Superficially, there is nothing formidable in this reception of a

wandering sheep back into the fold, but the serious aspect of

reconciliation, justifying its characterization as a punishment, lay in

the penalties which were virtually inseparable from it, and were

customarily included in the sentence--imprisonment, sanbenito,

confiscation and disabilities, with occasionally scourging and the

galleys, some of which we have already considered while others will be

treated hereafter. There was further the fact that the canons pardoned

the heretic but once. If, after reconciliation, he was guilty of

reincidence, there was no mercy for him on earth, although the Church in

its kindness, would not close the portals of heaven on him and, if truly

contrite, would admit him to the sacraments, although it would not spare

him the stake.[407] The crucial question of relapse, however, will be

considered in the next chapter and meanwhile it should be said that the

Spanish Inquisition did not always enforce this cruel precept. In the

later period second reconciliations were by no means infrequent, and,

even in the earlier time, men sometimes shrank from the holocausts which

the strict enforcement of the rule would have caused amid a population

terrorized into suddenly forswearing their ancestral faith. In Majorca,

under the Edict of Grace, there were three hundred and thirty-eight

reconciliations, August 18, 1488, followed by ninety-six on March 26,

1490. Soon after this an Edict of Mercy was published, under which there

were reconciled a second time no less than two hundred and eighty-eight

of the previous penitents. One of these, Antonia, wife of Ferrer Pratz

was even reconciled a third time, June 28, 1509. Scattering cases of

second reconciliations can also be found elsewhere.[408]

[Sidenote: _RECONCILIATION_]

There was a rule that the reconciled were not to be subjected to

scourging or the galleys, even though they might have deserved them by

varying and revoking confessions, but I cannot find that this was

observed for, in both the earlier and later periods, cases as we have

seen were numerous in which reconciliation was accompanied with these

corporal punishments.[409] On the other hand, although the principle was

absolute that reconciliation carried with it confiscation and perpetual

prison, cases sometimes occur in which these penalties were lightened.

In the Toledo auto of November 30, 1651, there were nine

reconciliations, in which the accompanying punishments were mostly

trivial--in one case the sanbenito was removed immediately on return to

the Inquisition.[410]

It seems almost a travesty on solemn religious observances that effigies

of the dead should be admitted to reconciliation but, as the grave

afforded no refuge from the Inquisition, this was a logical outcome of

the system, when a defunct heretic had recanted and sought

reincorporation with the Church. As he could not be reconciled in person

he had to be reconciled in effigy, especially as the sentence was

necessary to secure confiscation of his estate. The only occasion of

this was the death, during trial, of a prisoner who had confessed,

professed conversion and received sacramental absolution on his

death-bed. His trial would necessarily be continued and result in

reconciliation, and the Inquisition saw no incongruity in parading his

image before the people, and performing with it the solemn farce of

reconciliation. There was a somewhat inexplicable instance in Majorca of

three Judaizers, who had died in prison during their trials, in 1678,

after manifesting the necessary signs of repentance; they were not

included among the two hundred and twelve reconciliations, in the autos

de fe of 1679, but, thirteen years afterwards, their effigies were

reconciled in the auto of July 2, 1691 and no theologian seems to have

asked himself what was their spiritual condition during this prolonged

interval.[411] This reconciliation in effigy, was not, as Llorente

states, an innovation introduced under Philip III, but was practised

from the beginning, for there was an instance of it in Beatrix Sener,

deceased, thus reconciled May 2, 1499, at Barcelona.[412]

Apparently the age of responsibility was the only minimum limit in

reconciliation. In the Madrid Auto of 1632, Catalina Méndez, a child of

12, was reconciled with sanbenito and six months' imprisonment. At

Toledo, in 1659, Beatriz Jorje and Ana Pereira, Portuguese Judaizers

each ten years old, were reconciled; the former had her sanbenito

removed at once; the latter was sentenced to confiscation and four

months of prison.[413]

Reconciliation brought with it one alleviation, for the reconciled, as

penitents, were entitled to the fuero of the Inquisition. This was

derived from the penitential system of the Middle Ages, which deprived

the penitent of bearing arms during the long series of years for which

penance was imposed, and no one could be expected to assume it unless

protected by the Church against his enemies. In this the Inquisition

stood in the place of the Church, and cast its jurisdiction over its

penitents during their term of penance. In 1501, we find a certain Pan

Besante of Teruel, a _reconciliado_, to whom Ferdinand had restored his

confiscated property, complaining to the king that he was persecuted and

maltreated by his debtors and his neighbors, and that the inquisitors,

to whom he had appealed for protection, neglected to aid him, whereupon

Ferdinand promptly ordered them to come to his assistance, to enforce,

by their officials, the payment of his just claims and to punish the

aggressors.[414] So far was this carried that at Granada, in 1654, the

reconciled penitents had an advantage in trade over the faithful, by

claiming exemption from the _alcavala_, or royal tax on sales. When the

citizens complained of this discrimination, the fiscal of the tribunal

admitted that the question was a difficult one; to subject the penitents

to the royal jurisdiction would give rise to great embarrassments, yet

at the same time the inquisitorial jurisdiction ought to be a punishment

and not a reward.[415] That it was a reward we have seen from the

eagerness with which it was claimed by all who could put forward the

slenderest pretext.

[Sidenote: _THE PENITENTIAL PRISON_]

THE PERPETUAL PRISON.

Imprisonment for life was the penance imposed by the canons on the

heretic who, under the persuasive methods of persecution, sought

reconciliation to the Church. It was so decreed, indeed, by pope and

emperor before the Inquisition was organized, and that institution

relentlessly enforced the laws. That the Spanish Holy Office should

accept it was a matter of course. Its expense, however, had proved a

source of tribulation in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and it

was none the less so in Spain for, large as were the confiscations and

pecuniary penances, they were squandered as fast as they accrued. In

Torquemada's supplementary Instructions of December, 1484, the receivers

are ordered to provide for the maintenance of the prisons, which shows

that the sovereigns admitted their responsibility,[416] but, in the

chronic financial disorder of the time, no regular provision was made,

either for their establishment or support. It is true that, in 1486, at

the earnest request of the inquisitors of Saragossa, Ferdinand ordered

the receiver to construct a perpetual prison, in accordance with their

desires, but it is safe to assume that he prudently postponed replying

to their inquiry as to the maintenance of the captives.[417] In 1492,

when the tribunal sentenced Brianda de Bardaxí to five years'

imprisonment, it was to the tower of Saliana and this, in a few days,

was changed to the convent of Santo Sepolcro in Saragossa.[418] In fact,

for want of prisons, the custom was general of consigning reconciled

penitents to strongholds, hospitals, convents, or even to their own

houses--the latter presumably being such shelter as friends or kindred

could afford to those who had been stripped by confiscation. The

Instructions of 1488, indeed, authorize inquisitors, in view of the

multitudes condemned to perpetual imprisonment and the lack of prisons,

to designate to the penitents their houses, where they must confine

themselves under the penalties provided by the laws. But this, it was

added, was only meant to be temporary, and the sovereigns were

supplicated to order that, at each tribunal, the receiver should provide

a large enclosure with little huts and a chapel, where the prisoners

could hear mass and could each work at his trade and earn his living,

and thus relieve the Inquisition from heavy burdens, due care being

taken to keep the sexes apart.[419] The only answer to this prayer seems

to have been the device of relieving the prisons for the benefit of the

galleys.

The laxity of quartering penitents on public institutions or in private

houses led to impracticable rules in the effort to counteract its evils.

An instruction issued about this time by the Suprema orders that no one

be admitted to reconciliation without condemning him to confiscation and

perpetual prison, if he has been a heretic, and those thus condemned

must perform their penance most rigidly, not speaking with any one

except on the days when they go to mass and hear sermons; on other days,

both in going out and in eating, they must show themselves true

penitents, holding no intercourse with wives and children.[420] This

seems to have received scant obedience and, in 1506, the Suprema ordered

that sanbenitos be placed on all prisoners, and that they must not leave

their houses and then, in 1509, it prescribed that perpetual prisons

must be provided. Apparently this was partially successful, for it was

followed by instructions that all who had been or should be condemned

must be placed in them, where they can ply their trades, or their

kindred can supply them with food, or they may beg alms for their

support. Thus, in 1510, Llerena selected two pairs of houses for the

purpose, which Ferdinand ordered the governor of Leon to have appraised.

Cuenca also seems to have obtained a prison, but an inadequate one, for

in 1511 the Suprema authorized the tribunal to permit all the sick, and

all who had been confined for two years, to betake themselves to their

homes. Where such prisons existed the discipline must have been

exceedingly lax for, in 1512, the Suprema issued a general provision

empowering the tribunals to allow the destitute occupants of the

perpetual prisons to go out by turns to beg in the cities, but they must

wear their sanbenitos and return by nightfall, under penalty of relapse,

and this was repeated in 1513. Then the further effort to provide

prisons seems to have been abandoned for, in 1514, Ximenes issued an

order permitting the reconciled to fulfil their penances in their own

homes.[421]

[Sidenote: _THE PENITENTIAL PRISON_]

This fluctuating policy and the extraordinary laxity which it reveals

were not due to any humanitarian impulses. It was simply a continuous

effort to shirk the responsibility of maintaining those whose property

had been confiscated, and who were required by the canons to be

incarcerated for life. The Inquisition obtained the plunder, it

inflicted on its victims disabilities, which increased enormously the

difficulty of self-support, it rendered them odious to the population by

making them wear the sanbenito, it was in duty bound to provide prisons

where they could be immured and prevented from infecting the community,

but it neglected this duty and virtually told them that they might beg

or starve. That death by starvation, indeed, was not uncommon is

asserted in the project of reform drawn up, in 1518, by order of Charles

V.

Still the tribunals seem to have made some progress in providing

themselves with penitential prisons for, in 1524, the Suprema deemed it

worth while to order that they should be inspected monthly, and the

results be recorded in a book to be kept for that purpose.[422] By no

means all had done so however. Barcelona, which occupied the royal

palace, had found room there, in 1489, for its penitents, and in 1544 we

hear of Gerónimo de Quadras as alcaide, on a salary of fifty ducats, out

of which he was to pay for a person to conduct the prisoners to mass and

to bring them back. Valencia was less advanced, for it could have had no

prison in 1540, when it sentenced three women to keep as a prison such

place as should be designated to them, but in 1546 it secured the

services of Gerónimo de Quadras as alcaide, at a salary of thirty

ducats. In 1550, however, he complained that he had never received his

pay and, in 1554, we find the perpetual prison of Brianda de Garcete

commuted to confinement in her own house, or other designated place,

which would indicate that the attempt to establish a prison had been

abandoned.[423] In 1553, Logroño apparently had none, for it assigned,

to Juan Prebost, Bilbao and two leagues around as a prison, with the

sanbenito.[424] This need not surprise us for, if in some tribunals

there was an attempt to provide a perpetual prison, it was exceptional.

In 1537 the Suprema had formally declared that it would be a novelty to

support the penitents at the cost of the fisc; this could not and ought

not to be done; there was no objection to their performing their

penance in their own homes and the tribunals could arrange it

accordingly. A few months later this was repeated; the reconciled could

be sent to their houses to perform their penance, if they had no other

means of support.[425]

At length the Instructions of 1561 endeavored to introduce some system

in this scandalous state of things. The sentence of reconciliation

condemned the penitent to prison and sanbenito for a specified term,

during which he was to wear the _abito_ publicly over his other

garments; he was to be confined in the perpetual prison, going to mass

and sermon on Sundays and feast days, and on Saturdays performing

certain devotions at a designated shrine.[426] To enforce this

discipline the Instructions stated that, as many tribunals had no

perpetual prison, houses should be bought for the purpose as, without

them there were no means of knowing whether the reconciled performed

their penance. The alcaide should help them in their necessity by giving

them materials to work at their trades and help to support themselves,

and the inquisitors should visit the prison several times a year.[427]

This seems to have been followed by an effort to induce the tribunals to

provide prisons, for, in 1562, Toledo was taken to task for having none.

It not only did not supply the deficiency but demurred to the suggestion

that it should at least furnish a person to see that the penitents

performed their penance, and it was told that for three or four thousand

maravedís of extra pay the portero could attend to this.[428]

[Sidenote: _THE PENITENTIAL PRISON_]

In 1570 the Suprema resumed the attempt to bring about this much needed

reform. It told the tribunals that they could rent houses until they

should be able to purchase, and they must appoint proper persons as

alcaides to keep watch over the penitents.[429] The result of this

pressure was gradual. In 1577 the Cistercian convent of Santa Fe, in

Saragossa, made formal complaint to the pope of the number of penitents

quartered upon it, and Cardinal Savelli, the head of the Roman

Inquisition, interposed with the Suprema to relieve it of this

oppression.[430] It was not until 1598 that the Mexican tribunal, nearly

thirty years after its foundation, built a capacious prison adjoining

its own structure.[431] In 1600, for the first time, there is an

allusion in the Toledo record to a "carcel de la peniténcia" and, in

1609, Valencia was busy in erecting one at a cost of 5110 libras; it had

been planned to have three floors, but was economically reduced to

two.[432] Whether all the tribunals yielded to the pressure and

established penitential prisons it would be impossible to say, but they

probably did so, if only in some perfunctory fashion that justified the

appointment of an alcaide. Simultaneously with this there came a change

in the name, and the _carcel perpetua_ was known as the _casa de la

peniténcia_ or _de la misericórdia_.

It does not follow that the establishment of prisons was attended with

any increased strictness of discipline. The Inquisition persistently

refused to accept the burden of supporting its prisoners and left them

to shift for themselves. Where prisons existed there were few penitents

in them, although condemnations to imprisonment were frequent and, in

1641, Philip IV conceived the idea of liberating them all. The Suprema

sent his decree to the tribunals with orders to report whether they had

any prisoners and what were their cases, to which Valencia replied that

it had one, imprisoned for persistent sorcery, whereupon the Suprema

ordered the sentence to be commuted and the prisoner to be

discharged.[433]

The royal project fell through. All prisons were not as empty as that of

Valencia and a discussion occurring, in 1654, at Granada, to which

allusion has already been made, illustrates the character of the

imprisonment rendered necessary by the refusal to support the prisoners.

They gained their living chiefly by hawking goods around the city; this

at length aroused the shopkeepers, and the corregidor represented to the

tribunal that scandals were occasioned by their entering houses and

committing indecencies; there was loss to the king for, as penitents,

they were not subject to the _alcavala_ and other imposts; thus favored

they undersold the shopkeepers, who had lost half of their trade, while

the penitents grew rich, for they came almost naked from the secret

prison and, in a short time, they were well clothed and enriched. The

tribunal admitted the force of this and, on December 24, 1654, issued an

order that, for two weeks, they might cry their wares through the

streets, but not enter houses, and subsequently be restricted to selling

in shops. At this the prisoners complained bitterly of the deprivation

of a privilege of long standing in all places where there was a

tribunal, for without it they could not earn a living or support their

wives and families. Thereupon the fiscal, Doctor Joseph Francisco Cresco

de Escobar, seeing that both sides would appeal to the Suprema, printed

for its enlightenment a memorial which reveals to us the character of

penitential imprisonment. He states that, in accordance with the

Instructions of 1488, the tribunals had provided penitential prisons,

the one at Granada being of ample capacity for the observance of the

Instructions of 1561. He quotes the canons and conciliar decrees to show

that recanting heretics are to be immured for life, whence he argues

that the prison should be afflictive and penal. Now, however, it is only

nominal; the so-called prisoners go out at all hours of the day, without

restriction, without a companion, without labor save what they

voluntarily undertake, all of which is liberty and not captivity. They

wander at will through the city and suburbs, they amuse themselves at

the houses of their friends, they spend, if they choose, only part of

the night in the prison, which serves them as a comfortable

lodging-house, free of rent. The Instructions require that the alcaide

shall see that they perform their penance, but this has become

impossible, and there are no means of restricting their intercourse with

the faithful. As for their plea that they leave the secret prison broken

in health and stripped of their property, that they have no chance to

learn trades and must support their families by trading, the answer is

that only through the mercy of the Holy Office do they escape burning,

and they should be thankful that their lives are spared; their poverty

is a trifling penalty for their crimes, and their children only share

the punishment of paternal heresy.[434]

[Sidenote: _THE PENITENTIAL PRISON_]

With all this laxity, there was a pretence of maintaining the old rigor,

which regarded prison-breaking as relapse, but the real offence lay in

the fugitive throwing off the sanbenito. There seems to have been

little desire to recapture those who absented themselves, for the

formula of the mandate to search for and arrest fugitives only concerns

itself with those who escape from the secret prison and who thus are

still on trial,[435] but when from any cause penitents were returned to

the tribunal, their treatment is exemplified in the case of Juan

González, who escaped from the _casa de la peniténcia_ of Valladolid,

July 3, 1645. His story was that, having gone out to collect some money

due to him, he gambled it away, got drunk, went to sleep under the walls

of the Carmelite convent in the suburbs and, on awaking next morning and

fearing punishment, he wandered away, throwing off the sanbenito and

seeking work. Thus he reached Irun and designed passing into France, but

was recognized by a priest who had seen him in Valladolid; he was handed

over to the commissioner and was passed from familiar to familiar till

he was lodged in the secret prison of Valladolid. The fiscal claimed

that his flight and throwing off the sanbenito proved him to be an

impenitent and pertinacious relapsed into Judaism who must be relaxed;

but his sentence was only two hundred lashes and irremissible

prison.[436]

Sentences to imprisonment continued as usual, but growing indifference

as to providing for their execution is indicated by a correspondence

between Barcelona and the Suprema in 1718. At that time the tribunal had

but four cases under trial; it still occupied the ancient royal palace

but, after it had condemned for Judaism María Meneses to irremissible,

and her daughter Catalina de Solis, to perpetual prison, it did not know

what to do with them and applied for instructions. There was, it said,

no penitential prison nor could it find that there ever had been one,

neither was there an alcaide; it possessed no house that could be used

for the purpose, and no official could be spared from his other duties.

The Suprema replied by inquiring whether there was a prison for

familiars in which a room could be used for the women, or whether some

little house near the palace could be had and some official or familiar

could serve as alcaide. The tribunal rejoined negativing the proposed

use of the prison for familiars; it would see whether a house could be

had, but there was no money for the purpose; as for the officials, they

were all fully occupied and no one would take the position without

salary. This the Suprema met with a peremptory order to rent a little

house and appoint an alcaide at the ordinary wages. Under this pressure

some kind of provision must have been made for, in an auto of January

31, 1723, the tribunal condemned four Judaizers to irremissible

prison.[437]

During the recrudescence of persecution at this period, the number of

condemnations to imprisonment was large; in the Granada auto of December

21, 1720, there were twenty-seven and, in sixty-four autos between 1721

and 1727, there were seven hundred and forty.[438] How these numerous

prisoners were accommodated it would be difficult to guess, for the

neglect of the penitential prisons was progressive and, in the census of

all the tribunals, about 1750, but three reported to have

alcaides--Córdova, Granada and Murcia.[439] It does not follow that

others had not prisons, but only that they had no prisoners and cared to

have none. For instance, in 1794, when the Suprema inquired of Valencia

whether its prison would suit for the priest Juan Fernández Sotelo,

whose health required a change from the convent where he was recluded,

the tribunal craftily replied that its prison was constructed with cells

and dungeons and that, in the eyes of the people, confinement in it

produced infamy, so that quarters for Sotelo had better be found in some

convent in the suburbs. Apparently it forgot all this when, in 1802, it

complained that the salaries of its secretaries had not been raised in

1795, while that of the alcaide of the penitential prison had been

increased from a hundred and twenty to twenty-two hundred reales,

although he had nothing to do, and enjoyed the use of a house in the

prison as good as those of the inquisitors.[440]

[Sidenote: _DURATION OF IMPRISONMENT_]

In fact, by this time penitential imprisonment was virtually obsolete.

After the subsidence of the active persecution of Judaism, the Toledo

tribunal which, in 1738, pronounced twelve sentences of prison, did not

utter another until 1756. Then a long interval occurs, of thirty-eight

years, before the next one, which was for heretical propositions.[441]

It would not, perhaps, be safe to say that, in the concluding years of

the Inquisition, this form of punishment was wholly unknown, but no

cases of it have come under my observation.

* * * * *

There was the same reduction in the duration of imprisonment as in its

severity, owing presumably to the same economical motive. As we have

seen, the medieval Church recognized only lifelong imprisonment as the

fitting penalty for the heretic who saved his forfeited life by

recantation and, in recognition of this, the penitential prison in Spain

was officially known as the perpetual prison, the sentences being always

for perpetual imprisonment. At a very early period, however, it was

clearly recognized that the literal enforcement of this was a physical

impossibility. Bernaldez tells us that in Seville, up to 1488, there had

been five thousand reconciled and condemned to perpetual imprisonment,

but they were released after four or five years with sanbenitos and

these were subsequently removed to prevent the spread of infamy

throughout the land.[442] At Barcelona the tribunal had scarce been

established, when we find it drawing a distinction in its sentences to

perpetual imprisonment, some being _cum misericordia_ and others _absque

misericordia_--thus anticipating the so-called "irremissible" perpetual

prison--and from the sentences it would appear that "without mercy" was

exceptional.[443]

This inevitable laxity provoked opposition on the part of the more rigid

authorities and, in 1509, while Ximenes was in Oran, there was a

discussion on the subject in the Suprema, when we are told that his

temporary representative, Rojas Archbishop of Granada, stood alone

against the other members.[444] What was the nature of the decision is

not recorded, but it probably favored the laxer view, for Ximenes and

the Suprema, in 1516, deemed it necessary to order that all sentences to

prison and sanbenito must be perpetual, in accordance with the canon

law; if, in any case, the inquisitors thought there should be a

remission it must be left to the discretion of the

inquisitor-general.[445]

The tendency to shorten the term was irresistible; the conservatives had

to yield and, by the middle of the sixteenth century, Simancas tells us

that perpetual prison was customarily defined to be three years, if the

penitent was repentant, while those condemned to irremissible prison

were usually released after eight years.[446] So purely technical did

the term "perpetual prison" become that inquisitors saw nothing

incongruous in such sentences as "perpetual prison for one year" or "for

six months," which are constantly met with, as well as "perpetual

prison" followed by terms of exile. The real infliction was therefore

much less severe than it appears on the records, and when periods longer

than eight years were intended, they were specified, as when Salvador

Razo, for Molinism, was sentenced, in the Granada auto of July 4, 1745,

to ten years, of which the first five were to be spent in the galleys--a

hardship remitted on account of his infirmities.[447]

[Sidenote: _DURATION OF IMPRISONMENT_]

The terms of imprisonment were frequently shortened, moreover,

sometimes, from humane motives, but more often from financial

considerations, for the dispensing power in this, as in the other

penalties, was a source of profit. Thus Mayor García, a Morisca of

Daimiel, condemned in the Toledo auto of September 21, 1550, to

perpetual prison for six months, on January 13, 1551, petitioned the

tribunal for release "as was customary with others," saying that her

husband would pay what the inquisitors should demand. The matter was

promptly arranged with Inquisitor Alonso Pérez for four ducats, to help

to build the staging for an auto de fe--a somewhat heavy payment for two

months' relief.[448] This dispensing power was the subject of a

prolonged struggle between the tribunals and the Suprema. In the early

period, at Barcelona, the former endeavored to secure it by the device

of discretional sentences, which inquisitors could curtail or extend at

will, and this was recognized in a letter of the Suprema, October 4,

1499, authorizing them, under such sentences, to dispense with the

imprisonment but not with the sanbenito.[449] In 1513, however, Ximenes

forbade this without his consent and the repetition of the order in 1514

and 1516 shows that it was difficult of enforcement.[450] In spite of

this when the Valencia tribunal, February 25, 1540, condemned five

Moriscos to "habit and prison for as long a time as we shall determine,"

the Suprema insisted that, when discretion was specified, it must alone

be that of the inquisitor-general, a mandate that had to be repeated

more than once, even as late as 1592.[451]

The question of this, as of all other commutations, was inevitably

settled, as we have seen, in favor of the inquisitor-general. In many

cases there was no concealment that it was purely an affair of bargain

and sale, but it is pleasant to record that often it was prompted by

humanity. Petitions for abridgement of the penance were numerous and

were usually sent in at the time of the greater feasts, which are

alleged as a reason for mercy, in addition to the misery of the

penitent. As an example of these petitions may be mentioned the case of

Violante Rodríguez who, with her husband Duarte Valentin, was arrested

for Judaism March 15, 1664. After a three years' trial, she was

sentenced at Granada, February 24, 1667, to two years' imprisonment,

while her husband was similarly sentenced at Cuenca. About August 10th

she petitioned for commutation, alleging that she had eight little

children, deprived of both parents. The Suprema promptly sent to Granada

for the details of the case, but the tribunal delayed until October 8th,

when it accompanied its report with the suggestion that she should be

released with spiritual penances after the expiration of the first year,

as she had manifested true repentance. Growing impatient, on December

24th, she again petitioned the Suprema, alluding to her seven children,

thus showing that one had meanwhile died. That she was duly discharged

in February there can be no doubt, and there is no trace in the

correspondence of any pecuniary consideration. Some of the petitions for

release, in truth, were well calculated to inspire compassion, such as

that of Simon Méndez Soto, in 1666, wherein he describes himself as 84

years old, blind, deaf, crippled on both sides with many infirmities and

penniless, and he supplicates release that he may seek for cure.[452]

There would appear to have been no minimum age for imprisonment short of

irresponsibility. The Toledo tribunal condemned for Judaism García son

of Pedro the potter of Aguda, a boy eleven years of age, to perpetual

prison. In the Cuenca auto of June 29, 1654, for the same offence,

Escolástica Gómez, aged 12 and Isavel Díaz Jorje, aged 14 had the same

penalty and, in the Toledo auto of October 30, 1701, José de Leon, a boy

of 16 was sentenced to irremissible prison.[453]

THE SANBENITO.

The sanbenito, or penitential garment, was the invariable accompaniment

of reconciliation and prison, constituting together the "carcel y abito"

of the sentences, although it was not exclusively reserved for such

cases. It was not invented by the Spanish Inquisition, even though we

can scarce agree with an enthusiastic writer, who traces its origin to

the Fall, when God made the delinquents put on penitential habits of

skins, corresponding with the _sacos benditos_ now used in the

tribunals.[454]

[Sidenote: _THE SANBENITO_]

The penitential habit of sackcloth sprinkled with ashes, customary in

the early Church, has passed into a proverb. That the penitents of the

Inquisition should be required to wear such a garment was inevitable

and, from the foundation of the institution, in the thirteenth century,

they were distinguished from other penitents by two yellow crosses, one

on the breast and the other on the back. From Eymerich we learn that in

Aragon this garment was like the scapular worn by the religious

Orders.[455] This _saco bendito_ became known as the sanbenito or, more

commonly, _abito_ and was necessarily inherited by the new Inquisition.

In 1486, at the Toledo auto of December 11th, two hundred penitents,

reconciled under the Edict of Grace, were required to wear in public

such a garment for a year, under penalty of relapse.[456] For those

reconciled after trial, the infliction was more severe. In 1490,

Torquemada ordered that they should wear during life a _sanbenitillo_ of

black or gray cloth, eighteen inches long and nine inches wide, like a

small tabard, hanging on breast and back, with a red cross before and

behind, occupying nearly the entire field. This was hung over the outer

garment, and was a conspicuous indication to all beholders of the shame

of the wearer, rendering it a punishment regarded as exceedingly

severe.[457] In 1514, Ximenes changed the cross to an _aspa de San

Andrés_, a St. Andrew's or oblique cross, of which the bars traversed

diagonally the breast and back.[458] Finally the Instructions of 1561

describe the _abito penitencial_ as made of yellow linen or cloth, with

two red _aspas_, although in some parts of Aragon there are particular

customs as to colors which must be observed--referring probably to the

use of green cloth in place of yellow, which seems to have been the case

in Valencia and Sicily.[459] In some tribunals there was also in use,

for those who abjured _de vehementi_, a sanbenito _de media aspa_, or

half cross, consisting of a single diagonal band. Those who were to be

relaxed appeared in the auto de fe in a black sanbenito, on which were

painted flames and sometimes demons thrusting the heretic into

hell.[460] Llorente tells us that abjuration _de levi_ was performed in

a _zamarra_, or yellow sanbenito without aspas, but I have met with no

allusion to its use.[461] The distinction between the sanbenito _de dos

aspas_ and the one _de media aspa_ was maintained, and the former was

understood to indicate that the wearer had been guilty of formal heresy,

that he and his children were subject to the consequent disabilities,

and that he was liable to the stake in case of relapse. The latter was

worn only during the auto de fe, after which it was laid aside.[462]

Although, in the early period, the sanbenito was imposed perpetually,

the expression is to be taken in the same sense as imprisonment. As a

rule, the two were coterminous and the sentences are almost invariably

"habit and prison for two years," or perpetual or irremissible as the

case may be. Where, indeed, the heresy was trivial or technical rather

than real, or the conversion seemed genuine and spontaneous, the

sanbenito was merely a symbol, to be worn only during the auto, or even

for a briefer period, although it none the less left its ineffaceable

stigma. There were gradations suited to every case, as is well

illustrated in the Granada auto of May 27, 1593, where, in three cases,

it was removed after reading the sentence, in two, after returning to

the Inquisition, in two, after twenty-four hours (one of these being the

Licentiate Juan Fernández, who had Judaized for thirty-six years), in

one case it was imposed for two years and in another for three, and

Leonor Fernández had two years of sanbenito and four of prison. It was

even put on the effigy of Doña Inez de Tórres, from which it was removed

after reading the sentence, because she had confessed and died as a

Catholic, with ample signs of contrition.[463] Thus the tribunal could

vary the penalty at its discretion, and was not bound to the rule of

coterminous _abito y carcel_. In the Toledo auto of March 15, 1722, two

girls of 14, Manuela Díaz and María de Mendoza, were sentenced to six

months of prison and two months of sanbenito, while in that of February

24, 1723, Manuel Ximenes had perpetual prison and one year of

sanbenito.[464]

From the fact that, in the sentences, the penitents are told that they

are not to go out of their prisons or their houses without the

sanbenito, it is inferable that it was not worn within doors. Discarding

it, as we have seen, was a grave offence, punishable as non-fulfilment

of penance and, in the Edicts of Faith, the denunciation of this, as of

other infractions, was required. There was one occasion, however, in

which this was done on a large scale with impunity, for in the Palermo

rising of 1516 against the Inquisition, there was a universal throwing

off of sanbenitos. When order was restored and the tribunal was

re-established, there was a fruitless effort made to reimpose them. In

1522 the Suprema wrote to Inquisitors Calvete and Cervera calling

attention to this as a great disservice to God and a heavy charge on the

souls of the penitents, who must be compelled to resume them, and all

secular and ecclesiastical authorities were commanded to assist. Then

again, in 1525, Inquisitor-general Manrique insisted on the resumption

of the sanbenitos, but at the same time he cautioned the inquisitors not

to cause scandal or trouble, and we may assume that the attempt was

practically abandoned.[465]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _SANBENITOS IN CHURCHES_]

Cruel as was the imposition of the sanbenito, it was a punishment

inherited from the elder Inquisition, but Spanish ingenuity invented a

still more cruel use of it to stimulate the detestation of heresy. This

was the preservation of the sanbenitos, with suitable inscriptions,

conspicuously displayed in the churches, thus perpetuating to future

generations the memory of the crime and punishment of the delinquent.

The origin of this may perhaps be traceable to the ceremonies observed

in the early period, when penitents were relieved of the _abito_. As

described, in 1490, at Barcelona, they were assembled in the Inquisition

and preached to by the inquisitor. A fortnight later they gathered in

the parish church of Santa María del Pino and heard mass; then they

marched in procession to the chapel of Our Lady of Monserrat, again

heard mass, offered twelve dineros apiece to the Virgin, and passed the

night, after which their sanbenitos were taken off and hung in a

prominent place near the door.[466] Of course, in the case of those who

were burnt, the sanbenito was hung up at once, and this remained the

rule, as we learn from the Instructions of 1561--the sanbenito of the

reconciled was hung when it was removed, whether during the auto or

after years of prison; that of the relaxed, immediately after the

auto.[467]

The custom must have been of gradual growth. There is no allusion to it

in the _Instrucciones antiquas_, nor have I found any indication as to

the time when it became imperative except that, in 1512, there is a

decision of the Suprema expressing the will of the king and the cardinal

that the sanbenitos of the relaxed and reconciled of the Campo de

Calatrava shall be hung in the churches, except those of the reconciled

in the Time of Grace, and that, if any of the latter have been hung,

they are to be removed.[468] This indicates a custom favored by the

authorities, spreading, but as yet subject to question. It had already

passed to Sicily, where one of the incidents of the rising of 1516 was

the tearing down of the sanbenitos in the churches, and so great was the

popular detestation of it that, at the end of the century, it had not

been possible to restore the practice.[469]

It mattered little to the descendants that the sanbenitos of the victims

in the early years had escaped this publicity. The perversity which

inspired it developed into such malignity that, in 1532, the Suprema

ordered the tribunals to make from their records lists of all burnt or

reconciled, even under Edicts of Grace, and to suspend in the churches

whatever sanbenitos were found to be lacking. The inexcusable cruelty of

including the voluntary reconciliados under Edicts of Grace caused this

portion of the order to be revoked in 1538, but, in 1539, this was

declared inapplicable to those which had already been hung--if they had

been removed, they must be replaced. The question was revived, in 1552,

and opinions were divided, but the decision to retain them prevailed.

Meanwhile, in 1548, the Suprema stimulated the tribunals to fill all

vacancies, whether arising from omissions or the surreptitious removal

of old ones, and it ordered the hanging of new ones as soon as the autos

were held, in order to anticipate the complaints and importunities of

the sufferers and their kindred. Then, as though the tribunals were

slack in their duty, in 1555 the order of 1532 was revived and

repeated.[470] The wilful viciousness of this is indicated by the

Instructions of 1561, which point out that, as those reconciled in Time

of Grace are exempt from wearing the sanbenito, so their sanbenitos

ought not to be suspended in the churches.[471]

[Sidenote: _SANBENITOS IN CHURCHES_]

The object was the cruel one of perpetuating the infamy of the victim

and rendering it as galling as possible to his kindred and descendants.

As the sanbenitos wore out or became illegible with time, they were

replaced, and finally superseded by yellow linen cloths, bearing full

details of the name, lineage, crime and punishment of the culprit.[472]

Originally they were hung in the cathedral of the city of the

Inquisition, but this did not bring the disgrace sufficiently close to

the descendants and, in some places at least, they were ordered to be

transferred to the parish churches of the delinquents, whose infamy was

thus kept alive in the memory of their neighbors. A single instance will

illustrate the spirit actuating this. In 1519 the Suprema ordered this

transfer made by the tribunal of Cuenca, but the command was slackly

obeyed and was repeated in 1529. Then the descendants of Lope de Leon

and Alvar Hernández de Leon, residents of Belmonte, petitioned the

Suprema, saying that the wives of Lope and Alvar had been reconciled;

they were natives of Quintanar, where they had committed their heresy,

and the descendants now begged that the sanbenitos be hung in the church

of Quintanar and not of Belmonte. To this the Suprema replied, April 15,

1529, by instructing the tribunal to hang the sanbenitos in the

residence of the descendants, in a place so public that the

reconciliation of the women should be notorious to all. It is true that

the descendants secured delay until the pressing orders came of 1548,

when, on November 9th the sanbenitos of the women were hung in the

church of Belmonte.[473]

This policy of distribution cannot have been universal for, when the

Toledo cathedral desired to be relieved of the great accumulation of

sanbenitos, the Suprema forbade it, adding that if it was desired to

have them in the parish churches it must be done with new ones, leaving

the originals in the cathedral. At length, in 1538, the inquisitors

Yáñez and Loaysa distributed them among the parish churches, when

Sebastian de Orozco tells us that it caused infinite misery to the

descendants, leading them all or nearly all to change their family

names, so that in Toledo the names actually borne by the Conversos

disappeared.[474]

Change of name was not the only device resorted to by the descendants,

for they were constantly at work removing surreptitiously the evidence

of their infamy. As early as 1518, the Saragossa tribunal was ordered to

prosecute with rigor those who had abstracted them from the Dominican

church.[475] Their zeal was stimulated by the fact that the inquisitors,

in making up the records, included all who had been reconciled under

Edicts of Grace, thus affording legitimate ground of complaint, as shown

by a long-continued struggle at Frejenal. In 1556, Doctor Ramírez,

Inquisitor of Llerena, protested to the Suprema against the efforts of

the people of Frejenal for the removal of the names of those reconciled

in Time of Grace; it would leave but few for, in 1491, there had been

three hundred and fifty-seven reconciliations there, of which three

hundred and fifty-four had been under the Edict. To render ancestral

infamy more accessible to the public, besides the sanbenitos, the names

and details were inscribed on a tablet of parchment. This became torn

and nearly illegible and, on August 23, 1563, it was solemnly replaced

by another, written in large letters, with printer's ink, and varnished

to insure its preservation. The secret warfare waged against this

perpetuation of infamy is described, in 1572, in a deposition of the

familiar Rodrigo Carvajo. The people of the town, he said, were mostly

descendants of Conversos, resorting to perjury and every other means to

conceal their origin. The sacristans were generally Conversos, who

connived at the methods employed to destroy the evidence, and the

sanbenitos were stolen; there used to be five hundred and ninety-nine,

and now there were only ten or a dozen, worn and torn and so placed that

they could not be read, while the tablet with the names was gradually

being defaced and rendered illegible. Thus it continued until 1576, when

Inquisitor Montoyo brought to Frejenal a new set of sanbenitos prepared

from the records, which were duly suspended, and a tablet containing

names and details was placed where all could read it. This list shows

the obstinate persistence with which the names of the spontaneously

reconciled were retained. It contained a hundred and sixty-two relaxed

and four hundred and nine reconciled, all, with very few exceptions, in

the years from 1491 to 1495. There were none between 1499 and 1511, and

none later than 1511.[476] Struggles similar to this were doubtless on

foot in numerous other places.

[Sidenote: _SANBENITOS IN CHURCHES_]

The churches themselves do not seem to have looked with favor on this

desecration of their sacred precincts. At Cuenca, there was apparently

an attempt to hide the sanbenitos of which the tribunal complained in

1571, when the Suprema ordered it to see that nothing was put before

them, even on feast-days.[477] The parish church of San Salvador, at

Cifuentes, went further and, in 1561, appealed to Pius IV, explaining to

him the Spanish custom, and representing that not only was the

attractiveness of the church marred by the prominence assigned to the

sanbenitos, but that they led to many scandals, all of which would be

prevented if they were removed to some less prominent place or laid away

altogether, but that licence from the Holy See was requisite for this.

The pope gave the required licence, subject to the assent of the

Inquisition to the removal, which of course rendered it

inoperative.[478] The cathedral of Granada was more fortunate for when,

in 1610, Inquisitor-general Sandoval consecrated as archbishop Pedro

González de Mendoza, the latter asked him, as a special favor to his

bride, that she should be relieved of the sanbenitos. Sandoval assented

and the permission came soon after Mendoza had reached Granada. It was

celebrated with great rejoicings and ringing of bells; the sanbenitos of

the Moriscos were transferred to the church of San Salvador, in the

Albaycin, while those of the Judaizers were hung in the church of

Santiago, which was the parish church of the Inquisition.[479] Even when

there was not this open antagonism, there was apt to be neglect which

was practically more damaging. In 1642, the Valencia tribunal learned

that some of those in the cathedral had fallen and were allowed to lie.

It made an investigation and, from the report, it would seem as though

every available spot was thus decorated and that all required attention

for their preservation. The sacristans promised to do what was

necessary, but apparently they had been quite willing to see them

disappear.[480]

Conscious of this ecclesiastical indifference and of the constant effort

of those interested to make way with the visible records of their

infamy, the Suprema was incessantly active to counteract the results.

The Instructions of 1561 insist imperatively on the duty of hanging the

new sanbenitos and renewing the old, so that the memory of the infamy of

heretics shall be preserved forever, and inquisitors on their

visitations are commanded to see that the parish churches are kept with

unbroken lines of the _mantetas y insinias_ of their culprit

parishioners.[481] Philip II was no less urgent. In his instructions of

1595 to Manrique de Lara, he calls special attention to the subject;

there are sanbenitos now to be hung and others which have never been

hung, apparently through favoritism, for which the inquisitors deserve

rigorous punishment, for this is the severest penalty which the Holy

Office can inflict on heretics and their descendants, and Manrique is to

see that all deficiencies are made good.[482]

In fact, the most pressing business of the inquisitor in visiting his

district was to attend to this. In 1569 the Suprema ordered every one,

before starting, to have full lists made out of the relaxed and

reconciled of the region to be traversed and, in each place, these lists

were to be compared with the existing sanbenitos and all that had

disappeared were to be replaced. In 1600 and 1607 these instructions

were repeated with still greater urgency, as a matter not to be

neglected for a single day, in view of the evils that would

follow.[483] That nothing was to be allowed to interfere with this pious

duty is seen when Valencia had no money wherewith to defray the expense

of renewals and was told to borrow it from the _Depositario de los

pretendientes_--the sacred deposits of those seeking to prove their

limpieza, which were thus used to preserve the muniments that might

destroy their hopes.[484]

How, in fact, the sanbenitos were employed for this purpose is indicated

in a perquisition conducted at Tortosa, in 1577, by the inquisitor, Juan

de Zúñiga. The sanbenitos were carefully examined and lists were made

out, classified firstly into those of which the trials could be

identified and those of which no trace could be found in the records,

and secondly into the penalties inflicted. Then two of the oldest

residents--a notary and a priest--were summoned; the lists were gone

over with them and their evidence was taken as to the descendants of the

culprits, especially whether any had changed their names so as to elude

disabilities. Thus a close watch was kept on them and every care was

taken that the infamy of their ancestors should be lasting.[485]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _SANBENITOS IN CHURCHES_]

As the seventeenth century wore on, it would seem that the zeal of the

tribunals in the matter of sanbenitos was flagging. A general carta

acordada of February 27, 1657, assumes this, in calling their attention

to the Instructions of 1561 and to subsequent orders of similar import.

As many autos de fe had recently been held, and as it was understood

that, in some places, the sanbenitos had not been hung in the churches,

the tribunals were commanded forthwith to make out lists of the relaxed

and the reconciled, and to have corresponding sanbenitos suspended in

the churches, as well as to renew the old ones which were worn out. In

view of the importance of this to the service of God, a full report in

detail was imperatively required to be furnished within four months.

This may have excited the tribunals to spasmodic activity but, if so,

its influence was but temporary for, in 1691, we find the Suprema

ordering reports as to the length of time that had elapsed since

sanbenitos had ceased to be hung in the churches; lists of deficiencies

were called for; the old sanbenitos were to be examined and statements

were to be rendered as to what were lacking and what had become

illegible, so that the Suprema might take requisite action.[486]

This looks as if the custom had been falling into desuetude, but it was

by no means abandoned and, as late as August 26, 1753, when a deceased

delinquent named Horstmann was burnt in effigy at Valencia, two

sanbenitos were ordered to be suspended, one in the cathedral and one in

the parish church of San Lorenzo.[487] Still the same tribunal

furnishes, in 1783, a refreshing evidence of the decline of intolerant

zeal in the gradual diffusion of enlightenment. The cathedral had been

undergoing restoration, during which the sanbenitos had been carefully

stored in a room of the Inquisition. On the completion of the work, the

tribunal suggested to Inquisitor-general Beltran that it would not

redound to the service of God or of the public to hang them up again, to

which Beltran assented; if the chapter did not ask for them, the

tribunal was not to raise the question, or to do any thing in the matter

and, from an endorsement on the letter, it is to be inferred that the

sanbenitos were allowed to repose undisturbed.[488]

It is not to be supposed that, when the Córtes of Cadiz, February 22,

1813, abolished the Inquisition, it was satisfied to permit the

continued existence of the sanbenitos which perpetuated so many dreadful

memories. A decree of the same day recited that Article 305 of the

Constitution provided that no punishment should extend beyond the

criminal to his family; that the means by which, in public places, the

memory of penalties inflicted by the Inquisition was preserved, brought

infamy on families, and even exposed to evil repute persons of the same

name. Therefore all portraits, pictures, or inscriptions, recording the

punishments imposed by the Inquisition, existing in churches, cloisters,

convents and other places, were to be removed or blotted out within

three days after receipt of the decree.[489]

The condition of Spain was not such as to insure any wide obedience of

this decree, although it is scarce likely that the French armies had

left many sanbenitos hanging in towns occupied by them during the war.

What occurred elsewhere may probably be guessed by the example of

Majorca, when the Constitution of Cadiz was enthusiastically received

and the sanbenitos were removed from the church of San Domingo, but they

were providently stored away and were again hung up after the

Restoration in 1814. In the Revolution of 1820, however, they were torn

down and burnt and the Inquisition was levelled to the ground.[490]

The custom of suspending in the churches the _habitelli_ or sanbenitos

of the reconciled and relaxed seems to have been borrowed by Italy from

Spain, at least in some places. It is to the credit of the Roman

Inquisition that it disapproved this barbarous practice, as appears from

a decree of 1627 ordering them to be removed from the cathedral of

Faenza and to be secretly burnt.[491]

DISABILITIES.

Disabilities have already been considered in their relation to the

finances of the Inquisition, arising from the sale of dispensations, but

they formed too important a portion of the penal system not to require

further treatment in this connection. They differed however from other

punishments in that, although specified in the sentences, they were the

inseparable consequences of condemnation for heresy and thus, in some

sense, self-operative, for the severity of the laws for the suppression

of misbelief was not content with confiscating the property of those

whose lives were spared. The reconciled heretic was not only turned

adrift penniless, but was subjected to restrictions incapacitating him

from earning a livelihood. As this refinement of cruelty could not be

applied to those who were burnt, it was visited on their descendants.

[Sidenote: _DISABILITIES_]

This latter provision was derived from the imperial legislation against

treason, which disabled children of traitors from holding office and

succeeding to collateral estates.[492] Frederic II, in his Ravenna

decree of 1232, made this applicable to the children and grandchildren

of heretics, which was eagerly incorporated into the legislation of

Alexander IV and Honorius IV, although Boniface VIII mitigated it

slightly by exempting grandchildren in the female line.[493] As part of

the canon law this of course governed the Spanish Inquisition and, if

there were those who questioned the justice of punishing orthodox

children for their parents' heresy, they were triumphantly silenced by

Alfonso de Castro, who pointed to Original Sin as an irrefragable proof

that this was in accordance with the law of God.[494]

The application of these restrictions to reconciled penitents apparently

originated with the Council of Béziers, in 1246, which ordered that

penitents should not hold public office, or serve as physicians or

notaries, or wear silk garments or gold and silver ornaments or other

vanities--in short, that their apparel should befit those whose lives

constructively were to be passed in repentance.[495] These provisions

were not carried into the canon law but apparently became traditional in

the Holy Office.

In the Instructions of 1484 there is nothing said as to the disabilities

of descendants, but inquisitors were instructed to order penitents,

after completing their penance, never to hold public office or benefices

or to serve as procurators, tax-collectors, farmers of the revenue,

grocers, apothecaries, physicians, surgeons, bleeders or brokers, thus

prohibiting the professions which they had specially made their own.

Moreover, they were not to wear gold or silver, coral, pearls or other

precious stones or garments of silk or camlet or other finery or to ride

on horse-back or bear arms, and all this during life, under penalty of

relapse.[496]

There was evidently doubt as to the application of these restrictions to

the descendants of those relaxed, but that there was an effort made in

that direction is shown by their procuring, in 1486, from Innocent VIII,

a brief enabling them to farm the revenues of churches.[497] In the

assembly of inquisitors, in 1488, the matter excited considerable

debate, resulting in instructions that each tribunal in its own district

should enforce, under heavy penalties, the disability of children and

grandchildren to hold any office or dignity that could be considered

public, and the list of prohibited callings was enlarged by including

those of merchants, notaries, scriveners, advocates, farmers of revenues

and some others. The sumptuary restrictions were not extended to them,

for they were not penitents, but they were forbidden to wear the

insignia of any dignity, secular or ecclesiastic.[498] The omission was

made good in a decree issued by Torquemada, April 22, 1494, but it was

so slackly obeyed that when, in 1502, the sovereigns ordered its

enforcement, they allowed a certain time for those affected to become

acquainted with its provisions.[499] Ferdinand himself had had occasion

to recognize the hardship of the rule for, in 1500, the mother of Pero

Rúiz, a member of his royal guard, was condemned and consequently he was

incapacitated from riding and bearing arms. Unwilling to lose him,

Ferdinand wrote to Torquemada for letters of dispensation to be brought

back by the messenger.[500]

We have seen how, in the struggle over the profits of dispensation, the

sovereigns abandoned to the Inquisition the _cosas arbitrarias_, or

sumptuary restrictions, and assumed to themselves, by the pragmáticas of

1501, control over the disability to hold office and to follow certain

professions and trades, which limited so greatly the ability of the

reconciled and of the children and grandchildren of the condemned to

support themselves.[501] A humane exception was made however, in 1502,

under which children reconciled below the age of 14 were exempted from

the operation of the pragmáticas.[502] As these were municipal laws they

were subject to the secular officials, who were ordered to enforce them

under pain of confiscation and loss of office for negligence.

[Sidenote: _DISABILITIES_]

It was easier to publish edicts than to get them executed. The civil

magistrates seem to have paid little attention to the pragmáticas, while

the Inquisition did what it could within its allotted sphere. The

Suprema issued orders to the tribunals to punish with all rigor those

who disregarded the sumptuary restrictions, who were said to be

numerous, in great contempt of the Holy Office. It was probably to

stimulate zeal that, in 1509, it modified the penalty of relapse to a

pecuniary penance, which it authorized the inquisitors to impose at

discretion, bearing in mind the gravity of the case and the wealth of

the offender.[503] The sums thus realized were considerable enough to

tempt the cupidity of the courtiers for, May 9, 1514, we find the king

making over to four of his ushers the penalties levied on the sons of

Alonso Gallo of Toledo, and on April 1st he ordered Vázquez de Busto,

alguazil of Toledo, to collect all the penances of this kind, to pay

one-half to the receiver for the tribunal, and divide the other half

between the fiscal, Martin Ximenes, and a servant of secretary

Calcena.[504] The punishments decreed in the pragmáticas were also

modified to fines, as we learn from a letter of June 20, 1515, dividing

those incurred in Seville between Calcena and Aguirre, after setting

aside one-third for the tribunal, and from another letter of January 8,

1516, bestowing on Fernando de Hoyos, portero of the Cuenca tribunal,

the penalties incurred by the wives of Pedro de Vaguera and of Quiros

and Jayme Boticario, for exercising the profession of apothecary.[505]

At length it was recognized that the Inquisition was the only

instrumentality to be depended upon for the enforcement of the

pragmáticas and Charles V, in a cédula of March 30, 1528, placed the

whole business in its hands. He recited the laws of Ferdinand and

Isabella, with their severe penalties for negligent officials, in spite

of which he was informed that, in many places, they were disregarded,

wherefore he granted to the Inquisition all necessary powers and ordered

it to see to the execution of the law. Possibly there may have been some

opposition by the secular authorities to this invasion of their

jurisdiction, which called for a repetition of the cédula, March 2,

1543. In pursuance of this the Suprema, in cartas acordadas of 1548,

1549 and 1566, called the attention of the tribunals to the number of

persons engaged in prohibited callings or wearing forbidden articles,

and it urged them to be active in detecting and punishing the

offenders.[506]

The construction of the laws was rigorous. There was a nice question

whether, when a parent was condemned _in absentia_ as contumacious, the

children were subject to the disabilities, for the heresy was

presumptive and not proven. Farinacci held that they were not, for the

absentee, even though burnt in effigy, could always return and prove his

innocence. Peña represents the stricter Spanish view, that the fugitive

was condemned as a heretic and his children were incapacitated. The

matter was threshed out in the case of the son of Antonio Pérez, who was

deprived of a pension on the church of Cuenca. This was the final

decision of the Rota after full argument; it served as a precedent, and

the sentence of the absent contained the same enumeration of

disabilities as that of one who was burnt in person.[507] Some doubts

arose as to whether the pragmáticas prohibited trade in general; all

such points were reserved to the king and when, in 1566, it was proposed

to prosecute some merchants, the Suprema ordered the cases to be

suspended until he should be consulted. It was less cautious when, in

1542, it forbade all reconciled penitents to keep schools, or even to

teach children their letters. A question arose whether the prohibition

to ride on horseback comprehended mules, but Simancas decides it in the

affirmative, and even desires to include vehicles, as it is fitting that

all such persons should walk on foot.[508] Even the limits of the canon

law were disregarded in the panic occasioned by the discovery of

Protestantism in 1559, for in the Seville auto of September 24th, when

Juan Ponce de Leon was burnt, the disabilities of his descendants in the

male line were extended to the fourth generation.[509]

An ecclesiastical career was closed to penitents and their descendants,

who were forbidden to enter holy orders. There was some question raised

whether those who were in orders could obtain or retain benefices, but

it was decided in the negative. The practice, as stated about 1640, was

that on their visitation the inquisitors dealt summarily with cases

concerning the _cosas arbitrarias_ while those which involved the

holding of benefices or public office were sent to the tribunal for

trial.[510] In the Edicts of Faith which they published, denunciations

were invited, and all persons were required to give information as to

any infractions of the laws of which they were cognizant.[511]

[Sidenote: _DISABILITIES_]

As everyone who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the

Inquisition was a marked man thereafter, and was liable to the suspicion

that he had incurred disabilities--a suspicion apt to grow stronger with

time and to affect his descendants--it became important for those who

were not thus affected to have some evidence of the fact. In the earlier

time the Inquisition was chary about affording this relief, but did not

absolutely refuse it when the sufferer applied to the Suprema. It was

not everyone however who could obtain the intervention of the Suprema;

popular prejudice was strong, and no one knew what took place within the

precincts of the tribunals. Blighted careers were thus numerous.

Escobar, in his work on Limpieza, tells us that, at the origin of the

Inquisition it punished the lightest offences with extreme severity and

this, after the lapse of a century and a half, was still disastrously

affecting the descendants; it was inhuman that a word inadvertently

spoken through levity, or anger, or in jest should bring infamy on the

delinquent and his posterity without limitation of time.[512] The

memorial of 1623, by a member of the Suprema, discusses the same evil.

The writer says that the Inquisition is surrounded by enemies who are

daily multiplied through those afflicted by the tribunals. It is not

merely those who are relaxed or reconciled or compelled to abjure _de

vehementi_, but there are many well-affected Old Christians, punished

with lighter penalties who, if they remain defamed and their posterity

disabled from honors, must necessarily add to the number of enemies and

it is pitiable thus to afflict them for trivial causes.[513]

The tribunals did not cease to afflict the people, but some relief was

afforded by a practice, which gradually came into use, of including, in

a sentence for light offences or of acquittal, a clause declaring that

the party and his descendants were not subject to disabilities and that

he could have a certificate to that effect. Two examples of this,

occurring in Valladolid in 1638 will suffice. In the case of Agustin

López, tried for blasphemy, the consulta de fe could not agree and the

Suprema sentenced him to reprimand and exile, adding that the sentence

should be no bar to offices of honor or in the Inquisition. So a

sentence, acquitting Miguel Rúiz of a charge of sorcery, says that his

imprisonment shall not be an obstacle to him and his children, and that

he shall have a certificate to that effect. That Rúiz had not even been

confined in the secret prison but in the public gaol shows how sensitive

was the popular mind.[514] These certificates _de no obstancia_, as they

were called, would appear, as a rule, not to be issued unless specially

applied for, and yet how important they were to the individual and his

posterity is manifested by a petition presented, January 17, 1818, by

the Licenciate Mariano de Santander y Alvárez setting forth that, twenty

years before, in 1798, his father had been arrested and prosecuted by

the Valladolid tribunal because, in his trade as a bookseller, he had

sold prohibited books. In the final sentence it was declared that his

imprisonment and prosecution did not prejudice him or his descendants in

the enjoyment of their civil rights, but the secrecy of the Inquisition,

and the loss of the certificate given to the father, prevented the

petitioner from furnishing the proofs necessary to his admission as an

advocate in the royal chancellery, wherefore he begged for a proper

testimonial. The Suprema had the statement verified and ordered a

certificate to be duly issued.[515]

From this, as well as from the memorial of 1623, it appears that not

merely reconciliation but even abjuration or lesser penalties inflicted

disabilities, if not as to the _cosas arbitrarias_ at least as to the

attainment of an honorable career. In the closing years of the

Inquisition this sometimes led to a merciful moderation of the sentence,

as in that pronounced, August 27, 1817, on Francisco Mosquera

Villamarino, of Santiago, "Bachiller clasico y Profesor del 6º Cuerpo de

Canones en su Real Universidad," for certain propositions. He escaped

with a reprimand in the audience-chamber and without abjuration, it

being expressly stated that he was treated with this benignity in order

not to prejudice him in his career, though he was warned that the

Inquisition would keep a watch on him.[516]

[Sidenote: _DISABILITIES_]

Popular prejudice, as we have seen, intensified the cruelty of the cruel

laws. How inveterate was this is manifested in the case of Josef Calot

who, in 1791, sought in marriage the daughter of Pablo Bordo, a merchant

of Valencia. The parents refused assent and the lovers eloped. Bordo

brought the matter before the royal Audiencia, showing that Calot was

the great-grandson of Clara Muñoz who, at the age of 19, was reconciled

for Judaism in the Barcelona auto de fe of April 2, 1724, and was

sentenced to irremissible "carcel y abito," though after two years her

husband, Antonio Antonelli, obtained her release. In view of this

descent the Audiencia decided that Bordo's opposition to the marriage

was reasonable and just, thus inflicting an indelible stigma on Calot

and his posterity. In some way the affair reached the Suprema, which

wrote to Valencia for details and, in transmitting them, the inquisitors

added an expression of sympathy for Calot in the dishonor cast upon him;

the punishment of his great-grandmother did not disable him from the

professions, but it would be difficult to restore him to his good fame

without calling in question the justice of the sentence of the

Audiencia.[517] Even the Inquisition did not venture to repair an

injustice caused by its assiduous training of the population in an

unreasoning abhorrence of heresy.

* * * * *

The penalty for disregarding the disabilities settled down to the

thrifty one of a fine. As regards those imposed by the pragmáticas, the

Suprema, in 1531, replied to an inquiry from the tribunal of Avila and

Segovia that, although the laws prescribed confiscation for infractions,

yet the practice was to penance culprits in accordance with their wealth

and station and the degree of the offence. So, in respect to the _cosas

arbitrarias_, it decreed in 1536, that although the Instructions of 1484

provided the pain of relapse, they did not require the inquisitors to

condemn the infraction as such, and the practice was to impose pecuniary

and spiritual penances.[518] Cases of prosecution for infraction are not

very numerous in the records, chiefly owing, we may presume, to the

customary sale of rehabilitations; in the tribunal of Toledo they amount

only to ninety-one and of these it is noteworthy that there are only

three posterior to 1586--two in 1600 and one in 1616.[519] When they

occurred, the penalty was at the discretion of the tribunal, and Toledo

exercised this with great moderation, in 1579, when Bernardino de

Aldana, a ribbon-weaver, spontaneously denounced himself. His mother,

Isabel Alvárez, had been burnt by the Cuenca tribunal, yet he had worn a

velvet cap, had carried a sword and had ridden on a mule with a saddle;

he was married and had done this to satisfy his wife and her kindred,

and besides his brother had told him that they had been rehabilitated.

His artless story seems to have moved his judges, for he escaped with a

reprimand and a fine of two ducats.[520] In 1703 the tribunal of Madrid

was more severe with Simon de Andrade, a reconciled penitent, who had

worn the prohibited articles. He was harshly reprimanded, was fined in

fifty ducats, was banished for a year and was required to surrender the

_cosas arbitrarias_, but we are told that he was permitted to keep the

garments which he had on to cover his nakedness, especially as they were

of ordinary cloth.[521]

CLERICAL OFFENDERS.

In a land where theocratic influence was so strong, it was inevitable

that there should be especial favor shown to erring ecclesiastics. The

Church has ever sought to conceal from the public the knowledge of

weaknesses that might diminish veneration for its ministers, and scandal

has been more dreaded than sin. The Inquisition established its

jurisdiction over both the secular and the regular clergy, but it

exercised that jurisdiction in accordance with the general policy of the

Church. Every care was taken to keep clerical offences from public

knowledge, except in cases of formal heresy or of administering the

sacraments by those who held only the lower orders. As a rule, in place

of being confined in the secret prison during trial, they were housed in

some convenient convent, where their presence need excite no surprise.

When convicted, they were not exposed in the public autos de fe, but

their sentences were read in the audience-chamber with closed doors,

though in certain cases a prescribed number of other clerics were

summoned to be present as witnesses; even then they did not wear the

penitential habit as did laymen.[522]

[Sidenote: _CLERICAL OFFENDERS_]

For aggravated offences, the ordinary punishment was reclusion in a

designated convent for a specified term, a penalty which might be

infinitely varied. Perhaps six months or a year was to be passed in a

cell; the culprit was to be last in choir and refectory; he might be

suspended for a term or perpetually from some or all of his functions

and of the right to vote or to be voted for; spiritual penances might be

superadded or, at his entrance, he might be subjected to a _zurra de

rueda_, or circular discipline, in which all the members of the house,

including the lay-brethren, took a hand. All these greater or less

aggravations could be varied or accumulated to meet the exact shades of

guilt. This conventual reclusion was adopted, perhaps, partly for

concealment and partly as a milder form of incarceration, but the mercy

was doubtful if we may trust the story told by Llorente of a Capuchin

guilty of aggravated abuse of the confessional who, when condemned to

five years' reclusion in a convent of his Order, begged to have it

changed to incarceration in the secret prison; he had been, he said,

provincial and guardian, he knew how the brethren treated those thrust

upon them as criminals, and it would cost him his life. His prayer was

refused and his prevision was correct, for he died within three

years.[523] I have met, however, with cases in which the recluded fraile

survived longer terms; as a rule, no doubt, life was not rendered

pleasant, but it depended on circumstances. The Franciscan, Francisco

Ortiz, sentenced to confinement for two years in a cell in the convent

of Torrelaguna, without intercourse with his brethren, refused to leave

his retirement on the expiration of the term and remained there till his

death, twelve years later, the object of veneration to all around

him.[524] There might or might not be sympathy for the penitent and his

treatment naturally corresponded.

When, however, the offence was formal heresy, entailing reconciliation

or relaxation, the cleric was obliged to appear in an auto de fe, like

any other culprit. Cases of the kind were common enough in the early

period, when many Conversos had entered the Church but, after the

thorough weeding out by the Inquisition, they became rare. An essential

preliminary was degradation from the priesthood, which was of two kinds,

verbal and formal--the former sufficing for cases of reconciliation,

while relaxation required the latter. Verbal degradation effaced the

orders, but not the priestly _character_ and, in the later period,

publicity was often avoided by executing the sentence in the

audience-chamber, as in the Toledo cases of Jacinto Vásquez Aranso, a

priest convicted of Judaism and condemned to the galleys, December 4,

1688, and of Buenaventura Frutos, cura of Mocejon, sentenced February

19, 1722.[525] Originally the ministration of a single bishop sufficed

for verbal degradation, while two were required for formal, until

Gregory IX, to facilitate the operations of the Inquisition, decreed

that, in cases of heresy, the bishop of the culprit could perform the

ceremony, in the presence of some abbots and other learned men, and

finally, in 1551, the Council of Trent permitted a single bishop to

officiate in all cases of formal degradation, and his vicar-general in

verbal degradation.[526]

The ceremony of public formal degradation was impressive. The culprit

marched in the procession bearing the mitre and sanbenito of relaxation,

which were removed on the staging in order that he might be seen in his

priestly vestments and tonsure. In the case of Fray Joseph Díaz

Pimiento, a relapsed Judaizer, burnt at the Seville auto de fe of July

25, 1720, we are told that an immense crowd was assembled, for no

degradation had been witnessed there since 1623. The auto was celebrated

in the church of San Pablo but, as soon as Fray Joseph's sentence was

read, he was taken by a number of officials to a scaffold in the Plaza

de San Francisco, where the Bishop of Lycopolis, the assistant of the

archbishop, performed the ceremony. His tongue, the palms of his hands

and finger tips were scraped and rubbed with tow, the tonsure was erased

by cutting his hair and he was deprived of his orders one by one in the

reverse order of their bestowal. He was then handed over to his

superiors of the Mercenarian Order, who stripped him of the habit, after

which the mitre and sanbenito with painted flames were replaced on him

and he was taken to the _juzgado_, or secular court, and delivered to

the deputy Assistente of the city to be formally sentenced and conducted

to the _brasero_.[527]

CHAPTER IV.

THE STAKE.

The condemnation of a human being to a death by fire, as the penalty of

spiritual error, is so abhorrent to the moral sense and so oppugnant to

the teachings of Christ, that modern apologists have naturally sought to

relieve the Church from responsibility for such atrocity. On the surface

a tolerably plausible argument can be made. The ministers of religion,

the spiritual courts, the Inquisition itself rendered no judgements of

blood. Any ecclesiastic who might be concerned in them incurred

"irregularity" requiring a dispensation before he could validly perform

his functions or obtain preferment. The execution of heretics was a

matter purely of secular law and burning them alive is not prescribed in

canon or decretal. The earliest recorded example of concremation is that

administered by Robert the Pious of France to the Cathari of Orleans in

1017, and its embodiment in positive law has not been found earlier than

in the decrees against Waldenses by Pedro II of Aragon in the Council of

Gerona in 1197. In 1231 Frederic II included it in the Sicilian

Constitutions and, in 1238, by his Cremona decree, extended it

throughout the empire, while Alfonso the Wise of Castile, in 1255,

adopted it for Christians who turned Jews or Moors.[528] It thus became

part of the public law of Christendom, not so much from the initiative

of rulers, as from a recognition of what had become a custom through the

spontaneous ferocity of popular fanaticism.

The Inquisition, through whose agency heretics were consigned to the

stake, did not itself condemn them to it, but merely pronounced them to

be heretics of whose conversion no hope was entertained; it cut them off

from the Church, which had nothing further to do with them, and

abandoned or "relaxed" them to the secular arm for due punishment. It

assumed that it condemned the crime and the civil judge the criminal

and, in relaxing him, it adjured the judge to spare his life and not to

spill his blood. This latter was a device invented by Innocent III,

before the Inquisition existed, to preserve from irregularity the

spiritual courts in degrading clerics guilty of forgery and handing them

over to the secular authorities for execution.[529]

[Sidenote: _RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CHURCH_]

This shifting of responsibility to the civil power was not through any

sense that the laws punishing heresy with burning were cruel or unjust,

for the Church taught this to be an act so eminently pious that it

accorded an indulgence to any one who would contribute wood to the pile,

thus assuming the responsibility and expending the Treasure of the

Merits of Christ in stimulating popular ferocity. That this indulgence

was well known in Spain appears in the evidence in the trial of Jan of

Antwerp for Lutheranism at Toledo in 1561.[530] In fact, when Luther

argued that the burning of heretics was contrary to the will of the

Spirit, Leo X included this among his heresies condemned in the bull

_Exsurge Domine_.[531] Consequently the secular power had no choice as

to what it should do with heretics delivered to it; its act was purely

ministerial, and if it listened to the hypocritical plea for mercy, it

was liable to prosecution as a fautor of heresy and to deprivation of

its functions.[532] The Church enforced this by embodying in the canon

law a provision that princes and their officials must punish duly and

promptly all heretics delivered to them by inquisitors, under pain of

excommunication, which became heresy if endured for a year; and

inquisitors were required to proceed against them, but were cautioned to

speak only of executing the laws, without alluding to the death-penalty,

in order to escape irregularity.[533]

As elsewhere, so in Spain. The Inquisition abandoned the unrepentant or

relapsed heretic to the secular arm, which was bound to sentence and

execute him. In the hurried informality of the early period, it seems to

have been indifferent whether the magistrate pronounced a sentence or

not. A contemporary account of the Toledo auto of August 14, 1486,

describes the reading of the sentences of the inquisitors and the

condemned being carried at once to the Vega for execution, where they

were burnt till not a bone remained, without any allusion to the

formality of intervention by the secular power.[534] When, however, the

form of a condemnation by the alcalde was observed, as at Córdova in

1484, he uttered it by virtue of the sentence of the inquisitors, which

rendered unnecessary anything more than condemning the culprit to be

burnt alive, wherefore he ordered the alguazil mayor to carry it into

effect.[535] In the inquisitorial sentences of the period the adjuration

for mercy is generally lacking. In that of Mencia Alonso, condemned at

Guadalupe, November 21, 1485, not only is it absent but the duties of

the secular officials are treated as purely ministerial, for it ends "As

a limb of the devil and accursed and excommunicate, she shall be taken

to the place of burning so that by the secular justice of this town, or

by other laymen, justice shall be executed upon her according to the

custom of these kingdoms."[536]

That the function of the magistrate was not judicial is manifested in

the refusal to communicate the trial to him. When those of Brescia, in

1486, refused to execute the sentences of the inquisitor without seeing

the trials, Innocent VIII ordered the inquisitor to excommunicate them

if they delayed more than six days, no matter what the local laws might

be, for heresy was a purely ecclesiastical crime.[537] In accordance

with this is the assertion of the _Repertorium de Pravitate

Hæreticorum_, printed at Valencia in 1494, that the magistrate has no

right to have the process shown to him that he may judge as to the

justice of the sentence; inquisitors are not to concede any such right,

for his sole duty is to execute it without delay, and if he hesitates he

is subject to deprivation of office and condemnation as a heretic.[538]

This principle was fully admitted by secular jurists themselves.

Torreblanca, who was attached to the royal Chancellery of Granada,

states that the duty of the civil magistrate is purely executive and he

has no right to examine into the merits of a case or to act in a

judicial capacity.[539]

[Sidenote: _RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CHURCH_]

In fact, the secular power could be dispensed with altogether. The

Venetian Signory was not always as prompt as it should be in suppressing

heresy so, to avoid delays and embarrassing questions, the papal nuncio

there, with his fiscal, auditor and other officials, had faculties to

condemn to mutilation and death all heretics without incurring

irregularity or other ecclesiastical penalties, notwithstanding all

canons and decretals to the contrary. Such provisions were issued in

1547 by Paul III and in 1550 by Julius III and were doubtless

customary.[540] Peña reduces this to a general principle for, without

referring to special papal faculties, he asserts that the intervention

of the secular judge is unessential and that, if he is not accessible,

the tribunal can condemn the heretic to death; if accessible he must

execute the sentence if he wishes to escape the heavy penalties of

fautorship and impeding the Inquisition.[541]

There was little danger of such reluctance on the part of secular

officials in Spain, where the oath exacted of them by the Inquisition

obliged them to execute whatever sentences the tribunal might

require.[542] In fact, the only indication I have met with, of possible

hesitation involving punishment, occurs in a mandate, September 5, 1725,

to the Toledo tribunal, directing that, in autos de fe, the first

sentences read should be those of relaxation--thus reversing the usual

order--so that the convicts might be delivered at once to the royal

judge, without permitting delay in the execution of the sentences, under

any pretext, since the tribunal had complete jurisdiction to compel him,

by censures and other penalties, to its exact performance.[543]

The Inquisition regarded the sentence of the magistrate as a mere

perfunctory formality. The doctors had pointed out conclusively that

heresy was a crime over which he had no jurisdiction, and if he were to

assert it he would render illusory the sentence of the bishop or

inquisitor.[544] Consequently, in preparation for an auto de fe, the

tribunal, in advance, gave to the secular authorities a list of the

condemnations so that the sentences might be drawn up and the wood, the

stake and the garrotes be prepared for immediate execution.[545] It is

true that thrift induced a certain amount of equivocation when, in 1579,

the royal alguaziles of Saragossa claimed payment from the confiscations

for their services and for the cost of the wood, and Philip II

emphatically rejected the demand as unexampled, adding that the

inquisitors could not order such payment without irregularity, and that

the executions were in virtue of the sentences of the secular judges and

not of the inquisitors.[546] This, however, was the merest quibble. In

_autos generales_, the magistrates were asked to be present to receive

the convicts and "execute on them the penalties imposed by the canon law

of the kingdom." In _autos particulares_, held in churches which must

not be polluted by judgements of blood, the Suprema pointed out, in a

consulta of April 7, 1690, that the secular judges could wait at a

designated place, when it sufficed that a notary informed them in

writing that "N. has been declared a heretic by sentence of the Holy

Office," simultaneously delivering the convict, when they must accept

this assertion, and without delay execute the sentence, unless they wish

the Holy Office to prosecute them as fautors of heretics and impeders of

its free jurisdiction. At the same time the judges are to continue as

usual to pronounce the formal sentence.[547]

Still, the _estilo_ of the Inquisition required the ghastly comedy of

asking mercy. In the official formula of the sentence the clause

announcing relaxation to the civil magistrate proceeds "whom we ask and

charge most affectionately to treat him benignantly and mercifully." In

sentences of the absent and dead, where the effigy alone was abandoned

to the secular arm, there is no prayer for mercy, as there was no

effusion of blood to create irregularity.[548] In the rigid formalism of

inquisitorial procedure, after the Suprema had established its minute

control, it is safe to assume that this official formula was universally

followed.

[Sidenote: _RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CHURCH_]

All this affords ample proof that the avoidance of irregularity was the

only motive that actuated the Inquisition in this matter, but if further

evidence is required it is furnished by the fact that still greater

scruple existed in the exercise of the temporal jurisdiction acquired by

the Spanish Holy Office over all matters concerning its officials,

because such cases were not provided for in the commissions of the

inquisitors-general, from which were delegated the powers of the

tribunals. In 1514 the question arose when Micer Castillo, assessor in

the Saragossa tribunal, was murdered, and two of his assassins, Joan

Uguet and Pere Gasco, were tried and convicted. The inquisitors dared

not deliver them to the secular arm for execution, and various devices

were discussed, but the matter was settled by procuring from Leo X his

motu proprio _Cum sicut accepimus_, January 28, 1515, in which he

granted faculties to the inquisitors to arrest, try and deliver for

punishment to the secular authorities, any one who had struck, mutilated

or slain an official of the Inquisition, even if it entailed effusion of

blood or mutilation or death, without incurring any note of

irregularity.[549] Under this the tribunals acted when such cases arose,

notably in Granada, about 1545, when seven persons were thus

relaxed--six Moriscos and an Old Christian--who, while in prison, killed

the alcaide and his assistant and who were hanged before burning.[550]

In time the cardinals of the Roman Inquisition were beset with similar

scruples and, to relieve their consciences, Pius V, October 9, 1567,

granted a decree empowering them to participate in sentences of blood

without incurring irregularity.[551] This applied only to Italy, but it

was otherwise with the terrible bull _Si de protegendis_, April 1, 1569,

commanding the delivery to the secular arm, for the punishment due to

high treason, of any one maltreating or even threatening an official of

the Inquisition or destroying or altering its records. This was ordered

to be published throughout the world; the Spanish Inquisition claimed

the benefit of it, and had a Castilian version of it published every

year. It made no illusion to irregularity, tacitly assuming that none

was incurred and it was often cited in Spain to that effect.[552] Still,

when in 1579, the Toledo tribunal desired the death-penalty for

Francisco de la Bastida, for personating an official of the Inquisition,

and there was no secular law to that effect, a special brief was

obtained from Gregory XIII empowering it to find him guilty of death and

deliver him to the secular arm for execution without incurring

irregularity.[553]

There seems to have arisen a fresh sense of insecurity about 1605. The

brief of Leo X was well-nigh forgotten; some tribunals had copies of it,

but most of them had not, and the bull _Si de protegendis_ did not

specifically meet cases that arose. Application was therefore made to

Paul V to extend to Spain the 1567 decree of Pius V, which he granted

by a brief of November 29, 1605, repeated in 1607. In this he bestowed

the fullest powers, not only on inquisitors but on all their officials,

in all cases whether of faith or not, coming within their competence, to

participate in sentences of torture, mutilation, or death without

incurring irregularity.[554] This would appear ample enough to remove

all possible scruples and yet subsequently contingencies occasionally

arose which excited debate, or called for papal intervention to quiet

sensitive consciences.[555]

* * * * *

In the work of exterminating heresy, the rules which governed the

Spanish Inquisition were more merciless than those framed by its

predecessor. At first, in the medieval tribunals, it was only the

pertinacious and impenitent heretic who was consigned to the stake; he

who recanted and professed conversion, even at the last moment, was

admitted to reconciliation. Then gradually, as it was found that these

enforced conversions were frequently insincere, relapse was regarded as

proof of impenitence and pertinacity and was subjected irremissibly to

the death-penalty, and this included those who had abjured for vehement

suspicion. The treatment is exemplified in the case of Fray Bonato, the

head of a little body of Spiritual Franciscans in Catalonia. He was

pertinacious until the flames had roasted him one side, when his

resolution gave way; he professed conversion and was rescued, but some

years later he was found to be still cherishing his heresies and, in

1335, he was burnt alive.[556]

[Sidenote: _RECANTATION_]

The number of burnings in the Spanish Inquisition, during its first half

century, could never have occurred under the old rules. Indeed, in the

first rush and fury, the case of Juan Chinchilla in 1483 (Vol. II, p.

468) indicates that even frank confession failed to save from the stake

those who had sought reconciliation in a Term of Grace, but had been

prevented by causes beyond their control. Even when rules began to be

framed, the Instructions of 1484 placed the lives of those on trial at

the discretion of the tribunal, for they required that repentance and

asking for reconciliation must be expressed prior to rendering the final

sentence, to entitle the culprit to mercy; while even then, if the

inquisitors considered that the repentance was feigned, and they had not

fair hope of genuine conversion, they were empowered to declare him an

impenitent and relax him to the secular arm--all of which was left to

their consciences.[557]

The rule thus expressed presents two points, the development of which

requires separate consideration. As regards the time of confessing and

begging mercy, which the Instructions limit to the period prior to the

rendering of the sentence, this was extended to the time of reading of

the sentence at the auto de fe. Yet this was grudgingly admitted by the

Instructions of 1561, which say that often when convicts on the staging

profess conversion the inquisitors receive them to reconciliation, but

this ought rarely to be done, for it is a very perilous thing which

should be suspected to come from dread of death rather than from true

repentance.[558] Yet, in spite of this warning, it was customary to

suspend proceedings with those who, at the auto de fe, before the

reading of their sentences, claimed to be penitent. They were remanded

to the Inquisition and, if they confessed fully as to themselves and

others, they were reconciled with appropriate punishment. Such cases

were of constant occurrence; in the Córdova auto of April 12, 1722,

there were four. Even while the sentence was being read, the doubt was

thrown in favor of the culprit, as in the Murcia auto of May 17, 1722,

when Inez Alvárez Pereira, convicted as an impenitent Judaizer, begged

mercy during the reading of her sentence, professed that she wished to

confess and be converted, and was sent back to prison, where she was

reconciled.[559] In fact, in public autos, where there were convicts to

be relaxed, there was always a room arranged under the staging to which

the repentant culprit was at once transferred and one of the inquisitors

descended to take his confession before he should have time to change

his good resolutions. In such cases reconciliation was accompanied with

confiscation, irremissible prison and sanbenito and usually one or two

hundred lashes for tardy confession.[560]

The Instructions of 1561 were justified in claiming that little reliance

was to be placed on conversions thus obtained. For the most part the

awful experience led penitents, who thus escaped, to cherish their

beliefs in secret, but occasionally there was one whose conscience could

not pardon the weakness that led to a betrayal of faith. Diego López

Duro, an humble retailer of tobacco, condemned for Judaism, recanted

while on the staging and was reconciled with imprisonment. In 1700, one

day, when hearing mass, he stood apart from his fellow-prisoners and, in

a loud voice, told the priest that he lied for the Law of Moses was the

only true one. He would have been slain on the spot had he not been

hurried out to save him from popular wrath, but for him there could be

no mercy. The inquisitors labored long to save his soul by inducing him

to recant without success; he was pertinacious to the last and was burnt

alive in the Seville auto of October 28, 1703--one of those martyrs

whose constancy explains why Judaism has been indestructible.[561]

[Sidenote: _GARROTTING BEFORE BURNING_]

After the reading of the sentence was concluded, recantation did not

avert the death-penalty, as in the elder Inquisition, but it was

modified to garrotting or strangling before burning, for it was received

as a principle that a Christian was not to be burnt alive. This was

recognized at least as early as 1484, when in a Saragossa auto a culprit

is recorded as strangled before burning "porque murio reducido."[562] In

addition to this, the traditions of the Old Inquisition introduced at

first a certain irregularity in practice, and it did not follow that

delivery to the secular arm inevitably inferred execution. In a list of

_quemados y relaxados_ at Ciudad Real, there are several cases, up to

1523, of those who were "relaxed" and yet had penances of various kinds,

showing that they had recanted after delivery to the magistrate and yet

were spared the death-penalty.[563] In fact, it continued for some time

to be a matter of debate, in which opinions were divided, whether a man

who had been returned by the secular judge to the inquisitors, because

he recanted and promised full confession, could be again relaxed for

execution. The older doctors inclined to the merciful view and Simancas

tells us of such a case in Cuenca, which was referred to the Suprema,

when many experts held that the culprit could not be again relaxed, for

he had made a true confession, and the secular arm had renounced its

rights. Even as late as 1640 an inquisitor says that the rigor of

executing a man who repents after delivery to the magistrate is not

customary in Spain.[564]

In this he would seem to be mistaken. I have never met with a case,

later than those alluded to, in which conversion professed after

sentence secured reconciliation. The tendency to rigor was too strong.

The Instructions of 1561 make no allusion to such a possibility, as they

grudgingly allow mercy for earlier confession. Peña forbids it; he

admits that it was the ancient custom, but such conversions are not to

be trusted and experience shows that such penitents are only rendered

worse.[565] It was the universal practice to garrote those who professed

repentance after sentence, and the dreadful alternative of death by

fire, when thus impending so imminently, wrought so many conversions on

the way to the _brasero_, even among those whose resolve had held out

thus far, that burning alive became comparatively infrequent. In the

first three autos held at Barcelona in 1488 and 1489, all the converts

professed a desire to die in the Christian faith and all were strangled

before burning.[566] At the great auto of May 21, 1559, at Valladolid

where Dr. Cazalla and other Protestants suffered, there were fourteen

relaxed in person, of whom only one, the Bachiller Herrezuelo, is

characterized as a pertinacious heretic and consequently burnt alive,

the rest being garrotted as repentant converts.[567] In 1571 there were

hanging, in the parish church of Logroño, 157 sanbenitos, of which 101

were of those reconciled and 56 of those relaxed. Of the latter nine

were in effigy and 47 in person, of whom only four are specified as

burnt alive.[568] The weakness of human nature afforded but rare

examples of those who could stand the final test of fiery martyrdom.

Notwithstanding the practice of executing all who delayed conversion

until after hearing their sentences, there still were those who argued

that they should be admitted to reconciliation, basing their contention

on the ancient rule and on the silence of the Instructions of 1561 on

this point. In 1674 the Suprema felt called upon to quiet the doubts of

the Granada tribunal, by insisting that this rigor had been the

invariable custom of the Holy Office. Still the question was debated

until a carta acordada of May 24, 1699, disposed of it authoritatively.

This declared that, in consequence of existing doubts, the Suprema had

examined the matter carefully, reaching the conclusion that technically

the delivery to the secular arm was coincident with the reading of the

sentence; the Inquisition thus remained without jurisdiction which had

passed to the royal justice for the execution of the sentence.

Therefore, if the convict was not converted before the reading of the

sentence, he was not to have mercy or to be admitted to reconciliation,

even if he begged for it, but the royal justice was to execute and

fulfil the sentence. If the conversion was real and not feigned--the

latter being presumable at such a time--any of the confessors who

assisted the culprit could reconcile him to the church and confess him

sacramentally.[569] Thus his body was irrevocably forfeited, although

his soul might be saved.

After so formal a definition, no arguments in favor of mercy could be

urged. In the sixty-four autos de fe, between 1721 and 1727, there was a

total of seventy-seven cases of relaxation in person. In the relations

it is not always stated distinctly whether the victim was burned alive

or garrotted but, from the details given, the estimate cannot be far

wrong that not over thirteen, or about one in six, endured the severer

punishment. In the Granada auto of January 21, 1722, there were eleven

relaxed, all of whom professed conversion after their sentences were

read, and all were garrotted before burning. So rigid was the

interpretation of the rule that it could not be dispensed with even to

gratify the intense longing for expiation which sometimes possessed the

eleventh hour convert. In the Córdova auto of April 12, 1722, Antonio

Gabriel de Torre Zavallos, relaxed for Judaism, was converted after the

reading of his sentence. At the brasero, with copious tears and signs of

repentance, he loudly proclaimed his Christian faith, praising the mercy

of God and of the Holy Office and demanding to be burnt alive, in order

to offer to God satisfaction for his sins, but this was refused; he was

duly garrotted and "he gave his soul to God to the great consolation and

edification of all the people."[570]

[Sidenote: _PERTINACITY_]

An unpleasant doubt obtrudes itself whether in all cases the preliminary

strangling really relieved the sufferer from death by fire. Spanish

executioners are said to possess such dexterity in manipulating the

garrote that they can prolong the death-agony for hours when they are

not bribed to give a speedy release. In the universal venality of the

period, it is possible that those, whose friends failed to earn the

good-will of the minister of justice, were by no means insensible when

the torch was applied to the faggots. There may have been more than mere

lack of skill in the incident at the Cuenca auto of June 29, 1654, which

gave Bartolomé López the opportunity of displaying his nerve. He had

delayed professing conversion until after the reading of his sentence

and was consequently relaxed for strangulation and burning. At the

brasero, seeing that the executioner, Pedro de Alcalá, bungled in

garrotting Violante Rodríguez and Ana de Guevara, he said to him "Pedro,

if you do not treat me better, you had better burn me alive."[571]

* * * * *

According to inquisitorial jurisprudence, there were several causes

which entailed relaxation. The first of these was pertinacity--the

obstinacy which led the heretic or apostate to avow and defend his

errors, and to resist the well-meant effort of his judges to save his

soul by inducing conversion. This heroic temper, which preferred

martyrdom to denying what it believed to be the truth, was not common,

but the annals of the Inquisition are illustrated by cases of unknown

and forgotten victims, whose persistence through torment and persuasion,

to the fiery death at the brasero, ennobles human nature, whether they

were Moslems or Jews, Protestants or Mystics. It was a blind perversity

that refused to see in this aught but hardness of heart, inspired by

Satan, and with empty rhetoric sought to draw a distinction between this

and true martyrdom. Thus Simancas tells us that we should not be

surprised to see heretics sometimes carried rejoicing to the stake. This

is not true alacrity but madness, not patience but fierceness, and there

is wide difference between barbarous fierceness and the modest constancy

of the true martyr. Then there are those who, by certain arts, so benumb

the body that it does not feel torments; there are also those who

deprive the mind of sense, so that they meet death without fear, but

that gentleness and placidity, that sublime humility and humble

sublimity, we see only in the martyrs of Christ.[572]

Yet, to do it justice, the Inquisition--at least after the first fury of

its career was spent--earnestly sought the salvation of its victims,

rather than to send them through temporal to eternal flame. We have seen

that, in the case of those sentenced to relaxation, it advanced the

notification of their fate, in order to enlarge the opportunity of the

ghostly counsellors, whom it deputed to labor with them. Even before

this extension, the Instructions of 1561 order inquisitors to do

everything in their power to induce conversion, so that, if nothing else

can be accomplished, the culprit may not die without the knowledge of

God.[573] During the fortnight previous to an auto de fe those sentenced

to relaxation were to be summoned to repeated audiences, when they were

to be earnestly entreated to confess and recant, with promises of mercy,

and learned theologians were required to be present to aid in the

exhortations.[574] Even prior to the consulta de fe, pious inquisitors

spared no effort to convince the erring of their errors. One relates

how, in 1630, he had to deal with two Protestants, an Englishman and a

Frenchman, who were pertinacious, saying that they had been brought up

in their pretended reformed religion and knew nothing of Catholicism.

Their simplicity went so far as to ask to be allowed to return to their

native lands, or that persons learned in both religions should dispute

before them, so that they might learn which was best for, as they were

illiterate, they could not themselves dispute. The inquisitor set

theologians to work upon them when, after considerable labor, they were

converted; devotional books were given to them, which they eagerly

devoured; the trial was delayed and, by the time the witnesses were

ratified, the heretics were good Catholics.[575]

[Sidenote: _PERTINACITY_]

When three days' notice of impending relaxation was given, the time was

utilized to the utmost. There was a pertinacious heretic to suffer in

the Seville auto of December 10, 1719--a Moorish slave, baptized under

the name of Francisco Andrés, who had renegaded and was persistent when

his sentence was made known to him. Then twelve calificadores--two each

from the Orders of Mercenarians, Minims, Franciscans, Dominicans,

Augustinians and Jesuits--with eight familiars were assigned to his

conversion. They were successful and he escaped with prison and

sanbenito for four years.[576] A remarkable case, at the Seville auto of

July 5, 1722, shows however that, after delivery to the secular arm, the

Inquisition considered that its functions were ended. There were four

pertinacious Jews, two men and two women. Nine calificadores and eleven

familiars labored with them in vain during the three days; they

persisted through the reading of the sentences and were delivered to the

secular magistrate. The two men and the elder of the women succumbed at

the last, professed conversion and were garrotted and burnt. The younger

woman, known as La Almiranta, at the brasero begged audience of the

deputy assistente, told him that she desired to confess and give

evidence as to other Jews and was remanded to the royal prison. Word was

sent to the tribunal, which replied that it had nothing further to do

with her. She was kept until the 7th and, when taken to the brasero was

more pertinacious, than ever, saying that, as her companions had died as

Catholics, they were accursed and that she had pretended to yield in

order that her ashes, which were holy, should not be mingled with

theirs. Of course she had the martyrdom which she craved.[577]

In exceptional cases pertinacity seems to have been allowed the

privilege of preliminary strangulation. At a Valladolid auto of May 29,

1691, there were five pertinacious women condemned for Judaism,

described as being from 24 to 27 years of age and very handsome, who

excited general compassion. On being delivered to the magistrate two of

them weakened, while three persisted in their faith, yet they were all

garrotted before burning.[578]

A large portion of the cases of pertinacity arose from the death in

prison, during trial, of those who did not ask on the death-bed for the

consolations of religion, and who had no opportunity of obtaining mercy

by conversion. Thus in the Granada auto of May 13, 1725, out of seven

burnings in effigy, six were of those who had died in prison.[579]

Suicide in prison was treated harshly, for Simancas tells us that the

suicide is to be condemned as fully convicted and impenitent, even

though he had previously confessed and professed repentance, to which

Rojas adds that, although his effigy is to be burnt, his heirs are

allowed to prove insanity, difficult as that is.[580]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _THE NEGATIVO--THE DIMINUTO_]

The _negativo_--the man who denied his heresy in the face of what was

deemed competent testimony of guilt--was classed as an impenitent

heretic and doomed to relaxation. This was the inevitable logic of the

Inquisition, although it led to the most tragic of all situations--that

of being tortured to death in honor of the faith which the sufferer

held. It was impossible, under the inquisitorial system, to allow a

possible heretic to escape merely because he unflinchingly affirmed his

orthodoxy, and yet when a man asserted it up to the brasero, knowing

that it would not avail him, it was impossible not to recognize in him a

true believer who would not save his body at the expense of falsely

confessing apostasy. Three such there were in the Granada auto of May

27, 1593, burnt as negativos and consequently burnt alive.[581] Such men

were true martyrs, especially as rigid constructionists denied them the

consolations of religion in their last moments. At the Toledo auto of

October 28, 1723, Diego de Quiros was in this position, and a Jesuit who

heard him in sacramental confession was severely censured for doing so

while he persisted in maintaining his innocence. Again the question came

up in the Toledo auto of July 1, 1725. Fernando de Castro was relaxed as

an impenitent negativo and was sentenced to burning alive. On account of

the heat the execution was postponed until the afternoon, and the

convict was meanwhile placed in the public prison. With cries he

earnestly begged for sacramental confession, but the frailes in

attendance declined unless he should admit his heresy, which he

steadfastly refused to do, asserting the witnesses to be perjured, and

the judgement unjust. At this juncture there came a Jesuit father who

yielded to the despairing appeals of the poor wretch and heard him in

confession, whereupon the judge took the responsibility of modifying the

sentence to preliminary strangulation. The frailes loudly rebuked the

Jesuit, and were joined by the public, disappointed of the promised

spectacle of the burning alive of a fellow-creature. Considerable debate

followed and a priest named Candido Múñoz wrote an argument justifying

the Jesuit, but his labor was superfluous for, while his tract was in

the press, the Suprema issued a carta acordada, October 11th, ordering

that in such cases the priest should hear the confession and confer

absolution or not, according to the disposition manifested, but in

future no one but the appointed theologians were to attend the convict

to the last.[582]

Thus it was left to this late date to admit the dying victim to the

sacraments, probably, we may assume, on the doctrine that the blood of

martyrdom is the most efficacious of all sacraments. Such cases could

not have been common, but those must have been numerous in which the

unjustly convicted negativo found his resolution give way at the

approach to the brasero and, in order to escape burning alive and to

obtain the sacraments, falsely confessed to having entertained heresies

which his soul abhorred.

* * * * *

There was also the _diminuto_, who made a confession that did not

"satisfy the evidence" and thus was held to be imperfect. A confession

that was not full was regarded as fictitious; it inferred impenitence

and therefore entailed relaxation. We have seen how, under the early

Edicts of Grace, any omissions in the hurried confessions was construed

as rendering them imperfect and subjecting the penitent to prosecution

and relaxation. Especially was imperfect denunciation of accomplices

regarded as _diminucio_; if the accused confessed all that was in

evidence against himself and omitted the acts of accomplices who were

proved to have been with him, or if he named only those who were absent

or dead or already convicted, it was proof of malice and impenitence; he

was not truly converted and was subject to relaxation after torture _in

caput alienum_.[583] The denial of heretical intention in acts

confessed, which was frequent in those against whom Judaic or Moorish

customs were proved, constituted the accused a negativo in the

substantial part of heresy, which is intention, or a diminuto, implying,

according to the common opinion, impenitence and pertinacity involving

relaxation.[584] Thus Hernando de Palma, a Morisco, accused of teaching

and conducting Moorish ceremonies, denied and overcame severe torture,

whereupon the consulta de fe voted for appearance in an auto and

abjuration _de levi_. Ignorant of this, he asked for an audience and

confessed that, for seven or eight years, he had practised some Moorish

rites, without regarding them as contrary to the faith. In this he

persisted and was burnt in the Toledo auto of 1606. Revocation of

confession was similarly impenitence and pertinacity, as in the case of

Manuel Thomas, who confessed to Judaism after the accusation was

presented, then revoked the confession and persisted in the revocation,

for which he was relaxed in the Toledo auto of 1585.[585]

* * * * *

When the Reformation plunged the Church into a struggle for life, of

which no man might foretell the result, there arose a demand for sharper

measures of repression. The dogmatizer or heresiarch--he who not only

condemned his own soul to perdition but sought to carry others along

with him, by disseminating his pestiferous doctrines--might recant and

make his peace with God, but not with God's earthly ministers. Simancas

well expresses the hatred intensified by fear, which was aroused by the

teachers of the new doctrines. The heresiarch, he says, the master of

errors, is to be relaxed and, under no circumstances, is to be received

back into the Church. He is unworthy of pardon who has led others into

error, like a murderer who has slain many. He is a crafty homicide, who

daily sheds the blood of souls. He who teaches heresy slays, not with

the sword, but with the poison of his doctrine; he kills not the body

but the soul, not with temporary but with eternal death, wherefore he is

worthy of the severest punishment. And, of all others, the teachers of

the Lutheran heresies are in no way to be pardoned.[586]

[Sidenote: _HERESIARCHS_]

Yet the Church had always professed to welcome to reconciliation its

erring children, who renounced their errors and begged for mercy,

provided they were not relapsed, and the Inquisition from its inception

had acted on this principle. On this were based the powers deputized to

it and when, in 1558 the discovery of the Protestants of Valladolid was

so exploited as to throw Spain into agitation, and it was desired to

make an example of Doctor Agustin Cazalla, some further grant of

faculties was felt to be necessary. Paul IV was nothing loath. In 1555

he had apparently desired to show that Rome was not to be outdone by

Geneva in persecuting rigor and that, if Calvin in 1553 had burnt Servet

for denying the Trinity, he could be equally zealous for the faith. By

the bull _Cum quorundam_ he decreed that all who denied the Trinity, the

divinity of Christ, his conception through the Holy Ghost, his death for

human salvation, or the perpetual virginity of the Virgin, and who did

not confess to inquisitors and abjure their errors within three months,

and all who in future should maintain those heresies, should be treated

as though they were relapsed and as such should be forthwith relaxed to

the secular arm.[587] Having thus extended the catalogue of unpardonable

heresies, he was quite ready to grant the additional powers sought by

the Spanish Inquisition. By a brief of January 4, 1559, he bestowed on

the inquisitor-general and Suprema a faculty to relax all heresiarchs

and other heretics, even though they were not relapsed, and though they

desired to abjure their heresies, when it was believed with

verisimilitude that the abjuration was not sincere but was only to

escape punishment.[588] This was, in fact, no more than the power

assumed in the Instructions of 1484, but under it, as we shall see

hereafter, were relaxed some conspicuous heretics, such as Doctor

Cazalla at Valladolid and Juan Ponce de Leon at Seville, although they

had renounced their errors and sought reconciliation in advance of the

autos de fe.

It thus became a principle in inquisitorial jurisprudence that the

inquisitor-general and Suprema could relax dogmatizers, irrespective of

pertinacity or relapse.[589] This was not confined to Protestants. About

1600, the Suprema had to decide the case of a Morisco alfaquí, accused

of being a teacher of Islam, who confessed to teaching his wife but

denied other proselytism. A consulta presented to the Suprema argued

that, although by law a dogmatizer must be relaxed yet, if he

spontaneously denounces himself and is sincerely repentant, he can be

reconciled, for his conversion and humility serve as an example to those

whom he has misled. In the present case, however, the alfaquí has only

confessed partially and to save himself, wherefore he should be

relaxed--and to this the Suprema assented.[590] Yet this severity had

exceptions. In the Seville auto of July 5, 1722, Pedro de Alpuin,

reconciled with perpetual prison and sanbenito, had five years of

galleys added for being a teacher of the Law of Moses, and even these

were remitted in consideration of his infirmities.[591]

* * * * *

Relapse was the most fruitful source of relaxation, at least after the

first rage of the Inquisition had exhausted itself. It has been already

stated that, after reconciliation or abjuration _de vehementi_, any

backsliding was held to indicate that the conversion had been

fictitious, that the culprit was impenitent and pertinacious, and that

he was to be abandoned to the secular arm without hope of mercy. This

was an unvarying principle of the canon law. The Suprema, in a case

brought before it, in 1536, declared that it could not dispense for that

which the law enjoined, and therefore it was powerless to relieve the

relapsed from his punishment.[592] Simancas is equally emphatic--the

relapsed is to be condemned without hope of pardon.[593] In the first

audience of the accused, the inquisitor was required to tell him that,

if he would discharge his conscience, his case would be despatched with

speed and mercy but, if the charge was relapse, the word mercy was to be

omitted because no mercy could be shown.[594] Even prompt and full

confession was of no avail; the law was absolute and implacable.[595]

[Sidenote: _RELAPSE_]

This severity was greatly enhanced by the elastic definition given to

relapse. The reconciled penitent had to walk warily, for any unconscious

return to ancestral habits was sufficient to convict him. About 1500 the

Suprema decreed that penitents communicating with unreconciled heretics

were to be held as relapsed, and all evidence coming before the

tribunals was to be scrutinized for proof that would justify

prosecution--evidently of those who might chance to be incidentally

named in it--and then, if this proved insufficient for conviction, any

admission of the accused, not contained in his former confession, could

be used to condemn him as a fictitious convert.[596] How this was

construed in practice, we learn from Simancas, who says that he is

considered a relapsed who, after abjuring heresy, talks with heretics,

or visits them, or makes presents to them, or favors and communicates

with them, so that he cannot but be held to do it as a consequence of

his heresy.[597] The man who had been reconciled thus lived in unceasing

danger that, at any moment, some acquaintance might be tried and

convicted and his name might occur in the evidence as being on good

terms with him. Safety, indeed, could only be secured by resolutely

isolating himself from his family and his race.

It was the same with those who had only abjured for vehement suspicion.

The Instructions of 1561 declare absolutely that, if they confess or are

convicted, they must be relaxed, for the inquisitors have no power to

reconcile them, although they are not truly but only fictitiously

relapsed.[598]

Still, there were some exceptions. Self-denunciation for relapse, it was

admitted, required relaxation under the law, but it was argued that such

second confession was not really a conviction, for it showed that the

penitent was not incorrigible and should be admitted to mercy.[599] Such

cases must have been exceedingly rare, but we have seen one in that of

Ursule de la Croix (Vol. II, p. 572) where, it will be remembered, a

third self-denunciation was visited with the stake.

Moriscos enjoyed a special exception. The wholesale enforced conversion

of the Moors of Castile in 1502 and of the kingdoms of Aragon in 1525,

filled the land with nominal Christians, whose baptism served no other

purpose than subjecting them to the Inquisition. They were largely

vassals of nobles, to whom their services were indispensable, and to

subject whole populations to the penalties of a relapse which was

inevitable was a prospect that might well stagger the statesman if not

the churchman. In the unsparing rigor of the canon law, escape from this

was to be sought only in Rome and, in March, 1510, Ferdinand asked for a

bull enabling the converts to avoid the penalties of relapse.[600] The

request was doubtless granted and was followed by numerous papal briefs,

issued during the remainder of the century, which bore the shape of

empowering the inquisitors-general to appoint confessors with power to

absolve Morisco penitents with secret absolution and penance, even if

they had relapsed repeatedly, or to proclaim terms of grace, during

which absolution could be had irrespective of relapse, together with

other devices, the futility of all which we shall see hereafter.[601]