THE SECRET PRISON.
The _cárceles secretas_, or secret prison, was the official designation
of the place of confinement during trial of those accused of heresy. It
formed part of the building of the Inquisition, so that the prisoner
could at any moment be brought into the audience-chamber without being
exposed to public view--such a case as Carranza's, where confinement was
in a different place and the inquisitors went there, being wholly
exceptional. The secret prison was exclusively one of detention, the
_casa de penitencia_, or punitive prison, being wholly different, and
the contrast between the two--the laxity of the imprisonment as a
punishment of the guilty and its rigor towards those whose guilt was yet
uncertain--is not the least of the anomalies of the Holy Office.
As a general rule it may be said that imprisonment followed arrest and
that admission to bail was an exceptional favor in the early time,
virtually withdrawn afterwards. In 1530 we have an example in the case
of Antonio de Parejo, a priest whose offences did not amount to formal
heresy, who was released by the Toledo tribunal from the secret prison
and given the city as a prison on bail in 100,000 maravedís, furnished
by his brother Vizcaino, who renounced his fuero; Parejo moreover took a
solemn oath not to leave Toledo on his own feet or on those of others,
and that a certain Matheo Pérez could always tell where he was to be
found.[1487] Various regulations, in 1535 and 1537, allow bail in cases
where arrests had been made on slender evidence but, in 1560, Valdés
ordered that no exceptions should be made when the charge was of
heresy.[1488]
For those held on less serious charges there was less rigorous
treatment. The inquisitorial jurisdiction extended over a wide range of
offences, more or less trivial, and the tribunals did not care to be
burdened with the expense of prisoners who were not likely to seek
safety in flight or to warn their accomplices. For these there were
various grades of confinement, under the practice known as _aplacería_,
of assigning the city as a prison, or the offender's house, or the less
rigorous prison for officials under trial, known as the _cárcel de
familiares_. Thus, about 1640, a writer says that, in cases of
blasphemy, the accused can be assigned the city as a prison or, if the
offence has been especially shameless and scandalous and reiterated, it
may be proper to confine him in the cárcel de familiares or, if flight
is anticipated, even in the secret prison, although this is a rigor not
now practised. He adds that, when astrologers spontaneously denounce
themselves, they are not thrown into the secret prison but into the
cárcel de familiares or are given their own houses or the city as a
prison.[1489] Friars often, unless the charges were particularly grave,
were assigned for detention to the convent of their Order, in accordance
with the general policy of guarding the honor of the Church. When the
prisons of the tribunals were crowded, convents were also sometimes used
as subsidiary prisons, as they were provided with cells for detention.
[Sidenote: _LESS HARSH THAN OTHER GAOLS_]
In some tribunals we also hear of _cárceles medias_, _cárceles comunes_
and _cárceles públicas_, for offences not of faith. These appear to be
similar to the _cárcel de familiares_ and, in all of them, confinement
was held not to inflict the indelible stain of the secret prison. As a
rule, the prisoner in these was not debarred from communication with his
friends, although he might be confined _sin comunicacion_. In fact, the
whole matter lay at the discretion of the tribunal. We have seen how, in
the passionate conflicts of jurisdiction, inquisitors sometimes wreaked
vengeance on their opponents by inflicting on them the infamy of
confinement in the secret prison. So, on the other hand, culprits
charged with heresy, when the proofs seemed slender, were sometimes
placed in the _cárceles medias_ and then, as the trial advanced and the
evidence grew more compromising, were transferred to the secret prison.
Thus, in 1678, Angela Pérez, on trial for Judaism by the tribunal of
Toledo, was moved, June 22nd from the _medias_ to the _secretas_; the
same occurred at Valladolid, in 1697, in several cases of Judaism, and,
as late as 1818 there is an example at Seville, where Ana María Barbero,
tried for superstitions and blasphemies, was similarly shifted when the
case reached the stage of formal accusation.[1490]
* * * * *
In compassionating the hardships of the secret prison, the horrors of
the gaols of the period must not be lost to sight and, in the
comparison, we shall see that those of the Inquisition were less vile
than those of other jurisdictions. It is true that the ancient laws of
Castile proclaimed that prisons were meant not for punishment but for
detention while awaiting trial, and that Ferdinand and Isabella, in
1489, ordered a weekly inspection by the judges, who should listen to
all complaints made by prisoners, a provision repeated by Charles V, in
1525.[1491] Yet the petition of the Córtes of Madrid, in 1534, shows how
little attention these enlightened enactments received and the condition
of the gaols can be conjectured from that of Valencia, where, about
1630, Pedro Bonet, secretary of the Inquisition, was confined, while a
competencia was fought over him, and when he was surrendered to the
tribunal he was in such a state that he died within three days.[1492] It
is certain that the Inquisition regarded its secret prison as more
humane than the royal gaol, even in modern times, for in 1816, when Don
Agustin Pirala was tried by both jurisdictions, for certain irreligious
and "anti-political" propositions, the tribunal of Madrid, in procuring
his transfer to its cells, asserted that this was to relieve him from
the inevitable hardships of the royal gaol in which he was
confined.[1493]
This may well be true, for the secret prison had the reputation of being
less harsh than those of the spiritual jurisdictions. In 1629, Fray
Diego de Medina, when brought before the tribunal of Valladolid for
uttering some radical heresies, explained that, in his convent de la
Victoria, he was kept in the stocks in the convent prison, and he had
made the heretical assertions in order to be transferred to the milder
treatment of the Inquisition, whereupon he was dismissed with a
reprimand. We might regard this as an isolated case were it not for a
similar one, about 1675, where a cleric, confined in the episcopal
prison, pretended Judaism with the object of being removed to the
Inquisition. In this instance the tribunal rebuked him and remanded him
to the tender mercies of his bishop.[1494]
Whether the secret prisons were better or worse than the royal and
ecclesiastical gaols, they were dismal and unwholesome places of
confinement. Of course as structures they varied greatly. Few, if any,
of the buildings of the Inquisition were constructed for its use. In
Saragossa the royal castle of the Aljafería, in Barcelona the royal
palace, in Valencia the archiepiscopal palace, in Seville the castle of
Triana, in Córdova the Alcázar were occupied and utilized, and elsewhere
such buildings as seemed suitable were taken. Those which had served as
castles had dungeons already provided; in the others, cells were
constructed. Under the circumstances there could be no common plan and
no general standard of convenience or healthfulness. It is to be hoped
that not many were like that of Palermo, where there were great
subterranean caverns in which the inquisitors constructed cells for
their prisoners, but probably not much better was part of the secret
prison of Toledo, of which we get a glimpse in 1592. Mari Rodríguez,
after lying there for nine months, with a year-old baby, asked an
audience and begged to be removed from her cell, for it was entirely
dark and she and her companions suffered greatly and they were sick, to
which the inquisitor coldly replied that what she needed was to
discharge her conscience and save her soul and, for the rest, she should
have justice.[1495]
That the prisons should be unsanitary was a matter of course at the
period and the death-rate must have been large, especially during the
pestilences, which are of constant recurrence in the annals of the time.
Statistics are of course unattainable, but the records frequently refer
to the death of prisoners during trial. In Valladolid, the report of
1630 to the Suprema includes the names of twelve deceased prisoners,
with the existing state of their cases and, in the great Madrid auto de
fe of 1680, all the dead who were burnt in effigy, to the number of
eight, had died in the prisons.[1496]
[Sidenote: _TERROR INSPIRED_]
Confinement in the secret prison was regarded as one of the gravest
misfortunes that could befall a man, in consequence of the indelible
stain that it inflicted on him and his descendants. The Consults Magna
of 1696 dwells eloquently on the horror inspired by such imprisonment
and the injustice of subjecting to it, at the whim of an inquisitor,
those whose offences had no relation to the faith. In support of this it
adduces the case of a woman of Seville, in 1682, who had some words with
the wife of a secretary of the tribunal; the alguazil was sent to arrest
her and, in her frenzied desire to avoid imprisonment, she threw herself
from an upper window and broke both her legs. The Consulta adds that
those who were guilty only of an insult to a familiar were not
infrequently thrust into the deepest dungeons of the secret
prisons.[1497] The terror thus caused was rated as one of the most
efficient powers possessed by the Inquisition. When, in 1622, Gregory XV
granted to the bishops concurrent jurisdiction over the crime of
solicitation, the remonstrances addressed to him from Spain represented
this dread as a deterrent much more powerful than anything that the
bishops could bring to bear. In the royal instructions to the Duke of
Alburquerque, then ambassador at Rome, it is argued that the fear of the
infamy wrought by the prisons of the Inquisition restrains the hardiest
culprits.[1498] Power such as this was liable to constant abuse, even
after the Suprema had deprived the tribunals of initiative and, when the
attention of Carlos IV was called to it, in 1798, by the case of Ramon
de Salas, a professor at Salamanca, he proposed to require special royal
permission before consignment to the secret prison, but Llorente tells
us that court intrigues prevented the enactment of this wholesome
reform.[1499]
* * * * *
The cruelty which kept all prisoners in chains was not peculiar to the
Inquisition, for we have seen that it was a common practice in the
secular gaols. An Italian visiting Madrid, in 1592, describes three
prisons there; that of the court, of the city and of the priests, and
says that all prisoners, no matter how slight their offences, were
fettered. It was evidently a novelty to him which he sought to explain
by the insecurity of the buildings.[1500] None of the Instructions
refer to chains, but a chance allusion of Pablo García shows that their
use was assumed as a matter of course, and this occasionally presents
itself in the trials as when, in 1565, Pierre de Bonneville asks their
removal to enable him to change his drawers and, in 1647, Alonso
Velázquez, who had escaped and was recaptured, describes how he rid
himself of them.[1501]
While thus the Inquisition is not to be taxed with special cruelty in
following the universal custom, it had its own methods of inflicting
intolerable hardship in special cases. When a heretic proved to be
impenitent, a _mordaza_, or gag, was applied to him. What was the exact
form of this instrument of torture it would be impossible to say, but
the allusions to it show that it was regarded as a severe infliction.
When thus worn in prison it was not a mere precaution against the
prisoner spreading his heresies, for an order of the Suprema prescribes
that no one be allowed to speak with him except the confessor sent to
him in the night before his execution, while even then the mordaza was
not to be removed.[1502] There was another device of pure cruelty--the
_pié de amigo_--an iron fork or crotch, fitted to the chin and secured
by a band around the neck or the waist, to keep the head up and rigidly
fixed. The customary use of this was on culprits scourged through the
streets or paraded in _vergüenza_, but it was sometimes employed to
heighten the sufferings of prisoners, either through mere malignity or
to induce confession. When the celebrated Doctor Agustin Cazalla was
burnt in Valladolid, in 1559, envoys from the tribunal sent to him the
afternoon before the auto de fe found him in a dark cell, loaded with
chains and wearing a pié de amigo, although he had freely confessed,
recanted and begged for mercy.[1503] In 1599, in the case of Jacques
Pinzon, a French Calvinist, in Toledo, who made a disturbance in the
prison, fifty lashes were administered and a pié de amigo was ordered,
April 20th. At an audience granted him six months later, October 19th,
he is described as still wearing it, as well as two pairs of fetters
and, in this case, the pié de amigo extended from the neck to the right
hand.[1504]
[Sidenote: _ESCAPE_]
In spite of fetters, escape from the secret prison was by no means rare,
but it was not often finally successful, for the organization of the
Inquisition generally enabled it to recapture the fugitive. A
description of the culprit was at once distributed, with a mandate
ordering the civil authorities to summon every one to assist and the
familiars and commissioners to scour the roads, under pain of
excommunication and five hundred ducats.[1505] Thus an army was promptly
on foot, every suspicious stranger was scrutinized, and the fugitive was
usually soon arrested and returned. In the jurisprudence of the period,
breaking gaol was held to be a confession of guilt and some authorities
held that this applied to the prisoners of the Inquisition, but Simancas
and Rojas agree in regarding this as excessive severity. If the fugitive
was recaptured, the ordinary practice was to give him one or two hundred
lashes; his trial was resumed and carried forward to the end. If he was
not recaptured he was prosecuted for contumacy _in absentia_.[1506]
Numerous cases attest the accuracy of this although, when the culprit
was a person of condition, the scourging was replaced by stricter
imprisonment and increased severity in the sentence.[1507] For those who
eluded recapture, the prosecution for contumacy had but one ending--the
absentee was held to be a self-confessed and impenitent heretic, fit
only for the stake. Thus, in 1586, Jean de Salines, a Frenchman, on
trial for Lutheranism in Valencia, succeeded in escaping with a number
of fellow-prisoners. He was not recaptured; the necessary edicts of
summons were issued in due order and, as a contumacious heretic, he was
burnt in effigy, January 23, 1590 although, at the time of his evasion
his case had already been voted on, with the insignificant sentence of
abjuration _de levi_ and six months' seclusion.[1508]
* * * * *
The cruellest feature of inquisitorial prison discipline was the rigid
denial of all intercourse with the outer world. In the secular gaols,
the state always had the right of imprisoning _sin comunicacion_, where
there were special reasons for such rigor, but in the secret prisons of
the Holy Office this was the universal rule, enforced with the utmost
solicitude as an essential part of its highly prized secrecy. We have
seen that, from the moment of arrest until delivery to the gaoler, the
prisoner was not allowed to exchange a word with any one but the
officials, and this was continued with the same strictness when he was
within the walls, so far as concerned the outer world, to which he was
as one already in the tomb. He could learn nothing of those whom he held
dear, nor could they conjecture his fate until, after perhaps the lapse
of years, he appeared in an auto de fe as one destined to the stake or
to the galleys or to perpetual prison. It would be impossible to compute
the sum of human misery thus wantonly inflicted by the Inquisition
during its centuries of existence--misery for which the only excuse was
that communication with friends might aid in his defence. According to
inquisitorial theory, the presumption of guilt was so absolute that all
measures were justified which would hinder fraudulent defence.
[Sidenote: _SEGREGATION_]
This strictness was not observed at first. The Instructions of 1488 call
attention to the evils arising from communication with prisoners and
order inquisitors to see in future that it is not permitted, except by
the admittance of religious persons for their spiritual benefit.[1509]
This received scant attention, for the Instructions of 1498 order
alguazils and gaolers not to permit the entrance of wives or kindred,
and whatever is sent to prisoners must be examined to ensure that no
letters or messages reach them. Even inquisitors and other officials
were forbidden to speak with prisoners except in the presence of another
official.[1510] This rigor was relaxed, for an order of the Suprema, in
1514, provided that no one from the outside should speak with a
prisoner, except by special licence of the inquisitor, and then only in
his presence or that of a notary, and a further concession, in 1536, was
that, if a prisoner desired an interview with his wife, the inquisitor,
if he saw fit, could grant permission.[1511] These slender concessions,
however, were soon withdrawn and, in 1546, officials were reminded that
only those permitted by the Instructions could be admitted and any
contraventions would be severely punished.[1512] Surreptitious
communications were difficult to prevent, and so little were the
officials trusted that two locks were required on each cell-door, so
that the alcaide or gaoler could not enter without his assistant.[1513]
The success with which all this was enforced is boastingly alluded to in
a report of the Valladolid auto de fe of May 21, 1559, where it is
declared that the inquisitorial process was so secret that no one knew
what was the offence of any prisoner till he appeared on the
scaffold.[1514]
The increasing importance attached to this is revealed in the
Instructions of 1561, which take for granted that all access from
outside is forbidden and which regulate the interior life of the prison
with the same object. Everything brought to a prisoner, whether
provisions or other matters, was reported to the inquisitors who decided
as to its delivery; if allowed, it was minutely examined to see that it
transmitted no message. If it were found that prisoners had communicated
with each other, no pains were spared to find how it was done and what
had passed between them. When prisoners were confined together, if their
cell was changed, they were kept together and not scattered among
others. The segregation from the world was maintained to the end; at the
auto de fe no one was allowed to speak with penitents, except the
confessors assigned to them, and those who were burnt were sent to their
last reckoning without being allowed to learn what was the fate of those
whom they held dear. When penitents left the prison, after the auto,
they were subjected to the _avisos de cárceles_, in which they were
examined under oath as to all that they had seen or heard while
confined, and were ordered, under heavy penalties, to reveal nothing of
their own experiences.[1515] All this was not wanton and cold-blooded
cruelty; it was merely the pitiless enforcement of a rule which was
superior to all the promptings of humanity.
In the fulfilment of the rule the most minute regulations were
multiplied and reiterated. The alcaide was warned to be especially
careful about his wife and children, who were never to be allowed to see
the prisoners; no one was to be admitted to the cells, except the sworn
attendant who served the food, and when, as in some tribunals, it was
served uncooked for the prisoners to cook, it was not to be wrapped in
paper but was to be brought in earthen pots. In serving food and in
cleaning cells, the door of one was always to be securely locked before
opening another; no windows which looked upon those of the cells were
allowed to be opened; in Murcia, the water-carrier who served the
Inquisition was not allowed to enter the court-yard to fill the jars,
but to do so from a window opening upon the court, or to have the water
in a room where the jars could be filled.[1516] No precaution was too
minute, no watchfulness too careful, when the supreme object was
concerned of isolating the prisoners from their friends and from each
other.
[Sidenote: _WRITING MATERIALS_]
Yet there were ways of eluding the vigilance of the tribunals, of which
bribery of the underlings was the most frequent. Even the alcaides were
not insensible to such seductions and a writer advises them to take
warning by the example of those who enter office in honor and leave it
in ignominy.[1517] The kindred and friends of prisoners were frequently
people of means and there could be no hesitation in outlays to
circumvent the cruel rules which forbade to them and to the captives all
knowledge of each other's fate. The Inquisition was by no means
consistent in its treatment of those who thus violated its regulations.
In 1635, Miguel de Maradillo, a bricklayer working on the roof of the
prison of Valladolid, carried a message from one prisoner to another
informing him that his wife and son had been arrested. On another
occasion he told the same prisoner that his daughter had been relieved
of the sanbenito and he conveyed a paper from him to them. In this he
seems to have been actuated merely by compassion and his punishment was
light--a reprimand, six months' exile from Valladolid and prohibition of
future employment on the building of the Inquisition. In 1655, Francisco
López Capadocia, on trial by the tribunal of Valladolid, was subjected
to a second prosecution, for communicating with other prisoners and was
sentenced only to reprimand and exile.[1518] Greater severity seems to
have been shown when employees of the tribunals were the guilty parties.
In 1591, when Don Alonzo de Mendoza was confined in Toledo on a charge
of heresy, his friends outside established correspondence by means of
the cook, Francisca de Saavedra, who conveyed the letters in the dishes.
She admitted having received bribes to the amount of 8160 maravedís and
was punished with a fine of 6000, besides a hundred lashes and four
years' exile.[1519] Still harsher was the treatment, about 1650, in
Mexico, of Esteban Domingo, a negro slave employed as an assistant in
the crowded inquisitorial prison. He was detected in carrying for money
communications between the prisoners and their friends, for which he was
condemned to two hundred lashes and six years in the galleys.[1520]
Towards the close of its career the Inquisition seems to manifest a
disposition to relax somewhat in its rigidity. In 1815 the Madrid
tribunal referred to the Suprema a petition from Doña Manuela Osorno to
be permitted to see her husband, Don Vicente Lema, then in its prison.
The answer was that, after he had completed his declarations, she might
be allowed to see him once or twice a week, in the presence of an
inquisitor, but only to confer on their domestic affairs. To this
tendency may also be attributed the leniency shown to Alfonso González,
barber of the tribunal of Murcia, who made use of his position to convey
letters and paper to Francisco Villaescusa, a prisoner, and who was
benignantly treated with a reprimand and disability to hold office under
the Inquisition.[1521]
A necessary feature of the prohibition of communication was that
prisoners were debarred from the use of writing materials, except under
the strictest supervision. Some use of them was unavoidable, when
drawing up a defence or a petition to the tribunal, opportunity for
which was never refused, but they were required to apply to the
inquisitors for paper, stating the number of sheets wanted, when these
were carefully numbered and rubricated by the secretary, at the upper
right-hand corner, and were required to be scrupulously returned, so
that there could be no withholding of any for another purpose. This
device was prescribed by the Suprema in 1534 and remained the invariable
rule.[1522] Thus when Fray Vicente Selles, in Valencia, at an audience
of June 27, 1692, asked for two sheets of paper and, on June 30th,
returned one and a half in blank, saying that what he had written on the
other half-sheet was false and he had thrown it into the filth, he was
made to fetch it, filthy as it was.[1523] Whatever quantity a prisoner
asked was given to him, and some consumed paper by the quire--indeed,
Fray Luis de Leon relieved the tedium and anxiety of his four years'
imprisonment at Valladolid by writing his classical devotional work, the
"Nombres de Cristo."
* * * * *
While, as we have seen, great care was taken to prevent prisoners from
communicating with each other, it by no means follows that confinement
was solitary. As a general rule it was regarded as preferable that male
prisoners should be alone, and that women should have companionship, but
there could be no hard and fast line of policy followed, except that
accomplices and _negativos_ (those who denied the accusation) should not
be placed together. Husband and wife were thus always separated but,
when occasion required, there was no hesitation in crowding four or five
persons together and, in the careless confidence of common misfortune,
this often opened a valuable source of information, for there never
seems to have been any scruple in betraying that confidence in the hope
of winning favor by reporting to the tribunal the compromising
utterances of cell-companions. The object in keeping apart those who
were accomplices was to prevent their encouraging each other in denial
and agreeing on a common line of defence. Men who were confined by
themselves sometimes asked for a companion and women more frequently did
so.[1524]
[Sidenote: _REGULATIONS_]
It was impossible that discipline should be uniform at all times and
places and we sometimes find it exceedingly lax. It infers great
looseness when, in 1546, the Suprema felt it necessary to enjoin care in
permitting prisoners freely to visit each other and, in the trial of
Isabel Reyner at Toledo, in 1570, we find her stating, in an audience,
that in passing through the prison she saw a fellow-prisoner who
informed her that her husband and Estevan Carrier were also prisoners,
and who asked her why she was imprisoned.[1525] In fact, as we gather
from chance allusions in the trials, there must have been a certain
freedom of movement. In the case of Benito Ferrer, in 1621, at Toledo,
there was an investigation as to his sanity, in which the alcaide spoke
of his going regularly to the cistern for water and cooking his food
like the rest, while the assistant described taking him to the latrines
when desired. From the trial of Jacques Pinzon, in Granada, in 1599, we
learn that, in the morning, the alcaide brought the prisoners water and
returned after mass with their food; the mention of a pan to hold ashes
shows that they had fire, and we hear of pots, spoons and other
utensils.[1526] There was evidently a diversity of routine in the
different tribunals and when Valdés, in 1562, was obliged to order that
prisoners were not to go for their rations, because they met the
servants of the purveyor, and that the alcaide must receive the food and
carry it to the cells, it argues that, in some tribunals at least, a
considerable freedom of movement had existed.[1527]
In 1662, a minute code of instructions for the alcaide shows us what at
that time were the regulations. On rising in the morning, he is to visit
all the cells and see how the prisoners are; he is to examine carefully
for openings through which they may communicate with each other; doors
are to be carefully closed and he is not to leave with the prisoners
knives, cords or scissors--if scissors are needed, he is to stay while
they are used and take them away. He is not to give them books to read
without permission of the inquisitors. Rations are served twice a
week--on Sundays and Thursdays--and, on the afternoon previous, he is to
see each prisoner, ascertain what he wants, and set it down in a book so
that the purveyor may provide it. Every nightfall he is to examine the
cells to guard against attempts to escape, searching under the pillows
for articles that would assist flight, or for writing materials.
Prisoners able to cook their food will do so in a _brasero_; for those
who cannot, the cooking is done by an appointee of the tribunal.[1528]
All this shows a commendable desire to avoid unnecessary harshness, yet
the regulations enforce one hardship which appears to have been
universal at all periods after the earliest--the prohibition of lights,
a severe infliction for, in the obscurity of their cells, the hours of
darkness must have seemed interminable. It is probable that at first
this was not the rule for, in 1497, in Valencia, there is an item of 7s.
4d. for lights, in the account of the expenses of Alonso de Roman, who
had lain in the secret prison for nine months and nine days.[1529]
Of course, in the general venality of the period, prison officials were
not always inaccessible to bribery, and money could procure relaxation
of the rules but, when detected, it was visited with a severity not
often shown to delinquent officials. This is illustrated by a case in
Toledo, in 1591, when judicious liberality procured unlawful privileges,
such as having cell doors open, allowing communications and other
similar indulgences. Francisco Méndez de Lema, the alcaide, attempted
flight, but was caught and sentenced to a hundred lashes,
galley-service, exile and deprivation of office. His cousin and
assistant, Miguel de Xea, confessed partially and was tortured without
extracting more; he escaped with dismissal, disability for office and
four years of exile.[1530]
There was one regulation which bore with especial severity on the
innocent, while it was a matter of indifference to the heretic. This was
the deprivation of all religious consolation during the period, often
prolonged for years, of incarceration. It is difficult to understand
this in the professors of a theology which teaches the infinite
importance of the sacraments as aids to spiritual development as well as
to salvation, especially when so large a portion of the prisoners were
good Catholics tried on charges which did not infer formal heresy.
Possibly it may be explained by the customary assumption of the guilt of
the accused, who had thus incurred _ipso facto_ excommunication, and the
Spanish Inquisition had the example of the Roman, whose prisoners were
similarly not allowed to receive the sacraments or to hear mass.[1531]
Yet the great canonist Azpilcueta, whose attention was probably drawn to
the matter by the case of his client Carranza, thus deprived of the
sacraments for eighteen years, tells us that there is no law justifying
the Spanish Inquisition in this, though perhaps it may have special
authority and also good reasons. To him, however, it appeared that the
sacraments would soften the hearts of prisoners and lead them to
confess, while it was cruel to leave them exposed without defence to the
assaults of the demon during the many years of their captivity.[1532]
Yet the refusal was absolute. Fray Luis de Leon, after three years of
imprisonment, pleaded earnestly for the sacraments, but the only reply
of the Suprema to his petition was to tell the Valladolid tribunal to
finish the case as soon as convenient.[1533]
[Sidenote: _SACRAMENTAL CONFESSION_]
While the sacraments were denied, sacramental confession was allowed,
though of course the priest could not grant absolution. The earliest
allusion I have met to this is an order by Cardinal Manrique in 1529,
and, in 1540, formal instructions were issued that, when a prisoner asks
for a confessor, if the case admits of it, a proper person should be
given to him.[1534] This privilege was somewhat abridged by the
elaborate provisions of the Instructions of 1561, which are framed to
turn it to advantage. If a prisoner in good health asks for a confessor,
it is safer not to grant the request, unless he has confessed judicially
and has satisfied the evidence. But, as he cannot be absolved for heresy
until reconciled to the Church, such confession is not of full effect
unless he is in the article of death or a woman in the peril of
child-birth, in which case the canon laws are to be observed. If a sick
man asks for a confessor he shall have one, who shall be sworn to
secrecy and to reveal to the tribunal any commission entrusted to him,
if it is outside of confession, and to refuse it if within confession;
the inquisitors shall instruct him to tell the prisoner that he cannot
be absolved, if guilty, unless he confesses judicially. If his judicial
confession satisfies the evidence, he is to be formally reconciled
before he dies and, when judicially absolved, the confessor shall
absolve him sacramentally when, if there is nothing to prevent it, he
may receive Christian burial, as secretly as possible. If a sick man
does not ask for a confessor and the physician is apprehensive of the
result, he must urge him in every way to confess.[1535] The advantage
thus afforded by the confessional is illustrated in the trial for
Judaism of Ana López, at Valladolid, in 1637. She had denied, but was
taken sick and declared by the physician to be in danger. To the
confessor she admitted that, at the age of seventeen, she was taught
Judaism, that she subsequently returned to the true faith until, on
coming to Valladolid, a woman perverted her. The confessor warned her
that she must confess judicially; she authorized him to report her
confession and he absolved her sacramentally. An inquisitor with a
notary went to her cell, when she repeated her confession and gave the
name of the woman who had perverted her, and, on her recovery, her trial
was resumed when she confirmed her confession.[1536]
It is the kindly rule of the Church that absolution is never to be
refused to the dying; he is to be saved from hell and can settle the
account of his sins in purgatory, or by an indulgence or a mass on a
privileged altar. With this the Inquisition did not interfere, as its
professed object was the saving of souls and it even, by a carta
acordada of 1632, permitted communion to dying heretics who had
confessed judicially and satisfied the evidence. It required, however,
the wafer to be consecrated in the tribunal, if there was time; if the
haste was extreme, it could be brought from the parish church, but
without pomp or procession.[1537] Even the veneration due to the Godhead
had to yield to the secrecy which forbade it to be known that a prisoner
was dying in the Holy Office. In the same spirit, when a prisoner died
without reconciliation, the alcaide reported it to the inquisitors, who
ordered the secretary to identify the body and bury it secretly.[1538]
It was thrust into a hole, without his family knowing his fate until, if
his trial was unfinished, his heirs would be summoned to defend his fame
and memory or, if it had reached a point where sentence could be
pronounced, they saw his effigy reconciled or burnt in an auto de fe.
Even when he had confessed and been reconciled on the death-bed, we have
just seen that his Christian burial was to be as secret as possible.
When the trial ended in acquittal or suspension, if he had property
sequestrated, the lifting of the sequestration would announce it to the
heirs; otherwise, it does not seem that there was any provision for
their notification. Suicide in prison, which was not infrequent, was
regarded as conclusive proof of impenitence, even if the prisoner had
confessed and professed repentance, but his heirs were allowed to defend
him on the score of insanity, failing which he was burnt in
effigy.[1539]
[Sidenote: _FEMALE PRISONERS_]
Sickness was of frequent occurrence and was treated with creditable
humanity. The Instructions of 1561 require that the sick shall have
every care and that whatever the physician deems necessary for them
shall be provided.[1540] Of course the fulfilment of this command must
have varied with the temper of the tribunals, but nevertheless the
spirit dictating it is in marked contrast with the conduct of the gaols
of the period. When cases transcended the resources of the Inquisition,
the ordinary course was to transfer the patient to a hospital, in
disregard of the cherished secrecy of the prison. Instances of this are
common enough in the records and a single case will suffice for its
illustration. November 6, 1641, Juan de Valdés, on trial for bigamy in
Valladolid, asked an audience to beg for despatch as he was very sick.
This was confirmed by the alcaide and by the physician, who said that
for nineteen days he had had a tercian and was too weak to be bled, and
moreover he was suffering from stone and strangury; that he could not be
cured in the prison and should be removed to a hospital. This was done,
the hospital authorities being notified not to allow him to escape and
to keep the tribunal advised of his condition. In January, 1642, he was
reported as being still in mortal danger, but he recovered, was returned
to the secret prison, and was sentenced on August 21st.[1541]
* * * * *
The care of female prisoners was naturally a subject of some perplexity,
especially as the refinement of matrons and women assistants was unknown
to the Inquisition. When the Instructions of 1498 order that the prison
for men and for women shall be separate,[1542] it does not infer that
previously they had been herded promiscuously together, but that in
future distinct quarters should be provided for the sexes--a provision
which was not observed, as it was deemed sufficient that women should be
confined separately so that there could not be communication between
them and the men. The condition of helpless women, virtually at the
mercy of their male attendants, in the secrecy which shrouded everything
within the prison walls, can readily be imagined, and there must have
been outrages coming to the knowledge of Ximenes, in 1512, that aroused
him to a sense of the dangerous opportunities existing, for in that year
an order was issued threatening death to any attendant who should have
intercourse with a female prisoner.[1543] The severity of the penalty
measured the gravity of the necessity calling for it, but, like so many
other salutary provisions, the tribunals were too merciful to enforce it
on their subordinates. In 1590, Andrés de Castro, alcaide of the
Valencia prison, was tried for seducing a female prisoner, kissing and
soliciting others, allowing communications between prisoners and
accepting bribes from their kindred. There were twenty-nine accusing
witnesses; he denied the charges but virtually admitted their truth by
breaking gaol. On his recapture, for this complicated series of offences
he escaped with a hundred lashes, three years in the galleys, perpetual
exile from Valencia, and disability for office in the Inquisition--a
sentence which, when compared with the habitual severity of the
tribunals, shows how lightly his sexual crime was regarded by his
judges.[1544] It was not that the death-penalty had been abrogated, for
we find it repeated, in 1652, in the Logroño instructions to
alcaides.[1545] Doubtless the rule mentioned above, that women should be
gathered together in their cells, was designed to afford them protection
against their gaolers.
In the not unusual case of the arrest of pregnant women, due
consideration was given to their condition, and suitable temporary
accommodation was found for them, during confinement, outside of the
prison. Thus, in the case of María Rodríguez, in the tribunal of
Valladolid, who was arrested June 3, 1641, the delay in presenting the
accusation, until September 16th, is explained on the record by her
being pregnant and removed from the prison until she recovered.[1546]
This was an improvement on the earlier practice, if we may believe the
Llerena memorial of 1506, which states that women in the throes of
child-birth were denied all assistance, even that of a midwife; they
were abandoned to nature and many had perished in consequence.[1547]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _HUMANE REGULATIONS_]
It was not only in the general prescriptions of the Instructions that
regard for the welfare of the prisoners is manifested. Special orders
issued from time to time as to details are animated by the same spirit.
Thus, in 1517, Cardinal Adrian told the Sicilian inquisitors (in a
letter probably addressed to all the tribunals) that they must pay
particular attention to the qualities requisite in the gaoler; they must
sedulously bear in mind that the prison is for detention and not for
punishment; the prisoners are to be well treated and not be defrauded in
their food, for which ample provision must be made; the prison must be
inspected every Saturday, by one of the inquisitors, and not fortnightly
as provided in the Instructions; those of the prisoners who have trades
are to work and thus contribute to their support and, if the officials
give the women sewing to do, they must be paid.[1548] An extract made,
in 1645, from a book of instructions which was read annually in the
tribunals, shows that this praiseworthy care for the welfare of the
prisoners was the permanent policy of the Inquisition. It prescribes the
utmost punctuality in inspecting the cells every fortnight and learning
what the inmates desire, reporting this to the tribunal, which decided
what each one should have and, if there was a surplus in the allowance
for rations from which it could be procured, the alcaide was at once to
be ordered to see that the purveyor bought it; if he neglected anything
he was to be reproved for the wrong committed in his lack of
punctuality. Special attention was called to serving the rations in the
morning, so that the prisoners could prepare their midday meal. Meat was
to be given daily, and only one day's rations at a time in hot weather,
lest it should spoil; in cool weather, two days' supply; and this was so
important for the health of the prisoners that it should be the special
charge of some one, while an inquisitor ought occasionally to look to
it.[1549]
All this is admirable in tone and spirit; unfortunately its execution
depended on its enforcement by the inquisitors, on their regular
performance of inspection, and on holding the gaolers responsible by
rigorous punishment for derelictions. The duty of inspection by
inquisitors had been prescribed as indispensable by the Instructions of
1488, but it was impossible to make them obey and complaints of their
negligence are frequent. In 1632 it was found necessary to reissue the
Instructions of 1488; in 1644 we have the testimony of a contemporary
that, in some places at least, it was regularly, if perfunctorily,
performed and the Logroño instructions of 1652 make it the duty of the
alcaide to remind the inquisitors of it every fortnight, because it is
customarily forgotten.[1550] The other requisite, severity of
punishment for derelictions, was also lacking, through the customary
tenderness shown to delinquent officials.
It would be manifestly unjust to condemn as a whole the management of
the prisons: it would be equally unwarranted to praise them
indiscriminately. Everything depended on the conscientious discharge of
duty by the inquisitors and no general judgement can be formed as to the
condition of so many prisons, during three centuries, except that their
average standard was considerably higher than that in other
jurisdictions and that, if there were abodes of horror, such as have
been described by imaginative writers, they were wholly exceptional.
There were good and there were bad. The memorials of Llerena and Jaen,
in 1506 describe them as horrible dens, overrun with rats, snakes and
other vermin, where the wretched captives sickened in despair and were
starved by the embezzlement of a large portion of the moneys allowed for
their support, while no physician was permitted to attend the sick and
the attendants maltreated them like dogs.[1551] Making allowance for
rhetorical exaggeration we can imagine that this description was
applicable to Córdova under Lucero. Matters seem to have been not much
better at Seville in 1560, where the oppression of the alcaide, Gaspar
de Benavides, provoked a despairing revolt in which his assistant was
mortally wounded. Vengeance was wreaked on the participators in the
fray, of whom one was burnt alive and another, a boy of fourteen, had
four hundred lashes and was sent to the galleys for life, while Gaspar,
who had provoked it, was let off with appearing in an auto de fe,
forfeiture of wages and perpetual banishment from Seville.[1552]
[Sidenote: _VARIABLE TREATMENT_]
When malfeasance in office escaped with such ill-judged leniency, it was
impossible to maintain discipline and the prisoners suffered
accordingly. As the result of an inspection of Barcelona by Doctor
Alonso Perez, the alcaide Monserrat Pastor is scolded, in 1544, for
keeping a mistress in his house, for placing a kinsman in charge of the
prison and absenting himself, for receiving presents from discharged
prisoners, for frequent absence, leaving the prison unguarded, for
combining the incompatible positions of gaoler and _dispensero_, and of
making the women prisoners work and taking their earnings, but Pastor
was only reprimanded and ordered to restore the presents and the
women's earnings. Virtual immunity invited continuance of abuses and, in
1550, after another inspection, we find the Suprema again adverting to
the evil results of combining the functions of gaoler and dispensero and
ordering the inquisitors to fill the latter position.[1553]
The prison of the Canary tribunal at times seems to have been equally
mismanaged. An Englishman named John Hill was brought there from Ferro,
June 23, 1574, with nothing but his clothes and no money. For nine
months his complaints were loud and frequent; a day's ration was
insufficient for a single meal; he begged for more bread and water, also
for a mat to lie on, as he had to sleep on the ground and he could not
rest for the lice and fleas; for more than two months he prayed for a
shirt to cover his nakedness and, though an order was issued, January
22nd to give him one, it had to be repeated February 18th. Even as late
as 1792, Don Juan Perdomo complained that for fourteen months the
alcaide had kept him on a diet of salt fish, that he would allow him to
change his linen but once a fortnight, and that he caused him to suffer
such torment from thirst that he would go into the court-yard and cry
aloud, hoping that some passer-by would summon the alcaide.[1554]
Yet other passages in the Canary record show a praiseworthy desire to
alleviate the rigors of confinement and in general it may be said that
the condition of the prisoners depended wholly on the temper and
character of the officials in charge. When these were kindly, the
prisoners were spared unnecessary hardships. Francisco Ortiz, in 1529,
at Toledo, bore willing testimony to good treatment which he had not
anticipated.[1555] In 1563, Fernando Díaz, a peasant, after a month's
detention in Toledo, speaks of improved health; here, he says, he has
mutton to eat, while at home he had only sardines.[1556] In 1567, a
member of the Suprema, visiting the prison of Valladolid, was told by
Leonor de Cisneros that she had nothing to complain of; she had mutton
and bread and wine and fruit and was well treated.[1557] As she was a
relapsed, whose husband had been burnt eight years before, she probably
had no property and the expense was defrayed by the tribunal.
These are by no means isolated instances. In 1541, at Toledo, Juan
García, a day-laborer on trial, after six weeks in prison, asked that
night-clothes be given to him as to the other prisoners, as he was
obliged to sleep in the garments worn during the day, when the
inquisitor at once ordered him to be supplied.[1558] In 1657, the
accounts of the tribunal of Madrid show 447-1/2 reales spent on clothing
for a poor prisoner and those of the Suprema, in 1690, have an item of
688 reales devoted to the same purpose.[1559] We have seen that warrants
for arrest ordered beds to be brought with the prisoner, as the
Inquisition did not furnish them, in accordance with an order of 1525,
which assumes that this was to relieve the hardships of those brought
from a distance.[1560] Yet, even in the financial pressure of the
seventeenth century, we find in the accounts of the Madrid tribunal, in
1659, an order, July 11th, to the receiver to pay 230 reales for the
hire of beds for poor prisoners up to July 15th.[1561] Even more
noteworthy are some entries arising from the trial in Madrid of
Francisco de Matos, in 1680-81. He seems to have had five children for
whose support was spent, in about a year from September, 1680, 3519
reales, of which 1284 were paid to the Hospicio Real de Pobres for its
care of three of them during sickness.[1562] The tribunal evidently felt
itself obliged to take care of the helpless children, and such incidents
serve to show that, when the inquisitors had humanitarian instincts
there was nothing in the policy of the Holy Office to prevent their full
manifestation.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _EXPENSES_]
It is remarkable that, during the period of most active work, there
seems to have been no general settled system of defraying the
maintenance of prisoners. There is no provision for it in the
instructions of 1484, but in Torquemada's supplementary orders of
December, the receivers were required to pay the expenses.[1563] Yet we
have seen that immediately after this the alguazil was in receipt of a
salary equal to, or more than, that of the inquisitors because, as
Ferdinand said, he had to meet the great charge of the prisoners--"tiene
tan gran costo con los presos"--and, as we find this in the salary lists
of Saragossa, Burgos, Medina del Campo and Seville, it would seem to be
a general rule, while the Instructions of 1498 appear to show it still
in force.[1564] Yet the accounts of the Valencia tribunal, in 1497-8,
indicate that the maintenance of those who had property was drawn from
the sequestrations while the "pobres miserables presos en las carceles"
were supported by outside friends or kindred, who were subsequently
reimbursed by the receiver. The per diem was 9 dineros for men and 8 for
women, while Ali Divit, a Moor and presumably abstemious, was reckoned
at 5.[1565]
A letter of Ferdinand, in 1501, authorizing the receiver of Sardinia to
include among his disbursements the cost of maintaining prisoners, would
indicate that this was becoming the rule, but another letter of the same
date calling for reimbursement to Anton López, a yeoman of his guard,
who had been ordered by an inquisitor to support certain prisoners,
shows that no definite system was as yet established.[1566] These
irregular methods afforded opportunity for embezzlement and extortion,
resulting doubtless in much suffering among the captives. The memorials
of Llerena and Jaen, in 1506 complain of conspiracy among the officials
to cut down the rations, and that only 10 maravedís a day were allowed,
from which 2 were deducted for shaving, linen and cooking, when 25 or 30
were required, at current prices, for bread alone.[1567]
At length the alcaide or gaoler appears as the official handling the
funds when, in 1510, Ferdinand ordered Villacis, the receiver of
Seville, to pay him 5000 maravedís because he had fed the prisoners
during a time of pestilence.[1568] This was evidently an exceptional
case, arising from an emergency, but it was adopted, in 1516 and 1517,
in some instructions of the Suprema to the tribunal of Sicily; where
there were sequestrations, the amount was to be drawn from them; in
cases of extreme poverty the cost of a moderate diet could be defrayed
by the receiver from the confiscations.[1569]
Nearly forty years had passed since the founding of the
Inquisition--years of intense activity--and as yet no regular system had
been adopted in a matter so important. The necessity was felt and, in
1518, an order was issued in the name of Charles V, which shows that the
kindred or friends of the prisoner had been expected to bring his food
to the prison. The order recites that, as they come from all parts of
the district and are far from their families and property, they suffer
greatly. Therefore, in the case of non-residents of the city, the
receiver is to pay for food and necessaries, under instructions from the
inquisitor. An account is to be kept with each prisoner and, if he is
discharged, he shall repay the receiver before his sequestration is
lifted; if he is poor, he shall not be asked for it and the auditor
shall pass the item in the receiver's accounts.[1570] The liberality of
this clause seems to have been a novelty, and it took some time to
establish the duty of the Inquisition to prevent its poor prisoners from
starving, for we find the queen-regent, in 1531, authorizing their
maintenance, at Barcelona, at the expense of the fisc.[1571]
[Sidenote: _RATIONS_]
Yet this was not held as relieving the family from supporting, as far as
possible, an imprisoned member. The account of the dispensero or
steward, of the Valencia prison, from October 8, 1540 to May 5, 1541,
shows that during that period there were twenty-five prisoners thus
supported, at least partially, husbands paying for wives, wives for
husbands, sons for fathers, etc. The sums received were small and
suggest the struggle endured by families to contribute to the
necessities of those in gaol; they were paid in trifling amounts of from
5s. 5d. to 8s. 8d., representing probably a monthly assessment, and this
was by no means continuous for, in eight cases, only one payment is
recorded and in only one case is there more than two payments. For the
whole period the aggregate is only 15 libras 19s. 4d., while during this
time the steward obtained from the receiver 120 libras 2s., which
probably included what the fisc had to pay and what was drawn from the
sequestrations of the wealthier prisoners.[1572] With regard to the
latter, the rule was to sell the personal property first and then the
real estate, and inquisitors were urged, in 1547, to be prompt in
collecting from the proceeds, as the sequestrations were apt to be
consumed in supporting the family, leaving nothing to repay the fisc for
its advances.[1573]
It was the duty of the inquisitor, when a prisoner was brought in, to
ascertain, from the receiver and notary of sequestrations, his station
in life and his wealth, and to fix the amount of his allowance in
accordance with the current prices of provisions, but a wealthy man
could spend more if he chose and, if a person of quality wished to have
one or two servants incarcerated with him, as in the case of Carranza,
this was permitted; what might be left over from their table was to be
given to the poor and not to be made a source of profit to the alcaide
and dispensero.[1574] There was liberality in this as, in case of
confiscation, the estate was diminished by the extra expenditure. Even
the ordinary allowance was at the disposition of the prisoner, who could
economize on it and spend it in any manner that he chose.[1575]
Thus there never was at any time a fixed and absolute ration, although
of course there was a general minimum standard for the poor who had to
be supported. Whatever it was, it was liable to alteration as
circumstances might dictate. After Jacques Pinzon was imprisoned in
Granada, February 25, 1599, on March 9th the alcaide reported that he
consumed in one day the ration of two and was dying of hunger, whereupon
the inquisitors kindly increased his allowance to a real per day; this
kept him quiet for three months, when there was a fresh complaint and 5
maravedís were added.[1576] In 1616, Padre Hieronimo de la Madre de
Dios, tried for mysticism, sought his first audience to complain that
his ration was insufficient; he wished it increased by a real a day,
which could be charged to his sequestrated property.[1577] Evidently
prisoners did not hesitate to make their wants known and there was
readiness to listen to them.
With the gradual concentration of power in the Suprema it came to
regulate this in all the tribunals. In 1635 Valencia reported that, in
consequence of the dearness of bread, the prisoners were suffering from
hunger, and it asked authority to increase the ration. The Suprema
deliberated for five weeks and then ordered an increase to be made "with
great compassion." The close supervision exercised is indicated, in
1695, in a criticism on a monthly report from the same tribunal, in
which one of the omissions noted is that the ration assigned to each
prisoner is not stated.[1578]
The fall in the purchasing power of money, and especially of the debased
vellon coinage, necessitated an increase in the ration. In 1641, at
Toledo, the ordinary daily allowance was 1-1/2 reales which, by 1677,
had doubled to 3 reales.[1579] In Valencia, the ordinary ration had
increased to 22 dineros in 1688 and, in 1756, to 2 sueldos.[1580]
[Sidenote: _COLLECTION OF COSTS_]
When the prisons were full and the trials, after the first hurried rush,
grew more and more protracted, the expense of maintenance was not small,
as can be gathered from occasional indications. Thus, in 1566, we find
the Suprema ordering its alguazil mayor to remit to the tribunal of
Calahorra 400 ducats to defray the food of prisoners.[1581] In 1586,
Benito Sanguino, the receiver of Valencia, in settling his accounts,
claimed credit for 19,856s. 11d. paid to the dispensero for the
maintenance of poor prisoners, in addition to what he had disbursed for
the purpose on the orders of inquisitors, an irregularity for which the
Suprema demanded an explanation.[1582] Some light is thrown on the way
in which these costs accumulated by the case of Fray Lucas de Allende,
guardian of the Franciscan convent of Madrid and one of the dupes of
Lucrecia de Leon, a _beata revelandera_. When arrested in 1590, his
brother, Alonso de Allende, asked permission to give him an allowance of
a real a day--a request which proved costly, as the trial lasted for six
years and two months.[1583] In 1659, the orders given by the tribunal of
Madrid, for the food and incidentals of its poor prisoners, who seem to
have averaged about ten in number, reached an aggregate of 12,874 reales
and, in 1681, the amount was 25,748.[1584] As the activity of the
Inquisition diminished, and perhaps also as its resources fell short,
this drain on its finances was greatly reduced. In a statement of the
expenses of the Valencia tribunal, from 1784 to 1790 inclusive, the
charge for maintenance of poor prisoners becomes trifling. The total
expenditure during these seven years was 501 libras 18s., of which 300
libras 8s. were recovered from the parties, leaving a net outlay of 201
libras 10s., or less than 30 libras per annum.[1585]
The tribunals were unrelenting in the collection of these expenses from
all who could be held responsible. In the case of frailes, who could own
no property, their communities were liable. Thus, in 1649, the tribunal
of Valencia issues an order to collect, from the Provincial of the
Augustinians, 600 reales for certain members of his Order who were in
its prison. When the trial of Fray Estevan Ramoneda was concluded,
September 12, 1696, the Barcelona tribunal rendered to his Order of
Merced a bill of 730 reales for his expenses. The Provincial assessed it
on all the Mercenarian converts of Catalonia and, on November 15th, the
inquisitors scolded the prior of the Barcelona convent for delay, when
he replied that his convent had paid its share but that others were
dilatory. In 1709, the Suprema issued an order that there must be no
exceptions, even to the Barefooted Franciscans, showing that they had
been endeavoring to procure exemption.[1586]
The Inquisition was not likely to be more lenient with the laity. Its
determination to secure reimbursement is seen in an order of the
Valencia tribunal, in 1636, that when Francisco Morales completes the
term of galley service to which he has been condemned, he is to be sold
to his neighbors to repay what he has cost to the fisc.[1587] These
costs were not simply for maintenance in prison, but for expenses
attending arrest and trial, including the fees of advocate and
procurator and all postage incurred. The whole of this was a first lien
on the property of the prisoner and, if he was a _filiusfamilias_, his
father was liable and could be forced to pay.[1588] Before an auto de
fe, the dispensero and notary of sequestrations carefully made up the
account of every penitent who escaped confiscation, and it was the duty
of the fiscal to see that, if he had property, he settled or gave an
obligation to settle and, if he was poor, that he took an oath to pay
whenever he should be able.[1589] How these accounts were swelled is
visible in that rendered by the Barcelona tribunal, in 1756, to Don
Antonio Adorno, a soldier of gentle blood in the regiment of Asturias.
He was only fifty-eight days in prison which, at 2 sueldos a day,
amounted to a little less than 6 libras, but the aggregate of the bill
was 26. He subscribed his name to this as accurate, stating that he had
no property with which to meet it, but that, if God should grant him
better fortune, he obligated himself to pay it to the receiver or his
duly authorized representative. As his sentence was banishment from the
Spanish dominions, this was a pure formality, but it could not be
omitted.[1590] A few months later we have a piteous letter from Dr.
Agustin Tamarit, a physician of the town of Salas, whose enemies had
involved him with the Inquisition, resulting in a charge against him of
5 libras 16s. In reply to a demand for payment he protests that he is
miserably poor. During his enforced absence, his colleague, Dr. Rubert,
had collected from the town the _conducta_, or stated salary due to
both, and refuses to pay over his share; if the tribunal will compel
Rubert to settle he will endeavor to sell some wheat and satisfy the
account.[1591]
* * * * *
On the whole we may conclude that the secret prisons of the Inquisition
were less intolerable places of abode than the episcopal and public
gaols. The general policy respecting them was more humane and
enlightened than that of other jurisdictions, whether in Spain or
elsewhere, although negligent supervision allowed of abuses and there
were ample resources of rigor in reserve, when the obstinacy of the
impenitent was to be broken down. The one unpardonable feature was the
seclusion which kept the unhappy captive ignorant of all that occurred
outside of his prison walls and deprived him of facilities for defence
and of communication with family and friends. This rendered doubly
bitter the prolonged detention which often held him for years in
suspense as to their fate and deprived them of all knowledge as to him.