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.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _AUDIENCES_]

In the earliest period there were few formalities and no absolute

_estilo_, or recognized method of procedure. In the 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]

[Sidenote: _THE THREE MONITIONS_]

After the Instructions of 1561, the three monitions became the

established rule in cases of heresy, while one sufficed in lighter

matters. The formula was formidable. The 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]

[Sidenote: _THE ACCUSATION_]

Even more suggestive, though in a different way, is the Mexican case of

the priest Joseph Brunon de Vertiz, who was one of the dupes of some

women pretending to have 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.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _THE ADVOCATE FOR THE DEFENCE_]

The custom of allowing counsel in criminal cases is so comparatively

recent in English law that their admission by the Inquisition may be

regarded as an evidence of desire to render justice. In Spain, however,

it was customary, and 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.

[Sidenote: _OFFICIAL ADVOCATES_]

That the danger awaiting a too zealous advocate was not purely

hypothetical is seen in the case of Casafranca, deputy 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]

[Sidenote: _FUNCTION OF THE ADVOCATE_]

The advocate thus became one of the officials of the tribunal, duly

salaried and working in full accord with the inquisitors. In 1584, we

find him of Valencia petitioning to 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]

[Sidenote: _PROCURATORS NOT ADMITTED_]

If, even under these shackles, an advocate desired really to defend his

client, he was deprived of the means to do so. Originally, as we have

seen, the kindred and children were 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]

[Sidenote: _THE CURADOR_]

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 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]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _PUBLICATION OF EVIDENCE_]

We have seen that, after the accusation was read and answered, the

prisoner was told to choose an advocate. Possibly two names were

mentioned to him, both equally 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.

[Sidenote: _PUBLICATION OF EVIDENCE_]

In many cases the publication was scarce more than a slovenly repetition

of the fiscal's accusation and afforded to the accused no possible aid

in his defence, as in that given to 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]

[Sidenote: _THE DEFENCE--RECUSATION_]

Recusation of a judge was a right recognized in the traditional

legislation of Spain.[156] It was admitted in the Inquisition and we

have seen, in the cases of Carranza and 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]

[Sidenote: THE DEFENCE--INSANITY]

Insanity was of much greater moment. The insane were recognized as

irresponsible and were sent to hospitals. It was not infrequently

pleaded, and the tribunals were 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.

[Sidenote: _THE DEFENCE--INSANITY_]

Benito was undoubtedly a monomaniac for, in his subsequent audiences, he

stated that, in 1609, he had been bewitched, since when everyone he met

was a demon, with 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.

[Sidenote: _THE DEFENCE--INSANITY_]

A nymphomaniac, in 1688, caused the Valencia tribunal an even longer

term of perplexity. Francisca García was arrested, March 28th, as an

_alumbrada_--one of the mystics 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.

[Sidenote: _EVIDENCE FOR THE DEFENCE_]

In this the defence was heavily handicapped by the suppression of

witnesses' names and the garbling of evidence in the publication to

protect them from recognition. 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]

[Sidenote: _EVIDENCE FOR THE DEFENCE_]

This hopeless floundering in the effort to rebut evidence of which the

source was so carefully concealed appears still more strongly in the

case of Diego de Uceda, in 1528, 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.

[Sidenote: _THE DEFENCE_]

At Valencia, in 1604, there was quite a group of cases showing

successful disabling of witnesses among Moriscos. 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.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _EXAMINATION OF THE ACCUSED_]

Meanwhile, at each stage of the case, the accused was subjected to

searching examination. By rule, this had to be conducted by the

inquisitors, and if there were two, both 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]

[Sidenote: _THE CONSULTA DE FE_]

In the imperfect records of the early trials, there is often no allusion

to a consulta de fe, although the sentence generally contains the

customary formula that it has been 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]

[Sidenote: _DELAYS_]

We have seen how the gradual centralization in the Suprema required all

sentences, whether of torture or 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]

[Sidenote: _DELAYS_]

These instructions received scant obedience and the delays were felt as

a serious grievance by the accused. In 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]

[Sidenote: _DELAYS_]

The provision that the accusation should be presented within ten days

after arrest was repeated in 1518 and seems 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.

[Sidenote: _PROSECUTION OF THE DEAD_]

In this there was nothing repugnant to the spirit of the age, or of the

Latin systems of jurisprudence. In the spiritual sphere the Church had

long been accustomed to pass 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]

[Sidenote: _PROSECUTION OF THE DEAD_]

Notwithstanding the massing of cases in the citations and sentences, the

formalities of the somewhat cumbrous procedure were duly observed. The

trials were not speedy, 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]

[Sidenote: _PROSECUTION OF THE DEAD_]

Sequestration under these circumstances inflicted great suffering until,

as we have seen, in the Instructions of 1561, it came under the general

prohibition of sequestrating 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.

[Sidenote: _PROSECUTION OF THE ABSENT_]

The Instructions of 1484 give minute and precise details with regard to

it, pointing out three courses which may be followed. The first is

recommended as the safest and least 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]

[Sidenote: _PROSECUTION OF THE ABSENT_]

If there is something grotesque in all this, at least the proceedings

were decently in order and, if Sancho and his wife had cared to risk it,

they could have been heard. How 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]

[Sidenote: _BURNING OF EFFIGIES_]

Dilatory as were the proceedings _in absentia_ in this case, they were

speedy when compared with some others. The 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]

* * * * *