A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

CHAPTER III.
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, and ecclesiastical law under that of excommunication.[1412] From this no ties of blood furnished release. It is true that, under the imperial jurisprudence, accusations of near relatives were forbidden; a mother could not accuse a son except of offences against herself and even a man brought up in another’s house could not accuse his benefactor.[1413] But Simancas, 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 a persistent heretic and, as the obligation of the son to the father is of the highest, this includes all other cases.[1414] The Instructions of 1484 offer mitigation of punishment to minor children who spontaneously denounce 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 Judaizer, but refused to denounce him in view of the consequences to himself of poverty and infamy.[1415]

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 a list of the offences to be denounced, thus rendering every one 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 paschal communion, and the confessors enquired 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 préparatoire 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 Froilan Díaz, 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 garbling there could be no guarantee, in the profound secrecy enveloping every act of the tribunals.

CALIFICACION

The calificadores were learned theologians, whose duties we have already referred to (p. 263). Some were regular appointees, but any one could be called upon, nor could he refuse to serve without pay. When there was not unanimity, the inquisitors decided or submitted the case to others. There seems to have been no settled or absolute rule. In 1634, in the case of Jacques Garrigues, 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.[1416] 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 Fray Tomas de Nieba defended some subtle conclusions in scholastic theology, there were eleven calificadores called into service, of whom some found nothing to censure, others that the doctrine was a condemned one, others again that it merely approached to error. In the same year, in the similar case of the Franciscan Fray Juan Lazaro, one 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.[1417]

At length a carta acordada 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 defence 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.[1418]

All classes of charges were not subjected to calificacion, for there were numerous and important groups of offenders who were deprived of this safeguard, slender as it was at the best. Judaizers and Moriscos, renegades, bigamists, those administering sacraments without being in priestly orders and solicitors of women in the confessional were not entitled to it.[1419] Thus taken as a whole, up to the middle of the eighteenth 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 treasure-seekers. Like much else in the Inquisition, designed for the protection of innocence, its working effect was reduced to a minimum.