A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

This urgency to induce confession produced the natural result that the unfortunates subjected to it were led, not infrequently, to gratify their judges by admitting whatever they thought necessary to win the favor of the tribunal. This was recognized in a warning issued by the Suprema, in 1541, that much caution was required in weighing the truth of confessions, because the accused, through malice, were wont to confess against themselves and others in order to obscure the truth.[1720] This warning was doubtless needed, but there is little evidence that it was heeded. As a rule, the confession was accepted, provided it was sufficiently criminatory and, as far as regarded its implication of accomplices, it was used for their conviction.

An unexpected feature of the inquisitorial records is the number of espontaneados—of those who from various motives voluntarily accused themselves. In 1172 cases occurring in Toledo between 1575 and 1610 there are 170 of these or about one in seven. This of course is attributable to the assumption that self-denunciation was an evidence of contrition which merited benignity. It is true that, in the earlier period, when Edicts of Grace were published, those who came forward within the term were subjected to reconciliation and heavy mulcts; their confessions were taken down by notaries to be used against the friends whom they incriminated and against themselves in case of relapse. It is further true that, after the expiration of the term, spontaneous confession did not avert confiscation and such other penance as the inquisitor might impose—in fact it was virtually no better than if rendered under prosecution. But, after the first fury of persecution, when spontaneous self-denunciation might be considered as arising from conviction and not from fear of accusation by others, it was regarded more mercifully. In 1568 we find the Suprema sharply rebuking the tribunal of Barcelona for having condemned to reconciliation and confiscation a French girl of eighteen and Antoine Codrie, a Frenchman, who had spontaneously confessed to Protestantism and against whom there was no other evidence; the confiscated property was to be returned to them within nine days, whether or not it was still in the hands of the receiver. The tribunal was also told that it had erred deplorably in the case of Alonso de Montoya, who had spontaneously confessed to having been a renegade when captive in the hands of the Moors, and whom it had thrown into the secret prison and condemned to confiscation, reconciliation and appearance in an auto de fe with a mitre.[1721]

SPONTANEOUS CONFESSION

Not long after this the reports of the tribunal of Toledo present numerous cases of spontaneous self-denunciation which show that its influence on the sentence varied with the character of the confession and the motives to which the inquisitors attributed it. There was a curious case of twelve Judaizers of Alcazar de Consuegra who came forward to accuse themselves and implicate twelve others; all twenty-four figured in the great auto de fe of 1591 and all had the full penalty of reconciliation, confiscation and perpetual prison with the sanbenito. On the other hand, Andrés de Palacios, in 1586, presented himself and confessed that, when sailing in the galleys, he had made the acquaintance of an English captain who converted him to all the Lutheran heresies; for six years, and until within a few weeks, he had believed them, but now with tears he begged for mercy and for readmission to the Church. He was duly put on trial and was privately reconciled with only some spiritual penances. In the same year occurred the more complicated case of Ursule de la Croix, a French nun in the convent of Santa Margarita at Alcalá de Henares. She confessed to a commissioner there that she had imbibed some of the errors current in her native land; she had deliberately struck a crucifix and had eaten meat on Fridays. The Suprema examined the confession and ordered the commissioner to absolve her. Subsequently she returned to confess that she still held the errors which she had abjured. The Suprema ordered her to be confined in the secret prison and her trial to proceed, during which she repeated her confession, begged for mercy and professed her desire to live and die in the Catholic faith. The consulta de fe was puzzled and, on reference to the Suprema, it ordered her to be secretly reconciled, the sanbenito to be at once removed, and her reclusion for a year in a convent cell. As she was a relapsed and as Lutheranism was the object of special severity, this mercy shows ample consideration for spontaneous confession, but the event proved that the patience of the Inquisition might be tried too far. The unstable mind of the poor creature continued to torment itself and, in 1594, she again accused herself of the same errors. The tribunal reported this to the Suprema, with the statement that she had already been thrice reconciled, and the order came to relax her to the secular arm, when she was duly burnt.[1722]

Thus far there appears to have been no formal modification of the Instructions of 1484 which made no concessions to espontaneados, except during a Term of Grace, but evidently each case was treated on its merits. It was not until 1605 that the Suprema decreed that foreigners confessing their errors voluntarily were to be reconciled without confiscation. This did not apply to natives, especially Judaizers and Moriscos, in whose cases the Suprema was consulted which usually remitted the confiscation. The matter remained in this uncertain condition, with an increasing tendency towards leniency in practice. In trivial cases, such as heretical blasphemy or thoughtless propositions, the offender was reprimanded, warned and told to confess sacramentally, even though there might have been previous denunciation insufficient to justify arrest. In more serious matters we are told that the espontaneado was treated with great benignity, even when it appeared that he had come forward through fear of denunciation by accomplices who had been arrested. He was given his house or the city for a prison, unless it was necessary to seclude him from those who would pervert him. If he confessed to formal heresy, with belief and intention, it was customary to vote secret reconciliation with the immediate removal of the sanbenito and with confiscation, but the Suprema usually remitted the latter or agreed to a composition. In some cases at Santiago, in the seventeenth century, the parties offered a payment nearly equivalent to the value of their property, but the Suprema told them that they could retain it on paying what the tribunal thought proper.[1723]

IMPERFECT CONFESSION

Confession, whether spontaneous or after arrest, to be valid in the Inquisition, implied repentance, renunciation of error and prayer for readmission to Catholic unity. Although judicial, it had this in common with sacramental confession that it must be full and complete; every separate heretical act was a sin and, like sins in a confessional, it had to be enumerated. There must be no omission, else the confession was nugatory, ficta and diminuta, and an aggravated guilt, for the truly penitent sinner was held to be eager to expose all his sins, in order to gain absolution for them, and to betray all his accomplices in order to satisfy his new-born hatred of heresy. Thus the diminuto was as bad as the negative, for he was still a heretic at heart. The Instructions of 1484 treat diminutos as impenitents, to be prosecuted if subsequent testimony shows that they have concealed anything as to themselves or to others.[1724] Tried by this standard the confessions in the early Terms of Grace were apt to be imperfect and, in the endeavor to avert the awful consequences of this, it became customary to add to them a protest that, if through lapse of memory facts had been forgotten, the penitent on remembering them would come and confess them or, if testimony was received of matters omitted, he now accepted it as true and asked penance for them. These protests availed little. In the case of Mencia, wife of Diego González, before the tribunal of Guadalupe in 1485, she added this to her confession, but additional incriminating evidence was given by other penitents; she was duly prosecuted and the tribunal apologized for not sending her to the stake, in view of her youth, her tearful contrition and her heartfelt desire to return to the bosom of the Church, wherefore she escaped with perpetual prison.[1725] Beatriz Núñez was less fortunate. She was reconciled, January 13, 1485, in the Time of Grace, after presenting a long confession including all the recognized Jewish practices. July 1st she was arrested on the strength of evidence relating to acts running back for twenty years, embracing details that happened not to be contained in her confession, although it had included a protest admitting all that she did not remember. The tribunal held that her confession had been diminuta, that consequently it was feigned and she was an impenitent heretic, so she was burnt alive, July 31st.[1726] Similar was the fate of Andrés González, parish priest of San Martin de Talavera, who was reconciled in the Time of Grace but, when imprisoned November 12, 1485, made a fuller confession, imploring mercy in terms betraying the utmost despair. There were but two adverse witnesses—evidently prisoners on trial—whose evidence was simply confirmatory of the confessions, but it sufficed. There seems to have been some delay in getting a bishop and an abbot to degrade him, for he was not burnt until August 17, 1486.[1727] Now in all these cases the confessions had amply admitted Judaism and the subsequent testimony was but surplusage in detail. This cruel practice goes far to explain the great number of burnings, in the early period, and it long continued to furnish victims. In 1531 the tribunal of Toledo condemned to reconciliation, confiscation and prison an old woman named Teresa de Lucena; for nearly fifty years she had been living a Catholic life, but in 1484 she had been reconciled on a confession which subsequent testimony showed had omitted some Jewish observances and had not named every one whom she had seen practice them.[1728]

This demand for an absolutely perfect confession exceeded that of the confessional, where forgotten sins are charitably held to be included. It explains why inquisitors labored so strenuously and often so cruelly to make the penitent remember and declare everything testified against him—what they termed satisfying the evidence. It is true that Simancas argues that defective memory may render confession imperfect, that he who admits himself to have been a heretic includes all heretical customs, and that the rigor of the law should not be visited on those who return to the Catholic faith, while Rojas condemns the severity of those who hold that a penitent not stating the full term of his heresy should be burnt.[1729] Yet the old sternness was held to be in vigor throughout the eighteenth century, and the only concession of the authorities seems to be that, if the penitent omits in his confession anything worthy of relaxation or any accomplices, when these have been proved by witnesses, he may have the chance of purging himself by torture.[1730]

Yet this ferocity had become rather academic than practical. As early as 1570 the Suprema ordered that, in all cases of diminucion, the matters suppressed or omitted were to be recorded in the process, submitted to the consulta de fe, and then, without taking action, to be sent to it for its decision.[1731] This can only have been for the purpose of mitigating the execution of the law without modifying it in principle. It remained nominally in force but I have met, in the later periods, with no case in which its extreme rigor was enforced. It was not an infrequent occurrence that reconciled penitents were found, by testimony in later trials, to have made imperfect confessions. Apparently a careful watch for this was maintained and, when it was discovered, they were tried again, but in the second half of the seventeenth century the sentences were remarkably mild—a few years of prison and sanbenito and exile or possibly a parading in vergüenza.[1732] With the recrudescence of persecution in the first half of the eighteenth century, there was greater severity—irremissible prison and sanbenito for life and, in a Barcelona case of 1723, a woman had two hundred lashes in addition.[1733]