A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

The rules prescribed, in 1514, by Inquisitor-general Mercader, indicate the precautions regarded as necessary to reduce to a minimum the temptations of the receiver. He was to receive no money save in presence of the scrivener of sequestrations or of the secreto. All collections were to be placed in the coffer within three days of their receipt, in the presence of an inquisitor and of a scrivener. When subordinates brought funds from other places, they were to be delivered to him within two days in presence of a scrivener and he was required to deposit them within twenty-four hours. Fraud and deceit, Mercader says, must cease in the collection and sales of confiscations and in depositing and taking out moneys from the coffer. All expenses, ordinary and extraordinary, were to be paid with money taken from the coffer. The scrivener must, with his own hands, keep duplicate books, with dated entries, of all deposits and withdrawals, one copy to be kept in his possession and the other in the coffer. No moneys must be taken out for loans or other purpose, save the expenses of the tribunals, without the express licence of the king and inquisitor-general. Every two months the receiver and scrivener, in presence of an inquisitor, must verify the accounts and the money on hand, and must send a written statement of the latter to the inquisitor-general. Any omission or deviation from this by receiver, inquisitor or scrivener was punishable with excommunication and a fine of five hundred ducats. All the officials concerned were to be furnished with copies of these instructions and one was to be placed in the coffer.[1328]

THE COFFER WITH THREE KEYS

It was one thing to frame precise regulations and another to secure their observance. These instructions were sent to Sicily in 1515, but evasions were speedily invented for already, in 1516, a letter of the Suprema asserts that experience had shown that the custodians of the three keys, by lending them to each other, committed frauds on the moneys in the coffer. To prevent this it devised wholly inefficient regulations as to the parties to whom the keys should be confided, in the absence of the regular custodians, so that, as it naïvely remarked, no frauds may be committed in the future.[1329]

It argues a singularly hopeful spirit in the Suprema if it expected that such precautions would preclude embezzlement, when the standard of official morality was so low that malversation was prevalent everywhere and was rarely if ever punished by dismissal from office. How tenderly such indiscretions were treated is manifested in a case occurring in Barcelona, in 1514. Francisco de San Climent owed 186 libras to the confiscated estate of Bernardo and Dionis Venet; his father paid 150 on account, but this was not credited, being evidently embezzled, and, on June 13th, Ferdinand ordered the receiver, Mateo de Morrano, not to press the suit against San Climent on account of the damage that it would inflict on the honor of the officials—the matter was to be hushed up in order to spare the reputation of the tribunal.[1330] When theft was thus condoned we need not wonder at the condition of the receptoria of Saragossa, characterized by fraud, disorder and neglect, as described by the auditor Anton Navarro in a letter which Ferdinand gave, in 1515, to the Archdeacon of Almazan when sending him thither as inspector.[1331]

Allusion has been made above to the remedy sought by Ximenes in 1517, by sending an auditor-general to inspect all the tribunals and ascertain the balances due. It was probably in consequence of this that Juan Martínez de Guilestegui, the former receiver of Toledo, was found indebted in the sum of 51,500 mrs., but there was no thought of punishing him and, with customary tenderness, Charles V forgave him half of the debt and promised that on payment of this he should be free of all further claim.[1332] Apparently it was a matter of course that receivers should be in debt to the fisc, although, if the rules as to the three-keyed coffer were observed, there was no opportunity for them to be in arrears. The rules in fact were disregarded with impunity. Inquisitor-general Manrique, writing to Sicily in 1525, says that they had not been observed for several years and orders them to be enforced under the prescribed penalties, but as he did not inflict those penalties for past disobedience, his threats were a mere brutum fulmen.[1333]

The consequence of this condonation of malpractice appears whenever there is opportunity of investigation. One of Ferdinand’s most trusted receivers was Amador de Aliaga of Valencia. On his death, about 1529, when concealment was no longer possible, he was found to be a defaulter and, as one of the inquisitors was his heir, the Suprema ordered him to make good the deficit out of the estate. Then Pedro Sorell, a notary of the secreto, was in the enjoyment of certain confiscated houses, granted to him by Ferdinand, subject to a censo of 2975 sueldos; this had clandestinely been paid off out of the funds of the tribunal; Sorell refused restitution, and the Suprema merely told the inquisitors to persuade him to refund the amount without a suit. This same Sorell had covertly, through a third party, purchased a censo of 8000 sueldos, particularly well secured, sold by the fisc in order to pay salaries. The Suprema rebuked the tribunal for parting with so choice an investment, but there was no talk of dismissing or punishing the guilty notary.[1334] When the officials enriched themselves with impunity it is not difficult to understand the incessant complaints of the poverty of the tribunals.

THE JUNTA DE HACIENDA

That a receiver was expected to use the money in his hands and to be in arrears is indicated by a letter of the Suprema, in 1542, on learning the death of Ramon de Esparza, receiver of Majorca. He had not sent in his accounts and the inquisitor was empowered to compel his heirs to render a statement and to pay whatever balance might be found due.[1335] The device of the coffer had fallen evidently into complete neglect and the Suprema endeavored to resuscitate it by a carta acordada of December 9, 1545, which prescribed that all collections were to be deposited within three days of receipt, if made in the city, or within four days if made in the country, and salaries and other expenses were to be paid only from the money in the coffer, under pain of excommunication latæ sententiæ and of ten ducats for each infracion. This was the commencement of an endless series of legislation reiterating or modifying the regulations in a manner to indicate how impossible it was to enforce observance. The delay allowed for deposit was increased from three days to ten; receivers were required to take an oath to obey; reports of all deposits and withdrawals were ordered to be rendered every four months. These constant repetitions are the measure of their inefficiency, and the hardened indifference of the receivers is evidenced by a complaint of Reynoso, Inquisitor of Toledo, in 1556, that since the accounts of the receiver had been balanced he had received large sums which he refused to deposit in the coffer, saying that his accounts had been settled. Then, in 1560, the order of 1545 was reissued with instructions that, in case of infraction, the receiver was to be prosecuted and punished, evidence of which was to be furnished to the Suprema.[1336] It was all in vain and the receivers continued to hold their collections at their convenience.

In 1569, with the object of reducing to some kind of order the finances of the tribunals, a junta de hacienda, or finance committee, was constituted in each, consisting of the inquisitors, the judge of confiscations, the receiver and the notary of sequestrations, which was to meet on the last day of each month and consider all questions of property and income, deciding them by a majority vote. This, with occasional modifications, remained a standing feature of the tribunals, although the repeated exhortations and commands that the sessions be held regularly show how difficult it was to secure business-like action and management.[1337] The attempt was made to utilize this organization in compelling the receivers to deposit their collections in the coffers. In 1576 and again in 1579, orders were issued that, at the monthly meetings, the receiver should declare, under oath and under excommunication, the amount of money in his hands, what he had collected and what placed in the coffer. This was ineffectual and then it was tried to compel the notary of sequestrations to make a declaration that the receiver had deposited all that he admitted to have received. Then, in 1584, a concession was made allowing the receiver to make his deposits monthly, which of course only increased the risk of defalcations. This was followed, in 1586, by orders that he must be compelled to collect and deposit promptly the revenues of the prebends and that, at the monthly meetings, the schedule of income was to be examined in order to see what had been collected and deposited.[1338] It would be wearisome to pursue further these details, which continued indefinitely, with perpetual and ineffectual iteration, to compel the receivers to hand over their collections without delay. It hardly needs the assertion of the memorial of 1623 that the coffer was used in but very few places as a depository for the funds of the tribunals. The writer adds that the receivers thus incur excommunication and commit perjury monthly; the finances suffer great losses and the receivers are ruined by squandering the money, but the only remedy that he can suggest is that the penalties be increased and strict orders be issued that, under no pretext, should funds be left outside of the coffers. These expedients had been abundantly tried but, in the absence of rigid discipline and of punishment of offenders, they had been and continued to be fruitless. Another and most serious omission pointed out was that in many tribunals there was no Libro Becerro or register of property, with descriptions and titles, the lack of which led to great losses and much difficulty in making collections.[1339] The cause of the poverty complained of is not far to seek.