A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

CONTROL OVER TRIBUNALS

Besides this direct intervention there grew up a watchfulness over the proceedings of the tribunals through their reports of autos de fe, which were closely scrutinized and returned with criticisms. These reports were required to give full details of all cases decided, whether for public autos or private ones in the audience-chamber, and their regular transmission was enforced by conditioning upon it the payment of the annual ayuda de costa or supplement to the salaries of the officials. There was also an opportunity, which was not neglected, of administering reproofs on the reports required from inquisitors of their annual visitations of portions of their districts. These were closely criticized and errors were pointed out without reserve, such as judging cases that ought to have been sent to the tribunal for its action, punishing too severely or too lightly, imperfect reports of cases, etc.[470] Thus in various ways a more or less minute supervision was exercised, and the inquisitors were made to feel the subordination of their position.

This was greatly increased when, in 1632, each tribunal was required to send in a monthly report of all its current business and the condition of each case, whether pending or decided, and this in addition to an annual report on which depended the allowance of the ayuda de costa. It was difficult to enforce the regular performance of this and the command had to be frequently repeated, but it was successful to some extent and afforded an opportunity of criticism which was not neglected. Thus, in 1695, in acknowledging receipt of such a report from Valencia, its slovenliness and imperfection are sharply rebuked as deserving of a heavier penalty, which is suspended through benignity. The character, it is said, of the witnesses should be noted, the number or letter of the prisoner’s cell, the ration assigned to him, whether or not he has property and, if sequestrated, a copy of the sequestration should be added; the crime and the time of entering the prison and the property items should be repeated in all successive reports. After this, each individual case is considered and much fault is found with the details of procedure.[471] Even the requests for information, made by one tribunal of another, were required, by an order of 1635, to be the subject of regular reports by the fiscal every four months.[472] It was impossible, however, to enforce with regularity the rendering of monthly reports and, in 1800, the Suprema contented itself with requiring them thrice a year, a regulation which continued to the end, although it was irregularly observed.[473]

The same process of centralization was developed in the control over individual cases. It was not only when there was discordia or sentences of relaxation that confirmation was required. A carta acordada of August 2, 1625, ordered that no sentence of scourging, galleys, public penance, or vergüenza should be executed until the process was submitted to the Suprema.[474] The records of the tribunal of Valladolid, at this period, not only show that this was observed when corporal punishment was inflicted, but also indicate that a custom was springing up of submitting the sentence in all cases involving clerics, and further that the habit was becoming frequent of consulting the Suprema during the course of trials.[475] When, in 1647, the Suprema required all sentences to be submitted to it as soon as pronounced, it assumed full control over the disposition of cases.[476] It was concentrating in itself the management of the entire business of all the tribunals. The minuteness of detail in its supervision is illustrated when, in 1697, the daily ration of four maravedís for a prisoner in Valladolid was regulated by it and the vote of the tribunal whether a prisoner is to be confined in the carceles medias or secretas had to be confirmed by it.[477]

CENTRALIZATION

Simple arrest by the Inquisition was in itself an infliction of no common severity and, from an early period, the Suprema sought to exercise supervision over it. In 1500, the Instructions of Seville require the tribunals, whenever they make an arrest, to send to the inquisitor-general, by their messenger, the accusation, with the testimony in full, the number of the witnesses and the character of the accused.[478] This salutary check on the irresponsible power of the inquisitors was too cumbrous for enforcement and it soon became obsolete but, in 1509, when there was discordia as to sentences of arrest they were ordered, before execution, to be submitted to the Suprema with the opinions of the voters.[479] In 1521, to check the persecuting zeal of the tribunals towards the Moriscos, or newly baptized Moors, Cardinal Adrian ordered that they should not be arrested save on conclusive evidence which must first be submitted to the Suprema—a humane measure speedily forgotten.[480] The religious Orders were favored, in 1534, by requiring confirmation of all sentences of arrest pronounced against their members—a measure which required to be repeated in 1555 and, in 1616, it was extended to all ecclesiastics.[481] The Instructions of 1561 order consultation with the Suprema before arresting persons of quality or when the case is otherwise important[482] and, in 1628, it was ordered that no arrest be made on the testimony of a single witness, without first consulting the Suprema; if escape were feared, precautions might be taken, but in such wise as to inflict as little disgrace as possible.[483] Under these limitations the practice is summarized by a writer, about 1675, who tells us that there are cases in which the tribunals can vote arrest, but not execute it without the assent of the Suprema; these are where there is but one witness (but this is not observed with Judaizers), when the accused is a cleric, religious, knight of the Military Orders, notary or superior officer of justice—unless, indeed, flight be apprehended. In these cases the sumaria, or summary of evidence, must be well drawn up and submitted to the Suprema with the votes of the inquisitors.[484]

Thus gradually the independent action of the tribunals was curtailed until it finally disappeared and centralization in the Suprema was complete. The precise date of this I have been unable to determine, but a writer of the middle of the eighteenth century tersely describes the conditions, telling us that the inquisitors determine nothing without the orders of the Council, so that, when they draw up the sumarias in cases of faith they submit them and, on their return, do what they are told; they do not sentence but only append their opinions to the processes and the Council decides.[485]

This continued to the end. The book of votes of the Suprema, in the restored Inquisition, from 1814 to 1820, shows that the tribunals had become mere agencies for receiving denunciations, collecting evidence and executing the orders of the Council. Even these slender duties were sometimes denied to them. In the case of Juana de Lima of Xeres, tried for bigamy, the sumaria was made up by the commissioner of Xeres and on it the Suprema, without more ado, sentenced her to four years in a house of correction and sent the sentence to the commissioner to be read to her; the functions of the Seville inquisitors were reduced to transmitting the papers and keeping the records.[486] If a tribunal ventured on the slightest expression of dissent, it was roundly taken to task. Thus, December 23, 1816 that of Madrid was sternly rebuked because, in the case of Don Teodoro Bachiller, it had described as unjustified his imprisonment; that imprisonment had been approved by the Suprema and the tribunal was ordered to expunge from the records this improper expression and never to repeat such an offence, if it desired to escape serious action. So, when the fiscal of the same tribunal remonstrated against an order to remove Caietano Carcer, on the ground of ill health, from the secret prison, the Suprema replied, January 14, 1818, that its orders were dictated by justice and there was no fiscal or tribunal that could object to them. It expected that the tribunal and its fiscal would in future be more self-restrained and obedient to its superior decisions, thus escaping all responsibility, and that they would not oblige the Council to enforce its authority by measures necessary although unpleasant.[487] To this had shrunk the inquisitor before whom, in the old days, bishops and magnates trembled.

APPELLATE JURISDICTION

It is satisfactory to be able to say that, as a rule, the interference of the Suprema with the tribunals was on the side of mercy rather than of rigor. It is true that torture, then the universal solvent of doubt, was frequently ordered, but there seems to have been a fairly conscientious discharge of the responsibilities which it had grasped. In the Valladolid records of the seventeenth century, the modifications of sentences are almost uniformly mitigations, especially by the omission of scourging, which the tribunals were accustomed to administer liberally, and there would seem to be especial tenderness for the offences of the clergy.[488] A typical instance of this moderation is seen in the case of Margarita Altamira, sentenced by the Barcelona tribunal, in 1682, to appear in an auto de fe, to abjure de levi, to receive a hundred lashes through the streets and to seven years’ exile from Barcelona and some other places, the first two of which were to be passed serving in a hospital without pay. All this the Suprema reduced to hearing her sentence read in the audience-chamber and to four years’ exile from the same places.[489] This mitigating tendency is especially apparent in the restored Inquisition, from 1814 to 1820, where the sentences are almost uniformly revised with a reduction of penalties. Scourging is more rarely prescribed by the tribunals and, when it is ordered, it is invariably omitted by the Suprema, the power of dispensing with it being attributed to the inquisitor-general.[490]