A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

The fiscal was held to act wholly under orders from the inquisitors. In the Instructions of 1484, they are represented as ordering him to accuse the contumacy of fugitives and to denounce the dead against whom they find evidence. So, in a trial of 1528, we find the inquisitors ordering the fiscal to present his accusation against the defendant.[684] In 1561, among his duties was prescribed that of keeping the secreto clean and in good order; he opened and closed its door with his own hands and, in 1570, he was required to have all the multitudinous documents well arranged, sewed, covered and so marked that they could readily be had when wanted. The letters and instructions of the Suprema were placed in his hands and it was his duty to give in writing to each official such portion as applied to him. In 1632, there was added to his labors that of furnishing the Suprema a monthly report embracing every pending case with a summary of all that had been done in it since the beginning—a duty apparently not relished for the order had to be repeated in 1639.[685] With all these somewhat multifarious duties, we never hear of a fiscal having a clerk, assistant or deputy.

In 1582, it was prescribed that his seat in the audience-chamber was to be smaller than those of the inquisitors, placed to one side and without cushions. In public functions his chair was to be similar to theirs except that it had no cushion. The inquisitors were required to address him and the judge of confiscations as merced, and, when he entered, they were not obliged to rise but merely to raise their caps.[686]

NOTARIES OR SECRETARIES

The position of the fiscal gradually improved. In his instructions of 1595 to Manrique de Lara, Philip II couples him with the inquisitor, in requiring both to be in orders, and prescribes great care in the appointment for it is customary to promote fiscals to the inquisitorship. Similarly Philip III, in 1608, requires both offices to be filled by jurists and when, in 1632 and 1637, the Suprema made holy orders a condition it included fiscals with inquisitors.[687] The assimilation between the offices was rapid and, in 1647, in a payment of ayuda de costa in Valencia there occurs an item of thirty thousand maravedís to Inquisitor Antonio de Ayala y Verganza, “por la plaza de fiscal,” showing that he was acting as fiscal.[688] The idea of coalescence was becoming familiar. When, in 1658, Gregorio Cid, after six years’ service as inquisitor of Sardinia, was transferred to Cuenca, he suggested that there ought to be there two inquisitors and a fiscal, or at least that the junior inquisitor should serve also as fiscal.[689]

The identification of the offices was facilitated, in 1660, by a royal cédula prescribing that fiscals were to be held the equals of inquisitors in precedence and honors, canopies, cushions and the like, as well as in pay and emoluments.[690] Thenceforth the office of fiscal came to be filled by one of the inquisitors, though he took care to preserve his dignity by styling himself “inquisidor fiscal” or “the inquisitor who performs the office of fiscal.” Thus at length the two offices coalesced and we have seen in the table of officials in 1746 that they were reckoned together. As a matter of course the inquisitor who acted as prosecutor did not enter the consulta de fe and vote on the fate of the accused whom he had prosecuted.[691] Sometimes, when there was no fiscal and no inquisitor willing to perform the duties, the senior secretary assumed the function. Such a case occurs as early as 1655, and it continued occasionally to the end.[692]

The notaries, or secretaries, formed an important part of the tribunal. They reduced to writing all the voluminous proceedings of the trials, all the audiences given to the accused with the interrogatories and answers, all the evidence of the witnesses and its ratification, the endless repetitions in the cumbrous and involved system of procedure which developed until the object seemed to be to protract business beyond the limits of human endurance. They kept the records which required an elaborate system of indexing, so that the name of any culprit and his genealogy could be found whenever wanted. In the later period, moreover, when the tribunals communicated to each other all their acts, the correspondence served to fill the gap arising from diminished business. At the beginning they were forbidden to employ clerks and were required to write everything with their own hands and this seems to have continued to the last.[693] In the earlier period they were styled notaries and sometimes escribanos or scriveners, possibly because as such their attestation authenticated all papers. Early in the seventeenth century the title gradually changed to secretaries, an innovation to which a writer in 1623 objects, as not distinguishing them from the secretaries of magnates and cities.[694] This objection did not prevail and a document of 1638 uses the terms as convertible, although an order of the Suprema, in the same year, forbids notaries to be called secretaries, while in 1648 we find the new appellation firmly established.[695] The importance of the office is shown by its fairly liberal salary. In the Instructions of 1498 it is placed at 30,000 maravedís, one-half of that of the inquisitors,[696] though the proportion diminished in time, for we have seen that, in 1746, the secretary received 2352 reales, while the inquisitor had 7352. There was compensation for this, however, in the heavy fees accruing to the secretaries from applicants for proofs of limpieza—a business shared with a new official known as “secretario de actos positivos.” The number moreover had greatly increased for, while at the early period, with its heavy work, a tribunal was allowed but two notaries, in the later time there were often four or five salaried secretaries, to whom were sometimes added honorary secretaries with entrance to the secreto and honorary secretaries without entrance.[697]

THE ALGUAZIL

There was also a notary of sequestrations, whose duties were highly important in the early times of abundant confiscations. He was always present when arrests were made, so as to draw up on the spot an inventory of the property seized, but, as confiscations diminished, the office became superfluous and was suppressed by a carta acordada of December 1, 1634. After this we hear of a superintendent of sequestrations, in 1647, and subsequently its occasional duties were discharged by some other official for a moderate compensation as, in 1670, in Valencia, the procurator of the fisc received twenty-five libras a year for attending to them.[698]

The alguazil was the executive officer of the tribunal. In the early lists of salaries his pay is the same as, or even larger than, that of the inquisitors, but this was because the prison was at his charge.[699] From this he was relieved, in 1515, by Ferdinand, who empowered the inquisitors to appoint carceleros, at a salary of five hundred sueldos, after which the wages of the alguazil declined to those of the secretaries and even of the alcaide who succeeded him as gaoler.[700] His superior dignity, however, was recognized in a carta acordada of May 13, 1610, which provided that in public functions he should have precedence over the secretaries.[701] His long wand of office, which exceeded that of secular alguaziles, was also a distinction and when, in 1576, the alguaziles of the Santa Cruzada in Barcelona ventured to imitate him, the Suprema ordered the inquisitors to punish them.[702]

His functions were various. The inquisitors, the receiver and the judge of confiscations were forbidden to appoint any one else to execute their orders if he were at hand. If, in his absence, an arrest had to be made, the fact had to be attested at the foot of the warrant issued to another, without which the receiver was ordered not to pay the expenses incurred. He made all levies and seizures and was entitled to fees for the service.[703] By the instructions of 1488, if the duty was at a distance of more than three or four leagues, he was not to be sent, but a temporary substitute, whose commission expired with the performance of the errand. Perhaps this was because the thrifty Ferdinand had insisted that, if he was sent out of the city, he must pay his own expenses, but this was relaxed for, in 1502, we find the rule established that, if an alguazil is sent from one province to another, to a greater distance than four leagues, his expenses were to be paid. He had, however, to furnish at his own cost a satisfactory person to take charge of the prison during his absence and, if he required assistance in making arrests, the inquisitors selected the persons and determined their pay.[704]