in the darkness and despair of interminable confinement.[169]
However humane intentions might be, prejudice and ignorance misled them
to cruelty.
It marks a progressive improvement when, in time, it became customary,
on receiving a denunciation, to interrogate the informer whether he knew if
the accused was a drunkard or suffered from any mental disturbance and, in
instructions to commissioners in taking testimony, these inquiries were
directed always to be made. This was a praiseworthy precaution, and the
modern softening of temper produced a marked improvement in the
treatment of the insane. This is well exhibited in 1818, in the case of Pedro
Benito Lobariñas, in which the Suprema ordered the Santiago tribunal to

treat him with especial kindness, and to give him every comfort compatible
with his safe-keeping. Confidential persons, as well as the physicians, are to
be admitted to him, who in friendly talk could form an estimate of his
mental condition, while investigations were also to be made at his place of
abode. Still, the outcome of the case shows the conflict between humanity
and extreme dread of doctrinal error. His offence was simply some
“propositions” and, in view of his sanity in all else, and his experience as a
garden laborer, he was to be handed over to the gardener of some convent
so walled as to prevent his escape, and to forbid his speaking with any one,
so that he might have no chance to disseminate his heresies.[170]
As for the other pleas in abatement, such as intoxication, sudden anger,
thoughtlessness, ignorance, jocularity and the like, they could only be
advanced in minor cases, like blasphemy and propositions not involving
formal heresy. In such matters they were often alleged in extenuation and
were given more or less consideration, according to the temper of the
tribunal, the penalties, not infrequently, being moderated in consequence.

Defence, when the accused denied the charge, was practically limited to
tachas and abonos—the former being the disabling of witnesses by proving
enmity or other disability, the latter being the accumulation of evidence to
prove good character and assiduous religious observance. The
interrogatorio de indirectas, to secure testimony disproving or explaining
away specific accusations, was occasionally employed, and sometimes
flaws or contradictions in the incriminating evidence were exposed, or an
alibi might be proved when time and place were specified in the
publication, but these cases were exceptional. In the great mass of trials on
serious charges, no attempt at defence was made except by tachas and
abonos. To the latter little attention was usually vouchsafed, and the
struggle, as a rule, was over the former.
In this the defence was heavily handicapped by the
suppression of witnesses’ names and the garbling of EVIDENCE
FOR THE
evidence in the publication to protect them from recognition. DEFENCE
While occasionally the accused could identify one or two, in
general he could only grope blindly and indicate persons with whom he had
quarrelled, in the desperate hope that they might chance to be those who
had given damaging testimony. Slender as was the prospect of

accomplishing this, it was rendered additionally difficult by the obstructions
placed in the way of his obtaining and presenting his evidence. He was
permitted only to furnish the names of those whom he suspected, with a list
of the witnesses on whom he relied to prove enmity and a series of
questions to be put to the latter who, during the years of his incarceration
might have died or disappeared. We have seen how rigid were the
qualifications exacted of witnesses for the defence, so that the inquisitor
exercised his discretion as to whom he would admit, nor was he bound to
put any interrogations which he deemed irrelevant, or of which he
disapproved—indeed, it was held to be the duty of the inquisitor to
expurgate the interrogatories and if, in those of tachas, there was anything
affecting the reputation of a married woman, or the limpieza of a family, it
was to be struck out.[171] The whole matter was absolutely in his hands and
he could even refuse to admit the prisoner to any defence, as in the case of
Martin de Jaen, a Morisco, burnt in the Toledo auto de fe of 1606, or
Manuel de Mesones, penanced in that of 1610, on the ground that what they
asked for was unnecessary or irrelevant.[172] When defence was permitted,
neither the accused nor his advocate had the privilege of examining such
witnesses as were admitted, or of drawing forth all that they might have to
tell. If they were residents of the city, the inquisitor would summon them; if
at a distance, the interrogatories were sent to a commissioner; the witness,
to each bald question, would answer yes or no, or perhaps might give some
vague details or say that he knew nothing, and there the taking of testimony
ended. If inquiries were directed against parties who had not testified, they
were generally suppressed, although the instructions were to investigate
them also, in order more perfectly to keep the accused in the dark, and it
was also suggested that they be examined personally because, as enemies,
they might have additional damaging testimony to give. When the witnesses
for the defence, as frequently happened, were widely scattered, all this
consumed considerable time, during which the prisoner in his cell was
gnawing his heart in suspense, and when it was finished he was brought
into the audience-chamber, curtly informed that what he had requested had
been duly attended to, and asked if he had anything more to say. Under the
Instructions of 1561, the results of the interrogations were carefully
withheld from him as we have seen above (Vol. II, p. 543).
In this system, in which the burden of proof was thrown upon the
accused, while he was crippled in every way as to the means of proving

innocence, injustice could only be averted by judges acting virtually as
counsel for the defence, in place of which they habitually served as parties
to the prosecution. How it worked can best be understood by a few
instances, with varying results.
In 1494, Diego Sánchez of Zamora was prosecuted for Judaism in the
tribunal of Toledo. He had been trained, from his fourteenth year, in the
cathedral, where he had risen, twenty years before, to the position of
organist and beneficiary. There were but two witnesses against him—Pedro
de Toledo, a chaplain of the archbishop, who testified to seeing him eat
squabs on a Saturday and eggs in Lent and remove fat from meat. The other
was María de Santa Cruz, a servant-girl, burnt for heresy, who on her way
to the quemadero, being urged to clear her conscience by denouncing her
accomplices, said that once when he was sick his father told him that he
would not get well unless he sent some oil to the synagogue, whereupon he
sent both oil and candles. She was beyond the reach of vengeance but, as
usual, her name and the circumstances were suppressed. There is grim
comedy in the efforts made by Sánchez and his advocate to unravel this
story. They repeatedly requested the dead witness to be recalled and re-
examined and to have the date fixed, for Sánchez had once been delirious
for some days and it might have occurred then; a formal series of
interrogatories was drawn up to be put to her, and eight witnesses were to
be examined to prove the truth of the delirium, all of which the inquisitors
met with profound silence. Then, in hopes of discovering all possible
enemies who might have testified, a long series of quarrels was detailed
which he had had with members of his family and others. In this he chanced
to stumble upon María de la Cruz, who had been his servant, but was a thief
and, becoming pregnant, had accused a man-servant of his as the father. He
dismissed them both, but took back the man; the girl fell into evil courses
and was scourged through the streets, which she attributed to him and
repeatedly threatened revenge. He failed to identify Pedro de Toledo, but he
proved an irreproachable career in the cathedral for twenty-five years, and
he escaped with abjuration de levi and suspension for a year from
celebrating mass—enough to dishonor him.[173]
This hopeless floundering in the effort to rebut evidence
of which the source was so carefully concealed appears still EVIDENCE
FOR THE
more strongly in the case of Diego de Uceda, in 1528, DEFENCE
before the same tribunal, on a charge of Lutheranism,

founded on a chance talk with a stranger at Cerezo, while travelling from
Burgos to Córdova. The suppression of time and place and of details, in the
publication, threw him on a false scent and he imagined the accusation to
have arisen from a conversation some nights later at Guadarrama, with the
Archpriest of Arjona, and all his energies were wasted on the attempt to
prove that the latter talk was blameless, leaving the real testimony against
him uncontroverted. It was a game at cross-purposes, in which the
inquisitors allowed him to entangle himself hopelessly. Incidentally, the
record affords a vivid picture of the agony of suspense endured by the
prisoner in his cell during the inevitable delays arising from the method of
procedure. He was chamberlain of Fernando de Córdova, clavero or
treasurer of the Order of Calatrava; as such he had followed the court, and
his witnesses in abono were necessarily scattered. Six months were
consumed in finding them and securing their testimony, during which he
sought repeated audiences, imploring the inquisitors for the love of God to
despatch his case. At one time a second messenger was sent at his expense,
to Burgos and to Valladolid, with long instructions, and he counted the days
that it would take at ten leagues a day, the customary allowance for foot-
couriers. At last he was summoned to an audience and told that all his
witnesses save four had been examined and he could name others in their
place. This he declined; he had produced ample testimony as to character
but of course had failed to rebut the evidence of the unknown witnesses
who had denounced him. As we have already seen, he was tortured,
confessed and revoked and was sentenced to appear in an auto de fe, to
abjure de vehementi, with a fine of sixty ducats and some spiritual
penances, leaving him a dishonored and ruined man for a few careless
words to a stranger.[174]
It is to the credit of the tribunals that they seem generally ready to make
all effort necessary to obtain the testimony of the witnesses whom they
admitted. In 1573, the Suprema orders the Barcelona tribunal to advise a
French prisoner so that he could procure from the King of France a safe-
conduct for the persons whom he sends thither to procure evidence for him,
and the receiver is instructed to pay sixty-four ducats for the expenses of the
commission—of course out of the sequestrated property.[175] In 1682, in the
trial at Barcelona of Margarita Altamira, a worthless woman, she named as
a witness a day-laborer whom she knew only as Isidro. He was hunted for
in the city without success and efforts were made to trace him. In Cardona

an Isidro Giralt was found and examined but proved not to be the man.
Then it was thought that he might be somewhere in the parish of Maya, and
the commissioner of Solsona was ordered to find him and send him and his
wife to Barcelona, but the search was vain and no one of the name could be
found there. Margarita was then asked if she could give any further
indications to aid in finding him: she thought that perhaps María Barranco
might know something, but on investigation María was found to be dead.
Then she mentioned other witnesses who could testify to her good
character, and they were duly summoned and interrogated.[176] All this was
as it should be, but it depended on the temper of the tribunal and the
prisoner had no power to help himself.
This customary defence of disabling the witnesses for enmity, although it
was mostly blind groping to identify them, was sometimes successful. The
most extensive use of the tacha that I have met occurs in the Toledo case of
Gaspar Torralba, in 1531. His prosecution for Lutheranism was merely an
effort to get rid of a troublesome and truculent neighbor, in the little village
of Vayona, near Chinchon. There were thirty-five witnesses against him, for
he was generally hated and feared. In his defence he enumerated no less
than a hundred and fifty-two persons, including his wife and daughter, as
his mortal enemies, and he gave the reason in each case which amply
justified their enmity. In this comprehensive drag-net he succeeded in
catching nearly all of the adverse witnesses and, in addition, he adduced
abonos and indirectas to prove his orthodoxy and regular religious
observance. The tribunal evidently recognized the nature of the accusation;
he was admitted to bail, July 1, 1532, and finally escaped with a moderate
penance.[177] Life must have been scarce worth living in Vayona when he
was let loose.
At Valencia, in 1604, there was quite a group of cases
showing successful disabling of witnesses among Moriscos. THE
DEFENCE
Gaspar Alcadi, accused by two women of saying that he did
not believe in Christianity, identified them and proved enmity, so that his
case was suspended. One woman accused two men, Vicente Sabdon and
Fay Vicente and three women, Angela Bastant, Angela Barday and
Gerónima Alamin, but they all succeeded in fastening it upon her and
showing her hostility, with the result of a suspension of prosecutions. In
1607 there were several more cases of the same kind.[178] A still more
striking instance occurred in 1658, at Valladolid, when a dissolute woman

accused three men and thirteen women of Sanabria as Judaizers. They seem
to have found little difficulty in identifying and disabling her and were all
acquitted, February 1, 1659.[179] In general, however, the records show that
the main recourse of the accused, in seeking to identify and disable
witnesses for enmity, was rarely successful.

After the wholesale forcible conversions of Jews and Moors a defence
was sometimes advanced by the accused that he was not baptized and
consequently not a Christian nor subject to the jurisdiction of the
Inquisition. There were subtile questions involved in this, on which
theologians were not wholly in accord, but in practice the main point turned
on whether the fiscal was obliged to prove the baptism. Against this was
urged a decree of Paul IV, in 1556, when some Portuguese in Italy defended
themselves with this plea, and he ordered the prosecutions to proceed on the
ground that, if they had not been baptized, they would not have been
tolerated in Portugal. An old inquisitor, about 1640 says that in Saragossa
he had a case of a Morisco who advanced such a plea and, on examination
of his parish registers, no record of his baptism could be found, although
there were those of his elder and younger brother. In spite of this, on the
strength of the papal decision, the prosecution went on and his sentence of
reconciliation was confirmed by the Suprema.[180]

In all this the function of the advocate was reduced to a minimum. He
was to make no suggestions to his client except to confess; he was not to
advise him to disable any of the witnesses or to name witnesses of his own.
His sole duty, we are told, was to abandon a pertinacious heretic and to
admonish a Christian to tell the truth. If he chanced to gain outside
information, he was not to communicate it to the prisoner but to the
inquisitors and, if any friend or kinsman spoke to him about the case, he
was to say that he knew nothing of it. So, in the written defence which he
was required to present, he could use no information of his own, for the
accused alone could state facts, and the advocate could only set them forth.
He could receive nothing from the prisoner or his friends, even after the
case was ended; the tribunal fixed his fee, which was paid to him by the
receiver.[181]

Under such circumstances the argument which he would frame was not
likely to be of any benefit to his client. If he were young, bright and
ambitious, he might endeavor to impress the tribunal with his ability,
although the strict secrecy imposed deprived him of the incentive which
publicity would give. For the most part, however, he would discharge his
nominal duties with as little waste of energy as possible; he had nothing to
gain by zeal, and would be careful not to offend the inquisitors and fiscal on
whom he was dependent. While, therefore, we occasionally meet with a
careful and well-reasoned argument, presenting the case of the accused in
the most favorable light, and pointing out the irregularities and illegality
and weakness of the evidence, in general the defence is perfunctory, of no
real service to the accused, while ostensibly giving him the benefit of
defence by a trained lawyer and enabling the tribunal to overrule what
might be alleged in his favor.

Meanwhile, at each stage of the case, the accused was
subjected to searching examination. By rule, this had to be EXAMINATIO
N OF THE
conducted by the inquisitors, and if there were two, both ACCUSED
were required to be present; as the Suprema declared, about
1520, this was necessary to enable them to vote intelligently.[182] The fiscal,
very properly, was not allowed to be present, and the notaries or secretaries
were ordered to confine themselves to their duties in recording and not to
interpose questions. The general instructions for these examinations are
praiseworthy. In 1518 the Suprema ordered the avoidance of superfluous
questioning, as it might lead the accused to contradict himself through
ignorance and, in 1529, as the result of a visitation of Saragossa, it rebuked
the inquisitors for asking irrelevant questions instead of confining
themselves to the subject matter, as required by the Instructions. The
questions were to be clearly and intelligibly put, and the accused was to
answer them categorically, yes or no. He was not to be deceived or misled
by being made to believe that there was evidence where none existed, nor
was he to be questioned about accomplices, unless there were sufficient
indications concerning them.[183] Unlike the medieval Inquisition, where
every kind of deceit was allowed to entrap the accused into compromising
himself, the final rules, formally expressed by Pablo García, were that the
inquisitors must carefully abstain from interrogating the prisoner about
matters not included or indicated in the evidence, and from leading him to

believe that mere suspicions were knowledge founded on proof.[184] Yet,
with marked inconsistency, the monitions with which the trials opened,
assumed, as we have seen, the guilt of the prisoner, that ample information
existed of it, and that his confession was wanted for his own salvation.
As a rule, in these earlier audiences, no questions were put except to ask
the accused what he had remembered, and he was left to spontaneous
confession, without a guide as to what was expected of him. Sometimes,
however, in the later periods a special audiencia de preguntas was ordered,
which might last for several days, as in the case of Beatriz López, at
Valladolid, in 1697.[185] Ordinarily the real examinations began when the
accused answered to the accusation, and were continued after his replies to
the publication. At any time, moreover, if he made admissions or a partial
confession, the opportunity was taken, by skilful questioning, to bring him,
step by step, to full acknowledgement of his offences. In this, leading
questions were forbidden. All examinations were to be searching and
thorough and, in 1654, the Suprema complained that many crimes remained
unpunished because of the carelessness and looseness with which this duty
was performed. Inquisitors in general were, therefore, instructed to repeat
their questions again and again, until every detail of time, place and
circumstance was ascertained.[186]

When the prosecution and defence had thus exhausted all their resources,
the latter was required to conclude and the case was pronounced to be
concluded, although the fiscal could open it again, if new evidence
appeared, and the accused could appeal from this as from all other
sentences. It was then ripe for judgement, but the inquisitors were not
authorized to pronounce sentence alone. The necessity for episcopal
concurrence required the intervention of a representative of the bishop of
the prisoner’s diocese and, in addition, the rule of the Old Inquisition was
preserved under which some graduates in law and theology were assembled
to deliberate and vote with the others. These were called consultors and we
have seen that they were a recognized portion of the inquisitorial
organization. The whole body formed what was known as the consulta de
fe, in whose hands lay the fate of the accused. The number of consultors
was uncertain. In 1488, at Barcelona, we hear of a consulta in which five
masters of theology and five doctors of canon law were called in, and of
another in which there were twelve of each, but such assemblies were

unwieldy and, in 1596, the Suprema restricted the number to two
theologians and three jurists. There was a scandalous practice allowed by
the Instructions of 1561, of having the fiscal present without a vote, in order
to give information—information which would be apt to expand into
argument. Subsequently this seems to have been confined to some tribunals,
but in all he could be called upon to elucidate any doubtful point, either
orally or in writing.[187] No such privilege was allowed to the accused. Even
lawyers who served as abogados de los presos were declared, in 1538, to be
ineligible for service as consultors.[188]
In the imperfect records of the early trials, there is often
no allusion to a consulta de fe, although the sentence THE
CONSULTA
generally contains the customary formula that it has been DE FE
rendered with the advice of learned and God-fearing men.
Even this is sometimes omitted, but it is probable that the formality was
usually observed although, in the haste of those terrible days, it was, as a
rule, little more than a formality. The ordinary custom was to assemble a
consulta when a sufficient number of finished cases had accumulated to
render an auto de fe desirable, and it could scarce find time for a
conscientious scrutiny of the evidence. How business was sometimes
despatched is seen in the preparations for the great auto de fe at Ciudad
Real, February 23, 1484. Among the victims were Juan de Fez and his wife,
on whom the consulta passed sentence, January 28th, although Juan had
only confessed, under threat of torture, the day before, and it was not until
February 6th that he ratified his confession, so that the condemnation was
pronounced before the case was finished.[189] Yet discussion was not wholly
wanting. In the case of Diego García, at the consulta held January 18, 1490,
eight voted for torture and three for perpetual prison, but at a meeting next
day they were unanimous for torture, which Diego endured without
confession and thus escaped with moderate penance.[190]
In those early days it was possible, as the records inform us was done, to
read the whole case from beginning to end, for, in those hurried
proceedings, the records were brief. In later times when the documents of a
trial extended perhaps over hundreds—or it might be thousands—of folios,
this was manifestly impossible, and there was submitted to the consulta
only an abstract containing what was deemed important, when of course it
would be within the power of the tribunal to present it in such fashion as it
desired. There was a salutary limitation on this by the Suprema, in 1560,

when it forbade the preparation of these abstracts by the fiscal, but the
necessity for such prohibition is suggestive of existing abuses.[191]
Occasionally the consulta exercised the power of summoning and
examining the accused, as we have seen in the case of Juan García, in 1541,
when there were doubts as to his sanity. It did the same with Juan Vázquez,
at Toledo in 1605, which resulted in dismissing the case.[192]
Whether, in these assemblies, the consultors had a deliberative or merely
a consultative vote, was a matter of some discussion. In 1515, Cardinal
Adrian, and in 1518 the Suprema, instructed inquisitors that though they
must not render judgement without consulting jurists, they need not follow
their advice, but could consult others and state the reasons for rejecting the
previous opinions.[193] Arnaldo Albertino, on the contrary, after debating the
question at length, decides that, under the canon law, inquisitors are bound
by the majority vote.[194] This ignored the self-dependent organization of
the Spanish Inquisition, and Rojas asserts positively that the vote of the
consultors is consultative and not decisive.[195] Simancas decides that the
true rule is that the inquisitors are not bound by the opinion of the
consultors, although the question is debated; the Suprema instructed the
tribunal of Córdova that, if the inquisitors and Ordinary are in accord, their
opinion prevails over that of all the consultors, yet in Valladolid, unless
there is a majority, even if the inquisitors and Ordinary agree, there is
discordia and the case is referred to the Suprema.[196] All this was settled by
the Instructions of 1561, which declared that, if the inquisitors and Ordinary
were unanimous, their vote was decisive against consultors more numerous,
but that, whenever there was discordia between the former, the matter was
to be referred to the Suprema and, in important cases, even when there was
unanimity, it was to be consulted before executing the vote.[197]
We have seen how the gradual centralization in the
Suprema required all sentences, whether of torture or DELAYS
judgement, to receive its confirmation. Under this influence
the consulta de fe declined in importance, and tribunals began to neglect the
formality of summoning it or even of appointing consultors. The
concurrence of the Ordinary was theoretically indispensable, but that
sufficed, and the Suprema was quite content to overlook irregularities
which marked the diminishing importance of the tribunals. Thus, in 1717, at
Barcelona, in the case of Dr. Estevan Perpiñan for impeding the Inquisition,
the Ordinary could not attend and the inquisitors voted on it alone; they

could not agree on a sentence, and the Suprema sent the case back with
orders to vote on it again, in conjunction with the Ordinary; they did so, but
this time all three disagreed and the Suprema finally rendered the sentence.
[198] It seems never to have thought of instructing them to call in experts
and form a consulta de fe. Thus the time-honored institution, coeval with
the establishment of the Inquisition in the thirteenth century, came to an
end. In a series of votes of the tribunal of Madrid, extending through the
eighteenth century, there is no indication of consultors being called in.
Sometimes there are two inquisitors with the Ordinary and sometimes one;
sometimes two inquisitors without the Ordinary, and occasionally, though
rarely, a single inquisitor by himself.[199] In the enumeration of the
personnel of all the tribunals, about the middle of the century, the
insignificant one of Majorca had eight consultors, Granada had four,
Córdova three, Valladolid, Cuenca and Santiago one each and the others
had none. The institution was rapidly dying out and men no longer aspired
to the honor of belonging to it. So it was under the Restoration. In the
sentences of the period which I have seen there is no reference to it save in
some pronounced by the Canary tribunal, which have the clause “without a
consultor because it is united in the Ordinary.”[200]
Before the Suprema had rendered the tribunals mere agencies for
collecting evidence and attending to the formalities of trials, the consulta de
fe may occasionally have been of service in preventing or diminishing
injustice. Incidents related above show that the consultors formed opinions
of their own, and that the votes were often far from unanimous. This was
encouraged by the routine of voting, in which the consultors voted first and
the senior inquisitor last, although doubtless, when there had been a
preliminary discussion, the views of the inquisitors had been made known.
Occasionally we meet with debates in which each member of the consults
accompanies his vote with an exposition of his reasons, and sometimes
even with elaborate written opinions, showing a conscientious expenditure
of thought and labor. Unfortunately, doubts and disagreements generally
were compromised by recourse to torture, after which the consulta would be
reconvened to formulate the definitive sentence.

Not the least cruel feature of the inquisitorial trial was the interminable
delay to which the victim was commonly exposed. In ordinary criminal
practice, especially in capital cases, the accused may seek perhaps to

postpone the evil day, but in the Inquisition, where he was denied all
communication with the outside world, and was kept in ignorance as to the
progress of his own case, the agony of suspense concerning himself and
those dear to him during dreary months and years was, in itself, a most
severe and protracted punishment. This was thoroughly understood, not
only from the repeated despairing cries of prisoners to have their cases
despatched, but from the habitual promise of such despatch held out as an
inducement for confession. The slow torture of delay was a well-understood
device of the Old Inquisition to procure confession, when five, ten, or
twenty years’ interval between arrest and sentence was not infrequent,[201]
but, except in special cases, this would not seem to be the motive in Spain.
It is rather attributable to callous indifference and the habit of
procrastination. The prisoner was presumably guilty and no good Christian
need waste sympathy on the sufferings, mental and bodily, of a heretic too
pertinacious for confession and conversion.
In Spain, speedy justice was constantly urged on the tribunals as soon as
the mad rush of the early years was over. While this lasted such urgency
was superfluous, for haste was necessitated by the enormous amount of
work to be done, and was stimulated by impatience for the fines and
confiscations, though the formalities of procedure were cumbrous and there
were multitudes of cases jostling each other as they wore through their
several stages. In the great auto de fe at Ciudad Real, February 23, 1484,
where there were seventy-six burnings in person or in effigy, besides the
large number of reconciliations, there could have been no time wasted on
each case. Among those relaxed was Juan González Daza, whose trial
commenced December 1, 1483, when the inquisitors granted nine days for
presenting proof. On December 10th, the fiscal asked an extension of time
in view of his other occupations and the absence of witnesses, but he was
obliged to take an oath that these were his reasons and not malice. On
December 8th evidence for the defence was already being taken before two
deputies of the inquisitors and, on the 12th, that for the prosecution before
two other deputies. Considering that human life was at stake, the work was
most expeditious.[202]
Possibly this speed soon slackened; whether it did so or not, the Suprema
was dissatisfied, for the Instructions of 1488 ordered that prisoners should
not be worn out in gaol with postponements, and proceedings must be so
prompt as to afford no cause of complaint. This urgency was repeated in the

Instructions of 1498, which fixed a limit of ten days between arrest and the
presentation of the accusation, during which the three monitions were to be
given; after this cases were to be pushed with all despatch and without
awaiting further proof, for this had led to prolonged detention, causing
injury to persons as well as to property. Again, in 1500, the tribunals were
ordered to proceed summarily and not to permit delays—all these
instructions showing that the procrastination was attributable to the
prosecution and not to the defence.[203]
These instructions received scant obedience and the
delays were felt as a serious grievance by the accused. In DELAYS
1510 we have a petition to Ferdinand from five women
appealing for a speedy decision of their cases, which had been “concluded,”
to which he responded by ordering the inquisitors to expedite them in
accordance with justice.[204] So among the Aragonese petitions at the Córtes
of Monzon, in 1533, is a complaint that the prisoners of the Inquisition were
vexed with the prolonged delays in giving them the accusation and
postponing the publication of evidence, wherefore the inquisitor-general
was prayed to prescribe briefer terms. To this the reply was merely that
provision would be made for the good administration of justice and the
speedy disposition of cases.[205]
If there were any intention of fulfilling this promise it was resultless.
Procrastination was habitual in all Spanish tribunals, as we learn from the
repeated remonstrances of the Castilian Córtes of the period, which vainly
represented that pleaders were impoverished and exhausted in the vain
attempt to obtain justice, and that the gaols throughout the land were
crowded with prisoners.[206] The Inquisition shared in this indifference to
the sufferings of those in its hands; there were causes of delay in ratifying
evidence and looking up the witnesses for the defence, and it had besides a
practice, in all cases serious enough to appear in an auto de fe, of allowing
them to accumulate until there were enough to render the solemnity
impressive. This abuse was forbidden by the Suprema in 1518, 1532, 1539
and 1540, but its commands were disregarded.[207] That it was a real
grievance is shown by a summons addressed, in 1534, by the Toledo fiscal
to the Vicar-general Blas Ortiz, reciting that it was four years since the
tribunal had celebrated an auto de fe; its prisoners were suffering much
thereby in person, honor, and property, and the Inquisition was defamed in
consequence. On the part of the accused and their kindred there had been

bitter complaints to the inquisitor-general and Suprema, to the emperor and
royal council, and to persons of influence, and three or four months ago the
Suprema and inquisitor-general had come to Toledo to see what was the
matter and had ordered the cases to be despatched and an auto de fe to be
held. When, however, we learn that the concurrence of the vicar-general
was needed only for the torture of nine persons and the sentencing of ten,
we see how little occupation the tribunal had had during those four years,
rendering the delay inexcusable, while moreover the effort to shift the
blame on Blas Ortiz was transparent for, under the Clementines, inquisitors
were required to wait only nine days for the Ordinary.[208] The custom of
waiting for an auto de fe continued and if, in 1570, 1571 and 1577, there
were repeated orders that the cases of poor prisoners should be despatched
promptly, without holding them for an auto, this urgency savors more of
thrift than of mercy, for it infers that the rich, who could defray their prison
expenses, might linger.[209]
The provision that the accusation should be presented
within ten days after arrest was repeated in 1518 and seems DELAYS
to have been considered as still in force in 1594, for its
observance is included in interrogatories prepared for a visitation in that
year, but the Instructions of 1561, while requiring the fiscal to present it
within that limit, give discretion to the inquisitors as to the time of
admitting the prisoner to an audience after his arrest, and prescribe no
definite intervals between the monitions.[210] This discretion was abused to
the utmost and the Suprema seems to have abandoned all effort to check
procrastination, except in special cases which threatened to become
immortal. The tribunals kept their unfortunate prisoners lying for months
before granting the first audience and, as this required no preparation, its
postponement was mere callous indifference without excuse. In a group of
eight cases at Valladolid, in 1647, a year was allowed to elapse between the
arrest and first audience, and subsequent intervals, varying from one month
to eight, before the third monition which was synchronous with the
accusation.[211] When there was this heartless delay at the commencement
of a case, it is not to be supposed that there would be any alacrity in
speeding the subsequent stages of the cumbrous routine, or any
conscientious awakening from the supine indifference of the tribunals, with
their multitude of officials and diminishing work. I have already alluded to
the Mexican case of Joseph Brunon de Vertiz, in which there was nothing to

prevent a regular and speedy course of action; and a brief abstract of the
successive steps of his trial will show how he was tortured through
suspense and anxiety to death. Between January 25, 1650, and his end on
April 30, 1656, he was but once summoned to an audience and then it was
only to ask him whether he had anything more to say.[212] Similar examples
can be cited in the Peninsula. Gabriel Escobar, a cleric in the lower Orders,
was arrested by the Toledo tribunal in 1607, on a charge of Illuminism and,
in 1622, he died in prison, leaving his trial unfinished.[213] On a similar
charge, Vicente Hernan was arrested in Valencia, September 23, 1592, and
on August 25, 1695, the Suprema took the tribunal to task, because the
accusation had not yet been presented, and pointed out that two years and a
half had elapsed since his last audience, and the case was no nearer an end
than before.[214]
This procrastination continued to the end. A writer, about 1750,
attributes the endless prolongation of the trials to the inefficiency of the
inquisitors, and this again to the meagreness of the salaries, which prevents
the selection of capable men, but the Suprema itself was frequently to
blame by its delay in acting when everything had to be submitted to its
approval. Thus when the Logroño tribunal sent to it, September 9, 1818, a
sumaria, on statement of the evidence, against Fernando de la Hoceja for
irreverence to the sacrament, it was not until June 9, 1819, that it ordered
prosecution and, when Valladolid proposed, November 12, 1818, to grant
audiencias de cargos to Lazaro Matilla, this was not confirmed until June
15, 1819.[215]

Prosecution of the absent and of the dead formed, especially in the
earlier period, a large part of the work of the Inquisition. The sudden
development of systematized persecution naturally caused the exodus of
thousands of Conversos, in spite of the arbitrary measures adopted to
prevent their escape, while the details adduced in the trials furnished
evidence against other thousands, who had died in external orthodoxy. It
was no part of the policy of either Church or State to condone the offences
of the fugitive or of the dead. If the faith could not be vindicated by burning
their bodies, it could at least exhume the bones of the departed for
cremation and could symbolically consume with fire the effigies of those of
whom neither the bodies nor the bones could be had, while the fisc gathered

in the confiscations which followed on condemnation, including the
collection of debts and the forfeiting of alienations.
In this there was nothing repugnant to the spirit of the
age, or of the Latin systems of jurisprudence. In the spiritual PROSECUTIO
N OF THE
sphere the Church had long been accustomed to pass DEAD
judgement on those who had passed to the judgement-seat of
God, and to exhume the remains of any heretic buried in consecrated
ground.[216] The imperial jurisprudence was equally unforgiving in cases of
majetas, or treason, in which the dead could be prosecuted and their estates
be confiscated, and the Theodosian Code extended this to heresy.[217] As
recently as 1600, in Scotland, the bodies of the Earl of Gowrie and his
brother were brought into court to be present at their trial, and were duly
sentenced to be hanged, quartered and gibbeted; in 1609, Robert Logan of
Restalrig, three years after death, was accused of complicity in the Gowrie
conspiracy, when his bones were exhumed to grace the trial in which he
was convicted and his estate was confiscated.[218] As regards fugitives, in
the Continental systems of criminal law it was regarded as absurd to allow
contumacious absence to defeat justice. In Aragon the absentee was
summoned at his domicile to appear within fifteen days, after which he was
reputed contumacious and his trial proceeded, but he had the right, even
after sentence, to return and appeal, on reimbursing to the accuser his
expenses.[219]
The abundant harvest thus provided for the early Inquisition may be
estimated from the statement by a contemporary that, at the Toledo auto de
fe of July 25, 1485, there were burned the effigies of more than four
hundred dead and as many in that of May 25, 1490. The ceremony was
impressive. A great monument, covered with black, was erected in front of
the staging occupied by the inquisitors. The sentence of each culprit was
read and, as his name was called, the monument was opened and an effigy,
arrayed in Jewish grave-clothes, was brought out and condemned as a
heretic. Then a great fire was built in the centre of the plaza, and all the
effigies were consumed, together with the disinterred bones. After this their
names were announced in the cathedral, with a summons to the heirs to
appear, within twenty days, and render an account of their inheritances
which belonged to the king.[220] We might suspect these figures of
exaggeration were there not other evidences of the magnitude of the work
in progress and of the informal haste with which it was conducted. In 1484,

at Ciudad Real, a single proclamation to the children and heirs, to appear
and defend the deceased, contains the names of sixty-one dead persons on
trial and a single sentence condemns forty-two, with a common
enumeration of the Judaizing practices asserted to be proved against them.
In none of these cases did the children and heirs put in an appearance to
defend the memory and fame of the dead.[221]
These reckless and indecent proceedings were based on the Instructions
of 1484, which evidently reflect the current practice in ordering the
prosecution of those who had been dead even for thirty or forty years, and
their property with its fruits to be taken from whomsoever is found in
possession, although a MS. copy contains a clause, omitted in the printed
editions, exempting from confiscation property held in good faith by good
Catholics, for fifty years or more.[222] In view of the activity at Ciudad Real
and Toledo, it seems somewhat superfluous that Torquemada, in his
supplementary Instructions of 1485, deemed it necessary to warn the
tribunals that the prosecution of the living should not cause them to neglect
the dead, so that their bodies may be disinterred and burnt and their
property be seized by the fisc.[223] How far back the retroactive energy of
the tribunals extended may be gathered from the case of Fernan Sánchez
who had been converted about 1416, had lived as a Christian until his death
in 1456, and who yet was disinterred and burnt and his estate confiscated by
the tribunal of Cuenca and Sigüenza, probably about 1525.[224]
Notwithstanding the massing of cases in the citations and
sentences, the formalities of the somewhat cumbrous PROSECUTIO
N OF THE
procedure were duly observed. The trials were not speedy, DEAD
but, as large numbers were in progress together, only the
scantiest attention could be paid to each and the result was a foregone
conclusion. A single case will illustrate the process. At Ciudad Real, August
8, 1484, the fiscal is recorded as appearing and saying that he desires to
proceed against certain deceased persons and among them Beatris
González. He asks the inquisitors to issue their letters of summons, citation
and edict, so that the children, heirs, kindred and others who wish to defend
their bodies and bones, their fame and property, may appear. The same day
the edict is issued, directed to the representatives of Beatris and two others,
some of the kindred addressed being named and others included under the
generalization of parties interested. The edict recites that the fiscal is about
to accuse Beatris and the others of Judaism, and asks to have them

summoned in defence, wherefore they are cited to appear within thirty days
after the edict is read to them, or before their house-doors, or published in
the public square, or read in the church of San Pedro and affixed to one of
its doors; if they come, they will be heard with the fiscal, and justice will be
rendered; if they do not appear, the fiscal will be heard and the case will go
on without them to the end. The thirty days constituted three terms of ten
days each, at the end of each of which the fiscal appeared before the
inquisitors and accused the rebeldia or contumacy of the parties cited and,
at the end of the third, on September 6th, he presented the accusation, a
copy of which was ordered to be given to the children, with nine days in
which to answer it. At the expiration of this time, on September 14th, the
fiscal accused the further rebeldia and concluded; the inquisitors received
the case to proof and assigned thirty days for it. On October 20th, the fiscal
presented four witnesses, who were separately and secretly examined by the
inquisitors, the testimony consisting of the usual details of observing the
Sabbath by lighting candles and wearing clean linen, with an intimation of
having chickens killed by decapitation. Then followed an interval, until
January 18, 1485, when the fiscal asked for publication of evidence. The
inquisitors granted this, ordering copies given to him and to the children if
they ask for it, and assigning a term of six days for concluding. On January
24th the fiscal accuses the persistent rebeldia and concludes; the inquisitors
hold the children to be contumacious and conclude the case, assigning for
sentence the third or any following day. All this was in preparation for the
great auto de fe of March 15th, where the sentence was read, condemning in
mass a large number of the dead, confiscating their property and ordering
their bones to be dug up and burnt.[225] This was the procedure under which
thousands of the dead were condemned and their properties seized from the
existing owners; the forms of justice were comfortably preserved; no heirs
or children ventured to appear in defence, and the condemnation might as
well have been pronounced at the beginning.
This facility offered temptations to act on insufficient evidence and
occasionally, when persons of importance were concerned, there was a
contest, as at Saragossa where, on March 10, 1491, the fiscal presented his
clamosa against a number of the dead, whose representatives defended
them with persistent energy until December, 1499, when there were eight
condemnations and three acquittals.[226] Some check on the abuses
inevitable to the system was attempted, in the reformatory Instructions of

1498, which order that no prosecution of the dead is to be commenced
unless there is proof sufficiently complete for condemnation; the practice of
suspending cases where proof is imperfect is prohibited, in view of the
hardship endured by the heirs, who are unable to marry or to dispose of
their property and, under such circumstances, acquittal is ordered.
Procrastination and delay are also forbidden, and cases must be determined
speedily.[227]
Sequestration under these circumstances inflicted great
suffering until, as we have seen, in the Instructions of 1561, PROSECUTIO
N OF THE
it came under the general prohibition of sequestrating DEAD
property in the hands of third parties. By this time,
prosecution of the dead had shrunk to an inconsiderable part of inquisitorial
business, and this may possibly account for other ameliorations in
procedure. The preliminary necessity of sufficing proof was insisted upon;
pains were to be taken to ascertain whether there were descendants, so as to
cite them in person; no one who appeared as a defender was to be refused,
even though he might be a prisoner on trial, who could empower a
representative; if no defender appeared, the inquisitor was to appoint a
skilful and sufficient person, who was not an official of the tribunal.[228] By
this time, also, another rule had established itself which diminished the
number of prosecutions—that they could only lie for formal heresy. Crimes
involving suspicion of heresy, such as fautorship, receiving and defending
heretics and many others, were excluded, for the reason that suspicion,
however violent, was held to be extinguished by death.[229] It was also
generally admitted that stronger proof was required for prosecution of the
dead than of the living because, as Rojas explains it, semiplena or half-
proof, suffices for the latter—apparently alluding to the fact that the dead
could not be tortured.[230]
If they could not be tortured, so neither could they save themselves from
relaxation by confession and abjuration. This naturally resulted in burning
in effigy, except in the case of death during trial, when, if the prisoner had
manifested repentance and sought readmission to the Church, his effigy was
solemnly reconciled in the auto de fe, nor does this somewhat grotesque
ceremony appear to have aroused a sense of incongruity. Death in prison, as
we have seen, was by no means infrequent and, as the cases when once
commenced were continued to the end, they furnish, during the later period,

a considerable portion of the prosecutions of the dead. Suicide in prison was
held to be confession of guilt and pertinacity.
The sentence pronounced on the dead was even more impressive than
that on the living. It declared him to have lived and died a heretic, his
memory and fame were condemned and his property was confiscated. “And
we order that, on the day of the auto, an effigy representing his person shall
be placed on the scaffold, with a mitre of condemnation and a sanbenito
bearing on one side the insignia of the condemned and on the other a
placard with his name, which effigy, after the reading of this our sentence,
shall be delivered to the secular arm and justice, and his bones shall be
disinterred, if they can be distinguished from those of faithful Christians,
and be delivered to the said justice to be publicly burnt, in detestation of
such great and grievous crimes. And, if there is any inscription on his tomb,
or if his arms are anywhere displayed, they shall be erased, so that no
memory of him shall remain on the face of the earth, except of our sentence
and of the execution which we order in it. And, that it may the more remain
in the memory of the living, we order that the said sanbenito or one like it,
with the said insignia and name of the condemned, shall be placed in the
cathedral or parochial church of ——, of which he was parishioner, in a
prominent place where it shall remain for ever. Moreover we order that the
children and the grandchildren by the male line, be deprived of all dignities
and benefices and public positions that they possess, and be incapacitated
for others, as well as to ride on horseback and carry arms and wear silk,
camlet and fine cloth, gold, silver and corals and other things forbidden by
the laws.”[231]

We have already seen how numerous, in the opening years of the
Inquisition, were the trials of absentees, as shown by the burning of their
effigies in the autos de fe. This arose not only from the flight of those
alarmed by the activity of persecution, but also from the investigation of the
records of all who, for years before, had changed their places of residence
or had betaken themselves to the Moors of Granada or beyond seas. This
proportion of the early period was not maintained after the first hurried rush
of expatriation was past, but still there continued to be many cases. When a
Judaizer or Morisco was arrested, all who had been associated with him
recognized the impending danger and, if there was possibility of
concealment or of leaving the country, prudence counselled absence. The

Inquisition sought energetically to trace those against whom evidence was
obtained and, if it failed, it prosecuted them in absentia. In some respects
this procedure differed from that in prosecution of the dead.

The Instructions of 1484 give minute and precise details
with regard to it, pointing out three courses which may be PROSECUTIO
N OF THE
followed. The first is recommended as the safest and least ABSENT
rigorous and is that furnished by the canon law in Cap.
Contumaciam (Cap. 7, Tit. 2 in Sexto Lib. v) which provides that, as
contumacy renders suspicion vehement, a man who is suspect in the faith is
to be excommunicated, when, if he remains under the censure for a year, he
is to be condemned as a heretic. Under this process, which conveniently
converted suspicion into formal heresy, justifying condemnation, testimony
was superfluous and conviction certain, so that, although it cost some delay,
we can understand the preference expressed for it. It simply required the
party to be summoned, with the customary monitions, to defend himself in
matters of faith and a special charge of heresy, under pain of
excommunication. If he did not appear, the inquisitor ordered the fiscal to
accuse his contumacy and to demand letters denouncing him as an
excommunicate and then, if he persisted in his contumacy for a year, he was
declared a formal heretic. The citations were made by the customary edicts,
proclaimed and affixed to the church-doors of his domicile, and the
excommunication was published in the churches with the customary
solemnities.
The second method was more speedy and was adapted to cases where
the heresy could be completely proved. The accused was cited by edict to
appear and prove his innocence, with steps similar to those used in
summoning defenders in prosecutions of the dead; when the terms allowed
were passed, if the evidence was conclusive, the absentee could be
condemned without further delay.
The third process was suitable for cases where the evidence, though
incomplete, justified vehement presumption. An edict was issued against
the accused summoning him to appear within a specified time and furnish
canonical purgation, with notice that, if he did not present himself, or if he
failed in his purgation, he would be held as convicted and be treated
accordingly. This was the simplest and speediest, but the Instructions say
that, although rigorous, it was well grounded in law, and inquisitors, at their
discretion, could adopt either of the three courses as best adapted to the case
in hand.[232]

The first of these methods, utilizing the device of contumacy became the
one almost universally employed, when time was of no consequence but, in
the impatient temper of the early period, speedier processes were preferred.
The case of Sancho de Ciudad and Marí Díaz his wife, was tried by the
second process and will serve as an illustration. Sancho was regidor of
Ciudad Real and a well-known citizen. On November 14, 1483, the fiscal
represented that many persons defamed for heresy had fled from the
Inquisition, among whom notoriously were Sancho and his wife, whom he
intended to accuse, and he asked the inquisitor, on receiving due proof, to
cite them to appear. Two witnesses then deposed that it was notorious that
they were absent and, as they had departed about fifteen days before the
Inquisition came, it presumably was through fear. The edict was issued and
the case took its course, all citations and summonses being gravely
pronounced before Sancho’s house by a notary as though he were
personally on trial. When the case reached the stage of proof, the fiscal
presented thirty-four witnesses—the most damaging one being Sancho’s
daughter Catalina, who gave the names of her brothers and of numerous
others accustomed to assemble in her father’s house to participate in Jewish
ceremonies. All the formalities of the trial were observed and duly notified
before Sancho’s door. By January 22, 1484, the consulta de fe voted for
relaxation, which Sancho was duly summoned to hear read, and it was read
in the audience-chamber, January 30th, empowering the authorities of any
place, where Sancho and his wife might be found, to inflict on them the
penalties of the law, and meanwhile, as their persons could not be had, it
ordered their effigies then present, to be subjected to the execution of the
said penalties.[233]
If there is something grotesque in all this, at least the
proceedings were decently in order and, if Sancho and his PROSECUTIO
N OF THE
wife had cared to risk it, they could have been heard. How ABSENT
hurried and informal the process sometimes was is
manifested by a case at Guadalupe in 1485. On July 13th three witnesses
were heard as to ten persons who had left that place from twelve to sixteen
years before, and of whom public fame reported that they had gone to
Málaga or to some other Moorish town, and had turned Jews. On July 21st
the fiscal presented his accusation, asking for sentence without previous
citation or other notice, because by law in such cases and crimes of heresy,
when notoriety is proved, nothing further is required. This was expressly

assented to in the sentence, although it alluded to some kind of citation with
three terms, published in the plaza and affixed to the church-doors, and also
to a consulta de fe, but all this was probably mythical for, in an auto de fe
held on August 1st, seven of the parties were included in one sentence, their
effigies were relaxed to the secular arm and their property was declared to
be confiscated, while judges everywhere were empowered to seize and
proceed against them.[234] Neither of the three methods described in the
Instructions of 1484 could have been employed in the interval of eighteen
days between denunciation and execution, but, as one of the inquisitors was
Francisco de la Fuente, an experienced judge from the tribunal of Ciudad
Real, we must presume that there was nothing irregular in this quick
despatch.
Although in these sentences the condemned is abandoned to any secular
justice for burning, the whole proceeding was merely designed to secure the
confiscations and enhance the solemnities of the autos de fe with additional
comburation of effigies. Its nullity in other respects was admitted by the
rule that, if a culprit who had been burnt in effigy should return
spontaneously, confessing and repenting, he could be admitted to
reconciliation or, if he asserted his innocence, he was to be heard in his
defence. This was decreed by Torquemada, October 10, 1493, with the
reservation that it was a matter of grace and did not affect the confiscation.
In 1494 there was a further provision that, if the condemnation had been the
result of false-witness, it was the duty of the inquisitors to revoke the
sentence ex officio, without awaiting the appearance of the convict.[235]
No change of importance was introduced in the procedure by the
Instructions of 1561. In practice, the prosecution for contumacy was the one
ordinarily employed; the second method was sometimes used when the
testimony was complete and the third, summoning the accused to
compurgation, became obsolete. The formula of the sentence, in the first
method, avoids all allusion to the crimes alleged against the accused and
bases the condemnation wholly on his remaining for a year under
excommunication, thus proving himself to be an apostate heretic, the
penalties for which are to be executed on his person, if it can be had and, in
his absence, upon the effigy representing him.[236]
Of course condemnation to the stake was inevitable, when once the
process was commenced, whether there was substantial evidence against
the accused or not. Some authorities held that, whenever he could be

caught, he was to be burnt, but Simancas expresses the considerate practice
of the Inquisition in assuming that he is entitled to a hearing, whether he
presents himself spontaneously or is captured, for there is no prescription of
time against defence; if he comes within a year he can plead against
confiscation, but after the year he can be heard only as to himself, unless he
is manifestly innocent or has been detained by a just impediment.[237] It
may justly be doubted whether any fugitive was ever burnt for contumacy,
and the ordinary practice is seen in the case of nine Judaizers of Beas,
whose arrest was ordered by the tribunal of Murcia, April 5, 1656. When
the warrants reached Beas, April 12, they were found to have departed
secretly about the end of February. Five of them were traced to Málaga and
four were reported to have gone to Pietrabuena, but all efforts to capture
them failed and, on July 27th, the fiscal asked for edicts of citation. The
regular process in contumacy followed leisurely, ending in a sentence of
relaxation if the culprits should be found and if not, that their effigies
should be burnt. This was confirmed by the Suprema and was pronounced
December 5, 1659, and executed April 13, 1660, in an auto de fe at Seville.
Nearly twenty years later two of the fugitives, Ana Enríquez and her
husband Diego Rodríguez Silva, were arrested at Daimiel. They were tried
anew; the previous records were brought from Murcia and used, as well as
evidence concerning their career during the interval. There was no thought
of executing the former sentence; the consulta de fe voted for reconciliation
with two years of prison and sanbenito, which the Suprema changed to
perpetual irremissible, and it was duly published in an auto de fe of
December 17, 1679.[238]
Dilatory as were the proceedings in absentia in this case,
they were speedy when compared with some others. The BURNING OF
EFFIGIES
Valladolid tribunal issued a warrant of arrest against the
Capitan Enrique Enríquez, June 6, 1650, but he eluded it. His trial for
contumacy dragged on until July 30, 1659, when sentence was rendered,
confirmed by the Suprema November 24th and sent to Seville, to be
executed in the auto de fe of April 13, 1660.[239] It would appear that these
delays did not please the Suprema for, in 1666, it called upon the tribunals
to report the sentences agreed upon against the absent and dead and to push
forward all unfinished trials. To this Barcelona replied that it had in hand
three cases of absentees guilty of “propositions,” two of bigamy, one of a
fraile who was said to have fled to France in order to embrace

Protestantism, and another of a dead Huguenot—all of which would
indicate that these cases constituted a considerable portion of the
diminishing business of the tribunals. The Suprema thereupon ordered that
if, on examination, prosecution appeared to be called for, the cases should
be followed up closely to a vote in the consulta de fe, which was to be
submitted to it for decision.[240]
Effigies of the dead and absent continued to be one of the attractions of
the autos de fe. In the great Madrid celebration of 1680, the procession was
headed with thirty-four, of which all but two were burnt; they bore mitres
with flames, on their breasts were placards with their names in large letters
and some of them carried chests containing their bones.[241] At that of
Granada, in 1721, there were no living persons burnt, but there were seven
effigies, and the chronicler of the occasion assures us that the glory of
Catholic zeal is acquired as much by carrying to the flames the dead as the
living and, in this case, the inquisitors, the alguacil mayor and the
secretaries bore them in the procession. Fired by this example, after the
sentences were read, the ministers of the royal chancellería exultingly
carried them from the staging to the brasero where they were burnt.[242]
Even as late as 1752, at Llerena, there were six effigies of fugitives and one
of a dead woman.[243]

It will be seen from this presentation of facts from the records that the
inquisitorial process, as developed in the Spanish Holy Office, so far from
being the benignant and equitable procedure asserted by its representatives
and re-echoed by modern apologists, was one which violated every
principle of justice. The guilt of the accused was assumed in advance; the
prosecution was favored in every way; the defence was so crippled as to be
scarce more than a pretext, while the judge, who was in reality the
prosecutor, was shielded, by impenetrable secrecy, from all responsibility
except to the Suprema. Many cases cited above show that the arbitrary
power thus conferred was not always abused, for the individuals were not
necessarily as vicious as the system, but the power existed and its exercise
for good or for evil depended on temperament and temptation.[244]

BOOK VII.

PUNISHMENT.

CHAPTER I.

THE SENTENCE.
IN the infliction of punishment, the Inquisition differed from secular
courts in one important respect. Public law provided for impenitent heresy
death by fire and confiscation, and visited on the penitent and on
descendants certain disabilities, but apart from these, in its extensive field
of jurisdiction over penitent heresy, suspected heresy and other offences, the
Inquisition had full discretion and was bound by no rules. It was the only
tribunal known to the civilized world which prescribed penalties and
modified them at its will. In this, as in so much else, it combined the
legislative and the executive functions.[245]

The culmination of the work of the tribunal was the sentence which
embodied the result of its labors and decided the fate of the accused. In all
cases that appeared in public autos de fe, the sentence was publicly read,
and the opportunity was not lost of impressing on the minds of the people
the lofty duties of the Holy Office and the enormity of the guilt which
merited such chastisement. It afforded an occasion for the display of power,
which was turned to the best account.
There were two forms of sentence—con meritos and sin meritos. The
former recited at length the misdeeds of the culprit; the latter was briefer
and merely stated the character of the offence. The consulta de fe, when it
agreed upon a verdict, usually defined which form should be used, and also
whether or not the culprit should appear in a public auto. This, in itself, was
a severe infliction, aggravated by the reading of a sentence con meritos. For
lighter cases the sentence was read in an auto particular, in the audience-
chamber, of which there were several varieties, as will be seen hereafter.

The sentence con meritos commenced with a full recital of the details of
the trial, through all the various steps of the cumbrous process, represented
as a suit between the fiscal and the accused, and it specified the crimes
proved against or confessed by the culprit. It was thus sometimes
enormously long. In the famous case of Magdalena de la Cruz, a fraudulent
beata revelandera, whose fictitious sanctity and miracles had deceived all
Spain throughout a long career, the reading of the sentence at Córdova, May
13, 1546, occupied from six in the morning until four in the afternoon.[246]
In the sentence of Don Pablo de Soto, convicted of bigamy at Lima, in
1761, all the examinations are detailed at full length, including information
volunteered by him concerning persons and matters in no way connected
with the case; the secretary appears to have copied verbatim the records of
the successive audiences, as though to prolong the shame of the penitent.
[247] After these prolix recitals there followed the verdict “Christi nomine
invocato,” in which, if the trial had resulted in conviction, the inquisitors
found that the fiscal had duly proved his charges, wherefore they must
declare the accused guilty of the heresy alleged, with its corresponding
penalties.[248]

As a rule, prisoners were left in ignorance of their fate
until, on the morning of the auto de fe, they were prepared DELAYED
UNTIL THE
for it by being arrayed in the insignia which designated their AUTO DE FE
punishments. So jealously were they kept in the dark that,
when the customary proclamation was made of an auto, fifteen days in
advance, with drum and trumpet, the officials were not allowed to approach
the Inquisition, lest the inmates should hear the sounds and guess what was
in preparation. At the great auto of Lima, in 1639, we are told that, when the
proclamation was made, the negro assistants of the gaoler were shut up in a
place where they could not hear it, so that they might not carry the
information to the prisoners, and the workmen employed in making the
mitres, sanbenitos and crosses were assigned a room in the Inquisition
where they could labor unseen, under an oath of secrecy.[249] The effect of
the sudden revelation, when it came, is indicated in the advice that it was
better to give to those who were to appear their breakfasts in their cells than
to wait until they were all brought together for the procession, for then there
was shame and confusion and suffering, the fathers seeing their sons and
the daughters their mothers in the sanbenitos and other insignia that

designated their punishments.[250] The despair induced by the preceding
long-drawn suspense occasionally found expression, as in the case of Diego
González, who was reconciled for Judaism in the Valladolid auto of July 25,
1644. On the morning of that day, when the gaoler entered his cell to give
him breakfast, he was found pale and faint, with the blood flowing freely
from a wound in his arm, made with a nail from his bedstead, under the
impression that he was to be burnt, and he had to be carried to the solemnity
in a sedan-chair. Llorente recounts a similar case, of which he was an
eyewitness, in 1791, when a Frenchman named Michel Maffre des Rieux
hanged himself in consequence of being thus kept in ignorance.[251]
The object of the delay in thus communicating the sentence was to
prevent appeals to the Suprema. We have seen how, in opposing appeals to
Rome, the Inquisition and the monarchs argued that they were wholly
superfluous, in view of the appellate jurisdiction of the inquisitor-general,
who was always prompt to rectify injustice committed by the tribunals, but
this nominal opportunity was rendered for the most part illusory by this
device of withholding knowledge of the sentence until appeal was
impossible. This came about by degrees. Originally it would seem that the
tribunals exercised discretion as to withholding the sentence until the auto,
although exceptions were rare. The Instructions of 1561, while admitting a
right of appeal in some cases, nullified it by ordering, in such cases, the
tribunals to send the proceedings in advance to the Suprema, without
allowing the accused to know of it.[252] There evidently were contending
influences, of justice on one side and convenience on the other, for in 1568
it was ordered that, in cases not of heresy, when the penalty was arbitrary,
the culprit should be notified in advance of the auto de fe, and this was
extended, in 1573, by instructions that, in cases admitting appeal, the parties
should be notified in time to enable them to do so. This concession to
justice caused trouble and, on April 11, 1577 the tribunals were ordered to
report on the evils arising from it. Apparently the inquisitors reported
adversely for, on September 18th, they were ordered to return to the former
practice of not notifying culprits prior to the auto de fe.[253]
There was, however, quite an extensive class of cases in which the right
of appeal was not completely cut off by this. These were the more trivial
ones, in which the sentence was rendered in the audience-chamber, and in
these both parties, the culprit and the fiscal, were required to assent on the
spot, when either could appeal, for the fiscal had the same right as his

opponent; it was included, in the commission issued to fiscals, in the long
enumeration of their powers and duties, and was a right not infrequently
exercised.[254] Although the culprit thus had an opportunity to appeal, he
was obliged to act without advice. In the case of María Cazalla, in Toledo,
December 19, 1534, when called upon to assent to her sentence in the
audience-chamber, she asked for delay; then, in the afternoon, she begged
to be allowed to consult her husband or her counsel and, on this being
refused, she accepted the sentence.[255] Still, as public autos diminished and
private autillos multiplied, the opportunity for appeals became more
frequent and were sometimes successful.
This was more apt to benefit ecclesiastics than laymen
for, except in cases involving degradation, they were never APPEALS
exhibited in public autos; their sentences were read in the
audience-chamber, and they were more likely than the ordinary culprit to
possess the education and intelligence requisite to profit by the opportunity.
Cases of appeal by them are consequently not infrequent. Fray Lucas de
Allende, Guardian of the Franciscan convent of Madrid, was one of the
dupes of Lucrecia de Leon, an impostor who pretended in dreams to have
converse with God and the saints. He busied himself in writing out her
revelations and was tried at Toledo, where he lay in prison from June, 1590,
until April, 1596. He was sentenced to a reprimand and warning not to
meddle with such matters, to accept certain definitions laid down by the
tribunal, and to strict reclusion in a convent for a year. He vigorously
protested that the sentence was absurd and he appealed from it, to which the
fiscal retorted by likewise interjecting an appeal. The Suprema heard both
appeals and decided, July 30, 1596, by confirming the sentence as to
reprimand and warning, and omitting the rest. Even this did not satisfy the
obstinate Franciscan for when read to him, August 2d, he refused to accept
it and appealed to the pope, but, on being warned to reflect well, he on the
same day withdrew this appeal and submitted. There can be little doubt
however that the inquisitors suppressed the revocation of part of the
sentence, for there follows a petition from him to be allowed to visit his
native Villarubia before entering upon his reclusion, deceit of this kind
being perfectly practicable in the profound secrecy of the tribunals.[256]
More successful was the Geronimite Fray Martin de Cazares, prosecuted in
Valladolid for superstitious curing of the sick and sentenced, in 1655, to
reprimand and four years’ exile from certain places. The Suprema had

confirmed the sentence and yet on appeal from him it remitted the exile.[257]
By this time the Suprema was supervising all action of the tribunals and, as
it gradually became the whole Inquisition, appeals grew to be superfluous,
yet the custom of withholding the sentence was persistent.
There was one class of cases, however, in which notification of the
sentence was always made prior to the auto de fe—those in which the
culprit was condemned to relaxation. The object of this was to give him a
chance of saving his soul by confession and conversion; in the earlier
period the notification was short, being only at midnight before the auto,
but this, as we shall see hereafter, was subsequently extended to three days.

In the medieval Inquisition, the inquisitor, when rendering sentence,
always reserved the right to modify it, in the direction either of mercy or of
severity, or to remove it wholly. He could do this, for he was practically
independent and irresponsible to any superior, the only authority over him
being the distant and almost inaccessible Holy See. The Spanish inquisitor
occupied a wholly different position, being held in strict and constantly
increasing subordination to the Suprema and, as commutations early
became a source of large revenue, it is easy to understand that the tribunals
were not permitted to participate in the proceeds. Already in 1498, the
Instructions thus undertook to limit the power of inquisitors to modify
sentences, by ordering that they should not grant commutations for money
or favor or without just cause and, when such existed, the commutation
must be into fasts, almsgiving and other pious uses; there could be no
release from wearing the sanbenito and the rehabilitation of descendants
was reserved for the inquisitor-general.[258] It was difficult to enforce
restrictions which recognized any right of inquisitors to modify sentences
and, in 1513, Ximenes deprived them of it wholly and concentrated the
power in the hands of the inquisitor-general.[259] It was wholly a matter of
finance and we have seen (Book V, Chap, iii) how it was thenceforth
utilized. The tribunal was recognized to have no power to modify a
sentence when once pronounced; as an experienced writer says, although by
common law inquisitors and Ordinaries can change or mitigate sentences, it
is otherwise under the Instructions which declare that this is reserved for the
inquisitor-general, the reason being that they have exhausted their powers.
[260]

In the Indies, where distance rendered application to the
Suprema virtually impossible, the tribunals seem to have SEVERITY OR
BENIGNITY
retained the power of modifying sentences, even though
they may rarely have exercised it. In 1663 an old woman, known as Isabel
de Montoya, tried for sorcery in Mexico, was sentenced to appear in an auto
de fe with the sanbenito, to receive two hundred lashes and to serve for life
in a hospital. In the audience-chamber, November 5th, the sentence was
read to her, in presence of the fiscal and her advocate. With the assent of the
latter, she begged that the sanbenito and the scourging be omitted; she had
only been an impostor and had had no pact, expressed or implied, with the
demon, and in view of her age and sickness and crippling in the torture she
supplicated mercy. On November 7th the fiscal replied to this, asking an
aggravation of punishment because it proved her to be an impenitent in
denying her pact and intention. November 21st the consulta de fe assembled
and unanimously confirmed its former sentence.
The auto de fe was not celebrated until May 4, 1664; on the 6th she was
duly scourged through the streets and on the 15th she was delivered to the
Hospital del Amor de Dios. Her pitiful prayer, urging age and sickness, was
justified for, on June 17th, a messenger from the hospital announced her
death, and the inquisitors briefly ordered it to bury her.[261]

As regards cruelty, it is impossible to generalize, where in the earlier
periods so much discretion was allowed to the tribunals, and so much
depended on the temper of the inquisitors, who might be stern or humane.
In the case of the obstinate heretic or of the impenitente negativo there was
no question; the law of the land and universal public opinion alike
condemned him to the stake but, in the wide sphere of the penitent heretic
and of the numerous offences of which the Inquisition had cognizance,
there was an ample field for the display of severity or benignity. Against the
barbarity of a case like that of Isabel de Montoya, which had too many
parallels, may be set the tendencies of the Toledo tribunal about 1600. In its
reports to the Suprema at that period there, frequently occur explanatory
remarks, as though to apologize for the mildness of the sentences, which
indicate its readiness to temper its judgements—such expressions as “she
was a poor and ignorant woman,” “she was simple and ignorant,” “she was
spared heavier penance because she was only sixteen years old,” “she
seemed a very simple and a very good woman,” “recent baptism and

drunkenness.” Occasionally, in bigamy cases, involving scourging and the
galleys according to rule, the omission of these is justified by the age or
weakness of the culprit. Sometimes, but not often, the suffering which the
prisoner has endured during prolonged imprisonment is taken into
consideration, and is admitted as part of the punishment.[262] This tendency
towards mercy becomes more marked in the period of decadence, when the
humanitarian development of the age made itself felt even in the
Inquisition, and it offers a suggestive contrast to the savage fanaticism of
the secular courts of a land which claimed to be more enlightened than
Spain. In 1765 a wooden crucifix on the bridge at Abbeville was mutilated
and the Bishop of Amiens published a monitoire ordering, under pain of
excommunication, any one having knowledge of the matter to denounce the
offender. Duval de Saucourt, a counsellor in the court of Abbeville, who
was inimical to the Abbess of Villancourt, accused her nephew, the
Chevalier de la Barre, a youth of nineteen. The only evidence was that he
had once passed a procession without lifting his hat, that he had talked
against the Eucharist and had sung impious and licentious songs. He was
doubtless irreligious and debauched, and his evil reputation sufficed, in the
court of Abbeville, to justify a sentence of amputating his tongue and right
hand and burning him alive. Appeal was made to the Parlement of Paris
which, by a vote of fifteen to ten, confirmed the sentence, with the
mitigation of beheading before concremation and this was duly executed,
July 1, 1766.[263] The annals of the Spanish Inquisition offer nothing more
hideous than this, and the comparison is the more instructive in that its
penalty for sacrilegiously outraging an image of Christ, the Virgin or the
saints, with aggravating circumstances, was merely appearance in an auto
de fe with the insignia of a blasphemer, abjuration de levi and a hundred
lashes or vergüenza or exile, according to the character of the offence and
of the culprit.[264]
The Inquisition boasted that it was no respecter of persons and, in one
point at least, its rules offer a favorable contrast to those of the secular law.
In Spanish law the privileges of gentility were fully recognized and, for
many crimes, the penalties assigned to gentle blood were much milder than
those inflicted on the commonalty. This was reversed in the Inquisition,
where it was prescribed that, in matters of faith, nobles should be punished
more severely than plebeians.[265] This was doubtless owing to the
assumption that they were more intelligently trained and less exposed to

error, besides the fact that their example was more impressive. On the other
hand, however, the clergy, for whom less excuse could be found, were
treated with much greater leniency than the laity and, far from being
utilized as examples, their frailties and errors were shielded as much as
possible from public view, in order not to diminish popular reverence for
the Church.
The penal resources of the Inquisition, as we shall see,
were endless. While, for certain well-defined offences, NON-
PERFORMAN
certain penalties were customary, the discretion of the CE
consultas de fe was bound by no definite limitations as to
what were known as penas extraordinarias, and they could devise whatever
seemed appropriate to special cases. Infinite gradations and intricate
combinations were resorted to in the effort to fit the penalty to the offence
of each individual, and also doubtless often to secure unanimity in the
consulta de fe, so that not infrequently there are six or eight separate and
distinct inflictions in a single sentence. It would be too much to expect that,
in so composite an institution, during more than three centuries of
existence, there should have been strict consistency in the exercise of this
discretional power, but, making allowance for the infirmities of human
nature under the temptation of irresponsibility, it can scarce be said that it
habitually abused its authority, according to the barbarous standard of the
times, except in the infliction of pecuniary penalties on which its finances
depended, and in the vindication of its authority against all who dared to
question its supremacy. It was callous to the sufferings of those whom it
prejudged as guilty; it devised the most atrocious formulas of procedure;
but, when it had secured confession or conviction, it was not systematically
and ferociously cruel as has so often been asserted.

As regards the enforcement of the sentence, it is to be observed that the
penalties divide themselves into two classes. Some, such as relaxation,
confiscation, fines, scourging, the galleys, reconciliation and abjuration,
were within the power of the tribunal. Others, like imprisonment, the
sanbenito, exile and reclusion, depended to a greater or less degree on the
will or the fears of the penitent. Theoretically, as we have seen, punishment
was regarded as penance, voluntarily accepted by the penitent for the
salvation of his soul, but the Inquisition, unlike the father confessor, did not
rely wholly on the penitential ardor of the sinner. Punishment retained

enough of the character of penance to justify the theologian in treating its
non-performance as a proof that repentance had been feigned, and that the
offender had relapsed into heresy, the penalty for which, under the canons,
was death by fire without trial. In the earlier time this was enforced in so far
as was possible. Thus, in 1486, at Saragossa, Rodrigo de Gris, who had
been condemned to perpetual imprisonment in a designated house, with the
penalty of relapse for leaving it, escaped and was burnt in effigy as a
relapsed and, in 1487, Cristóval Gelva, to whom the Hospital of Nuestra
Señora de la Gracia was assigned as a perpetual prison, was burnt in effigy
for escaping.[266] This continued for some time to be the theory but, in
practice, while summoning the fugitive as an impenitent relapsed, to appear
for judgement, it was deemed safer to proceed against him in the ordinary
way in absentia, waiting for a year and prosecuting him for contumacy.
Such a case appears to be that of Bartolomé Gallego, who escaped in 1525
from the penitential prison of Toledo and was condemned to relaxation in
effigy, November 3, 1527.[267] Some forty years later, Pablo García explains
that the suspicion arising from flight, joined with that of remaining under
excommunication for a year, afforded sufficient proof for declaring the
fugitive a relapsed heretic and relaxing his effigy. It was only when
evidence could be had of subsequent acts of heresy that direct proceedings
for relapse were justified, and this was decided in a case where a fugitive
was relaxed in effigy, and the Suprema revoked the sentence and rescinded
the confiscation.[268]
The theory of relapse was evidently giving way.
Simancas tells us that, although supported by high NON-
PERFORMAN
authorities, it is cruel and false and not founded in law; the CE
fugitive is impenitent, not relapsed; if he returns or is
captured he is to be heard, and if prepared to obey the Church, his flight
only deserves an increase of penalty.[269] How rapidly the ancient severity
was disappearing is manifested by a case in Valencia, in 1570. Pedro Luis
Verga was prosecuted for Protestantism on a vague accusation that, when
studying in Paris in 1555, he had consorted with the dreaded Juan Pérez and
had shared his opinions, for which he was reconciled and sentenced not to
leave the kingdom. He disobeyed and, in 1570, he was heard of in Genoa,
giving utterance to heretical opinions. Now this was a case of relapse, as
well as of non-fulfilment of penance, but he was prosecuted for contumacy
as a simple fugitive.[270] It was an evidence that the old rule had become

obsolete when inquisitors sometimes prescribed in their sentences that the
penance was to be performed under pain of impenitent relapse, as in the
case of Juan Franco, condemned at Toledo, in 1570, to eight years of
galleys for Protestantism, and of Juan Cote, by the same tribunal, in 1615,
to irremissible perpetual prison for the same heresy.[271] Towards the middle
of the seventeenth century, Alberghini gives the various opinions held on
the subject, and concludes that that of Simancas was commonly accepted.
[272]

Cases of non-fulfilment were not infrequent for, as we shall see, the
discipline of the penitential prisons was exceedingly lax; any penitent could
absent himself and then throw off the sanbenito, which was the customary
accompaniment of imprisonment, but, although this was canonically
relapse, such cases were treated with what in those days might be
considered as mercy. Thus Diego González, reconciled for Judaism at
Valladolid, in 1644, and condemned to prison and habit, was recognized in
1645, at Medina de Rioseco, without the sanbenito. On being tried for this,
the consulta de fe was not unanimous and the Suprema sentenced him to a
hundred lashes.[273] It was the same with sentences of exile. In 1667, at
Toledo, Francisco López Rodríguez, who had been reconciled in 1665 and
had already been prosecuted for non-fulfilment of penance, was tried for
doing so again, and was condemned only to a hundred lashes and two years
more of exile. So in 1669, Juan López Peatin, for infraction of exile, had
only two years added to the original term.[274]
A curious case, however, in 1606, shows how penitents were expected to
fulfil their penances. Gaspar Godet, a Morisco, had been condemned at
Valencia to reconciliation, a hundred lashes, and perpetual prison, of which
the first eight years were to be passed in the galleys. After five years’
service, his galley was captured by the English, near Lisbon, and he was set
free. He ought strictly to have conveyed himself on board of another galley
to serve out his term, but he seems to have imagined that he was released
from his sentence; he quietly returned to his native Torre de Llovis and
resumed his profession of surgeon. He was, of course, reported to the
tribunal, which seized him in August, 1606, and condemned him not only to
complete his sentence but to undergo a hundred lashes and to pay a fine of
two hundred libras, although the maximum fine that could legally be
imposed on a Morisco was ten ducats.[275]

The renewed activity of the Inquisition, in the early eighteenth century,
seems to have been accompanied with a recrudescence of severity in these
cases. In the Valencia auto de fe of February 24, 1723, Antonio Rogero was
reconciled and condemned to irremissible prison and sanbenito. He escaped
but was captured and, in the auto of March 12, 1724, he was condemned to
two hundred lashes and five years of galleys, after which he was to be
returned to prison, but the inquisitor-general mercifully commuted the
scourging and galleys to five years of presidio, or labor in an African
garrison. So, in the Valencia auto of June 25, 1724, Joseph Ventura, of Fez,
a Moorish convert, had been reconciled with three years of prison and
sanbenito; he fled, was captured and, in the auto of July 1, 1725, his prison
was made perpetual and irremissible; again he fled, to be again caught and,
in the auto of September 17, 1725, he was condemned to five years of
galleys, after which he was to be returned to prison.[276]
All these were cases of formal heresy, for relapse in
which the canonical punishment was burning. For offences NON-
FULFILMENT
less heinous, which inferred only suspicion of heresy, there OF PENANCE
was an occasional practice of including in the sentence a
penalty for non-fulfilment of the penance. This was in every respect an
arbitrary matter, concerning which no generalization can be formulated, for
it is frequently impossible to divine why, in a group of similar cases, some
sentences should carry this threat and some should not. This apparently
objectless diversity is markedly exhibited in the auto of May 13, 1565, at
Seville, where there were a large number of penitents thus arbitrarily
differentiated. In the cases where the threat was employed, there was
slender indication of mercy, for where exile for life or for a term of years
was imposed, the penalty for non-fulfilment was that it should be completed
in the galleys. In one case, that of Abel Jocis, for conveying arms to
Barbary, the sentence was merely a prohibition to sail to Barbary, but a
violation of this was visited with the galleys for life.[277] It should be added,
however, for the credit of the Inquisition, that it not infrequently made
threats which it had not the cruelty to execute. Thus the tribunal of Toledo,
on a charge of divination, banished from Spain a priest named Fernando
Betanzas, with a threat of the galleys for disobedience. Not long afterwards
the Bishop of Salamanca found and arrested him, and the Suprema,
December 22, 1636, ordered the tribunal of Valladolid to investigate the
case, after which the Suprema contented itself with deporting him to

Portugal, and warning him that, if he returned again, he should be sent to
the galleys.[278]
The case of the Augustinian Fray Diego Caballero, in 1716, indicates
how non-fulfilment of penance might convert into formal heresy that which
was mere suspicion. For uttering unacceptable propositions, he had been
sentenced by the tribunal of Córdova to reclusion for four years in the
convent of Guadix. He fled from there and continued to repeat his
erroneous utterances, for which the Toledo tribunal pronounced him to be
relapsed in grave crime and sentenced him to abjure de vehementi, to be
suspended from his orders for a year, to perpetual deprivation of preaching,
confessing and the right to vote and be voted for, to ten years’ exile from a
number of places, to four years’ reclusion in a designated house, where for
six months he was to be confined in a cell. He was also to wear a sanbenito,
while his sentence was read in the audience-chamber, and the next day it
was to be read to the assembled brethren of his Toledo convent, who were
to administer to him a circular discipline, and he was to forfeit half his
peculium—and all this under pain of being held as an impenitent relapsed.
[279] What is noteworthy here is not only the severity of this long
accumulation of penalties, but also the abjuration de vehementi which
rendered reincidence in the abjured errors a matter for the stake.

In the medieval Inquisition it may be said that acquittal was virtually
prohibited—a sentence of not proven might possibly be rendered, but
acquittal was an admission of fallibility and was regarded as a bar to
subsequent proceedings in case further evidence was obtained.[280] This
principle was maintained in the Roman Inquisition, although, in the
eighteenth century, exception was made in cases where the adverse
evidence was clearly proved to be fraudulent.[281] The Spanish Holy Office
was not quite so sensitive, and had no hesitation as to repeated
prosecutions, so that to it acquittal was a less serious matter. Moreover,
while sentences of not proven were not unknown, there was an equivalent
device by which the accused could be dismissed without admitting his
innocence—suspending the case and discharging him, subject to the
liability of its being reopened at any time.
The furious zeal of Torquemada rendered acquittal peculiarly distasteful
to him, and we have seen above (Vol. I, p. 175) a case in which he set aside

acquittals at Medina del Campo, and insisted on conviction although, at his
instance, the parties had been tried twice and had been tortured without
confession. This temper on his part could not but impress itself on his
subordinates, and yet we occasionally meet with acquittals in this early time
—acquittals, however, which manifest a strange mental confusion, and
betray the unwillingness to admit the prosecution of the innocent, for they
couple acquittal with punishment. Thus at Guadalupe, in 1485, in the case
of Andrés Alonso of Trogillano, the sentence recites that the fiscal had not
proved his accusation as fully as he ought, wherefore the inquisitors
absolved the accused but, as the evidence aroused some suspicion in their
hearts, for the satisfaction of their consciences and his, they sentenced him
to abjure de levi and, as some infamy had accrued to him from the
accusation, they removed it and restored him to his former good repute, and
lifted the sequestration on his property. Whereupon he duly abjured de levi,
renouncing all manner of heresy, and especially that of which he was
accused, promising to be always obedient to the Church, after which he was
absolved ad cautelam from any excommunication which he might have
incurred, and of all this he asked to have a certificate.[282] All the acquittals
that I have met, of this period, bear this illogical character, sometimes even
requiring abjuration de vehementi and inflicting penalties for the offence of
which the accused is pronounced innocent.
In Barcelona, the Inquisition had been established twelve
years before the first acquittal was granted, and, from such ACQUITTAL
record as we have, it would appear that there were acquittals
of more than one kind—conditional and unconditional. Thus, in 1499,
Jayme Castanyer and Eufrosina Pometa were acquitted, but were required
to abjure publicly on May 2d, and, on October 5th, Luys Palau was
acquitted. In 1500, on September 18th, four women were acquitted
absolutely, two men were acquitted with penance, and two women and a
man were acquitted with abjuration. Then, on October 5th, the memory and
fame of Juan de Ribes Altes were cleared and, on December 20, 1501,
Blanquina Darla was acquitted absolutely.[283]
In a record of the Toledo tribunal, from 1484 to 1531, there are eighty-
six cases of acquittal, or an average of somewhat less than two per annum
which, in view of the intense activity of the earlier period, indicates how
few escaped when once the Inquisition had laid its hand upon them. Some
of these cases show how long the conditional acquittal persisted. Thus of

those acquitted, Hernando Parral was required to abjure, and Francisca
Ramírez and Catalina beata negra abjured de vehementi. Unless there is a
mistake by the scribe, Leonora de la Oliva of Ciudad Real was acquitted
and scourged, October 3, 1521, and again had the same sentence October
13, 1530. In 1520 Alonso Hernández was acquitted with public penance
and, in 1513, Sancho de Ribera was acquitted with confiscation. One entry
is difficult of comprehension—that of Inez González, who was voted to
acquittal with reconciliation and confiscation, but the confiscation was
remitted.[284]
Practically acquittal amounted only to a sentence of not proven. In the
formula for it, Pablo García calls special attention to the omission of the
word “definitive,” pointing out that it is not final, for the case could be
reopened at any time that fresh evidence was obtained—and even without
it, as we have seen in the case of Villanueva. In matters of faith there was
no finality, no cosa juzgada, and it was so declared by Pius V, in the bull
Inter multiplices, invalidating all letters of absolution and acquittal issued
by inquisitors and other spiritual judges.[285] In strict accordance with this
principle was the rule that sentences of acquittal of the living were not to be
read at the autos de fe, unless at their especial request, while acquittals of
the dead were read; in either case, the sentence simply stated that he had
been accused of heresy and no details were given; if living he did not
appear at the auto and if dead there was no effigy.[286] All this was in direct
contradiction to the glowing eulogy of Páramo who, as we have seen, states
that the inquisitors used every means to prove the innocence of the accused
and, when they succeeded, took care that he should go forth like a
conqueror crowned with laurel and the palm of victory.[287] Yet Páramo had
some justification in the fact that there were rare exceptional cases in which
the acquitted was thus honored. The only instance of this that I have met in
Spain was that referred to above (Vol. II, p. 561), where fourteen residents
of Cádiz were falsely accused. In Peru, however, several cases are recorded.
In the Lima auto of 1728 Doctor Agustin Valenciano appeared in the
procession on a white horse, with a palm, and proclamation was made of his
innocence. In the great auto of January 23, 1639, there were seven thus
honored after their three years of incarceration, and in that of October 19,
1749, the effigy of Don Juan de Loyola, who had died in prison in 1745,
headed the procession, bearing a palm. This last case is perhaps explicable
by Jesuit influence, for he was of the family of St. Ignatius, and further

reparation was made by creating his brother, Don Ignacio de Loyola y Haro
alguazil mayor of the tribunal, while three nephews were made familiars.
[288]

The reluctance of the tribunals to pronounce a sentence of acquittal is
illustrated in the case of Francisco Marco, tried at Barcelona for bigamy, in
1718. Unable to prove the charge, which was punishable with scourging
and galleys, the tribunal sentenced him to have his sentence con meritos
read in the audience-chamber, to be reprimanded and threatened, and to be
banished from Barcelona and Madrid for six years. In the earlier period this
sentence would have stood, but by this time the Suprema was in full control
and it expressed great surprise at so unjust a decision, inflicting so foul a
stigma on the accused. It declared null and void all the acts of the process, it
ordered Marco to be discharged at once, and that the inquisitors should
defray out of their salaries all the cost of his imprisonment.[289]
The indisposition to acquit found expression in the
device known as suspension. When the effort to convict SUSPENSION
failed, the case could be suspended, thus leaving matters as
they stood; the accused was neither acquitted nor convicted, the case could
at any moment be reopened and prosecuted to the end, and it hung over the
unfortunate victim while it saved the infallibility of the tribunal. The earliest
allusion to it that I have met occurs in the Instructions of 1498, which show
that it was a usage already established and abused, for it is forbidden in
prosecutions of the dead, except when further evidence is expected, and
acquittal is ordered when the proof is imperfect, because there are many
cases of suspension that inflict hardship through the sequestrations
continuing in force.[290]
Suspension was a convenient resource for a tribunal, unable to convict
yet unwilling to acquit, and desirous to conceal its failure. At first it was
comparatively rare, but in time it became a favorite method of escaping a
decision and, as it gradually, for the most part, replaced acquittal, in its
development it might even remove the stigma; in the great majority of cases
it was practically the end of the matter, and it was usually accompanied
with lifting the sequestration. Some authorities held that a case could not be
entered as suspended, if there was enough in it to justify a reprimand, or
even when the offence was trivial and the defendant was cautioned not to
speak or act in that fashion, but this rigidity of definition was not observed
in practice. When suspension was decided upon, the accused was not

permitted to know it. He was simply brought into the audience-chamber; if
he had been confined in the secret prison he was put through the customary
inquiries as to what he had seen and heard, and was sworn to secrecy; he
was told that for just reasons he was granted the favor of returning home
and that he must seek to discharge his conscience for his case was still
pending.[291] This mystery served to keep him in suspense, but, after he
found the sequestration or embargo lifted from his property, he could
doubtless fathom its meaning. If he demanded a definite sentence of
conviction or acquittal, he had the right to do so, but I have met with no
instance of this, and few could have been hardy enough thus to tempt their
fate. If he asked for a certificate that he was freely discharged, or that his
case was suspended, it was not to be given, but the Suprema might grant
him one to the effect that he was discharged without penance or
condemnation.[292]
Suspension wholly without penance was, however, unusual, for the
infallibility of the Inquisition was commonly emphasized by accompanying
it with some infliction, more or less severe. The lightest of these was the
reprimand and warning administered when discharging the accused. In 1650
the tribunal of Toledo summarily got rid of quite a number of cases in this
fashion—four on June 18th, two on the 25th and three on the 30th, and
those were fortunate who escaped so lightly. About the same time, Doña
Gabriela Ramírez de Guzman, accused of superstitious sorcery, was not
only reprimanded, when her case was suspended, but was banished for a
year from Toledo and Madrid, and the same penance was assigned to
Domingo de Acuña, when his trial for propositions was suspended.[293]
How little incongruity was recognized in this is illustrated by the case of
Martin Mitorovich, at Madrid, in 1801, when one of the inquisitors voted to
suspend the case and confine him for life in the hospital of Ceuta.[294] In
fact, as suspension grew more frequent in the closing years of the
Inquisition, it was often coupled with severe inflictions. Thus, August 30,
1815, the tribunal of Llerena suspended the case of María del Carmen
Cavallero y Berrocal, but sentenced her to reprimand, two hundred lashes
and three years’ seclusion in a hospital; at the same time, in view of her
ingenuous confession, the scourging was suspended until her amendment
should earn its forgiveness, and the same phrases were used with her
accomplice, Nicolás Sánchez Espinal, who was sentenced to reprimand,
certain spiritual exercises and perpetual exile from the province.[295]

In cases like these, however, suspension had somewhat
outgrown its original purpose of a substitute for acquittal, ADMISSION
TO BAIL
and was a more than doubtful mercy, for the case remained
unconcluded, though visited with full penalties, and could at any moment
be reopened. That originally it was merely a convenient device for escaping
the admission of having prosecuted the innocent is manifested by cases of
which the records are full. Thus, in 1607, Francisco Dendolea, a Morisco of
Xea, was tried at Valencia on the evidence of a witness that, when
limosnero or almoner of Xea, he had, under pretext of begging for the poor,
used his office to serve notices of the commencement of the fast of
Ramadan and give other ceremonial instructions. He proved that he never
was limosnero and the charge fell to the ground, but the case was merely
suspended. So, in 1653, Doña Isabel del Castillo was prosecuted for
Judaism at Toledo. She had previously been reconciled at Valladolid, and it
was found that the evidence related to a period prior to the reconciliation.
She of course ought to have been acquitted, but the case was suspended.[296]
Even more self-evident is the case of the Benedictine Padre Francisco
Salvador, tried at Valladolid, in 1640, for sundry propositions presented in a
competition for a professorship. The consulta de fe voted to suspend the
case and the Suprema, in confirming the sentence, added that a certificate
should be given to him that no offence had been found that would in any
way prejudice him.[297]
There was also a kind of imperfect or informal acquittal, which consisted
in admitting the accused to bail at the end of the trial. It saved the tribunal
from the trouble of a decision and of an acknowledgement that the
prosecution had been in error, but it was cruel to the party involved, as it
left him but partly liberated and with the stigma of heresy. Its working is
fairly exemplified by the case of Petronila de Lucena, tried in 1534, at
Toledo on a charge of Lutheranism. After nearly a year’s incarceration, her
brother, also under trial, revoked in the torture the evidence which he had
given against her. There was no other testimony, yet she was not acquitted
but merely released, March 20, 1535, under bail of a hundred thousand
maravedis, to present herself when summoned. The security was furnished
and she was delivered to the bondsmen as her gaolers. On June 27th, she
petitioned for release, for the discharge of the bondsmen and for the
removal of the sequestration, which included some articles of personal
necessity in the hands of the gaoler; she was, she pleaded, poor and an

orphan, she needed the property and wished to be free to dispose of herself.
No notice was taken of this and, sixteen months later, on October 20, 1536,
she applied again; this time an order to lift the sequestration was issued, but
there is no record of her having been released from subjection to bail. She
thus remained under the ban and, at the age of 25, the two careers open to a
Spanish woman—marriage and the nunnery—were virtually closed to her.
[298]

There was yet another kind of acquittal, still more informal, in which the
accused was simply discharged and bade to be gone, without a sentence,
leaving him under the dreadful uncertainty of what might be his position.
An instance of this is the case of Miguel Mezquita, tried for Lutheranism at
Valencia, in 1536. The evidence was of the flimsiest, and the inquisitors
merely ordered him to be released from prison without making further
provision.[299]
The comparative frequency of these various forms of release, in the
earlier period, may be inferred from the record of the Toledo tribunal from
1484 to 1531, in which there are eighty-six cases of acquittal, to only four
of suspension, four of release under bail, and two of simple discharge—the
latter forms thus being negligible quantities.[300] The proportions changed
rapidly with time, showing how much more in harmony with the spirit of
the institution were the forms which evaded acknowledgement of error. A
record of the same tribunal, from 1575 to 1610, contains an aggregate of
eleven hundred and seventy-two cases of all kinds, in which there were
fifty-one acquittals, ninety-eight suspensions and thirty simple discharges.
[301] This tendency continued with increasing development. A Toledo record
from 1648 to 1694, comprises twelve hundred and five cases, of which but
six ended in acquittal, one in discharge for mistaken identity, and a hundred
and four in suspension, nearly all of the latter coupled with a reprimand in
the audience-chamber—apparently a scolding for having given the tribunal
so much bootless trouble. The suspensions were, in nearly every case,
ordered by the Suprema, as though the inquisitors shrank from the
admission which it involved.[302]
This repugnance existed to the last. In 1806, Don Matias
Brabo, an ex-Agonizante and calificador of the Saragossa COMPURGAT
ION
tribunal, was tried in Madrid on the charge of uttering
certain propositions; he was acquitted but, in view of his disorderly life,
especially in regard to the sixth commandment, he was sentenced to a

reprimand, to fifteen days of spiritual exercises, and to make a general
confession at such time as he could do so without disrepute.[303]
The same spirit is seen in the instructions of the Suprema, October 14,
1819, to the Cuenca tribunal, authorizing the arrest and trial of María
Martínez for propositions. In case, it says, the trial shows that she has not
erred in the matters charged, or in anything else, she is to be reprimanded
and warned and told that the tribunal is keeping a watch over her acts.[304]
There was another kind of suspension, by far the most frequent of all. It
often happened, especially in the later periods, that the sumaria, or
collection of evidence against a presumed offender, proved insufficient to
justify prosecution. In such cases it would be quietly voted to suspension; it
was filed away in its place among the records, ready to be exhumed at any
time, when further information might supply deficiencies and induce active
proceedings. Thousands of these abortive processes reposed in the secreto
of the tribunals, the subjects of which were unconscious of the dangers
which had threatened them, or that their names were on the lists of suspects
of the dreaded tribunal. That they were kept under surveillance is indicated
by an occasional note, such as one respecting a certain Johann Wegelin, a
Calvinist—“there is a sumaria which has been withdrawn because he
became insane and returned to his own country,” or in another case
“suspended because he died in 1802.”[305]

Yet, taking it as a whole, when we consider that the inquisitorial system
was so framed as to put every temptation in the way of the judges to
condemn, for the sake of confiscations, fines, penances, dispensations and
commutations, it is rather creditable that acquittals and suspensions should
occur in the records even as frequently as we find them there, though of
course we have no means of knowing whether those who thus escaped were
among the wealthy or the poor.

There was still another possible form of sentence. The Barbarians who
overthrew the Roman Empire brought with them an ancestral custom,
known as compurgation or, in England, as the Wager of Law, by which a
defendant, in either a civil or criminal action, could maintain his title or his
innocence by taking an oath and bringing a specified number of men who
swore to their belief in its truth. They were known as conjurators or

compurgators and were in no sense witnesses; they pretended to no
knowledge of the facts but only to their confidence in the veracity of their
principal. This crude method of establishing the truth was maintained in all
the lands occupied by the Teutonic tribes except in Spain, where the
Wisigoths early yielded to the influence of the Roman law. It was eagerly
adopted by the clergy, who found in it a convenient means of escaping from
the harsher expedients of the ordeal or the wager of battle, so that it
acquired the name of canonical purgation.[306] In the thirteenth century, the
Inquisition found it used in the trial of heretics and necessarily included it
among the resources for doubtful cases, although inquisitorial methods
were too thorough to call for its frequent employment.
The Spanish Inquisition naturally inherited compurgation among the
other traditions of the institution. When conviction could not be had by
evidence or torture, and yet the suspicion was too grave to justify acquittal,
it could sentence the accused to undergo compurgation. He could not
demand it, nor could he decline it, though he might appeal from the
sentence; and failure in compurgation was equivalent to conviction, while
success was not acquittal but required abjuration and penance at the
discretion of the tribunal, because, although legally shown not to be a
heretic, the accused had to be punished for “suspicion.”
The early Instructions are silent on the subject, and such
cases of the period as I have met indicate that there was no COMPURGAT
ION
rigidly prescribed method of procedure, although, in the
main, they accord in showing it to be a kind of trial by jury, after the
tribunal had failed to reach a decision. The general features of the process
can be gathered from the case at Saragossa of Beatriz Beltran, wife of the
Juan de la Caballería, accused of complicity in the murder of San Pedro
Arbues, who died in prison and was relaxed in effigy in the auto of July 8,
1491. She was put on trial for Judaism in 1489; the evidence against her
was by no means decisive, while the defence discredited the witnesses and
proved by abundant testimony her devotion to the Church, her regular
attendance at mass and confession for more than twenty years, her liberality
in the celebration of masses and her long hours spent in daily prayer. She
could not be tortured in view of her advanced age and severe infirmities
and, on August 9, 1492, the consulta de fe voted unanimously that, as
torture was out of the question, she be sentenced to canonical purgation, at
the judgement of the inquisitors when, if she should purge herself, she

should abjure publicly as vehemently suspect of heresy and of Judaizing,
and should perform penance at the discretion of the tribunal. The next day
the inquisitors pronounced that she was not convicted but vehemently
suspect, wherefore she should purge herself with twelve conjurators. They
were duly selected and a term of three days was assigned, within which the
ceremony should be performed. They assembled in the Aljafería on August
23d, when the publication of evidence and the defence were read to them.
She was sworn to tell the truth and was asked whether she had committed
these crimes, to which she replied in the negative and was then removed
from the room. The inquisitors again read the accusatory evidence and the
defence, the compurgators were sworn to tell the truth, and the inquisitors
polled them. The first one, Pedro Monterde, said that he believed Beatriz to
have sworn truly, for he had known her for fifteen years and had always
held her to be a good Christian, the rest unanimously concurred and the
purgation was successful. Then, on September 8th, she appeared in an auto
as a penitent and, on the 17th, she abjured all heresies and especially those
of which she was vehemently suspected, after which the inquisitors
rendered sentence, declaring her to be vehemently suspect of the crimes
which she had abjured and, as these suspicions and crimes could not be left
unpunished, they penanced her with forbidding her to commit these crimes,
with the payment of all costs of her trial, the taxation of which they
reserved to themselves, and with performing such penance as they might
impose on her. The record fails to inform us what was that penance, but it
probably transferred to the tribunal a large portion of the property that had
escaped her husband’s confiscation.[307]
The threat that failure would imply condemnation was by no means an
idle one. About this time, Fray Juan de Madrid was tried before the tribunal
of Toledo; there was much adverse evidence in full detail, and the only
defence lay in disabling the witnesses. This was partially successful, but
enough remained to justify the inquisitors in saying in the sentence that he
could have been condemned on it but that, in benignity and mercy, he was
offered compurgation. He willingly accepted it and named his
compurgators, but half of them refused to sustain his oath of denial,
declaring that through their knowledge of him they held him as suspect.
This was conclusive; he was considered to be convicted of the charges and
the consulta de fe had no hesitation in voting him to relaxation. In like

manner, on February 3, 1503, Jayme Benet was burnt at Barcelona because
he failed in the compurgation enjoined on him.[308]
A change, probably attributable to the growing desire for absolute
secrecy, prescribed by the Instructions of 1500, altered profoundly the
prevailing theory of compurgation, for it prohibited the reading to the
compurgators of the evidence and defence. In their presence the accused
was to deny under oath the charges which were recapitulated by the
inquisitors, and the compurgators were simply to be asked whether they
believed that he swore the truth, and no other questions.[309] There seems to
have been some trouble in abrogating the custom of reading the evidence,
for the prohibition had to be repeated in 1514.[310]
In the project presented to Charles V, in 1520, by the
Conversos, with the object of rendering the inquisitorial COMPURGAT
ION
process less effective, there was included a modification of
compurgation in such wise as to facilitate escape.[311] Of course no attention
was paid to this, but that some alteration of the process was required by
justice is manifest from one or two minor reforms soon afterwards. In 1523
it was ordered that the fiscal should not be present after the compurgators
were sworn, which is suggestive of his influencing them adversely. Still
more essential was a regulation of 1529, forbidding those who had testified
against the accused from serving as his compurgators.[312] Apparently it was
one of the results of suppressing the names of witnesses that the poor
wretch, in his ignorance, would sometimes call upon those to save him who
had been procuring his destruction, and the inquisitors had not sufficient
sense of justice to exclude them, although they had power to refuse
admission to any one supposed to be friendly to him. There was also a
favorable modification of the ancient practice requiring unanimity on the
part of the conjurators, for Simancas tells us that the inquisitors, when
specifying the number to act, could also designate how many defections
would be allowed without prejudicing the result.[313]
Yet by the middle of the century, when Simancas wrote, compurgation
was becoming obsolete. He denounces it as blind, perilous and deceitful,
and says that it especially should not be forced upon those of Jewish or
Moorish descent, for it is equivalent to sending them on the direct road to
the stake, since no one could help thinking ill of them, or at least doubting
their innocence. Besides, nearly all men are now so corrupt, and Christian
charity is so cold, that scarce any one can be found who will purge another,

or who will not have an evil suspicion and interpret matters for the worst.
To defeat the accused it suffices for the conjurators to say that they do not
know, or that they doubt whether he has told the truth, and who is there who
will not feel uncertain when he knows that no one is exposed to purgation
unless he is vehemently suspected.[314]
This is echoed by the Instructions of 1561, which indicate how
compurgation was passing out of use by the brief allusion vouchsafed to it.
It is to be performed in accordance with the Instructions, with such number
of compurgators as the consulta de fe may prescribe, but inquisitors must
bear in mind that the malice of men at the present time renders it perilous,
that it is not much in use, and that it must be employed with the utmost
caution.[315]
Still, subsequently to this, Pablo García gives full and curious details as
to procedure, which show how it had become hedged around with
limitations that rendered it a desperate expedient for the accused. The
compurgators had to be Old Christians, zealous for the faith, who had
known the accused for a specified number of years, and were not of kin or
well disposed towards him. He was required to name more than the number
designated, so as to allow for those who might have died or be absent,
showing that he had to act in the solitude of the cell where perhaps he had
been confined for years. When the sentence of compurgation was
announced to him, he was given a certain term in which to make his
selection and, if he allowed this to elapse, he was at the discretion of the
tribunal. No communication with the compurgators was allowed, and when
they were assembled each one was separately and secretly examined to
ascertain whether he lacked any of the necessary qualifications, what were
his relations with the accused, whether he would give anything to secure his
discharge, whether any one had spoken with him and asked him to serve, or
whether he had intimated to any of the kindred that he was willing to act.
While thus carefully guarding against possible friendship, it is significant
that there is no instruction to inquire into possible enmity.
The ceremony was performed with considerable impressiveness. On the
table of the audience-chamber there were placed with much solemnity a
cross, the gospels, and two lighted candles. The prisoner was brought in, his
list of selections was read to him and he was asked if he recognized them,
to which he assented and said that he presented them as his compurgators.
They were then asked if they wished to serve or not; if they accepted, a

solemn oath was taken by the prisoner to tell the truth and not to conceal it
for fear of death or of loss of property or of honor or for any other reason.
The inquisitors then recited the charges which created vehement suspicion
and asked him, under his oath, whether he was guilty of them and, after he
had answered, he was led back to his cell. Then, if necessary, the nature of
compurgation was explained to the compurgators and they were sworn to
answer truly and not to deny the truth for hate, or love, or fear, or affection,
or other motive. They were kept apart, without communication with each
other, and each was examined separately and in secret whether he
understood what had passed and whether, in accordance with what he knew
of the accused, he believed that he had told the truth, and after replying he
was made to promise secrecy under pain of excommunication. The answers
were carefully taken down and were signed by the compurgators.[316]
Conducted after this fashion it is easy to understand why
compurgation should be characterized as blind and perilous. COMPURGAT
ION
The accused had to make his selection blindly, and the
qualifications required of conjurators almost insured their unfavorable
opinion, at a time when the operations of the Inquisition had caused every
man to look upon his neighbor with suspicion, especially when that
neighbor was one whom the tribunal required to undergo compurgation.
Yet, although the Inquisition thus risked little in subjecting doubtful cases to
it, there was ample reason for allowing it to fall into desuetude. Secrecy had
become a cardinal principle in all inquisitorial proceedings and it was
violated by calling in a dozen laymen to see the prisoner, to hear the charges
against him and to participate in the judgement to be passed upon him.
Besides, it was an acknowledgement that there were cases in which the
assumed omniscience and infallibility of the Holy Office were at fault, and
had to be supplemented by the random opinions of a few men selected by
the accused. As practised for centuries in the ecclesiastical courts, it had
been an easy method for the guilty to escape merited chastisement; as
modified by the Inquisition, it became a pitfall for the innocent; it was
wholly at variance with the inquisitorial process as developed in Spain and,
while its place in the canon law prevented its formal abolition, the tribunals
had exclusive discretion as to its employment, and that discretion was used
to render it obsolete. Still, it maintained its place as a legal form of
procedure. Even as late as 1645, among the interrogatories provided for a
visitation, the question was still retained as to whether the forms of the

Instructions were observed in canonical compurgation, although a writer of
the same period tells us that it is not to be employed because, if the accused
overcomes sufficient torture, he is to be discharged.[317]
In the Roman Inquisition we find compurgation ordered as late as 1590,
in the case of a priest of Piacenza, accused of certain heretical propositions;
the compurgators were to be five beneficed priests of good character and
acquainted with the life of the accused. If the purgation was successful he
was to be proclaimed of good repute as to the faith, and was to perform
salutary penance for the imprudence of his utterances.[318] By the middle of
the seventeenth century, however, Carena tells us that it had been virtually
disused by the Congregation, as most perilous, fallacious and uncertain.[319]

From this brief review of the various characteristics of the sentence, it
will be seen that the Inquisition had at hand formulas adapted to every
possible exigency, in the administration of its extensive and highly
diversified jurisdiction. Until the development of the authority of the
Suprema over the local tribunals, the use made of these formulas depended
on the temperament of the individual inquisitors, shielded as they were
from responsibility by secrecy and by the virtual suppression of the right of
appeal, except in trivial matters. It must be borne in mind, moreover that,
even when their sentences may seem merciful, there was always behind
them the most grievous infliction of an infamy which affected the honor and
the fortunes of a whole lineage.

CHAPTER II.

MINOR PENALTIES
IN the preceding chapter the general penal system of the Inquisition has
been considered, but for its proper comprehension a brief exposition of its
several penalties is requisite. In this it is unnecessary to treat of confiscation
and pecuniary penance which have already been discussed as constituting
the financial basis of the existence of the Holy Office.
REPRIMAND.

Of the minor inflictions, the most nearly universal was the reprimand. It
is naturally absent from the severer sentences of reconciliation and
relaxation but, with these exceptions, scarce any defendant escaped it, no
matter how groundless the accusation was proved to be, or how plainly his
innocence was manifested. The freedom with which it was administered is
evidenced in a phrase of frequent occurrence in the reports of the Toledo
tribunal—“as no offence was proved, he was reprimanded and warned for
the future.”[320] We have seen that some strict constructionists held that
reprimand was incompatible with suspension, but that this principle was
universally disregarded. The same authority asserts that no reprimand was
to be administered without a formal sentence, but cases are numerous in
which it is expressly recorded that the party was reprimanded without a
sentence, and sometimes this was by the special command of the Suprema.
In the Valladolid tribunal there were eight such cases in the year 1641.[321]
To scold the defendant was one of the prerogatives of the inquisitor, from
the use of which he rarely abstained, especially as it afforded the
opportunity of expatiating on the benignity which imposed penalties so
incommensurate with the offences.
The severity of the infliction varied with his temper and power of
invective, but constant practice rendered him skilful in detecting the
sensitive places, and in applying the lash where it would be most keenly
felt. There were those among the victims who regarded this as a severer
penalty than a pecuniary penance, and it is not surprising that it
occasionally drew forth remonstrance and retort, which were promptly
suppressed by the infliction of a fine for the expenses of the tribunal.[322]
No record was made of reprimands, beyond the fact of their utterance, but
there is one which chances to have been preserved as it seems to have been
carefully elaborated and reduced to writing. It was administered by the
Licentiate Juan de Mañozca, who had been President of the Chancellery of
Granada, to an unlucky gentleman prosecuted for having said that belief in
matters of faith was good breeding. He had made the case worse by
arguing, in his defence, that he could conceive of no word more applicable
to the matter than cortesía, and that his long residence at the court had
familiarized him with all the niceties of the Castilian tongue. For this, as a
proposition ill-sounding and savoring of heresy, Mañozca belabored him
through ten closely-written pages of savage ridicule. “In the Andalusian
tunny fishery” he said “there may be seen an infinity of tunnies, the

smallest of them as big as you, and yet not one of them will show the least
particle of salt, although they have lived in the midst of salt.” So he went
on, quoting the Scriptures, the classic poets and Plato, to prove that the
unfortunate culprit was an ignoramus, closely approaching a heretic. Such
ignorance was likened to the unfruitful ears of corn which, according to
Christ, are only fit to be swept up and burnt, and the diatribe concluded
with the significant warning that it was the Inquisition which gathered such
worthless stocks and delivered them to the secular arm, that they might pass
through temporal to eternal flame.[323] Doubtless the culprit was a fool, but
his folly merited no such terrific warning.
ABJURATION.
Suspicion of heresy, as we have seen, was, in itself, a crime requiring
punishment. In accusations of formal heresy which failed of proof, there
remained, as a rule, at least suspicion, and there was besides a number of
offences which, though not in themselves heretical, were brought under the
jurisdiction of the Inquisition by a more or less forced assumption that they
inferred suspicion of heresy—that no one who believed rightly as to
sacraments and points of doctrine could be guilty of them. In the Old
Inquisition, this suspicion was classified as light, vehement or violent and
these distinctions were retained in the New. Violent suspicion, however,
may be discarded from consideration here, for it sufficed for condemnation
and, in practice, it admitted of no disproof or explanation for, although
theoretically it might be explained away, this was but a bare possibility. As
Peña says, it created presumption of law, as when a man remained for a year
under excommunication.[324]
The distinction between light and vehement suspicion was somewhat
nebulous. Like everything else in the vague region of morals, it was
incapable of accurate definition, and each case had to be decided on its own
merits, according to the temper of the judges. Alberghini’s attempted test of
infrequent or habitual performance of acts inferring suspicion fails utterly in
practice and moreover leaves unsettled the more important and common
class of cases where testimony was insufficient for conviction and yet too
strong for acquittal.[325] Moreover, suspicion might be modified by exterior
circumstances, as when Miguel Calvo tells us that, with Moriscos, however
slender may be the suspicion, it must be treated as vehement.[326] It was
evidently impossible to prescribe any absolute rule, and it is to the credit of

the Inquisition that it rarely pronounced suspicion to be vehement, while
light suspicion occurs in almost all sentences short of reconciliation. Thus,
in the Toledo record from 1648 to 1794, there are three hundred and
fourteen abjurations de levi and only fifty-one de vehementi—or about an
average of one every three years.[327]
Whatever other punishment might be visited on suspicion, abjuration of
heresy in general, and especially of the heresy suspected, was
indispensable. This could be administered either in the audience-chamber,
or in a public auto de fe, and was an impressive ceremony. In the face of a
cross and with his hand on the gospels, the culprit swore that he accepted
the Catholic faith and detested and anathematized every species of heresy,
and especially that of which he was suspect. He pledged himself always to
keep the faith of the Church and to be obedient to the pope and the papal
decrees. He declared that all who opposed the Catholic faith were worthy of
condemnation, promising never to join them, but to persecute them and
denounce them to prelates and inquisitors. He swore to receive patiently
and humbly all penance imposed on him, and to fulfil it with all his
strength. If the abjuration was for light suspicion, he consented and desired
that, if he failed in any part of this, he should be held as impenitent and he
submitted himself to the correction and severity of the canons, so that the
penalties prescribed in them should be executed on his person, and finally
he called upon the notary to record it and on all present to serve as
witnesses. If the abjuration was for vehement suspicion, he consented and
desired that, if he failed in his promises, he should be held and considered
as a relapsed and suffer the penalties provided for relapse. This was the
difference between abjuration de levi and abjuration de vehementi, so often
alluded to above, and it was of no small import under the canons. After the
former, reincidence in the offence entailed no special penalty; it was at the
discretion of the tribunal merely to repeat the previous sentence, or to
aggravate it, as the case might appear to deserve. But, after the latter,
reincidence was relapse, for which the canons decreed irrevocable burning,
ipso facto and without trial. To impress this on the penitent, his abjuration
de vehementi was written out and he was made to sign it. Then, on the next
day after the auto de fe, he was brought into the audience-chamber, it was
read to him and he was warned to observe its conditions for, if he should
again fall into any heresy whatever, he would be treated as a relapsed

without mercy, and it would be the same if he did not perform the penance
imposed.[328]
In spite of these impressive formalities, I think it doubtful
whether, after the first furious rush of persecution was past, ABJURATION
the extreme penalty of relaxation, for reincidence after
abjuration de vehementi, was customary. As a rule, in the later periods,
inquisitors rather endeavored to avoid relaxation and, while they were
callous, they were not apt to be unnecessarily cruel. I have not happened to
meet with such a case, while I have found more than one in which the
canons were not observed. In fact, a learned writer of the second half of the
seventeenth century argues elaborately, with the citation of many
authorities, to show that reincidence after abjuration de vehementi does not
incur the punishment of relapse, despite the penalties expressed in the
formula, and this would appear to have been tacitly accepted, for a custom
arose of specifying in the sentence whether or not the abjuration should
entail the penalty. Thus, in 1725 at Cuenca, Doctor Zapata, accused of
Judaism, was required to abjure de vehementi with liability to relaxation,
while in 1794, at Toledo, Damaso José López de Cruz, for heretical
propositions, was sentenced to similar abjuration without such liability.[329]
There was another distinction between the two forms of abjuration, for
those who abjured de vehementi were subject to the disgrace of appearing in
an auto de fe and of wearing a sanbenito de media aspa—or with one band
of color across it, before and behind.[330]
The Instructions of 1561 state that, when there is semi-proof, or such
indications that the accused cannot be acquitted, there are three remedies,
compurgation, torture or abjuration; but this is scarce correct, for those who
succeeded in compurgation were always, and those who overcame torture
were generally, required to abjure. The Instructions add that abjuration,
whether for light or vehement suspicion, is rather a measure to inspire fear
for the future than a punishment for the past, and therefore it is usually
accompanied with pecuniary penance.[331] In fact, it was only in trifling
cases, or in suspensions, that abjuration was not associated with much
severer penalties. This was inevitable in the large class of offences which,
by a strained construction, inferred suspicion of heresy. In these, when guilt
was proven, it received its appropriate punishment, perhaps of scourging or
the galleys, and the abjuration was a mere formality to satisfy the artificial
ascription of heretical belief. In cases of suspicion of real heresy, abjuration,

whether de levi or de vehementi, was a necessary adjunct to the punishment.
Thus in the Toledo auto of February 7, 1694, Luis de Vargas, for
“suspicions of Judaism,” was sentenced to abjure de levi, to pay a fine of
two hundred ducats and to be exiled for six years from various places. So,
in 1715, at Toledo, the Carmelite Fray Francisco Martínez de Salazar, “for
crimes vehemently suspect of heresy,” appeared in the audience-chamber
with a sanbenito de media aspa, in the presence of twelve priests; he
abjured de vehementi, was sternly reprimanded and threatened, and
sentenced to a long list of penalties, including deprivation of functions,
reclusion for six years in a convent and a circular discipline in the Carmelite
house of Toledo.[332] On this composite sentence the consulta de fe had
evidently exhausted its ingenuity, and the abjuration was merely a formal
necessity to justify the rest. Yet, while abjuration in itself can scarce be
termed a punishment it was, even when only de levi, an infliction of no little
severity, in consequence of the infamy which it entailed, as we have seen in
the Villanueva case, where the victim and his kindred struggled for so many
years in Rome to have it removed.
EXILE.
Frequent allusions above to exile as occurring in
sentences indicate how customary a feature it was in the EXILE
penal system of the Inquisition. By itself, or in combination
with other penalties, it was an unfailing resort in offences that did not incur
the graver punishment of imprisonment. It could be varied indefinitely, to
suit the peculiarities of each case, and the tribunals exercised the widest
discretion in its employment. In its usual form it designated certain places
and a fixed number of leagues around them, which the penitent was
forbidden to enter. The list of proscribed localities as a rule included
Madrid, or rather the royal residences, the seat of the tribunal, the dwelling-
place of the culprit, if this was not comprised in the others, and any other
towns, sometimes amounting to four or five, where he had been known in
his guilty career. Although this was a convenient resource to the tribunal, it
was a somewhat irrational penalty, the severity of which could hardly be
guessed at, for while it might be scarce more than an inconvenience to one
offender, it might be the destruction of a career to a merchant established in
business, or to a professional man with an assured clientèle. Considerations
of this kind, however, rarely influenced the tribunals and, in the Toledan

record of 1575-1610 we find exile included in a hundred and sixty-seven
sentences.
The length of exile was always specified, and varied from some months
to a life-time, but it usually was a term of a few years. Sometimes it was
divided into two portions, the first preciso or absolute, the second
voluntario or dependent upon the will of the tribunal—apparently as an
incentive to amendment. A variant of this occurs in the case of Diego de
Toro, sentenced for bigamy at Toledo in 1652, to four years of exile
absolutely and four years more which he was to fulfil whenever the tribunal
should see fit to order it, thus holding it over him indefinitely.[333]
It was not often that the Inquisition exercised the power of banishment
from Spain, but it did not hesitate to assume such authority when it saw fit,
and a converse to this was the occasional prohibition to leave Spain, of
which an instance is cited above (p. 102). Another form, in which the wide
discretion of the tribunals was exhibited, was forbidding the penitent to
approach within a specified distance of the sea-coast. This was not
infrequent in sentences on Moriscos, whose relations with Barbary always
excited apprehension, but it is not apparent why the Valladolid tribunal, in
1659, when sentencing Diego de la Peña for Jewish tendencies, should have
included an inhibition to approach within eight leagues of any sea-port
without a special licence.[334]
Again, we sometimes find a penitent exiled to some particular place for a
term of years, and this is frequently combined with provisions for keeping
him under surveillance. Thus the Valladolid tribunal, in 1659, sentenced
Isabel Rubía and María Martin, for sorcery, to reside for four years in a
place to be designated, where there was an official to whom they must
present themselves monthly and who would report as to their amendment.
[335] This was sometimes a form of commutation for imprisonment, as in the
case of Isabel Núñez, sentenced at Cuenca to prison and Sanbenito, which
was modified to four years’ exile at San Clemente. December 24, 1657, she
presented a notarial certificate of her being there and begged that, as she
was 74 years old and very poor and miserable, she might be released, in
honor of the birth of the prince (Felipe-Prosper) or at least have the place
changed to Alcalá, Guadalajara or Pastrana, where there were people who
would help her. This pitiful petition was simply endorsed to be filed with
the papers of the case, which indicates that it was refused.[336] A more
rigorous example of this, which shows that no limit was placed on the

discretion of the Inquisition, was the banishment for life to the Philippines,
in 1802, of two frailes concerned in the imposture of Isabel María Herraiz,
known as the Beata of Cuenca.[337] Conversely, a penitent might be
prohibited to leave a designated place, as when, in 1599, Rodrigo Ramírez,
a Morisco of Yepes, was forbidden for three years to leave Yepes without
licence.[338]
As the ordinary form of exile was easily violated, the sentence, as we
have seen above, was frequently accompanied with a threat of increased
penalties for non-fulfilment. In Toledo this seems ordinarily to be a
doubling of the original term, but frequently it was more severe as, in 1604,
at Valencia, the sentence of Bartolomé Posca added to this a hundred lashes
and, in 1607, Francisco Xiner, condemned to five years’ exile, was
threatened with three years of galleys.[339] It was probably to check, in
some degree, the facility for evasion that the Suprema, in 1665, required the
tribunals to furnish it with a description of the culprit whenever they
pronounced a sentence of exile. As this always comprised Madrid and, as
the capital was likely to attract the homeless waifs, details which might
assist in their identification were useful.[340]
RAZING HOUSES.
In the imperial jurisprudence, houses in which heretics
held their conventicles were forfeited to the Church and this RAZING
HOUSES
provision was adopted in the legislation of Alfonso X.[341]
When prosecution was systematized in the thirteenth century, this was
modified to tearing down all houses in which heretics were found, the site
remaining forever accursed and unfit for human habitation. This was
accepted by the Church and found its way into all the lands that admitted
the Inquisition.[342] Aragon adopted it and when, about 1340, the Spiritual
Franciscan Fray Bonanato was burnt, and his disciples were scattered, the
building which they had occupied at Villafranca del Panadés, near
Barcelona, was levelled to the ground.[343]
In the early days of the Spanish Inquisition, the strict enforcement of the
rule would have led to great destruction and serious impairment of the value
of confiscations. It seems therefore to have been reserved for buildings in
which the heretics or apostates had been accustomed to assemble, and then
the king, as the recipient of confiscations, decided the matter. A letter of
Ferdinand, May 23, 1501, to Aliaga his receiver at Valencia, states that the

inquisitors have asked him to decree the destruction of a house in which a
synagogue had been found, to which he assents with the suggestive addition
that the civic authorities must be ordered to offer no opposition. It turned
out that Ferdinand had already given the house to Juan Pérez, the scrivener
of sequestrations, whereupon he ordered Aliaga to have it appraised and to
pay the value to Pérez.[344] He seems to have offered no opposition to
Lucero’s operations in Córdova, where a number of houses were torn down
as having served as synagogues, and he ordered them rebuilt when the
Congregacion Católica assembled at Valladolid, in 1509, pronounced the
prosecutions fictitious.[345]
When the confiscations passed to the Inquisition, financial
considerations apparently got the better of zeal, for when, in 1539, at
Valencia, trials of a number of Judaizers revealed that a crucifix had been
maltreated in a house used for their assemblies, and the tribunal desired
authority for its destruction and the erection of a memorial chapel, the
Suprema replied cautiously with a number of questions as to value, location
and expense, as there were no funds for the purpose, and it ordered the auto
de fe to be held, reserving decision as to the house.[346] The subsequent
proceedings against the convicts, who revoked their confessions, show that
the house was still standing four or five years later.
There was no such hesitation in the stimulated excitement following the
discovery of Protestantism in high places in 1559. When, in the Valladolid
auto de fe of May 21, the Cazalla family were nearly exterminated, the
house of the mother, Leonor de Vibero, where the little group used to
assemble, was razed, and a pillar was erected on the spot, with an
inscription that can still be read—“During the pontificate of Paul IV and the
reign of Philip II, the Holy Office of the Inquisition condemned this
building of Pedro de Cazalla and Leonor de Vibero his wife to be torn down
and levelled with the ground, since here the Lutherans assembled to hold
meetings against our holy Catholic faith and the Church of Rome, May 21,
1559.” Similarly in the great auto of Seville, September 24, 1559, the
houses of Luis de Alerego and Isabel de Baena, which had served as
Protestant conventicles, were destroyed.[347]
A thrifty disposition to restrain inconsiderate zeal for
obliterating the receptacles of heresy was manifested by the SPIRITUAL
PENANCES
Suprema, in 1565, when it forbade the razing of a house
unless it belonged to the delinquents and thus would not have to be paid for.

[348] This restriction, however, was not observed on an occasion which was
perhaps the latest as well as the most conspicuous example of the practice.
In the great Madrid auto of July 4, 1632, which was honored by the
presence of Philip IV, among those who were burnt were Miguel Rodríguez
and his wife Isabel Núñez Alvárez, in whose house not only were held
Jewish meetings, but an image of Christ had been scourged and when it
shed blood and thrice spoke to them they consumed it with fire. Of course it
was doomed and on the day after the execution the Inquisition ordered it to
be appraised in order that the owner might be compensated. He was the
Licentiate Barquero, a highly respected jurist, who protested against its
destruction until he received good security for its value. No time was lost.
On the 6th the Inquisitor Cristóval de Ibarra, accompanied by the Admiral
of Castile, the Duke of Medina de la Torres and other gentlemen, many
familiars and a crowd of workmen, and preceded by a guard of halberdiers
with banner and drums, marched to the spot, where a secretary read a
proclamation of the Toledo tribunal to the effect that it ordered the
demolition of the house where a holy Christ had been scourged and
maltreated. Then the drums beat and the workmen assailed the structure so
zealously that by nine o’clock that night there was not a vestige of it left,
the populace eagerly aiding them in tearing the stones from the walls and
carrying off the timbers. The site was not left, as the canons direct, to be a
receptacle of filth. Money was raised and a Capuchin convent was erected,
known as La Paciencia, in remembrance of the patience with which Christ
had borne the indignities heaped upon him.[349]
SPIRITUAL PENANCES.
It might be presupposed that, in dealing with spiritual offences, and
professing that its main object was the salvation of souls, the Inquisition
would incline rather to spiritual exercises than to pecuniary and corporal
punishments—that it would seek to instruct and elevate the spirit rather than
to afflict the body. Religious persecution, however, has always preferred the
harshness of coercion, and has held that the surest way to bring conviction
to the soul was to torment the flesh. We need therefore not be surprised to
see how insignificant a place spiritual penances held in the sentences of the
Holy Office, and it would scarce be worth while to consider them except to
note how little was the importance attributed to them by the tribunals.

Except in trifling cases, which merited no real punishment, such spiritual
penances as we occasionally meet with are conjoined with material
penalties. A man sentenced to imprisonment may perhaps be required to fast
on Fridays for six months or a year, and to recite on those days a prescribed
number of Ave Marias and Paternosters or other prayers. Pilgrimages to
shrines as distant as St. Thomas of Canterbury or St. James of Compostela,
so frequently prescribed in the medieval Inquisition, were unknown. It is
true that the formula of sentence on the reconciled, condemning them to
prison, requires them on Saturdays to make a pilgrimage to some
designated shrine in the vicinity, where on their knees they must repeat with
devotion five Paters, Ave Marias, Credos and Salve Reginas, but this was
not often used in practice.[350] Clerical offenders, sentenced to reclusion in
convents, frequently had spiritual exercises included among numerous other
inflictions. While this moderation was the rule, occasionally of course the
unlimited discretion of the tribunals made exceptions, as in a singularly ill-
judged penance imposed at Toledo, in 1653, on Gerónima Mendes, a child
ten years of age, convicted of Judaism, who was sentenced to a month’s
instruction in the faith and the daily recitation of the rosary for a year.
Seeing that the rosary consists of seventeen Paternosters, sixteen Gloria
Patris, a hundred and fifty-three Ave Marias and the Apostles’ Creed, one
can estimate the burden imposed on a child of such tender years and how
little it would conduce to training the youthful penitent in a love for the
faith.[351] Such an infliction however was exceptional, and it frequently
happens, in the reports of the tribunals, after detailing the material portions
of a sentence, that there is a mere general allusion to “some spiritual
penances,” which suggests how slender was the consideration bestowed on
them. There is one type of better promise, not infrequent in the later period,
such as a sentence pronounced at Toledo, in 1777, on Antonio Rubio and
Diego González, condemned for heretical acts and blasphemy, the former to
five years’ labor in the arsenal of Cartagena and the latter to three years in
the presidio of Ceuta, both of whom were required, before leaving prison, to
perform fifteen days of spiritual exercises under a director who would
instruct them.[352]
The hearing of mass as a penitent, which was a very frequent infliction,
cannot be classed as a spiritual penance—it was a simple humiliation and
was so intended, especially when performed publicly in church.

UNUSUAL PENALTIES.
A few instances will indicate how the tribunals
sometimes used their wide discretion in adapting to any UNUSUAL
PENALTIES
given case what was deemed an appropriate penalty. It is
true that when Valencia, in 1539, made Fray Torres, a priest, appear in a
public auto de fe, with a bridle in his mouth and a pannier of straw on his
back, the Suprema rebuked it and forbade such eccentricities for the future.
[353] So when, in 1568, Inquisitor Morales reported that, during his visit to
San Sebastian, he had condemned certain offenders to have sermons
preached at their expense, the Suprema mildly remarked that this was a
novelty.[354] In an auto de fe at Llerena, in 1579, there was a negress named
Catalina, the slave of a man of Zafra. It was doubtless through
consideration of his interests that she was spared the corporal chastisement
visited on her accomplices, but there was a distinct invasion of his rights in
a prohibition to him to sell her without licence from the inquisitors.[355] In
1607, at Valencia, a single witness accused María Tubarri, a Morisca
midwife, of using Moorish ceremonies in baptising infants, and of
circumcising the males; the proof, against her denial, was not thought
sufficient to justify torture and she was required only to abjure de levi, but
she was deprived for life of practising her profession.[356] There was
wisdom, if a trifle arbitrary, in a sentence at Toledo, in 1685, on Lucas
Morales for blasphemy, for it included, among other penalties, a prohibition
to gamble—a sensible provision against relapse, for gaming was recognized
as the most prolific source of blasphemy.[357]
There was the same latitude in vindictive as in deterrent punishments. At
Valladolid, from 1635 to 1637, there were several Judaizers convicted of
maltreating an image of Christ. The consultors voted for relaxation, but the
Suprema approved the decision of the inquisitors that they should have the
right arm nailed to a stake in the form of a cross, while their sentences were
being read in an auto de fe.[358] Less symbolical and still more original was
a spectacle devised for the Mexican auto of December 7, 1664, where one
of the penitents was stripped to the waist, while two Indians smeared him
with honey and covered him with feathers, in which guise he was made to
stand in the sun for four hours on the staging.[359] Even recruiting for the
army was not beneath the dignity of the tribunal as when, in 1650, Toledo
condemned Andrés de Herrera Calderon, for blasphemy, to serve for four

years in the campaigns against Portugal and Catalonia, where doubtless he
enriched his vocabulary of expletives.[360]
There evidently was no defined limit to the power of suiting the penalty
to the inquisitorial conception of the offence, and the tribunals made ample
use of their prerogative.

CHAPTER III.

HARSHER PENALTIES.
THE SCOURGE.
ALTHOUGH at first sight the use of the lash, as a persuasive to correct
religious belief, may appear somewhat incongruous, it must be borne in
mind that, under the euphemy of the discipline, it has always formed a
prominent feature of penance, especially among the monastic orders where,
in the daily or weekly chapters, it was liberally administered for all
infractions of the Rule or other sins, as a preliminary to absolution. In fact,
the touching of the penitent’s shoulder with a wand by the priest in
absolution from excommunication, is a symbol of the discipline which was
anciently indispensable. In the Old Inquisition it was in frequent use,
although there it was rendered a matter of edification, through its infliction
by priests during divine service or in religious processions. That it should
form part of the penal resources of the Spanish Holy Office was therefore
natural, although it lost its penitential aspect and became purely punitive
and vindictive.
It was no longer the priest who wielded the discipline with an
indeterminate number of strokes during an indeterminate series of feast-
days. The tribunal prescribed the number of lashes and they were laid on by
the vigorous arm of the public executioner. The penitents who had to suffer
appeared in the auto de fe with halters around their necks; if there was one
knot in the halter, it signified a hundred lashes, if two, two hundred and so
on, one hundred being the unit and the minimum number. The next day the
populace was treated to the spectacle. Mounted astride of asses, bared to the
waist, with halter and mitre bearing inscription of their offences and a pié
de amigo holding the head erect, they were paraded through the accustomed
streets, with a guard of mounted familiars and a notary or secretary to make

record, while the executioner plied the penca, or leather strap, on the naked
flesh, until the tale was complete, and the town-crier proclaimed that it was
by order of the Inquisition for the crimes specified. A clause in the
proclamation, after the great Madrid auto of 1680, forbidding, under pain of
excommunication, any one to throw stones at the penitents, indicates that
the populace had a playful habit of thus manifesting its detestation of
heresy.[361]
In 1568 the Suprema rebuked the Barcelona tribunal for condemning to
public scourging penitents reconciled for heresy. This, it said, was contrary
to the estilo of the Inquisition, and in future the lash was not to be used
unless there was some other crime than heresy.[362] This indicates how
completely the scourge had become punitive and how it was dissociated
from the ancient discipline, but if such regulation existed it met with scant
recognition. All the offences subjected to the Inquisition were
constructively heretical, and there never seems to have been any
discrimination exercised between them. Indeed, we have seen that the lash
was especially indicated for heretics who were tardy or variable in their
confessions, and Judaizers are constantly seen to be subjected to it.
Scourging was a favorite penalty which was lavishly and
often mercilessly employed. In the Saragossa auto of June 6, SCOURGING
1585, out of a total of seventy-nine penitents, twenty-two
were scourged; in that of Valencia, in 1607, of forty-seven penitents,
twenty-four received the lash.[363] This, however, exceeds the average. The
Toledo reports, from 1575 to 1610, present a hundred and thirty-three cases
of scourging which, allowing for a break in the record, give about four per
annum.[364] On the other hand, a collection of autos de fe celebrated
between 1721 and 1727, embracing in all nine hundred and sixty-two cases,
affords two hundred and ninety-seven sentences of scourging, or about
thirty per cent.[365] When we recall that, in the list of officials reported by
Murcia, in 1746, there figures Joseph García Bentura as notario de
açotaciones—a notary of scourgings—to keep record of the stripes, with a
salary of about 2500 reales, we realize how prominent a feature it was in
inquisitorial penology.[366] The brutalizing effect on the populace of these
wholesale exhibitions of flogging, especially of women, can readily be
estimated.
The usual number of lashes prescribed was two hundred, though in
occasional cases a hundred sufficed. In the two hundred and ninety-seven

just alluded to, two hundred and ninety were of two hundred lashes and
only seven of one hundred. It was rare that two hundred were exceeded in
any one infliction, though sometimes it was mercilessly duplicated, as in the
Seville auto of September 24, 1559, Martin Fernando Saldrian, a shepherd,
for blasphemy was scourged in Seville and again in his native town; Alonso
Martin of Carmona, for Lutheranism, was scourged in both Seville and
Carmona and Juan de Aragon of Málaga, who had pretended to be a
familiar, was scourged in Málaga and again in the scene of his offence.[367]
Probably two hundred lashes were about the limit of safety, especially
with those enfeebled by prolonged incarceration, for the infliction was
excessively severe. We hear of Margarita Altamira reduced to such
extremity after a scourging that the viaticum was administered to her.[368]
There was no mercy for age or sex. In the Valencia auto of January 7, 1607,
Isabel Madalina Conteri, a Morisca girl of 13, after overcoming torture, had
a hundred lashes, Jayme Chulayla, a Morisco of 76, who had been tortured,
had a hundred and the same was administered to Francisco Marquino, aged
86 for sorcery in treasure-seeking, while Magdalena Cahet, aged 60, who
had escaped torture on account of heart-disease, was not spared a hundred.
[369]

As the eighteenth century advanced there appears to be more readiness
to remit the execution of sentences of scourging on account of age and
infirmities and of “accidentes,” which probably mean crippling by torture.
Then there developes a tendency to spare women and finally men; the
sentences continue to be pronounced, but they are remitted by the
inquisitor-general. In 1769, at Toledo, Gerónimo Clos, for bigamy, was
pardoned the two hundred lashes of his sentence, which could not have
been for infirmity, as he was not released from hard labor for five years in
the royal works at Cartagena.[370] From this time scourging may be
regarded as obsolescent and soon to become obsolete. Under the
Restoration, from 1814 to 1820, in the votos secretos, there is not a case in
which the lash was inflicted, for when included in the sentences, it was
always remitted by the Suprema.[371]
The clergy, of course, were not subjected to the disgrace of public
scourging. In their cases it took the form known as a circular discipline,
administered in a convent by all the inmates in turn.
VERGÜENZA.

Vergüenza, or shame, was the same as scourging, with the lashes
omitted. The culprit, stripped to the waist and with the pié de amigo, was
paraded through the streets, with the insignia of his offence, while the town-
crier proclaimed his sentence. It was naturally regarded as less severe than
scourging and was sometimes substituted for the latter, when the penitent
was too aged or feeble to endure the lash. For the beldams and ruffians who
were often its subjects it could have had but few terrors, but it was greatly
dreaded by those of sensitive nature. The inquisitors took little count of this,
when dealing with Judaizers and Moriscos, who had a keen sense of
personal dignity, and Pedraza informs us that those exposed to it regarded
death as a mercy, preferring to die rather than to endure a life of infamy.[372]
To young women the exposure was especially humiliating, yet, on the
whole, it may be regarded as more humane than the pillory of our
forefathers, for the penitent was not exposed to the missiles of a brutal
populace.
Vergüenza was a comparatively infrequent punishment. In the Toledo
reports of 1575-1610 it occurs in but twenty-six sentences, which may be
compared with the hundred and thirty-three scourgings, and the records of
the same tribunal from 1648 to 1794 present but ten vergüenzas to ninety-
two scourgings. In the very severe series of autos de fe between 1721 and
1727, the comparison is thirteen to two hundred and ninety-seven.

THE GAG—
THE
GALLEYS

MORDAZA.
The mordaza or gag, as we have seen, was regarded as increasing greatly
the severity of the infliction of which it formed part. It was sometimes used
in scourging and vergüenza, when the so-called penitent was a hardened
blasphemer or likely in some way to create scandal. It was likewise
employed in the autos de fe, on pertinacious and impenitent heretics of
whom it was feared that they might on their way to the stake produce an
impression on those not firm in the faith.[373] Its use was not frequent,
although, in the dread inspired by Protestantism, in 1559, at the great
Seville auto of September 24th, twelve of the victims wore the mordaza.
There were also twelve thus gagged in the Madrid auto of 1680, but these
numbers were exceptional.[374]
THE GALLEYS.
Enslavement in the galleys, to labor at the oar, would appear to be even
more incongruous than scourging as penance for spiritual offences. It was a
Spanish device, unknown to the elder Inquisition, and had its origin in the
thrifty mind of Ferdinand. We shall presently see how exercised were the
monarch and the Holy Office over the problem presented by the
maintenance of those condemned to the canonical penalty of perpetual
prison, and Ferdinand, whose Sicilian possessions required a powerful
navy, bethought him of the expedient of utilizing his able-bodied prisoners
to man his galleys—the galley propelled by oars being as yet the equivalent
of the modern battle-ship. Galley-service was recognized as so severe that
the old fueros of Aragon forbade it under heavy penalties, except with the
free assent of the individual, and it was not until the curtailment of ancient
privileges, in the Córtes of Tarazona in 1592, that judges were permitted to
use it as a punishment for robbers.[375] In Castile, the pressure for slaves to
man the galleys is indicated by a royal cédula of November 14, 1502,
commuting the death-sentence of criminals in the secular courts, and
ordering them to be sent to the galleys.[376] It was probably about this time
that Ferdinand turned to the Inquisition, which was bound by no laws, for
relief from overcrowded prisons and undermanned galleys. Even the callous

morality of the age seems to have been shocked at this and, as usual, the
sanction of the Holy See was sought for the iniquity. It was of course
granted, and Alexander VI, in a brief addressed to the inquisitors, May 26,
1503, recited that Ferdinand and Isabella had represented to him that those
condemned to perpetual prison relapsed into heresy; that there was a lack of
prisons in which they could be confined without perverting others, and that
multiplication of prisons would lead to dissemination of heresy; that their
power to commute imprisonment into other perpetual punishment had been
called into question, and that they had asked him to provide a remedy. As
the chief solicitude of the inquisitors should be the prevention of relapse, he
therefore empowered them to change the perpetual prison of penitents into
other penalties—deportation to the colonies, or imprisonment in the royal
galleys, where, in perpetual confinement, they might render enforced
service, or to any other perpetual punishment, according to their quality and
offences.[377]
That full advantage was taken of this there can be no
doubt, to the relief of the prison funds and the facilitation of THE
GALLEYS
the conquest of Naples. We chance to hear of the transfer at
Barcelona, January 24, 1505, of nineteen prisoners from the gaol of the
Inquisition to the galleys of Ramon de Cardona, which we may fairly accept
as an example of what was on foot everywhere.[378] In fact, the eagerness of
the tribunals to disembarrass themselves of their prisoners seems to have
led to their discharging on the galleys those in every way unfit for the
service, for the Suprema was obliged, in 1506, to declare that men over 60,
clerics and women were exempt from the punishment of the galleys.[379]
Even Ferdinand himself, towards the close of his career, seems to have
shrunk from the responsibility of openly authorizing an extension of this
heartless business for when, in 1513, the Inquisitor of Sicily asked
permission to send to the galleys those condemned to perpetual prison,
Ferdinand threw the decision back on him; to build prisons will cost much
money, he said, but the galleys may deter men from confessing their heresy;
the inquisitor is therefore to think the matter over and do what he deems
best.[380] The conclusion reached is unknown, but we may reasonably
surmise that the Palermo tribunal did not waste its funds in constructing
prisons.
Ferdinand’s hesitation seems to have been shared by Charles V for, in
1527, the Suprema ordered that penitents should not be sent to the galleys

but should have other penances.[381] The motive for this humane provision,
however, did not long withstand the more pressing economical
considerations. In 1529, Rodrigo Portuondo, captain-general of the galleys,
was instructed that no one sent to them by the Inquisition should hold any
office or administration, or have charge of the rations, showing that the
prohibition had been rescinded.[382] Apparently the superior intelligence of
the penitents had rendered them more useful as petty officers and
accountants than as slaves of the oar, but this alleviation of their misery did
not satisfy the spirit of persecution and it was probably to prevent it that the
formula of the sentence was service at the oar without pay—unless, indeed,
the penitent was of gentle blood, in which case he could be sent to serve as
a gentleman or as a soldier.[383]
We have already seen to what profitable account the Inquisition turned
the power which it had assumed to grant dispensations from this abhorrent
servitude, and a case in 1558 indicates how it guarded against any invasion
of its prerogative. Philip II was led to interest himself in the case of Andrés
de Frias, condemned to the galleys, and asked to have him dispensed from
the remainder of his term. To this the Suprema demurred, saying that the
statement of Frias was untrue, for in Rome he had treacherously stabbed to
death the procurator of the Inquisition, Doctor Puente, after dining with him
and promising to sup with him; moreover the seventeen months which he
claimed to have served had not been as a galley-slave, as required by his
sentence. Still, if he would present himself and manifest repentance there
might be opportunity for the king to show him mercy, but otherwise it
would greatly impair the authority of the Inquisition.[384]
Philip was not given to interceding for those sent to his galleys, for
galley-slaves continued to be in great demand. In 1567 the Venitian envoy,
Antonio Tiepolo, explains the weakness of the Spanish navy by the fact that
its galleys were manned with slaves and forçats, who were not numerous
enough to keep many galleys at sea. It would be, he says, impossible to man
them with free-men, as in Venice, for no one would serve voluntarily, as the
ill-treatment of the crews is notorious and their dying for lack of the
necessaries of life.[385] It is true that there was a curious source of supply,
besides the ordinary criminals and heretics, for the prelates of the religious
Orders were accustomed to condemn their peccant brethren to the galleys,
from the same economical motive that had actuated Ferdinand—to save the
expense of maintaining them in prison.[386] Still, the needs of the armadas

were pressing; Philip turned to the Inquisition for aid, and, in 1567, the
Suprema issued two decrees intended to assist in manning the royal galleys.
One bore that sentences must not be for less than three or four years, for
otherwise the penitents cost the king more than the service he got from
them, and this was enforced by a royal cédula of 1584.[387] The other
suggested—suggestion being equivalent to an order—that sentences to the
galleys could be substituted for those to prison and sanbenito. The practical
deduction drawn from this is expressed by a writer of the period, who says
that, if the accused confesses but does not satisfy the evidence, he is to be
tortured and, if he still fails to satisfy the evidence, it is customary to send
him to the galleys, but this must be for not less than three years.[388] To
appreciate fully this atrocity, it must be borne in mind that torture could
only be used in cases of doubt where the evidence was defective, so that,
besides the torture the victim was sent to the galleys for suspicion of heresy.
Even this did not satisfy the royal exigency and a further
inexcusable step was taken. We have seen that tardy and THE
GALLEYS
imperfect confessions were visited with scourging and
sometimes with the galleys, while the buen confitente, who confessed
promptly and freely, was allured with promises of special consideration and
mercy. Yet, in 1573, the Suprema issued a carta acordada ordering that
Conversos, even when buen confitentes, should be sent to the galleys, and
this it repeated in 1591, with injunctions for its enforcement.[389] The name
of religion has not often been more brutally prostituted than in these
provisions, and their success may be measured by a report of the inquisitors
of Saragossa to Philip, of an auto celebrated June 6, 1585, in which they
call his special attention to their zeal in furnishing him with twenty-nine
galley-slaves for six years, besides three left over from a previous auto—
and this in Aragon, which forbade galley-service as a punishment for the
most heinous crimes.[390]
The galley-captains naturally were not punctilious in discharging the
men when their terms had expired, giving rise to perpetual friction. The
sentence ordinarily was to a term of prison or exile, of which the first three
years or more were to be passed at the oar, and this was set forth in the
certificates given to the penitents. The tribunals kept watch over them, and
demanded their return to serve out the rest of their sentences, but this was
not an easy task. The vigilance exercised is illustrated by a royal cedula
addressed to the captain of a galley, ordering him to release two men whose

terms had expired, and warning him that in future all such persons were to
be returned to the tribunal that had sentenced them.[391] This was followed,
in 1568, by general instructions to Don John of Austria, as Captain-general
of the Sea, and to all captains of galleys, reciting the complaints of the
Sicilian tribunal that its reclamations of its penitents were not complied
with, and ordering their restoration to their tribunals without waiting for
demands.[392] This was ineffectual and, in 1575, we find the Barcelona
tribunal instructed to prosecute the captains who impede the discharge of
those who had served out inquisitorial sentences.[393] The trouble was
perennial and, in 1645, we have a formula of requisition for the return of
the party specified, under pain of excommunication and of five hundred
ducats, and the tribunal of the port where the galleys lie is requested to see
to its execution. A significant note however adds that this is scantly
courteous to such great men as the generals of the galleys, and that it is
better to ask the tribunal of the port to procure the release by friendly
negotiation.[394]
The cases could not have been infrequent in which men, utterly unfit for
the privations and ill-usage of the galley-slave, were condemned to this
hard service, and no doubt many perished in consequence. Yet exemptions
on this ground were reluctantly admitted, if we may judge from a rebuke
administered, in 1665, by the Suprema to the Barcelona tribunal, in a case
where this was asked; the opinions of the physician and surgeon were
insufficient; other professionals must be called in and examination be made
as to the penitent’s condition when, if it appears that he is unfit for the
service, the sentence can be commuted to eight years of exile as proposed.
[395] It is a marked expression of the humanitarian development of the
eighteenth century that, even in the fierce persecution of its first quarter, in
1721 it was ordered that, before imposing a sentence to the galleys, the
delinquent should be examined by the physician and surgeon and, if
incapacitating weakness appeared, it should be mentioned in the vote of the
consulta de fe that, in consequence of it, the sentence was commuted to
irremissible imprisonment.[396] The succeeding autos show that this bore
fruit in sundry commutations, although the alternative of irremissible prison
was not observed, and less severe penalties were sometimes substituted.[397]
In the sixty-four autos de fe between 1721 and 1727, of
which we possess details, there were ninety-two sentences to THE
GALLEYS
the galleys and seven to service in the presidios. There was a

certain relation between the two. In the seventeenth century legislation on
offences connected with the coinage, the galleys were provided for
commoners and presidio service for gentlemen and, as the century drew to a
close, we find the Inquisition no longer sending gentlemen to serve as
soldiers on the galleys but to Oran, Ceuta, Gibraltar, Badajoz, Peñon and
other royal works and garrisons.[398] In the eighteenth century Inquisition,
the galleys for all classes were gradually supplanted by the presidio, if we
include in the term enforced labor in the royal dock-yards and arsenals as
well as in the African garrisons. Galleys were disappearing from the sea
and, in the Inquisition, they were superseded by the bagne, in its various
forms of hard work. In 1742, the Toledo tribunal condemned Rafael Nuñez
Hernández, for certain errors, to eight years of exile of which the first five
were to be passed serving the king in the unwholesome quicksilver mines of
Almaden, and the last sentences to the galleys that I have met occur in
1745, when Nicholas Serrano was condemned at Toledo for bigamy to eight
years of service in them, and Miguel Gutiérrez and Francisco García, at
Valladolid, for relapse into Judaism, to ten years. After this the galleys may
be said to be obsolete, even for bigamy, as is seen in a sentence of the
Valencia tribunal in 1781.[399]
The presidio continued as a punishment under the Restoration, but cases
were so rare that there was question as to the reception of the convicts in
their places of destination. In 1818, the Seville tribunal sentenced three
persons—two for propositions and one for bigamy—to two years’ service in
Ceuta or Melilla, and it asked the Suprema to get the minister of war to
issue orders to the governors to receive them. The Suprema replied that this
was the business of the tribunal; it must do as on former occasions, and if
necessary could write to the governors. The forçats were duly received and,
it is pleasant to add that, in six months, the Suprema humanely remitted the
punishment in order that they might return and support their families. For
this an order from the secretary of the Council of War was required and
procured.[400]
For women, the equivalent of the galleys was service without pay in
hospitals, houses of correction and similar institutions. Apparently these
female convicts were not always regarded as desirable inmates and though,
in the pre-revolutionary times, no opposition was ventured, under the
Restoration there was sometimes difficulty in securing their admission. In
1819 the Seville tribunal appealed to the Suprema, representing that it had

been unable thus to dispose of Juana de Luna, for the same reasons which it
had experienced in the cases of Ana Barbero and Leonor Macias. The
Inquisition inspired no such terror as of old, for the Suprema could suggest
no means of overcoming the difficulty, and could only instruct the tribunal
to devise some method of executing its sentences.[401]

It is not to the credit of the Roman Inquisition that it followed the
example of the Spanish and included the galleys in its list of punishments.
Carena, indeed, tells us that it was the most usual of all and was the
customary penalty in a wide variety of offences.[402]
RECONCILIATION.
That reconciliation to the Church, which was represented as a loving
mother, eager to welcome back to her bosom her erring children, should be
regarded as a punishment, seems a contradiction in terms, yet so it was, and
the Suprema did not hesitate to speak of those “who had been condemned to
reconciliation.”[403] It would not be easy to invent a more emphatic
illustration of the perversion of the spirit of religion by persecuting
fanaticism.
The apostate or the heretic, who had abandoned the Church after
admission through the waters of baptism, could only be reincorporated by
abjuring his errors and applying for reconciliation. In the case of Conversos,
who secretly adhered to the Mosaic or Mahometan law, there could be no
question as to this, nor was there with such heretics as Protestants. To what
extent other errors might constitute formal heresy requiring reconciliation,
or might infer suspicion of heresy, light or vehement, was a problem for the
calificadores, and sometimes was an intricate one, for the gradations of
theological error are infinite and subtile.
In the tumultuous proceedings of the early period when,
under Edicts of Grace, penitents came forward by the RECONCILIA
TION
thousand, confessing their errors and begging for
reconciliation, the ceremony was naturally simple. Under the Instructions of
1484, the form described by Joan Andrea was to be used: the inquisitors
declared that the penitent had been an apostate heretic, who had followed
the rites and ceremonies of the Jews and had incurred the penalties of the
law but, as he now says that he has been converted and desires to return to

the faith, with a pure heart and faith unfeigned, and is ready to accept and
perform the penances to be imposed, they must absolve him from the
excommunication incurred through the said crime and must reconcile him
to Holy Mother Church, if, as he says, he is converted to the holy faith truly
and without fiction.[404]
No mention is made here of any subsequent ceremonies, although at
least abjuration must probably have followed. When procedure was less
hurried and there had been time for its elaboration, the process became
impressive. The sentence recited that the penitent was admitted to
reconciliation; that as penance he was to appear in an auto de fe, without
girdle or cap, in a penitential habit of yellow cloth, with two red aspas or
bands forming a St. Andrew’s cross, and a candle in his hand when, after his
sentence is read, he should publicly abjure the errors confessed and all other
errors and apostasy, after which “we order him to be absolved and we
absolve him from any excommunication which he has incurred and we
unite and reincorporate him in the bosom and union of the Holy Mother
Catholic Church, and we restore him to participation in the holy sacraments
and communion of the faithful”—to which was appended a recital of the
various punishments to which he was condemned. After the auto de fe was
ended, the abjuration was administered. This was similar to the abjuration
de vehementi already given and in it he consented, in case of relapse, to
submit to the penalties of the canons. On the conclusion of this, he was
formally absolved and the next day his abjuration was read over to him,
with a warning that in case of relapse he would be burnt.[405]
As described in an account of the Madrid auto de fe of 1632, this
ceremony was imposing. The penitents to be reconciled were brought
before the inquisitor-general who was presiding. While they kneeled before
him he read a short catechism, comprising the creed with some additions, to
each question of which they answered “Yes, I believe.” Then the secretary
recited the abjuration, in which they followed him. The inquisitor-general
then pronounced the exorcism and the customary prayers and the royal
chapel chanted the Miserere, during which the chaplains of the Inquisition
struck the penitents with rods on the shoulders. After this the inquisitor-
general recited the customary verses and prayers and the royal chapel sang
a hymn, while the black cloth was removed from the cross, which had been
covered as a sign of mourning, and the inquisitor-general concluded the
solemnities with a hymn.[406]

Superficially, there is nothing formidable in this reception of a
wandering sheep back into the fold, but the serious aspect of reconciliation,
justifying its characterization as a punishment, lay in the penalties which
were virtually inseparable from it, and were customarily included in the
sentence—imprisonment, sanbenito, confiscation and disabilities, with
occasionally scourging and the galleys, some of which we have already
considered while others will be treated hereafter. There was further the fact
that the canons pardoned the heretic but once. If, after reconciliation, he
was guilty of reincidence, there was no mercy for him on earth, although
the Church in its kindness, would not close the portals of heaven on him
and, if truly contrite, would admit him to the sacraments, although it would
not spare him the stake.[407] The crucial question of relapse, however, will
be considered in the next chapter and meanwhile it should be said that the
Spanish Inquisition did not always enforce this cruel precept. In the later
period second reconciliations were by no means infrequent, and, even in the
earlier time, men sometimes shrank from the holocausts which the strict
enforcement of the rule would have caused amid a population terrorized
into suddenly forswearing their ancestral faith. In Majorca, under the Edict
of Grace, there were three hundred and thirty-eight reconciliations, August
18, 1488, followed by ninety-six on March 26, 1490. Soon after this an
Edict of Mercy was published, under which there were reconciled a second
time no less than two hundred and eighty-eight of the previous penitents.
One of these, Antonia, wife of Ferrer Pratz was even reconciled a third
time, June 28, 1509. Scattering cases of second reconciliations can also be
found elsewhere.[408]
There was a rule that the reconciled were not to be
subjected to scourging or the galleys, even though they RECONCILIA
TION
might have deserved them by varying and revoking
confessions, but I cannot find that this was observed for, in both the earlier
and later periods, cases as we have seen were numerous in which
reconciliation was accompanied with these corporal punishments.[409] On
the other hand, although the principle was absolute that reconciliation
carried with it confiscation and perpetual prison, cases sometimes occur in
which these penalties were lightened. In the Toledo auto of November 30,
1651, there were nine reconciliations, in which the accompanying
punishments were mostly trivial—in one case the sanbenito was removed
immediately on return to the Inquisition.[410]

It seems almost a travesty on solemn religious observances that effigies
of the dead should be admitted to reconciliation but, as the grave afforded
no refuge from the Inquisition, this was a logical outcome of the system,
when a defunct heretic had recanted and sought reincorporation with the
Church. As he could not be reconciled in person he had to be reconciled in
effigy, especially as the sentence was necessary to secure confiscation of his
estate. The only occasion of this was the death, during trial, of a prisoner
who had confessed, professed conversion and received sacramental
absolution on his death-bed. His trial would necessarily be continued and
result in reconciliation, and the Inquisition saw no incongruity in parading
his image before the people, and performing with it the solemn farce of
reconciliation. There was a somewhat inexplicable instance in Majorca of
three Judaizers, who had died in prison during their trials, in 1678, after
manifesting the necessary signs of repentance; they were not included
among the two hundred and twelve reconciliations, in the autos de fe of
1679, but, thirteen years afterwards, their effigies were reconciled in the
auto of July 2, 1691 and no theologian seems to have asked himself what
was their spiritual condition during this prolonged interval.[411] This
reconciliation in effigy, was not, as Llorente states, an innovation
introduced under Philip III, but was practised from the beginning, for there
was an instance of it in Beatrix Sener, deceased, thus reconciled May 2,
1499, at Barcelona.[412]
Apparently the age of responsibility was the only minimum limit in
reconciliation. In the Madrid Auto of 1632, Catalina Méndez, a child of 12,
was reconciled with sanbenito and six months’ imprisonment. At Toledo, in
1659, Beatriz Jorje and Ana Pereira, Portuguese Judaizers each ten years
old, were reconciled; the former had her sanbenito removed at once; the
latter was sentenced to confiscation and four months of prison.[413]
Reconciliation brought with it one alleviation, for the reconciled, as
penitents, were entitled to the fuero of the Inquisition. This was derived
from the penitential system of the Middle Ages, which deprived the penitent
of bearing arms during the long series of years for which penance was
imposed, and no one could be expected to assume it unless protected by the
Church against his enemies. In this the Inquisition stood in the place of the
Church, and cast its jurisdiction over its penitents during their term of
penance. In 1501, we find a certain Pan Besante of Teruel, a reconciliado,
to whom Ferdinand had restored his confiscated property, complaining to

the king that he was persecuted and maltreated by his debtors and his
neighbors, and that the inquisitors, to whom he had appealed for protection,
neglected to aid him, whereupon Ferdinand promptly ordered them to come
to his assistance, to enforce, by their officials, the payment of his just claims
and to punish the aggressors.[414] So far was this carried that at Granada, in
1654, the reconciled penitents had an advantage in trade over the faithful,
by claiming exemption from the alcavala, or royal tax on sales. When the
citizens complained of this discrimination, the fiscal of the tribunal
admitted that the question was a difficult one; to subject the penitents to the
royal jurisdiction would give rise to great embarrassments, yet at the same
time the inquisitorial jurisdiction ought to be a punishment and not a
reward.[415] That it was a reward we have seen from the eagerness with
which it was claimed by all who could put forward the slenderest pretext.

THE
PENITENTIA
L PRISON

THE PERPETUAL PRISON.
Imprisonment for life was the penance imposed by the canons on the
heretic who, under the persuasive methods of persecution, sought
reconciliation to the Church. It was so decreed, indeed, by pope and
emperor before the Inquisition was organized, and that institution
relentlessly enforced the laws. That the Spanish Holy Office should accept
it was a matter of course. Its expense, however, had proved a source of
tribulation in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and it was none the
less so in Spain for, large as were the confiscations and pecuniary penances,
they were squandered as fast as they accrued. In Torquemada’s
supplementary Instructions of December, 1484, the receivers are ordered to
provide for the maintenance of the prisons, which shows that the sovereigns
admitted their responsibility,[416] but, in the chronic financial disorder of the
time, no regular provision was made, either for their establishment or
support. It is true that, in 1486, at the earnest request of the inquisitors of
Saragossa, Ferdinand ordered the receiver to construct a perpetual prison, in
accordance with their desires, but it is safe to assume that he prudently
postponed replying to their inquiry as to the maintenance of the captives.
[417] In 1492, when the tribunal sentenced Brianda de Bardaxí to five years’
imprisonment, it was to the tower of Saliana and this, in a few days, was

changed to the convent of Santo Sepolcro in Saragossa.[418] In fact, for want
of prisons, the custom was general of consigning reconciled penitents to
strongholds, hospitals, convents, or even to their own houses—the latter
presumably being such shelter as friends or kindred could afford to those
who had been stripped by confiscation. The Instructions of 1488, indeed,
authorize inquisitors, in view of the multitudes condemned to perpetual
imprisonment and the lack of prisons, to designate to the penitents their
houses, where they must confine themselves under the penalties provided
by the laws. But this, it was added, was only meant to be temporary, and the
sovereigns were supplicated to order that, at each tribunal, the receiver
should provide a large enclosure with little huts and a chapel, where the
prisoners could hear mass and could each work at his trade and earn his
living, and thus relieve the Inquisition from heavy burdens, due care being
taken to keep the sexes apart.[419] The only answer to this prayer seems to
have been the device of relieving the prisons for the benefit of the galleys.
The laxity of quartering penitents on public institutions or in private
houses led to impracticable rules in the effort to counteract its evils. An
instruction issued about this time by the Suprema orders that no one be
admitted to reconciliation without condemning him to confiscation and
perpetual prison, if he has been a heretic, and those thus condemned must
perform their penance most rigidly, not speaking with any one except on the
days when they go to mass and hear sermons; on other days, both in going
out and in eating, they must show themselves true penitents, holding no
intercourse with wives and children.[420] This seems to have received scant
obedience and, in 1506, the Suprema ordered that sanbenitos be placed on
all prisoners, and that they must not leave their houses and then, in 1509, it
prescribed that perpetual prisons must be provided. Apparently this was
partially successful, for it was followed by instructions that all who had
been or should be condemned must be placed in them, where they can ply
their trades, or their kindred can supply them with food, or they may beg
alms for their support. Thus, in 1510, Llerena selected two pairs of houses
for the purpose, which Ferdinand ordered the governor of Leon to have
appraised. Cuenca also seems to have obtained a prison, but an inadequate
one, for in 1511 the Suprema authorized the tribunal to permit all the sick,
and all who had been confined for two years, to betake themselves to their
homes. Where such prisons existed the discipline must have been
exceedingly lax for, in 1512, the Suprema issued a general provision

empowering the tribunals to allow the destitute occupants of the perpetual
prisons to go out by turns to beg in the cities, but they must wear their
sanbenitos and return by nightfall, under penalty of relapse, and this was
repeated in 1513. Then the further effort to provide prisons seems to have
been abandoned for, in 1514, Ximenes issued an order permitting the
reconciled to fulfil their penances in their own homes.[421]
This fluctuating policy and the extraordinary laxity which
it reveals were not due to any humanitarian impulses. It was THE
PENITENTIA
simply a continuous effort to shirk the responsibility of L PRISON
maintaining those whose property had been confiscated, and
who were required by the canons to be incarcerated for life. The Inquisition
obtained the plunder, it inflicted on its victims disabilities, which increased
enormously the difficulty of self-support, it rendered them odious to the
population by making them wear the sanbenito, it was in duty bound to
provide prisons where they could be immured and prevented from infecting
the community, but it neglected this duty and virtually told them that they
might beg or starve. That death by starvation, indeed, was not uncommon is
asserted in the project of reform drawn up, in 1518, by order of Charles V.
Still the tribunals seem to have made some progress in providing
themselves with penitential prisons for, in 1524, the Suprema deemed it
worth while to order that they should be inspected monthly, and the results
be recorded in a book to be kept for that purpose.[422] By no means all had
done so however. Barcelona, which occupied the royal palace, had found
room there, in 1489, for its penitents, and in 1544 we hear of Gerónimo de
Quadras as alcaide, on a salary of fifty ducats, out of which he was to pay
for a person to conduct the prisoners to mass and to bring them back.
Valencia was less advanced, for it could have had no prison in 1540, when
it sentenced three women to keep as a prison such place as should be
designated to them, but in 1546 it secured the services of Gerónimo de
Quadras as alcaide, at a salary of thirty ducats. In 1550, however, he
complained that he had never received his pay and, in 1554, we find the
perpetual prison of Brianda de Garcete commuted to confinement in her
own house, or other designated place, which would indicate that the attempt
to establish a prison had been abandoned.[423] In 1553, Logroño apparently
had none, for it assigned, to Juan Prebost, Bilbao and two leagues around as
a prison, with the sanbenito.[424] This need not surprise us for, if in some
tribunals there was an attempt to provide a perpetual prison, it was

exceptional. In 1537 the Suprema had formally declared that it would be a
novelty to support the penitents at the cost of the fisc; this could not and
ought not to be done; there was no objection to their performing their
penance in their own homes and the tribunals could arrange it accordingly.
A few months later this was repeated; the reconciled could be sent to their
houses to perform their penance, if they had no other means of support.[425]
At length the Instructions of 1561 endeavored to introduce some system
in this scandalous state of things. The sentence of reconciliation condemned
the penitent to prison and sanbenito for a specified term, during which he
was to wear the abito publicly over his other garments; he was to be
confined in the perpetual prison, going to mass and sermon on Sundays and
feast days, and on Saturdays performing certain devotions at a designated
shrine.[426] To enforce this discipline the Instructions stated that, as many
tribunals had no perpetual prison, houses should be bought for the purpose
as, without them there were no means of knowing whether the reconciled
performed their penance. The alcaide should help them in their necessity by
giving them materials to work at their trades and help to support
themselves, and the inquisitors should visit the prison several times a year.
[427] This seems to have been followed by an effort to induce the tribunals to
provide prisons, for, in 1562, Toledo was taken to task for having none. It
not only did not supply the deficiency but demurred to the suggestion that it
should at least furnish a person to see that the penitents performed their
penance, and it was told that for three or four thousand maravedís of extra
pay the portero could attend to this.[428]
In 1570 the Suprema resumed the attempt to bring about
this much needed reform. It told the tribunals that they could THE
rent houses until they should be able to purchase, and they PENITENTIA
L PRISON
must appoint proper persons as alcaides to keep watch over
the penitents.[429] The result of this pressure was gradual. In 1577 the
Cistercian convent of Santa Fe, in Saragossa, made formal complaint to the
pope of the number of penitents quartered upon it, and Cardinal Savelli, the
head of the Roman Inquisition, interposed with the Suprema to relieve it of
this oppression.[430] It was not until 1598 that the Mexican tribunal, nearly
thirty years after its foundation, built a capacious prison adjoining its own
structure.[431] In 1600, for the first time, there is an allusion in the Toledo
record to a “carcel de la peniténcia” and, in 1609, Valencia was busy in
erecting one at a cost of 5110 libras; it had been planned to have three

floors, but was economically reduced to two.[432] Whether all the tribunals
yielded to the pressure and established penitential prisons it would be
impossible to say, but they probably did so, if only in some perfunctory
fashion that justified the appointment of an alcaide. Simultaneously with
this there came a change in the name, and the carcel perpetua was known
as the casa de la peniténcia or de la misericórdia.
It does not follow that the establishment of prisons was attended with
any increased strictness of discipline. The Inquisition persistently refused to
accept the burden of supporting its prisoners and left them to shift for
themselves. Where prisons existed there were few penitents in them,
although condemnations to imprisonment were frequent and, in 1641, Philip
IV conceived the idea of liberating them all. The Suprema sent his decree to
the tribunals with orders to report whether they had any prisoners and what
were their cases, to which Valencia replied that it had one, imprisoned for
persistent sorcery, whereupon the Suprema ordered the sentence to be
commuted and the prisoner to be discharged.[433]
The royal project fell through. All prisons were not as empty as that of
Valencia and a discussion occurring, in 1654, at Granada, to which allusion
has already been made, illustrates the character of the imprisonment
rendered necessary by the refusal to support the prisoners. They gained their
living chiefly by hawking goods around the city; this at length aroused the
shopkeepers, and the corregidor represented to the tribunal that scandals
were occasioned by their entering houses and committing indecencies; there
was loss to the king for, as penitents, they were not subject to the alcavala
and other imposts; thus favored they undersold the shopkeepers, who had
lost half of their trade, while the penitents grew rich, for they came almost
naked from the secret prison and, in a short time, they were well clothed
and enriched. The tribunal admitted the force of this and, on December 24,
1654, issued an order that, for two weeks, they might cry their wares
through the streets, but not enter houses, and subsequently be restricted to
selling in shops. At this the prisoners complained bitterly of the deprivation
of a privilege of long standing in all places where there was a tribunal, for
without it they could not earn a living or support their wives and families.
Thereupon the fiscal, Doctor Joseph Francisco Cresco de Escobar, seeing
that both sides would appeal to the Suprema, printed for its enlightenment a
memorial which reveals to us the character of penitential imprisonment. He
states that, in accordance with the Instructions of 1488, the tribunals had

provided penitential prisons, the one at Granada being of ample capacity for
the observance of the Instructions of 1561. He quotes the canons and
conciliar decrees to show that recanting heretics are to be immured for life,
whence he argues that the prison should be afflictive and penal. Now,
however, it is only nominal; the so-called prisoners go out at all hours of the
day, without restriction, without a companion, without labor save what they
voluntarily undertake, all of which is liberty and not captivity. They wander
at will through the city and suburbs, they amuse themselves at the houses of
their friends, they spend, if they choose, only part of the night in the prison,
which serves them as a comfortable lodging-house, free of rent. The
Instructions require that the alcaide shall see that they perform their
penance, but this has become impossible, and there are no means of
restricting their intercourse with the faithful. As for their plea that they
leave the secret prison broken in health and stripped of their property, that
they have no chance to learn trades and must support their families by
trading, the answer is that only through the mercy of the Holy Office do
they escape burning, and they should be thankful that their lives are spared;
their poverty is a trifling penalty for their crimes, and their children only
share the punishment of paternal heresy.[434]
With all this laxity, there was a pretence of maintaining
the old rigor, which regarded prison-breaking as relapse, but THE
PENITENTIA
the real offence lay in the fugitive throwing off the L PRISON
sanbenito. There seems to have been little desire to
recapture those who absented themselves, for the formula of the mandate to
search for and arrest fugitives only concerns itself with those who escape
from the secret prison and who thus are still on trial,[435] but when from any
cause penitents were returned to the tribunal, their treatment is exemplified
in the case of Juan González, who escaped from the casa de la peniténcia of
Valladolid, July 3, 1645. His story was that, having gone out to collect some
money due to him, he gambled it away, got drunk, went to sleep under the
walls of the Carmelite convent in the suburbs and, on awaking next
morning and fearing punishment, he wandered away, throwing off the
sanbenito and seeking work. Thus he reached Irun and designed passing
into France, but was recognized by a priest who had seen him in Valladolid;
he was handed over to the commissioner and was passed from familiar to
familiar till he was lodged in the secret prison of Valladolid. The fiscal
claimed that his flight and throwing off the sanbenito proved him to be an

impenitent and pertinacious relapsed into Judaism who must be relaxed; but
his sentence was only two hundred lashes and irremissible prison.[436]
Sentences to imprisonment continued as usual, but growing indifference
as to providing for their execution is indicated by a correspondence between
Barcelona and the Suprema in 1718. At that time the tribunal had but four
cases under trial; it still occupied the ancient royal palace but, after it had
condemned for Judaism María Meneses to irremissible, and her daughter
Catalina de Solis, to perpetual prison, it did not know what to do with them
and applied for instructions. There was, it said, no penitential prison nor
could it find that there ever had been one, neither was there an alcaide; it
possessed no house that could be used for the purpose, and no official could
be spared from his other duties. The Suprema replied by inquiring whether
there was a prison for familiars in which a room could be used for the
women, or whether some little house near the palace could be had and some
official or familiar could serve as alcaide. The tribunal rejoined negativing
the proposed use of the prison for familiars; it would see whether a house
could be had, but there was no money for the purpose; as for the officials,
they were all fully occupied and no one would take the position without
salary. This the Suprema met with a peremptory order to rent a little house
and appoint an alcaide at the ordinary wages. Under this pressure some kind
of provision must have been made for, in an auto of January 31, 1723, the
tribunal condemned four Judaizers to irremissible prison.[437]
During the recrudescence of persecution at this period, the number of
condemnations to imprisonment was large; in the Granada auto of
December 21, 1720, there were twenty-seven and, in sixty-four autos
between 1721 and 1727, there were seven hundred and forty.[438] How these
numerous prisoners were accommodated it would be difficult to guess, for
the neglect of the penitential prisons was progressive and, in the census of
all the tribunals, about 1750, but three reported to have alcaides—Córdova,
Granada and Murcia.[439] It does not follow that others had not prisons, but
only that they had no prisoners and cared to have none. For instance, in
1794, when the Suprema inquired of Valencia whether its prison would suit
for the priest Juan Fernández Sotelo, whose health required a change from
the convent where he was recluded, the tribunal craftily replied that its
prison was constructed with cells and dungeons and that, in the eyes of the
people, confinement in it produced infamy, so that quarters for Sotelo had
better be found in some convent in the suburbs. Apparently it forgot all this

when, in 1802, it complained that the salaries of its secretaries had not been
raised in 1795, while that of the alcaide of the penitential prison had been
increased from a hundred and twenty to twenty-two hundred reales,
although he had nothing to do, and enjoyed the use of a house in the prison
as good as those of the inquisitors.[440]
In fact, by this time penitential imprisonment was
virtually obsolete. After the subsidence of the active DURATION
OF
persecution of Judaism, the Toledo tribunal which, in 1738, IMPRISONME
pronounced twelve sentences of prison, did not utter another NT
until 1756. Then a long interval occurs, of thirty-eight years,
before the next one, which was for heretical propositions.[441] It would not,
perhaps, be safe to say that, in the concluding years of the Inquisition, this
form of punishment was wholly unknown, but no cases of it have come
under my observation.

There was the same reduction in the duration of imprisonment as in its
severity, owing presumably to the same economical motive. As we have
seen, the medieval Church recognized only lifelong imprisonment as the
fitting penalty for the heretic who saved his forfeited life by recantation
and, in recognition of this, the penitential prison in Spain was officially
known as the perpetual prison, the sentences being always for perpetual
imprisonment. At a very early period, however, it was clearly recognized
that the literal enforcement of this was a physical impossibility. Bernaldez
tells us that in Seville, up to 1488, there had been five thousand reconciled
and condemned to perpetual imprisonment, but they were released after
four or five years with sanbenitos and these were subsequently removed to
prevent the spread of infamy throughout the land.[442] At Barcelona the
tribunal had scarce been established, when we find it drawing a distinction
in its sentences to perpetual imprisonment, some being cum misericordia
and others absque misericordia—thus anticipating the so-called
“irremissible” perpetual prison—and from the sentences it would appear
that “without mercy” was exceptional.[443]
This inevitable laxity provoked opposition on the part of the more rigid
authorities and, in 1509, while Ximenes was in Oran, there was a discussion
on the subject in the Suprema, when we are told that his temporary
representative, Rojas Archbishop of Granada, stood alone against the other

members.[444] What was the nature of the decision is not recorded, but it
probably favored the laxer view, for Ximenes and the Suprema, in 1516,
deemed it necessary to order that all sentences to prison and sanbenito must
be perpetual, in accordance with the canon law; if, in any case, the
inquisitors thought there should be a remission it must be left to the
discretion of the inquisitor-general.[445]
The tendency to shorten the term was irresistible; the conservatives had
to yield and, by the middle of the sixteenth century, Simancas tells us that
perpetual prison was customarily defined to be three years, if the penitent
was repentant, while those condemned to irremissible prison were usually
released after eight years.[446] So purely technical did the term “perpetual
prison” become that inquisitors saw nothing incongruous in such sentences
as “perpetual prison for one year” or “for six months,” which are constantly
met with, as well as “perpetual prison” followed by terms of exile. The real
infliction was therefore much less severe than it appears on the records, and
when periods longer than eight years were intended, they were specified, as
when Salvador Razo, for Molinism, was sentenced, in the Granada auto of
July 4, 1745, to ten years, of which the first five were to be spent in the
galleys—a hardship remitted on account of his infirmities.[447]
The terms of imprisonment were frequently shortened,
moreover, sometimes, from humane motives, but more often DURATION
OF
from financial considerations, for the dispensing power in IMPRISONME
this, as in the other penalties, was a source of profit. Thus NT
Mayor García, a Morisca of Daimiel, condemned in the
Toledo auto of September 21, 1550, to perpetual prison for six months, on
January 13, 1551, petitioned the tribunal for release “as was customary with
others,” saying that her husband would pay what the inquisitors should
demand. The matter was promptly arranged with Inquisitor Alonso Pérez
for four ducats, to help to build the staging for an auto de fe—a somewhat
heavy payment for two months’ relief.[448] This dispensing power was the
subject of a prolonged struggle between the tribunals and the Suprema. In
the early period, at Barcelona, the former endeavored to secure it by the
device of discretional sentences, which inquisitors could curtail or extend at
will, and this was recognized in a letter of the Suprema, October 4, 1499,
authorizing them, under such sentences, to dispense with the imprisonment
but not with the sanbenito.[449] In 1513, however, Ximenes forbade this
without his consent and the repetition of the order in 1514 and 1516 shows

that it was difficult of enforcement.[450] In spite of this when the Valencia
tribunal, February 25, 1540, condemned five Moriscos to “habit and prison
for as long a time as we shall determine,” the Suprema insisted that, when
discretion was specified, it must alone be that of the inquisitor-general, a
mandate that had to be repeated more than once, even as late as 1592.[451]
The question of this, as of all other commutations, was inevitably settled,
as we have seen, in favor of the inquisitor-general. In many cases there was
no concealment that it was purely an affair of bargain and sale, but it is
pleasant to record that often it was prompted by humanity. Petitions for
abridgement of the penance were numerous and were usually sent in at the
time of the greater feasts, which are alleged as a reason for mercy, in
addition to the misery of the penitent. As an example of these petitions may
be mentioned the case of Violante Rodríguez who, with her husband Duarte
Valentin, was arrested for Judaism March 15, 1664. After a three years’
trial, she was sentenced at Granada, February 24, 1667, to two years’
imprisonment, while her husband was similarly sentenced at Cuenca. About
August 10th she petitioned for commutation, alleging that she had eight
little children, deprived of both parents. The Suprema promptly sent to
Granada for the details of the case, but the tribunal delayed until October
8th, when it accompanied its report with the suggestion that she should be
released with spiritual penances after the expiration of the first year, as she
had manifested true repentance. Growing impatient, on December 24th, she
again petitioned the Suprema, alluding to her seven children, thus showing
that one had meanwhile died. That she was duly discharged in February
there can be no doubt, and there is no trace in the correspondence of any
pecuniary consideration. Some of the petitions for release, in truth, were
well calculated to inspire compassion, such as that of Simon Méndez Soto,
in 1666, wherein he describes himself as 84 years old, blind, deaf, crippled
on both sides with many infirmities and penniless, and he supplicates
release that he may seek for cure.[452]
There would appear to have been no minimum age for imprisonment
short of irresponsibility. The Toledo tribunal condemned for Judaism García
son of Pedro the potter of Aguda, a boy eleven years of age, to perpetual
prison. In the Cuenca auto of June 29, 1654, for the same offence,
Escolástica Gómez, aged 12 and Isavel Díaz Jorje, aged 14 had the same
penalty and, in the Toledo auto of October 30, 1701, José de Leon, a boy of
16 was sentenced to irremissible prison.[453]

THE SANBENITO.
The sanbenito, or penitential garment, was the invariable
accompaniment of reconciliation and prison, constituting together the
“carcel y abito” of the sentences, although it was not exclusively reserved
for such cases. It was not invented by the Spanish Inquisition, even though
we can scarce agree with an enthusiastic writer, who traces its origin to the
Fall, when God made the delinquents put on penitential habits of skins,
corresponding with the sacos benditos now used in the tribunals.[454]
The penitential habit of sackcloth sprinkled with ashes,
customary in the early Church, has passed into a proverb. THE
SANBENITO
That the penitents of the Inquisition should be required to
wear such a garment was inevitable and, from the foundation of the
institution, in the thirteenth century, they were distinguished from other
penitents by two yellow crosses, one on the breast and the other on the
back. From Eymerich we learn that in Aragon this garment was like the
scapular worn by the religious Orders.[455] This saco bendito became
known as the sanbenito or, more commonly, abito and was necessarily
inherited by the new Inquisition. In 1486, at the Toledo auto of December
11th, two hundred penitents, reconciled under the Edict of Grace, were
required to wear in public such a garment for a year, under penalty of
relapse.[456] For those reconciled after trial, the infliction was more severe.
In 1490, Torquemada ordered that they should wear during life a
sanbenitillo of black or gray cloth, eighteen inches long and nine inches
wide, like a small tabard, hanging on breast and back, with a red cross
before and behind, occupying nearly the entire field. This was hung over the
outer garment, and was a conspicuous indication to all beholders of the
shame of the wearer, rendering it a punishment regarded as exceedingly
severe.[457] In 1514, Ximenes changed the cross to an aspa de San Andrés, a
St. Andrew’s or oblique cross, of which the bars traversed diagonally the
breast and back.[458] Finally the Instructions of 1561 describe the abito
penitencial as made of yellow linen or cloth, with two red aspas, although
in some parts of Aragon there are particular customs as to colors which
must be observed—referring probably to the use of green cloth in place of
yellow, which seems to have been the case in Valencia and Sicily.[459] In
some tribunals there was also in use, for those who abjured de vehementi, a
sanbenito de media aspa, or half cross, consisting of a single diagonal band.

Those who were to be relaxed appeared in the auto de fe in a black
sanbenito, on which were painted flames and sometimes demons thrusting
the heretic into hell.[460] Llorente tells us that abjuration de levi was
performed in a zamarra, or yellow sanbenito without aspas, but I have met
with no allusion to its use.[461] The distinction between the sanbenito de dos
aspas and the one de media aspa was maintained, and the former was
understood to indicate that the wearer had been guilty of formal heresy, that
he and his children were subject to the consequent disabilities, and that he
was liable to the stake in case of relapse. The latter was worn only during
the auto de fe, after which it was laid aside.[462]
Although, in the early period, the sanbenito was imposed perpetually, the
expression is to be taken in the same sense as imprisonment. As a rule, the
two were coterminous and the sentences are almost invariably “habit and
prison for two years,” or perpetual or irremissible as the case may be.
Where, indeed, the heresy was trivial or technical rather than real, or the
conversion seemed genuine and spontaneous, the sanbenito was merely a
symbol, to be worn only during the auto, or even for a briefer period,
although it none the less left its ineffaceable stigma. There were gradations
suited to every case, as is well illustrated in the Granada auto of May 27,
1593, where, in three cases, it was removed after reading the sentence, in
two, after returning to the Inquisition, in two, after twenty-four hours (one
of these being the Licentiate Juan Fernández, who had Judaized for thirty-
six years), in one case it was imposed for two years and in another for three,
and Leonor Fernández had two years of sanbenito and four of prison. It was
even put on the effigy of Doña Inez de Tórres, from which it was removed
after reading the sentence, because she had confessed and died as a
Catholic, with ample signs of contrition.[463] Thus the tribunal could vary
the penalty at its discretion, and was not bound to the rule of coterminous
abito y carcel. In the Toledo auto of March 15, 1722, two girls of 14,
Manuela Díaz and María de Mendoza, were sentenced to six months of
prison and two months of sanbenito, while in that of February 24, 1723,
Manuel Ximenes had perpetual prison and one year of sanbenito.[464]
From the fact that, in the sentences, the penitents are told that they are
not to go out of their prisons or their houses without the sanbenito, it is
inferable that it was not worn within doors. Discarding it, as we have seen,
was a grave offence, punishable as non-fulfilment of penance and, in the
Edicts of Faith, the denunciation of this, as of other infractions, was

required. There was one occasion, however, in which this was done on a
large scale with impunity, for in the Palermo rising of 1516 against the
Inquisition, there was a universal throwing off of sanbenitos. When order
was restored and the tribunal was re-established, there was a fruitless effort
made to reimpose them. In 1522 the Suprema wrote to Inquisitors Calvete
and Cervera calling attention to this as a great disservice to God and a
heavy charge on the souls of the penitents, who must be compelled to
resume them, and all secular and ecclesiastical authorities were commanded
to assist. Then again, in 1525, Inquisitor-general Manrique insisted on the
resumption of the sanbenitos, but at the same time he cautioned the
inquisitors not to cause scandal or trouble, and we may assume that the
attempt was practically abandoned.[465]

Cruel as was the imposition of the sanbenito, it was a
punishment inherited from the elder Inquisition, but Spanish SANBENITOS
IN
ingenuity invented a still more cruel use of it to stimulate the CHURCHES
detestation of heresy. This was the preservation of the
sanbenitos, with suitable inscriptions, conspicuously displayed in the
churches, thus perpetuating to future generations the memory of the crime
and punishment of the delinquent. The origin of this may perhaps be
traceable to the ceremonies observed in the early period, when penitents
were relieved of the abito. As described, in 1490, at Barcelona, they were
assembled in the Inquisition and preached to by the inquisitor. A fortnight
later they gathered in the parish church of Santa María del Pino and heard
mass; then they marched in procession to the chapel of Our Lady of
Monserrat, again heard mass, offered twelve dineros apiece to the Virgin,
and passed the night, after which their sanbenitos were taken off and hung
in a prominent place near the door.[466] Of course, in the case of those who
were burnt, the sanbenito was hung up at once, and this remained the rule,
as we learn from the Instructions of 1561—the sanbenito of the reconciled
was hung when it was removed, whether during the auto or after years of
prison; that of the relaxed, immediately after the auto.[467]
The custom must have been of gradual growth. There is no allusion to it
in the Instrucciones antiquas, nor have I found any indication as to the time
when it became imperative except that, in 1512, there is a decision of the
Suprema expressing the will of the king and the cardinal that the sanbenitos
of the relaxed and reconciled of the Campo de Calatrava shall be hung in

the churches, except those of the reconciled in the Time of Grace, and that,
if any of the latter have been hung, they are to be removed.[468] This
indicates a custom favored by the authorities, spreading, but as yet subject
to question. It had already passed to Sicily, where one of the incidents of the
rising of 1516 was the tearing down of the sanbenitos in the churches, and
so great was the popular detestation of it that, at the end of the century, it
had not been possible to restore the practice.[469]
It mattered little to the descendants that the sanbenitos of the victims in
the early years had escaped this publicity. The perversity which inspired it
developed into such malignity that, in 1532, the Suprema ordered the
tribunals to make from their records lists of all burnt or reconciled, even
under Edicts of Grace, and to suspend in the churches whatever sanbenitos
were found to be lacking. The inexcusable cruelty of including the
voluntary reconciliados under Edicts of Grace caused this portion of the
order to be revoked in 1538, but, in 1539, this was declared inapplicable to
those which had already been hung—if they had been removed, they must
be replaced. The question was revived, in 1552, and opinions were divided,
but the decision to retain them prevailed. Meanwhile, in 1548, the Suprema
stimulated the tribunals to fill all vacancies, whether arising from omissions
or the surreptitious removal of old ones, and it ordered the hanging of new
ones as soon as the autos were held, in order to anticipate the complaints
and importunities of the sufferers and their kindred. Then, as though the
tribunals were slack in their duty, in 1555 the order of 1532 was revived and
repeated.[470] The wilful viciousness of this is indicated by the Instructions
of 1561, which point out that, as those reconciled in Time of Grace are
exempt from wearing the sanbenito, so their sanbenitos ought not to be
suspended in the churches.[471]
The object was the cruel one of perpetuating the infamy
of the victim and rendering it as galling as possible to his SANBENITOS
IN
kindred and descendants. As the sanbenitos wore out or CHURCHES
became illegible with time, they were replaced, and finally
superseded by yellow linen cloths, bearing full details of the name, lineage,
crime and punishment of the culprit.[472] Originally they were hung in the
cathedral of the city of the Inquisition, but this did not bring the disgrace
sufficiently close to the descendants and, in some places at least, they were
ordered to be transferred to the parish churches of the delinquents, whose
infamy was thus kept alive in the memory of their neighbors. A single

instance will illustrate the spirit actuating this. In 1519 the Suprema ordered
this transfer made by the tribunal of Cuenca, but the command was slackly
obeyed and was repeated in 1529. Then the descendants of Lope de Leon
and Alvar Hernández de Leon, residents of Belmonte, petitioned the
Suprema, saying that the wives of Lope and Alvar had been reconciled; they
were natives of Quintanar, where they had committed their heresy, and the
descendants now begged that the sanbenitos be hung in the church of
Quintanar and not of Belmonte. To this the Suprema replied, April 15, 1529,
by instructing the tribunal to hang the sanbenitos in the residence of the
descendants, in a place so public that the reconciliation of the women
should be notorious to all. It is true that the descendants secured delay until
the pressing orders came of 1548, when, on November 9th the sanbenitos of
the women were hung in the church of Belmonte.[473]
This policy of distribution cannot have been universal for, when the
Toledo cathedral desired to be relieved of the great accumulation of
sanbenitos, the Suprema forbade it, adding that if it was desired to have
them in the parish churches it must be done with new ones, leaving the
originals in the cathedral. At length, in 1538, the inquisitors Yáñez and
Loaysa distributed them among the parish churches, when Sebastian de
Orozco tells us that it caused infinite misery to the descendants, leading
them all or nearly all to change their family names, so that in Toledo the
names actually borne by the Conversos disappeared.[474]
Change of name was not the only device resorted to by the descendants,
for they were constantly at work removing surreptitiously the evidence of
their infamy. As early as 1518, the Saragossa tribunal was ordered to
prosecute with rigor those who had abstracted them from the Dominican
church.[475] Their zeal was stimulated by the fact that the inquisitors, in
making up the records, included all who had been reconciled under Edicts
of Grace, thus affording legitimate ground of complaint, as shown by a
long-continued struggle at Frejenal. In 1556, Doctor Ramírez, Inquisitor of
Llerena, protested to the Suprema against the efforts of the people of
Frejenal for the removal of the names of those reconciled in Time of Grace;
it would leave but few for, in 1491, there had been three hundred and fifty-
seven reconciliations there, of which three hundred and fifty-four had been
under the Edict. To render ancestral infamy more accessible to the public,
besides the sanbenitos, the names and details were inscribed on a tablet of
parchment. This became torn and nearly illegible and, on August 23, 1563,

it was solemnly replaced by another, written in large letters, with printer’s
ink, and varnished to insure its preservation. The secret warfare waged
against this perpetuation of infamy is described, in 1572, in a deposition of
the familiar Rodrigo Carvajo. The people of the town, he said, were mostly
descendants of Conversos, resorting to perjury and every other means to
conceal their origin. The sacristans were generally Conversos, who
connived at the methods employed to destroy the evidence, and the
sanbenitos were stolen; there used to be five hundred and ninety-nine, and
now there were only ten or a dozen, worn and torn and so placed that they
could not be read, while the tablet with the names was gradually being
defaced and rendered illegible. Thus it continued until 1576, when
Inquisitor Montoyo brought to Frejenal a new set of sanbenitos prepared
from the records, which were duly suspended, and a tablet containing
names and details was placed where all could read it. This list shows the
obstinate persistence with which the names of the spontaneously reconciled
were retained. It contained a hundred and sixty-two relaxed and four
hundred and nine reconciled, all, with very few exceptions, in the years
from 1491 to 1495. There were none between 1499 and 1511, and none
later than 1511.[476] Struggles similar to this were doubtless on foot in
numerous other places.
The churches themselves do not seem to have looked
with favor on this desecration of their sacred precincts. At SANBENITOS
IN
Cuenca, there was apparently an attempt to hide the CHURCHES
sanbenitos of which the tribunal complained in 1571, when
the Suprema ordered it to see that nothing was put before them, even on
feast-days.[477] The parish church of San Salvador, at Cifuentes, went
further and, in 1561, appealed to Pius IV, explaining to him the Spanish
custom, and representing that not only was the attractiveness of the church
marred by the prominence assigned to the sanbenitos, but that they led to
many scandals, all of which would be prevented if they were removed to
some less prominent place or laid away altogether, but that licence from the
Holy See was requisite for this. The pope gave the required licence, subject
to the assent of the Inquisition to the removal, which of course rendered it
inoperative.[478] The cathedral of Granada was more fortunate for when, in
1610, Inquisitor-general Sandoval consecrated as archbishop Pedro
González de Mendoza, the latter asked him, as a special favor to his bride,
that she should be relieved of the sanbenitos. Sandoval assented and the

permission came soon after Mendoza had reached Granada. It was
celebrated with great rejoicings and ringing of bells; the sanbenitos of the
Moriscos were transferred to the church of San Salvador, in the Albaycin,
while those of the Judaizers were hung in the church of Santiago, which
was the parish church of the Inquisition.[479] Even when there was not this
open antagonism, there was apt to be neglect which was practically more
damaging. In 1642, the Valencia tribunal learned that some of those in the
cathedral had fallen and were allowed to lie. It made an investigation and,
from the report, it would seem as though every available spot was thus
decorated and that all required attention for their preservation. The
sacristans promised to do what was necessary, but apparently they had been
quite willing to see them disappear.[480]
Conscious of this ecclesiastical indifference and of the constant effort of
those interested to make way with the visible records of their infamy, the
Suprema was incessantly active to counteract the results. The Instructions
of 1561 insist imperatively on the duty of hanging the new sanbenitos and
renewing the old, so that the memory of the infamy of heretics shall be
preserved forever, and inquisitors on their visitations are commanded to see
that the parish churches are kept with unbroken lines of the mantetas y
insinias of their culprit parishioners.[481] Philip II was no less urgent. In his
instructions of 1595 to Manrique de Lara, he calls special attention to the
subject; there are sanbenitos now to be hung and others which have never
been hung, apparently through favoritism, for which the inquisitors deserve
rigorous punishment, for this is the severest penalty which the Holy Office
can inflict on heretics and their descendants, and Manrique is to see that all
deficiencies are made good.[482]
In fact, the most pressing business of the inquisitor in visiting his district
was to attend to this. In 1569 the Suprema ordered every one, before
starting, to have full lists made out of the relaxed and reconciled of the
region to be traversed and, in each place, these lists were to be compared
with the existing sanbenitos and all that had disappeared were to be
replaced. In 1600 and 1607 these instructions were repeated with still
greater urgency, as a matter not to be neglected for a single day, in view of
the evils that would follow.[483] That nothing was to be allowed to interfere
with this pious duty is seen when Valencia had no money wherewith to
defray the expense of renewals and was told to borrow it from the
Depositario de los pretendientes—the sacred deposits of those seeking to

prove their limpieza, which were thus used to preserve the muniments that
might destroy their hopes.[484]
How, in fact, the sanbenitos were employed for this purpose is indicated
in a perquisition conducted at Tortosa, in 1577, by the inquisitor, Juan de
Zúñiga. The sanbenitos were carefully examined and lists were made out,
classified firstly into those of which the trials could be identified and those
of which no trace could be found in the records, and secondly into the
penalties inflicted. Then two of the oldest residents—a notary and a priest—
were summoned; the lists were gone over with them and their evidence was
taken as to the descendants of the culprits, especially whether any had
changed their names so as to elude disabilities. Thus a close watch was kept
on them and every care was taken that the infamy of their ancestors should
be lasting.[485]

As the seventeenth century wore on, it would seem that
the zeal of the tribunals in the matter of sanbenitos was SANBENITOS
IN
flagging. A general carta acordada of February 27, 1657, CHURCHES
assumes this, in calling their attention to the Instructions of
1561 and to subsequent orders of similar import. As many autos de fe had
recently been held, and as it was understood that, in some places, the
sanbenitos had not been hung in the churches, the tribunals were
commanded forthwith to make out lists of the relaxed and the reconciled,
and to have corresponding sanbenitos suspended in the churches, as well as
to renew the old ones which were worn out. In view of the importance of
this to the service of God, a full report in detail was imperatively required to
be furnished within four months. This may have excited the tribunals to
spasmodic activity but, if so, its influence was but temporary for, in 1691,
we find the Suprema ordering reports as to the length of time that had
elapsed since sanbenitos had ceased to be hung in the churches; lists of
deficiencies were called for; the old sanbenitos were to be examined and
statements were to be rendered as to what were lacking and what had
become illegible, so that the Suprema might take requisite action.[486]
This looks as if the custom had been falling into desuetude, but it was by
no means abandoned and, as late as August 26, 1753, when a deceased
delinquent named Horstmann was burnt in effigy at Valencia, two
sanbenitos were ordered to be suspended, one in the cathedral and one in

the parish church of San Lorenzo.[487] Still the same tribunal furnishes, in
1783, a refreshing evidence of the decline of intolerant zeal in the gradual
diffusion of enlightenment. The cathedral had been undergoing restoration,
during which the sanbenitos had been carefully stored in a room of the
Inquisition. On the completion of the work, the tribunal suggested to
Inquisitor-general Beltran that it would not redound to the service of God or
of the public to hang them up again, to which Beltran assented; if the
chapter did not ask for them, the tribunal was not to raise the question, or to
do any thing in the matter and, from an endorsement on the letter, it is to be
inferred that the sanbenitos were allowed to repose undisturbed.[488]
It is not to be supposed that, when the Córtes of Cadiz, February 22,
1813, abolished the Inquisition, it was satisfied to permit the continued
existence of the sanbenitos which perpetuated so many dreadful memories.
A decree of the same day recited that Article 305 of the Constitution
provided that no punishment should extend beyond the criminal to his
family; that the means by which, in public places, the memory of penalties
inflicted by the Inquisition was preserved, brought infamy on families, and
even exposed to evil repute persons of the same name. Therefore all
portraits, pictures, or inscriptions, recording the punishments imposed by
the Inquisition, existing in churches, cloisters, convents and other places,
were to be removed or blotted out within three days after receipt of the
decree.[489]
The condition of Spain was not such as to insure any wide obedience of
this decree, although it is scarce likely that the French armies had left many
sanbenitos hanging in towns occupied by them during the war. What
occurred elsewhere may probably be guessed by the example of Majorca,
when the Constitution of Cadiz was enthusiastically received and the
sanbenitos were removed from the church of San Domingo, but they were
providently stored away and were again hung up after the Restoration in
1814. In the Revolution of 1820, however, they were torn down and burnt
and the Inquisition was levelled to the ground.[490]
The custom of suspending in the churches the habitelli or sanbenitos of
the reconciled and relaxed seems to have been borrowed by Italy from
Spain, at least in some places. It is to the credit of the Roman Inquisition
that it disapproved this barbarous practice, as appears from a decree of 1627
ordering them to be removed from the cathedral of Faenza and to be
secretly burnt.[491]

DISABILITIES.
Disabilities have already been considered in their relation to the finances
of the Inquisition, arising from the sale of dispensations, but they formed
too important a portion of the penal system not to require further treatment
in this connection. They differed however from other punishments in that,
although specified in the sentences, they were the inseparable consequences
of condemnation for heresy and thus, in some sense, self-operative, for the
severity of the laws for the suppression of misbelief was not content with
confiscating the property of those whose lives were spared. The reconciled
heretic was not only turned adrift penniless, but was subjected to
restrictions incapacitating him from earning a livelihood. As this refinement
of cruelty could not be applied to those who were burnt, it was visited on
their descendants.
This latter provision was derived from the imperial
legislation against treason, which disabled children of DISABILITIES
traitors from holding office and succeeding to collateral
estates.[492] Frederic II, in his Ravenna decree of 1232, made this applicable
to the children and grandchildren of heretics, which was eagerly
incorporated into the legislation of Alexander IV and Honorius IV, although
Boniface VIII mitigated it slightly by exempting grandchildren in the
female line.[493] As part of the canon law this of course governed the
Spanish Inquisition and, if there were those who questioned the justice of
punishing orthodox children for their parents’ heresy, they were
triumphantly silenced by Alfonso de Castro, who pointed to Original Sin as
an irrefragable proof that this was in accordance with the law of God.[494]
The application of these restrictions to reconciled penitents apparently
originated with the Council of Béziers, in 1246, which ordered that
penitents should not hold public office, or serve as physicians or notaries, or
wear silk garments or gold and silver ornaments or other vanities—in short,
that their apparel should befit those whose lives constructively were to be
passed in repentance.[495] These provisions were not carried into the canon
law but apparently became traditional in the Holy Office.
In the Instructions of 1484 there is nothing said as to the disabilities of
descendants, but inquisitors were instructed to order penitents, after
completing their penance, never to hold public office or benefices or to
serve as procurators, tax-collectors, farmers of the revenue, grocers,

apothecaries, physicians, surgeons, bleeders or brokers, thus prohibiting the
professions which they had specially made their own. Moreover, they were
not to wear gold or silver, coral, pearls or other precious stones or garments
of silk or camlet or other finery or to ride on horse-back or bear arms, and
all this during life, under penalty of relapse.[496]
There was evidently doubt as to the application of these restrictions to
the descendants of those relaxed, but that there was an effort made in that
direction is shown by their procuring, in 1486, from Innocent VIII, a brief
enabling them to farm the revenues of churches.[497] In the assembly of
inquisitors, in 1488, the matter excited considerable debate, resulting in
instructions that each tribunal in its own district should enforce, under
heavy penalties, the disability of children and grandchildren to hold any
office or dignity that could be considered public, and the list of prohibited
callings was enlarged by including those of merchants, notaries, scriveners,
advocates, farmers of revenues and some others. The sumptuary restrictions
were not extended to them, for they were not penitents, but they were
forbidden to wear the insignia of any dignity, secular or ecclesiastic.[498]
The omission was made good in a decree issued by Torquemada, April 22,
1494, but it was so slackly obeyed that when, in 1502, the sovereigns
ordered its enforcement, they allowed a certain time for those affected to
become acquainted with its provisions.[499] Ferdinand himself had had
occasion to recognize the hardship of the rule for, in 1500, the mother of
Pero Rúiz, a member of his royal guard, was condemned and consequently
he was incapacitated from riding and bearing arms. Unwilling to lose him,
Ferdinand wrote to Torquemada for letters of dispensation to be brought
back by the messenger.[500]
We have seen how, in the struggle over the profits of dispensation, the
sovereigns abandoned to the Inquisition the cosas arbitrarias, or sumptuary
restrictions, and assumed to themselves, by the pragmáticas of 1501, control
over the disability to hold office and to follow certain professions and
trades, which limited so greatly the ability of the reconciled and of the
children and grandchildren of the condemned to support themselves.[501] A
humane exception was made however, in 1502, under which children
reconciled below the age of 14 were exempted from the operation of the
pragmáticas.[502] As these were municipal laws they were subject to the
secular officials, who were ordered to enforce them under pain of
confiscation and loss of office for negligence.

It was easier to publish edicts than to get them executed.
The civil magistrates seem to have paid little attention to the DISABILITIES
pragmáticas, while the Inquisition did what it could within
its allotted sphere. The Suprema issued orders to the tribunals to punish
with all rigor those who disregarded the sumptuary restrictions, who were
said to be numerous, in great contempt of the Holy Office. It was probably
to stimulate zeal that, in 1509, it modified the penalty of relapse to a
pecuniary penance, which it authorized the inquisitors to impose at
discretion, bearing in mind the gravity of the case and the wealth of the
offender.[503] The sums thus realized were considerable enough to tempt the
cupidity of the courtiers for, May 9, 1514, we find the king making over to
four of his ushers the penalties levied on the sons of Alonso Gallo of
Toledo, and on April 1st he ordered Vázquez de Busto, alguazil of Toledo,
to collect all the penances of this kind, to pay one-half to the receiver for
the tribunal, and divide the other half between the fiscal, Martin Ximenes,
and a servant of secretary Calcena.[504] The punishments decreed in the
pragmáticas were also modified to fines, as we learn from a letter of June
20, 1515, dividing those incurred in Seville between Calcena and Aguirre,
after setting aside one-third for the tribunal, and from another letter of
January 8, 1516, bestowing on Fernando de Hoyos, portero of the Cuenca
tribunal, the penalties incurred by the wives of Pedro de Vaguera and of
Quiros and Jayme Boticario, for exercising the profession of apothecary.
[505]

At length it was recognized that the Inquisition was the only
instrumentality to be depended upon for the enforcement of the pragmáticas
and Charles V, in a cédula of March 30, 1528, placed the whole business in
its hands. He recited the laws of Ferdinand and Isabella, with their severe
penalties for negligent officials, in spite of which he was informed that, in
many places, they were disregarded, wherefore he granted to the Inquisition
all necessary powers and ordered it to see to the execution of the law.
Possibly there may have been some opposition by the secular authorities to
this invasion of their jurisdiction, which called for a repetition of the cédula,
March 2, 1543. In pursuance of this the Suprema, in cartas acordadas of
1548, 1549 and 1566, called the attention of the tribunals to the number of
persons engaged in prohibited callings or wearing forbidden articles, and it
urged them to be active in detecting and punishing the offenders.[506]

The construction of the laws was rigorous. There was a nice question
whether, when a parent was condemned in absentia as contumacious, the
children were subject to the disabilities, for the heresy was presumptive and
not proven. Farinacci held that they were not, for the absentee, even though
burnt in effigy, could always return and prove his innocence. Peña
represents the stricter Spanish view, that the fugitive was condemned as a
heretic and his children were incapacitated. The matter was threshed out in
the case of the son of Antonio Pérez, who was deprived of a pension on the
church of Cuenca. This was the final decision of the Rota after full
argument; it served as a precedent, and the sentence of the absent contained
the same enumeration of disabilities as that of one who was burnt in person.
[507] Some doubts arose as to whether the pragmáticas prohibited trade in
general; all such points were reserved to the king and when, in 1566, it was
proposed to prosecute some merchants, the Suprema ordered the cases to be
suspended until he should be consulted. It was less cautious when, in 1542,
it forbade all reconciled penitents to keep schools, or even to teach children
their letters. A question arose whether the prohibition to ride on horseback
comprehended mules, but Simancas decides it in the affirmative, and even
desires to include vehicles, as it is fitting that all such persons should walk
on foot.[508] Even the limits of the canon law were disregarded in the panic
occasioned by the discovery of Protestantism in 1559, for in the Seville auto
of September 24th, when Juan Ponce de Leon was burnt, the disabilities of
his descendants in the male line were extended to the fourth generation.[509]
An ecclesiastical career was closed to penitents and their descendants,
who were forbidden to enter holy orders. There was some question raised
whether those who were in orders could obtain or retain benefices, but it
was decided in the negative. The practice, as stated about 1640, was that on
their visitation the inquisitors dealt summarily with cases concerning the
cosas arbitrarias while those which involved the holding of benefices or
public office were sent to the tribunal for trial.[510] In the Edicts of Faith
which they published, denunciations were invited, and all persons were
required to give information as to any infractions of the laws of which they
were cognizant.[511]
As everyone who had the misfortune to fall into the
hands of the Inquisition was a marked man thereafter, and DISABILITIES
was liable to the suspicion that he had incurred disabilities—
a suspicion apt to grow stronger with time and to affect his descendants—it

became important for those who were not thus affected to have some
evidence of the fact. In the earlier time the Inquisition was chary about
affording this relief, but did not absolutely refuse it when the sufferer
applied to the Suprema. It was not everyone however who could obtain the
intervention of the Suprema; popular prejudice was strong, and no one
knew what took place within the precincts of the tribunals. Blighted careers
were thus numerous. Escobar, in his work on Limpieza, tells us that, at the
origin of the Inquisition it punished the lightest offences with extreme
severity and this, after the lapse of a century and a half, was still
disastrously affecting the descendants; it was inhuman that a word
inadvertently spoken through levity, or anger, or in jest should bring infamy
on the delinquent and his posterity without limitation of time.[512] The
memorial of 1623, by a member of the Suprema, discusses the same evil.
The writer says that the Inquisition is surrounded by enemies who are daily
multiplied through those afflicted by the tribunals. It is not merely those
who are relaxed or reconciled or compelled to abjure de vehementi, but
there are many well-affected Old Christians, punished with lighter penalties
who, if they remain defamed and their posterity disabled from honors, must
necessarily add to the number of enemies and it is pitiable thus to afflict
them for trivial causes.[513]
The tribunals did not cease to afflict the people, but some relief was
afforded by a practice, which gradually came into use, of including, in a
sentence for light offences or of acquittal, a clause declaring that the party
and his descendants were not subject to disabilities and that he could have a
certificate to that effect. Two examples of this, occurring in Valladolid in
1638 will suffice. In the case of Agustin López, tried for blasphemy, the
consulta de fe could not agree and the Suprema sentenced him to reprimand
and exile, adding that the sentence should be no bar to offices of honor or in
the Inquisition. So a sentence, acquitting Miguel Rúiz of a charge of
sorcery, says that his imprisonment shall not be an obstacle to him and his
children, and that he shall have a certificate to that effect. That Rúiz had not
even been confined in the secret prison but in the public gaol shows how
sensitive was the popular mind.[514] These certificates de no obstancia, as
they were called, would appear, as a rule, not to be issued unless specially
applied for, and yet how important they were to the individual and his
posterity is manifested by a petition presented, January 17, 1818, by the
Licenciate Mariano de Santander y Alvárez setting forth that, twenty years

before, in 1798, his father had been arrested and prosecuted by the
Valladolid tribunal because, in his trade as a bookseller, he had sold
prohibited books. In the final sentence it was declared that his
imprisonment and prosecution did not prejudice him or his descendants in
the enjoyment of their civil rights, but the secrecy of the Inquisition, and the
loss of the certificate given to the father, prevented the petitioner from
furnishing the proofs necessary to his admission as an advocate in the royal
chancellery, wherefore he begged for a proper testimonial. The Suprema
had the statement verified and ordered a certificate to be duly issued.[515]
From this, as well as from the memorial of 1623, it appears that not
merely reconciliation but even abjuration or lesser penalties inflicted
disabilities, if not as to the cosas arbitrarias at least as to the attainment of
an honorable career. In the closing years of the Inquisition this sometimes
led to a merciful moderation of the sentence, as in that pronounced, August
27, 1817, on Francisco Mosquera Villamarino, of Santiago, “Bachiller
clasico y Profesor del 6º Cuerpo de Canones en su Real Universidad,” for
certain propositions. He escaped with a reprimand in the audience-chamber
and without abjuration, it being expressly stated that he was treated with
this benignity in order not to prejudice him in his career, though he was
warned that the Inquisition would keep a watch on him.[516]
Popular prejudice, as we have seen, intensified the
cruelty of the cruel laws. How inveterate was this is DISABILITIES
manifested in the case of Josef Calot who, in 1791, sought
in marriage the daughter of Pablo Bordo, a merchant of Valencia. The
parents refused assent and the lovers eloped. Bordo brought the matter
before the royal Audiencia, showing that Calot was the great-grandson of
Clara Muñoz who, at the age of 19, was reconciled for Judaism in the
Barcelona auto de fe of April 2, 1724, and was sentenced to irremissible
“carcel y abito,” though after two years her husband, Antonio Antonelli,
obtained her release. In view of this descent the Audiencia decided that
Bordo’s opposition to the marriage was reasonable and just, thus inflicting
an indelible stigma on Calot and his posterity. In some way the affair
reached the Suprema, which wrote to Valencia for details and, in
transmitting them, the inquisitors added an expression of sympathy for
Calot in the dishonor cast upon him; the punishment of his great-
grandmother did not disable him from the professions, but it would be
difficult to restore him to his good fame without calling in question the

justice of the sentence of the Audiencia.[517] Even the Inquisition did not
venture to repair an injustice caused by its assiduous training of the
population in an unreasoning abhorrence of heresy.

The penalty for disregarding the disabilities settled down to the thrifty
one of a fine. As regards those imposed by the pragmáticas, the Suprema, in
1531, replied to an inquiry from the tribunal of Avila and Segovia that,
although the laws prescribed confiscation for infractions, yet the practice
was to penance culprits in accordance with their wealth and station and the
degree of the offence. So, in respect to the cosas arbitrarias, it decreed in
1536, that although the Instructions of 1484 provided the pain of relapse,
they did not require the inquisitors to condemn the infraction as such, and
the practice was to impose pecuniary and spiritual penances.[518] Cases of
prosecution for infraction are not very numerous in the records, chiefly
owing, we may presume, to the customary sale of rehabilitations; in the
tribunal of Toledo they amount only to ninety-one and of these it is
noteworthy that there are only three posterior to 1586—two in 1600 and
one in 1616.[519] When they occurred, the penalty was at the discretion of
the tribunal, and Toledo exercised this with great moderation, in 1579, when
Bernardino de Aldana, a ribbon-weaver, spontaneously denounced himself.
His mother, Isabel Alvárez, had been burnt by the Cuenca tribunal, yet he
had worn a velvet cap, had carried a sword and had ridden on a mule with a
saddle; he was married and had done this to satisfy his wife and her
kindred, and besides his brother had told him that they had been
rehabilitated. His artless story seems to have moved his judges, for he
escaped with a reprimand and a fine of two ducats.[520] In 1703 the tribunal
of Madrid was more severe with Simon de Andrade, a reconciled penitent,
who had worn the prohibited articles. He was harshly reprimanded, was
fined in fifty ducats, was banished for a year and was required to surrender
the cosas arbitrarias, but we are told that he was permitted to keep the
garments which he had on to cover his nakedness, especially as they were
of ordinary cloth.[521]
CLERICAL OFFENDERS.
In a land where theocratic influence was so strong, it was inevitable that
there should be especial favor shown to erring ecclesiastics. The Church has
ever sought to conceal from the public the knowledge of weaknesses that

might diminish veneration for its ministers, and scandal has been more
dreaded than sin. The Inquisition established its jurisdiction over both the
secular and the regular clergy, but it exercised that jurisdiction in
accordance with the general policy of the Church. Every care was taken to
keep clerical offences from public knowledge, except in cases of formal
heresy or of administering the sacraments by those who held only the lower
orders. As a rule, in place of being confined in the secret prison during trial,
they were housed in some convenient convent, where their presence need
excite no surprise. When convicted, they were not exposed in the public
autos de fe, but their sentences were read in the audience-chamber with
closed doors, though in certain cases a prescribed number of other clerics
were summoned to be present as witnesses; even then they did not wear the
penitential habit as did laymen.[522]
For aggravated offences, the ordinary punishment was
reclusion in a designated convent for a specified term, a CLERICAL
OFFENDERS
penalty which might be infinitely varied. Perhaps six
months or a year was to be passed in a cell; the culprit was to be last in
choir and refectory; he might be suspended for a term or perpetually from
some or all of his functions and of the right to vote or to be voted for;
spiritual penances might be superadded or, at his entrance, he might be
subjected to a zurra de rueda, or circular discipline, in which all the
members of the house, including the lay-brethren, took a hand. All these
greater or less aggravations could be varied or accumulated to meet the
exact shades of guilt. This conventual reclusion was adopted, perhaps,
partly for concealment and partly as a milder form of incarceration, but the
mercy was doubtful if we may trust the story told by Llorente of a Capuchin
guilty of aggravated abuse of the confessional who, when condemned to
five years’ reclusion in a convent of his Order, begged to have it changed to
incarceration in the secret prison; he had been, he said, provincial and
guardian, he knew how the brethren treated those thrust upon them as
criminals, and it would cost him his life. His prayer was refused and his
prevision was correct, for he died within three years.[523] I have met,
however, with cases in which the recluded fraile survived longer terms; as a
rule, no doubt, life was not rendered pleasant, but it depended on
circumstances. The Franciscan, Francisco Ortiz, sentenced to confinement
for two years in a cell in the convent of Torrelaguna, without intercourse
with his brethren, refused to leave his retirement on the expiration of the

term and remained there till his death, twelve years later, the object of
veneration to all around him.[524] There might or might not be sympathy for
the penitent and his treatment naturally corresponded.
When, however, the offence was formal heresy, entailing reconciliation
or relaxation, the cleric was obliged to appear in an auto de fe, like any
other culprit. Cases of the kind were common enough in the early period,
when many Conversos had entered the Church but, after the thorough
weeding out by the Inquisition, they became rare. An essential preliminary
was degradation from the priesthood, which was of two kinds, verbal and
formal—the former sufficing for cases of reconciliation, while relaxation
required the latter. Verbal degradation effaced the orders, but not the priestly
character and, in the later period, publicity was often avoided by executing
the sentence in the audience-chamber, as in the Toledo cases of Jacinto
Vásquez Aranso, a priest convicted of Judaism and condemned to the
galleys, December 4, 1688, and of Buenaventura Frutos, cura of Mocejon,
sentenced February 19, 1722.[525] Originally the ministration of a single
bishop sufficed for verbal degradation, while two were required for formal,
until Gregory IX, to facilitate the operations of the Inquisition, decreed that,
in cases of heresy, the bishop of the culprit could perform the ceremony, in
the presence of some abbots and other learned men, and finally, in 1551, the
Council of Trent permitted a single bishop to officiate in all cases of formal
degradation, and his vicar-general in verbal degradation.[526]
The ceremony of public formal degradation was impressive. The culprit
marched in the procession bearing the mitre and sanbenito of relaxation,
which were removed on the staging in order that he might be seen in his
priestly vestments and tonsure. In the case of Fray Joseph Díaz Pimiento, a
relapsed Judaizer, burnt at the Seville auto de fe of July 25, 1720, we are
told that an immense crowd was assembled, for no degradation had been
witnessed there since 1623. The auto was celebrated in the church of San
Pablo but, as soon as Fray Joseph’s sentence was read, he was taken by a
number of officials to a scaffold in the Plaza de San Francisco, where the
Bishop of Lycopolis, the assistant of the archbishop, performed the
ceremony. His tongue, the palms of his hands and finger tips were scraped
and rubbed with tow, the tonsure was erased by cutting his hair and he was
deprived of his orders one by one in the reverse order of their bestowal. He
was then handed over to his superiors of the Mercenarian Order, who
stripped him of the habit, after which the mitre and sanbenito with painted

flames were replaced on him and he was taken to the juzgado, or secular
court, and delivered to the deputy Assistente of the city to be formally
sentenced and conducted to the brasero.[527]

CHAPTER IV.

THE STAKE.
THE condemnation of a human being to a death by fire, as the penalty of
spiritual error, is so abhorrent to the moral sense and so oppugnant to the
teachings of Christ, that modern apologists have naturally sought to relieve
the Church from responsibility for such atrocity. On the surface a tolerably
plausible argument can be made. The ministers of religion, the spiritual
courts, the Inquisition itself rendered no judgements of blood. Any
ecclesiastic who might be concerned in them incurred “irregularity”
requiring a dispensation before he could validly perform his functions or
obtain preferment. The execution of heretics was a matter purely of secular
law and burning them alive is not prescribed in canon or decretal. The
earliest recorded example of concremation is that administered by Robert
the Pious of France to the Cathari of Orleans in 1017, and its embodiment
in positive law has not been found earlier than in the decrees against
Waldenses by Pedro II of Aragon in the Council of Gerona in 1197. In 1231
Frederic II included it in the Sicilian Constitutions and, in 1238, by his
Cremona decree, extended it throughout the empire, while Alfonso the Wise
of Castile, in 1255, adopted it for Christians who turned Jews or Moors.[528]
It thus became part of the public law of Christendom, not so much from the
initiative of rulers, as from a recognition of what had become a custom
through the spontaneous ferocity of popular fanaticism.
The Inquisition, through whose agency heretics were consigned to the
stake, did not itself condemn them to it, but merely pronounced them to be
heretics of whose conversion no hope was entertained; it cut them off from
the Church, which had nothing further to do with them, and abandoned or
“relaxed” them to the secular arm for due punishment. It assumed that it
condemned the crime and the civil judge the criminal and, in relaxing him,
it adjured the judge to spare his life and not to spill his blood. This latter
was a device invented by Innocent III, before the Inquisition existed, to

preserve from irregularity the spiritual courts in degrading clerics guilty of
forgery and handing them over to the secular authorities for execution.[529]
This shifting of responsibility to the civil power was not
through any sense that the laws punishing heresy with RESPONSIBIL
ITY OF THE
burning were cruel or unjust, for the Church taught this to be CHURCH
an act so eminently pious that it accorded an indulgence to
any one who would contribute wood to the pile, thus assuming the
responsibility and expending the Treasure of the Merits of Christ in
stimulating popular ferocity. That this indulgence was well known in Spain
appears in the evidence in the trial of Jan of Antwerp for Lutheranism at
Toledo in 1561.[530] In fact, when Luther argued that the burning of heretics
was contrary to the will of the Spirit, Leo X included this among his
heresies condemned in the bull Exsurge Domine.[531] Consequently the
secular power had no choice as to what it should do with heretics delivered
to it; its act was purely ministerial, and if it listened to the hypocritical plea
for mercy, it was liable to prosecution as a fautor of heresy and to
deprivation of its functions.[532] The Church enforced this by embodying in
the canon law a provision that princes and their officials must punish duly
and promptly all heretics delivered to them by inquisitors, under pain of
excommunication, which became heresy if endured for a year; and
inquisitors were required to proceed against them, but were cautioned to
speak only of executing the laws, without alluding to the death-penalty, in
order to escape irregularity.[533]
As elsewhere, so in Spain. The Inquisition abandoned the unrepentant or
relapsed heretic to the secular arm, which was bound to sentence and
execute him. In the hurried informality of the early period, it seems to have
been indifferent whether the magistrate pronounced a sentence or not. A
contemporary account of the Toledo auto of August 14, 1486, describes the
reading of the sentences of the inquisitors and the condemned being carried
at once to the Vega for execution, where they were burnt till not a bone
remained, without any allusion to the formality of intervention by the
secular power.[534] When, however, the form of a condemnation by the
alcalde was observed, as at Córdova in 1484, he uttered it by virtue of the
sentence of the inquisitors, which rendered unnecessary anything more than
condemning the culprit to be burnt alive, wherefore he ordered the alguazil
mayor to carry it into effect.[535] In the inquisitorial sentences of the period
the adjuration for mercy is generally lacking. In that of Mencia Alonso,

condemned at Guadalupe, November 21, 1485, not only is it absent but the
duties of the secular officials are treated as purely ministerial, for it ends
“As a limb of the devil and accursed and excommunicate, she shall be taken
to the place of burning so that by the secular justice of this town, or by other
laymen, justice shall be executed upon her according to the custom of these
kingdoms.”[536]
That the function of the magistrate was not judicial is manifested in the
refusal to communicate the trial to him. When those of Brescia, in 1486,
refused to execute the sentences of the inquisitor without seeing the trials,
Innocent VIII ordered the inquisitor to excommunicate them if they delayed
more than six days, no matter what the local laws might be, for heresy was
a purely ecclesiastical crime.[537] In accordance with this is the assertion of
the Repertorium de Pravitate Hæreticorum, printed at Valencia in 1494, that
the magistrate has no right to have the process shown to him that he may
judge as to the justice of the sentence; inquisitors are not to concede any
such right, for his sole duty is to execute it without delay, and if he hesitates
he is subject to deprivation of office and condemnation as a heretic.[538]
This principle was fully admitted by secular jurists themselves. Torreblanca,
who was attached to the royal Chancellery of Granada, states that the duty
of the civil magistrate is purely executive and he has no right to examine
into the merits of a case or to act in a judicial capacity.[539]
In fact, the secular power could be dispensed with
altogether. The Venetian Signory was not always as prompt RESPONSIBIL
ITY OF THE
as it should be in suppressing heresy so, to avoid delays and CHURCH
embarrassing questions, the papal nuncio there, with his
fiscal, auditor and other officials, had faculties to condemn to mutilation
and death all heretics without incurring irregularity or other ecclesiastical
penalties, notwithstanding all canons and decretals to the contrary. Such
provisions were issued in 1547 by Paul III and in 1550 by Julius III and
were doubtless customary.[540] Peña reduces this to a general principle for,
without referring to special papal faculties, he asserts that the intervention
of the secular judge is unessential and that, if he is not accessible, the
tribunal can condemn the heretic to death; if accessible he must execute the
sentence if he wishes to escape the heavy penalties of fautorship and
impeding the Inquisition.[541]
There was little danger of such reluctance on the part of secular officials
in Spain, where the oath exacted of them by the Inquisition obliged them to

execute whatever sentences the tribunal might require.[542] In fact, the only
indication I have met with, of possible hesitation involving punishment,
occurs in a mandate, September 5, 1725, to the Toledo tribunal, directing
that, in autos de fe, the first sentences read should be those of relaxation—
thus reversing the usual order—so that the convicts might be delivered at
once to the royal judge, without permitting delay in the execution of the
sentences, under any pretext, since the tribunal had complete jurisdiction to
compel him, by censures and other penalties, to its exact performance.[543]
The Inquisition regarded the sentence of the magistrate as a mere
perfunctory formality. The doctors had pointed out conclusively that heresy
was a crime over which he had no jurisdiction, and if he were to assert it he
would render illusory the sentence of the bishop or inquisitor.[544]
Consequently, in preparation for an auto de fe, the tribunal, in advance,
gave to the secular authorities a list of the condemnations so that the
sentences might be drawn up and the wood, the stake and the garrotes be
prepared for immediate execution.[545] It is true that thrift induced a certain
amount of equivocation when, in 1579, the royal alguaziles of Saragossa
claimed payment from the confiscations for their services and for the cost
of the wood, and Philip II emphatically rejected the demand as unexampled,
adding that the inquisitors could not order such payment without
irregularity, and that the executions were in virtue of the sentences of the
secular judges and not of the inquisitors.[546] This, however, was the merest
quibble. In autos generales, the magistrates were asked to be present to
receive the convicts and “execute on them the penalties imposed by the
canon law of the kingdom.” In autos particulares, held in churches which
must not be polluted by judgements of blood, the Suprema pointed out, in a
consulta of April 7, 1690, that the secular judges could wait at a designated
place, when it sufficed that a notary informed them in writing that “N. has
been declared a heretic by sentence of the Holy Office,” simultaneously
delivering the convict, when they must accept this assertion, and without
delay execute the sentence, unless they wish the Holy Office to prosecute
them as fautors of heretics and impeders of its free jurisdiction. At the same
time the judges are to continue as usual to pronounce the formal sentence.
[547]

Still, the estilo of the Inquisition required the ghastly comedy of asking
mercy. In the official formula of the sentence the clause announcing
relaxation to the civil magistrate proceeds “whom we ask and charge most

affectionately to treat him benignantly and mercifully.” In sentences of the
absent and dead, where the effigy alone was abandoned to the secular arm,
there is no prayer for mercy, as there was no effusion of blood to create
irregularity.[548] In the rigid formalism of inquisitorial procedure, after the
Suprema had established its minute control, it is safe to assume that this
official formula was universally followed.

All this affords ample proof that the avoidance of
irregularity was the only motive that actuated the Inquisition RESPONSIBIL
ITY OF THE
in this matter, but if further evidence is required it is CHURCH
furnished by the fact that still greater scruple existed in the
exercise of the temporal jurisdiction acquired by the Spanish Holy Office
over all matters concerning its officials, because such cases were not
provided for in the commissions of the inquisitors-general, from which
were delegated the powers of the tribunals. In 1514 the question arose when
Micer Castillo, assessor in the Saragossa tribunal, was murdered, and two
of his assassins, Joan Uguet and Pere Gasco, were tried and convicted. The
inquisitors dared not deliver them to the secular arm for execution, and
various devices were discussed, but the matter was settled by procuring
from Leo X his motu proprio Cum sicut accepimus, January 28, 1515, in
which he granted faculties to the inquisitors to arrest, try and deliver for
punishment to the secular authorities, any one who had struck, mutilated or
slain an official of the Inquisition, even if it entailed effusion of blood or
mutilation or death, without incurring any note of irregularity.[549] Under
this the tribunals acted when such cases arose, notably in Granada, about
1545, when seven persons were thus relaxed—six Moriscos and an Old
Christian—who, while in prison, killed the alcaide and his assistant and
who were hanged before burning.[550]
In time the cardinals of the Roman Inquisition were beset with similar
scruples and, to relieve their consciences, Pius V, October 9, 1567, granted
a decree empowering them to participate in sentences of blood without
incurring irregularity.[551] This applied only to Italy, but it was otherwise
with the terrible bull Si de protegendis, April 1, 1569, commanding the
delivery to the secular arm, for the punishment due to high treason, of any
one maltreating or even threatening an official of the Inquisition or
destroying or altering its records. This was ordered to be published
throughout the world; the Spanish Inquisition claimed the benefit of it, and
had a Castilian version of it published every year. It made no illusion to
irregularity, tacitly assuming that none was incurred and it was often cited
in Spain to that effect.[552] Still, when in 1579, the Toledo tribunal desired
the death-penalty for Francisco de la Bastida, for personating an official of
the Inquisition, and there was no secular law to that effect, a special brief
was obtained from Gregory XIII empowering it to find him guilty of death

and deliver him to the secular arm for execution without incurring
irregularity.[553]
There seems to have arisen a fresh sense of insecurity about 1605. The
brief of Leo X was well-nigh forgotten; some tribunals had copies of it, but
most of them had not, and the bull Si de protegendis did not specifically
meet cases that arose. Application was therefore made to Paul V to extend
to Spain the 1567 decree of Pius V, which he granted by a brief of
November 29, 1605, repeated in 1607. In this he bestowed the fullest
powers, not only on inquisitors but on all their officials, in all cases whether
of faith or not, coming within their competence, to participate in sentences
of torture, mutilation, or death without incurring irregularity.[554] This
would appear ample enough to remove all possible scruples and yet
subsequently contingencies occasionally arose which excited debate, or
called for papal intervention to quiet sensitive consciences.[555]

In the work of exterminating heresy, the rules which governed the
Spanish Inquisition were more merciless than those framed by its
predecessor. At first, in the medieval tribunals, it was only the pertinacious
and impenitent heretic who was consigned to the stake; he who recanted
and professed conversion, even at the last moment, was admitted to
reconciliation. Then gradually, as it was found that these enforced
conversions were frequently insincere, relapse was regarded as proof of
impenitence and pertinacity and was subjected irremissibly to the death-
penalty, and this included those who had abjured for vehement suspicion.
The treatment is exemplified in the case of Fray Bonato, the head of a little
body of Spiritual Franciscans in Catalonia. He was pertinacious until the
flames had roasted him one side, when his resolution gave way; he
professed conversion and was rescued, but some years later he was found to
be still cherishing his heresies and, in 1335, he was burnt alive.[556]
The number of burnings in the Spanish Inquisition,
during its first half century, could never have occurred under RECANTATIO
N
the old rules. Indeed, in the first rush and fury, the case of
Juan Chinchilla in 1483 (Vol. II, p. 468) indicates that even frank
confession failed to save from the stake those who had sought reconciliation
in a Term of Grace, but had been prevented by causes beyond their control.
Even when rules began to be framed, the Instructions of 1484 placed the

lives of those on trial at the discretion of the tribunal, for they required that
repentance and asking for reconciliation must be expressed prior to
rendering the final sentence, to entitle the culprit to mercy; while even then,
if the inquisitors considered that the repentance was feigned, and they had
not fair hope of genuine conversion, they were empowered to declare him
an impenitent and relax him to the secular arm—all of which was left to
their consciences.[557]
The rule thus expressed presents two points, the development of which
requires separate consideration. As regards the time of confessing and
begging mercy, which the Instructions limit to the period prior to the
rendering of the sentence, this was extended to the time of reading of the
sentence at the auto de fe. Yet this was grudgingly admitted by the
Instructions of 1561, which say that often when convicts on the staging
profess conversion the inquisitors receive them to reconciliation, but this
ought rarely to be done, for it is a very perilous thing which should be
suspected to come from dread of death rather than from true repentance.[558]
Yet, in spite of this warning, it was customary to suspend proceedings with
those who, at the auto de fe, before the reading of their sentences, claimed
to be penitent. They were remanded to the Inquisition and, if they confessed
fully as to themselves and others, they were reconciled with appropriate
punishment. Such cases were of constant occurrence; in the Córdova auto
of April 12, 1722, there were four. Even while the sentence was being read,
the doubt was thrown in favor of the culprit, as in the Murcia auto of May
17, 1722, when Inez Alvárez Pereira, convicted as an impenitent Judaizer,
begged mercy during the reading of her sentence, professed that she wished
to confess and be converted, and was sent back to prison, where she was
reconciled.[559] In fact, in public autos, where there were convicts to be
relaxed, there was always a room arranged under the staging to which the
repentant culprit was at once transferred and one of the inquisitors
descended to take his confession before he should have time to change his
good resolutions. In such cases reconciliation was accompanied with
confiscation, irremissible prison and sanbenito and usually one or two
hundred lashes for tardy confession.[560]
The Instructions of 1561 were justified in claiming that little reliance
was to be placed on conversions thus obtained. For the most part the awful
experience led penitents, who thus escaped, to cherish their beliefs in secret,
but occasionally there was one whose conscience could not pardon the

weakness that led to a betrayal of faith. Diego López Duro, an humble
retailer of tobacco, condemned for Judaism, recanted while on the staging
and was reconciled with imprisonment. In 1700, one day, when hearing
mass, he stood apart from his fellow-prisoners and, in a loud voice, told the
priest that he lied for the Law of Moses was the only true one. He would
have been slain on the spot had he not been hurried out to save him from
popular wrath, but for him there could be no mercy. The inquisitors labored
long to save his soul by inducing him to recant without success; he was
pertinacious to the last and was burnt alive in the Seville auto of October
28, 1703—one of those martyrs whose constancy explains why Judaism has
been indestructible.[561]
After the reading of the sentence was concluded,
recantation did not avert the death-penalty, as in the elder GARROTTIN
G BEFORE
Inquisition, but it was modified to garrotting or strangling BURNING
before burning, for it was received as a principle that a
Christian was not to be burnt alive. This was recognized at least as early as
1484, when in a Saragossa auto a culprit is recorded as strangled before
burning “porque murio reducido.”[562] In addition to this, the traditions of
the Old Inquisition introduced at first a certain irregularity in practice, and it
did not follow that delivery to the secular arm inevitably inferred execution.
In a list of quemados y relaxados at Ciudad Real, there are several cases, up
to 1523, of those who were “relaxed” and yet had penances of various
kinds, showing that they had recanted after delivery to the magistrate and
yet were spared the death-penalty.[563] In fact, it continued for some time to
be a matter of debate, in which opinions were divided, whether a man who
had been returned by the secular judge to the inquisitors, because he
recanted and promised full confession, could be again relaxed for
execution. The older doctors inclined to the merciful view and Simancas
tells us of such a case in Cuenca, which was referred to the Suprema, when
many experts held that the culprit could not be again relaxed, for he had
made a true confession, and the secular arm had renounced its rights. Even
as late as 1640 an inquisitor says that the rigor of executing a man who
repents after delivery to the magistrate is not customary in Spain.[564]
In this he would seem to be mistaken. I have never met with a case, later
than those alluded to, in which conversion professed after sentence secured
reconciliation. The tendency to rigor was too strong. The Instructions of
1561 make no allusion to such a possibility, as they grudgingly allow mercy

for earlier confession. Peña forbids it; he admits that it was the ancient
custom, but such conversions are not to be trusted and experience shows
that such penitents are only rendered worse.[565] It was the universal
practice to garrote those who professed repentance after sentence, and the
dreadful alternative of death by fire, when thus impending so imminently,
wrought so many conversions on the way to the brasero, even among those
whose resolve had held out thus far, that burning alive became
comparatively infrequent. In the first three autos held at Barcelona in 1488
and 1489, all the converts professed a desire to die in the Christian faith and
all were strangled before burning.[566] At the great auto of May 21, 1559, at
Valladolid where Dr. Cazalla and other Protestants suffered, there were
fourteen relaxed in person, of whom only one, the Bachiller Herrezuelo, is
characterized as a pertinacious heretic and consequently burnt alive, the rest
being garrotted as repentant converts.[567] In 1571 there were hanging, in
the parish church of Logroño, 157 sanbenitos, of which 101 were of those
reconciled and 56 of those relaxed. Of the latter nine were in effigy and 47
in person, of whom only four are specified as burnt alive.[568] The weakness
of human nature afforded but rare examples of those who could stand the
final test of fiery martyrdom.
Notwithstanding the practice of executing all who delayed conversion
until after hearing their sentences, there still were those who argued that
they should be admitted to reconciliation, basing their contention on the
ancient rule and on the silence of the Instructions of 1561 on this point. In
1674 the Suprema felt called upon to quiet the doubts of the Granada
tribunal, by insisting that this rigor had been the invariable custom of the
Holy Office. Still the question was debated until a carta acordada of May
24, 1699, disposed of it authoritatively. This declared that, in consequence
of existing doubts, the Suprema had examined the matter carefully, reaching
the conclusion that technically the delivery to the secular arm was
coincident with the reading of the sentence; the Inquisition thus remained
without jurisdiction which had passed to the royal justice for the execution
of the sentence. Therefore, if the convict was not converted before the
reading of the sentence, he was not to have mercy or to be admitted to
reconciliation, even if he begged for it, but the royal justice was to execute
and fulfil the sentence. If the conversion was real and not feigned—the
latter being presumable at such a time—any of the confessors who assisted
the culprit could reconcile him to the church and confess him sacramentally.

[569] Thus his body was irrevocably forfeited, although his soul might be
saved.
After so formal a definition, no arguments in favor of mercy could be
urged. In the sixty-four autos de fe, between 1721 and 1727, there was a
total of seventy-seven cases of relaxation in person. In the relations it is not
always stated distinctly whether the victim was burned alive or garrotted
but, from the details given, the estimate cannot be far wrong that not over
thirteen, or about one in six, endured the severer punishment. In the
Granada auto of January 21, 1722, there were eleven relaxed, all of whom
professed conversion after their sentences were read, and all were garrotted
before burning. So rigid was the interpretation of the rule that it could not
be dispensed with even to gratify the intense longing for expiation which
sometimes possessed the eleventh hour convert. In the Córdova auto of
April 12, 1722, Antonio Gabriel de Torre Zavallos, relaxed for Judaism,
was converted after the reading of his sentence. At the brasero, with copious
tears and signs of repentance, he loudly proclaimed his Christian faith,
praising the mercy of God and of the Holy Office and demanding to be
burnt alive, in order to offer to God satisfaction for his sins, but this was
refused; he was duly garrotted and “he gave his soul to God to the great
consolation and edification of all the people.”[570]
An unpleasant doubt obtrudes itself whether in all cases
the preliminary strangling really relieved the sufferer from PERTINACIT
Y
death by fire. Spanish executioners are said to possess such
dexterity in manipulating the garrote that they can prolong the death-agony
for hours when they are not bribed to give a speedy release. In the universal
venality of the period, it is possible that those, whose friends failed to earn
the good-will of the minister of justice, were by no means insensible when
the torch was applied to the faggots. There may have been more than mere
lack of skill in the incident at the Cuenca auto of June 29, 1654, which gave
Bartolomé López the opportunity of displaying his nerve. He had delayed
professing conversion until after the reading of his sentence and was
consequently relaxed for strangulation and burning. At the brasero, seeing
that the executioner, Pedro de Alcalá, bungled in garrotting Violante
Rodríguez and Ana de Guevara, he said to him “Pedro, if you do not treat
me better, you had better burn me alive.”[571]

According to inquisitorial jurisprudence, there were several causes
which entailed relaxation. The first of these was pertinacity—the obstinacy
which led the heretic or apostate to avow and defend his errors, and to resist
the well-meant effort of his judges to save his soul by inducing conversion.
This heroic temper, which preferred martyrdom to denying what it believed
to be the truth, was not common, but the annals of the Inquisition are
illustrated by cases of unknown and forgotten victims, whose persistence
through torment and persuasion, to the fiery death at the brasero, ennobles
human nature, whether they were Moslems or Jews, Protestants or Mystics.
It was a blind perversity that refused to see in this aught but hardness of
heart, inspired by Satan, and with empty rhetoric sought to draw a
distinction between this and true martyrdom. Thus Simancas tells us that we
should not be surprised to see heretics sometimes carried rejoicing to the
stake. This is not true alacrity but madness, not patience but fierceness, and
there is wide difference between barbarous fierceness and the modest
constancy of the true martyr. Then there are those who, by certain arts, so
benumb the body that it does not feel torments; there are also those who
deprive the mind of sense, so that they meet death without fear, but that
gentleness and placidity, that sublime humility and humble sublimity, we
see only in the martyrs of Christ.[572]
Yet, to do it justice, the Inquisition—at least after the first fury of its
career was spent—earnestly sought the salvation of its victims, rather than
to send them through temporal to eternal flame. We have seen that, in the
case of those sentenced to relaxation, it advanced the notification of their
fate, in order to enlarge the opportunity of the ghostly counsellors, whom it
deputed to labor with them. Even before this extension, the Instructions of
1561 order inquisitors to do everything in their power to induce conversion,
so that, if nothing else can be accomplished, the culprit may not die without
the knowledge of God.[573] During the fortnight previous to an auto de fe
those sentenced to relaxation were to be summoned to repeated audiences,
when they were to be earnestly entreated to confess and recant, with
promises of mercy, and learned theologians were required to be present to
aid in the exhortations.[574] Even prior to the consulta de fe, pious
inquisitors spared no effort to convince the erring of their errors. One
relates how, in 1630, he had to deal with two Protestants, an Englishman
and a Frenchman, who were pertinacious, saying that they had been brought
up in their pretended reformed religion and knew nothing of Catholicism.

Their simplicity went so far as to ask to be allowed to return to their native
lands, or that persons learned in both religions should dispute before them,
so that they might learn which was best for, as they were illiterate, they
could not themselves dispute. The inquisitor set theologians to work upon
them when, after considerable labor, they were converted; devotional books
were given to them, which they eagerly devoured; the trial was delayed and,
by the time the witnesses were ratified, the heretics were good Catholics.
[575]

When three days’ notice of impending relaxation was
given, the time was utilized to the utmost. There was a PERTINACIT
Y
pertinacious heretic to suffer in the Seville auto of
December 10, 1719—a Moorish slave, baptized under the name of
Francisco Andrés, who had renegaded and was persistent when his sentence
was made known to him. Then twelve calificadores—two each from the
Orders of Mercenarians, Minims, Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians
and Jesuits—with eight familiars were assigned to his conversion. They
were successful and he escaped with prison and sanbenito for four years.
[576] A remarkable case, at the Seville auto of July 5, 1722, shows however
that, after delivery to the secular arm, the Inquisition considered that its
functions were ended. There were four pertinacious Jews, two men and two
women. Nine calificadores and eleven familiars labored with them in vain
during the three days; they persisted through the reading of the sentences
and were delivered to the secular magistrate. The two men and the elder of
the women succumbed at the last, professed conversion and were garrotted
and burnt. The younger woman, known as La Almiranta, at the brasero
begged audience of the deputy assistente, told him that she desired to
confess and give evidence as to other Jews and was remanded to the royal
prison. Word was sent to the tribunal, which replied that it had nothing
further to do with her. She was kept until the 7th and, when taken to the
brasero was more pertinacious, than ever, saying that, as her companions
had died as Catholics, they were accursed and that she had pretended to
yield in order that her ashes, which were holy, should not be mingled with
theirs. Of course she had the martyrdom which she craved.[577]
In exceptional cases pertinacity seems to have been allowed the privilege
of preliminary strangulation. At a Valladolid auto of May 29, 1691, there
were five pertinacious women condemned for Judaism, described as being
from 24 to 27 years of age and very handsome, who excited general

compassion. On being delivered to the magistrate two of them weakened,
while three persisted in their faith, yet they were all garrotted before
burning.[578]
A large portion of the cases of pertinacity arose from the death in prison,
during trial, of those who did not ask on the death-bed for the consolations
of religion, and who had no opportunity of obtaining mercy by conversion.
Thus in the Granada auto of May 13, 1725, out of seven burnings in effigy,
six were of those who had died in prison.[579] Suicide in prison was treated
harshly, for Simancas tells us that the suicide is to be condemned as fully
convicted and impenitent, even though he had previously confessed and
professed repentance, to which Rojas adds that, although his effigy is to be
burnt, his heirs are allowed to prove insanity, difficult as that is.[580]

The negativo—the man who denied his heresy in the face
of what was deemed competent testimony of guilt—was THE
NEGATIVO—
classed as an impenitent heretic and doomed to relaxation. THE
This was the inevitable logic of the Inquisition, although it DIMINUTO
led to the most tragic of all situations—that of being tortured
to death in honor of the faith which the sufferer held. It was impossible,
under the inquisitorial system, to allow a possible heretic to escape merely
because he unflinchingly affirmed his orthodoxy, and yet when a man
asserted it up to the brasero, knowing that it would not avail him, it was
impossible not to recognize in him a true believer who would not save his
body at the expense of falsely confessing apostasy. Three such there were in
the Granada auto of May 27, 1593, burnt as negativos and consequently
burnt alive.[581] Such men were true martyrs, especially as rigid
constructionists denied them the consolations of religion in their last
moments. At the Toledo auto of October 28, 1723, Diego de Quiros was in
this position, and a Jesuit who heard him in sacramental confession was
severely censured for doing so while he persisted in maintaining his
innocence. Again the question came up in the Toledo auto of July 1, 1725.
Fernando de Castro was relaxed as an impenitent negativo and was
sentenced to burning alive. On account of the heat the execution was
postponed until the afternoon, and the convict was meanwhile placed in the
public prison. With cries he earnestly begged for sacramental confession,
but the frailes in attendance declined unless he should admit his heresy,
which he steadfastly refused to do, asserting the witnesses to be perjured,

and the judgement unjust. At this juncture there came a Jesuit father who
yielded to the despairing appeals of the poor wretch and heard him in
confession, whereupon the judge took the responsibility of modifying the
sentence to preliminary strangulation. The frailes loudly rebuked the Jesuit,
and were joined by the public, disappointed of the promised spectacle of the
burning alive of a fellow-creature. Considerable debate followed and a
priest named Candido Múñoz wrote an argument justifying the Jesuit, but
his labor was superfluous for, while his tract was in the press, the Suprema
issued a carta acordada, October 11th, ordering that in such cases the priest
should hear the confession and confer absolution or not, according to the
disposition manifested, but in future no one but the appointed theologians
were to attend the convict to the last.[582]
Thus it was left to this late date to admit the dying victim to the
sacraments, probably, we may assume, on the doctrine that the blood of
martyrdom is the most efficacious of all sacraments. Such cases could not
have been common, but those must have been numerous in which the
unjustly convicted negativo found his resolution give way at the approach
to the brasero and, in order to escape burning alive and to obtain the
sacraments, falsely confessed to having entertained heresies which his soul
abhorred.

There was also the diminuto, who made a confession that did not “satisfy
the evidence” and thus was held to be imperfect. A confession that was not
full was regarded as fictitious; it inferred impenitence and therefore entailed
relaxation. We have seen how, under the early Edicts of Grace, any
omissions in the hurried confessions was construed as rendering them
imperfect and subjecting the penitent to prosecution and relaxation.
Especially was imperfect denunciation of accomplices regarded as
diminucio; if the accused confessed all that was in evidence against himself
and omitted the acts of accomplices who were proved to have been with
him, or if he named only those who were absent or dead or already
convicted, it was proof of malice and impenitence; he was not truly
converted and was subject to relaxation after torture in caput alienum.[583]
The denial of heretical intention in acts confessed, which was frequent in
those against whom Judaic or Moorish customs were proved, constituted
the accused a negativo in the substantial part of heresy, which is intention,
or a diminuto, implying, according to the common opinion, impenitence

and pertinacity involving relaxation.[584] Thus Hernando de Palma, a
Morisco, accused of teaching and conducting Moorish ceremonies, denied
and overcame severe torture, whereupon the consulta de fe voted for
appearance in an auto and abjuration de levi. Ignorant of this, he asked for
an audience and confessed that, for seven or eight years, he had practised
some Moorish rites, without regarding them as contrary to the faith. In this
he persisted and was burnt in the Toledo auto of 1606. Revocation of
confession was similarly impenitence and pertinacity, as in the case of
Manuel Thomas, who confessed to Judaism after the accusation was
presented, then revoked the confession and persisted in the revocation, for
which he was relaxed in the Toledo auto of 1585.[585]

When the Reformation plunged the Church into a struggle for life, of
which no man might foretell the result, there arose a demand for sharper
measures of repression. The dogmatizer or heresiarch—he who not only
condemned his own soul to perdition but sought to carry others along with
him, by disseminating his pestiferous doctrines—might recant and make his
peace with God, but not with God’s earthly ministers. Simancas well
expresses the hatred intensified by fear, which was aroused by the teachers
of the new doctrines. The heresiarch, he says, the master of errors, is to be
relaxed and, under no circumstances, is to be received back into the Church.
He is unworthy of pardon who has led others into error, like a murderer who
has slain many. He is a crafty homicide, who daily sheds the blood of souls.
He who teaches heresy slays, not with the sword, but with the poison of his
doctrine; he kills not the body but the soul, not with temporary but with
eternal death, wherefore he is worthy of the severest punishment. And, of
all others, the teachers of the Lutheran heresies are in no way to be
pardoned.[586]
Yet the Church had always professed to welcome to
reconciliation its erring children, who renounced their errors HERESIARCH
S
and begged for mercy, provided they were not relapsed, and
the Inquisition from its inception had acted on this principle. On this were
based the powers deputized to it and when, in 1558 the discovery of the
Protestants of Valladolid was so exploited as to throw Spain into agitation,
and it was desired to make an example of Doctor Agustin Cazalla, some
further grant of faculties was felt to be necessary. Paul IV was nothing
loath. In 1555 he had apparently desired to show that Rome was not to be

outdone by Geneva in persecuting rigor and that, if Calvin in 1553 had
burnt Servet for denying the Trinity, he could be equally zealous for the
faith. By the bull Cum quorundam he decreed that all who denied the
Trinity, the divinity of Christ, his conception through the Holy Ghost, his
death for human salvation, or the perpetual virginity of the Virgin, and who
did not confess to inquisitors and abjure their errors within three months,
and all who in future should maintain those heresies, should be treated as
though they were relapsed and as such should be forthwith relaxed to the
secular arm.[587] Having thus extended the catalogue of unpardonable
heresies, he was quite ready to grant the additional powers sought by the
Spanish Inquisition. By a brief of January 4, 1559, he bestowed on the
inquisitor-general and Suprema a faculty to relax all heresiarchs and other
heretics, even though they were not relapsed, and though they desired to
abjure their heresies, when it was believed with verisimilitude that the
abjuration was not sincere but was only to escape punishment.[588] This
was, in fact, no more than the power assumed in the Instructions of 1484,
but under it, as we shall see hereafter, were relaxed some conspicuous
heretics, such as Doctor Cazalla at Valladolid and Juan Ponce de Leon at
Seville, although they had renounced their errors and sought reconciliation
in advance of the autos de fe.
It thus became a principle in inquisitorial jurisprudence that the
inquisitor-general and Suprema could relax dogmatizers, irrespective of
pertinacity or relapse.[589] This was not confined to Protestants. About 1600,
the Suprema had to decide the case of a Morisco alfaquí, accused of being a
teacher of Islam, who confessed to teaching his wife but denied other
proselytism. A consulta presented to the Suprema argued that, although by
law a dogmatizer must be relaxed yet, if he spontaneously denounces
himself and is sincerely repentant, he can be reconciled, for his conversion
and humility serve as an example to those whom he has misled. In the
present case, however, the alfaquí has only confessed partially and to save
himself, wherefore he should be relaxed—and to this the Suprema assented.
[590] Yet this severity had exceptions. In the Seville auto of July 5, 1722,
Pedro de Alpuin, reconciled with perpetual prison and sanbenito, had five
years of galleys added for being a teacher of the Law of Moses, and even
these were remitted in consideration of his infirmities.[591]

Relapse was the most fruitful source of relaxation, at least after the first
rage of the Inquisition had exhausted itself. It has been already stated that,
after reconciliation or abjuration de vehementi, any backsliding was held to
indicate that the conversion had been fictitious, that the culprit was
impenitent and pertinacious, and that he was to be abandoned to the secular
arm without hope of mercy. This was an unvarying principle of the canon
law. The Suprema, in a case brought before it, in 1536, declared that it
could not dispense for that which the law enjoined, and therefore it was
powerless to relieve the relapsed from his punishment.[592] Simancas is
equally emphatic—the relapsed is to be condemned without hope of pardon.
[593] In the first audience of the accused, the inquisitor was required to tell
him that, if he would discharge his conscience, his case would be
despatched with speed and mercy but, if the charge was relapse, the word
mercy was to be omitted because no mercy could be shown.[594] Even
prompt and full confession was of no avail; the law was absolute and
implacable.[595]
This severity was greatly enhanced by the elastic
definition given to relapse. The reconciled penitent had to RELAPSE
walk warily, for any unconscious return to ancestral habits
was sufficient to convict him. About 1500 the Suprema decreed that
penitents communicating with unreconciled heretics were to be held as
relapsed, and all evidence coming before the tribunals was to be scrutinized
for proof that would justify prosecution—evidently of those who might
chance to be incidentally named in it—and then, if this proved insufficient
for conviction, any admission of the accused, not contained in his former
confession, could be used to condemn him as a fictitious convert.[596] How
this was construed in practice, we learn from Simancas, who says that he is
considered a relapsed who, after abjuring heresy, talks with heretics, or
visits them, or makes presents to them, or favors and communicates with
them, so that he cannot but be held to do it as a consequence of his heresy.
[597] The man who had been reconciled thus lived in unceasing danger that,
at any moment, some acquaintance might be tried and convicted and his
name might occur in the evidence as being on good terms with him. Safety,
indeed, could only be secured by resolutely isolating himself from his
family and his race.
It was the same with those who had only abjured for vehement
suspicion. The Instructions of 1561 declare absolutely that, if they confess

or are convicted, they must be relaxed, for the inquisitors have no power to
reconcile them, although they are not truly but only fictitiously relapsed.
[598]

Still, there were some exceptions. Self-denunciation for relapse, it was
admitted, required relaxation under the law, but it was argued that such
second confession was not really a conviction, for it showed that the
penitent was not incorrigible and should be admitted to mercy.[599] Such
cases must have been exceedingly rare, but we have seen one in that of
Ursule de la Croix (Vol. II, p. 572) where, it will be remembered, a third
self-denunciation was visited with the stake.
Moriscos enjoyed a special exception. The wholesale enforced
conversion of the Moors of Castile in 1502 and of the kingdoms of Aragon
in 1525, filled the land with nominal Christians, whose baptism served no
other purpose than subjecting them to the Inquisition. They were largely
vassals of nobles, to whom their services were indispensable, and to subject
whole populations to the penalties of a relapse which was inevitable was a
prospect that might well stagger the statesman if not the churchman. In the
unsparing rigor of the canon law, escape from this was to be sought only in
Rome and, in March, 1510, Ferdinand asked for a bull enabling the converts
to avoid the penalties of relapse.[600] The request was doubtless granted and
was followed by numerous papal briefs, issued during the remainder of the
century, which bore the shape of empowering the inquisitors-general to
appoint confessors with power to absolve Morisco penitents with secret
absolution and penance, even if they had relapsed repeatedly, or to proclaim
terms of grace, during which absolution could be had irrespective of
relapse, together with other devices, the futility of all which we shall see
hereafter.[601]
This was but one of the many attempts to solve the increasing difficulties
of the Morisco problem, and its only relation to the general policy of the
Inquisition is to prove how easily, when sufficient motive existed, the
unsparing cruelty of the canon law could be set aside. Under that law, we
can readily conceive how large a portion of the executions were due to
relapse. Details are lacking as to the earlier period of activity, but the later
records are sufficient to indicate how efficient an agent it was in procuring
victims. In the great Madrid auto of 1680, there were eighteen Judaizers
relaxed in person, of whom ten were for relapse, six for pertinacity and two
for denial or imperfect confession.[602] In the terrible Mallorquin autos of

1691, all the relaxed—thirty-eight in person and seven in effigy—were
condemned for relapse, having been reconciled in 1679, and of these only
three were burnt alive as pertinacious.[603] At the Granada auto of January
31, 1723, of the eleven Judaizers relaxed, all were relapsed; at that of
Cordova, April 23, 1724, seven out of eight were relapsed, and the same
was the case with all of the six relaxed in the Cuenca auto of July 23, 1724.
[604] In these last three autos only one person was pertinacious; the rest all
professed contrition and conversion and would have escaped with
reconciliation instead of strangulation had it not been for the rigor in the
treatment of relapse.
A case already alluded to exemplifies this and is worth
relating in some detail, if only for its psychological interest. RELAPSE
Fray Joseph Díaz Pimiento was born in Cuba, of Old
Christian parents, in 1687. He was bred to the Church and his life was an
example of the licence pervading the colonies. He drifted around the shores
of the Caribbean, involved in all kinds of disreputable adventures. In
Mexico, he forged a certificate of baptism in order to obtain ordination
under age. In the Dutch colony of Curaçoa, he professed conversion to
Judaism and was circumcised, in the hope of getting a few hundred dollars
from the Jews. After incredible hardships he fell into the hands of the
Inquisition of Cartagena de las Indias, where he recanted, was reconciled
and was sent to Spain for reclusion in a convent. While confined in the
episcopal prison he broke gaol, but was captured at Xeres, and was put in a
convent, heavily fettered, where he endeavored to get assistance from some
New Christians who were under suspicion, but in this he failed, although to
excite their compassion, he wrote to the commissioner of the Inquisition
that he was a Jew. Then again he escaped and fled to Lisbon, where he
worked for a Dutch ship-master, who promised to carry him to Holland,
whence he could sail for Jamaica. Then a sudden impulse took possession
of him, which carried him to Seville, where he presented himself to the
Inquisition. At first he professed to be a Christian but, after a few days, he
told the alcaide that he was a Jew, and in this he persisted, stubbornly
refusing to make defence. Necessarily, as a relapsed, he was condemned to
relaxation in the auto of July 25, 1720, and, during the three days prior to
the auto, all the learning and piety of Seville were enlisted in his
conversion, while prayers for his soul were put up in all the churches. Then
came another revulsion and, after two days, he announced that the grace of

God had touched him, and that he was a Christian. But for his relapse, this
would have saved him; as it was, it only obtained for him preliminary
strangulation and this he sought to reject for, at the stake, he begged to be
burnt alive in order to prove that his conversion was the result of conviction
and not of fear. This could not be permitted, and the deputy assistente
sentenced him to be garrotted and burnt, and his ashes scattered as usual.
The pile was fired at 5 P.M.; it took until day-break to reduce the body to
ashes, and it was observed that the customary stench was absent. Then the
Hermandad de la Caridad asked to have the ashes to give them Christian
burial, as he had died a Christian, but the assistente refused and ordered
them to be scattered over the fields, in obedience to the royal pragmáticas
and apostolical constitutions—all of which, we are told, was done, to the
great honor of the holy Catholic faith.[605]
Yet, notwithstanding the canons that prohibited mercy to the relapsed
and withheld, even from the inquisitor-general, the power to pardon, cases,
as has been stated above (p. 148), are not infrequent, in which the relapsed
were admitted to a second reconciliation. Even as early as 1486, we hear of
Micer Gonzalo de Santa María, of the great converso family of Burgos, who
was thrice penanced by the Inquisition and who finally died, not at the
stake, but in gaol, under a sentence of perpetual prison.[606] Some scattering
cases of penances subsequent to reconciliation occur at Barcelona between
1491 and 1502, mingled with others in which the full penalty of relaxation
was inflicted, though no reasons are alleged for the distinction.[607] In 1511,
at Cuenca, Leonor and Juana Rodríguez who had been reconciled in time of
Grace, were reconciled again for fresh delinquencies.[608] In the later
period, instances of the same benignity occur more frequently, although
accompanied with punishment severe enough to show that the trivial
evidence required to prove persistency was far exceeded. Thus, in the
Toledo auto of December 27, 1654, Gaspar de los Reyes was sentenced, as
a relapsed observer of the Law of Moses, to abjure de vehementi, to six
years of galleys and a fine of a thousand ducats, while his wife, Isabel
Rodríguez, and his mother, María López, both relapsed, had the same
sentence, save that exile replaced the galleys and the fine was six hundred
ducats each. A more unusual case was that of Manuel Rodríguez Moreira,
who was relaxed for relapse in the Toledo auto of September 8, 1704, after
rejecting an offer of mercy. There is even an instance, December 8, 1681, of
a sentence of reconciliation, citra pœnam relapsi—without the punishment

of relapse—but this is explained by the tender age of the culprit, Diego de
Castro, who was but ten years old.[609]
Remembering the prudent intimation given to inquisitors
that sometimes fines were more productive than RELAPSE
confiscation, the heavy mulcts inflicted on the relapsed who
were admitted to mercy, suggest that possibly there may have been financial
reasons, in special cases, for benignity. We have seen the number of
executions for relapse in the Mallorquin autos of 1691. Besides these there
were twenty-two cases of those who had been reconciled in 1679 who were
not relaxed but penanced in various ways, including fines ranging from one
to five hundred libras, and aggregating in all sixty-five hundred libras.[610]
It is difficult not to recognize in this a speculative exercise of rigor or
mercy.
As the eighteenth century wore on, it would seem that the canonical
penalty of relaxation came to be enforced only on the relapsed who were
pertinacious, or refused to confess and beg for mercy. In the Valladolid auto
of June 13, 1745, there are three illustrative cases. Luis de la Vega, who had
been reconciled in 1701, was relaxed as an impenitent relapsed, who
persisted in denying his guilt. Miguel Gutiérrez, reconciled in 1699, and
Franciso García, reconciled in 1706, were admitted again to reconciliation,
with irremissible prison and sanbenito, ten years of galleys and two hundred
lashes—a somewhat doubtful mercy but, if the sentence was justifiable, the
offence unquestionably under the canons, called for relaxation.[611]
It was only in formal heresy that relapse entailed relaxation for, as we
have seen, the stake was reserved for heretics. Where heresy was merely
inferential, as in bigamy, blasphemy, solicitation in the confessional,
reading prohibited books, and other offences reserved to the Inquisition,
relapse was treated only as an aggravation, to be punished with such
additional severity as the circumstances might indicate. Even relapse in the
crime of administering the sacraments without being in orders, which the
Roman Inquisition treated as the equivalent of heresy, was visited in Spain
only with the ordinary penalties in somewhat rigorous measure. Thus Juan
Vicente Esquirel y Morales—a man with a number of aliases who had been
a foot-soldier—was penanced for this offence at Granada in 1727. He
persisted in his evil courses and, in the Córdova auto of March 4, 1731, he
was forbidden to wear clerical garments and was sentenced to two hundred
lashes and ten years of galleys.[612]

The latter half of the eighteenth century witnessed the gradual
disappearance of relaxation. Llorente tells us that during the reign of Carlos
III (1759-1788) he has found accounts of only ten autos de fe, in which
there were but four cases.[613] Probably the latest instance was that of Isabel
María Herraiz, an impostor known as the Beata de Cuenca, who died in
prison without confession and, being thus unable to recant and beg mercy,
was burnt in effigy in 1802.[614] When it came to relaxing a living fellow-
creature, however, the Inquisition by this time was honestly desirous of
escaping the necessity. Padre Miguel Sorano, cura of Esco in Aragon, was
an unmanageable heretic, who discarded tradition and the fathers and held
that Scripture was the sole authority; purgatory and limbo were human
inventions; fees for masses were simony; tithes were a fraud; the pope was
not the vicar of Christ and his decretals were mere devices to raise money.
All this he embodied in a book which he audaciously submitted to his
bishop and other theologians. Tried by the Saragossa tribunal, he was
pertinaciously impenitent, impervious alike to argument and threats, and
there was no alternative but to vote for relaxation. Then the Suprema
ordered fresh testimony to be sought and renewed efforts at conversion, but
all proved fruitless and again relaxation was voted. As a last resource the
Suprema ordered an investigation into his sanity. All the population of the
vicinage was examined, and one doctor was found to say that some years
before he had been dangerously sick, which might have affected his brain,
and since then he had talked freely of these heretical doctrines. Taking
advantage of this, renewed efforts were made to convert him without
coming to a vote. While this was in progress he was attacked with mortal
illness and, at the end of twenty days, he was told that the end was near. He
merely said that he was in the hands of God; he refused all the consolations
of religion and passed away unrepentant in 1805, to be buried in
unconsecrated ground, when the Suprema ordered the case to be closed,
without proceeding to conviction and burning in effigy.[615] We shall see
that twenty years later the episcopal Inquisition was less merciful.

CHAPTER V.

THE AUTO DE FE.

THE Act of Faith—the Auto de Fe—was the name by which the Spanish
Holy Office dignified the Sermo of the Old Inquisition. In its full
development it was an elaborate public solemnity, carefully devised to
inspire awe for the mysterious authority of the Inquisition, and to impress
the population with a wholesome abhorrence of heresy, by representing in
so far as it could the tremendous drama of the Day of Judgement.[616] It was
regarded as an eminently pious duty. Ferdinand, in 1499, congratulating the
inquisitors of Saragossa on the reports of their autos, and the consequent
edification of the people, exhorts them to continue to serve God and to
discharge their consciences and his. In a similar mood Cardinal Adrian, in
1517, urged the tribunal of Sicily to celebrate one as early as possible for,
besides the service to God, it would greatly edify the people.[617] The old
designation of Sermo was derived from the sermon with which the
proceedings commenced—originally preached by one of the inquisitors, but
subsequently by some eloquent fraile, who dilated on the supreme
importance of preserving the faith in its purity and of exterminating heresy
and heretics. To insure a large attendance, an indulgence, usually of forty
days, was granted to all present at the pious work.
At the height of its power the Inquisition spared no labor or expense to
lend impressiveness to the auto publico general, as a demonstration of its
authority and of the success with which it performed its functions. In the
earlier and busier period, the exhibition was simpler, and confined to the
practical work in hand. Thus in the first one celebrated in Toledo, August
16, 1486, the victims were marched on foot to the plaza, their hands tied
with ropes across the breast, wearing sanbenitos of yellow linen with their
names and the inscription “herege condenado,” and bearing mitres on their
heads. In the plaza they were ranged in tiers on a staging, while the
inquisitors and their officials occupied another staging opposite. The
sentence of each one was read and, although the culprits were numerous,
the affair, commencing at 6 A.M., was over by noon, when the convicts were
carried to the brasero or quemadero for burning. Apparently the exhibition
consisted only of those condemned to the stake, to the exclusion of the
reconciled or otherwise penanced.[618] The autos of the period, moreover,
were not confined to the seats of the tribunals. We hear of them in the
smaller towns, and, from a letter of Ferdinand, November 21, 1498, it
appears that the convicts were distributed to their several bishoprics where
the celebration and execution, though on a minor scale, would bring the

terror of the Inquisition and the danger of heresy more directly home to the
people.[619] By 1515, however, we may assume that they were centralized in
the tribunal cities, for a royal cédula of that year orders the tribunal of
Murcia to confine its autos to the city of Murcia and not to celebrate them
in Orihuela.[620] It was evidently desired to render them more impressive,
and this was further accomplished, about the same time, by requiring all
penitents to appear in them for, in 1517, we find the Suprema instructing
the tribunal of Navarre that, in future, abjurations de levi were not to be
made privately, but in the public autos, which were to be celebrated with all
solemnity.[621] There was cruelty in this, for appearance in an auto was in
itself a severe punishment, and we shall see that subsequently autos
particulares, or private autos, were instituted which enabled those guilty of
lighter offences to escape without public humiliation.
Thus far autos were held at the discretion of the tribunals,
which celebrated them whenever there was an accumulation IMPOSING
SOLEMNITIE
of finished trials requiring relief to the prisons. A consulta S
de fe would be assembled, the sentences would be agreed
upon, and a day would be appointed. It probably was not often that any
external interference was apprehended, as at Cuenca, in 1520, where the
tribunal had so excited popular passion by arresting the deputy corregidor,
in some collision of jurisdictions, that it was obliged to procure a royal
cédula instructing the corregidor not to permit the inquisitors to be impeded
in the performance of their functions.[622] Gradually, however, in this, as in
so much else, the Suprema assumed control. A commencement of this is
seen, in 1537, when it ordered that, whenever an auto was proposed, it
should be apprised before any one else, but even the Instructions of 1561
leave as yet the determination with the tribunals.[623] It could not have been
long after this, however, that the permission of the Suprema became
requisite for, in 1585, we find the Inquisitor of Cuenca, Ximenes de
Reynoso, writing, September 3d, for a decision of certain cases, and for
authority to hold an auto, as there were thirty penitents, many of whom
being poor were a charge on the fisc. The Suprema delayed its answer and,
on October 14th, Reynoso sent a special courier, asking the reply to be
returned by him; the auto was necessary for the benefit of the sick
prisoners, as there was a pestilence raging, and also for the relief of the
treasury; it was only by special entreaty that the receiver had paid the
expenses of the last month, saying that there were no funds. This brought a

speedy answer, with the desired permission.[624] Finally, the customary
routine was for the tribunal to send a list of the cases in readiness and to ask
for licence to hold an auto; if the Suprema approved, it ordered the auto to
be celebrated without delay. Apparently in the active work of the eighteenth
century there was an effort to regain control of the matter, for a carta
acordada of June 5, 1720, orders that no auto be held without advising the
Suprema and awaiting its commands.[625]
As public autos became less frequent, they lost the simplicity of the
earlier period and grew to be imposing demonstrations of the authority of
the Inquisition. Possession was taken of the principal square of the city, and
two vast stagings were erected, one for the penitents and their ghostly
attendants, and the other for the inquisitors with their officials and all the
ecclesiastical and secular authorities, while the windows of the surrounding
houses were filled with the notables of the place and their families. The
participation of prelate and magistrate, in the processions and spectacle,
was compulsory, for though, as a rule, they were proud to take their places,
causes of quarrel were too frequent and bitter not occasionally to render
them unwilling thus to do honor to their imperious adversaries. In 1486, the
local authorities of Valencia absented themselves from an auto and, when
this was reported to Ferdinand, he rebuked them and ordered them in future
always to be present, for nothing was so important as the service of God.
[626] Similar commands had to be repeated not infrequently. About 1580, a
royal cédula to the viceroy and officials of Majorca instructs them to lend
the weight of their authority to the Inquisition, by accompanying the
inquisitors in the procession to the staging, and then conducting them back
to their palace. In 1588, the President of the Royal Council of Castile issued
a general order to all the judges of the royal courts to march in the
processions and, in 1598, the inquisitors were empowered to compel by
excommunication the attendance of all public officials.[627]
The staging, on great occasions, was elaborate and costly, and the
question of defraying the expense was variously decided. In 1553, we find
the Suprema settling it, in Cuenca, by requiring the city to erect it, as was
customary in Toledo. These two cities and Madrid remained charged with it,
but elsewhere it was paid by the tribunals. At the great Madrid auto of 1632,
Philip IV ordered the city to construct the staging in conformity with plans
drawn by his chief architect, and the same course was followed in that of
1680, where we have long details of the complicated structure erected under

the superintendence of commissioners of high rank, who esteemed the duty
to be an honor.[628]
It was essential that both inquisitors should be present,
and a single inquisitor was forbidden to celebrate a public POLICE
POWER OF
auto in the absence of his colleague. The day selected must THE
be a feast-day—ordinarily a Sunday—in order to insure a TRIBUNAL
larger attendance. It sometimes chanced, however, in the
eccentricities of spiritual jurisdiction, that the city lay under an interdict on
the day appointed and, in such case, the Inquisition had to yield. In 1582 the
Suprema instructed the tribunals that, when this occurred, they should
endeavor to have the interdict lifted for the occasion, but, if those who had
cast it refused, the inquisitors must not assume to lift it of their own
authority, and must postpone the auto or do the best they could.[629]
In all other respects the inquisitors were masters of the situation.
Repeated royal cédulas, commencing in 1523, addressed to the authorities
of the cities, made the inquisitors virtual rulers for the time. They were
authorized to erect stagings in the public plazas, to regulate the police
arrangements of the towns, and even to assign to the secular and clerical
officials such seats and precedence as they saw fit. The climax would
appear to be reached when Philip II empowered them to distribute at their
will the windows of the private houses overlooking the scene. Against this,
in 1595, the president and judges of the Audiencia of Granada protested,
begging that house-owners should be allowed to rent their windows, and
pointing out the hardship of a gentleman of high degree securing the use of
a window for his family, and being turned out because the inquisitors chose
to give it to a notary for the use of his wife. Philip, however, held good,
except in so far that he gave the inquisitors instructions to have special
consideration for the houses of the judges and alcaldes.[630] How the
tribunals exercised the police power thus conferred on them is exemplified
in the Seville auto of September 24, 1559, when they forbade any one,
between the preceding midnight and the close of the solemnity, to carry
arms or ride on horseback in the city, under penalty, for common folk, of a
hundred lashes, and for gentlemen, of forfeiture of the horse or mule, thirty
days of prison, and a fine of fifty thousand maravedís.[631]

Numerous relations are extant, in print and in MS., of the great autos
publicos generales, giving in more or less detail the elaborate ceremonial
which developed itself, in the effort to render impressive these crowning
manifestations of the piety that regarded, as the highest service to God, the
extermination of those who persisted in worshipping him according to their
own consciences. These show that fashions varied somewhat with time and
place; they give the point of view of the spectator, and we may preferably
take as our guide a memoir of the seventeenth century showing the internal
machinery, according to the custom of Toledo, drawn up for the instruction
of succeeding inquisitors.[632] The minuteness of the rules prescribed shows
what importance was attached to rendering the spectacle imposing and to
making manifest the subordination of the civil power, while the care taken
to designate the exact place of every man or body of men indicates how
fruitless was the authority granted to the tribunal in these matters to prevent
the inveterate quarrels as to precedence. At the great Madrid auto of 1632,
the Franciscans, indignant at the position assigned to them in the
procession, after lively altercation, retired sullenly to their convent, for
which the Suprema prosecuted them. These undignified squabbles were so
much a matter of course that our author, in describing the report to be made
to the Suprema, assumes that a place must be reserved in it for them, and
for the reasons which governed the tribunal in its decisions.
When cases sufficient for an auto have accumulated, the tribunal reports
them to the Suprema, which orders it to be held. Then the inquisitors
determine on a feast-day, which should be at least a month off, in order to
give sufficient time for the preparations. Word is then sent to the corregidor
and the dean of the cathedral chapter to convene their respective bodies at
nine o’clock the next morning, to receive a communication from the
Inquisition and, at the appointed hour, some of the higher officials, with
familiars, announce to them and to the bishop the expected celebration.
Then in due time mounted familiars and notaries, with drums and trumpets
and clarions and the standard of the Inquisition, move in procession through
the streets, and at stated places a bell-man rings a bell and the town crier
proclaims “Know all dwellers in this city that the Holy Office of the
Inquisition, for the glory and honor of God and the exaltation of our holy
Catholic faith, will celebrate a public auto de fe at such a place on such a
day.”

No time is lost in making preparation. Commissioners
are appointed for the erection and ornamentation of the PREPARATIO
NS
staging, and wax is provided for the candles in the
procession of the Green Cross on the evening before the auto. All the
Mendicant Orders and the parish churches are invited to take part in the
procession and the auto. Letters of convocation are despatched, summoning
all familiars, notaries, commissioners, consultores and calificadores of the
district, under penalties and censures, to come on the day previous to the
procession of the Green Cross.[633] The frailes, who are to assist the
condemned during their last night on earth, are selected and notified.
Corozas (conical mitres, about three quarters of an ell in height) are
ordered, with flames for those who are to be relaxed, and in the ordinary
form for bigamists, sorcerers and false-witnesses; also sanbenitos with
flames for the relaxed, with two aspas for the reconciled, and with one aspa,
behind and before, for those abjuring de vehementi; also halters for the
relaxed and for those to be scourged. If there are effigies, they are made half
length, to be carried on poles by porters; if there are bones, the boxes
containing them are black, to be placed at the foot of those to which they
belong; the effigies wear mitres with flames, and sanbenitos with flames on
one side and, on the other, the name, residence and crime of the culprit.[634]
Green crosses are also provided to be carried by the relaxed, yellow wax
candles for the penitents and bundles of osiers for the reconciliation
ceremonies. There must also be a box for carrying the sentences, of crimson
velvet with gold fringe and a gilt lock and key, while a list of the relaxed
and the effigies is given to the magistrates, so that they may have the
sentences ready. Besides these there is the large green cross to be borne by
the Dominican prior, and the white cross by the mayordomo of the
Cofradia, in the procession of the preceding evening. The standard to be
carried by the fiscal is to be made of crimson damask, richly embroidered
on one side with the royal arms, a green cross rising from the crown, and
the sword and olive-branch to right and left, on the other side a shield with
arms of San Pedro Martir; the staff is to be gilt, ending in a cross, with
pendant cords bearing gold and silver tassels. Elaborate trappings are to be
provided for the mules ridden by the officials, and silver-plated batons for
the familiars who marshal the procession. The parish church usually
supplies the carpets, hangings, and other adornments of the staging, and the
singers for the evening procession and the reconciliation ceremonies. Then

the preacher is appointed—usually a Dominican calificador—though in
Galicia a bishop is generally selected and, in Madrid, the royal confessor.
The day before the auto, the altar on the staging is decorated, and torches
and candles are arranged around the place where the green cross is to be set.
The inquisitors assign all the windows overlooking the plaza; they order
that no coaches shall traverse the streets, and decide where the barriers are
to be erected; the municipal authorities surrender the city to them and do
whatever they require.
In the evening preceding the auto, the procession of the
Green Cross takes place—a solemn affair in which the THE
CELEBRATIO
standard is borne by a crowd of familiars and gentlemen; the N
white cross follows with the religious Orders, the cross of
the parish church with its clergy, the Green Cross carried by the Dominican
prior and his frailes with torches and chanting the Miserere. The procession
winds through the designated streets to the plaza, where the Green Cross is
planted above the altar and is guarded by Dominicans during the night. The
white cross is carried on to the brasero, where it is guarded by a body,
existing in some cities, known as the soldiers of the Zarza, whose function
is to guard the brasero and plaza and to furnish the wood for the burning.
[635] The Inquisition itself is guarded during the night by soldiers who,
before day-break, arouse the officials by beat of drum. Within the building,
the sanbenitos and insignia are arranged in order and porters are assembled
in readiness to carry the effigies and bones and such penitents as have been
disabled from walking. At 9 P.M. the senior inquisitor, with a secretary, visits
those who are to be relaxed and informs them of their approaching fate;
with each of them he leaves two frailes to guide them. If any of the
pertinacious or negativos are converted, they are to be heard immediately
and their confessions received, when the inquisitors with the Ordinary
determine whether to admit them to reconciliation, and the same is done
with those converted on the staging.
Before dawn mass is celebrated in the audience-chamber, and also at the
altar of the Green Cross. By daylight breakfast is given to all who are to
appear in the auto, and also to the frailes assigned to the relaxed.[636] They
are not taken from their cells till the hour of forming the procession, when
the penitents are ranged along the walls of the audience-chamber in the
order of their marching; all are dressed in their sanbenitos with the requisite
insignia.

The procession starts with the soldiers of the Zarza at its head; then the
cross of the parish church, shrouded in black, with an acolyte who tolls a
bell mournfully at intervals. Then come the penitents, one by one, each with
a familiar on either side; first are the impostors, then personators of officials
of the Inquisition, followed in order by blasphemers, bigamists, Judaizers,
Protestants, the effigies and chests of bones and finally those to be relaxed,
each with two frailes. Mounted officials follow, then familiars in pairs, the
standard of the Inquisition, and finally the inquisitors bring up the rear.
Thus the procession moves through the designated streets, filled with a
densely packed crowd, kept off by railings, to the plaza, where the culprits
are seated in the same order, the lightest offenders on the lowest benches.
The staging is provided with two pulpits, from which the sentences are
read alternatively. Between them is a bench elevated on two steps, on which
the penitents are brought successively, to sit with their faces to the tribunal
and hear their sentences read; the bench is furnished with a rail, kindly
provided for them to cling to, in case of fainting, for, with the exception of
the relaxed, this is the first definite announcement to them of their fate.
Below the seats of the tribunal there is a room handsomely fitted up for
refreshments, to which the inquisitors, officials, municipal officers and
clergy resort from time to time, and a similar one is provided for the
familiars and persons of note. To the former is brought any pertinacious
convict who may be converted on the staging previous to hearing his
sentence, and there an inquisitor and secretary take his confession, after
which the inquisitors and Ordinary consider the case: if he is to be admitted
to reconciliation he is sent back to the Inquisition in a coach or chair, or is
replaced on the staging, to return with the rest of the penitents. If any culprit
dies on the staging, if he is condemned to relaxation his sentence is read,
and his body is delivered to the secular arm; if he is one of those to be
reconciled, he is absolved and the parish church buries him in consecrated
ground; if simply one penanced, he is absolved ad cautelam and the church
buries him.
After the preaching of the sermon, a secretary mounts a pulpit and, in a
loud voice, reads the customary oath, elaborately pledging all the officials
and people present to obedience to the Holy Office, and to the active
persecution of heretics and heresy, to which every one responds Amen! If
the king is present, the senior inquisitor goes to his balcony and, on the

cross and gospels, administers to him an oath to defend the faith, to
persecute heretics and to show all necessary favor to the Inquisition.[637]
Then the sentences are read from the alternate pulpits, the
alguazil mayor producing each culprit to hear his sentence. THE
CELEBRATIO
In this there must be no interruption, as all the sentences N
must be read, if it lasts till nightfall, for which torches and
torch-bearers must be in readiness.[638] Although the sentences of the
relaxed are left to the last, yet, if the auto is prolonged into the night they
are introduced earlier, as it is essential that the burning should be executed
in broad day-light. As these sentences are read, the effigies and chests of
bones are ranged on one side of the stage, and the living convicts on the
other. They are then delivered to the secular arm, and the judge who utters
the sentences does so, either on the stage, or at the table of the secretaries or
outside of the staging. If there is a compañia de la Zarza, it marches in
squadron into the plaza, when the sentences are read, and the men discharge
their arquebuses. They surround the condemned and march with them to the
brasero, to protect them from the populace which, in some places, is
accustomed to maltreat and even to kill them, against which the inquisitors
give special instructions. The magistrates provide the asses on which they
ride and the wood to burn them. The frailes in charge attend them to the last
breath and exhaust all effort to bring about their repentance and conversion.
The public solemnities conclude with the ceremonies of abjuration and
reconciliation, after which the alguazil mayor and familiars conduct the
penitents back to the Inquisition, where they have supper and are locked up,
three or four in a cell. The priests of the parish church remove the black veil
from their cross and take it back, while the Dominicans bear the green cross
to the Inquisition, singing psalms and escorted by the municipal officials.
The next morning the reconciled have the terms of their sentences read over
to them; they and the other penitents take the oath of secrecy, and they are
conveyed by the alcaide to the penitential prison. At ten o’clock the alguazil
mayor, with a secretary and familiars, all mounted, with the public
executioner and town-crier, take out those sentenced to scourging and
vergüenza, and the punishment is duly administered through the customary
streets. On their return, those whose sentences include the galleys are
furnished a certificate of their length of service and are transferred to the
royal prison, and with this concludes the stately ceremony by which the

Holy Office, at the height of its power, impressed its terror on the
population.
The place of burning—the quemadero or brasero—as a rule was outside
of the city. With this the tribunal had nothing to do, except that a secretary
and alguazil were present to certify and report as to the execution of the
sentences.[639] Consequently the documents of the Inquisition furnish no
details, but some may be gleaned from a relation of the Madrid auto of
1632. For this occasion the city had constructed the brasero beyond the
Puerta de Alcalá; as there were seven to be burnt, it was made fifty feet
square, and had the requisite stakes with garrotes. The confusion and crowd
were great, and so also was the fire, which lasted until eleven o’clock at
night, by which time the bodies were reduced to ashes, so that the memory
of the impious might vanish from the earth.[640] The scattering of the ashes
over the fields, or into running water, was a prescription of old standing, to
prevent disciples of heresiarchs from preserving fragments to be venerated
as relics. This was not an easy matter, for the total calcination of a human
skeleton requires a prolonged intensity of heat not likely to be maintained
where wood was expensive, and the bones found with the cinders on the
site of the old quemadero of Madrid, when, about 1868, the Calle de
Carranza was cut through it, would indicate that part, at least, of the
remains of the victims were allowed to lie where they had perished.

The auto público general, while looming large in popular
imagination, represented, in truth, but a small part of THE AUTO
PARTICULAR
inquisitorial activity. It was a solemnity on a grand scale, in
which the Holy Office magnified its importance, but by far the greater
number of cases were despatched in autos particulares or autillos, held in
churches, or in the audience-chamber, or anywhere that circumstances
might dictate. In the Toledo record, from 1575 to 1610, there are contained
but twelve autos generales, in which three hundred and eighty-six culprits
appeared, while seven hundred and eighty-six cases were settled in autos
particulares.[641] As stated above, appearance in a public auto was, in itself,
a severe punishment, and the sentence always specified whether the
offender was to be subjected to a humiliation entailing consequences on
him and his family so greatly dreaded that, at a Toledo auto of December
13, 1627, Juan Nuñez Saravia, a wealthy Portuguese, vainly offered twelve
thousand ducats to escape it.[642] The great majority of cases deserved no

such severity. The jurisdiction of the Inquisition extended over a wide field;
it was, in a certain sense, a custos morum and took cognizance of a vast
number of comparatively trivial offences—careless speeches, blasphemies,
propositions of all kinds, indecent writings and works of art, sorceries and
conjurations more or less innocent and the like—which it disposed of
without summoning the entire population as spectators. Clerical offenders,
moreover, as we have seen, unless degraded for formal heresy, were
shielded from the scandal of publicity in the audience chamber.
The auto particular, or private auto, was often celebrated in a church, to
which the spiritual and civil authorities were not invited, but where such
portion of the public as could find room were at liberty to be present. More
frequently it was held in the sala, or audience-chamber, and here again
there was a distinction, for the sentence defined whether it should be with
open doors or closed and, in the former case, the bell was often tolled in
order to invite a curious crowd of spectators. Even the apartments of the
senior inquisitor were sometimes used in this manner, as when, March 23,
1680, three alguaziles of the corregidor of Toledo, for maltreating the
purveyor of the tribunal, were sentenced in the apartments to various terms
of exile. When nuns were the culprits, the autillo was customarily
performed in their convent, as in the case, August 8, 1658, of Sor Josefa de
Villegas, for superstitions and sorceries, who was sentenced to various
penances, through the grating of the Augustinian nunnery of San Torquato,
in presence of the nuns and, on February 13, 1685, Sor Dionisia de Rojas
was sentenced in the choir of the Franciscan house of Santa Isabel, in the
presence of the superior and four elderly sisters.[643]
As financial distress grew more and more acute, in the seventeenth
century, the tribunals shrank from the heavy expenses attendant on the
elaborate demonstrations of the great public autos which, however
gratifying to their pride, bore too heavily upon their diminishing resources,
exposed as they were to the royal exactions. In Barcelona, there would
seem to have been no public auto between 1627 and the revolt of 1640; in
Valladolid, none between 1644 and 1667. In Toledo one was held, after
prolonged consideration, January 1, 1651, in which the number of culprits
shows that it relieved the prisons of a long accumulation; it was the last
public auto celebrated in Toledo, and there was none even in a church,
between 1656 and 1677.[644] Seville appears to have been less hampered
and celebrated public autos generales in 1631, 1643, 1648, 1656, and a

most impressive one in 1660 at which less fortunate tribunals unloaded their
convicts, for there were seven relaxations in person, twenty-seven in effigy
and fifty-two penitents, but this appears to be the last of its kind there.[645]
In fact, the public auto would have been abandoned ere
this, but for the rule that judgements of blood must not be CONTRIBUT
ORY AUTOS
rendered in churches. As early as 1568 the Suprema had
decreed that, when there was a relaxation, the auto must be held in the plaza
and not in a church, which was in accordance with the ancient authorities.
[646] When the public autos became an onerous burden, we can imagine that
this led to hesitation in pronouncing death-sentences for, when this was
unavoidable, the convict became a troublesome personage. A suggestive
case was that of Juan López, condemned to relaxation for Judaism, at
Valladolid, in 1633; after he lay in prison for thirty months with no prospect
of getting rid of him, the Suprema ordered him to be tortured and another
vote to be taken, which resulted, September 1, 1637, in a revised sentence
of reconciliation, with severe punishments.[647] A device less damaging to
the purity of faith was to transfer a convict from one tribunal to another for
execution. Thus when, at Valencia, the Morisco Gerónimo Buenaventura
was condemned for pertinacity, there was no auto in which to execute the
sentence. On November 19, 1635, the Suprema ordered him to be sent to
Valladolid, apparently under the impression that he could be burnt there but,
after two years, Valladolid reported that it had no public auto in which to
despatch him, so, in 1638 the Suprema ordered his transfer to Saragossa.
[648] Whether he met a speedy death there we have no means of knowing,
but there is something peculiarly revolting in thus sending a poor wretch
from one corner of Spain to another, in order to find some place in which to
burn him economically.
When any tribunal managed to celebrate a public auto, it was utilized to
disembarrass the others. Thus the Toledo auto of 1651 had effigies
contributed by Cuenca, Córdova and Seville. In 1655 Santiago celebrated a
public auto, to which Valladolid sent for relaxation one living person and
four effigies, two of the latter having been kept waiting since 1644 and
1648. The consulta de fe of Murcia, on July 18, 1658, voted to relax nine
fugitive Judaizers of Beas, but the formal sentence was delayed until
December 5, 1659, in preparation for the great public auto at Seville, April
13, 1660, when the effigies were duly cremated.[649] The imposing Madrid

auto of 1680—the last of its kind—was a general gaol delivery to which all
the tribunals contributed their embarrassing convicts.
There was no prospect of an improvement in the situation, although it
was supremely humiliating to the Inquisition that it could not afford to burn
those whom it condemned, promptly and on the scene of their
transgressions, under the alternative of exercising a compulsory mercy.
Some relief must be found, and a partial attempt was made, in a carta
acordada of September 4, 1657, permitting effigies to be relaxed at autos
particulares in churches. Toledo promptly availed itself of this by relaxing,
December 9th, eight effigies of fugitives in such an auto,[650] but the other
tribunals seem to have discountenanced the device. The further step, of
overthrowing the traditional prohibition of uttering sentences of blood in
churches, appears to have been under consideration in 1664, when the
Suprema called on the tribunals for information as to relaxations in person
or in effigy in autos particulares. In reply, Valencia reported that the
sentence of Gaspar López, to be relaxed in effigy, voted in 1641, had never
been published, for lack of an auto, although the corresponding sentence of
confiscation had been executed—which the Suprema pronounced to be
highly irregular.[651]
It required time to familiarise the conscience with so revolutionary a
measure, and the project slumbered for a quarter of a century, but the
pressure to escape the burden of public autos increased, and the Suprema
finally conquered its scruples. A carta acordada, of September 23, 1689,
pointed out that, in view of the diminished resources from confiscations and
of the increased cost of celebrating these public functions with due
solemnity, they were avoided as far as possible, and it was no longer
practicable to reserve for them the relaxed, whose numbers unfortunately
were daily increasing. They had to be fed while lying forgotten in their
cells, after their cases were finished; even the expense of transferring them
from one tribunal to another was considerable, and it was kindly added that
there was risk to their souls in detaining them so long while in ignorance of
their fate. Weighing all this and, in view of the fact that there were cases of
relaxation in churches both before and after the Instructions of 1561, and
that the Council of Constance, sitting in the cathedral, had condemned
Jerome of Prague, the Suprema reached the conclusion that judgement of
relaxation could be rendered in churches, provided the sentence of the civil
magistrate was uttered outside. The tribunals were therefore instructed that

they could relieve themselves of their convicts in autos particulares in
churches, delivering them to the secular arm outside of the sacred limits. To
such autos the civic and cathedral chapters were not to be invited, and the
rule as to time was to be observed, so that the burning could be performed
by daylight.[652]
Against this there arose a protest on the part of the
secular magistrates, who felt slighted at not being invited AUTOS HELD
IN
and having seats allotted to them. To meet this, the Suprema, CHURCHES
April 7, 1690, addressed to the king a consulta deploring the
impossibility of celebrating the autos with the ceremonial and
impressiveness of old. But great numbers of those deserving relaxation had
accumulated in most of the tribunals; there were not funds to maintain them
in prison, or to despatch them in general autos, and to bring them together
would excite horror, as occurred in the auto of 1680. It therefore proposed
that the secular officials be stationed outside of the church, where the
convicts could be delivered to them, but this was not acceptable to the civil
authorities and a compromise was effected, July 20th, designating the single
official who was to represent the secular arm. The tribunal was to send him
a message, appointing time and place; he was to be at the church door when
the procession arrived; he was to follow the inquisitors, the fiscal and the
Ordinary, and have a seat near them and, after the sentences of relaxation
were pronounced, he was to leave the church for a place agreed upon,
where the convicts were to be brought to him, when he sentenced them and
executed the sentences.[653]
Thus came to an end the gorgeous general public autos in which, during
its more prosperous days, the Inquisition had made so profound an
impression on the imaginations of men. Thenceforth, no matter how many
living beings and effigies were consigned to the quemadero, the ceremony
was conducted within the sacred precincts of a church, in a simpler and
more economical fashion. The great autos of Majorca, in 1691, in which so
many unfortunates perished, were held in the church of San Domingo. Yet
still there was elaboration of display. A writer, in 1724, giving an account of
the autos celebrated in Seville since 1719, is vastly more concerned with
enumerating the names of officials and familiars, with describing the
ceremonial and dilating upon the crimson velvet chairs and cushions and
canopies embroidered in gold and silver and the diamond badges worn by

the functionaries, than with the real work of the tribunal, grim and cruel
though it continued to be.[654]
These gauds might gratify the vanity of the Inquisitors, but the old
attractiveness of the imposing public ceremonial had vanished. The
population no longer poured in from all the surrounding district, camping
out in the fields, in the vast crowds described with so much pride in the
relations of the great autos. When we remember the thousand familiars and
officials in Logroño, and the grandees who eagerly competed for positions
of honor in the processions, we can estimate the change that compelled the
complaint of the Seville tribunal, in 1729. It denounced the luke-warmness
of the familiars in accompanying its processions, whereby it was losing the
respect of the people, and compared unfavorably with the public
demonstrations of the Audiencia and civic authorities. It was with this
object that the familiars had been so greatly increased in numbers and had
been favored with so many privileges and exemptions. Besides the
occasional autos, the tribunal made salidas, or processions, on five principal
feasts of the year, and it ordered the Hermandad de San Pedro Martir to
nominate eight familiars, from among whom it would select four, two to
accompany it on the regular salidas and two for the autos, with threats of
fine and imprisonment for neglect of duty.[655]
Yet it would not be safe to conclude from this that fanaticism was
extinct. At the Llerena auto of June 25, 1752, there were six effigies of
fugitives to be burnt and one of a dead woman with her bones. It had
always been the custom to have these borne in the procession and to the
brasero by carriers of the lowest class, drawn from the hospital for vagrants,
who were paid for the service but, on this occasion, it chanced that none of
these could be had. The inquisitors were greatly exercised and, as a last
expedient, they represented to the Lieutenant-governor, Don Manuel de la
Fuente y Dávila, that this was an exalted religious duty which the noblest
might be proud to perform, and they offered that the officials of the
Inquisition would carry the effigies to the church and then to the secular
magistrate, if Don Manuel and other nobles would bear them thence to the
brasero. Don Manuel assented and his example was followed by the
Governor, the Marquis of Torre Mexia and other nobles; the officials were
persuaded to do their share, and thus, we are told, the old custom, so
derogatory to the sacredness of the function, was successfully discarded.

The procession to the brasero was a triumphal march, to the sound of
trumpets, with the escort of all the troops that could be assembled.[656]
Notwithstanding such occasional bursts of zeal, the glory
of the Inquisition was rapidly departing and, with the SPECTACULA
R AUTOS
extermination of the few remaining Judaizers, its functions
continuously dwindled. In the Toledo tribunal, the last auto held in a church
was on March 7, 1778, for a single penitent condemned to vergüenza for
sorcery. After that, to the close of the century, it had but nine autillos, all
held in the audience-chamber, sometimes with open and sometimes with
closed doors, and in each of them there was but a single penitent. Five of
the cases were for propositions, two for solicitation in the confessional, one
for bigamy, and one for administering sacraments without priests’ orders.
[657] To this had shrunk the activity of a once prominent tribunal and with
this shrinkage the power to impress the popular imagination with its
imposing demonstrations.

There is one aspect of the auto de fe which reflects the intensity of
Spanish fanaticism in a most suggestive manner. When the Spaniard
regarded it as a celebration fitted for a day of rejoicing, or as a spectacular
entertainment acceptable to distinguished national guests, he did so in the
conviction that it was the highest exhibition of piety, and a service to God,
glorious to the land which organized it, and stimulating the devotion of all
participants. Probably no autos were celebrated in honor of Ferdinand and
Isabella, for the stern and rapid work of the period scarce admitted of the
pageantry requisite to adapt the spectacle to royal courtliness, and the
Burgundian fashions had not superseded the ancient Castilian simplicity.
None of their successors, however, of the House of Hapsburg, were without
such a testimonial of pious loyalty. When, in 1528, Charles V passed
through Valencia, there was celebrated in his honor an auto, in which there
were thirteen men and women relaxed in person, besides ten in effigy.[658]
In 1560, the Toledo tribunal contributed an auto, with several relaxations, to
the joyous celebration of the marriage of Philip II with Isabelle de Valois,
daughter of Henry II of France. It was a notable spectacle, for the royal
wedding and the meeting of the Córtes to swear allegiance to the young
Don Carlos brought to Toledo all that was most distinguished in Spain.[659]
When, in February, 1564, Philip was in Barcelona for the Catalan Córtes, an
auto was arranged in his honor, in which there were eight relaxations in

person and numerous condemnations to the galleys. They were mostly
Frenchmen whom Saint-Sulpice, the French ambassador, had vainly sought
to protect.[660]
The accession of Philip III was celebrated by an auto at
Toledo, March 6, 1600, in the presence of the king, his SPECTACULA
R AUTOS
queen, Margarita of Austria, the Duke of Lerma and all the
court, where Philip took the oath to protect and favor the Holy Office.
Toledo had but few culprits, as it had held an auto the year before, but a
total of forty-six were accumulated by drawing upon Córdoba, Granada,
Cuenca, Llerena, Valladolid and Seville. There were but two relaxations in
effigy and one in person—the latter being a Huguenot named Jacques
Pinzon, whom the Granada tribunal had been leisurely endeavoring to wean
from his heresy for a couple of years. He was needed to complete the
attraction at Toledo, and his trial was concluded so hurriedly that the
Suprema ordered his transfer thither before it had received for confirmation
the vote condemning him, so the sentence was made out in blank and sent
after him for the Toledan inquisitors to sign. As he is characterized as
pertinacious he was probably burnt alive.[661] The great auto of Madrid, in
1632, was held there by the special order of the king, in celebration of the
recovery from confinement of Isabelle de Bourbon, wife of Philip IV, and
was graced with the presence of both and of their son Don Carlos. There
were thirty-seven penitents besides seven relaxations in person and two in
effigy.[662] The revolted Catalans, who had given themselves to France,
took the same means of honoring the Viceroy Condé, on the eve of his
departure for Paris, by an auto celebrated November 7, 1647, in which there
were two relaxations in person and two in effigy.[663] The ostensible
purpose of the crowning glory at Madrid, June 30, 1680, which fitly ended
the long series of autos publicos generales, was to honor the marriage of
the young Carlos II with Louise Marie d’Orléans. There were sixty-seven
penitents and fifty-one relaxations, of which nineteen were in person. A
compañia de la Zarza was formed, numbering two hundred and fifty
members, with Francisco de Salcedo as captain. On June 28th they were
taken to the puerta de Alcalá, where each man was furnished with a fagot.
Then they marched to the royal palace, where Salcedo took a fagot,
specially prepared for the purpose, and handed it to the Duke of Pastrana,
who carried it to the king. Carlos with his own hands bore it to his queen
and exhibited it and then sent it back by Pastrana with the message that it