THE ARREST OF YUCÉ FRANCO
In May or June of 1490--the time of year being approximately determined
by the events that follow--a baptized Jew of Las Mesuras named Benito
Garcia put up at an inn in the northern village of Astorga. He was an
elderly man of some sixty years of age, a wool-comber by trade and a
considerable traveller in the course of his trading.
In the common-room of the tavern where he sat at table were several
men of Astorga, who, either in a drunken frolic or because they were
thieves, went through the contents of his knapsack, and discovered in
it some herbs and a communion wafer, which they at once assumed to be
consecrated (and which it was grossest sacrilege for a layman so much
as to touch).
Uproar followed the announcement of the discovery. With cries of
“Sacrilege!” these thieving drunkards fell upon the Jew. They beat him.
They flung a rope about his neck, dragged him from the inn and haled
him into the presence of the Provisor of Astorga, Dr. Pedro de Villada.
The reverend doctor discharged there the functions of an agent of the
Holy Office. He was fully experienced in inquisitorial affairs, and he
was upon the eve of being promoted to the dignity of inquisitor in the
court of Avila.
Villada received the wafer, heard the accusation, and took a short way
with Benito when the latter refused to explain himself. He ordered him
two hundred lashes, and finding the man still obdurate after this
punishment, he submitted him to the water-torture. Under this the
wretched fellow at last betrayed himself. Of precisely what he said we
have no record taken at the time; but we have his own word for it--as
reported afterwards by Yucé Franco to whom he uttered it--that “he had
said more than he knew, and enough to burn him.”[168]
Having, as is clear, obtained from him an admission of his own guilt,
Villada now proceeded, as prescribed by the “Directorium,” to induce
him to incriminate others. We know the methods usually employed; from
these and from what follows it is quite reasonable to assume that
recourse was had to them now.
Following Eymeric’s instructions, Villada would, no doubt, admonish
him with extreme kindness, professing to cast no blame upon Benito
himself but rather upon those evil ones who had seduced him into error,
and he would exhort the prisoner to save himself by showing a true
penitence, pointing out that the only proof of his penitence he could
advance would be a frank and free delation of those who had led him so
grievously astray.
From the occasional glimpses of this Benito Garcia vouchsafed us in
the records of the trial of Yucé Franco, we perceive a rather reckless
personality, of a certain grim, sardonic humour, gleams of which
actually pierce through the dehumanization of the legal documents to
ensnare our sympathy.
He is imbued with contempt for these Christians whose religion he
embraced forty years ago, in what he accounts a weak moment of his
youth, and from which he secretly seceded again some five years before
his arrest. He is weighed down by remorse for having been false to the
Jewish faith in which he was born; he believes himself overtaken by the
curse which his father launched upon him when he took that apostatizing
step; he is out of all conceit with Christianity; since seeing the
bonfires of the Faith he has come to the conclusion that as a religion
it is an utter failure; it has been his habit to sneer at Jews who were
inclining to Christianity.
“Get yourselves baptized,” was the gibe he flung at them, “and go and
see how they burn the New-Christians.”[169]
In the prison of Avila--when he gets there--his one professed aim is to
die in the faith of his fathers.
But it would seem that when first taken in the toils of the
Inquisition, and having experienced in his own person the horrors of
its methods, he realizes the sweetness of life, and eagerly avails
himself of the false loophole so alluringly exposed by the reverend
doctor.
In his examination of June 6 he betrays to Villada the course of his
re-Judaizing. He relates that five years ago, whilst in talk with one
Juan de Ocaña, a converso whom he believes to be a Jew at heart under
an exterior of Christianity, the latter had urged him to return to
the Jewish faith, saying that Christ and the Virgin were myths, and
that there is no true law but that of Moses. Lending an ear to these
persuasions, Benito had done many Jewish things, such as not going to
church (although he whipped his children when they stayed away, lest
their absence should betray his own apostasy) nor observing holy-days,
eating meat on Fridays and fast-days at the house of Mosé Franco and
Yucé Franco--Jews of the neighbourhood of Tenbleque--and wherever else
he could eat it without being detected. Indeed, for the past five
years, he admits, he has been a Jew at heart, and if during that
time he did not more completely observe Jewish rites and practices,
it was because he dared not for fear of being discovered; whilst all
the Christian acts he had performed had been merely a simulation, that
he might appear to be a Christian still. The confessions he had made
to the priest of La Guardia had been false ones, and he had never
gone to Communion--“believing that the Corpus Christi was all a farce
(_creyendo que todo era burla el Corpus Christi_).” He even added that
whenever he saw the Viaticum carried through the streets, it was his
habit to spit and to make _higas_ (a gesture of contempt).[170]
In these last particulars his confession is of an extreme frankness,
and we can only suppose that he is merely repeating what the torture
had already extracted from him. Completely to elucidate the matter as
it concerns Benito Garcia, we should require to be in possession of the
full records of his own trial (which have not yet been discovered),
whereas at present we have to depend upon odd documents from that
_dossier_ which are introduced in Yucé Franco’s as relating to the
latter.
Questioned more closely concerning these Jews he has mentioned--Mosé
and Yucé Franco--Benito states that they lived with their father, Ça
Franco, at Tenbleque, that he was in the habit of visiting them upon
matters of business, and that he had frequently eaten meat at their
house on Fridays and Saturdays and other forbidden days, and had often
given them money to purchase oil for the synagogue lamps.
We know that, as a consequence of these confessions, Ça Franco, an old
man of eighty years of age, and his son Yucé, a lad of twenty who was
a cobbler by trade, were arrested on July 1, 1489, for proselytizing
practices--_i.e._ for having induced Benito Garcia to abandon the
Christian faith to which he had been converted.
Ça’s other son, Mosé, was either dead at the time or else he died very
shortly after arrest and before being brought to trial.
Juan de Ocaña, too, was arrested upon the same grounds.
They were taken to Segovia, and thrown into the prison of the Holy
Office in that city. In this prison Yucé Franco fell so seriously ill
that he believed himself at the point of death.
A physician named Antonio de Avila, who spoke either Hebrew or the
jargon of Hebrew and Romance that was current among the Jews of the
Peninsula, went to attend to the sick youth. Yucé implored this doctor
to beseech the inquisitors to send a Jew to pray with him and to
prepare him for death--“_que le dixiese las cosas que disen los Judios
quando se quieren morir_.”
The physician, who, like all the family of the Inquisition, was himself
a spy, duly conveyed the request to the inquisitors. They seized
the chance to put into practice one of the instructions advanced by
Eymeric. They sent a Dominican, one Frey Alonso Enriquez, disguised as
a Jew, to minister to the supposed moribund. The friar had a fluent
command of the language spoken by the Jews of Spain. He introduced
himself to the lad as a Rabbi named Abraham, and completely imposed
upon him and won his confidence.
He pressed Yucé to confide in him, and in his manner of doing so he
proceeded along the crafty lines advocated by the “Directorium.”
Eymeric, as will be remembered, enjoins that when a prisoner is
examined, the precise accusation against him should not be disclosed;
rather he should be questioned as to why he conceives that he has been
arrested and by whom he supposes himself to have been accused, with the
object of perhaps discovering further and hitherto unsuspected matters
against him.
Against Yucé Franco and the other prisoners there was at this stage no
charge beyond that--serious enough in itself--of having induced Benito
Garcia to re-Judaize. But the disguised friar now pressed him with
probing questions, asking him what he had done to get himself arrested.
Yucé--who did not yet know what was the charge--entirely duped, and
believing that his visitor was a Rabbi of his own faith, replied that
“_he had been arrested on account of the_ mita _of a_ nahar, _which had
been after the manner of_ Otohays.”[171]
We have left the Hebrew words untranslated to illustrate the
unintelligibility of the phrase to the general.
_Mita_ means “killing,” _nahar_ means “a boy,” whilst
_Otohays_--literally “that man”--is startling because it is identical
with the term used in St. Luke (xxiii. 4) and in the Acts of the
Apostles (v. 28) to designate Christ.
Yucé begged the false Rabbi Abraham to go to the Chief Rabbi of the
Synagogue of Segovia,[172] a man of very considerable importance and
influence, and to inform him of this fact, but otherwise to keep the
matter very secret.
The Dominican repaired to the inquisitors who had sent him with this
very startling piece of information, which was corroborated by the
physician, who had remained well within earshot during the entire
interview.
By order of the inquisitors Frey Alfonso Enriquez returned to Yucé’s
prison a few days later to attempt to elicit from the young Jew
further particulars of the matter to which he had alluded. But the
lad--probably considerably recovered by now, and therefore more
alert--evinced the greatest mistrust of the physician Avila, who
was hovering near them, and would not utter another word on the
subject.[173]
The matter was of such gravity that we are quite safe in assuming--and
we have evidence to warrant the assumption--that it was instantly
communicated to Torquemada, who at the time was at his convent of
Segovia, practically upon the spot.
We know--as will presently transpire--that it was by order of
Torquemada that Yucé Franco and the others came to be in the prison of
the Holy Office at Segovia, instead of in that of the extremely active
Inquisition of Toledo, within whose jurisdiction the accused dwelt
and the crime had been committed. We are unable to give an absolutely
authentic reason for this. But we gather that the examination of Ça
Franco, or of Ocaña, or perhaps of Benito himself--who had said “more
than he knew”--must have yielded disclosures of such a nature that upon
learning them the Grand Inquisitor had desired that the trial should be
conducted immediately under his own direction.
The Sovereigns, who had been in Andalusia since May of the previous
year, about the war upon Granada, now wrote to Torquemada--in July
1490--bidding him join them there.
From Segovia the Grand Inquisitor replied, urging very pressing
business to which he proposed to give his personal attention, wherefore
he begged them to permit him to postpone his response to their
summons.[174]
* * * * *
He quitted Segovia at about this time to repair to Avila, where the
work upon the church and monastery of St. Thomas was well advanced;
so well advanced, indeed, that already he was able to take up his
residence in the monastery.
We may assume that the pressing business he had urged to the Sovereigns
as an excuse for postponing his journey into Andalusia was the business
of inquiring into the alleged crimes of these Hebrew prisoners. For we
know that he had intended having them brought before himself at Avila,
but that being unable to dispose of the matter before the end of August
or to postpone beyond that time his departure to rejoin the Court, he
was compelled to entrust the matter to his delegates--the Dominican
Frey Fernando de Santo Domingo, and the sometime Provisor of Astorga,
Dr. Pedro de Villada, with whom, no doubt, he would leave--as he says
himself--the fullest instructions.
So much we are justified in assuming from the tenor of the following
letter, which he delivered to them under date of August 27, to serve
them as their warrant to remove the prisoners from Segovia and bring
them to Avila for trial.
He wrote as follows:
“We, Frey Tomás de Torquemada, Prior of the Monastery of Holy Cross of
Segovia, of the Order of Preachers, Confessor and Councillor to the
King and Queen, our Sovereign lords, Inquisitor-General of heretical
pravity and apostasy in the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and all
other Dominions of their Highnesses, so deputed by the Holy Apostolic
See,
Make known to you,
Reverend and Devout Fathers, D. Pedro de Villada, Doctor of Canon Law
... Juan Lopes de Cigales, Licentiate of Holy Theology ... and to you,
Frey Fernando de Santo Domingo ... Inquisitors of heretical pravity in
the said City and Bishopric of Avila,
That we, by certain and legitimate information received, ordered the
arrest of the persons and bodies of Alonso Franco, Lope Franco, Garcia
Franco, and Juan Franco of the neighbourhood of La Guardia in the
Archbishopric of Toledo, and of Yucé Franco, a Jew of the neighbourhood
of Tenbleque, and of Mosé Abenamias, a Jew of the City of Zamora, and
of Juan de Ocaña and Benito Garcia, of the neighbourhood of the said
place of La Guardia, and the sequestration of all their property
for having practised heresy and apostasy and for having perpetrated
certain deeds, crimes, and offences against our Holy Catholic Faith,
and we ordered them to be taken to and held in the prison of the Holy
Inquisition of the City of Segovia until their cases should be fully
known to and decided by us or by such person or persons to whom we
consign them upon being so acquainted.
“But inasmuch as we are now occupied with other and arduous matters,
and therefore may not personally acquaint ourselves with the said
cases or with any one of them, trusting in the legality, learning,
experience, and sound conscience of you, the said Reverend Father
Inquisitors and of each of you, and that you are such persons as
will well and faithfully discharge what we entrust to you by these
presents we commit to you, the said Reverend Father Inquisitors,
and to each of you, _in solidum_, the said proceedings against and
trials of the aforementioned and of any of them, whether they may
have been participators or accessories before or after the fact of
the said crimes and offences in any way committed against our Holy
Catholic Faith, and likewise of the abettors, counsellors, defenders,
concealers, those who had knowledge of the facts and offenders of
whatsoever degree, to the end that concerning them you may receive
and obtain any information from any part of the said Kingdoms, and
seize and examine any witness, and inquire, learn, proceed, imprison,
sentence, and abandon to the secular arm such as you may find guilty,
absolve and liberate those without guilt, and do concerning them all
things and any thing that we ourselves should do being present....
“And by these presents we order the Father Inquisitors of the City of
Segovia and each and any of them in whose power are the said prisoners
to deliver them immediately in safe custody to you.
“Given in the Monastery of St. Thomas of the said Order of Preachers,
which is beyond and near the walls of the said City of Avila.”[175]
* * * * *
At what stage of the affair the four brothers Franco of La
Guardia--Alonso, Lope, Garcia, and Juan--had been arrested, and upon
whose information, we do not know. But we do know--for the _dossier_ of
Yucé’s trial is complete--that they were not betrayed by Yucé.
That their names had been divulged is a confirmation of the surmise
that the examinations of Ocaña, or Ça Franco, or even Benito Garcia,
had already yielded further information on the subject of the affair of
La Guardia.
It must be understood that the record of any examination of these
prisoners in which the name of Yucé Franco was not mentioned would find
no place in the _dossier_ of the latter’s trial.
The four Francos of La Guardia were brothers, as we have said; but they
were nowise related to the Francos of Tenbleque--Ça and Yucé. They
were dealers in cereals--possibly millers--as we shall see, and they
owned a number of carts which they appear to have further employed in a
carrier’s business. They were baptized Jews, as is already made clear
in Torquemada’s letter by the fact that he does not describe them--as
he does the others--as Jews.
All concerned in the affair, with the exception of one Ribera, who
does not at present enter into consideration, were men drawn from a
humble class of life--a class which through ignorance has always been
credulous and prone to belief in sorcery and enchantments.
A curious circumstance is the omission in Torquemada’s letter of all
mention of the octogenarian Ça Franco, whom we know to have been
already under arrest.
Having thus entrusted the conduct of the affair to his subordinates,
the Grand Inquisitor set out to join the Sovereigns in Andalusia.
The prisoners were soon afterwards brought to Avila, secrecy being so
well observed that each remained in ignorance of the arrest of the
others. But before being transferred from Segovia Yucé was taken before
the Holy Office there for examination on October 27 and 28. And from
the nature of the questions--as revealed by the depositions made--we
are left to assume that the inquisitors aimed at further incriminating
the Francos of La Guardia, proceeding upon information extracted from
them, or else obtained from one of the other prisoners.
In answer to the questions set him, Yucé Franco deponed that some three
years earlier he had gone to La Guardia to buy wheat for the unleavened
bread of the Passover from Alonso Franco, having been told that the
latter had wheat of good quality for sale. He sought Alonso in the
market, and thence accompanied him to his house. Talking as they went,
Alonso asked him why they made this unleavened bread, to which Yucé
replied that it was to commemorate God’s deliverance of the Children of
Israel out of Egypt.
The question may certainly seem an odd one from a man who had been born
a Jew. But it should be remembered that ignorance and lack of education
might easily account for it.
Yucé further deponed that in the pursuit of this conversation Alonso
not only betrayed nostalgic leanings towards his original faith,
but actually admitted that together with some of his brothers he
had crucified a boy one Good Friday in the manner that the Jews had
crucified Christ.
Continuing, he said that Alonso had asked him whether the Paschal
lamb eaten by the Jews at the time of leaving Egypt had been _terefa_
(slaughtered and bled in the Jewish manner), to which Yucé had replied
that it had not, as at that time the Law had not yet been made.
These replies were construed by the inquisitors into admissions of
proselytizing on the part of Yucé, and when subsequently at Avila
(January 10, 1491) he was reminded of what he had said at Segovia
concerning what had passed between Alonso Franco and himself, and asked
whether he could remember anything further, he confirmed all that he
had already deponed, but could only add a question on the subject of
circumcision which had been addressed to him by Alonso.[176]
* * * * *
The fiscal advocate, or prosecutor of the tribunal, prepared his case
against Yucé Franco, and on December 17, 1490, he came before the court
at the audience of vespers to open the prosecution.