A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

The time at which a confession was made was an important factor in determining the grade of punishment. At first these distinctions were crudely drawn, and there was hesitation in accepting confession as an infallible sign of repentance and conversion. The Instructions of 1484 merely say that, if it is made early and before publication of evidence, the regular penalty can be commuted to those who manifest contrition; if after publication and before definite sentence, the culprit is entitled to reconciliation with perpetual prison, but the inquisitors must determine whether he is sincerely converted, for if they have no hope of this they should relax him as an impenitent heretic. It seems to have been thought that, under these rules, too many fictitious converts escaped for, in 1498, the tribunals were warned to be cautious about admitting to reconciliation those who confessed after arrest, in view of the length of time since the establishment of the Inquisition.[1743] Thus, after arrest, confession and profession of conversion by no means saved the victim from the stake, but it depended upon the inquisitor’s belief in his sincerity.

TIME OF CONFESSION

This excessive severity was moderated in time and there came to be established a kind of sliding scale which gauged sincerity by the period in the trial at which confession was made. An elementary form of this is displayed in a report of an auto de fe at Saragossa, June 5, 1585, where many Moriscos suffered. There is a group of ten of whom it is said that, as they confessed at the beginning of their trials, they were imprisoned for two, three or four years according to the gravity of their offences. Then there are others sent to the galleys for terms of from three to eight years, because their confessions were tardy or delayed to the end of their trials. As women were exempt from galley-service, this classification was impossible for them, but their terms of prison were regulated in the same way, and two of them had their sanbenitos removed at the close of the proceedings, because they had come forward and confessed before arrest, though after they had been testified against.[1744] This system was gradually perfected and, as presented by a writer of the middle of the seventeenth century, it appears that, if confession was made before the fiscal presented his formal accusation, the prison and sanbenito were inflicted for a very short time; if after accusation, they were for one or two years; if not till after publication of evidence, for the three years styled perpetual; if after torture, irremissible prison and, if able-bodied, the first three or five years to be spent in the galleys. This might be modified according to the manifestation of repentance and whether the culprit was a good confessor, both as to himself and others and, in the case of slaves, to avoid wronging the owner, scourging was substituted for prison and galleys.[1745] Subsequently this resource of scourging was freely employed for those who were not slaves, and, in the frequent autos of 1721 and the following years, the cases are numerous in which men and women are sentenced to two hundred lashes and irremissible prison and sanbenito as a special punishment for tardy confession.[1746]

Confession under torture was originally not regarded as voluntary and did not relieve from relaxation, showing that its use on a culprit who denied was either merely to gratify curiosity or to obtain information as to accomplices.[1747] Subsequent casuists, however, argued that the ratification of the confession, which was necessary after twenty-four hours, rendered it voluntary, and the more usual practice was to admit such cases to reconciliation. The Instructions of 1561 accept this, but warn inquisitors that they must observe much caution as to such cases and consider the quality of the heresies and whether the offender had simply been taught or had taught others.[1748] Still, this distinction was disregarded and Simancas tells us that the universal practice was to receive to reconciliation those who confessed under torture.[1749]

It can readily be conceived that those who confessed under the awe-inspiring formalities of the trial, with the pressure of prolonged imprisonment, the threat of torture and the fear of the stake, and whose admissions came gradually with greater or less fullness, as they vacillated between opposing influences, were not infrequently inconsistent and variable in their utterances. This was naturally provoking to the inquisitor and the vario who thus wavered cast doubt upon the sincerity of his repentance. He was admitted to reconciliation, indeed, but he paid the penalty of his vacillation in extra punishment. Thus, in the Murcia auto de fe of October 18, 1722, Francisco Henríquez de Medina y Melo, besides the regular penance, was sentenced to a hundred lashes “por vario en sus confesiones.”[1750]

Even more provoking was the revocante, who withdrew or revoked a confession—an occurrence by no means rare, as might be expected from the methods employed to obtain it. The writers all treat this as impenitence, requiring relaxation in cases of formal heresy.[1751] In practice it was so regarded, as a general rule, but we find occasional exceptional cases, in which, however, care was usually taken to inflict heavier punishment than if the confession had been adhered to. In a Toledo auto of 1603, a Morisco, Andrés Muñoz, who had revoked his confession and consequently had been sentenced to relaxation, was saved by the Suprema, which ordered torture and, on his overcoming it, gave him five years of galleys and a heavy fine. Another case occurred in Granada, in 1593, where Jusuarte López, a Portuguese, confessed to Judaism and then, on finding that there was little evidence against him, revoked his confession and was condemned to five years of galleys, followed by irremissible prison and sanbenito.[1752]

REVOCATION

This apparent inconsistency arose from the infinite perplexities caused to the conscientious inquisitor by the arbitrary methods employed to induce or to extort confession. We obtain a glimpse into this from the remarks of an old inquisitor, about 1640, who, after laying down the rule of relaxation, proceeds to warn the judge that he should proceed with caution and consider the circumstances under which the confession had been made. I have known, he adds, the mere fear excited by the fiscal’s formal demand for torture at the end of the accusation, bring a confession which necessitated torture to ascertain its truth. In 1628, I had a case in Saragossa, where a Frenchman voluntarily confessed that he had been a Lutheran and that, as such, he had been reconciled in Toledo. On being arrested he stated that his father had taught him Lutheranism and that he was reconciled in Toledo. After several audiences, he revoked this, and asserted that what he had confessed in Toledo was false; that there were no heretics where he came from and that his father had not taught him, and then in his defence he proved this and that both he and his father were Catholics. I voted for relaxation but the Suprema ordered torture; he overcame the torture and was finally sentenced to abjure de vehementi, to undergo public vergüenza and to perpetual banishment from Spain. If the revocation, the writer concludes, is of things of which there is semiplena proof [as of one witness] and it appears that it is made to protect accomplices and friends, then in rigor he is to be relaxed, but in these times relaxation is rare if he confesses enough to justify reconciliation.[1753]

That the terrors of the situation frequently reduced the prisoner to a mental condition that was practically irresponsible is illustrated in a trivial case concerning the popular assertion that simple fornication was no sin. In 1579 at Toledo, Diego Redondo of Prado, on trial for this, denied at first; then, when the accusation was read, with its customary demand for torture, he confessed; then, when the testimony of five witnesses was read in the publication, he revoked his confession, saying that it was made through fear; he did not know whether he had made it or not, but if he did so he was out of his senses; he remembered that he had said he knew not what, and had retracted it, and he did not remember, and this was what he said. This crazed incoherence puzzled the tribunal; it referred the case to the Suprema which charitably sentenced him to hear high mass at Prado, while his sentence was publicly read, and then to spend two years in exile.[1754]