EPILOGUE TO THE AFFAIR OF THE SANTO NIÑO
The evidence given by Yucé Franco as to whence the consecrated wafers
had been obtained is hearsay evidence, and very vague even then. But it
would appear that from Benito Garcia or Alfonso Franco the inquisitors
have been able to obtain something more definite, for whilst the trial
of the eight accused has been drawing to a close, the familiars of the
Holy Office have been about the apprehension of the sacristan of the
church of La Guardia.
On November 18, 1491--two days after the Auto--this sacristan is
brought before the court at Avila, and admonished to tell the truth of
this matter, being promised mercy if he will do so.
He states that about two years ago his uncle, Alonso Franco, besought
him on two separate occasions to let him have two consecrated wafers,
promising him a cloak and money and much else if he would so.
Ultimately, in response to these requests, and in accordance with the
instructions he received from Alonso, he delivered a consecrated wafer
to Benito Garcia, who came for it on the other’s behalf.
He remembers that it was winter-time, but he cannot recall the day or
even the month. He explains that he took the Host from the pyx in the
sanctuary of the Church of Santa Maria, having obtained the keys from
the earthenware pot in which they were kept. He says that he begged
Benito to tell him what it was wanted for, but that he could not
induce him to say. He was assured, however, that no harm was intended.
He is able to fix the date more closely by remembering that the Francos
were arrested about five months later.
Under further examination he declares that he believes in the True
Presence, and always did, and that when he urged this upon Alfonso
Franco and Benito Garcia they admitted that his act was a sin, but they
assured him that it was not a heresy, and that no heresy was involved,
and that for the sin his confessor would absolve him.[219]
* * * * *
One man who is alleged to have had a share in the affair of La Guardia
escaped all mention at the time in the depositions of the accused,
and was, consequently, entirely overlooked. This was one Hernando de
Ribera, a man of a station in life very much above that of the others,
and it is said that in consequence of this to him had been assigned the
aristocratic role of Pilate in that parody of the Passion.
Not until nearly thirty years later was he arrested, self-betrayed, it
is said, the man having boasted of his share in that affair. He was
convicted of that crime, and also of flagrant Judaizing, for in the
meanwhile he had accepted baptism to avoid expulsion from Spain when
the decree of banishment of all Jews was published.
* * * * *
Now, whilst the publication by M. Fidel Fita of the records of the
trial of Yucé Franco has shed a good deal of light upon the affair,
it is not to be denied that much still remains to be explained, and
that until such explanations are forthcoming--until the records of the
proceedings against Yucé’s co-accused are brought to light and we are
able to compare them one with another--the affair of the Holy Infant
of La Guardia must to a certain extent continue in the category of
historic mysteries.
Meanwhile, however, in spite of the glaring contradictions contained in
the evidence at present available, in spite of the incongruities which
refuse to fit into the general scheme, we cannot hold that M. Loeb is
justified of his conclusion that the Holy Infant of La Guardia--and
consequently the crime with which we have dealt--never had any real
existence.[220]
M. Loeb makes a twofold contention:
(_a_) If the crime of La Guardia ever did take place, then upon
the evidence itself, it was not ritual murder at all, but a
case of sorcery in which Christians were concerned as well as
Jews.
(_b_) No such crime ever did take place.
He bases his somewhat daring final conclusion upon three premises:
(_a_) The depositions of the witnesses, obtained under
torture or the threat of it, are full of contradictions, of
improbabilities, and of facts materially impossible.
(_b_) The judges made no inquest to discover the truth.
(_c_) The Inquisition is unable to fix the date of the crime;
it did not verify the disappearance or discover the remains of
any child.
The first of these premises is the most worthy of attention. The other
two appear to us to overlook the fact that our present knowledge is
confined to the record of the trial of one of the accused, and this one
a youth who was guilty of participating in the crime in a comparatively
minor degree.
No one is in a position to say that the judges made no inquest to
discover the truth. All that we know is that it does not transpire
from Yucé’s trial that any such efforts were made. But then such
efforts may not so much concern Yucé’s trial as the trials of some of
the ringleaders, and it is very possible that the records of the latter
may divulge some such inquest. It is more than possible. The compiler
of the résumé of seven of the trials distinctly shows that this was
done.[221] He cites the fact that when Juan Franco had confessed
that he and his brother Alonso buried the boy, the inquisitors took
him to the place where he stated that the body had been inhumed, and
made him point out the exact spot, “and they discovered the truth and
demonstration of all this.”[222]
This, of course, does not mean that the body was found. It simply
means--as we are told--that the place indicated by Juan Franco
presented the appearance of having lately served the purpose of
a grave. The failure to find the body is undoubtedly one of the
unexplained mysteries of this affair. But it does not justify the
statement that no inquest was made--a statement which in itself implies
that the inquisitors knew the whole story to be false, and therefore
deliberately avoided inquiries which should expose that falseness.
The vagueness and confusion that appear to exist on the subject of the
date when the crime was committed certainly call for comment.
The contradictions on this score appear to be flagrant, and it is
impossible to reconcile the date of the crucifixion with that of Benito
Garcia’s arrest in Astorga. It seems to be established by Yucé that the
crucifixion took place at the end of Lent 1488; and he and others tell
us that about six months later they all assembled again to dispatch the
Host to Zamora by the hand of Benito. Yet Benito is arrested in Astorga
in May or June of 1490--more than eighteen months after setting out for
Zamora--and the wafer is still in his possession, undelivered. That is
what _seems_ to be established. But it is possible that a very simple
explanation may dispose of this discrepancy. We are not justified by
our present knowledge in saying that the inquisitors were unable to
dispose of it. We may not assume that there is not, in the records
of the trials of the other accused, matter that will clear up this
question.
The date supplied by the sacristan, for instance, does not seem to be
so very inconsistent with that of the event in the inn at Astorga.
He said, it will be remembered, that he had delivered the wafer to
Benito some five months before the arrest of the Francos. This tends
strongly to confirm the impression we have already formed that the
wafer discovered upon Benito at the time of his arrest was not the one
that he had set out to take to Zamora some two years earlier. The Host,
together with the letter for Abenamias, may very well have reached
its destination. If this is admitted--and there is nothing in the
evidence to forbid its admittance--much that is irreconcilable in the
depositions at once disappears.
M. Loeb, of course, has proceeded upon the assumption that it is
pretended that the Host dispatched from La Guardia in 1488 and the
Host found upon Benito at Astorga in 1490 are one and the same. It may
appear to be the obvious thing to assume. Yet it is a hasty assumption,
which nothing in the evidence before us will justify.
As for the other discrepancies which M. Loeb points out, when all is
said, they refer to matters of detail, upon which mistakes are not
impossible.
Benito states that the child’s hands and feet were nailed to the cross
in addition to being tied, whilst Yucé makes no mention of nails.
According to the statements of Yucé and of Juan Franco, it is the
latter’s brother who opened the veins in the boy’s arms, whereas Ocaña
said that this was done by Yucé. We have already drawn attention
to the circumstances under which Ocaña so accused Yucé, and we have
suggested the vindictiveness that may have inspired him.
Juan Franco confessed that he himself cut open the boy’s side and drew
out the heart, whilst Yucé’s statement was to the effect that Juan had
opened the wound and Garcia Franco had torn out the heart.
Mainly the evidence seems to say that the child bled to death. Yet
Benito states that he was strangled(?), and Yucé in one of his
statements says that they gagged him because he was crying. We have
already suggested that by the expression “_lo ahogaron_” so much as
“strangling” may not necessarily have been meant.
* * * * *
These are, after all, the principal discrepancies; and it is to be
remembered that these men were referring to things done at least two
years before; that confusion on the score of particulars is not only
possible but more or less inevitable; and that, despite contradictions
in these details, the main facts stated are always the same in the
depositions of each. M. Loeb more than suggests that this unanimity was
contrived by the inquisitors. He puts it forward as more than probable
that the prisoners were left alone together on the occasions of the
confrontations, to the end that they might agree upon the same tale.
There is not the slightest warrant for such an assumption. In the
records the notary very clearly states that the inquisitors were
present throughout those confrontations, and it is of importance to
remember that these records were not prepared for publication, but were
to be consigned to the secret archives of the Inquisition--so that any
notion of a fraud having been deliberately perpetrated may once for all
be dismissed as entirely idle.
But even were it not the recorded fact that the inquisitors were
present at the confrontations, and that the prisoners were afforded no
opportunity of coming to any understanding, it would still be extremely
difficult to believe that they should have come to an understanding to
get themselves all burnt.
M. Loeb’s attempt to make this appear reasonable is the least
convincing thing in a very able but quite unconvincing article. It
certainly seems to display his own want of confidence in the general
acceptance of such a situation.
“We could understand,” he says, “that guilty men should come to
an understanding to deny the crime committed, or to attenuate the
fault, or to cast it upon others. But what should be the meaning
of an understanding whose object, as would be the case here, is to
make truthful avowals of a real crime? The accused would be taking
unnecessary trouble. But all is explained if, on the contrary, they
prepared confessions of a crime that was never committed.”
M. Loeb has vitiated his argument by the absolute assumption that an
understanding did take place. This we cannot admit upon the evidence
before us. But if we do, is the position materially altered? M. Loeb
says that “all is explained if they prepared confessions of a crime
that was never committed.” To our mind, nothing is explained by such
a procedure. What possible object could have induced them to come
to an understanding to make an uncommitted crime the subject of a
unanimous confession that must infallibly send them to the stake? What
possible advantage could they hope to derive from a falsehood of that
description?
One of the chief obstacles to the rejection of the story as a
fabrication is Yucé’s confession to “the Rabbi Abraham” in the prison
of Segovia. M. Loeb recognizes it, and although he makes a determined
attempt to overcome it, his arguments are too arbitrary and do not
materially affect the point even if they are admitted.
But if M. Loeb is entirely unconvincing in his attempts to prove that
the crucifixion of the boy is a fable, nothing could be more convincing
than his first contention: that even if we account the story true as
contained in Yucé’s _dossier_, the deed is not to be looked upon as
ritual murder, but purely as an operation in magic.
It is a conclusion with which you must come to agree, although at first
glance you may be tempted to form the opinion that the crucifixion of
the child served both purposes. Some such opinion had been formed by
the inquisitors when they asked why the boy had been crucified rather
than put to death in some other fashion, since his heart was all that
was required for the enchantment.
The answer was that crucifixion was chosen in derision and vituperation
of the Passion of Jesus Christ. But this is a very different thing
from ritual murder or “the hanging of Haman.” If we turn to the actual
vituperative phrases employed,[223] we find the expression of a desire
to wound the Redeemer Himself, through that form of magic, common in
all ages, known as _envoûtement_. Instead of the waxen or wooden effigy
usually employed, a living body is used in this case. For the rest the
immolation of a child plays its part in the magic ritual of other than
Jews. We need mention but the notorious instance of the Black Masses
celebrated by the infamous Abbé Gribourg in the eighteenth century.
There seems, indeed, no doubt at all that we are justified in rejecting
the theory that the crucifixion of the Holy Child of La Guardia is
to be accepted as an instance of Jewish ritual murder. So far we can
accompany M. Loeb, but no farther. We cannot say with him that no such
crime was ever committed. To convince us of that it would be necessary
to show that the whole of the _dossier_ we have considered is a forgery
to serve the purposes of Torquemada. And this we have proof that
it is not. Had it been that, had it been manufactured for popular
consumption, it would not have lain concealed for four centuries in the
secret archives of the Inquisition.
That Torquemada exploited the matter and turned it to the fullest
account is admitted. But this merely shows him to be an opportunist; it
is very far from proving him a forger. The very sentence was couched
in terms calculated to excite--as it did--popular indignation against
the Jews. Nor did the publication of the sentence end in La Guardia,
whither copies were sent. We may infer that Torquemada scattered those
copies broadcast through Spain, since we actually find a Catalan
translation which was specially prepared for publication in Barcelona.
* * * * *
The cult of the Holy Child of La Guardia sprang up at once, and
developed rapidly. Numerous shrines were set up in his honour, the
first and chief of these being on the site of the house of Juan Franco,
which had been razed to the ground. Here an altar was erected in the
cellar of the house, on the spot where it was believed that the child’s
sufferings had begun; it was surmounted by a figure of a child pinioned
to a column.
Over this subterranean shrine a church sprang rapidly into existence.
Another hermitage was erected near Santa Maria de Pera, on the spot
where the child was alleged to have been buried, and yet another in the
cave where he was believed to have suffered crucifixion. “In all times
since,” says Moreno,[224] “the three sanctuaries have been frequented
by those who come to pray to the Niño as to a saint.”
The first of these sanctuaries was erected by 1501--at which date
records of it are to be found. It was called the Sanctuary of the Holy
Innocent, and Moreno adds that this has always received the approval of
Popes and Bishops, and that plenary and partial indulgences have been
granted to the faithful visiting these shrines.
The people of La Guardia elected him their patron saint, and a fast was
appointed for the eve of his feast-day, which at first was March 25,
but was afterwards changed to September 25. Moreno includes in his book
the prayers prescribed and a litany to the Niño.[225]
But it is not without a certain significance that Rome--ever
cautious, as we have already had occasion to say, in the matter of
canonization--has not yet recognized the Holy Child of La Guardia as
one of the saints of the Church.
Yepes chronicles four miracles performed by the child after his death,
beginning with his mother’s obtaining sight. All these, with other
very interesting and purely romantic details, are to be found in that
piously fraudulent work--the “Life of the Holy Child,” by Martinez
Moreno.