Records of the Spanish Inquisition, Translated from the Original Manuscripts

by Andrew Dickson White

May, 1730.

The prisoner communicated with her counsel, answered to the charges, and was sentenced. The sentence was referred to your Highness.

June, 1730.

On the thirteenth day of this month, the order of your Highness confirming the sentence, was received, in consequence of which an auto was given in the church of Sta Agueda, where the prisoner was present, in penitential garments, with the proper insignia of her offences. Her sentence was read, she made an abjuration de levi, and was absolved ad cautelam. On the nineteenth, she was scourged, and on the twentieth, was reprehended, admonished, and severely threatened, after which the audience was held for binding her to secrecy, and making inquiry respecting the prison. On the night of the same day, she was carried to the casa de la Galera, where she is to be confined for ten years, at the expiration of which term, she is to be banished perpetually from this city and Madrid, for the distance of eight leagues. She remains at present in the charge of a learned person, who will instruct her in the Catholic Faith.

February, 1736.

Joseph Fernandez in the secret prison of this tribunal, for having written and spoken divers heresies, blasphemies, and insults against our Holy Faith.

Distitute.

Maintenance, two sueldos, and the bread of the Contractor.

Prison of the Innocents.

Joseph Fernandez, a native of the town of Santa Llina, in the bishopric of Urgel, aged eighteen years, formerly an apothecary, and latterly a soldier in the cavalry regiment of Calatrava, taken from the Royal prison of this city of Barcelona, and transported to the secret prison of this tribunal, on the twentieth of the present month of February. This prisoner made a spontaneous confession on the fifteenth of January of the present year, declaring that he had made an explicit league with the devil, and had granted him his soul. He furthermore stated that he had uttered, on many occasions, divers impious and heretical sayings against God, and against Christ and his Holy Mother. This confession was ratified on the eighteenth and twentyfirst of the month; and on the twentyeighth, in consequence of his confession, a sentence was passed, that the said Joseph Fernandez be reprehended, admonished, and warned; that he make an abjuration de vehementi, be absolved ad cautelam, and intrusted to the charge of a Calificador or learned person, for the purpose of being instructed in the mysteries of our Holy Faith, ratifying his previous confession, which sentence was ordered to be referred to your Highness, and transmitted the same day.