 Book 6, Chapter 5, Part 1, of the History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 2. The History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 2, by Henry Charles Lee. Book 6. Practice, Chapter 5, Part 1, Evidence In criminal procedure the character of admissible evidence and the methods employed to test its veracity are of such determining importance that an investigation of the system followed by the Inquisition is necessary if we are to estimate correctly its administration of justice. In this the fact must be borne in mind that the complicated rules of evidence peculiar to English law have grown out of trial by jury where those who have to pass upon the facts are presumably untrained to estimate testimony, so that it has to be carefully sifted before it is allowed to reach them, while that which is admitted is subjected to the searching process of cross-examination. All this had no place in the systems which continental Europe inherited from the civil law. The judge was assumed to be a trained jurist, equipped to distinguish truth from falsehood, so that the flimsiest evidence might be brought before him secure that its worthlessness would not affect his judgment, while it might afford some clue leading to the truth. The defects of this were greatly exaggerated in the Inquisition, where unlimited discretion was allowed to judges who were mostly theologians eager to prove and to punish the slightest aberration from the faith, and where the secrecy, preserved as to the names and identity of the accusing witnesses, precluded all thought of cross-examination. Although the story of Susanna and the elders might well have conveyed a warning as to the danger of unjust judgment by an unassisted bench. In the ancient Castilian law both parties to an action saw the witness sworn, but the judges examined them in secret, apparently as a precaution against their being tampered with. Great care was taken as to their character, and those were excluded who were of ill-reput or had been imprisoned or perjured, or were Jews, Moors, heretics, apostates, or who were interested in the case, or dependents on one of the parties, or were less than fourteen years of age, or very poor, unless proved to be of good fame, while in criminal cases no witness was received who was under twenty, and no member of a religious order. In Aragon the utmost care was prescribed as to the character of witnesses. If not personally known to the judge, the fact was to be entered upon the record, and the judge was required to cross-examine them personally as to all minute details that might lead to the exposure of fraudulent testimony. Under the civil law parents and children were not admitted to testify against each other, nor could a freedman be a witness against his patron. All these precautions which the experience of ages has shown to be necessary as guards against injustice under systems of procedure, where the judge was also, in some sort a prosecutor, were cast aside by the inquisition in its zeal to preserve the purity of the faith. Herosist partiality was shown in the distinction drawn as to the eligibility between witnesses for the prosecution and those for the defense. For the former there was no disability saved mortal enmity toward the accused. From the earliest times the Church had prescribed fourteen as the minimum age for witness, and in Spain where majority was not attained until the age of twenty-five, minors younger than that were not admitted in criminal cases. Accordingly, in the records of the inquisition, witnesses are customarily described as Majores or Menores, but no difference was made in accepting their testimony, and Rojas tells us that formerly he thought heresy could not be proved by two witnesses under twenty-five, but the rule is that the fiscal is not bound to prove that his witnesses are legal. Everyone is presumed to be so, and his evidence must be received until objection is made, which, considering that their identity was most carefully concealed from the defense, is tantamount to saying that none could be rejected on that score. Witnesses of the tenderest years were therefore admitted without scruple. In the case of Juan Vázquez, tried in Toledo for sorcery in sixteen-o-five, one of the witnesses was a girl of twelve. In the same tribunal, in fifteen seventy-nine, a witness, only eleven or twelve, was heard against Francisco de Lespinar for maltreating a cross, and the culprit, who was only thirteen, was held to be responsible. Witnesses under twelve were not sworn, because they were deemed incapable of understanding the nature of the oath, but their evidence was received and recorded without it, as appears in the report of Valencia Alto de Fe in sixteen-o-seven. In the Roman Inquisition the canon law was treated with more respect, and the fiscal was not allowed to present a witness below the age of fourteen. There would seem to have been, at first, some discussion as to the admissibility of the evidence of slaves against their masters, but it was settled in fifteen-o-nine, by a provision of the Suprema, declaring it to be legal, but, as in cases of heresy, they were working for their liberty in convicting their masters. Their testimonies should be carefully scrutinized, and if appeared doubtful it should be validated by torturing them. It was also a question as to Jews, for laws of the Fuerosusco forbade them from testifying against Christians, but they were received in the old Inquisition, and the new was not more rigid. As regards Kindred, Simancas tells us, that although not allowed to testify for the prosecution in other crimes, in heresy they are the best witnesses, as being beyond suspicion of enmity, and they must be compelled to give evidence because religion is to be preferred to kinship. In fact a large portion of evidence was derived from them, for no confession was acceptable as complete that did not include denunciation of accomplices, and those who confessed to save their lives were perforce obliged to betray their families. The agonizing struggle, thus induced between natural affection and self-preservation, is illustrated in the case of Maria Lopez in 1646 at Baja Dulith. For nearly four months she resolutely denied everything, but her endurance was at last exhausted and on April 25th and 27th she confessed as to herself and others and ratified it on May 7th. In her cell she brooded over this until June 25th, when the Alcalde reported that she had attempted to strangle herself with a strip of her chemise. The Inquisitor hastened to her cell and found the poor creature hiding under the bed. Interrogated as to her motives she said that a woman who had falsely accused her husband and only daughter, as also her mother and an aunt, did not deserve to live, whereupon she revoked her whole confession, both as to herself and others, as a revocante the pitiless rules of the Inquisition doomed her to the stake. Her fears triumphed and on July 8th she confirmed her confession in April, except as regards her husband. On November 29th she was condemned to reconciliation, confiscation, and prison with a San Benito and she appeared in the auto of June 23rd, 1647. The Roman Inquisition was somewhat less inhuman and did not require husband and wife to testify against each other. It naturally followed from all this that in the Spanish Inquisition the rule was observed that where heresy was concerned all witnesses were admissible no matter how infamous. These communicates were not rejected and it would appear that even the insane were regarded as competent, for in 1680 Thomas Castellanos on trial in Toledo confessed to being a Lutheran, an atheist, and to other heresies for which he was charitably sent, not to the stake, but to an asylum, yet he was received as a witness against Ángela Pérez as to her utterances to him while in prison. He was duly sworn by God and on the Holy Cross, although if sane and an atheist there could be no force in such an oath. In short the only incapacity of an accusing witness was mortal enmity. All other exceptions known to the secular law, minority, heresy, perjury, infamy, complicity, conviction for crime, were disregarded, although they might affect his credibility. Mental enmity was difficult of definition, but the doctors were liberal enough in admitting to the benefit of the term any quarrel of a serious character, but proof was rendered difficult by refusing to receive evidence concerning it from anyone within four degrees of kinship or affinity with the accused. It is true that some precautions were prescribed to guard against the admission of worthless testimony, but their very enunciation proves how unscrupulous was the current practice. In 1516 the Suprema cautioned the tribunals that when the veracity of a witness was doubtful his testimony must be verified, and in 1543 it was ordered that the character of witnesses must be recorded so as to serve as a gauge of the weight of their utterances. There was also the formality used with all witnesses in commencing their examination by interrogating them on what were called the generales de la ley, as to their knowledge of the parties to the case and any enmity or other matter that might prejudice their testimony, the answers to which were always, of course, satisfactory. In the long run, however, all this, like most other matters, was left to the discretion of the tribunals, which in practice admitted everybody and used their evidence without discrimination. This applies solely to the witnesses for the prosecution. When we turn to the defense, the contrast between the scandalous laxity of the rules prescribed for the former and the equally scandalous rigidity of those applies to the latter is the clearest proof that the object of the inquisition was not justice but punishment. Throughout the whole judicial system, the vital principle was that it were better that a hundred innocent should suffer than that a single guilty one should escape. Even the formula of the oaths administered to the two classes in 1484 shows how early the distinction was drawn between them. The witnesses for the prosecution only received a solemn warning from the inquisitor, while those for the defense were sworn under the most terrible adjurations to God to visit on their bodies in this world and on their souls in the next any deviation from the truth. The rules as to witnesses admissible for the defense were carefully drawn so as to exclude all who were likely to be serviceable to him, on the ground that their evidence would be untrustworthy. The inquisitor, thus being sedulously guarded against misleading in favor of the prisoner, while he was trusted to discriminate as to the adverse testimony. Thus no kinsman to the fourth degree was allowed to testify for the defense, even when the accused was blindly striving to prove enmity on the part of those whom he conjectured to be the opposing witnesses. No Jew or Morisco or new Christian could appear for him, although they were welcomed for the prosecution, and the same distinction applied to servants. As formulated in the instructions of 1561, the accused was told that he must not name as his witnesses kinsmen or servants, and that they must all be old Christians. Unless his interrogatories be such as cannot otherwise be answered, and Pablo Garcia adds that, under such circumstances, he must name a number from among whom the inquisitor may select those whom he deems most fit. It became, indeed, a common place among the authorities that witnesses for the defense must be zealots for the faith, zealotores fidei. Yet, in fact, all this is of interest rather as a manifestation of the pervading spirit of the inquisition than from any practical influence which it exercised on the outcome of the trials, for as we shall see, the simulacrum of defense permitted to the accused was so limited that in but very few cases did it matter whether he had or had not any witnesses. Prosecutions, of course, were not to be impeded by reluctant or recalcitrant witnesses. The tribunals had full power to summon them and to punish them for refusal. When they resided at a distance, it was discretional either to have them examined by a commissioner, appointed at Hock, or to make them appear in person. In 1524 Cardinal Manrique even decided that they could be brought from Aragon to Castile, although, as we have seen, this violated the Fueros of Aragon, which forbade that anyone should be forced to leave the kingdom. The official summons requires the witness to present himself before the tribunal, within a specified number of days, under pain of 10,000 Marbetis, and excommunication, Latte Sententier. This censure, being pronounced in advance, would notice that, in case of disobedience, it would be published and he would be preceded against, according to law. The summons was to be served with the utmost secrecy, and, like all other documents, was to be returned to the tribunal with an endorsement of the date of service. Witnesses were compelled to give evidence and reliable to punishment if suspected of withholding it. In Dr. Zurita's report of his visitation of Herona and Elne in 1564, it appears that he arrested Maestre Juan Fregola, canon of San Martín of Herona, because he said that he did not remember a matter at issue. His memory was thus refreshed and he was released on giving the desired evidence. This continued to the end. In 1816, the Suprema, in confirming the vote of the tribunal of Cuenca, to continue the case of Antonio Garces, added that it must take the necessary steps against the witnesses who refused to testify. The examination of witnesses for the prosecution was a duty of the inquisitors. It was one, however, that they threw upon the notaries who were ordered by the Suprema in 1498 not to take testimony except in presence of the inquisitors, while Caldinal Adrián, in 1522, said that if the latter were too busy to be present they must at least read the testimony before the departure of the witness and make the necessary re-examination. All this argues a very loose and slovenly system, in a matter of such primary importance inherited doubtless from the early time when the rush of prosecutions precluded all but the most superficial conduct of business. In that period there had been devices for the division of labour, for we hear of an official, in 1485, known as the Receiver of Witnesses, and of payments made to clerics whose presence was essential in the taking of testimony, devices which were abandoned about the close of the century. As business declined, the inquisitors seemed to have taken a more active part in the examination of accusing witnesses, except towards the end when indolence led them to issue commissions to conduct interrogations. It was the rule that all examinations should take place in the audience chamber, except in extreme urgency, when the inquisitors might hold them in their apartments or houses, a rule of which the Suprema had to remind them, in 1538 and again in 1580. Witnesses were sometimes sworn in groups, but were examined separately as a prudent precaution against collusion. When the Estilo had been perfected, there was a prescribed form for commencing the interrogatory, by first asking the witness whether he knew or presumed the cause of his summons. This was usually answered in the negative, when the next question was whether he knew or had heard that any person had said or done anything which was or appeared to be contrary to the faith or to the free exercise of the inquisition. This had the appearance of careful abstention from guiding him, but if he persisted in the negative, the interrogatory rapidly assumed the aspect of letting him know for what he was wanted and what was expected of him. Thus in the trial at Barcelona in 1698, of a woman named Ignacia for sorcery, Jaime Guardiola asserted that he knew little, except that he had forbidden her his house, when inquisitor Bajaderes told him that the inquisition had information of his having employed her on several occasions, which he described, wherefore he adjured him in the name of God and in his blessed mother, to examine his memory and tell the truth. Sometimes the inquisitor went further and openly threatened a witness, warning him, by the reverence due to God, to tell the truth and not to make the prisoner's case his own. The Suprema might well restrain the excessive zeal of its subordinates by instructing them not to intimidate witnesses or to treat them as if they were the accused parties. While thus with unwilling witnesses, the inquisitor acted as counsel for the prosecution. With those who were willing, he made no attempt to ascertain the truth of their stories. He asked leading questions without reserve, and abstained from any cross-examination that might confuse the story and expose mendacity. When in the trial of Juan de la Caballeria at Saragossa in 1489, his procurator asked that certain interrogatories which he presented should be put to the witnesses. The inquisitors roughly refused, saying that it was their official duty to find out the truth for the discharge of their consciences. So long as witnesses incriminated the accused, as a rule there was no effort to test their accuracy or to obtain details of place and time or other points which would facilitate defense against false charges. In the case of Simon Nosho in Baja-dolid in 1642, he succeeded in getting a series of interrogatories put to the witnesses which exposed discrepancies that it was the duty of the inquisitors to have discovered. Even the Suprema recognized the injustice of this. In the case of a priest whom the Tribunal of Barcelona in 1665 sentenced to imprisonment for propositions, and ordered it to recall the witnesses and cross-examine them as to verify their testimony and also to investigate whether they were actuated by enmity. To estimate the conscious unfairness of this, it is only necessary to contrast it with the treatment of evidence presented by the defense. The handling of this was likewise wholly with the inquisitor. All that was allowed to the accused was to offer a list of witnesses and a series of interrogatories to be put to them. It was the duty of the inquisitor to summon the witnesses and put the questions, or to forward the interrogatories to commissioners for the same purpose, but he had full discretional power to omit what he pleased, both as to witnesses and questions. In fact, he received the interrogatories only Salvo, Giude, Impertinetium, Enon, Admitinodum, and he exercised his power without supervision and without informing the accused or his advocate as to what he threw out. In 1572 Luis de Leon, on his trial, presented six series of interrogatories to be put to his witnesses of which three were calmly thrown out as impertinent. Not only was all knowledge of this concealed from the accused, but also the answers of the witnesses to such questions as were permitted. It is true that, in 1531, even the Suprema revolted at this and ordered the evidence in favor of the accused to be submitted to him and to his advocate, so that it might not be said that he was deprived of defense, but injustice prevailed and the instructions of 1561, in prescribing the suppression of the accused, gave us a reason for it that the accused might thus be prevented from identifying the adverse witnesses, thus showing how one denial of justice led to another. The witnesses for the defense were further subject to cross-examination, which at least at the earlier period could be conducted by the fiscal, and in decency almost incredible in view of the crippling restrictions placed on the defense. In fact, the distinction recognized in the treatment of evidence for the prosecution and for the defense is epitomized in the instructions sent to Toledo in 1550 to its commissioner at Daimiel about taking testimony in the cases of some moriscos of that place. He is not told to investigate the credibility of the mass of idle gossip and here say evidence gathered for the prosecution, but when examining witnesses for the defense he is to cross-examine them strictly to ascertain what are the grounds for their assertions. There was one formality, not peculiar, in the Spanish Inquisition designed to protect the accused from random or false accusations, the ratification which was required of witnesses after an interval had elapsed since their original depositions. This was occasionally of service, and if preserved in its original form would have been a considerable safeguard in detecting perjury. It was conducted in presence of two frailes, known as honestas personas, and the fiscal was not allowed to be present, a prohibition which Madrique was obliged to repeat in 1529. In the earliest period ratification was frequently omitted, doubtless owing to the haste with which the Inquisition worked. But subsequently it was regarded as absolutely essential. Its importance was shown by making it an imperative duty of the Inquisitor himself to take the ratification, either summoning the witnesses or going to them. But this was difficult of enforcement. Cardinal Adriane in 1517 declared that ratification before a Commissioner nullified the whole proceedings, yet orders were required in 1527 and again in 1532 to make Inquisitors perform the duty, and finally the attempt was abandoned and Commissioners were everywhere employed. As a rule no evidence could be used that was not ratified, and I have met with not a few cases, one as late as 1628, which were suspended and the accused were discharged because the witnesses were not found when wanted for that purpose. This arose from the fact that in strickness ratification was not to be made till immediately before the so-called publication of evidence, which was the concluding step of the prosecution involving a considerable interval during which the witnesses might die or disappear. To avert this, relaxations or the requirement of ratification were gradually introduced. In 1533, 1543, and 1554, the Suprema inferentially admitted that when witnesses were absent or dead their testimony could be used if the fact was noted on the record. There were authorities who held this to be the case in Arragón, and it was so practiced, but elsewhere opinions varied. Finally a successful device was invented of two forms of ratification. One, ad perpetuum re memoriam, and the other in Juicio Plenario. They were virtually the same except that in the former the witness was told that the fiscal would use his evidence in a prosecution to be brought hereafter, and in the latter that it was for a case on trial. It became customary always to obtain the ratification when the testimony was given and then, if a witness was accessible during the trial, the ratification in Juicio Plenario was super added. At what time this expedient was adopted it would be difficult to say, but it was probably about the middle of the 17th century the earliest use of it that I have met occurs in 1650 in Mexico where it seems already to be customary. While this ostensibly retained for the accused the protection of ratification it destroyed whatever value there was in a prolonged interval between the original deposition and its confirmation. At first a delay of four days was ordered for the form ad perpetuum which seems to have been considered sufficient to excite the conscientious scruples of a possible perjurer. Even this was subject to the exigencies of the prosecution. An elaborate series of instructions to commissioners about 1770 informs them that there should be four days interval if possible, but if a witness is dying or about to absent himself, ratification may be immediate. In a case in 1758 ratification is ordered to be taken after waiting three hours. In others, in 1781 and 1785, after 24 hours, in another, in 1783, it is recorded that 28 hours were allowed to elapse, all of which shows how purely formal was the whole business. In truth it was the baldest formality, for the process habitually followed deprived ratification of whatever value it might have had originally. In place of testing the memory and veracity of the witness by making him repeat his testimony, it was merely read over to him. In 1519, and again in 1546, the Supremesat to set some limit to this abuse, by ordering that after preliminary inquiries the witness should be made substantially to repeat his testimony, and only after this was the record to be read to him. But even this was soon afterwards abandoned, and the instructions of 1561 merely provide that the witness is to be told to repeat his testimony. If his memory fails, questions are to be put, leading him to recall it, and if he asks to have the record read, it is to be read to him. Of course the witness always availed himself of the privilege, and Pablo Garcia says nothing about his repeating his evidence and directs the reading of the record as a matter of course. So perfectly was the whole business a matter of routine, that tribunals kept printed blanks to be filled in with names and dates of the customary attestation that the witnesses declared it to be his testimony, that it was properly set forth, that he had no change to make in it, for it was the truth, which he ranified, and if necessary he repeated it, not through hatred, but for the discharge of his conscience. In fact, although the witness was free to make what additions, alterations, or omissions that he pleased, it was dangerous for him to diminish the record substantially. For any revocation exposed him to punishment for false witness, and both depositions were duly set forth in the publication. THE HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION OF SPAIN, VOLUME 2 BY HENRY CHARLES LEA Bishop Simoncas tells us that, when there was suspicion of perjury, it was customary to examine the witness again, but that this was not done in other cases, so as not to lead him to commit perjury, a tenderness to the witness which had better have been displayed to his victim. But Simoncas wrote before the instructions of 1561 were issued, and Rojas, whose work was subsequent, is very free spoken in his denunciation of the customary practice. Some doctors, he says, argue that ratification supplies the place of letting the accused know the names of the witnesses, but this is a hallucination, for experience shows that this ceremony, with its two religious persons, is of no value, for it is a trait of humanity to persist in an assertion, whether true or false, especially where there is risk of perjury, and he urges that the witness should not be allowed to see his testimony, but should be examined anew, and the two statements be compared so that, from their variations, his credibility could be determined and lying witnesses be detected. Few inquisitors could be expected to perform this conscientious duty, but one who wrote about 1640 indicates how fruitful it might prove. He tells us that in suspicious cases he had found the advantage of this plan and had brought to lie perjuries, which could have been proved in no other way. When witnesses betray their falsity by varying in important details, he can find them in solitary cells, where conscience did its work, and they confess their frauds. He had also seen many ancient processes in which commissioners and notaries were convicted, deprived of office, and punished in public autos de fe, which suggests, unpleasantly, how little reliance was to be placed on the officials who took down evidence. Before the invention of the formula ad perpetuum, there was a hardship inflicted by ratification in the excessive delays which it frequently caused. Thus Francisco Alonso, a Portuguese of Zamora, accused of bigamy, was thrown into the secret prison of Baladolid on July 10th, 1627. As the alleged marriages had taken place in Coimbra, the evidence of their celebration had to be obtained from there, and it was a year before he had his first audience. When the time came for ratification, the depositions were sent for that purpose to Coimbra on September 28th, 1628, but in spite of repeated urgency, they were not received back until December the 18th, 1629. Then the case dragged on until the poor wretch died on June 10th, 1630, after three years of incarceration when it was perforce suspended. Of all the devices for encouraging informers and crippling the defense of the accused, the most effective was the suppression of the names of the witnesses for the prosecution. This infamy was an inheritance from the old Inquisition. In 1298, under the pretext that those who gave evidence in cases of heresy were liable to vengeance from other heretics, Bonifast the Eighth provided that, where such danger was threatened, Inquisitors were at liberty to conceal the names of the witnesses, but he expressly ordered that, in the absence of such danger, the names were to be published as in other tribunals. That he construe this literally is evident, for when the Jews of Rome complained that in their case the names were habitually concealed, he decided that, as they were few and powerless, there was no danger and the names must be revealed. Permission to commit injustice is apt practically to assume the aspect of a council and then of a command, and, in spite of Bonifast's reservation, concealment became the universal practice of the Inquisition. So it was in Spain. At first it was a discretionary power for the Inquisitor to use in exceptional cases, as when the Inquisitor of Ciudad Real, in the trials of Sancho de Ciudad and his wife, ordered on January the 7th, 1484, that the witnesses' names be suppressed. It was an exception which he explained by the fact that Sancho was Regidor of the city, with powerful friends, and that the witnesses had been threatened. Similarly, in the instructions of November 1484, the suppression of witnesses' names was permissive, not mandatory. Illusion was made to the danger of testifying against heretics. It was asserted that some witnesses had been murdered or wounded for that cause, wherefore Inquisitors could suppress their names and all circumstances that would lead to their identification. All that was needed was permission, and suppression speedily became the rule. Of course there was occasional danger, and of course there were efforts by threats or otherwise to deter informers and witnesses. But this is common in all criminal justice, though there was no thought of applying concealment to the secular courts. It was a privilege exclusively in favor of the faith. Considering the provocation and the number of the victims, attacks on witnesses would appear to be singularly few and wholly inadequate to justify their protection by such means, although the Inquisition never ceased to proclaim it as an ever-present danger. In August 1500, Ferdinand and Isabella asked of Manuel of Portugal the extradition of Juan de Zafra and his son-in-law for seeking to kill Juan López of Badajoz who had testified against Zafra, and not finding him, had beaten to death his pregnant wife and stabbed his young son and had escaped to Portugal. They were surrendered, but there seemed to have been no precedents for their prosecution, and in January 1501 we find Ferdinand writing to the Tribunal of Seville to hold a consultation as to the procedure in the case. Again, in January 1502, when a witness in Caladayud was threatened, Ferdinand ordered the Inquisitor, if the report was true, to take such action as comported with the honor of the Holy Office and the protection of witnesses. Evidently, cases had been so rare that no method of dealing with them had been formulated. Still, a prehension was lively, and when in 1507 at Lirena, some conversos living near the Inquisition were suspected of watching to see what witnesses went there, Ferdinand empowered the Inquisitors to remove six of them summarily and replace them with persons beyond suspicion. The suppression of the names of witnesses was necessarily felt as an extreme hardship by the conversos, not only as impeding defense, but as stimulating false accusations, which there was no opportunity of disproving. The High End Memorial of 1506 does not hesitate to accuse the officials of the Tribunal of thus piling up fictitious charges, and Lucero's career at Córdoba shows how successfully this could be done when witnesses need not be either named or produced. That efforts should be made to purchase relief was natural. When in 1512 Ferdinand was lacking in funds for the conquest of Navarre, an offer of 600,000 dukeheads was made to him, if he would remove the steel of secrecy from the names of informers and witnesses. But we are told that he preferred his God and his faith in the preservation of religion. Soon after his death an attempt was made to tempt the young Charles V, with a bribe of 800,000 crowns. His greedy advisors favored the petition, but Jimenez interposed with a strong remonstrance, reciting Ferdinand's refusal and predicting the ruin of the holy office. Recently he added, et alavera la reina, e judea is in converso, punished by it, obtain knowledge of the informer, lay in wait for him, and slew him, and such is the infamy inflicted by the inquisition, and such the hatred engendered by it, that if the names of the witnesses were published, they would be slain, not only in solitudes, but in the streets, and even in the churches. No one would be able to denounce heretics, save at the peril of his life, so that the inquisition would be ruined, and God would have no defender. Charles was convinced, and the dazzling bribe was rejected. Thus the policy of the inquisition was settled, and so completely was it embodied in the estilo that it was frequently enforced in cases where its ostensible reason was inapplicable. When Juan Franco was burned for Protestantism at Toledo in 1570, the only witness against him was another Frenchman, Jean de Provin, who had confessed to being a Protestant dogmatizer, and as such was undoubtedly burned. His only evidence had been some idle talk between them, eight years previously. He was eminently safe from vengeance, and yet his name was carefully suppressed in the publication of evidence. For all this, when the rule was applied to the inquisitors, as it was in the visitations, when the inspector was interrogating the officials about each other, they fully recognized its injustice. Thus in 1574, during an inspection of the Canary Tribunal, when the inquisitor Ortiz de Funes was inculpated, he complained bitterly that it rendered it impossible for him to verify or invalidate the testimony of the witnesses, a scruple which he had never felt when administrating justice in this fashion. The fiction was persistently maintained that the usefulness of the inquisition depended wholly on the suppression of the names of witnesses. In the struggle over the evocation to Rome of the case of Bilanueva, the main argument, repeatedly advanced by the Suprema, was that if appeals to Rome were permitted, they would destroy its efficiency in the suppression of heresy, for no one would denounce heretics or testify against them if there was risk that their names would become known in Rome by the papers being carried thither. The idleness of this talk is indicated by the rarity of cases of injury or threats to witnesses and the moderation with which they were customarily punished. The most serious case that I have met was that which followed the condemnation to lifelong reclusion in a monastery of Luis Palas, Lord of Cortes, by the Tribunal of Valencia in 1571 for protecting his Morisco vassals from the inquisition. Suspicion of having informed on him fell upon Francisco Gonzales and the Pias family ordered his murder, for which in 1577 four of the Pias retainers were relaxed to the Captain General for execution. So unusual was the case that the letter had scruples as to his duty which Philip II told him where superfluous and had unnecessarily delayed the punishment. Like any other murder, this involved the death penalty, but as a rule, offenses of minor degree were leniently treated. In 1631, Francisca Munoz of Segovia wounded Juan Martínez in the face after asking why he had put her mother-in-law in the inquisition for which she was only reprimanded in the audience chamber and banished for two years from Segovia. In various other cases of threatening witnesses, the severest punishment I have met is a hundred lashes, coupled with more or less exile, and this, considering the liberality with which scourging was administered, implies that the offense was not regarded as requiring severe repression. Although thus the penalties were not greatly deterrent, the cases would appear to be singularly few. In the Toledo record from 1648 to 1794, the only one occurred in 1650, when Pedro de Vega, al Caide of Mont Beltran, after trial for a proposition without conviction, had threatened and insulted the witnesses. For this he was prosecuted and escaped with a severe reprimand and warning. To appreciate fully the hardship which the suppression of witnesses' names inflicted on the accused, it must be borne in mind that his only opportunity of knowing what was the evidence against him was in the so-called publication. This will be considered more in detail hereafter, and it suffices here to point out how the effort to mislead the prisoner as to the identity of his accusers led to the garbling of the evidence in a manner necessarily adding impediments to the exceedingly limited opportunities allowed him for defense. Yet, we occasionally meet with cases which suggests that inquisitors were less solicitous about the safety of their witnesses than to create the belief in safety that would encourage denunciation. Thus, in the trial of Huns of Antwerp in Toledo for Lutheranism in 1561, there was no screw-hole in setting forth the evidence in such wise that he could not fail to identify the witness. This could scarce be avoided in the very fruitful source of evidence volunteered by cell companions. Thus, in the Toledo case of Pedro Flamenco in 1570, the testimony of two fellow prisoners as to his talk and conduct in prison is so set forth as to render their identification inevitable, and as it included their opinions that he was a scoundrel and villain, there must have been lively times in that cell on his return from his audience. In cases of solicitation, the attempt to prevent identification was futile, for the confessor could not fail from the incidents freely detailed to recognize the women whom he had seduced or attempted to seduce. In secular procedure, there was occasional recourse to confrontation, bringing the accused face to face with the accuser or the witnesses and letting them debate the questions that had puzzled the judges, but it was regarded as a doubtful expedient to be resorted to only when all else had failed. In 1491 in the case of the Santo Niño de la Guardia, where the accused were witnesses against each other and the confessions under torture were irreconcilable, confrontation was tried with dubious success. This indicates that under supreme pressure the veil of secrecy might be withdrawn, and probably the example was occasionally followed, for while this, in the instructions of 1561, felt it necessary to say that although confrontation was practice in other jurisdictions, it was not customary in the inquisition for, besides the violation of secrecy, experience had shown that when tried it was disadvantages. This did not wholly put an end to it, for in 1568 the Suprema sharply rebuked the tribunal of Barcelona for various irregularities, among which was the frequent recourse to confrontation. The latest allusion to the practice that I have met with in Spain occurs in the Baladoli case in 1620 of the priest Juan de Gabana and his accomplice Jerónima González, when the Consulta de Fe proposed to confront them, but refer the matter to the Suprema. Its decision would doubtless have been in the negative, but was never rendered as Gabana died before it replied. In the Roman inquisition, confrontation was sparingly admitted and only when both parties were of low estates, never between those of higher station or of different classes. While sedulous care was taken to prevent the accused from identifying the witnesses, it often was necessary for the witnesses to identify the accused to prevent mistakes liable to occur in the arbitrary methods of the inquisition. This was so managed as to accomplish both objects. The somewhat crude plan adopted in 1528 in the trial at Toledo of Diego de Uceda was to conceal the witnesses in the tortured chamber while he was walked up and down for a quarter of an hour until they fully identified him. Subsequently, it was found expedient to furnish the audience chamber with a celosia, a jealousy or lattice work through which the witness could peer without being discovered. Its utility was strikingly demonstrated in 1649 in a Baladoli case of alleged bigamy when one of the wives, Anna Roman, was brought to inspect the accused through the lattice and declared that he was not the Juan Gonzalez whom she had married as he differed in age, in size and in features whereupon he was discharged. In view of the temptation offered for the gratification of malice by shielding informers and witnesses, special care was advisable for the detection and punishment of false witnesses. This was the more necessary as perjury was a popular failing and the sanction of an oath was lightly esteemed. In 1555 the Cortes of Baladoli asked that in cases involving death or mutilation, oaths should be abolished as they merely led to perjury and in 1560 the Cortes of Toledo complained of the prevalence of false witness as a matter so customary that there were provinces in which it was as abundant as any other merchandise and it was openly sad that for money a man could get as many witnesses as he desired. We have seen how in 1488 at Toledo eight Jews were torn with hot pincers and lapidated for bearing false witness against good Christians with the object of rendering the inquisition odious. This savage penalty compares strangely with the leniency shown to exculpatory perjury in the case of Mohsen Pedro de Santa Hel prior of Daroka who had sought by the employment of several false witnesses to save his brother Luis de Santa Hel burned for complicity in the murder of San Pedro Arbués. He escaped with the simple penance of holding a lighted candle before the high altar and they were treated as benignly. It was probably to secure greater uniformity that in the instructions of 1498 inquisitors were told to inflict public punishment according to law and those whom they detected in testifying falsely. The matter was one which might well excite solicitude for it is evident that perjury on both sides was rife and the tribunals might reasonably hesitate to believe any witnesses. In 1500 and 1501 we find Ferdinand repeatedly interposing to shield those whom he favored and whom he declared to be persecuted by perjurers and the career of Lucero shows how readily and unscrupulously they could be employed in the secrecy of the tribunals. The high-end memorial of 1506 speaks of a certain Diego de Ajecira whom Lucero kept for five years to testify against all whom he desired to destroy and whom the inquisitors of high-end borrowed for the same purpose besides other adapts of the kind whom they employed and rewarded. When a raid was made on Arjona the notary Barcena brought with him Luis de Bielches who by changing his name and garments testified repeatedly in different characters. One of the petitions of the Cortes of Monson in 1512 bears eloquent testimony to the same state of affairs in Catalonia for it asks that when a man was burned through fraudulent testimony the inquisitors should not prevent the king from punishing the false witnesses. Such a system necessarily produced professional perjurers who did for gain what others might do through malice that the accused should resort to the same means was inevitable. In Segovia in 1504 there appears to have been a perfect carnival of false witness. On July 10th and 11th there were punished two accusing perjurers and 22 who had sworn falsely on the side of the defense. There were others who had died before sentence and still more who had confessed and were awaiting punishment which consisted mostly in scorching and exile. Thus far there seems to have been uncertainty as to jurisdiction. In the Catalan efforts for relief the bull Pastoralis Ophichii was procured from Leo X on August 1st 1576 which rendered perjury committed in the Inquisition justiciable by the inquisitors and ecclesiastical judges in conjunction but not thoroughly. The result was naturally discouraging and papal intervention was again sought. In a brief of December 14th 1518 addressed to Cardinal Adrian Leo deplored the condition under which through false witness the guilty escaped and the innocent suffered but the only remedy provided was in conferring full jurisdiction on inquisitors with faculties to punish even by relaxation to the secular arm without incurring irregularity. The crime was thus placed wholly in the hands of the Inquisition which was no more likely than before to exert itself in checking perjured accusations. This proved to be the case and in 1523 the Cortes of Baladolid asked that it should inflict on false witnesses the penalties provided by the Laws of Toro in 1502 which decreed the Talio for perjury committed in criminal cases. Charles contented himself with replying that he had asked the Pope to appoint as Inquisitor General Archbishop Manrique whom he would charge to see justice done. That this remedy proved futile may be gathered from the Memorial of Granada in 1526 in which one of the arguments against the suppression of the names of witnesses is the number of souls condemned to hell for perjury through the facilities offered by the secret system tempting them to destroy their enemies or to swear falsely through bribery a thing which happens every day. In fact the procedure of the Inquisition was such as to encourage the crime and to render its detection exceedingly difficult at least when committed for the benefit of the prosecution. When every precaution was taken to prevent the accused from identifying his accusers it was expecting too much of the average Inquisitor that he should depart from the routine work of his office to discover without assistance from those interested whether the witnesses mechanically examined by him or his commissioner were telling the truth or not. Had there been any zeal in this direction the Suprema would not have felt obliged in 1531 to instruct the tribunals that perjurers should be punished as a warning to others giving due consideration as to whether they were actuated by malice or ignorance. Possibly this may have stimulated some tribunal to inconvenient activity for in 1536 it saw occasion to moderate zeal by ordering that the rigor of the brief of Leo X should not be observed unless someone had been condemned through false evidence and even in such case the Suprema was to be consulted before action. The infallibility of the Inquisition was too important to be rashly compromised. Moderation does remain the rule. Simanca tells us that under Leo's brief perjurers should be burned with confiscation but this should only be done when the accused has suffered severely. In most cases the injury is but slight for which such penalties suffice as appearing in an auto with a defamatory mitre and scourging, galleys or exile. Even when burned there are no disabilities on descendants. The Talio has become virtually obsolete and should be used only in extreme cases. Subrenation of perjury is even worse than false witness and incurs the same punishment. Theoretically this reflects the ordinary practice. I have met with but one case in which a perjurer was burned and this was in Sardinia in 1562 but about 1640 an experienced inquisitor states that he has seen records of such cases in Logroño and it is possible that they occurred occasionally. So also we sometimes find scourging in the galleys in aggravated cases while priests were let off with fines and exile. Still the tendency was to extreme moderation. In Valadolid Juan Gomez Rubio suffered imprisonment for nearly two years from 1636 to 1638 on a charge of blasphemous propositions. When his case was suspended and he was dismissed with a reprimand and the corresponding infamy. His accuser was Pedro de la Cruz who had testified twice against him under fictitious names and had suborned others to appear against him for which he escaped with parading in vergüenza and exile. A still more significant case was that of Jean de la Barre of Fleming long settled in Madrid where he was deputy al-Qaeda of the royal palace of the pardo. He was a man of somewhat excessive devoutness. He had a mass celebrated daily in the royal chapel by a chaplain of his own until the regular chaplain a doctor Robles who was also commissioner of the inquisition forbade it and forced him to the church of the Trinitarians. He endeavored to form a confradilla for celebrating masses but Robles demanded to be the head of it and to handle the funds without accountability when la Barre abandoned the project although he had spent 500 duquettes on a silver lamp for the chapel. They naturally quarreled and when Robles sought a reconciliation his overtures were rejected. He revenged himself in January 1656 by denouncing la Barre for various heretical speeches for neglecting mass and confession and what was perhaps more serious and all for saying that inquisitors were robbers who seized rich men to strip them of their property. La Barre had discharged several workmen for theft and idleness and they were readily induced to appear as corroborating witnesses. He easily identified his accusers and in defense presented 25 witnesses in his favor among them five Trinitarian frials and some officials of high rank who testified emphatically to his unusual devotion. His rosary was never out of his hands he heard mass daily and spent three reales a day for it. They also told of the mortal enmity and threats of Robles and the discharged workmen and showed the reasons. There could be no clearer case of a foul conspiracy to ruin an innocent men but he was sentenced to reprimand and exile and was threatened with a hundred lashes if he dared to speak of his treatment. That his case was suspended and he was not required to abjure even Delewi showed that there was no suspicion of hair as he proved and that the sentence with its consequences of infamy on him and his posterity was a mere wanton exercise of arbitrary power while the false witnesses were not troubled for there are no marginal notes on the record showing that extracts were taken from the evidence for their prosecution. It was still admitted that the legal punishment was the talio but that it should only be inflicted when the perjurer had encompassed the conviction of his victim thus weighing the crime not by its criminality but by its result. How lightly indeed false swearing was regarded per se is indicated by a curious case occurring in Baladolid in 1630. A student named Luis Sanchez denounced certain portugies of Zamora of endeavoring to convert him. The receiver and an Alguacil were sent thither but could find no trace of the accused nor even of the street in which they were described as residing. Sanchez was sent for was made to ratify his deposition and was then accused of the fraud and mockery of the tribunal. He admitted it and explained that he had been thrown into a jail in a suit over a mayor and had devised his expedit for getting out in hopes of escaping to the asylum of a church. His trial went through all the regular stages. The vote of the consulta de fe was sent to the suprema which contented itself with sentencing him to a reprimand six years exile from Baladolid and a fine of 200 ducats with the charitable alternative that if he was too poor he should swear to pay it if he should ever be able. While thus the inquisition was benignedly disposed towards perjury the secular law did not relax its severity. In Aragon the Cortes of Monson in 1564 the creed the Talio in criminal cases for accusing false witnesses and for those produced by the defense in addition to the penalties prescribed by the Fueros scourging and perpetual banishment besides making good all expenses incurred by the other party. In Castille a pragmatica of Philip II in 1566 confirmed by Philip III in 1603 when the case was not capital substituted for the Talio, scourging and the galleys for life. The tenderness of the inquisition for such offenses was not derived from any softening of the law of the land. With the development of limpieza there sprang up a new and fruitful source of perjury. Those who were endeavoring to prove immaculate descent had no scruple in filling any genealogical gaps by purchasing witnesses to supply deficiencies and those who through envy or malice desired the defeat of an aspirant found ready means of putting forward witnesses to swear as to public repute or that they had seen San Benitos of ancestors. As early as 1560 and again in 1574 the Suprema found it necessary to issue instructions to meet these cases. Bigamy trials also brought to light a contingent of perjurers mostly employed by the guilty party, desiring remarriage to swear that he or she was single. End of book 6 chapter 5 part 2 book 6 chapter 5 part 3 of the history of the Inquisition of Spain volume 2 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recorded by hearhis.com The History of the Inquisition of Spain volume 2 by Henry Charles Lea book 6 practice chapter 5 part 3 evidence Notwithstanding these accessions and of the fact that in most cases there were several accomplices the number in the records is surprisingly few partly this is explicable by the extreme difficulty of detection owing to the suppression of witnesses names and the impediments thrown in the way of the defense and partly by the indifference of the tribunals which do not seem to have regarded it as their duty to prosecute perjurers at least those for the prosecution when in 1640 Agustin Gomez de la Pena cura of perdigón was tried in Valladolid for carrying unconsecrated forms of the procession of Corpus Christi and the case was suspended on the ground that the testimony was perjured the Suprema in approving the vote felt it necessary to order that the fiscal should prosecute the accuser and his witness showing that this was by no means a matter of course be this as it may in Toledo a record extending from 1575 to 1610 and embracing 1172 trials only contains eight cases of false witness and a further record of the same tribunal from 1648 to 1794 has not a single one in its aggregate of 1,205 cases in Valladolid out of 667 trials occurring between 1622 and 1662 there are but seven cases of false witness in Madrid the records from 1703 to 1751 present but a single trial for false witness and this arose out of a marriage case unfortunately these slender returns do not prove that perjury was uncommon Philip V among his other attempted reforms in a decree of July 26, 1705 called attention to the faculty afforded to the extricable wickedness of false denunciations and false witnesses imposing on many innocent persons the difficult task of protecting honor property and life to the perversion and scandal of justice these enormous and pernicious abuses he attributed to the non-enforcement of the penalties prescribed by the laws because the moderate punishments so rarely inflicted encouraged rather than repressed the audacity of the evil minded he therefore ordered the supreme to see that the legal penalties were rigorously enforced and the supreme obediently transmitted this to the tribunals with instructions to conform to it strictly this seems to have had some effect but not much in a collection of all the autos held in Spain from 1721 to 1727 out of 962 sentences there are but 17 for false witnesses and these represent only about half that number of cases for in one there were five accomplices and in two others three each the punishments remain as of old scourging galleys and exile and there is no difference made between offenders in marriage cases and those involving the death penalty by accusations of Judaism one of these latter excited considerable interest at the time three penitents from Cadiz undergoing punishments for Judaism accused 14 persons of practicing Jewish rights but they had not studied their parts well their stories did not accord and on being arrested they confessed their intended victims were honored with a special autodefe in Sevilla November 30th 1722 to which they were conveyed by familiars in the handsomest coaches of the city in the church of San Pablo they were seated near to the inquisitors the evidence was publicly read their innocence was proclaimed and they were carried home in the coaches this was followed June 6 1723 by the auto in which the perjurers were sentenced to 200 lashes apiece and the two of them who were men to seven years in the galleys somewhat similar was a case in Santiago in 1724 when five culprits were concerned of whom the leader Pedro Garcia Rodriguez was punished by 200 lashes and five years of galleys which his accomplices had the lashes and eight years of exile the moderation shown towards perjury increased in the latest period in 1817 the deacon Manuel Gonzalez riba deniera was prosecuted for it by the tribunal of Santiago but when the samaria was submitted to the supreme it sent a commission to the Benedictine Abbott of Monteforte to warn the offender that in the future he must conform his dispositions to the truth as becomes a minister in holy orders for otherwise he would not be treated with the benignity which now imposed on him only eight days of spiritual exercises in the monastery apparently even this was expected to excite resistance for a further provision threatened him in case of refusal with prosecution according to law theoretically there was laudable care as to the sufficiency of evidence for condemnation the ancient glossator on the Decretum says that two witnesses are sufficient to convict a pope but the authorities both of the old and the new inquisition hold that although this is good in ordinary law yet in a crime entailing such consequences as heresy especially as the defense is crippled by the suppression of the witnesses names there should be much hesitation in convicting a man on the evidence of only two witnesses still two were reckoned sufficient unless they were accomplices when three were required and these supported by other indications yet as one witness was sufficient to justify torture these scruples did not save the accused but only exposed him to the risk of convicting himself if his endurance did not exhaust the resources of the torture chamber in fact in the secrecy of the tribunal the discretion of the judges was the only rule and they could construe the laws of evidence as they saw fit as when a visitation of Barcelona led the Suprema in 1568 to rebuke the inquisitors because on the evidence of a single witness they prosecuted Gullion Contada tortured him twice and without convicting him abandoned him to the secular arm for burning nor was he the only victim of the kind for they did the same with Juan del Payin how much of this occurred elsewhere in the world we'll never know the theory that it required two witnesses to prove a fact was developed into the rule that they must be contestus that is witnesses to the same individual act of heresy before it could be accepted as proved it is often found urged in the arguments for the defense that the witnesses are singularis and not contestus but in practice such a defense was usually disregarded or at most only led to the unfailing resource of torture thus in the case referred to the Suprema for decision the tribunal reported that there were many witnesses to prove that the accused was a juice but they were not contestus for none of them cited the others but each one named somebody else who could attest the fact they disposed to the same time and place but varied as to the years in the consulta de fe some members voted for relaxation and others for torture the matter was sent up to the Suprema and whatever its decision may have been the accused suffered even in the 17th century Escobar affirms the rule absolutely if one witness swears that he heard Pedro say in the marketplace that God is not a trinity and another that he heard him say so in the house it does not convict him for neither fact is legally proved such a definition however through too many obstacles in the way of the prosecution not to be eluded and in fact there were classes of cases such as solicitation in the confessional in which it was impossible to have more than one witness to each individual act so in prosecutions for Judaism in which the evidence frequently covered a long series of years and turned on infitesimal incidents in daily life concurrent witnesses to any single one could scarce be had yet the claims of the inquisition to extreme benignity required this to be understood as Escobar expresses it while in practice it was disregarded it was discovered that witnesses could be contestus in Henere when they testified to different acts of heresy and thus make full proof it is true that Rojas after citing authorities on both sides concludes that the rule requiring two concurrent witnesses to a fact must be observed but one of his authorities asserts that the contrary is the rule in practice and the Supremia affirm this July 27th 1590 by ordering that where formal heresy is concerned dispositions as to different ceremonies and points of faith are to be held as contestus this was inevitable and it was only sanctioning what had long been the custom in the tribunals there was much laxity in the character of the evidence accepted in the secular courts hearsay testimony was not admitted as proof unless a witness had heard a matter from so many persons as to constitute public fame in which case it was allowed a certain weight in the inquisition the same rule was nominally followed but in practice hearsay evidence was welcomed and was utilized all the gossip and tattle of a village was eagerly accepted and recorded to be reproduced in the publication of evidence furnished to the accused and it unquestionably had its weight when laid before the consulta de fe which voted the sentence witnesses were often brought in to swear that they had heard the direct witness assert that the accused was guilty of the hearsay charged and this was regarded as cumulative evidence sometimes it happened that these secondary witnesses made a much stronger statement than their principal and in such case the fiscal was directed to insert both in the accusation with the reserve that the direct testimony would be considered when sentencing the object being to terrify and mislead the prisoner the kind of evidence that was gravely accepted and recorded is seen in the trial of the sentiate louise de jivera who was reconciled in the toledo author de fe of 1594 in an abstract of the more important testimony it is stated that the fourth witness had heard a man say that a certain morriska was a great bitch for she coupled with other dogs meaning the said louis de jivera such hearsay gossip was laboriously accumulated to an incredible degree and it is easy to appreciate its effect on the defendant when cunningly mingled with the direct evidence of the publication of witnesses which he was required to answer on the spot item by item tending to confuse him and leading him to entrap himself in the trial at valladolid in 1641 of sebastian de los rios cura of tombrio there were fourteen witnesses de visu or direct and twenty de orius or hearsay and in 1659 geomar atunes was thrown into the secret prison with sequestration on the testimony of one witness de visu and eleven de oidas latitudinarianism as to evidence could scarcely go further than in the case of fray alonso capera tried in 1643 as a curandero for treating disease by congerations against whom were testified twenty witnesses men and women minors and adults some direct others hearsay and others on suspicion when it is remembered that no witness however infamous or unfit was rejected we can conceive the quality of the evidence on which to pin the fate of the accused while the inquisition claimed jurisdiction over all heresy internal and mental as well as external and formal it could only prosecute when heresy was manifested or or infariable by external acts or words and these had to be investigated with the utmost minuteness the land was filled with those whose external conformity might be but the cloak for secret dissidents the new christian was regarded with suspicion as a possible or even a probable apostate whose baptism only served to render him guilty and to subject him to the jurisdiction of the inquisition he might be regular in religious observance be liberal to church and friar be a constant purchaser of the crusada indulgences and yet be secretly a believer in the law of moses or of Muhammad it was the business of the inquisition to detect and punish these apostates it was rarely that they betrayed their infidelity by impudent avowals or hasty speeches except to so-called accomplices or to sell companions and in the absence of such witnesses for the most part the only proof against them arose from their adherence in the privacy of their homes to the rights and usages which through long succession of generations had become a second nature it was on this then that prosecutions largely depended and the simplest acts that savored of Judaism or of Islam were regarded as incontrovertible proofs of apostasy requiring reconciliation to the church with all that it implied and if subsequently persisted in proving relapse with its penalty of the stake familiarity with the practices of the condemned religions was therefore part of the necessary training of the inquisitor and long descriptive catalogs were compiled for their information in order also that the people might be duly instructed and be on the watch to denounce their neighbors these were incorporated in the edicts of faith annually published in all the churches much of the evidence recorded in the trials and for the most part accepted as conclusive consists of acts in themselves perfectly innocent and appearing to us wholly indifferent and unworthy of consideration observing the Ramadan or the fast of Queen Esther of course would admit of no extinuation but there were a host of trivial observances which seemed to the modern mind altogether inadequate to the prominence accorded to them in the trials this extreme minuteness with which such observances were held to prove apostasy was an innovation of old the church recognized the impossibility of changing abruptly customs so embedded in the routine of daily life and while such practices were to be repressed they were not treated as heresy the great Council of Lateran in 1215 alludes to their frequency but contends itself with ordering prelates to force converts to abandon all remnants of their old faith it was otherwise in Spain and the evidence on which prosecutions were based and punishments inflicted would often appear to us to be of the flimsiest character changing the body linen or table linen on Saturday lighting candles on Friday and similar observances were proofs of the most damaging character even eating almond a broth liked by Jews is enumerated among the offenses entailing appearance in an auto de fe when Brianda de Bardaxi was on trial at Saragossa in 1491 she admitted that when a child she had eaten a few mouthfuls of Passover bread given to her by a playmate and this was gravely detailed in her sentence as one of the proofs of vehement suspicion for which she was severely punished circumcision in the latter period was an evidence almost decisive and with male defendants and inspection by the surgeon of the tribunal was customary but in the earlier time before the expulsion and forced conversion of the Jews it was merely an indication that a man was a new and not an old Christian yet in an auto de fe at Saragossa in 1486 Pedro and Luis de Arpasan on this evidence alone were sentenced to perform penance with lighted candles and to ten years of exile among the moriscos staining the nails with henna was held to justify suspicion refusing to eat the flesh of animals that had died of natural causes was highly damaging a propensity to cleanliness by washing oneself was an indication of apostasy and in the trial of Marie Gomez at Toledo in 1550 as a relapsed impenitent one of the charges was that in her formal trial she had not confess that some 15 years before a kid had been killed in her house by cutting its throat how slender was the evidence requisite for prosecution is manifested in the trials of a whole family in in Valladolid from 1622 to 1624 when Dr. Jorge Enrique's physician to the Duke of Alva died the body was soiled required washing followed by a clean shirt a number of witnesses thereupon disposed that it was prepared for sepulcher according to Jewish rites the consulta de fe on the arrest was not unanimous and it was referred to the supreme which ordered the arrest of all concerned with sequestration the whole family widow children and servants with some cousins were thrown into the secret prison and the eldest son a youth of 20 died from the effects of torture after nearly two years of this the evidence was so weak that the consulta de fe voted in discordia and the supreme ordered the prisoners to be acquitted so in 1625 Manuel de azevedo a shoemaker of salamanca was denounced because he had removed the lump of fat from a leg of mutton which he took to a baker to be roasted the consulta voted to dismiss the case but the fiscal appealed to the supreme which ordered arrest with sequestration the trial went on through all the forms and when at length azevedo learned from the accusation what was the charge he said that he was ignorant of this being a Jewish custom but had been told that a leg of mutton roasted better when the fat was cut out when the defense was reached he proved that he was an old Christian on all sides he was not acquitted but the case was suspended had he been a new Christian he would have been tortured and penanced whether he overcame the torture or not in another case in 1646 one of the charges was that the accused in slicing bread held the knife with the edge turned away and not towards his breast as was customary with Christians trivial as all this may seem one occasionally meets a case showing that the inquisition did not always spend its energies in vain in following up the slenderest evidence however great were the sufferings frequently inflicted on the innocent in several Jewish cases in Valladolid in 1642 the chief evidence was that the meat before cooking was soaked in water to remove the blood and grease this led to the discovery and punishment as Judaizers of a group of some 15 or 20 in Benavente who appeared in the Autodefe of 1644 as soon as one was brought to confess he implicated others and the net was spread which captured them all the fact however that torture was freely used cast an unpleasant doubt over the justice of the result suspicion might be aroused by negative as well as by positive indications and in the Spain of the Inquisition it behooved every man to be scrupulously exact in the performance of what were regarded as evidences of orthodoxy as well as the avoidance of what created doubt for everywhere around him were zealous spies eager to serve the faith in 1635 Manuel Mardes traveling with his wife and two other women passed two men laboring in a field without saluting them one of them asked why he did not say praised be Jesus Christ or praise be the most blessed sacrament to which he imprudently replied that God was not known in his own land the laborers promptly denounced him to the nearest commissioner of the Inquisition who arrested him the calafadores voted that this was manifest Judaism and he was thrown into the secret prison of Valladolid with sequestration then there came additional evidence from a cell companion that he washed his hands on rising and before eating he denied all intention until he was smartly tortured when he confessed all that was desired naturally this negative evidence was habitually sought by the tribunals in the trials for Judaism and Muhammetism the accused was always interrogated as to his training in Christian formulas he was asked to recite the credo for the customary prayers at the patronuster the aba moria and the salve regina and was made to cross himself to see whether or not he did it in a manner to show that it was habitual in spain there were two forms of this santi guarse and signarse the former consisting in making the sign of the cross with the thumb and forefinger joined passing them from forehead to cheek and from the left to the right shoulder the latter in touching the forehead mouth and chest with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand or with the thumb alone this was often a crucial test of maria gomez it is recorded july 15 15 50 quote she repeated the aba moria she was imperfect in the pastinosa and the creed and said she did not know the salve regina she performed the signo ill but the santi guardo well it has seemed worthwhile to enter thus minutely into the details of inquisitorial treatment of evidence as it was so largely a determining factor in the fate of the accused from this examination it is impossible to resist the conclusion that the system of procedure was framed rather to secure conviction than to ascertain the truth guilt was presumed in the fact of arrest and the business of the tribunal was to prove it end of book six chapter five part three recorded by here his dot com