 Book 6, Chapter 1 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. Recording by William Peck, also known as Papa-Man. The History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 2, by Henry Charles Lay. Book 6, Practice, Chapter 1, The Edict of Grace. Illusion has occurred above to the edicts of grace which, in the earlier period, played an important part in the machinery of the Inquisition. It was a custom inherited from the thirteenth century of which the conditions, as adopted in Spain, are expressed in the instructions of 1484. When, at any place, a tribunal was open, at the close of the initial sermon, the Inquisitors were to publish a term of grace, lasting for thirty or forty days, during which those conscious of heresy could come forward, making complete confession of all errors remembered, including those of others. They were to be assured that all who did so, with contrition and desire to abjure, would be charitably received, would be given salutary penance, and would not be condemned to death, to perpetual prison, or to confiscation, but the Inquisitors were empowered to reconcile them and, at their discretion, to require them to give, as arms, a certain portion of their property, in aid of the Holy War with the Moors. Volunteer confession, after the term of grace, provided the parties had not been testified against, secured reconciliation with confiscation, where adverse testimony had been received, heavier penalties, even to perpetual prison, could be inflicted. In the supplementary instructions of December 6, 1484, Torcomata added that the sovereigns granted to those thus reconciled the right to collect debts and confirmed all alienations made prior to the reconciliation, but that no subsequent alienations or incumbrances on real estate would be valid without special royal license. This still left questions unsettled, and in Torcomata's further instructions of January 5, 1485, it was provided that, if the reconciled held public office, they were to be temporarily disabled until their steadfastness in the faith was proved. Those who had been prevented by sickness or other just impediment, from availing themselves of the term of grace, were to be admitted, but, if there was proof against them, they were subject to confiscation and their cases would be submitted for the royal decision. Those who did not confess fully as to themselves and others were to be regarded as fictitious converts, and, if evidence was received against them, were to be prosecuted with the utmost rigor. Witnesses coming forward within the term were to be admitted. A case occurring in 1483 shows that this was a mitigation of the pitiless strictness with which the limits of the term of grace had been observed. When in December of that year, Juan Chinchilla was on trial at Ciudad Real, one of the articles of accusation was that he had not come forward during the term. In reply he stated that the Commodore del Carau had sent him away during that time, that he had gone to the acquisition to confess but Padre Chantano had retired after hearing mass and he had been told to return at another time. Then he went to the receiver and begged him for God's sake to get him admitted. The receiver had promised to do so and came to summon him. He thought that he was being taken to the Inquisitors but found himself thrown in prison. His explanation availed him nothing, nor did his free confession of his errors, and he was duly burnt. In the awful confusion and haste of those opening years such cases must have been frequent. There were few formalities observed, for there had not been time to develop an elaborate course of procedure, and each Inquisitor, to a large extent, followed his own devices. I have nowhere met with the full text of an Edict of Grace, but the substantial formula is given in the sentence pronounced, January 30, 1484, in Ciudad Real, against the fugitives Sancho de Ciud and his wife. This recites that, as there was a public report that in Ciudad Real many nominal Christians followed the law of Moses, the Inquisitors had verified it by testimony that, desiring to treat them with clemency, they had issued their Edict that all thus guilty should come forward and abjure within thirty days. When they would be treated with all possible mercy, that they had extended this for thirty days more and had received all who desired to present themselves after which they had issued their summons and Edict against all who had fled, and had been testified against as suspect and defame for heresy. We have seen what this mercy, impenetential processions, and heavy emersements, and we shall see how illusory, in many cases, was the primamist immunity owing to the diminution or imperfection of the confession. It was required to be full about themselves and others. The assumption, necessarily, was that they were genuine converts at heart, and as such must be eager not only to discharge their consciousness as to all past errors, but to aid in the punishment of all heretics and apostates, including those nearest and dearest to them. Anything short of this showed that their confession was fictitious, and thus it only added to their guilt. Ample evidence against them was attainable not only from informers who were numerous and active, but from the confessions of others, whether coming in under the Edict or on trial. The tribunals were watchful in utilizing all this material, and reconciliation under the Edict was apt to be supplemented by arrest and condemnation. The confessions under the Edict of Grace are pitiful reading. The poor creatures naturally admit as little as possible in the hope of diminishing the pecuniary penance. They strive to extenuate their errors and throw the blame on those who misled them. They grovel before the inquisitors, profess the deepest contrition, and promise strenuous perseverance in the faith. They rarely go out of their way to compromise others, but they frankly state who it was that perverted them and have no hesitation in implicating parents and kindred and benefactors. Unlike the priests and the confessional, the inquisitors abstain from interrogating them or seeking information about themselves or others. It was not their policy to stimulate confession, and the penitent was allowed to state as much or as little as he chose. The results are evidently the unassisted work of the penitents, inconsistent, rambling, frequently almost unintelligible, whether written by themselves or taken down verbatim by the notaries, for it was essential that they should be of the record to be bought up against them in the probable case of backsliding or of testimony to admitted facts. The confession of Maria Gonzalez de la Papana, Ciudad Rial, October 9, 1483, may be taken as a specimen. In it she throws all the blame upon her husband, and recites the thrashings received at his hands to force her to follow Jewish observances. She was duly admitted to reconciliation, but in about three months she was arrested and tried and was burnt in the great auto-defeat of February 23, 1484. The unsubstantial character of the mercy promised in the Edict of Grace is illustrated in a typical case of Andres Gonzalez, parish priest of Talavera. Even after the tribunal of Toledo had been organized, and before there had been any proclamation in the archdeaconate of Talavera, he sought to protect himself by appearing before the tribunal, making confession and obtaining reconciliation. Doubtless prisoners on trial testified against him, for he was soon afterwards arrested. November 5, 1484, he made a fuller confession, covering all the points of Judaism and disbelief in the sacraments which he had been administering. In spite of his professions of repentance, the fiscal claim that this was extorted by fear and presented the evidence of ten witnesses whose testimony as a whole was but a confirmation of his confession. He gained nothing by his self-deannuation. He was degraded from the priesthood and burnt in the auto-defeat of August 17, 1486. If thus the Edict of Grace was of little benefit to the new Christians, it was the utmost service to the inquisition. The multitudes who came forward contributed large sums in their alms, they gave the tribunal's wide knowledge of suspects and a means of subsequently convicting them on the score of their imperfect confessions, for their confessions could not fail to be technically imperfect. Moreover the necessity of denouncing all accomplices furnished an invaluable mass of testimony for further prosecutions. Thus by this simple and apparently merciful expedient the inquisitor was provided with funds and had his work laid out for him, enabling him to gather in his harvest with small labor of investigation and with full certainty of results. The Fisk who had a further advantage in the opportunity afforded by the imperfect confessions of the reconciled, besides the general compositions for confiscation described above, there were special ones exempting the conversos from this particular peril. Thus a royal sedula of April 6, 1491 grants to those of Valencia for five thousand dukots release of confiscation for all imperfect confessions and for heresies committed up to that date except in cases of relapse. Their fears were speculated upon in every way conceivable. This probably explained some obscure allusions to a time of mercy as distinguished from the time of grace, of which the clearest account we have refers to Mallorca. They contemporary relates that some years after the time of grace, perhaps too, when many heretics had confessed some errors, but not all, and had suppressed the names of many accomplices, a rigorous inquisition was made against them. Then at the persuasion of a certain great rabbi, nearly all the apostates seen the afflictions visited upon them came to the powers of the inquisitors with loud cries and tears. I wish they were sincere, begging for pardon. Then new confessions were made, and by command of the inquisitor general, with the consent of King Ferdinand, they were admitted to mercy with a moderate pecuniary fine to redeem their lawfully confiscated property. And that time was called the time of mercy. And this incurred in our city of the kingdom of Mallorca, the time of grace in 1488, and the time of mercy in 1490, when I was ten years old. Yet the grace and mercy were of little avail for, from then until the current year 1524, the inquisition against them has never ceased. Many were delivered to the secular court, and very many exposed to shame and imprisoned for life and their property confiscated, yet never would they amend. However successful was the device of the Edic the Grace. From the point of view of inquisitor and king, it evidently went over but few to the faith, and after a comparatively brief experience, the conversos recognized that those who availed themselves of it were in a distinctly worse position than before, as their confessions were on record against them in case of relapse, and they were exposed to the added danger that any imperfections in those confessions were legally construed as impenitence, which was mortal. We shall see, when considering the subject of confession, that this question of imperfection was treated so rigidly as to render its avoidance practically impossible, and of this the inquisition took full advantage, for we find a suprema instructing the tribunals to scrutinize carefully all confessions made by those under trial and compare them with those presented in the time of grace, to see whether anything had been concealed and whether the so-called penitents counseled with each other to kill their friends and kindred. This latter clause points to another serious bar to the success of Edics of Grace, in the obligation to denounce accomplices, which involved the exposure to prosecution of all the friends and kindred of the penitent. This was especially felt when the enforced conversion of the Mariscos subjected them to the inquisition, for one of their evil qualities, we are told, was that, while they could be forced to confess freely about themselves, they could not be induced to betray their neighbors, wherefore they were burnt for impenitence. The Mariscos offered the largest field for the exploitation of terms of grace during nearly a century. There was an earnest desire, for reasons of state, to secure their conversion, and special concessions were made to them with little result. The details of these will be more conveniently considered hereafter, and it will suffice here to mention that King Philip II, towards the close of his reign, proposed to issue an edict of a comprehensive character which should determine the question of expulsion. Vence of the futility of such measures, involving the denunciation of accomplices, he applied to clement the eighth for permission to omit it, but the pontiff was more rigid than the king, and, in his brief authorizing the edict, he insisted on the denunciation of apostates. Philip's death in 1598 postponed the issue of the edict until August 22, 1599. Every effort was made to render it successful, and the twelve months conceded in it were extended to eighteen, expiring on February 28, 1601. The result was awaited with anxiety, and, on August 22, 1601, the inquisitors reported that, during the whole term, only thirteen persons had taken advantage of it, and these had made such imperfect confessions and had so shielded their accomplices that they deserved condemnation rather than absolution. For two centuries after the expulsion of the Mariscos we hear nothing more of edicts of grace. There were no longer in Spain bodies of heretics or suspects to whom such expedience were applicable, and the desired unity of faith was secured so far as practicable, but with the Napoleonic wars there came new sources of infection. Spain was traversed from end to end by armies composed of heretics, like the English or the largely of three thinkers like the French. Guests had taken advantage of the troublesome times to pollute the sacred soil and liberal ideas. Abhorred the like by church and state had ample opportunity of dissemination. With the re-establishment of the Inquisition in 1814, it seemed opportune to meet the flood of heresy and libertinism by the old methods. On January 2, February 10, and April 5 of 1815, therefore, the Inquisitor General issued edicts of grace, promising that all who during the current year should come forward and denounce themselves for heresy or other crimes justicable by the Inquisition should be absolved without punishment and without obligation to denounce accomplices. This was followed, April 12, with orders to collect all information possible, but not to prosecute until after the expiration of the term, when all who should not have spontaneously presented themselves were to be put on trial. This comprehensive plan can scarce be pronounced as success. The records show that a few Espionados availed themselves of the promise grace, but the number was lamentably insignificant. This did not encourage prolongation of the term, and on January 12, 1816, another edict denounced its expiration and the revival of the old obligation to denounce all offenses known to the penitent. There it does not seem to have followed any outbursts of prosecutions. The tribunals, doubtless, had been too much occupied in repairing their shattered fortunes to waste much thought on accumulating information as to heretics. THE HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION OF SPAIN Volume 2 by Henry Charles Lee Book 6, Practice, Chapter 2, Part 1, The Inquisitorial Process In considering the judicial functions of the Inquisition, we shall meet with much that is abhorrent to our conceptions of justice. We shall see that the accused was assumed to be guilty, and that the object of the tribunal was to induce or coerce him to confess his guilt, that for this purpose he was substantially deprived of facilities for defense, and that the result for the most part depended on his powers of endurance, which the judges at discretion could test to the utmost. It would not be easy to construct a system more repugnant to rational methods for the ascertainment of truth. At the same time, the vices of the inquisitorial process at the period under consideration were not wholly confined to the Inquisition. It is true that it was responsible for their origin in the thirteenth century when the jurisprudence of Europe was undergoing reconstruction, and the methods which it framed for the conviction of heresy offered such advantages to the prosecution that they were adopted in the secular courts of nearly all the lands where the Holy Office found a foothold, and became an essential part of criminal codes. The judge, in place of an impartial dispenser of justice, grew to be virtually a prosecutor with unlimited power of bringing confession from the accused. The latter was practically compelled to prove his innocence, and the trained and subtle intellects of the bench were engaged in conflict with the cunning or stupidity of the miserable wretches brought before them. On the one side was the pride resolved not to be baffled, on the other the desperate effort at self-preservation, and in the unequal struggle innocence was much more apt to suffer than guilt to escape. So completely did this identification of judge and prosecutor dominate the critical jurisprudence of Latin Europe that in France, until the law of December 8, 1897, after the jury system had been in use for a century, the judge armed with the sumaria or dossier of incriminating evidence, opened the trial by interrogating the accused and assuming his guilt, an interrogation which was liable speedily to degenerate into a duel between them, in which the judge endeavored to break down the line of defense which the accused was obliged unskillfully to reveal. In this the kingdoms of Aragon were strikingly exceptional, for the inquisitorial process as we have seen was prohibited. In Aragon itself the interests of the accused were carefully guarded. There were elaborate provisions against arbitrary arrest, although admission to bail was limited. Accusers had to give security and were liable to double costs and damages in case of failure to prove charges. Witnesses were diligently cross-examined and in cases involving serious punishment, five disinterested jurists were associated with the judge in passing sentence, against which there was right of appeal. There was no public prosecutor before the revision of procedure by the courtes of Monzon in 1510, and then it took many years to bring the office into general use. The abuse existed of prosecutions in absentia, though if the accused subsequently appeared he had the right to appeal and still worse was the custom of keeping the prisoner chained until his trial was concluded. In Valencia and probably elsewhere there was a peculiarly valuable privilege that no one, whether defendant or witness, was compelled to answer questions that would criminate him. In Biscay the Fueros, as revised in 1526 and in force until the Revolution, were very emphatic in providing the accused with all information necessary to his defense. In Castile the processes by accusation and by inquisition were both employed. An accuser, however, was obliged to give security and was subject to fines if it appeared that he acted through malice. If there was no accuser, the judge or Alcáde made inquisition and proceeded summarily to try the case. When under the impulse of Isabella and the guidance of Alfonso Diaz de Montalvo the Cortes of Toledo in 1480 revised the criminal jurisprudence of the land, their action served as a basis for all subsequent legislation. It breathed the spirit of justice, the rigorous punishment of guilt and avoidance of punishment of innocence. The courts were enjoined to quick dispatch. The accused was to have all necessary opportunities for defense. If poor, counsel was supplied at the public expense. He could recuse any judge for cause and appeal from any decision, and he was always entitled to give bail. Prosecution in absentia, however, was allowed. After three summonses of nine days each, the accused could be prosecuted in rebel dia as contumaceous and be condemned. While thus in Castile legislation was dictated by a sincere desire for justice, in practice the accused was subjected to unnecessary disadvantages and hardships. We chanced to have the proceedings in the case of Francisco Fernández de Montemayor of Seville tried in Ciudad Real in 1499 on a charge of petty thefts on fellow lodgers of an inn, in which the general course of procedure bears sufficient resemblance to that of the inquisition to show that the latter borrowed its forms from the secular courts with modifications to facilitate conviction. When Montemayor was arrested in his inn, September 10th, his effects were sequestrated, locked in his chest and left in charge of the innkeeper. When money was needed for his prison expenses, the judges on his application sent the prison scrivener to take out a prescribed sum in the presence of witnesses. The witnesses on both sides were examined on a series of written interrogatories, a most imperfect method, and were not cross-examined. Their names were not concealed, but the accused was kept in jail and was not present. His own examination was made by the judges in Inaudencia de Carcelle. He was allowed to retain an advocate who presented a written defense. The charges were frivolous, and on October 28th the judges pronounced that the fiscal had not proved his case, which acquitted the prisoner. His treatment in jail had been harsh. He was in Hidalgo, and a few days after arrest he asked to be treated as a man of good lineage and not to be herded with criminals, whereupon he was placed in a cell with a heavy chain under close guard. On acquittal he begged to be released from his fetters, which was done on his swearing not to leave the prison, for he was not discharged. Unluckily the testimony contained some heretical speeches, though the witnesses believed them to have been uttered in jest as he was always striving to be jocular. The secular court could take no cognizance of them, but the inquisition claimed him, and he was delivered to it in chains, November 9th. His trial had occupied six weeks. The inquisition kept him for two years, and on November 10, 1501, it penanced him and made him abjure de vehementi. Doubtless the poor wretch was ruined. If we find reason to believe that the tribunals of the inquisition were largely actuated by passion or greed, they were in this no worse than the secular courts. The constantly reiterated complaints of the courtes during the 16th century assume that the whole judicial system of Castile, from the highest to the lowest, was not so much an instrumentality of justice as a venal organization to extort the largest possible sums from pleaders and to oppress the poor for the benefit of the rich. We might, perhaps, regard this as rhetorical exaggeration if we had not the opportunity of seeing how a court of the highest rank, the Royal Audencia of Seville, in 1598 disregarded all law and justice when it sought to gratify its spite on the magistracy of that city. We have seen, volume 1, page 362, the absurd quarrel raised with the judges by the inquisitors on the occasion of the obsequies of Philip II. The judges, unable to avenge themselves on the tribunal, discharged their wrath upon the civic authorities who had sought to mediate and keep the peace. They arrested on the spot several of the highest officials, including two members of the great House of Ponce de Leon, and, in spite of the indecency of sitting as judges in their own case, they prosecuted their prisoners. They took the testimony of 37 witnesses on written interrogatories, containing leading questions, and accepted hearsay evidence of the various gossip. The accused were allowed to see the accusation framed by the fiscal, but not the evidence, and no opportunity of making defense was permitted. Thereupon their advocates recused the judges, but the recusation was not only rejected on the day of its presentation, but the accused and their advocates were all heavily fined for offering it, and the next day, sentence was pronounced condemning the prisoners to various terms of suspension from office, exile, fines, and costs. Both they and the fiscal appealed, and a second hearing was held in which the defendants at last were allowed to see the evidence. Both parties, meanwhile, had been applying to the Council of Castile, which ordered that the sentence should not be confirmed without being first submitted to it, but the judges anticipated this, and the day before the order was received, hastily assembled with closed doors, and in the absence of the accused and their Council, affirmed the decision and ordered its immediate execution, with the exception of Ponce de Leon Almanza, who was of kin to one of them. The sentences were carried out with cruel vindictiveness. There was pestilence in the district to which the exiles were sent, and they were brought back sick to Seville, where the Alcáde Mayor, Juan Ponce de Leon, died, and the others were treated with the utmost harshness. When the royal courts permitted themselves such arbitrary perversions of justice, we need not be surprised that the inquisition was reckless, shielded as it was from responsibility by impenetrable secrecy. Between them the Spanish people were sorely vexed. To this the spiritual courts offered a contrast in their customary benignity towards clerical offenders, amounting almost to immunity. The course of procedure was that, when a denunciation was made to the provisor or vicar general, he took testimony or sent an official to make inquisition. The accused was summoned and was admitted to bail. The trial took the shape of an action between him and the fiscal, who presented an accusation to which the defense made reply. Witnesses for the defense were examined, publication of evidence was made, and when both parties had concluded, the judge named a day for pronouncing sentence. From two cases of the 16th century, of which the papers are before me, it would appear that there was little delay, that formalities were loosely observed, and that the proverbial leniency shown to the cloth rendered the whole a matter of comparative indifference. One of these illustrates the expiring Episcopal jurisdiction over heresy and its supplantation by the inquisition. In 1551, Diego de Carcano, a priest of Ciudad Real, was tried for heretical acts and speeches, which he freely admitted, saying that they had been in jest and that he sought not to have trifled with the things of God. The trial was concluded within three weeks, and Diego was confined for a few days in a parish church with spiritual exercises, besides paying costs amounting to about 32 reales. Two years later, inquisitor Valtodano, on a visitation, chanced to hear of the affair. He treated the Episcopal trial as invalid and vindicated together the faith and the inquisitorial jurisdiction by a second prosecution of the unlucky priest. The laxity of the church towards its airing members was still further illustrated by the reforms adopted in the provincial Synod of Toledo, held in 1565 to receive the Council of Trent. The fiscal was ordered not to denounce anyone to the judge. No inquisition was to be made unless there was a legitimate general report against a culprit, and then the judge was required to investigate carefully whether it arose from malevolence or from reputable persons. If the fiscal desired to accuse anyone, he was subjected to the laws concerning accusers, and if he failed to prove the charges, he was liable for the costs into punishment at the discretion of the judge. All pecuniary penalties were to be expended in pious uses and not for the advantage of the bishop or his vicar general, and an official was to be deputed to receive them and render a strict account. The most marked distinction between the procedure of the inquisition and that of the other jurisdictions was the inviolable secrecy in which all its operations were shrouded. There were, indeed, other evil peculiarities, but this it was which inflicted the greatest wrong on its victims and exposed the inquisitor to the strongest temptation to abuse his power. It was an inheritance from the 13th century when the inquisition early discovered the greater freedom of action and the increased popular dread resulting from the mystery which emancipated it from public opinion and veiled all its actions until their outcome was revealed in the saleminities of the Autodefe. The Roman inquisition retained it, but in a somewhat modified degree. All its officials were sworn to silence as to everything that occurred in the congregation, but in 1629 this was explained as restricted only to matters that might prejudice cases. Very different was the awful silence so enforced in Spain that it formed an important factor in the power of the Holy Office. It is not a little remarkable that when the institution was introduced in Castile so little was known of its practical working that its procedure was public like that of the secular and spiritual courts. Thus in 1483 the record of a trial in Ciudad Real speaks of the inquisitors sitting in public audience. The notaries specify as present at the hearing certain persons by name, quote, and many others who were there present, end quote. The inquisitors were listening to all who came before them while the fiscal and notary were making reports. It was deemed necessary that there should be spectators to bear witness to the proceedings. Sometimes these were connected with the tribunal, sometimes they were citizens called in for the purpose whose names were regularly entered upon the record. Even the prison subsequently guarded so jealously was not as yet known as the carceles se cretas, but as a carcel publica. In 1488 the instructions order the records to be kept, quote, in a public place where the inquisitors customarily perform the duties of the inquisition, end quote. The earliest indication of a change in this respect occurs in the instructions of 1498 where the oath prescribed for inquisitors and other officials contains a pledge of secrecy. This did not as yet, however, extend to a complete exclusion of publicity. For some Toledo trials of 1501 describe the fiscal as presenting his clamosa, or demand for prosecution, where the inquisitors were sitting as customary in their public audience, but during the trial itself they sat in the, quote, audencia de carcel, end quote. From the expressions used we may assume that as yet the inquisition building and the prison were separate, that public audiences were held in the former, and that the latter contained a room to which the accused could be brought from his cell when on trial. The se creto, which subsequently embraced the prison and everything beyond the anti-chambers, as yet only designated a chest or a room in which the records and registers were kept in safety. Yet even during this early period there had commenced in certain portions of procedure a practice of secrecy which markedly differentiated the inquisition from the ecclesiastical and secular courts. The suppression of the names and identity of witnesses and the strict seclusion of prisoners from the outside world are matters which will be more fully discussed hereafter. But already they had become distinctive features of the inquisitorial process, inflicting great hardship on the accused which was keenly felt. The tendency of all such abuses to development, the facility with which the reasons alleged in justification could be extended over all the acts of the inquisition and the attraction of the arbitrary and irresponsible power thus gained, readily explained the rapid evolutionary process which enveloped with an impenetrable veil of secrecy everything connected with the tribunals from the preliminary inquest and the arrest of the accused to his discharge or appearance in an auto-defei. The obligation of the oath of secrecy was rigidly construed when, in 1523, the vicar general of Saragossa seems to have babbled about what he had heard when called in to vote at a consulta de fei and the Suprema ordered the inquisitors to summon him and warn him not to reveal the secrets of the holy office. In 1544, Mari Sorana, on trial at Toledo, was charged with impeding the inquisition, because she had endeavored to ascertain whether a certain person had testified in another case and what he had said. The mere attempt to learn what went on within those mysterious walls was treated as a crime. In 1547, when the tribunal of Granada was moved into new quarters, it found its secrecy imperiled by the fact that it was overlooked by some windows in the house of Francisco de Santa Cruz, and on its complaint to Prince Philip, he ordered the corregidor to have those windows closed up, apparently without compensation to the owner. So impenetrable was the shroud enveloping all that took place within the tribunal that, when Philip II deemed it imperative to consult a distinguished surgeon who had been arrested, inquisitor General Quiroga left two applications unanswered, and to a third replied that, if the person was there, he could not be taken out, nor could it even be told whether he was or was not a prisoner, whereupon the king desisted from his request. On this, the comment of an inquisitor is that to all inquiries the answer must be that nothing is known. So when, in 1643, the Suprema argued against the claim of the Justicia of Aragon to grant his manifestación, or Javier's corpus, in secular cases, the chief reason alleged was that, if a tribunal could be required to differentiate cases of faith from others, and to admit that it had a certain person in its prison and the cause, its secrecy would be violated. This was emphasized in 1678 by a declaration of the Suprema that an inquisitor admitting that any individual was in the secret prison would incur excommunication, movable only by the pope. It is easy to understand why the prison was habitually designated as the carceler secretes, and why, when a person was arrested, he disappeared as utterly as though the earth had swallowed him. At every step in the progress of a case, minute precautions were taken to ensure absolute secrecy. It was not only all officials who were thus sworn, but accuser and accused and their witnesses were subjected to the same obligation. As early as 1531, a witness when dismissed was ordered to observe silence as to all that he had said or heard under pain of excommunication and a thousand ducats, and of the other penalties of those who violate the secrecy of the Holy Office. As late as 1817, in a trifling case which was suspended, the informer was fined for not having preserved secrecy. It was the same with the accused. At the very first audience, the oath administered to tell the truth contained a clause pledging him to silence, not only as to his own case, but as to all that he might see or hear. When he was dismissed, whether to punishment or to freedom, he was required to sign a pledge under oath to the same effect, to which was added a threat of punishment, occasionally taking the shape of one or two hundred lashes. In the later years of the Inquisition, this was frequently reinforced by including in the sentence a clause prohibiting the culprit from talking in any manner about his case. The tribunal thus was relieved from responsibility and could commit injustice without fear of unpleasant revelations, and the Holy Office could boast, as it customarily did, of the exquisite equity of its judgments without danger of contradiction. To what extent this was justified may be guessed from a remark of Peña that no inspection was allowed of the acts of the tribunals because they were often in conflict with the common law and the universal opinion of the doctors. End of Book 6, Chapter 2, Part 1. Book 6, Chapter 2, Part 2 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. A History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 2 by Henry Charles Lee. Book 6, Practice, Chapter 2, Part 2. The Inquisitorial Process Nothing connected with the proceedings of the Inquisition was allowed to remain outside of its walls. Every letter or mandate or instruction or warrant sent out was invariably required to be returned with the answer or endorsement of its execution. Even the edicts of faith and anathemas given out for publication in the churches were returned with statements of the day on which they were publicly read. This applied to the Council entrusted with the defense of the accused. Not only was he sworn to secrecy and to communicate with no one concerning the cases, but the scanty papers entrusted to him were to be kept under lock and key and be scrupulously returned to the tribunal so that there should be no trace or memory of them. The formal defense which he prepared had to be written by his own hand and no rough draft of it be preserved. No printer was allowed to print such a document, nor indeed any other paper relating to the Inquisition without special license from the Inquisitor General or Suprema under pain of excommunication in a hundred ducats. This jealous reserve explains the form in which the records of the Inquisition reach us. Those of each process, rudely but firmly sewed together and never bound, for they could not be given out to a binder, nor could one be admitted into the sacred precincts of the Secreto. These injunctions of secrecy were not allowed to be a dead letter. In the edicts of faith special clauses called for the denunciation of all cases of violation or of papers concerning its acts being in the possession of anyone. Its procedure was guarded with the same anxious care from public knowledge. In 1573 Leonardo Donato, the Venetian envoy who regarded the Inquisition as necessary to Spain, describes its action as so secret that nothing was known of its victims and their cases until their sentences were published in the Autos de Fe. But the fear entertained of it was so universal that little was said concerning it through dread of arousing suspicion. He had been able to learn nothing of its methods, but was told that they were good and that the sentences were always just. No one, in fact, was allowed to know what was its form of procedure. The instructions, it is true, were necessarily printed. There was an addition of the Antiquas in Seville in 1536, reprinted in Madrid in 1576. The Nuevas of 1561 were printed in 1612, and the whole were re-edited by Arguello, an official of the Suprema, in 1627 and 1630. But these were strictly reserved for use in the tribunals, and their details were constantly subject to modification by the Cartas Accordadas of the Suprema, which never saw the light. Experienced inquisitors drew up manuals of practice, many of which are still preserved in the manuscripts of the archives and libraries. But this knowledge of the istilo or methods of procedure was strictly confined to officials sworn to secrecy. It was apparently, soon after the preparation of the instructions of 1561, that a doctor Blasco de Alagona had the audacity to ask for a copy of them, when the fiscal to whom the petition was referred declared that the granting of such a request would be un-exampled, and he had no difficulty in proving that parties before the tribunal had no business to inquire into its methods. The instructions were solely for its guidance and were to be known to others only by their results in the administration of justice. If they came to public knowledge, evil intentioned men could debate whether the istilo of the inquisition was good or bad. The extreme importance of the seal was fully recognized in assuring freedom of irresponsible action and in creating the popular impression of mysterious impeccability. Philip II, in his instructions to Manrique de Lada in 1595, dwelt on this and pointed out that, quote, without it the holy office could not preserve the untrammeled exercise of its functions, end, quote, wherefore any official violating it must be punished with the utmost rigor. Apparently cases of infraction occurred, drawing from the Supremah a karta akordata, pointing out that all the power and authority and reputation of those serving in the holy office rested upon secrecy. The more secret its affairs were kept, the more they were venerated by those from whom they were concealed. The neglect of this had aroused in the Supremah the greatest resentment, as it was a matter of so great moment to the estimation and respect in which the affairs and the members of the inquisition had always been held. Therefore it had been resolved that the oath of secrecy, taken on admission to office, should be so construed that its infraction should constitute perjury and infidelity. Single witnesses should suffice for conviction. On a first offense the culprit should be suspended irremissibly for a year and pay fifty ducats, and on a repetition be perpetually dismissed. Even if not convicted, he should realize that in the Forum of Conscience he could not draw his salary. This secrecy covered not only matters of faith and depending thereon, but all votes, orders, determinations, letters of the Supremah, informations of limpiesa and all other matters, no information concerning which was to be given to the party's concerned or to any outside person, while even the public utterances of the tribunals were not to be spoken of. Moreover, the above penalties and major excommunication were incurred by all who, knowing the infractions of secrecy, did not report them to the Supremah. Finally, this carta was ordered to be filed with the instructions to be read annually to the assembled officials. The instructions to commissioners warned them that the existence and preservation of the inquisition depended chiefly on the absolute secrecy to be observed as to all its affairs. This continued to the end. A decree of the Supremah, December 7, 1814, speaks of the seal which is the soul of the inquisition. In fact, there is no hesitation in assimilating it to the seal of confession and in employing the casuistry which justified a confessor in denying under oath what he had learned in the confessional. Similarly, the official was told that no oath was binding when the affairs of the inquisition were concerned. He could depose as to what he knew as an individual, but not what he knew as an official entrusted with its secrets. We can understand the significance of the popular saying, con el re y la inquisición chitón. Keep silence as to the king and the inquisition. Even within the tribunals the same mystery was observed in investigating cases of infraction. When an intimation was received that secrecy had been violated the junior inquisitor examined into it and wrote out the information with his own hand and without allowing anyone to know of it. This was then deposited in a separate chest of which the senior inquisitor held the key. The Supremah was advised of the matter and its instructions were awaited. Not the least important result of this secrecy was the fact that it enabled the inquisition to combine legislative and judicial functions in a manner known to no other tribunal. It framed its own code and administered it in darkness. It is true, as we shall have occasion to see, that many of the regulations and limitations of the instructions were inspired by a sense of justice, but this mattered little when the secrecy, so jealously preserved, practically left everything to the discretion of the tribunal until the Supremah absorbed and centralized everything into itself. Shielded from responsibility, saved to the more or less perfunctory occasional visitation of an inspector, there was scarce any injustice that could not be safely perpetrated or any enmity that a perjured witness could not gratify. The secrets of those dark prison houses will never be known even by the records, for these were framed by those whose acts they recount and they may be true or falsified. What was the real administration of so-called justice can only be guessed by occasional revelations, such as we chance to have in the trials of Archbishop Carranza, of the Nuns of San Placido, of Heronimo de Villanueva, of Fry Froylandias, and when the principles of justice were set at not by the chiefs of the inquisition in the cases of those so prominent, it is not likely that the obscure were treated with greater consideration by the tribunals. At its best, the inquisitorial process left much to the temper and disposition of the judge. As modified by the inquisition, the fate of the accused was virtually at the discretion of the tribunal, and that discretion was relieved of the wholesome restraint of publicity. At a time when, as we have seen, the secular courts, although open to the public, were little better than instruments of oppression and extortion, it is not to be imagined that the inquisitorial tribunals shrouded in impenetrable secrecy and largely dependent for support on fines and confiscations were scrupulous in the administration of the cruel laws against heresy. In the original medieval inquisition the procedure was a pure inquisitorial. The inquisitor, frankly acting as both prosecutor and judge, collecting testimony, examining witnesses, seeking to make the accused confess or convict himself and passing sentence. As the institution in the fifteenth century declined and became disorganized, its duties were to some extent presumed by the bishops, in whose courts the pressure of multifarious business had long rendered necessary a prosecuting officer, known as the promotor Fiskal, duly trained in the civil and canon law. Cases of heresy inevitably followed the routine of the court and consequently assumed the form of actions between the fiscal and the accused as plaintive and defendant with the bishop or his official as judge. This, at least in appearance, removed one of the most repulsive features of the pure inquisitorial process, as the judge was no longer a party to the case and could affect the semblance of impartiality, even though he were, in reality, the instigator of the prosecution. When the Holy Office was established in Castile, it assumed to be merely the continuance of the old inquisition. In its collections of privileges, it included papal thirteenth century bulls, along with the modern ones, and the ferocious laws of Frederick II with the sigilas of the Catholic kings. Yet it knew so little of the older formulas and procedure that it adopted those of the secular and spiritual tribunals of the period, and thus its practice assumed the external form of accusatio rather than of inquisitio, with a fiscal or public prosecutor as an accuser. While on the surface this is a step towards fairness and justice, care was taken that the interests of the faith should not suffer. It gave to the inquisitors the assistance of a trained lawyer, whose business it was to prove his charges, who lost no opportunity of exaggerating the offenses imputed to the accused, who assumed that they had been proved, who resisted all the efforts of the defense to disprove them, and who was free from all the penalties and responsibilities of an accuser. The form of sentence adopted at the beginning and steadfastly adhered to asserts that the judges have been listening to a case pending between the fiscal and the defendant, and they find that the fiscal either has proved his charges completely or partially, or that he has failed to do so. This was an assumption perfectly false and intended to deceive the people when read in an auto-defei. It was the inquisitors who gathered testimony. The instructions of 1484 expressly ordered the examination of witnesses to be made personally by an inquisitor, and not to be committed to a notary unless the witness is too sick to appear, and it should be indecent for the inquisitor to go to him when he could empower the ecclesiastical judge to perform the duty with a notary. Business was too pressing, however, for the inquisitors always to examine witnesses, and they frequently deputized persons to act for them. But those deputies were never the fiscal and the apologetic tone of the commission shows that it was irregular and demanded an excuse. As time went on the tendency to shirk the labor increased. The notaries were allowed to examine by the instructions of 1498 provided it was in presence of the inquisitor. Then this condition was neglected in spite of vehement remonstrous by the Suprema, and finally in the later period when there was little serious work to be done special commissions as we have seen were common, apparently with no greater excuse than the indolence of the inquisitors. Still, the fiction was preserved that the witnesses were presented by the fiscals, although the Suprema in 1534 informed them that it was no part of their duty to collect evidence, although if they obtained any they were to communicate it to the inquisitors. Their duties in fact in addition to seeking the condemnation of the accused were those of a superior clerk of the court to draw up accusations to conduct correspondence to advise the inquisitors to marshal the evidence to keep the records in order or to see that the secretaries did so to attend to the execution of sentences and to exercise a general supervision over the officials besides attending the meetings of the junta de asienda and looking after the financial interests of the tribunal. The fiscal, moreover, served a useful purpose as a bogey to frighten the accused, who were constantly threatened with what would happen if they did not confess before he was admitted to present a formal accusation, in which he customarily demanded torture and relaxation for them. But, after all, his chief use was to preserve the fiction that the prosecution was an action between parties. As Simanka says, even when the culprit confesses, the fiscal must present an accusation in order that a judgment may be based on accuser, accused, and judge. In short, he was simply one of the officers of the court, who, as a trained lawyer, gave to the inquisitors, who were apt to be theologians, the benefit of his legal knowledge. His only real position as a party to an action was a distinct disadvantage to the accused. For, in case of acquittal or of a sentence which he deemed too light, he had the right, not infrequently exercised, of appealing to the Suprema, and consequently, his assent to the decision was necessary. As his dignity gradually increased, he was classed among the judges by the courtes of Aragon in 1646. We have seen how he finally came to be known as Inquisitorfi Skal, and how his place was generally filled by one of the inquisitors, who, however, abstained from the final vote on the case. The fiscal indeed, from an early period, was admitted to the Consulta de Fe, where he could state facts and advance arguments, a most indecent privilege, though he was required to depart before the vote was taken. In 1660 this was discontinued, not in consequence of its shocking incongruity, but because there was a troublesome question of precedence between him and the Episcopal Ordinary, whose duty it was to be present. There was nothing in the function of the fiscal to prevent the Inquisitor from initiating proceedings on the strength of any rumors that might reach him, or of compromising evidence gathered from the confessions of others. He had not to wait for the fiscal's action, but could order an inquest to be made and testimony to be taken, and when this was done, it was given to the fiscal to be put into shape for the formal prosecution. No matter how upright might be the Inquisitor, the mere fact that he had ordered an arrest and trial necessarily committed him to belief in the guilt of the accused. He was unconsciously prejudiced from the start, and to acquit cost a greater effort than to convict. Thus, although externally the form of procedure was accusatio, in reality it was incicitio, and the injection of the fiscal as accuser only diminished the chances of the defense by giving the inquisitors a skilled legal assistant in the conduct of a prosecution, in which they were all prosecutors. Yet, whatever we may think of the morality of the inquisitorial process, there can be no doubt as to its efficacy. In studying the long and minute records of the trials, where every detail is set forth in writing, it is instructive to see how often the accused, who commences by boldly asserting his orthodoxy, comes in successive audiences to make some admission of which advantage is skillfully taken, and gradually the denial breaks down, or perhaps yields to the terrors of the accusation and the publication of evidence ending in complete confession and eager implication of kindred and friends. The situation of the accused, in fact, was helpless. Standing up alone before the stern admonitions of the trained and pitiless judge, brooding in his cell cut off from all external communication during weeks or months of interval between his audiences, apparently forgotten, but living in the constant uncertainty of being at any moment summoned to appear, torturing his mind as to the impression which his utterances might have made, or the deductions drawn from his admissions or denials, balancing between the chances of escape by persistent assertions of innocence and those of condemnation as an impenitente negativo and urged by his so-called advocate to confess and throw himself on the mercy of the tribunal, it required an exceptionally resolute temperament to endure the prolonged strain with the knowledge that the opponent in the deadly game always had in reserve the terrible resource of the torture chamber. The whole course of the procedure was based on the assumption that the accused was guilty, that it was the province of the tribunal to induce or compel him to confess his guilt, and in the great majority of instances the assumption was correct. To those who regarded aberrations from the faith as the greatest of crimes before God and man, and their punishment as the most acceptable service that man could render to God, this presumption of guilt served to justify the cruelty of the procedure and the denial of all facilities for defense, which to those trained in the principles of English justice seemed the imprescriptable right of the accused, whether innocent or not. There can indeed be no doubt that, amid such greed and callous indifference to justice, there were men engaged in the service who deemed themselves to be doing the work of God and that their methods were merciful. The inquisition was not as other tribunals which only punished the body. It asserted its high and holy mission to be the saving of souls. As the inquisitors of Valencia said in 1536 to Miguel Mesquita on his trial for Lutheranism, they required of him nothing but the truth, and if he had fallen into error, they sought to disabuse him and to cure his conscience so that his soul might not be lost. The instructions of 1561, which remain to the last the basis of procedure, are emphatic and cautioning inquisitors not to be led astray either by the witnesses or by the confessions of the accused, but to determine all cases according to truth and justice. They must preserve strict impartiality, for if they lean to one side or the other they can readily be deceived. If we may believe the veteran inquisitor Paramo, the holy office was so conducted on the sloughdy plane as to be an unmixed blessing to the land. Its holiness, he says, is so conspicuous that there is no opening for hatred, favor, subornation, love, intercession, or other human motive. Every act is performed with such conscientiousness and regard for equity and justice, the inquisitors so investigate everything undisturbed by the multitude that they inspire all men with dread of the crimes which are brought before them, and in the all-pervading silence they act with incredible conscientiousness. The evidence of witnesses is scrutinized in the light of their character and quality, and those who are found to bear false witness are most severely punished. The accused, while detained in the prisons, are treated kindly and liberally, according to their condition. The poor and the sick are abundantly furnished with food and medicines at the expense of the Fisk and are favored in every way. Not only are the utterances of witnesses investigated with distrust, but, as time is the revealer of truth, cases are not hurriedly finished, but are prudently prolonged, as is requisite when there is such peril of the life, fame, and property, not only of the accused but of his kindred. If his innocence appears probable, every effort is made to prove it, and if it is proved to avert from him any loss of reputation, for which reason he is carried on horseback adorned with laurels and palms like the victor in a triumph, a spectacle inspiring to the souls of the timid, depressed by the severity with which the guilty are punished. Those who are restored from such peril to their former condition never cease to thank God for placing on earth a tribunal of which the chief care is to uphold the honor of the innocent. When inquisitors punish heretics, it is not with the desire to destroy them, but that they shall be converted and live. In judging and chastising the holy office labors to amend him whom it punishes or to benefit others by his punishment so that they may live in security when the wicked are removed. To what extent this idealization of inquisitorial methods was justified we have had some opportunity to see and we shall have more. End of Book 6, Chapter 2, Part 2 Book 6, Chapter 3, Part 1 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 The History of the Inquisition of Spain Volume 2 by Henry Charles Lee Book 6, Practice, Chapter 3, Part 1 Arrest and Sequestration Although the power to arrest arbitrarily was inherent in the inquisitorial functions and all secular officials were bound to lend assistance if necessary, still in practice it required justification by sufficient evidence in hand. This was obtained in various ways. The inquisitor might learn that public rumor designated a person as guilty of heretical acts and might cause secret inquest to be made in verification. In the prevalent forms of heresy such as that of Jewish and Moorish apostates the most frequent source of incrimination was the confessions of accomplices on trial or under edicts of grace. In other matters the initiative came largely from denunciations which were stimulated and favored in every way especially by the secrecy which relieved the informer from responsibility. No duty was more strenuously inculcated on the people than that of denouncing any utterance or act partaking of Calidad de Oficio that is which came within the cognizance of the holy office. Divine law required this under penalty of mortal sin. Neclesiastical law under that affects communication. From this no ties of blood furnished release. It is true that under the imperial jurisprudence accusations of neuralatives were forbidden. A mother could not accuse a son except of offenses against herself and even a man brought up in another's house could not accuse his benefactor. Patsimankas while highly approving of this says that there are two cases in which a son must accuse his father one when under examination by the inquisition the other when the father is the persistent heretic and as the obligation of the son to the father is of the highest these includes all other cases. The instructions of 1484 offer mitigation of punishment to minor children who spontaneously denounced their parents and Alfonso de Castro relates that he denied absolution to a young man perfectly orthodox in faith who in confession in response to interrogatories admitted that his father was a judicer but refused to denounce him in view of the consequences to himself of poverty and infamy. The annual publication of the edict of faith with its accompanying anathemas proclaimed this imperative obligation in the most solemn manner and at the same time furnished the list of the offenses to be denounced thus rendering everyone a spy upon his neighbor. The denunciation might be either verbal or written and if written either anonymous or signed it could be made to a tribunal or to any commissioner and it was expected to contain the names of witnesses to be summoned in its support. These denunciations came in more frequently after the publication of the edict of faith and also about Easter when the faithful confessed in preparation for the indispensable pascal communion and the confessors inquired whether they had denounced whatever they had heard seen or understood that was or appeared to be contrary to the faith or to the rights of the inquisition and absolution was withheld from those refusing to do so. This denunciation and the evidence of the witnesses summoned in its support or the testimony acquired by inquest or by the confessions of those on trial constituted the Sumaria the instruction preparatoire of French practice. The tribunal however was held not to act summarily in so grave a matter as an arrest casting infamy on an entire lineage. After the first tumultuous period when no one was safe from arbitrary imprisonment the portions of the evidence which conveyed the nature of the charge without the name of the accused underwent the process of calificacion or censorship to determine whether they presented Calidad de Oficio. We have seen in the cases of Carranza, of Villanueva and of Froylandias how important was the function of the calificadores or censors and how much sometimes depended on the manner in which the evidence was submitted to them. In the rehabilitation of the nuns of San Placido, they were careful to declare that if they had had to act upon the testimony laid before their predecessors they would have reached the same conclusion. Against such carboling there could be no guarantee in the profound secrecy enveloping every act of the tribunals. The calificadores were learned theologians whose duties we have already referred to. Some were regular appointees but anyone could be called a pawn nor could he refuse to serve without pay. When there was not unanimity the inquisitors decided or submitted the case to others. There seemed to have been no settled or absolute rule. In 1634 in the case of Jacques Garrige a wandering French beggar professing sanctity and curative powers and claiming to be a messenger of God not without indications of insanity the two inquisitors joined with four calificadores in considering the evidence before arrest but this seems to be exceptional. The resource of calling in successive calificadores in obscure cases frequently led only to a hopeless divergence of opinion bewildering rather than assisting the inquisitors. When in 1640 the Bernardine Frey Thomas de Nieba defended some subtle conclusions in scholastic theology there were 11 calificadores called into service of whom some found nothing to censure others that the doctrine was a condemned one others again that it merely approach to error. In the same year in the similar case of the Franciscan Frey Juan Lazaro Juan Calificador pronounced his doctrine to be obscure and perilous if not formally at least virtually heretical another that to defend it was a most grave error while two others could find in it nothing objectionable yet Lazaro was put on trial and after the case had traversed its various stages for months it was suspended though Lazaro was ordered in future to teach the opposite opinion at length a Carta Accordada of October 8 1708 sought to regulate the system in all cases requiring calificacion a correct extract was to be made from the evidence as to the acts and speeches charged with all circumstances contributory to a clear understanding this was to be sent to one of the calificadores who was to keep it at least three days and return it with his opinion not only as to the requisite censure but also as to the defense that could be made it was thus to pass from one to another after which the tribunal was to call them together to frame a common opinion books and papers were to be treated in the same way and there was no obligation of secrecy between the parties called in all classes of charges were not subjected to calificacion for there were numerous and important groups of offenders who were deprived of the safeguard slender as it was at the best judizers and moriscos renegades pigamists those administering sacraments without being in priestly orders and solicitors of women in the confessional were not entitled to it thus taken as a whole up to the middle of the 18th century the major portion of the business of the tribunals was exempt from calificacion and practically it was limited to the refinements of venturesome theologians to the degree of heresy involved in more or less picturesque blasphemy the culpability of careless or reckless talkers and the implied pact with the demon in the conjurations of wise women and treasurer seekers like much else in the inquisition designed for the protection of innocence its working effect was reduced to a minimum at what period calificacion was introduced it would be difficult to say with precision Llorente assures us that in 1550 it was not as yet in use this is incorrect for in 1520 we find a suprema ordering that calificadores shall not be appointed without its consent and on the simple petition of aspirants by the time the custom was evidently established and in 1556 the suprema explained it not as a protection of innocence but as a means of placating the ordinaries and showing them that inquisitors were not seeking to extend their jurisdiction beyond heresy the instructions of 1561 merely provide that when there is sufficient testimony in a case pertaining to the inquisition if it requires calificacion theologians of approved learning and character shall be consulted thus inferring that this is unnecessary when ceremonies known to be Jewish or Moorish are concerned or manifest heresy or photorship the suprema felt it necessary in a Carta Accordada of July 11, 1569 to warn calificadores to confine themselves to defining the nature of proposition submitted and not to say whether or not there was calidad de oficio a limitation which they outgrew another Carta of November 22, 1577 shows that it had become by this time a recognized preliminary to arrest by ordering that if an arrest should be necessary without it there should at least be calificacion before the formal accusation is presented which occurred in a later stage of the proceedings in the gradual absorption of all initiative by the suprema so that eventually no arrest could be made without its order the importance of calificacion declined calificadores continued to be appointed but they seem to have been rather ornamental than useful members of the official family if we may judge from the variation in the number attached to the different tribunals the table in the appendix shows that in 1746 Madrid and Llarena had none while Valencia rejoiced in 40 they still had a function however in the censorship of the press and tribunals that were insufficiently supplied could always summon theologians to their aid when necessity demanded their services as the Sumaria was careful to recite that there was sufficient proof that all formalities had been observed and that further investigation was unnecessary the calificacion completed the preliminaries the next step was the presentation by the fiscal of his clamosa or demand for the arrest of the accused in the fully developed formula of this he presented and swore to the Sumaria and embodied the calificacion as showing that the culprit merited the severest punishment to which end he asked for arrest and imprisonment with sequestration or embargo of property promising in due time to present a formal accusation and asking that meanwhile the registers of the other tribunals be examined with a view of securing further evidence forms of this were provided suited to the various classes of offenses and to the cases of the absent or dead it manifests a praiseworthy desire to avoid precipitate action that a consulta de fe or consultation of the inquisitors with the consultores and ordinari was still technically required before issuing the warrant of arrest the existence of something of the kind is indicated as early as 1509 by an order of the Suprema that when there is not unanimity it must be consulted before arrest is made yet in 1521 a special order requiring such a consulta de fe in the case of moriscos would infer that the rule was otherwise obsolete that it was so is shown by subsequent cases and even as regards moriscos in a number of prosecutions of demiel between 1540 and 1550 the warrants are issued immediately on presentation of the calamosa the instructions of 1561 revive the practice but did not enjoin it as essential leaving it virtually to the discretion of the inquisitors after this we find it frequently observed and in the case of Elvira del Campo accused of Jewish practices in 1567 there is a consulta prior to the calamosa and a second one afterwards before the warrant of arrest is issued when solicitation in the confessional was subjected to the inquisition the desire to shroud the offense in obscurity led to a regulation in 1564 that only the vicar general should be called into consultation and in 1600 even he was excluded the inquisitors were to consult only with each other and then await the orders of the suprema as the rule became established that the suprema was to be consulted before arrest these formal preliminaries became of less importance and in the 18th century we are told that the consulta was no longer held the reason alleged being that the inquisitors then were jurists apart from these formalities there was an evident desire on the part of the chiefs of the inquisition to prevent injustice arising from hasty and inconsiderate action in the reformatory instructions of 1498 inquisitors are ordered to be careful and to arrest no one on insufficient evidence an order the frequent repetition of which proves how little it was regarded it was thoroughly understood that the mere fact of imprisonment inflicted indelible infamy and all of the authorities urged the utmost caution in the exercise of this tremendous power in theory at least stronger proof was therefore required by inquisitors than by the judges of other courts it ought to be as strong as that which justified torture what was known as semi-plena but this merely consisted in the evidence of a single unexceptionable witness when there was apprehension of flight less was required and sosa a portuguese authority tells us that in heresy flight is always to be apprehended it is true that in 1630 the suprema ordered that arrest on the testimony of a single witness should not be made without its permission but this exercised little restraint such an arrest was made in 1638 of domingo de mesquita with a sort of apologetic explanation that he was a portuguese and had already been tried on the same charge of judaeism one or two cases will show how little real benefit in practice the accused derived from all this elaborate parade of preliminary precautions in toledo june 5 1501 the fiscal informed the tribunal that isabel daughter of alvaro or tolano was defamed for heresy and asked for her arrest the inquisitors replied that they would order it if sufficient evidence was presented where apani offered the testimony of a prisoner that she had heard isabel say that she observed the jewish fasts and on this a warrant of arrest was promptly issued considering that the accused was a child 10 years of age her summary arrest on evidence of flimsy shows how little impression the instructions of 1498 had produced the toledon inquisitors did not grow more cautious with time september 16 1541 two workmen on the cathedral appeared before them and accused Juan Garcia a fellow workman of having revelations from god in his dreams a warrant was at once made out the portero was ordered to have him present that afternoon and if he demured to take him to the prison he accordingly had his first audience the same day in this arbitrary proceedings the function of the fiscal was purely fake tissues and he and the inquisitor if they had any sense of humor must have smiled as they acted their parts in the tragic comedy in 1532 before Fernando Loazes the distinguished inquisitor of Barcelona the fiscal appears and states verbally that it has come to his knowledge that when the impenitent and relapsed heretic juana wife of hill tassis was to be arrested her husband had sought to conceal her wherefore he should be arrested as a father of heresy an impeder of the imposition and in due time the proper information would be presented the only evidence was that of juana taken by Loazes himself but he gravely demanded to be informed and he ordered the summoning of all the witnesses whom the fiscal desired to produce then the fiscal to enlighten him presents the evidence from the record Loazes orders it to be inserted in the acts of the case pronounces it sufficient and issues the warrant of arrest in the secrecy of the tribunals there was thus nothing to prevent the exercise of discretional power to oppress the innocent as well as to punish the guilty that it was so abused appears from the remonstrance of the courtesque of the kingdoms of Aragon about 1530 complaining the inquisitors arrested people for the slightest causes and on mere report and then sometimes dismissed their prisoners without penance or with various light sentences thus inflicting infamy on the parties their kindred indescendence which was not effaced by the release arrests they urged ought to be made only for grave offenses and on sufficient proof to this the inquisitor general disdainfully replied that the loss had been observed if the complainants thought otherwise let them produce instances this spirit did not promise amendment and although the instructions of 1561 prescribed caution and restraint matters must have grown worse through subordinates aping their masters for the concordia of 1568 provides that familiars must not be allowed to make arrests without orders from the inquisitors even after the supreme had required to be consulted prior to ordering arrest small respect was paid to formalities in criticizing august 25 1695 the report of cases pending in valencia the suprema expresses astonishment that an arrest should have been made previous to the calification of the charges in this case the accused was thrown into prison october 22 1694 and the calification followed february 9 1695 but the suprema contented itself with this rebuke and merely ordered the prosecution to be pushed and not be allowed to become immortal the suprema need not have been surprised at this threatening informality in view of the atrocity of a group of cases comprised in avaya do lid report of july 1699 francisco hernandez castaneda had been imprisoned august 30 1697 his case is reported in the same state as before there being no testimony against him balthasar gonzalez cardoso aged 14 was arrested august 15 1698 and there is no evidence against him ana gutierrez aged 9 was arrested august 14 1697 and there is nothing against her as yet leona de paz was arrested september 15 1698 and there is no proof against her thus these poor creatures had lain in jail for one or two years without a scintilla of evidence to justify their arrest and the fact that the tribunal kuli makes this report indicates that there wasn't it nothing unusual or regarded as scandalous among the reforms which carlos III attempted to introduce towards the close of the 18th century was that of requiring manifest proofs of heresy as a necessary preliminary to arrest but yorente informs us that his decrees were not obeyed still in time there was an improvement in this as in so many other directions perhaps partially influenced by the poverty of the holy office and its desire to avoid the maintenance of poor prisoners thus in the case at cuenca of wall francisco de la landera a jubilado notary of confiscations prosecuted in 1816 on suspicion of being the author of a memorial to the king and of other offenses he was allowed to be at large during nearly the whole course of the trial and it was not until after the presentation of the accusation and his reply that it was voted to imprison him and embargo his property the reason commonly alleged in deprecation of reckless arrest was the infamy cast on the accused and his kindred but this was by no means the only inflection peculiar to the inquisition there was a special hardship in the segregation at once imposed on the prisoner from the moment of his arrest the utmost care was taken to prevent his exchanging award with anyone when it took place at a distance the commissioner was instructed to observe this with the utmost trigger both in confining the prisoner on the spot and in sending him to the tribunal if two or more were arrested simultaneously they were strictly kept apart both in prison and on the road thus in 1678 when several judges were to be seized at pastrana the instructions from Toledo were that they were at once to be shut up in comunicado in houses of officials and to be sent to Toledo one by one observing rigid precautions that they should speak with no one each was to be under charge of a familiar and if there were not enough in pastrana those of the neighboring towns were to be called upon the misery caused to the prisoner and his family by the arrest was intensified by the sudden inhibition of all exchange of affection and all instruction and advice as to what they were to do in their affliction another feature falling with special severity on the poorer classes arose from the rule of the inquisition to cast all expenses on its prisoners the officer who made the arrest was instructed to bring with him a specified sum to be deposited with the al-Qaeda of the prison for the maintenance of the prisoner also a bed for him to sleep on and clothes for him to wear if as usually was the case the required amount was not found in cash among the effects of the culprit and half of his household goods was sold at auction to meet the demand the working of this is seen in the case of Benito Peñas a poor plowmaker of Cabena near Alcalá de Genares a half-crazed devotee who created scandal by denying that Christ had died on the cross the order for his arrest by the Toledo Tribunal, January 25, 1641 required the familiar to bring with him 30 Ducats for expenses and a bed the only coins found in Benito's possession amounted to 19 Cuartos Veyón equivalent to about two and a half reales so on Sunday, February 10, all his little possessions of tools, furniture and clothing except the garments on him and two old shirts were sold at auction even the rosary in his hands was included but the total proceeds after deducting charges amounted to only 20 Ducats of this about a half was absorbed by the expenses of guards and conveyance to Toledo and only 105 and a half reales were delivered with him at the Carcelas Secretas out of which the tribunal refused to pay anything to the familiar for his time and labor Benito's mental unsoundness developed rapidly in his incarceration and in August he was discharged as irresponsible the authorities of Cabeña were obliged to take him home at their own expense and doubtless to support him afterwards as he had been deprived of all means of earning his livelihood while with customary inquisitorial logic in spite of his insanity he was condemned to wear a party-colored garment of gray and green in penance for his heresy in the case of a religious if his peculiarity was insufficient to furnish the desired amount the superior of his convent was required to complete it End of book 6 chapter 3 part 1 Recording by Shana Sear Fresno, California