A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

INTENTION

Closely connected with diminucio was the confession of acts accompanied by a denial of intention. As we have seen, the Inquisition relied for proof on acts or words from which heretical belief was inferred, it being assumed that, after baptism, any one practising Judaic or Moslem rites or customs was an apostate. Many of these were wholly indifferent in themselves and their significance depended on the intention with which they were performed, so that it was not unusual for the accused to admit the acts while disclaiming knowledge of their religious character. He might confess avoidance of pork but allege that it disagreed with him; he might acknowledge to washing hands or changing linen but assert that it was for the sake of cleanliness; he might not deny uttering an heretical proposition but say that it was thoughtless or jocular. As human intentions are inscrutable, in such cases resort was inevitable to the universal solvent of judicial doubt—torture—at least in the later period. In the earlier time it was more in consonance with the swift justice then habitual to condemn him; such acts, it was argued, did not admit of doubt, they were in themselves sufficient proof and the accused was not to be allowed the privilege of torture.[1734] In the later period the authorities are not wholly unanimous, for the shades of guilt and the collateral circumstances varied so infinitely that a definite rule was difficult to frame. In general it may be summed up as admitted that for heretical acts, under the law, no plea of non-intention could be entertained, and that the offender must be relaxed, but in practice he had the benefit of torture; if he succumbed in it he was reconciled with confiscation, the galleys and perpetual prison; if he endured it without confession, according to the judicial logic of the age, he was not acquitted but was punished, less severely, for the suspicion. For words and opinions and heretical propositions, if serious, he was to be tortured on intention, but not for lesser offences, in which the appropriate penalty would be less grievous than the infliction of torture—yet one writer admits the use of torture when intention is denied in the widely current proposition that simple fornication is no sin. When, in these minor cases, torture was used, if, according to the legal phrase, it was endured sufficiently to purge the testimony, it became customary to suspend the case or to acquit the accused.[1735]

In the previous chapter (pp. 566, 567) there are one or two instructive cases as to the danger of construing Judaic observances as implying heretical intention. In the wider sphere of propositions, an illustrative instance is that of the Augustinian Pedro Retorni, tried in 1601, at Toledo, for denying the papal power to release souls from purgatory. He admitted it, but denied intention, asserting that he had only used the phrase in the course of an argument. The consulta de fe voted for abjuration de levi and a sharp reprimand, but the Suprema ordered that he should be threatened with torture up to the point of stripping him in the torture-chamber. He endured this without confessing, and the sentence of the consulta de fe was executed.[1736]

One of the most essential requisites to completeness of confession was the denunciation of all accomplices—that is, of all whom the penitent knew to be heretics or addicted to heretical practices. This, as we have seen, was required of all who came in under Edicts of Grace, and, in the Instructions of 1500, the inquisitor was ordered, when any one confessed, to examine him exhaustively as to what he knew of his parents, brothers, kindred and all other persons, and this evidence to be used against them was to be entered in registers apart from the personal confession.[1737] There was usually little hesitation on the part of the penitent to incriminate his family and friends, for they might, for all he knew, be themselves under trial and informing on him, so that any reticence on his part would convict him of being a diminuto with all its fateful consequences. The information thus obtained was registered with alphabetical indexes, so that the tribunals obtained a mass of evidence, against those who were Jews or Moors at heart, which largely explains the rapid extension of its activity. The value attached by the Inquisition to this source of information is expressed by the Suprema in its remonstrance, February 23, 1595, to Clement VIII against a jubilee indulgence. One of its chief arguments was that, as heretics were all allied and known to each other, the principal means of detecting them was through the confessions of those who were converted, while the absolution obtainable through the indulgence would release them from pressure and this mode of extirpating heresy would be lost.[1738]

In the formulas compiled for interrogating the accused, we find special stress laid on making those who confess enumerate all who had joined with them in belief and worship, or whom they knew to be heretics. These were recorded, one by one, the penitent being required to state all details concerning them, including personal descriptions, so that they could be tracked or, if there were several individuals of the same name, error could be avoided in identifying them.[1739] Any omissions in this exposed the penitent to severe punishment. In the Seville auto de fe of July 5, 1722, there appeared Melchor de Molina, who had been reconciled for Judaism in 1720. From evidence gathered in subsequent trials it appeared that he had not denounced all whom he knew; he was prosecuted anew and for this, as a fautor and protector of accomplices, his temporary prison was now made perpetual and irremissible.[1740]

DENUNCIATIONS OF ACCOMPLICES

Perhaps the most striking illustration of the effectiveness of the rule requiring denunciation of others is furnished by a Morisco of Valencia named Francisco Zafar y Ribera. He had been a Christian only in outward show, when a miraculous change of heart sent him on a pilgrimage to Monserrat, where he confessed his heresy to a priest. The good padre, unable to absolve him, referred him to the Barcelona tribunal, where, as a condition precedent, he was required to denounce all whom he knew to be Moors. The inquisitors, finding these to be Valencians, despatched him to Valencia, where he gave the names of no less than four thousand. He had been a wandering tailor and his acquaintance was extensive.[1741]

Few of those who fell into the hands of the Inquisition had the heroic courage of Manuel Díaz, a victim in the great Mexican auto de fe of December 8, 1596. Although ten of his fellow-sufferers had testified against him, he steadily denied his guilt and was proof against both the threats and the blandishments of the inquisitors. There was nothing to do but to burn him as a negativo impenitente, except that he might be used to inculpate others, and for this he was sentenced to torture in caput alienum. When this sentence was read to him he simply said that he was ready for them to do with him as they pleased. He was in his thirty-eighth year and a vigorous man, for he endured torture of unusual severity and, although he shrieked and begged to be put to death and called upon his tormentors to have mercy on his five children, he denied all knowledge of the Law of Moses and went to the stake without bearing witness against his fellows. This was held to aggravate his guilt and, in his sentence, he was stigmatized as a fautor and protector of Judaizing heretics.[1742]

If the inquisitorial records occasionally ennoble human nature with such examples of self-sacrifice, they more frequently exhibit it in its most despicable aspect, through the eagerness with which unfortunates, enfeebled and despairing in their protracted incarceration, seek to gain the favor of pitiless judges, or to render their confessions complete, by hastening to betray the confidences of their cell-companions, who incautiously relieve their hearts in careless talk with comrades in misery. The instances are innumerable in which the recipient of such avowals at once asks an audience and proves the sincerity of his own conversion by detailing what he had heard. There is a certain grim satisfaction, however, in noting that these revelations, however damaging to the victim, seem never to benefit the informer, for I have nowhere observed that they are accepted as attenuating circumstances to diminish his own punishment.