A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

The utmost precision and minuteness were exacted, with elaborate vouchers containing the order authorizing payment and the receipt of the payee. In the accounts for 1524, of Cristóval de Medina, receiver of Valencia, he recites an order issued by the inquisitors to Pere Sorell, who was repairing the palace of the Inquisition, granting him an old chain which hung under some of the windows and he includes Sorell’s receipt for it.[1318] Similarly in the Valencia accounts for 1759 we find the inquisitors issuing orders and receipts taken in the case of the charwoman Josefa Serra, who was paid 3 libras for sweeping out the rooms from January 1st to St. John’s day and 5 libras for carrying the seat of honor twice to the church of Santa Ana and once to San Salvador. So with Juan García, paid 1 libra 10s. for taking up and putting down the mats and 1 libra 4s. for two cords for the well.[1319]

There was perhaps some excuse for dilatoriness in rendering accounts so elaborately minute, accompanied with the requisite orders and vouchers, but a more efficient reason was that the receiver was apt to be in arrears, using the funds for his own profit, in defiance of stringent regulations, and his account rendered was sure to be followed with a demand to pay a balance due. Ferdinand, as we have seen, and after him the Suprema, labored vainly to secure promptitude and regularity. In 1560 it devised an elaborate plan of appointing an auditor for every two tribunals, with a salary of 40,000 mrs., for which he was to spend alternate years in examining their several accounts. Collusion between him and the receivers was guarded against by severe penalties for paying his salary except on orders from the Suprema and threats of prosecuting him for neglect of duty. When a balance was struck, the receiver was to deposit it within nine days in the coffer of the tribunal and furnish the Suprema with evidence of the fact within nine days more; if he failed in this, the inquisitors were to imprison him under pain of forfeiting their salaries from that time forth. As each account was completed, the auditor was to forward a copy to the Suprema, and he was further to supervise the accounts of the collectors of the suppressed prebends and to see that all receipts were duly deposited in the coffer.[1320] The scheme has interest from the insight which it gives into the disorder and dilapidation characteristic of inquisitorial finance, rather than from any improvement which it caused, for it seems to have proved impracticable. It is true that, in 1570, there were some additional instructions as to details, which look as if, after ten years, there was an effort to make it work, but it was soon afterwards abandoned and, in 1572, there was a return to the old system by ordering from each tribunal an annual statement.[1321] This was followed by requiring a monthly report as to the management of property and the returns collected, but this seems to have received as little obedience as previous instructions.[1322]

The memorial of 1623 to the Suprema urges strongly the enforcement of the instructions of 1560—that an auditor should, every year, audit the accounts of the treasurer, in the presence of an inquisitor, under penalty of forfeiture of a year’s salary by both. The statements thus rendered should then be examined by the fiscal of the Suprema, with the aid of an expert accountant for, through the lack of this, in the previous accounts there have been great errors, and if they were reviewed by a shrewd examiner it would be discovered how large have been the losses.[1323] The writer evidently had little faith in the receivers-general and auditors-general on whom the Suprema depended, but his suggestions were not acted upon, and the Suprema contented itself with calling upon the dilatory treasurers for annual reports and occasionally getting their statements. The secret of the delay is indicated in instructions to the Valencia tribunal, in 1633, that, when Melchor de Mendoza, the treasurer, has finished the accounts which he has commenced, pressure must be brought to bear to make him pay the balance against him.[1324]

NEGLIGENCE IN RENDERING ACCOUNTS

The Depositarios de los Pretendientes, who had charge of the deposits of those seeking proofs of limpieza, emulated the treasurers. A letter of March 28, 1665, to the Barcelona tribunal calls attention to a carta acordada of January 16, 1620, ordering the accounts of the depositario to be included in the annual statements required for the auditor-general. The latter, however, reports that he has received none for many years, wherefore it is ordered that an itemized statement in detail, including everything since the last account rendered, shall be made out, showing what is due to all parties concerned. It may reasonably be doubted whether the command was obeyed. In 1713, orders were sent to Valencia that, if the depositario did not pay the balance in four months, pressure was to be brought to bear upon him, and the secretaries were to be forced to pay him what they owed him. The pressure was unavailing, for a prolonged correspondence ensued on the subject, throughout 1714. Towards the close of the century, however, we find the depositario of Valencia rendering statements with some degree of regularity every two years.[1325]

If the accounts of the tribunals were thus carelessly kept, those of the Suprema would appear to be equally disordered. At least such conclusion is justified when, in 1685, we find it asking the tribunal of Valencia for a statement of the remittances which it had made to the treasurer-general. In 1695 the request is repeated for the years 1693 and 1694 and again in 1714, 1715 and 1726—all of which would argue most slovenly bookkeeping.[1326]

Towards the close of its career, apparently, the Inquisition had succeeded in establishing a more methodical system. In 1803, Barcelona is rendering monthly statements of receipts and expenditures with commendable regularity and we may attribute to the political perturbations the fact that the accounts of Valencia for the years 1807, 1809 and 1810 were not audited by the Suprema until 1816.[1327]

Confidence in the integrity of the average receiver was evidently neither felt nor deserved, and, at an early period, the device was adopted of the arca de tres llaves—a coffer placed in the secreto with three locks of which the keys were held by the receiver, by an inquisitor and by the scrivener of sequestrations, so that it could be opened only in presence of all three. In this repository the receiver was required to place all moneys coming into his hands and so it remained until the last, as a fine example of archaic simplicity. To this there were occasional variations, such as requiring two arcas, one for confiscations and one for fines and penances, or, when the tribunals were living on their incomes, one for capital and the other for revenue. As a rule, however, one sufficed and it was customarily divided into two compartments, for confiscations and fines and penances respectively.