the inquisitorial process, as developed in the Spanish Holy Office, so
far from being the benignant and equitable procedure asserted by its
representatives and re-echoed by modern apologists, was one which
violated every principle of justice. The guilt of the accused was
assumed in advance; the prosecution was favored in every way; the
defence was so crippled as to be scarce more than a pretext, while the
judge, who was in reality the prosecutor, was shielded, by impenetrable
secrecy, from all responsibility except to the Suprema. Many cases cited
above show that the arbitrary power thus conferred was not always
abused, for the individuals were not necessarily as vicious as the
system, but the power existed and its exercise for good or for evil
depended on temperament and temptation.[244]
BOOK VII.
PUNISHMENT.
CHAPTER I.
THE SENTENCE.
In the infliction of punishment, the Inquisition differed from secular
courts in one important respect. Public law provided for impenitent
heresy death by fire and confiscation, and visited on the penitent and
on descendants certain disabilities, but apart from these, in its
extensive field of jurisdiction over penitent heresy, suspected heresy
and other offences, the Inquisition had full discretion and was bound by
no rules. It was the only tribunal known to the civilized world which
prescribed penalties and modified them at its will. In this, as in so
much else, it combined the legislative and the executive functions.[245]
* * * * *
The culmination of the work of the tribunal was the sentence which
embodied the result of its labors and decided the fate of the accused.
In all cases that appeared in public autos de fe, the sentence was
publicly read, and the opportunity was not lost of impressing on the
minds of the people the lofty duties of the Holy Office and the enormity
of the guilt which merited such chastisement. It afforded an occasion
for the display of power, which was turned to the best account.
There were two forms of sentence--_con meritos_ and _sin meritos_. The
former recited at length the misdeeds of the culprit; the latter was
briefer and merely stated the character of the offence. The consulta de
fe, when it agreed upon a verdict, usually defined which form should be
used, and also whether or not the culprit should appear in a public
auto. This, in itself, was a severe infliction, aggravated by the
reading of a sentence _con meritos_. For lighter cases the sentence was
read in an _auto particular_, in the audience-chamber, of which there
were several varieties, as will be seen hereafter.
The sentence _con meritos_ commenced with a full recital of the details
of the trial, through all the various steps of the cumbrous process,
represented as a suit between the fiscal and the accused, and it
specified the crimes proved against or confessed by the culprit. It was
thus sometimes enormously long. In the famous case of Magdalena de la
Cruz, a fraudulent _beata revelandera_, whose fictitious sanctity and
miracles had deceived all Spain throughout a long career, the reading of
the sentence at Córdova, May 13, 1546, occupied from six in the morning
until four in the afternoon.[246] In the sentence of Don Pablo de Soto,
convicted of bigamy at Lima, in 1761, all the examinations are detailed
at full length, including information volunteered by him concerning
persons and matters in no way connected with the case; the secretary
appears to have copied verbatim the records of the successive audiences,
as though to prolong the shame of the penitent.[247] After these prolix
recitals there followed the verdict "Christi nomine invocato," in which,
if the trial had resulted in conviction, the inquisitors found that the
fiscal had duly proved his charges, wherefore they must declare the
accused guilty of the heresy alleged, with its corresponding
penalties.[248]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _DELAYED UNTIL THE AUTO DE FE_]
As a rule, prisoners were left in ignorance of their fate until, on the
morning of the auto de fe, they were prepared for it by being arrayed in
the insignia which designated their punishments. So jealously were they
kept in the dark that, when the customary proclamation was made of an
auto, fifteen days in advance, with drum and trumpet, the officials were
not allowed to approach the Inquisition, lest the inmates should hear
the sounds and guess what was in preparation. At the great auto of Lima,
in 1639, we are told that, when the proclamation was made, the negro
assistants of the gaoler were shut up in a place where they could not
hear it, so that they might not carry the information to the prisoners,
and the workmen employed in making the mitres, sanbenitos and crosses
were assigned a room in the Inquisition where they could labor unseen,
under an oath of secrecy.[249] The effect of the sudden revelation, when
it came, is indicated in the advice that it was better to give to those
who were to appear their breakfasts in their cells than to wait until
they were all brought together for the procession, for then there was
shame and confusion and suffering, the fathers seeing their sons and the
daughters their mothers in the sanbenitos and other insignia that
designated their punishments.[250] The despair induced by the preceding
long-drawn suspense occasionally found expression, as in the case of
Diego González, who was reconciled for Judaism in the Valladolid auto of
July 25, 1644. On the morning of that day, when the gaoler entered his
cell to give him breakfast, he was found pale and faint, with the blood
flowing freely from a wound in his arm, made with a nail from his
bedstead, under the impression that he was to be burnt, and he had to be
carried to the solemnity in a sedan-chair. Llorente recounts a similar
case, of which he was an eyewitness, in 1791, when a Frenchman named
Michel Maffre des Rieux hanged himself in consequence of being thus kept
in ignorance.[251]
The object of the delay in thus communicating the sentence was to
prevent appeals to the Suprema. We have seen how, in opposing appeals to
Rome, the Inquisition and the monarchs argued that they were wholly
superfluous, in view of the appellate jurisdiction of the
inquisitor-general, who was always prompt to rectify injustice committed
by the tribunals, but this nominal opportunity was rendered for the most
part illusory by this device of withholding knowledge of the sentence
until appeal was impossible. This came about by degrees. Originally it
would seem that the tribunals exercised discretion as to withholding the
sentence until the auto, although exceptions were rare. The Instructions
of 1561, while admitting a right of appeal in some cases, nullified it
by ordering, in such cases, the tribunals to send the proceedings in
advance to the Suprema, without allowing the accused to know of it.[252]
There evidently were contending influences, of justice on one side and
convenience on the other, for in 1568 it was ordered that, in cases not
of heresy, when the penalty was arbitrary, the culprit should be
notified in advance of the auto de fe, and this was extended, in 1573,
by instructions that, in cases admitting appeal, the parties should be
notified in time to enable them to do so. This concession to justice
caused trouble and, on April 11, 1577 the tribunals were ordered to
report on the evils arising from it. Apparently the inquisitors reported
adversely for, on September 18th, they were ordered to return to the
former practice of not notifying culprits prior to the auto de fe.[253]
There was, however, quite an extensive class of cases in which the right
of appeal was not completely cut off by this. These were the more
trivial ones, in which the sentence was rendered in the
audience-chamber, and in these both parties, the culprit and the fiscal,
were required to assent on the spot, when either could appeal, for the
fiscal had the same right as his opponent; it was included, in the
commission issued to fiscals, in the long enumeration of their powers
and duties, and was a right not infrequently exercised.[254] Although
the culprit thus had an opportunity to appeal, he was obliged to act
without advice. In the case of María Cazalla, in Toledo, December 19,
1534, when called upon to assent to her sentence in the
audience-chamber, she asked for delay; then, in the afternoon, she
begged to be allowed to consult her husband or her counsel and, on this
being refused, she accepted the sentence.[255] Still, as public autos
diminished and private _autillos_ multiplied, the opportunity for
appeals became more frequent and were sometimes successful.
[Sidenote: _APPEALS_]
This was more apt to benefit ecclesiastics than laymen for, except in
cases involving degradation, they were never exhibited in public autos;
their sentences were read in the audience-chamber, and they were more
likely than the ordinary culprit to possess the education and
intelligence requisite to profit by the opportunity. Cases of appeal by
them are consequently not infrequent. Fray Lucas de Allende, Guardian of
the Franciscan convent of Madrid, was one of the dupes of Lucrecia de
Leon, an impostor who pretended in dreams to have converse with God and
the saints. He busied himself in writing out her revelations and was
tried at Toledo, where he lay in prison from June, 1590, until April,
1596. He was sentenced to a reprimand and warning not to meddle with
such matters, to accept certain definitions laid down by the tribunal,
and to strict reclusion in a convent for a year. He vigorously protested
that the sentence was absurd and he appealed from it, to which the
fiscal retorted by likewise interjecting an appeal. The Suprema heard
both appeals and decided, July 30, 1596, by confirming the sentence as
to reprimand and warning, and omitting the rest. Even this did not
satisfy the obstinate Franciscan for when read to him, August 2d, he
refused to accept it and appealed to the pope, but, on being warned to
reflect well, he on the same day withdrew this appeal and submitted.
There can be little doubt however that the inquisitors suppressed the
revocation of part of the sentence, for there follows a petition from
him to be allowed to visit his native Villarubia before entering upon
his reclusion, deceit of this kind being perfectly practicable in the
profound secrecy of the tribunals.[256] More successful was the
Geronimite Fray Martin de Cazares, prosecuted in Valladolid for
superstitious curing of the sick and sentenced, in 1655, to reprimand
and four years' exile from certain places. The Suprema had confirmed the
sentence and yet on appeal from him it remitted the exile.[257] By this
time the Suprema was supervising all action of the tribunals and, as it
gradually became the whole Inquisition, appeals grew to be superfluous,
yet the custom of withholding the sentence was persistent.
There was one class of cases, however, in which notification of the
sentence was always made prior to the auto de fe--those in which the
culprit was condemned to relaxation. The object of this was to give him
a chance of saving his soul by confession and conversion; in the earlier
period the notification was short, being only at midnight before the
auto, but this, as we shall see hereafter, was subsequently extended to
three days.
* * * * *
In the medieval Inquisition, the inquisitor, when rendering sentence,
always reserved the right to modify it, in the direction either of mercy
or of severity, or to remove it wholly. He could do this, for he was
practically independent and irresponsible to any superior, the only
authority over him being the distant and almost inaccessible Holy See.
The Spanish inquisitor occupied a wholly different position, being held
in strict and constantly increasing subordination to the Suprema and, as
commutations early became a source of large revenue, it is easy to
understand that the tribunals were not permitted to participate in the
proceeds. Already in 1498, the Instructions thus undertook to limit the
power of inquisitors to modify sentences, by ordering that they should
not grant commutations for money or favor or without just cause and,
when such existed, the commutation must be into fasts, almsgiving and
other pious uses; there could be no release from wearing the sanbenito
and the rehabilitation of descendants was reserved for the
inquisitor-general.[258] It was difficult to enforce restrictions which
recognized any right of inquisitors to modify sentences and, in 1513,
Ximenes deprived them of it wholly and concentrated the power in the
hands of the inquisitor-general.[259] It was wholly a matter of finance
and we have seen (Book <small>V</small>, Chap, iii) how it was thenceforth utilized.
The tribunal was recognized to have no power to modify a sentence when
once pronounced; as an experienced writer says, although by common law
inquisitors and Ordinaries can change or mitigate sentences, it is
otherwise under the Instructions which declare that this is reserved for
the inquisitor-general, the reason being that they have exhausted their
powers.[260]
[Sidenote: _SEVERITY OR BENIGNITY_]
In the Indies, where distance rendered application to the Suprema
virtually impossible, the tribunals seem to have retained the power of
modifying sentences, even though they may rarely have exercised it. In
1663 an old woman, known as Isabel de Montoya, tried for sorcery in
Mexico, was sentenced to appear in an auto de fe with the sanbenito, to
receive two hundred lashes and to serve for life in a hospital. In the
audience-chamber, November 5th, the sentence was read to her, in
presence of the fiscal and her advocate. With the assent of the latter,
she begged that the sanbenito and the scourging be omitted; she had only
been an impostor and had had no pact, expressed or implied, with the
demon, and in view of her age and sickness and crippling in the torture
she supplicated mercy. On November 7th the fiscal replied to this,
asking an aggravation of punishment because it proved her to be an
impenitent in denying her pact and intention. November 21st the consulta
de fe assembled and unanimously confirmed its former sentence.
The auto de fe was not celebrated until May 4, 1664; on the 6th she was
duly scourged through the streets and on the 15th she was delivered to
the Hospital del Amor de Dios. Her pitiful prayer, urging age and
sickness, was justified for, on June 17th, a messenger from the hospital
announced her death, and the inquisitors briefly ordered it to bury
her.[261]
* * * * *
As regards cruelty, it is impossible to generalize, where in the earlier
periods so much discretion was allowed to the tribunals, and so much
depended on the temper of the inquisitors, who might be stern or humane.
In the case of the obstinate heretic or of the _impenitente negativo_
there was no question; the law of the land and universal public opinion
alike condemned him to the stake but, in the wide sphere of the penitent
heretic and of the numerous offences of which the Inquisition had
cognizance, there was an ample field for the display of severity or
benignity. Against the barbarity of a case like that of Isabel de
Montoya, which had too many parallels, may be set the tendencies of the
Toledo tribunal about 1600. In its reports to the Suprema at that period
there, frequently occur explanatory remarks, as though to apologize for
the mildness of the sentences, which indicate its readiness to temper
its judgements--such expressions as "she was a poor and ignorant woman,"
"she was simple and ignorant," "she was spared heavier penance because
she was only sixteen years old," "she seemed a very simple and a very
good woman," "recent baptism and drunkenness." Occasionally, in bigamy
cases, involving scourging and the galleys according to rule, the
omission of these is justified by the age or weakness of the culprit.
Sometimes, but not often, the suffering which the prisoner has endured
during prolonged imprisonment is taken into consideration, and is
admitted as part of the punishment.[262] This tendency towards mercy
becomes more marked in the period of decadence, when the humanitarian
development of the age made itself felt even in the Inquisition, and it
offers a suggestive contrast to the savage fanaticism of the secular
courts of a land which claimed to be more enlightened than Spain. In
1765 a wooden crucifix on the bridge at Abbeville was mutilated and the
Bishop of Amiens published a _monitoire_ ordering, under pain of
excommunication, any one having knowledge of the matter to denounce the
offender. Duval de Saucourt, a counsellor in the court of Abbeville, who
was inimical to the Abbess of Villancourt, accused her nephew, the
Chevalier de la Barre, a youth of nineteen. The only evidence was that
he had once passed a procession without lifting his hat, that he had
talked against the Eucharist and had sung impious and licentious songs.
He was doubtless irreligious and debauched, and his evil reputation
sufficed, in the court of Abbeville, to justify a sentence of amputating
his tongue and right hand and burning him alive. Appeal was made to the
Parlement of Paris which, by a vote of fifteen to ten, confirmed the
sentence, with the mitigation of beheading before concremation and this
was duly executed, July 1, 1766.[263] The annals of the Spanish
Inquisition offer nothing more hideous than this, and the comparison is
the more instructive in that its penalty for sacrilegiously outraging an
image of Christ, the Virgin or the saints, with aggravating
circumstances, was merely appearance in an auto de fe with the insignia
of a blasphemer, abjuration _de levi_ and a hundred lashes or vergüenza
or exile, according to the character of the offence and of the
culprit.[264]
The Inquisition boasted that it was no respecter of persons and, in one
point at least, its rules offer a favorable contrast to those of the
secular law. In Spanish law the privileges of gentility were fully
recognized and, for many crimes, the penalties assigned to gentle blood
were much milder than those inflicted on the commonalty. This was
reversed in the Inquisition, where it was prescribed that, in matters of
faith, nobles should be punished more severely than plebeians.[265] This
was doubtless owing to the assumption that they were more intelligently
trained and less exposed to error, besides the fact that their example
was more impressive. On the other hand, however, the clergy, for whom
less excuse could be found, were treated with much greater leniency than
the laity and, far from being utilized as examples, their frailties and
errors were shielded as much as possible from public view, in order not
to diminish popular reverence for the Church.
[Sidenote: _NON-PERFORMANCE_]
The penal resources of the Inquisition, as we shall see, were endless.
While, for certain well-defined offences, certain penalties were
customary, the discretion of the consultas de fe was bound by no
definite limitations as to what were known as _penas extraordinarias_,
and they could devise whatever seemed appropriate to special cases.
Infinite gradations and intricate combinations were resorted to in the
effort to fit the penalty to the offence of each individual, and also
doubtless often to secure unanimity in the consulta de fe, so that not
infrequently there are six or eight separate and distinct inflictions in
a single sentence. It would be too much to expect that, in so composite
an institution, during more than three centuries of existence, there
should have been strict consistency in the exercise of this discretional
power, but, making allowance for the infirmities of human nature under
the temptation of irresponsibility, it can scarce be said that it
habitually abused its authority, according to the barbarous standard of
the times, except in the infliction of pecuniary penalties on which its
finances depended, and in the vindication of its authority against all
who dared to question its supremacy. It was callous to the sufferings of
those whom it prejudged as guilty; it devised the most atrocious
formulas of procedure; but, when it had secured confession or
conviction, it was not systematically and ferociously cruel as has so
often been asserted.
* * * * *
As regards the enforcement of the sentence, it is to be observed that
the penalties divide themselves into two classes. Some, such as
relaxation, confiscation, fines, scourging, the galleys, reconciliation
and abjuration, were within the power of the tribunal. Others, like
imprisonment, the sanbenito, exile and reclusion, depended to a greater
or less degree on the will or the fears of the penitent. Theoretically,
as we have seen, punishment was regarded as penance, voluntarily
accepted by the penitent for the salvation of his soul, but the
Inquisition, unlike the father confessor, did not rely wholly on the
penitential ardor of the sinner. Punishment retained enough of the
character of penance to justify the theologian in treating its
non-performance as a proof that repentance had been feigned, and that
the offender had relapsed into heresy, the penalty for which, under the
canons, was death by fire without trial. In the earlier time this was
enforced in so far as was possible. Thus, in 1486, at Saragossa, Rodrigo
de Gris, who had been condemned to perpetual imprisonment in a
designated house, with the penalty of relapse for leaving it, escaped
and was burnt in effigy as a relapsed and, in 1487, Cristóval Gelva, to
whom the Hospital of Nuestra Señora de la Gracia was assigned as a
perpetual prison, was burnt in effigy for escaping.[266] This continued
for some time to be the theory but, in practice, while summoning the
fugitive as an impenitent relapsed, to appear for judgement, it was
deemed safer to proceed against him in the ordinary way _in absentia_,
waiting for a year and prosecuting him for contumacy. Such a case
appears to be that of Bartolomé Gallego, who escaped in 1525 from the
penitential prison of Toledo and was condemned to relaxation in effigy,
November 3, 1527.[267] Some forty years later, Pablo García explains
that the suspicion arising from flight, joined with that of remaining
under excommunication for a year, afforded sufficient proof for
declaring the fugitive a relapsed heretic and relaxing his effigy. It
was only when evidence could be had of subsequent acts of heresy that
direct proceedings for relapse were justified, and this was decided in a
case where a fugitive was relaxed in effigy, and the Suprema revoked the
sentence and rescinded the confiscation.[268]
[Sidenote: _NON-PERFORMANCE_]
The theory of relapse was evidently giving way. Simancas tells us that,
although supported by high authorities, it is cruel and false and not
founded in law; the fugitive is impenitent, not relapsed; if he returns
or is captured he is to be heard, and if prepared to obey the Church,
his flight only deserves an increase of penalty.[269] How rapidly the
ancient severity was disappearing is manifested by a case in Valencia,
in 1570. Pedro Luis Verga was prosecuted for Protestantism on a vague
accusation that, when studying in Paris in 1555, he had consorted with
the dreaded Juan Pérez and had shared his opinions, for which he was
reconciled and sentenced not to leave the kingdom. He disobeyed and, in
1570, he was heard of in Genoa, giving utterance to heretical opinions.
Now this was a case of relapse, as well as of non-fulfilment of penance,
but he was prosecuted for contumacy as a simple fugitive.[270] It was an
evidence that the old rule had become obsolete when inquisitors
sometimes prescribed in their sentences that the penance was to be
performed under pain of impenitent relapse, as in the case of Juan
Franco, condemned at Toledo, in 1570, to eight years of galleys for
Protestantism, and of Juan Cote, by the same tribunal, in 1615, to
irremissible perpetual prison for the same heresy.[271] Towards the
middle of the seventeenth century, Alberghini gives the various opinions
held on the subject, and concludes that that of Simancas was commonly
accepted.[272]
Cases of non-fulfilment were not infrequent for, as we shall see, the
discipline of the penitential prisons was exceedingly lax; any penitent
could absent himself and then throw off the sanbenito, which was the
customary accompaniment of imprisonment, but, although this was
canonically relapse, such cases were treated with what in those days
might be considered as mercy. Thus Diego González, reconciled for
Judaism at Valladolid, in 1644, and condemned to prison and habit, was
recognized in 1645, at Medina de Rioseco, without the sanbenito. On
being tried for this, the consulta de fe was not unanimous and the
Suprema sentenced him to a hundred lashes.[273] It was the same with
sentences of exile. In 1667, at Toledo, Francisco López Rodríguez, who
had been reconciled in 1665 and had already been prosecuted for
non-fulfilment of penance, was tried for doing so again, and was
condemned only to a hundred lashes and two years more of exile. So in
1669, Juan López Peatin, for infraction of exile, had only two years
added to the original term.[274]
A curious case, however, in 1606, shows how penitents were expected to
fulfil their penances. Gaspar Godet, a Morisco, had been condemned at
Valencia to reconciliation, a hundred lashes, and perpetual prison, of
which the first eight years were to be passed in the galleys. After five
years' service, his galley was captured by the English, near Lisbon, and
he was set free. He ought strictly to have conveyed himself on board of
another galley to serve out his term, but he seems to have imagined that
he was released from his sentence; he quietly returned to his native
Torre de Llovis and resumed his profession of surgeon. He was, of
course, reported to the tribunal, which seized him in August, 1606, and
condemned him not only to complete his sentence but to undergo a hundred
lashes and to pay a fine of two hundred libras, although the maximum
fine that could legally be imposed on a Morisco was ten ducats.[275]
The renewed activity of the Inquisition, in the early eighteenth
century, seems to have been accompanied with a recrudescence of severity
in these cases. In the Valencia auto de fe of February 24, 1723, Antonio
Rogero was reconciled and condemned to irremissible prison and
sanbenito. He escaped but was captured and, in the auto of March 12,
1724, he was condemned to two hundred lashes and five years of galleys,
after which he was to be returned to prison, but the inquisitor-general
mercifully commuted the scourging and galleys to five years of presidio,
or labor in an African garrison. So, in the Valencia auto of June 25,
1724, Joseph Ventura, of Fez, a Moorish convert, had been reconciled
with three years of prison and sanbenito; he fled, was captured and, in
the auto of July 1, 1725, his prison was made perpetual and
irremissible; again he fled, to be again caught and, in the auto of
September 17, 1725, he was condemned to five years of galleys, after
which he was to be returned to prison.[276]
[Sidenote: _NON-FULFILMENT OF PENANCE_]
All these were cases of formal heresy, for relapse in which the
canonical punishment was burning. For offences less heinous, which
inferred only suspicion of heresy, there was an occasional practice of
including in the sentence a penalty for non-fulfilment of the penance.
This was in every respect an arbitrary matter, concerning which no
generalization can be formulated, for it is frequently impossible to
divine why, in a group of similar cases, some sentences should carry
this threat and some should not. This apparently objectless diversity is
markedly exhibited in the auto of May 13, 1565, at Seville, where there
were a large number of penitents thus arbitrarily differentiated. In the
cases where the threat was employed, there was slender indication of
mercy, for where exile for life or for a term of years was imposed, the
penalty for non-fulfilment was that it should be completed in the
galleys. In one case, that of Abel Jocis, for conveying arms to Barbary,
the sentence was merely a prohibition to sail to Barbary, but a
violation of this was visited with the galleys for life.[277] It should
be added, however, for the credit of the Inquisition, that it not
infrequently made threats which it had not the cruelty to execute. Thus
the tribunal of Toledo, on a charge of divination, banished from Spain a
priest named Fernando Betanzas, with a threat of the galleys for
disobedience. Not long afterwards the Bishop of Salamanca found and
arrested him, and the Suprema, December 22, 1636, ordered the tribunal
of Valladolid to investigate the case, after which the Suprema contented
itself with deporting him to Portugal, and warning him that, if he
returned again, he should be sent to the galleys.[278]
The case of the Augustinian Fray Diego Caballero, in 1716, indicates how
non-fulfilment of penance might convert into formal heresy that which
was mere suspicion. For uttering unacceptable propositions, he had been
sentenced by the tribunal of Córdova to reclusion for four years in the
convent of Guadix. He fled from there and continued to repeat his
erroneous utterances, for which the Toledo tribunal pronounced him to be
relapsed in grave crime and sentenced him to abjure _de vehementi_, to
be suspended from his orders for a year, to perpetual deprivation of
preaching, confessing and the right to vote and be voted for, to ten
years' exile from a number of places, to four years' reclusion in a
designated house, where for six months he was to be confined in a cell.
He was also to wear a sanbenito, while his sentence was read in the
audience-chamber, and the next day it was to be read to the assembled
brethren of his Toledo convent, who were to administer to him a circular
discipline, and he was to forfeit half his peculium--and all this under
pain of being held as an impenitent relapsed.[279] What is noteworthy
here is not only the severity of this long accumulation of penalties,
but also the abjuration _de vehementi_ which rendered reincidence in the
abjured errors a matter for the stake.
* * * * *
In the medieval Inquisition it may be said that acquittal was virtually
prohibited--a sentence of not proven might possibly be rendered, but
acquittal was an admission of fallibility and was regarded as a bar to
subsequent proceedings in case further evidence was obtained.[280] This
principle was maintained in the Roman Inquisition, although, in the
eighteenth century, exception was made in cases where the adverse
evidence was clearly proved to be fraudulent.[281] The Spanish Holy
Office was not quite so sensitive, and had no hesitation as to repeated
prosecutions, so that to it acquittal was a less serious matter.
Moreover, while sentences of not proven were not unknown, there was an
equivalent device by which the accused could be dismissed without
admitting his innocence--suspending the case and discharging him,
subject to the liability of its being reopened at any time.
The furious zeal of Torquemada rendered acquittal peculiarly distasteful
to him, and we have seen above (Vol. I, p. 175) a case in which he set
aside acquittals at Medina del Campo, and insisted on conviction
although, at his instance, the parties had been tried twice and had been
tortured without confession. This temper on his part could not but
impress itself on his subordinates, and yet we occasionally meet with
acquittals in this early time--acquittals, however, which manifest a
strange mental confusion, and betray the unwillingness to admit the
prosecution of the innocent, for they couple acquittal with punishment.
Thus at Guadalupe, in 1485, in the case of Andrés Alonso of Trogillano,
the sentence recites that the fiscal had not proved his accusation as
fully as he ought, wherefore the inquisitors absolved the accused but,
as the evidence aroused some suspicion in their hearts, for the
satisfaction of their consciences and his, they sentenced him to abjure
_de levi_ and, as some infamy had accrued to him from the accusation,
they removed it and restored him to his former good repute, and lifted
the sequestration on his property. Whereupon he duly abjured _de levi_,
renouncing all manner of heresy, and especially that of which he was
accused, promising to be always obedient to the Church, after which he
was absolved _ad cautelam_ from any excommunication which he might have
incurred, and of all this he asked to have a certificate.[282] All the
acquittals that I have met, of this period, bear this illogical
character, sometimes even requiring abjuration _de vehementi_ and
inflicting penalties for the offence of which the accused is pronounced
innocent.
[Sidenote: _ACQUITTAL_]
In Barcelona, the Inquisition had been established twelve years before
the first acquittal was granted, and, from such record as we have, it
would appear that there were acquittals of more than one
kind--conditional and unconditional. Thus, in 1499, Jayme Castanyer and
Eufrosina Pometa were acquitted, but were required to abjure publicly on
May 2d, and, on October 5th, Luys Palau was acquitted. In 1500, on
September 18th, four women were acquitted absolutely, two men were
acquitted with penance, and two women and a man were acquitted with
abjuration. Then, on October 5th, the memory and fame of Juan de Ribes
Altes were cleared and, on December 20, 1501, Blanquina Darla was
acquitted absolutely.[283]
In a record of the Toledo tribunal, from 1484 to 1531, there are
eighty-six cases of acquittal, or an average of somewhat less than two
per annum which, in view of the intense activity of the earlier period,
indicates how few escaped when once the Inquisition had laid its hand
upon them. Some of these cases show how long the conditional acquittal
persisted. Thus of those acquitted, Hernando Parral was required to
abjure, and Francisca Ramírez and Catalina beata negra abjured _de
vehementi_. Unless there is a mistake by the scribe, Leonora de la Oliva
of Ciudad Real was acquitted and scourged, October 3, 1521, and again
had the same sentence October 13, 1530. In 1520 Alonso Hernández was
acquitted with public penance and, in 1513, Sancho de Ribera was
acquitted with confiscation. One entry is difficult of
comprehension--that of Inez González, who was voted to acquittal with
reconciliation and confiscation, but the confiscation was remitted.[284]
Practically acquittal amounted only to a sentence of not proven. In the
formula for it, Pablo García calls special attention to the omission of
the word "definitive," pointing out that it is not final, for the case
could be reopened at any time that fresh evidence was obtained--and even
without it, as we have seen in the case of Villanueva. In matters of
faith there was no finality, no _cosa juzgada_, and it was so declared
by Pius V, in the bull _Inter multiplices_, invalidating all letters of
absolution and acquittal issued by inquisitors and other spiritual
judges.[285] In strict accordance with this principle was the rule that
sentences of acquittal of the living were not to be read at the autos de
fe, unless at their especial request, while acquittals of the dead were
read; in either case, the sentence simply stated that he had been
accused of heresy and no details were given; if living he did not appear
at the auto and if dead there was no effigy.[286] All this was in
direct contradiction to the glowing eulogy of Páramo who, as we have
seen, states that the inquisitors used every means to prove the
innocence of the accused and, when they succeeded, took care that he
should go forth like a conqueror crowned with laurel and the palm of
victory.[287] Yet Páramo had some justification in the fact that there
were rare exceptional cases in which the acquitted was thus honored. The
only instance of this that I have met in Spain was that referred to
above (Vol. II, p. 561), where fourteen residents of Cádiz were falsely
accused. In Peru, however, several cases are recorded. In the Lima auto
of 1728 Doctor Agustin Valenciano appeared in the procession on a white
horse, with a palm, and proclamation was made of his innocence. In the
great auto of January 23, 1639, there were seven thus honored after
their three years of incarceration, and in that of October 19, 1749, the
effigy of Don Juan de Loyola, who had died in prison in 1745, headed the
procession, bearing a palm. This last case is perhaps explicable by
Jesuit influence, for he was of the family of St. Ignatius, and further
reparation was made by creating his brother, Don Ignacio de Loyola y
Haro alguazil mayor of the tribunal, while three nephews were made
familiars.[288]
The reluctance of the tribunals to pronounce a sentence of acquittal is
illustrated in the case of Francisco Marco, tried at Barcelona for
bigamy, in 1718. Unable to prove the charge, which was punishable with
scourging and galleys, the tribunal sentenced him to have his sentence
_con meritos_ read in the audience-chamber, to be reprimanded and
threatened, and to be banished from Barcelona and Madrid for six years.
In the earlier period this sentence would have stood, but by this time
the Suprema was in full control and it expressed great surprise at so
unjust a decision, inflicting so foul a stigma on the accused. It
declared null and void all the acts of the process, it ordered Marco to
be discharged at once, and that the inquisitors should defray out of
their salaries all the cost of his imprisonment.[289]
[Sidenote: _SUSPENSION_]
The indisposition to acquit found expression in the device known as
suspension. When the effort to convict failed, the case could be
suspended, thus leaving matters as they stood; the accused was neither
acquitted nor convicted, the case could at any moment be reopened and
prosecuted to the end, and it hung over the unfortunate victim while it
saved the infallibility of the tribunal. The earliest allusion to it
that I have met occurs in the Instructions of 1498, which show that it
was a usage already established and abused, for it is forbidden in
prosecutions of the dead, except when further evidence is expected, and
acquittal is ordered when the proof is imperfect, because there are many
cases of suspension that inflict hardship through the sequestrations
continuing in force.[290]
Suspension was a convenient resource for a tribunal, unable to convict
yet unwilling to acquit, and desirous to conceal its failure. At first
it was comparatively rare, but in time it became a favorite method of
escaping a decision and, as it gradually, for the most part, replaced
acquittal, in its development it might even remove the stigma; in the
great majority of cases it was practically the end of the matter, and it
was usually accompanied with lifting the sequestration. Some authorities
held that a case could not be entered as suspended, if there was enough
in it to justify a reprimand, or even when the offence was trivial and
the defendant was cautioned not to speak or act in that fashion, but
this rigidity of definition was not observed in practice. When
suspension was decided upon, the accused was not permitted to know it.
He was simply brought into the audience-chamber; if he had been confined
in the secret prison he was put through the customary inquiries as to
what he had seen and heard, and was sworn to secrecy; he was told that
for just reasons he was granted the favor of returning home and that he
must seek to discharge his conscience for his case was still
pending.[291] This mystery served to keep him in suspense, but, after he
found the sequestration or embargo lifted from his property, he could
doubtless fathom its meaning. If he demanded a definite sentence of
conviction or acquittal, he had the right to do so, but I have met with
no instance of this, and few could have been hardy enough thus to tempt
their fate. If he asked for a certificate that he was freely discharged,
or that his case was suspended, it was not to be given, but the Suprema
might grant him one to the effect that he was discharged without penance
or condemnation.[292]
Suspension wholly without penance was, however, unusual, for the
infallibility of the Inquisition was commonly emphasized by accompanying
it with some infliction, more or less severe. The lightest of these was
the reprimand and warning administered when discharging the accused. In
1650 the tribunal of Toledo summarily got rid of quite a number of cases
in this fashion--four on June 18th, two on the 25th and three on the
30th, and those were fortunate who escaped so lightly. About the same
time, Doña Gabriela Ramírez de Guzman, accused of superstitious sorcery,
was not only reprimanded, when her case was suspended, but was banished
for a year from Toledo and Madrid, and the same penance was assigned to
Domingo de Acuña, when his trial for propositions was suspended.[293]
How little incongruity was recognized in this is illustrated by the case
of Martin Mitorovich, at Madrid, in 1801, when one of the inquisitors
voted to suspend the case and confine him for life in the hospital of
Ceuta.[294] In fact, as suspension grew more frequent in the closing
years of the Inquisition, it was often coupled with severe inflictions.
Thus, August 30, 1815, the tribunal of Llerena suspended the case of
María del Carmen Cavallero y Berrocal, but sentenced her to reprimand,
two hundred lashes and three years' seclusion in a hospital; at the same
time, in view of her ingenuous confession, the scourging was suspended
until her amendment should earn its forgiveness, and the same phrases
were used with her accomplice, Nicolás Sánchez Espinal, who was
sentenced to reprimand, certain spiritual exercises and perpetual exile
from the province.[295]
[Sidenote: _ADMISSION TO BAIL_]
In cases like these, however, suspension had somewhat outgrown its
original purpose of a substitute for acquittal, and was a more than
doubtful mercy, for the case remained unconcluded, though visited with
full penalties, and could at any moment be reopened. That originally it
was merely a convenient device for escaping the admission of having
prosecuted the innocent is manifested by cases of which the records are
full. Thus, in 1607, Francisco Dendolea, a Morisco of Xea, was tried at
Valencia on the evidence of a witness that, when _limosnero_ or almoner
of Xea, he had, under pretext of begging for the poor, used his office
to serve notices of the commencement of the fast of Ramadan and give
other ceremonial instructions. He proved that he never was limosnero
and the charge fell to the ground, but the case was merely suspended.
So, in 1653, Doña Isabel del Castillo was prosecuted for Judaism at
Toledo. She had previously been reconciled at Valladolid, and it was
found that the evidence related to a period prior to the reconciliation.
She of course ought to have been acquitted, but the case was
suspended.[296] Even more self-evident is the case of the Benedictine
Padre Francisco Salvador, tried at Valladolid, in 1640, for sundry
propositions presented in a competition for a professorship. The
consulta de fe voted to suspend the case and the Suprema, in confirming
the sentence, added that a certificate should be given to him that no
offence had been found that would in any way prejudice him.[297]
There was also a kind of imperfect or informal acquittal, which
consisted in admitting the accused to bail at the end of the trial. It
saved the tribunal from the trouble of a decision and of an
acknowledgement that the prosecution had been in error, but it was cruel
to the party involved, as it left him but partly liberated and with the
stigma of heresy. Its working is fairly exemplified by the case of
Petronila de Lucena, tried in 1534, at Toledo on a charge of
Lutheranism. After nearly a year's incarceration, her brother, also
under trial, revoked in the torture the evidence which he had given
against her. There was no other testimony, yet she was not acquitted but
merely released, March 20, 1535, under bail of a hundred thousand
maravedis, to present herself when summoned. The security was furnished
and she was delivered to the bondsmen as her gaolers. On June 27th, she
petitioned for release, for the discharge of the bondsmen and for the
removal of the sequestration, which included some articles of personal
necessity in the hands of the gaoler; she was, she pleaded, poor and an
orphan, she needed the property and wished to be free to dispose of
herself. No notice was taken of this and, sixteen months later, on
October 20, 1536, she applied again; this time an order to lift the
sequestration was issued, but there is no record of her having been
released from subjection to bail. She thus remained under the ban and,
at the age of 25, the two careers open to a Spanish woman--marriage and
the nunnery--were virtually closed to her.[298]
There was yet another kind of acquittal, still more informal, in which
the accused was simply discharged and bade to be gone, without a
sentence, leaving him under the dreadful uncertainty of what might be
his position. An instance of this is the case of Miguel Mezquita, tried
for Lutheranism at Valencia, in 1536. The evidence was of the flimsiest,
and the inquisitors merely ordered him to be released from prison
without making further provision.[299]
The comparative frequency of these various forms of release, in the
earlier period, may be inferred from the record of the Toledo tribunal
from 1484 to 1531, in which there are eighty-six cases of acquittal, to
only four of suspension, four of release under bail, and two of simple
discharge--the latter forms thus being negligible quantities.[300] The
proportions changed rapidly with time, showing how much more in harmony
with the spirit of the institution were the forms which evaded
acknowledgement of error. A record of the same tribunal, from 1575 to
1610, contains an aggregate of eleven hundred and seventy-two cases of
all kinds, in which there were fifty-one acquittals, ninety-eight
suspensions and thirty simple discharges.[301] This tendency continued
with increasing development. A Toledo record from 1648 to 1694,
comprises twelve hundred and five cases, of which but six ended in
acquittal, one in discharge for mistaken identity, and a hundred and
four in suspension, nearly all of the latter coupled with a reprimand in
the audience-chamber--apparently a scolding for having given the
tribunal so much bootless trouble. The suspensions were, in nearly every
case, ordered by the Suprema, as though the inquisitors shrank from the
admission which it involved.[302]
[Sidenote: _COMPURGATION_]
This repugnance existed to the last. In 1806, Don Matias Brabo, an
ex-Agonizante and calificador of the Saragossa tribunal, was tried in
Madrid on the charge of uttering certain propositions; he was acquitted
but, in view of his disorderly life, especially in regard to the sixth
commandment, he was sentenced to a reprimand, to fifteen days of
spiritual exercises, and to make a general confession at such time as he
could do so without disrepute.[303]
The same spirit is seen in the instructions of the Suprema, October 14,
1819, to the Cuenca tribunal, authorizing the arrest and trial of María
Martínez for propositions. In case, it says, the trial shows that she
has not erred in the matters charged, or in anything else, she is to be
reprimanded and warned and told that the tribunal is keeping a watch
over her acts.[304]
There was another kind of suspension, by far the most frequent of all.
It often happened, especially in the later periods, that the _sumaria_,
or collection of evidence against a presumed offender, proved
insufficient to justify prosecution. In such cases it would be quietly
voted to suspension; it was filed away in its place among the records,
ready to be exhumed at any time, when further information might supply
deficiencies and induce active proceedings. Thousands of these abortive
processes reposed in the _secreto_ of the tribunals, the subjects of
which were unconscious of the dangers which had threatened them, or that
their names were on the lists of suspects of the dreaded tribunal. That
they were kept under surveillance is indicated by an occasional note,
such as one respecting a certain Johann Wegelin, a Calvinist--"there is
a sumaria which has been withdrawn because he became insane and returned
to his own country," or in another case "suspended because he died in
1802."[305]
* * * * *
Yet, taking it as a whole, when we consider that the inquisitorial
system was so framed as to put every temptation in the way of the judges
to condemn, for the sake of confiscations, fines, penances,
dispensations and commutations, it is rather creditable that acquittals
and suspensions should occur in the records even as frequently as we
find them there, though of course we have no means of knowing whether
those who thus escaped were among the wealthy or the poor.
* * * * *
There was still another possible form of sentence. The Barbarians who
overthrew the Roman Empire brought with them an ancestral custom, known
as compurgation or, in England, as the Wager of Law, by which a
defendant, in either a civil or criminal action, could maintain his
title or his innocence by taking an oath and bringing a specified number
of men who swore to their belief in its truth. They were known as
conjurators or compurgators and were in no sense witnesses; they
pretended to no knowledge of the facts but only to their confidence in
the veracity of their principal. This crude method of establishing the
truth was maintained in all the lands occupied by the Teutonic tribes
except in Spain, where the Wisigoths early yielded to the influence of
the Roman law. It was eagerly adopted by the clergy, who found in it a
convenient means of escaping from the harsher expedients of the ordeal
or the wager of battle, so that it acquired the name of canonical
purgation.[306] In the thirteenth century, the Inquisition found it used
in the trial of heretics and necessarily included it among the resources
for doubtful cases, although inquisitorial methods were too thorough to
call for its frequent employment.
The Spanish Inquisition naturally inherited compurgation among the other
traditions of the institution. When conviction could not be had by
evidence or torture, and yet the suspicion was too grave to justify
acquittal, it could sentence the accused to undergo compurgation. He
could not demand it, nor could he decline it, though he might appeal
from the sentence; and failure in compurgation was equivalent to
conviction, while success was not acquittal but required abjuration and
penance at the discretion of the tribunal, because, although legally
shown not to be a heretic, the accused had to be punished for
"suspicion."
[Sidenote: _COMPURGATION_]
The early Instructions are silent on the subject, and such cases of the
period as I have met indicate that there was no rigidly prescribed
method of procedure, although, in the main, they accord in showing it to
be a kind of trial by jury, after the tribunal had failed to reach a
decision. The general features of the process can be gathered from the
case at Saragossa of Beatriz Beltran, wife of the Juan de la Caballería,
accused of complicity in the murder of San Pedro Arbues, who died in
prison and was relaxed in effigy in the auto of July 8, 1491. She was
put on trial for Judaism in 1489; the evidence against her was by no
means decisive, while the defence discredited the witnesses and proved
by abundant testimony her devotion to the Church, her regular attendance
at mass and confession for more than twenty years, her liberality in the
celebration of masses and her long hours spent in daily prayer. She
could not be tortured in view of her advanced age and severe infirmities
and, on August 9, 1492, the consulta de fe voted unanimously that, as
torture was out of the question, she be sentenced to canonical
purgation, at the judgement of the inquisitors when, if she should purge
herself, she should abjure publicly as vehemently suspect of heresy and
of Judaizing, and should perform penance at the discretion of the
tribunal. The next day the inquisitors pronounced that she was not
convicted but vehemently suspect, wherefore she should purge herself
with twelve conjurators. They were duly selected and a term of three
days was assigned, within which the ceremony should be performed. They
assembled in the Aljafería on August 23d, when the publication of
evidence and the defence were read to them. She was sworn to tell the
truth and was asked whether she had committed these crimes, to which she
replied in the negative and was then removed from the room. The
inquisitors again read the accusatory evidence and the defence, the
compurgators were sworn to tell the truth, and the inquisitors polled
them. The first one, Pedro Monterde, said that he believed Beatriz to
have sworn truly, for he had known her for fifteen years and had always
held her to be a good Christian, the rest unanimously concurred and the
purgation was successful. Then, on September 8th, she appeared in an
auto as a penitent and, on the 17th, she abjured all heresies and
especially those of which she was vehemently suspected, after which the
inquisitors rendered sentence, declaring her to be vehemently suspect of
the crimes which she had abjured and, as these suspicions and crimes
could not be left unpunished, they penanced her with forbidding her to
commit these crimes, with the payment of all costs of her trial, the
taxation of which they reserved to themselves, and with performing such
penance as they might impose on her. The record fails to inform us what
was that penance, but it probably transferred to the tribunal a large
portion of the property that had escaped her husband's
confiscation.[307]
The threat that failure would imply condemnation was by no means an idle
one. About this time, Fray Juan de Madrid was tried before the tribunal
of Toledo; there was much adverse evidence in full detail, and the only
defence lay in disabling the witnesses. This was partially successful,
but enough remained to justify the inquisitors in saying in the sentence
that he could have been condemned on it but that, in benignity and
mercy, he was offered compurgation. He willingly accepted it and named
his compurgators, but half of them refused to sustain his oath of
denial, declaring that through their knowledge of him they held him as
suspect. This was conclusive; he was considered to be convicted of the
charges and the consulta de fe had no hesitation in voting him to
relaxation. In like manner, on February 3, 1503, Jayme Benet was burnt
at Barcelona because he failed in the compurgation enjoined on him.[308]
A change, probably attributable to the growing desire for absolute
secrecy, prescribed by the Instructions of 1500, altered profoundly the
prevailing theory of compurgation, for it prohibited the reading to the
compurgators of the evidence and defence. In their presence the accused
was to deny under oath the charges which were recapitulated by the
inquisitors, and the compurgators were simply to be asked whether they
believed that he swore the truth, and no other questions.[309] There
seems to have been some trouble in abrogating the custom of reading the
evidence, for the prohibition had to be repeated in 1514.[310]
[Sidenote: _COMPURGATION_]
In the project presented to Charles V, in 1520, by the Conversos, with
the object of rendering the inquisitorial process less effective, there
was included a modification of compurgation in such wise as to
facilitate escape.[311] Of course no attention was paid to this, but
that some alteration of the process was required by justice is manifest
from one or two minor reforms soon afterwards. In 1523 it was ordered
that the fiscal should not be present after the compurgators were sworn,
which is suggestive of his influencing them adversely. Still more
essential was a regulation of 1529, forbidding those who had testified
against the accused from serving as his compurgators.[312] Apparently it
was one of the results of suppressing the names of witnesses that the
poor wretch, in his ignorance, would sometimes call upon those to save
him who had been procuring his destruction, and the inquisitors had not
sufficient sense of justice to exclude them, although they had power to
refuse admission to any one supposed to be friendly to him. There was
also a favorable modification of the ancient practice requiring
unanimity on the part of the conjurators, for Simancas tells us that the
inquisitors, when specifying the number to act, could also designate how
many defections would be allowed without prejudicing the result.[313]
Yet by the middle of the century, when Simancas wrote, compurgation was
becoming obsolete. He denounces it as blind, perilous and deceitful, and
says that it especially should not be forced upon those of Jewish or
Moorish descent, for it is equivalent to sending them on the direct road
to the stake, since no one could help thinking ill of them, or at least
doubting their innocence. Besides, nearly all men are now so corrupt,
and Christian charity is so cold, that scarce any one can be found who
will purge another, or who will not have an evil suspicion and interpret
matters for the worst. To defeat the accused it suffices for the
conjurators to say that they do not know, or that they doubt whether he
has told the truth, and who is there who will not feel uncertain when he
knows that no one is exposed to purgation unless he is vehemently
suspected.[314]
This is echoed by the Instructions of 1561, which indicate how
compurgation was passing out of use by the brief allusion vouchsafed to
it. It is to be performed in accordance with the Instructions, with such
number of compurgators as the consulta de fe may prescribe, but
inquisitors must bear in mind that the malice of men at the present time
renders it perilous, that it is not much in use, and that it must be
employed with the utmost caution.[315]
Still, subsequently to this, Pablo García gives full and curious details
as to procedure, which show how it had become hedged around with
limitations that rendered it a desperate expedient for the accused. The
compurgators had to be Old Christians, zealous for the faith, who had
known the accused for a specified number of years, and were not of kin
or well disposed towards him. He was required to name more than the
number designated, so as to allow for those who might have died or be
absent, showing that he had to act in the solitude of the cell where
perhaps he had been confined for years. When the sentence of
compurgation was announced to him, he was given a certain term in which
to make his selection and, if he allowed this to elapse, he was at the
discretion of the tribunal. No communication with the compurgators was
allowed, and when they were assembled each one was separately and
secretly examined to ascertain whether he lacked any of the necessary
qualifications, what were his relations with the accused, whether he
would give anything to secure his discharge, whether any one had spoken
with him and asked him to serve, or whether he had intimated to any of
the kindred that he was willing to act. While thus carefully guarding
against possible friendship, it is significant that there is no
instruction to inquire into possible enmity.
The ceremony was performed with considerable impressiveness. On the
table of the audience-chamber there were placed with much solemnity a
cross, the gospels, and two lighted candles. The prisoner was brought
in, his list of selections was read to him and he was asked if he
recognized them, to which he assented and said that he presented them as
his compurgators. They were then asked if they wished to serve or not;
if they accepted, a solemn oath was taken by the prisoner to tell the
truth and not to conceal it for fear of death or of loss of property or
of honor or for any other reason. The inquisitors then recited the
charges which created vehement suspicion and asked him, under his oath,
whether he was guilty of them and, after he had answered, he was led
back to his cell. Then, if necessary, the nature of compurgation was
explained to the compurgators and they were sworn to answer truly and
not to deny the truth for hate, or love, or fear, or affection, or other
motive. They were kept apart, without communication with each other, and
each was examined separately and in secret whether he understood what
had passed and whether, in accordance with what he knew of the accused,
he believed that he had told the truth, and after replying he was made
to promise secrecy under pain of excommunication. The answers were
carefully taken down and were signed by the compurgators.[316]
[Sidenote: _COMPURGATION_]
Conducted after this fashion it is easy to understand why compurgation
should be characterized as blind and perilous. The accused had to make
his selection blindly, and the qualifications required of conjurators
almost insured their unfavorable opinion, at a time when the operations
of the Inquisition had caused every man to look upon his neighbor with
suspicion, especially when that neighbor was one whom the tribunal
required to undergo compurgation. Yet, although the Inquisition thus
risked little in subjecting doubtful cases to it, there was ample reason
for allowing it to fall into desuetude. Secrecy had become a cardinal
principle in all inquisitorial proceedings and it was violated by
calling in a dozen laymen to see the prisoner, to hear the charges
against him and to participate in the judgement to be passed upon him.
Besides, it was an acknowledgement that there were cases in which the
assumed omniscience and infallibility of the Holy Office were at fault,
and had to be supplemented by the random opinions of a few men selected
by the accused. As practised for centuries in the ecclesiastical courts,
it had been an easy method for the guilty to escape merited
chastisement; as modified by the Inquisition, it became a pitfall for
the innocent; it was wholly at variance with the inquisitorial process
as developed in Spain and, while its place in the canon law prevented
its formal abolition, the tribunals had exclusive discretion as to its
employment, and that discretion was used to render it obsolete. Still,
it maintained its place as a legal form of procedure. Even as late as
1645, among the interrogatories provided for a visitation, the question
was still retained as to whether the forms of the Instructions were
observed in canonical compurgation, although a writer of the same period
tells us that it is not to be employed because, if the accused overcomes
sufficient torture, he is to be discharged.[317]
In the Roman Inquisition we find compurgation ordered as late as 1590,
in the case of a priest of Piacenza, accused of certain heretical
propositions; the compurgators were to be five beneficed priests of good
character and acquainted with the life of the accused. If the purgation
was successful he was to be proclaimed of good repute as to the faith,
and was to perform salutary penance for the imprudence of his
utterances.[318] By the middle of the seventeenth century, however,
Carena tells us that it had been virtually disused by the Congregation,
as most perilous, fallacious and uncertain.[319]
* * * * *
From this brief review of the various characteristics of the sentence,
it will be seen that the Inquisition had at hand formulas adapted to
every possible exigency, in the administration of its extensive and
highly diversified jurisdiction. Until the development of the authority
of the Suprema over the local tribunals, the use made of these formulas
depended on the temperament of the individual inquisitors, shielded as
they were from responsibility by secrecy and by the virtual suppression
of the right of appeal, except in trivial matters. It must be borne in
mind, moreover that, even when their sentences may seem merciful, there
was always behind them the most grievous infliction of an infamy which
affected the honor and the fortunes of a whole lineage.
CHAPTER II.
MINOR PENALTIES
In the preceding chapter the general penal system of the Inquisition has
been considered, but for its proper comprehension a brief exposition of
its several penalties is requisite. In this it is unnecessary to treat
of confiscation and pecuniary penance which have already been discussed
as constituting the financial basis of the existence of the Holy Office.
REPRIMAND.
Of the minor inflictions, the most nearly universal was the reprimand.
It is naturally absent from the severer sentences of reconciliation and
relaxation but, with these exceptions, scarce any defendant escaped it,
no matter how groundless the accusation was proved to be, or how plainly
his innocence was manifested. The freedom with which it was administered
is evidenced in a phrase of frequent occurrence in the reports of the
Toledo tribunal--"as no offence was proved, he was reprimanded and
warned for the future."[320] We have seen that some strict
constructionists held that reprimand was incompatible with suspension,
but that this principle was universally disregarded. The same authority
asserts that no reprimand was to be administered without a formal
sentence, but cases are numerous in which it is expressly recorded that
the party was reprimanded without a sentence, and sometimes this was by
the special command of the Suprema. In the Valladolid tribunal there
were eight such cases in the year 1641.[321] To scold the defendant was
one of the prerogatives of the inquisitor, from the use of which he
rarely abstained, especially as it afforded the opportunity of
expatiating on the benignity which imposed penalties so incommensurate
with the offences.
The severity of the infliction varied with his temper and power of
invective, but constant practice rendered him skilful in detecting the
sensitive places, and in applying the lash where it would be most keenly
felt. There were those among the victims who regarded this as a severer
penalty than a pecuniary penance, and it is not surprising that it
occasionally drew forth remonstrance and retort, which were promptly
suppressed by the infliction of a fine for the expenses of the
tribunal.[322] No record was made of reprimands, beyond the fact of
their utterance, but there is one which chances to have been preserved
as it seems to have been carefully elaborated and reduced to writing. It
was administered by the Licentiate Juan de Mañozca, who had been
President of the Chancellery of Granada, to an unlucky gentleman
prosecuted for having said that belief in matters of faith was good
breeding. He had made the case worse by arguing, in his defence, that he
could conceive of no word more applicable to the matter than _cortesía_,
and that his long residence at the court had familiarized him with all
the niceties of the Castilian tongue. For this, as a proposition
ill-sounding and savoring of heresy, Mañozca belabored him through ten
closely-written pages of savage ridicule. "In the Andalusian tunny
fishery" he said "there may be seen an infinity of tunnies, the smallest
of them as big as you, and yet not one of them will show the least
particle of salt, although they have lived in the midst of salt." So he
went on, quoting the Scriptures, the classic poets and Plato, to prove
that the unfortunate culprit was an ignoramus, closely approaching a
heretic. Such ignorance was likened to the unfruitful ears of corn
which, according to Christ, are only fit to be swept up and burnt, and
the diatribe concluded with the significant warning that it was the
Inquisition which gathered such worthless stocks and delivered them to
the secular arm, that they might pass through temporal to eternal
flame.[323] Doubtless the culprit was a fool, but his folly merited no
such terrific warning.
ABJURATION.
Suspicion of heresy, as we have seen, was, in itself, a crime requiring
punishment. In accusations of formal heresy which failed of proof, there
remained, as a rule, at least suspicion, and there was besides a number
of offences which, though not in themselves heretical, were brought
under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition by a more or less forced
assumption that they inferred suspicion of heresy--that no one who
believed rightly as to sacraments and points of doctrine could be guilty
of them. In the Old Inquisition, this suspicion was classified as light,
vehement or violent and these distinctions were retained in the New.
Violent suspicion, however, may be discarded from consideration here,
for it sufficed for condemnation and, in practice, it admitted of no
disproof or explanation for, although theoretically it might be
explained away, this was but a bare possibility. As Peña says, it
created presumption of law, as when a man remained for a year under
excommunication.[324]
The distinction between light and vehement suspicion was somewhat
nebulous. Like everything else in the vague region of morals, it was
incapable of accurate definition, and each case had to be decided on its
own merits, according to the temper of the judges. Alberghini's
attempted test of infrequent or habitual performance of acts inferring
suspicion fails utterly in practice and moreover leaves unsettled the
more important and common class of cases where testimony was
insufficient for conviction and yet too strong for acquittal.[325]
Moreover, suspicion might be modified by exterior circumstances, as when
Miguel Calvo tells us that, with Moriscos, however slender may be the
suspicion, it must be treated as vehement.[326] It was evidently
impossible to prescribe any absolute rule, and it is to the credit of
the Inquisition that it rarely pronounced suspicion to be vehement,
while light suspicion occurs in almost all sentences short of
reconciliation. Thus, in the Toledo record from 1648 to 1794, there are
three hundred and fourteen abjurations _de levi_ and only fifty-one _de
vehementi_--or about an average of one every three years.[327]
Whatever other punishment might be visited on suspicion, abjuration of
heresy in general, and especially of the heresy suspected, was
indispensable. This could be administered either in the
audience-chamber, or in a public auto de fe, and was an impressive
ceremony. In the face of a cross and with his hand on the gospels, the
culprit swore that he accepted the Catholic faith and detested and
anathematized every species of heresy, and especially that of which he
was suspect. He pledged himself always to keep the faith of the Church
and to be obedient to the pope and the papal decrees. He declared that
all who opposed the Catholic faith were worthy of condemnation,
promising never to join them, but to persecute them and denounce them to
prelates and inquisitors. He swore to receive patiently and humbly all
penance imposed on him, and to fulfil it with all his strength. If the
abjuration was for light suspicion, he consented and desired that, if he
failed in any part of this, he should be held as impenitent and he
submitted himself to the correction and severity of the canons, so that
the penalties prescribed in them should be executed on his person, and
finally he called upon the notary to record it and on all present to
serve as witnesses. If the abjuration was for vehement suspicion, he
consented and desired that, if he failed in his promises, he should be
held and considered as a relapsed and suffer the penalties provided for
relapse. This was the difference between abjuration _de levi_ and
abjuration _de vehementi_, so often alluded to above, and it was of no
small import under the canons. After the former, reincidence in the
offence entailed no special penalty; it was at the discretion of the
tribunal merely to repeat the previous sentence, or to aggravate it, as
the case might appear to deserve. But, after the latter, reincidence was
relapse, for which the canons decreed irrevocable burning, _ipso facto_
and without trial. To impress this on the penitent, his abjuration _de
vehementi_ was written out and he was made to sign it. Then, on the next
day after the auto de fe, he was brought into the audience-chamber, it
was read to him and he was warned to observe its conditions for, if he
should again fall into any heresy whatever, he would be treated as a
relapsed without mercy, and it would be the same if he did not perform
the penance imposed.[328]
[Sidenote: _ABJURATION_]
In spite of these impressive formalities, I think it doubtful whether,
after the first furious rush of persecution was past, the extreme
penalty of relaxation, for reincidence after abjuration _de vehementi_,
was customary. As a rule, in the later periods, inquisitors rather
endeavored to avoid relaxation and, while they were callous, they were
not apt to be unnecessarily cruel. I have not happened to meet with such
a case, while I have found more than one in which the canons were not
observed. In fact, a learned writer of the second half of the
seventeenth century argues elaborately, with the citation of many
authorities, to show that reincidence after abjuration _de vehementi_
does not incur the punishment of relapse, despite the penalties
expressed in the formula, and this would appear to have been tacitly
accepted, for a custom arose of specifying in the sentence whether or
not the abjuration should entail the penalty. Thus, in 1725 at Cuenca,
Doctor Zapata, accused of Judaism, was required to abjure _de vehementi_
with liability to relaxation, while in 1794, at Toledo, Damaso José
López de Cruz, for heretical propositions, was sentenced to similar
abjuration without such liability.[329] There was another distinction
between the two forms of abjuration, for those who abjured _de
vehementi_ were subject to the disgrace of appearing in an auto de fe
and of wearing a sanbenito _de media aspa_--or with one band of color
across it, before and behind.[330]
The Instructions of 1561 state that, when there is semi-proof, or such
indications that the accused cannot be acquitted, there are three
remedies, compurgation, torture or abjuration; but this is scarce
correct, for those who succeeded in compurgation were always, and those
who overcame torture were generally, required to abjure. The
Instructions add that abjuration, whether for light or vehement
suspicion, is rather a measure to inspire fear for the future than a
punishment for the past, and therefore it is usually accompanied with
pecuniary penance.[331] In fact, it was only in trifling cases, or in
suspensions, that abjuration was not associated with much severer
penalties. This was inevitable in the large class of offences which, by
a strained construction, inferred suspicion of heresy. In these, when
guilt was proven, it received its appropriate punishment, perhaps of
scourging or the galleys, and the abjuration was a mere formality to
satisfy the artificial ascription of heretical belief. In cases of
suspicion of real heresy, abjuration, whether _de levi_ or _de
vehementi_, was a necessary adjunct to the punishment. Thus in the
Toledo auto of February 7, 1694, Luis de Vargas, for "suspicions of
Judaism," was sentenced to abjure _de levi_, to pay a fine of two
hundred ducats and to be exiled for six years from various places. So,
in 1715, at Toledo, the Carmelite Fray Francisco Martínez de Salazar,
"for crimes vehemently suspect of heresy," appeared in the
audience-chamber with a sanbenito _de media aspa_, in the presence of
twelve priests; he abjured _de vehementi_, was sternly reprimanded and
threatened, and sentenced to a long list of penalties, including
deprivation of functions, reclusion for six years in a convent and a
circular discipline in the Carmelite house of Toledo.[332] On this
composite sentence the consulta de fe had evidently exhausted its
ingenuity, and the abjuration was merely a formal necessity to justify
the rest. Yet, while abjuration in itself can scarce be termed a
punishment it was, even when only _de levi_, an infliction of no little
severity, in consequence of the infamy which it entailed, as we have
seen in the Villanueva case, where the victim and his kindred struggled
for so many years in Rome to have it removed.
EXILE.
[Sidenote: _EXILE_]
Frequent allusions above to exile as occurring in sentences indicate how
customary a feature it was in the penal system of the Inquisition. By
itself, or in combination with other penalties, it was an unfailing
resort in offences that did not incur the graver punishment of
imprisonment. It could be varied indefinitely, to suit the peculiarities
of each case, and the tribunals exercised the widest discretion in its
employment. In its usual form it designated certain places and a fixed
number of leagues around them, which the penitent was forbidden to
enter. The list of proscribed localities as a rule included Madrid, or
rather the royal residences, the seat of the tribunal, the
dwelling-place of the culprit, if this was not comprised in the others,
and any other towns, sometimes amounting to four or five, where he had
been known in his guilty career. Although this was a convenient
resource to the tribunal, it was a somewhat irrational penalty, the
severity of which could hardly be guessed at, for while it might be
scarce more than an inconvenience to one offender, it might be the
destruction of a career to a merchant established in business, or to a
professional man with an assured _clientèle_. Considerations of this
kind, however, rarely influenced the tribunals and, in the Toledan
record of 1575-1610 we find exile included in a hundred and sixty-seven
sentences.
The length of exile was always specified, and varied from some months to
a life-time, but it usually was a term of a few years. Sometimes it was
divided into two portions, the first _preciso_ or absolute, the second
_voluntario_ or dependent upon the will of the tribunal--apparently as
an incentive to amendment. A variant of this occurs in the case of Diego
de Toro, sentenced for bigamy at Toledo in 1652, to four years of exile
absolutely and four years more which he was to fulfil whenever the
tribunal should see fit to order it, thus holding it over him
indefinitely.[333]
It was not often that the Inquisition exercised the power of banishment
from Spain, but it did not hesitate to assume such authority when it saw
fit, and a converse to this was the occasional prohibition to leave
Spain, of which an instance is cited above (p. 102). Another form, in
which the wide discretion of the tribunals was exhibited, was forbidding
the penitent to approach within a specified distance of the sea-coast.
This was not infrequent in sentences on Moriscos, whose relations with
Barbary always excited apprehension, but it is not apparent why the
Valladolid tribunal, in 1659, when sentencing Diego de la Peña for
Jewish tendencies, should have included an inhibition to approach within
eight leagues of any sea-port without a special licence.[334]
Again, we sometimes find a penitent exiled to some particular place for
a term of years, and this is frequently combined with provisions for
keeping him under surveillance. Thus the Valladolid tribunal, in 1659,
sentenced Isabel Rubía and María Martin, for sorcery, to reside for four
years in a place to be designated, where there was an official to whom
they must present themselves monthly and who would report as to their
amendment.[335] This was sometimes a form of commutation for
imprisonment, as in the case of Isabel Núñez, sentenced at Cuenca to
prison and Sanbenito, which was modified to four years' exile at San
Clemente. December 24, 1657, she presented a notarial certificate of her
being there and begged that, as she was 74 years old and very poor and
miserable, she might be released, in honor of the birth of the prince
(Felipe-Prosper) or at least have the place changed to Alcalá,
Guadalajara or Pastrana, where there were people who would help her.
This pitiful petition was simply endorsed to be filed with the papers of
the case, which indicates that it was refused.[336] A more rigorous
example of this, which shows that no limit was placed on the discretion
of the Inquisition, was the banishment for life to the Philippines, in
1802, of two frailes concerned in the imposture of Isabel María Herraiz,
known as the Beata of Cuenca.[337] Conversely, a penitent might be
prohibited to leave a designated place, as when, in 1599, Rodrigo
Ramírez, a Morisco of Yepes, was forbidden for three years to leave
Yepes without licence.[338]
As the ordinary form of exile was easily violated, the sentence, as we
have seen above, was frequently accompanied with a threat of increased
penalties for non-fulfilment. In Toledo this seems ordinarily to be a
doubling of the original term, but frequently it was more severe as, in
1604, at Valencia, the sentence of Bartolomé Posca added to this a
hundred lashes and, in 1607, Francisco Xiner, condemned to five years'
exile, was threatened with three years of galleys.[339] It was probably
to check, in some degree, the facility for evasion that the Suprema, in
1665, required the tribunals to furnish it with a description of the
culprit whenever they pronounced a sentence of exile. As this always
comprised Madrid and, as the capital was likely to attract the homeless
waifs, details which might assist in their identification were
useful.[340]
RAZING HOUSES.
[Sidenote: _RAZING HOUSES_]
In the imperial jurisprudence, houses in which heretics held their
conventicles were forfeited to the Church and this provision was
adopted in the legislation of Alfonso X.[341] When prosecution was
systematized in the thirteenth century, this was modified to tearing
down all houses in which heretics were found, the site remaining forever
accursed and unfit for human habitation. This was accepted by the Church
and found its way into all the lands that admitted the Inquisition.[342]
Aragon adopted it and when, about 1340, the Spiritual Franciscan Fray
Bonanato was burnt, and his disciples were scattered, the building which
they had occupied at Villafranca del Panadés, near Barcelona, was
levelled to the ground.[343]
In the early days of the Spanish Inquisition, the strict enforcement of
the rule would have led to great destruction and serious impairment of
the value of confiscations. It seems therefore to have been reserved for
buildings in which the heretics or apostates had been accustomed to
assemble, and then the king, as the recipient of confiscations, decided
the matter. A letter of Ferdinand, May 23, 1501, to Aliaga his receiver
at Valencia, states that the inquisitors have asked him to decree the
destruction of a house in which a synagogue had been found, to which he
assents with the suggestive addition that the civic authorities must be
ordered to offer no opposition. It turned out that Ferdinand had already
given the house to Juan Pérez, the scrivener of sequestrations,
whereupon he ordered Aliaga to have it appraised and to pay the value to
Pérez.[344] He seems to have offered no opposition to Lucero's
operations in Córdova, where a number of houses were torn down as having
served as synagogues, and he ordered them rebuilt when the Congregacion
Católica assembled at Valladolid, in 1509, pronounced the prosecutions
fictitious.[345]
When the confiscations passed to the Inquisition, financial
considerations apparently got the better of zeal, for when, in 1539, at
Valencia, trials of a number of Judaizers revealed that a crucifix had
been maltreated in a house used for their assemblies, and the tribunal
desired authority for its destruction and the erection of a memorial
chapel, the Suprema replied cautiously with a number of questions as to
value, location and expense, as there were no funds for the purpose,
and it ordered the auto de fe to be held, reserving decision as to the
house.[346] The subsequent proceedings against the convicts, who revoked
their confessions, show that the house was still standing four or five
years later.
There was no such hesitation in the stimulated excitement following the
discovery of Protestantism in high places in 1559. When, in the
Valladolid auto de fe of May 21, the Cazalla family were nearly
exterminated, the house of the mother, Leonor de Vibero, where the
little group used to assemble, was razed, and a pillar was erected on
the spot, with an inscription that can still be read--"During the
pontificate of Paul IV and the reign of Philip II, the Holy Office of
the Inquisition condemned this building of Pedro de Cazalla and Leonor
de Vibero his wife to be torn down and levelled with the ground, since
here the Lutherans assembled to hold meetings against our holy Catholic
faith and the Church of Rome, May 21, 1559." Similarly in the great auto
of Seville, September 24, 1559, the houses of Luis de Alerego and Isabel
de Baena, which had served as Protestant conventicles, were
destroyed.[347]
[Sidenote: _SPIRITUAL PENANCES_]
A thrifty disposition to restrain inconsiderate zeal for obliterating
the receptacles of heresy was manifested by the Suprema, in 1565, when
it forbade the razing of a house unless it belonged to the delinquents
and thus would not have to be paid for.[348] This restriction, however,
was not observed on an occasion which was perhaps the latest as well as
the most conspicuous example of the practice. In the great Madrid auto
of July 4, 1632, which was honored by the presence of Philip IV, among
those who were burnt were Miguel Rodríguez and his wife Isabel Núñez
Alvárez, in whose house not only were held Jewish meetings, but an image
of Christ had been scourged and when it shed blood and thrice spoke to
them they consumed it with fire. Of course it was doomed and on the day
after the execution the Inquisition ordered it to be appraised in order
that the owner might be compensated. He was the Licentiate Barquero, a
highly respected jurist, who protested against its destruction until he
received good security for its value. No time was lost. On the 6th the
Inquisitor Cristóval de Ibarra, accompanied by the Admiral of Castile,
the Duke of Medina de la Torres and other gentlemen, many familiars and
a crowd of workmen, and preceded by a guard of halberdiers with banner
and drums, marched to the spot, where a secretary read a proclamation of
the Toledo tribunal to the effect that it ordered the demolition of the
house where a holy Christ had been scourged and maltreated. Then the
drums beat and the workmen assailed the structure so zealously that by
nine o'clock that night there was not a vestige of it left, the populace
eagerly aiding them in tearing the stones from the walls and carrying
off the timbers. The site was not left, as the canons direct, to be a
receptacle of filth. Money was raised and a Capuchin convent was
erected, known as La Paciencia, in remembrance of the patience with
which Christ had borne the indignities heaped upon him.[349]
SPIRITUAL PENANCES.
It might be presupposed that, in dealing with spiritual offences, and
professing that its main object was the salvation of souls, the
Inquisition would incline rather to spiritual exercises than to
pecuniary and corporal punishments--that it would seek to instruct and
elevate the spirit rather than to afflict the body. Religious
persecution, however, has always preferred the harshness of coercion,
and has held that the surest way to bring conviction to the soul was to
torment the flesh. We need therefore not be surprised to see how
insignificant a place spiritual penances held in the sentences of the
Holy Office, and it would scarce be worth while to consider them except
to note how little was the importance attributed to them by the
tribunals.
Except in trifling cases, which merited no real punishment, such
spiritual penances as we occasionally meet with are conjoined with
material penalties. A man sentenced to imprisonment may perhaps be
required to fast on Fridays for six months or a year, and to recite on
those days a prescribed number of Ave Marias and Paternosters or other
prayers. Pilgrimages to shrines as distant as St. Thomas of Canterbury
or St. James of Compostela, so frequently prescribed in the medieval
Inquisition, were unknown. It is true that the formula of sentence on
the reconciled, condemning them to prison, requires them on Saturdays
to make a pilgrimage to some designated shrine in the vicinity, where on
their knees they must repeat with devotion five Paters, Ave Marias,
Credos and Salve Reginas, but this was not often used in practice.[350]
Clerical offenders, sentenced to reclusion in convents, frequently had
spiritual exercises included among numerous other inflictions. While
this moderation was the rule, occasionally of course the unlimited
discretion of the tribunals made exceptions, as in a singularly
ill-judged penance imposed at Toledo, in 1653, on Gerónima Mendes, a
child ten years of age, convicted of Judaism, who was sentenced to a
month's instruction in the faith and the daily recitation of the rosary
for a year. Seeing that the rosary consists of seventeen Paternosters,
sixteen Gloria Patris, a hundred and fifty-three Ave Marias and the
Apostles' Creed, one can estimate the burden imposed on a child of such
tender years and how little it would conduce to training the youthful
penitent in a love for the faith.[351] Such an infliction however was
exceptional, and it frequently happens, in the reports of the tribunals,
after detailing the material portions of a sentence, that there is a
mere general allusion to "some spiritual penances," which suggests how
slender was the consideration bestowed on them. There is one type of
better promise, not infrequent in the later period, such as a sentence
pronounced at Toledo, in 1777, on Antonio Rubio and Diego González,
condemned for heretical acts and blasphemy, the former to five years'
labor in the arsenal of Cartagena and the latter to three years in the
presidio of Ceuta, both of whom were required, before leaving prison, to
perform fifteen days of spiritual exercises under a director who would
instruct them.[352]
The hearing of mass as a penitent, which was a very frequent infliction,
cannot be classed as a spiritual penance--it was a simple humiliation
and was so intended, especially when performed publicly in church.
UNUSUAL PENALTIES.
[Sidenote: _UNUSUAL PENALTIES_]
A few instances will indicate how the tribunals sometimes used their
wide discretion in adapting to any given case what was deemed an
appropriate penalty. It is true that when Valencia, in 1539, made Fray
Torres, a priest, appear in a public auto de fe, with a bridle in his
mouth and a pannier of straw on his back, the Suprema rebuked it and
forbade such eccentricities for the future.[353] So when, in 1568,
Inquisitor Morales reported that, during his visit to San Sebastian, he
had condemned certain offenders to have sermons preached at their
expense, the Suprema mildly remarked that this was a novelty.[354] In an
auto de fe at Llerena, in 1579, there was a negress named Catalina, the
slave of a man of Zafra. It was doubtless through consideration of his
interests that she was spared the corporal chastisement visited on her
accomplices, but there was a distinct invasion of his rights in a
prohibition to him to sell her without licence from the
inquisitors.[355] In 1607, at Valencia, a single witness accused María
Tubarri, a Morisca midwife, of using Moorish ceremonies in baptising
infants, and of circumcising the males; the proof, against her denial,
was not thought sufficient to justify torture and she was required only
to abjure _de levi_, but she was deprived for life of practising her
profession.[356] There was wisdom, if a trifle arbitrary, in a sentence
at Toledo, in 1685, on Lucas Morales for blasphemy, for it included,
among other penalties, a prohibition to gamble--a sensible provision
against relapse, for gaming was recognized as the most prolific source
of blasphemy.[357]
There was the same latitude in vindictive as in deterrent punishments.
At Valladolid, from 1635 to 1637, there were several Judaizers convicted
of maltreating an image of Christ. The consultors voted for relaxation,
but the Suprema approved the decision of the inquisitors that they
should have the right arm nailed to a stake in the form of a cross,
while their sentences were being read in an auto de fe.[358] Less
symbolical and still more original was a spectacle devised for the
Mexican auto of December 7, 1664, where one of the penitents was
stripped to the waist, while two Indians smeared him with honey and
covered him with feathers, in which guise he was made to stand in the
sun for four hours on the staging.[359] Even recruiting for the army was
not beneath the dignity of the tribunal as when, in 1650, Toledo
condemned Andrés de Herrera Calderon, for blasphemy, to serve for four
years in the campaigns against Portugal and Catalonia, where doubtless
he enriched his vocabulary of expletives.[360]
There evidently was no defined limit to the power of suiting the penalty
to the inquisitorial conception of the offence, and the tribunals made
ample use of their prerogative.
CHAPTER III.
HARSHER PENALTIES.
THE SCOURGE.
Although at first sight the use of the lash, as a persuasive to correct
religious belief, may appear somewhat incongruous, it must be borne in
mind that, under the euphemy of the discipline, it has always formed a
prominent feature of penance, especially among the monastic orders
where, in the daily or weekly chapters, it was liberally administered
for all infractions of the Rule or other sins, as a preliminary to
absolution. In fact, the touching of the penitent's shoulder with a wand
by the priest in absolution from excommunication, is a symbol of the
discipline which was anciently indispensable. In the Old Inquisition it
was in frequent use, although there it was rendered a matter of
edification, through its infliction by priests during divine service or
in religious processions. That it should form part of the penal
resources of the Spanish Holy Office was therefore natural, although it
lost its penitential aspect and became purely punitive and vindictive.
It was no longer the priest who wielded the discipline with an
indeterminate number of strokes during an indeterminate series of
feast-days. The tribunal prescribed the number of lashes and they were
laid on by the vigorous arm of the public executioner. The penitents who
had to suffer appeared in the auto de fe with halters around their
necks; if there was one knot in the halter, it signified a hundred
lashes, if two, two hundred and so on, one hundred being the unit and
the minimum number. The next day the populace was treated to the
spectacle. Mounted astride of asses, bared to the waist, with halter and
mitre bearing inscription of their offences and a _pié de amigo_ holding
the head erect, they were paraded through the accustomed streets, with a
guard of mounted familiars and a notary or secretary to make record,
while the executioner plied the _penca_, or leather strap, on the naked
flesh, until the tale was complete, and the town-crier proclaimed that
it was by order of the Inquisition for the crimes specified. A clause
in the proclamation, after the great Madrid auto of 1680, forbidding,
under pain of excommunication, any one to throw stones at the penitents,
indicates that the populace had a playful habit of thus manifesting its
detestation of heresy.[361]
In 1568 the Suprema rebuked the Barcelona tribunal for condemning to
public scourging penitents reconciled for heresy. This, it said, was
contrary to the _estilo_ of the Inquisition, and in future the lash was
not to be used unless there was some other crime than heresy.[362] This
indicates how completely the scourge had become punitive and how it was
dissociated from the ancient discipline, but if such regulation existed
it met with scant recognition. All the offences subjected to the
Inquisition were constructively heretical, and there never seems to have
been any discrimination exercised between them. Indeed, we have seen
that the lash was especially indicated for heretics who were tardy or
variable in their confessions, and Judaizers are constantly seen to be
subjected to it.
[Sidenote: _SCOURGING_]
Scourging was a favorite penalty which was lavishly and often
mercilessly employed. In the Saragossa auto of June 6, 1585, out of a
total of seventy-nine penitents, twenty-two were scourged; in that of
Valencia, in 1607, of forty-seven penitents, twenty-four received the
lash.[363] This, however, exceeds the average. The Toledo reports, from
1575 to 1610, present a hundred and thirty-three cases of scourging
which, allowing for a break in the record, give about four per
annum.[364] On the other hand, a collection of autos de fe celebrated
between 1721 and 1727, embracing in all nine hundred and sixty-two
cases, affords two hundred and ninety-seven sentences of scourging, or
about thirty per cent.[365] When we recall that, in the list of
officials reported by Murcia, in 1746, there figures Joseph García
Bentura as _notario de açotaciones_--a notary of scourgings--to keep
record of the stripes, with a salary of about 2500 reales, we realize
how prominent a feature it was in inquisitorial penology.[366] The
brutalizing effect on the populace of these wholesale exhibitions of
flogging, especially of women, can readily be estimated.
The usual number of lashes prescribed was two hundred, though in
occasional cases a hundred sufficed. In the two hundred and ninety-seven
just alluded to, two hundred and ninety were of two hundred lashes and
only seven of one hundred. It was rare that two hundred were exceeded in
any one infliction, though sometimes it was mercilessly duplicated, as
in the Seville auto of September 24, 1559, Martin Fernando Saldrian, a
shepherd, for blasphemy was scourged in Seville and again in his native
town; Alonso Martin of Carmona, for Lutheranism, was scourged in both
Seville and Carmona and Juan de Aragon of Málaga, who had pretended to
be a familiar, was scourged in Málaga and again in the scene of his
offence.[367]
Probably two hundred lashes were about the limit of safety, especially
with those enfeebled by prolonged incarceration, for the infliction was
excessively severe. We hear of Margarita Altamira reduced to such
extremity after a scourging that the viaticum was administered to
her.[368] There was no mercy for age or sex. In the Valencia auto of
January 7, 1607, Isabel Madalina Conteri, a Morisca girl of 13, after
overcoming torture, had a hundred lashes, Jayme Chulayla, a Morisco of
76, who had been tortured, had a hundred and the same was administered
to Francisco Marquino, aged 86 for sorcery in treasure-seeking, while
Magdalena Cahet, aged 60, who had escaped torture on account of
heart-disease, was not spared a hundred.[369]
As the eighteenth century advanced there appears to be more readiness to
remit the execution of sentences of scourging on account of age and
infirmities and of "accidentes," which probably mean crippling by
torture. Then there developes a tendency to spare women and finally men;
the sentences continue to be pronounced, but they are remitted by the
inquisitor-general. In 1769, at Toledo, Gerónimo Clos, for bigamy, was
pardoned the two hundred lashes of his sentence, which could not have
been for infirmity, as he was not released from hard labor for five
years in the royal works at Cartagena.[370] From this time scourging may
be regarded as obsolescent and soon to become obsolete. Under the
Restoration, from 1814 to 1820, in the _votos secretos_, there is not a
case in which the lash was inflicted, for when included in the
sentences, it was always remitted by the Suprema.[371]
The clergy, of course, were not subjected to the disgrace of public
scourging. In their cases it took the form known as a circular
discipline, administered in a convent by all the inmates in turn.
VERGÜENZA.
Vergüenza, or shame, was the same as scourging, with the lashes omitted.
The culprit, stripped to the waist and with the _pié de amigo_, was
paraded through the streets, with the insignia of his offence, while the
town-crier proclaimed his sentence. It was naturally regarded as less
severe than scourging and was sometimes substituted for the latter, when
the penitent was too aged or feeble to endure the lash. For the beldams
and ruffians who were often its subjects it could have had but few
terrors, but it was greatly dreaded by those of sensitive nature. The
inquisitors took little count of this, when dealing with Judaizers and
Moriscos, who had a keen sense of personal dignity, and Pedraza informs
us that those exposed to it regarded death as a mercy, preferring to die
rather than to endure a life of infamy.[372] To young women the exposure
was especially humiliating, yet, on the whole, it may be regarded as
more humane than the pillory of our forefathers, for the penitent was
not exposed to the missiles of a brutal populace.
Vergüenza was a comparatively infrequent punishment. In the Toledo
reports of 1575-1610 it occurs in but twenty-six sentences, which may be
compared with the hundred and thirty-three scourgings, and the records
of the same tribunal from 1648 to 1794 present but ten vergüenzas to
ninety-two scourgings. In the very severe series of autos de fe between
1721 and 1727, the comparison is thirteen to two hundred and
ninety-seven.
[Sidenote: _THE GAG--THE GALLEYS_]
MORDAZA.
The _mordaza_ or gag, as we have seen, was regarded as increasing
greatly the severity of the infliction of which it formed part. It was
sometimes used in scourging and vergüenza, when the so-called penitent
was a hardened blasphemer or likely in some way to create scandal. It
was likewise employed in the autos de fe, on pertinacious and impenitent
heretics of whom it was feared that they might on their way to the stake
produce an impression on those not firm in the faith.[373] Its use was
not frequent, although, in the dread inspired by Protestantism, in 1559,
at the great Seville auto of September 24th, twelve of the victims wore
the mordaza. There were also twelve thus gagged in the Madrid auto of
1680, but these numbers were exceptional.[374]
THE GALLEYS.
Enslavement in the galleys, to labor at the oar, would appear to be even
more incongruous than scourging as penance for spiritual offences. It
was a Spanish device, unknown to the elder Inquisition, and had its
origin in the thrifty mind of Ferdinand. We shall presently see how
exercised were the monarch and the Holy Office over the problem
presented by the maintenance of those condemned to the canonical penalty
of perpetual prison, and Ferdinand, whose Sicilian possessions required
a powerful navy, bethought him of the expedient of utilizing his
able-bodied prisoners to man his galleys--the galley propelled by oars
being as yet the equivalent of the modern battle-ship. Galley-service
was recognized as so severe that the old fueros of Aragon forbade it
under heavy penalties, except with the free assent of the individual,
and it was not until the curtailment of ancient privileges, in the
Córtes of Tarazona in 1592, that judges were permitted to use it as a
punishment for robbers.[375] In Castile, the pressure for slaves to man
the galleys is indicated by a royal cédula of November 14, 1502,
commuting the death-sentence of criminals in the secular courts, and
ordering them to be sent to the galleys.[376] It was probably about this
time that Ferdinand turned to the Inquisition, which was bound by no
laws, for relief from overcrowded prisons and undermanned galleys. Even
the callous morality of the age seems to have been shocked at this and,
as usual, the sanction of the Holy See was sought for the iniquity. It
was of course granted, and Alexander VI, in a brief addressed to the
inquisitors, May 26, 1503, recited that Ferdinand and Isabella had
represented to him that those condemned to perpetual prison relapsed
into heresy; that there was a lack of prisons in which they could be
confined without perverting others, and that multiplication of prisons
would lead to dissemination of heresy; that their power to commute
imprisonment into other perpetual punishment had been called into
question, and that they had asked him to provide a remedy. As the chief
solicitude of the inquisitors should be the prevention of relapse, he
therefore empowered them to change the perpetual prison of penitents
into other penalties--deportation to the colonies, or imprisonment in
the royal galleys, where, in perpetual confinement, they might render
enforced service, or to any other perpetual punishment, according to
their quality and offences.[377]
[Sidenote: _THE GALLEYS_]
That full advantage was taken of this there can be no doubt, to the
relief of the prison funds and the facilitation of the conquest of
Naples. We chance to hear of the transfer at Barcelona, January 24,
1505, of nineteen prisoners from the gaol of the Inquisition to the
galleys of Ramon de Cardona, which we may fairly accept as an example of
what was on foot everywhere.[378] In fact, the eagerness of the
tribunals to disembarrass themselves of their prisoners seems to have
led to their discharging on the galleys those in every way unfit for the
service, for the Suprema was obliged, in 1506, to declare that men over
60, clerics and women were exempt from the punishment of the
galleys.[379] Even Ferdinand himself, towards the close of his career,
seems to have shrunk from the responsibility of openly authorizing an
extension of this heartless business for when, in 1513, the Inquisitor
of Sicily asked permission to send to the galleys those condemned to
perpetual prison, Ferdinand threw the decision back on him; to build
prisons will cost much money, he said, but the galleys may deter men
from confessing their heresy; the inquisitor is therefore to think the
matter over and do what he deems best.[380] The conclusion reached is
unknown, but we may reasonably surmise that the Palermo tribunal did not
waste its funds in constructing prisons.
Ferdinand's hesitation seems to have been shared by Charles V for, in
1527, the Suprema ordered that penitents should not be sent to the
galleys but should have other penances.[381] The motive for this humane
provision, however, did not long withstand the more pressing economical
considerations. In 1529, Rodrigo Portuondo, captain-general of the
galleys, was instructed that no one sent to them by the Inquisition
should hold any office or administration, or have charge of the rations,
showing that the prohibition had been rescinded.[382] Apparently the
superior intelligence of the penitents had rendered them more useful as
petty officers and accountants than as slaves of the oar, but this
alleviation of their misery did not satisfy the spirit of persecution
and it was probably to prevent it that the formula of the sentence was
service at the oar without pay--unless, indeed, the penitent was of
gentle blood, in which case he could be sent to serve as a gentleman or
as a soldier.[383]
We have already seen to what profitable account the Inquisition turned
the power which it had assumed to grant dispensations from this
abhorrent servitude, and a case in 1558 indicates how it guarded against
any invasion of its prerogative. Philip II was led to interest himself
in the case of Andrés de Frias, condemned to the galleys, and asked to
have him dispensed from the remainder of his term. To this the Suprema
demurred, saying that the statement of Frias was untrue, for in Rome he
had treacherously stabbed to death the procurator of the Inquisition,
Doctor Puente, after dining with him and promising to sup with him;
moreover the seventeen months which he claimed to have served had not
been as a galley-slave, as required by his sentence. Still, if he would
present himself and manifest repentance there might be opportunity for
the king to show him mercy, but otherwise it would greatly impair the
authority of the Inquisition.[384]
Philip was not given to interceding for those sent to his galleys, for
galley-slaves continued to be in great demand. In 1567 the Venitian
envoy, Antonio Tiepolo, explains the weakness of the Spanish navy by the
fact that its galleys were manned with slaves and _forçats_, who were
not numerous enough to keep many galleys at sea. It would be, he says,
impossible to man them with free-men, as in Venice, for no one would
serve voluntarily, as the ill-treatment of the crews is notorious and
their dying for lack of the necessaries of life.[385] It is true that
there was a curious source of supply, besides the ordinary criminals and
heretics, for the prelates of the religious Orders were accustomed to
condemn their peccant brethren to the galleys, from the same economical
motive that had actuated Ferdinand--to save the expense of maintaining
them in prison.[386] Still, the needs of the armadas were pressing;
Philip turned to the Inquisition for aid, and, in 1567, the Suprema
issued two decrees intended to assist in manning the royal galleys. One
bore that sentences must not be for less than three or four years, for
otherwise the penitents cost the king more than the service he got from
them, and this was enforced by a royal cédula of 1584.[387] The other
suggested--suggestion being equivalent to an order--that sentences to
the galleys could be substituted for those to prison and sanbenito. The
practical deduction drawn from this is expressed by a writer of the
period, who says that, if the accused confesses but does not satisfy the
evidence, he is to be tortured and, if he still fails to satisfy the
evidence, it is customary to send him to the galleys, but this must be
for not less than three years.[388] To appreciate fully this atrocity,
it must be borne in mind that torture could only be used in cases of
doubt where the evidence was defective, so that, besides the torture the
victim was sent to the galleys for suspicion of heresy.
[Sidenote: _THE GALLEYS_]
Even this did not satisfy the royal exigency and a further inexcusable
step was taken. We have seen that tardy and imperfect confessions were
visited with scourging and sometimes with the galleys, while the _buen
confitente_, who confessed promptly and freely, was allured with
promises of special consideration and mercy. Yet, in 1573, the Suprema
issued a carta acordada ordering that Conversos, even when _buen
confitentes_, should be sent to the galleys, and this it repeated in
1591, with injunctions for its enforcement.[389] The name of religion
has not often been more brutally prostituted than in these provisions,
and their success may be measured by a report of the inquisitors of
Saragossa to Philip, of an auto celebrated June 6, 1585, in which they
call his special attention to their zeal in furnishing him with
twenty-nine galley-slaves for six years, besides three left over from a
previous auto--and this in Aragon, which forbade galley-service as a
punishment for the most heinous crimes.[390]
The galley-captains naturally were not punctilious in discharging the
men when their terms had expired, giving rise to perpetual friction. The
sentence ordinarily was to a term of prison or exile, of which the first
three years or more were to be passed at the oar, and this was set forth
in the certificates given to the penitents. The tribunals kept watch
over them, and demanded their return to serve out the rest of their
sentences, but this was not an easy task. The vigilance exercised is
illustrated by a royal cedula addressed to the captain of a galley,
ordering him to release two men whose terms had expired, and warning him
that in future all such persons were to be returned to the tribunal that
had sentenced them.[391] This was followed, in 1568, by general
instructions to Don John of Austria, as Captain-general of the Sea, and
to all captains of galleys, reciting the complaints of the Sicilian
tribunal that its reclamations of its penitents were not complied with,
and ordering their restoration to their tribunals without waiting for
demands.[392] This was ineffectual and, in 1575, we find the Barcelona
tribunal instructed to prosecute the captains who impede the discharge
of those who had served out inquisitorial sentences.[393] The trouble
was perennial and, in 1645, we have a formula of requisition for the
return of the party specified, under pain of excommunication and of five
hundred ducats, and the tribunal of the port where the galleys lie is
requested to see to its execution. A significant note however adds that
this is scantly courteous to such great men as the generals of the
galleys, and that it is better to ask the tribunal of the port to
procure the release by friendly negotiation.[394]
The cases could not have been infrequent in which men, utterly unfit for
the privations and ill-usage of the galley-slave, were condemned to this
hard service, and no doubt many perished in consequence. Yet exemptions
on this ground were reluctantly admitted, if we may judge from a rebuke
administered, in 1665, by the Suprema to the Barcelona tribunal, in a
case where this was asked; the opinions of the physician and surgeon
were insufficient; other professionals must be called in and examination
be made as to the penitent's condition when, if it appears that he is
unfit for the service, the sentence can be commuted to eight years of
exile as proposed.[395] It is a marked expression of the humanitarian
development of the eighteenth century that, even in the fierce
persecution of its first quarter, in 1721 it was ordered that, before
imposing a sentence to the galleys, the delinquent should be examined by
the physician and surgeon and, if incapacitating weakness appeared, it
should be mentioned in the vote of the consulta de fe that, in
consequence of it, the sentence was commuted to irremissible
imprisonment.[396] The succeeding autos show that this bore fruit in
sundry commutations, although the alternative of irremissible prison was
not observed, and less severe penalties were sometimes substituted.[397]
[Sidenote: _THE GALLEYS_]
In the sixty-four autos de fe between 1721 and 1727, of which we possess
details, there were ninety-two sentences to the galleys and seven to
service in the presidios. There was a certain relation between the two.
In the seventeenth century legislation on offences connected with the
coinage, the galleys were provided for commoners and presidio service
for gentlemen and, as the century drew to a close, we find the
Inquisition no longer sending gentlemen to serve as soldiers on the
galleys but to Oran, Ceuta, Gibraltar, Badajoz, Peñon and other royal
works and garrisons.[398] In the eighteenth century Inquisition, the
galleys for all classes were gradually supplanted by the presidio, if we
include in the term enforced labor in the royal dock-yards and arsenals
as well as in the African garrisons. Galleys were disappearing from the
sea and, in the Inquisition, they were superseded by the _bagne_, in its
various forms of hard work. In 1742, the Toledo tribunal condemned
Rafael Nuñez Hernández, for certain errors, to eight years of exile of
which the first five were to be passed serving the king in the
unwholesome quicksilver mines of Almaden, and the last sentences to the
galleys that I have met occur in 1745, when Nicholas Serrano was
condemned at Toledo for bigamy to eight years of service in them, and
Miguel Gutiérrez and Francisco García, at Valladolid, for relapse into
Judaism, to ten years. After this the galleys may be said to be
obsolete, even for bigamy, as is seen in a sentence of the Valencia
tribunal in 1781.[399]
The presidio continued as a punishment under the Restoration, but cases
were so rare that there was question as to the reception of the convicts
in their places of destination. In 1818, the Seville tribunal sentenced
three persons--two for propositions and one for bigamy--to two years'
service in Ceuta or Melilla, and it asked the Suprema to get the
minister of war to issue orders to the governors to receive them. The
Suprema replied that this was the business of the tribunal; it must do
as on former occasions, and if necessary could write to the governors.
The _forçats_ were duly received and, it is pleasant to add that, in six
months, the Suprema humanely remitted the punishment in order that they
might return and support their families. For this an order from the
secretary of the Council of War was required and procured.[400]
For women, the equivalent of the galleys was service without pay in
hospitals, houses of correction and similar institutions. Apparently
these female convicts were not always regarded as desirable inmates and
though, in the pre-revolutionary times, no opposition was ventured,
under the Restoration there was sometimes difficulty in securing their
admission. In 1819 the Seville tribunal appealed to the Suprema,
representing that it had been unable thus to dispose of Juana de Luna,
for the same reasons which it had experienced in the cases of Ana
Barbero and Leonor Macias. The Inquisition inspired no such terror as of
old, for the Suprema could suggest no means of overcoming the
difficulty, and could only instruct the tribunal to devise some method
of executing its sentences.[401]
* * * * *
It is not to the credit of the Roman Inquisition that it followed the
example of the Spanish and included the galleys in its list of
punishments. Carena, indeed, tells us that it was the most usual of all
and was the customary penalty in a wide variety of offences.[402]
RECONCILIATION.
That reconciliation to the Church, which was represented as a loving
mother, eager to welcome back to her bosom her erring children, should
be regarded as a punishment, seems a contradiction in terms, yet so it
was, and the Suprema did not hesitate to speak of those "who had been
condemned to reconciliation."[403] It would not be easy to invent a more
emphatic illustration of the perversion of the spirit of religion by
persecuting fanaticism.
The apostate or the heretic, who had abandoned the Church after
admission through the waters of baptism, could only be reincorporated by
abjuring his errors and applying for reconciliation. In the case of
Conversos, who secretly adhered to the Mosaic or Mahometan law, there
could be no question as to this, nor was there with such heretics as
Protestants. To what extent other errors might constitute formal heresy
requiring reconciliation, or might infer suspicion of heresy, light or
vehement, was a problem for the calificadores, and sometimes was an
intricate one, for the gradations of theological error are infinite and
subtile.
[Sidenote: _RECONCILIATION_]
In the tumultuous proceedings of the early period when, under Edicts of
Grace, penitents came forward by the thousand, confessing their errors
and begging for reconciliation, the ceremony was naturally simple. Under
the Instructions of 1484, the form described by Joan Andrea was to be
used: the inquisitors declared that the penitent had been an apostate
heretic, who had followed the rites and ceremonies of the Jews and had
incurred the penalties of the law but, as he now says that he has been
converted and desires to return to the faith, with a pure heart and
faith unfeigned, and is ready to accept and perform the penances to be
imposed, they must absolve him from the excommunication incurred through
the said crime and must reconcile him to Holy Mother Church, if, as he
says, he is converted to the holy faith truly and without fiction.[404]
No mention is made here of any subsequent ceremonies, although at least
abjuration must probably have followed. When procedure was less hurried
and there had been time for its elaboration, the process became
impressive. The sentence recited that the penitent was admitted to
reconciliation; that as penance he was to appear in an auto de fe,
without girdle or cap, in a penitential habit of yellow cloth, with two
red _aspas_ or bands forming a St. Andrew's cross, and a candle in his
hand when, after his sentence is read, he should publicly abjure the
errors confessed and all other errors and apostasy, after which "we
order him to be absolved and we absolve him from any excommunication
which he has incurred and we unite and reincorporate him in the bosom
and union of the Holy Mother Catholic Church, and we restore him to
participation in the holy sacraments and communion of the faithful"--to
which was appended a recital of the various punishments to which he was
condemned. After the auto de fe was ended, the abjuration was
administered. This was similar to the abjuration _de vehementi_ already
given and in it he consented, in case of relapse, to submit to the
penalties of the canons. On the conclusion of this, he was formally
absolved and the next day his abjuration was read over to him, with a
warning that in case of relapse he would be burnt.[405]
As described in an account of the Madrid auto de fe of 1632, this
ceremony was imposing. The penitents to be reconciled were brought
before the inquisitor-general who was presiding. While they kneeled
before him he read a short catechism, comprising the creed with some
additions, to each question of which they answered "Yes, I believe."
Then the secretary recited the abjuration, in which they followed him.
The inquisitor-general then pronounced the exorcism and the customary
prayers and the royal chapel chanted the Miserere, during which the
chaplains of the Inquisition struck the penitents with rods on the
shoulders. After this the inquisitor-general recited the customary
verses and prayers and the royal chapel sang a hymn, while the black
cloth was removed from the cross, which had been covered as a sign of
mourning, and the inquisitor-general concluded the solemnities with a
hymn.[406]