Records of the Spanish Inquisition, Translated from the Original Manuscripts

by Andrew Dickson White

On the eighteenth of February, the answer of your Highness was received, with a confirmation of the sentence, which was not put in execution, in consequence of the prisoner’s having written several letters to the Inquisitor Don Balthasar Villarexo, which letters contained insulting, heretical, and blasphemous matter against our Holy Catholic Religion, as well as contemptuous and insolent language against the said Inquisitor. For this reason an order was issued for his imprisonment, and the said Joseph Fernandez was, on the twentieth of the same month, taken from the Royal Prison, where he was then confined. On the twentysecond and twentythird, an audience was held, in which he confessed that the letters were his, and that he had written them for the purpose of getting free from the Royal Prison, and the garrison where he was confined for desertion. He having named several persons in prison, before whom he had uttered heretical speeches, a commission was expedited on the twentyeighth to take their depositions. The cause is delayed till the depositions are completed.

April, 1736.

On the twentysecond of March, the depositions of several witnesses were received, and some of them were ratified ad perpetuam rei memoriam, as the deponents in question were about to depart for the garrisons, to which they were condemned. A meeting of the Calificadores was held on the twelfth of April, and the proceedings examined. On the thirteenth, an order was issued that the prisoner should be taken from the intermediate prison, which he then occupied, and transferred to the secret prison. On the seventeenth, nineteenth, and twentieth, audiences were held, in which he confirmed what he had before declared in the audiences of the twentysecond and twentythird of February; namely, that his confession of leaguing with the devil and giving up his soul, was wholly fictitious, having been fabricated by him for the purpose of getting free from the garrison of Oran, where he was confined. He further confessed, that he had, in reality, uttered speeches against our Holy Faith, but that this also was done for the purpose above stated, and not with any belief in his own assertions. On the twentyseventh of the present month, an audience was held, in which the prisoner nominated for his Curador, Dr Joseph Viñals, who accepted the trust, and was allowed to exercise it. On the same day, the prisoner, in the presence of his Curador, ratified his confession without adding or diminishing anything, and the prisoner having been admonished in the regular manner, the accusation against him was presented.

May, 1736.

The prisoner answered to the accusation on the twentyseventh and thirtieth of April, confessing the charges to be true, repeating as before, that he had spoken the words as a means of being liberated from his confinement in the garrison of Oran, and without any bad intention. Having appointed the abovementioned Dr Joseph Viñals for his counsel, he conferred with the prisoner respecting his case on the second day of the present month. The counsel declared that he was ready for the proofs and a definitive decision, whereupon a commission was ordered for a ratification of the testimony in plenario. On the eleventh, the ratifications were received, and on the twentyfifth and twentyninth, audiences were held, in which a regular and formal publication of the testimony was performed.

September, 1736.

On the first of June, publication was made of several letters written by the prisoner to different persons. On the fifth, the answers of the prisoner to the charges were ratified before Dr Joseph Viñals, his Curador, and the prisoner communicated with the counsel respecting his defence. On the thirtieth, the defence was offered by the prisoner’s counsel, and a commission was granted to make the inquiries requested therein. On the eighteenth of July, the twentyeighth of August, and first of September, the result of these inquiries was received in the tribunal. On the fourth of September, an audience was held, and the prisoner informed that the matters for his defence were arranged, to which he answered, that he had nothing further to offer, and was ready for the decision. One of the charges against him, being that he had affirmed the physicians had pronounced him disordered in his mind, sometime in the last year, an order was issued for the physicians of the prisons to examine him. On the twentyfifth of September, a paper was received from the two physicians declaring that they had examined him, and that he was not then, nor had been at any time previous, in a state of mental alienation.

December, 1736.

On the eleventh of October, an audience was held, at which the Ordinary attended, and sentence was passed, that the condemnation of the prisoner be read before him in the hall of the tribunal with open doors; that he make an abjuration de levi, and be banished eight leagues from this city and Madrid, for the space of three years, the first of which to be passed in confinement in some garrison to be fixed upon for that purpose; also that he be severely reprehended, admonished, and warned, and returned to the confinement from which he was taken, when brought to the prison of this tribunal. Ordered also, that before the execution of the above sentence, it be referred to your Highness, which was done on the thirteenth of October. The matter is now in waiting for the answer.

January, 1737.