The alguazil mayor seems to have been an ornamental personage, usually a man of distinction, who thereby proclaimed his purity of blood and devotion to the faith. We have seen that, in Seville and Córdova, the office was hereditary in noble houses whose ancestors had abandoned to the Inquisition royal castles of which they were alcaides, receiving in return this position with handsome emoluments. In 1655 the alguazil mayor of the tribunal of Córdova was Luis Méndez de Haro, Conde-Duque of Olivares and his deputy was Gonzalo de Cardenas y Córdova, a Knight of Calatrava. In Seville, Don Juan de Saavedra y Alvarado, Marquis of Moscoso, served as alguazil mayor at the auto de fe of March 11, 1691, and November 30, 1693. About 1750, the tribunal of Seville had the Marquis of Villafranca as alguazil mayor; that of Valladolid had the Marquis of Revilla; in Granada the incumbent was a minor, Don Nicolas Velázquez, and the office was served by Don Diego Ramírez de la Piscina.[705]
THE PORTERO—THE GAOLER
The humbler officials of the tribunal were the nuncio, the portero and the carcelero or alcaide de las carceles secretas. Strictly speaking the nuncio was a messenger or courier, bearing despatches to the Suprema or other tribunals and, before the post-office was organized, his life must have been an active one. In 1502 we hear of his salary being twelve hundred sueldos, out of which he defrayed his travelling expenses, but subsequently these were paid by the receiver and, in 1541, his stipend was five hundred sueldos.[706] His ayuda de costa, in 1567, was made dependent on his accompanying the inquisitors on their visitations.[707] At that period the tribunals seem to have been allowed two nuncios but, with the development of postal facilities, the functions of the position gradually shrank, the number was cut down to one and, in the eighteenth century we find him converted into a nuncio de camera, or interior attendant, called indifferently nuncio and portero, while a nuncio extraordinario makes the fires and attends to other servile work.[708]
The portero in the secular courts was a kind of apparitor, to serve summonses, authorized to take bail up to the sum of a hundred reales and forbidden to keep a shop or tavern.[709] In the Inquisition his function was to serve citations, notices of autos de fe, decrees and other similar work, and he was prohibited from engaging in trade of any kind; he was not allowed to enter the audience-chamber, but, in the eighteenth century we find him converted into a portero de camara, or usher and janitor, in which capacity he had entrance to the audience-chamber. When, in 1796, we find a Doctor Don Josef Fontana serving as portero in the Valencia tribunal, we may infer that the office was not servile, and it is observable that the portero and his wife are qualified as Don and Doña, a title withheld from the nuncio and his spouse. Their salaries, however, were the same, 1420 reales. When about 1710, porteros laid claim, in public functions, to seats on the banco de titulados—the bench of commissioned officials—their pretensions were rejected.[710]
The gaoler was necessary to a tribunal which had its special prison. At first, as we have seen, the alguazil had charge of this and his employees were not reckoned among the officials. The first allusion to a carcelero that I have met occurs in 1499, when Juan de Moya is spoken of as the carcerarius of the Barcelona tribunal; he must have been an exceptional official and a person of some consideration, for he was provided with a prebend.[711] In 1515 Ferdinand deemed it advisable to put the prisons under control of the tribunals, with which view he empowered the inquisitors to appoint carceleros with salaries of five hundred sueldos.[712] The gaoler thus became a salaried official, entitled to all the privileges and immunities of this position and gradually, toward the middle of the sixteenth century, the humble title of carcelero was exchanged for the more dignified one of alcaide de las carceles secretas.[713] He was necessarily a person of confidence, responsible for the safe-keeping of prisoners and for their proper maintenance, functions which will be more conveniently treated when we come to consider the prison system. From the report of the tribunal of Murcia, in 1746, it appears that the salary then was 2353 reales, in addition to which there was a jubilado alcaide with 330 reales. Possibly this habit of providing for supernumeraries explains why, in the table of officials, Toledo has four alcaides and Llerena and Valencia have three each.[714] In the early period the carcelero sometimes served as torturer, but subsequently it became customary to employ the public executioner.[715]
MINOR OFFICIALS
The prison, sometimes crowded with inmates and exposed to insanitary conditions, rendered necessary an official physician, whose services were also indispensable in examinations before and after torture and in the not infrequent cases of insanity, real or feigned. As his duties called him within the sacred limits of the secreto, he had to be a person of confidence, sworn like all the rest to secrecy. He was expected also to bestow gratuitous service on the officials, and the Suprema, in the eighteenth century, indulged itself in two, at the fairly liberal salary of 1258 reales apiece, though they did not share in the extra emoluments so freely bestowed on other officials.[716] At first the appointment of physicians was not universal, although the salary was inconsiderable—attributable, no doubt, to the fact that the physician was at liberty to continue his private practice. Thus, in 1486, Ferdinand designated ten libras as the pay of the physician of the Saragossa tribunal, while there was none provided for that of Medina del Campo.[717] The surgeon was rated at even less for, in 1510, one is furnished to Saragossa at a salary of five libras and the same is paid to an apothecary, who can scarce have furnished expensive drugs on such a stipend.[718] The surgeon, at this period, was also a barber and, in 1502, a grant, once for all, of fifteen libras was made to Joan de Aguaviva, “cirujano y barbero” of Calatayud, for fourteen years curing and barbering the poor prisoners, without salary or other advantage.[719] By 1618, apparently, the professions had become distinct, for there is an order to pay Narciso Valle, surgeon and Miguel Juan, barber, to the tribunal of Valencia.[720] A chaplain was also a necessity, not for the prisoners, who were denied the sacraments, but for the daily mass celebrated before commencing the work of the audience-chamber. In 1572, a stipend of 7500 maravedís is assigned for this but, in the eighteenth century, the Suprema paid the handsome salary of 5500 reales.[721] Confessors were also required for the penitential prison and were called in to the secret prison for the moribund.[722] There were also two personas honestas, or discreet persons, friars as a rule, whose duty it was to be present when witnesses ratified their testimony. In the earlier period these services were gratuitous but, in the later time, there was a small payment which, in the case of a friar, would enure to his convent. An alcaide of the casa de penitencia, or penitential prison, was also a necessity during the period of active work, although subsequently it was virtually a sinecure and in many tribunals was suppressed. We occasionally also meet with the office of proveedor, or purveyor of the secret prison, who seems to be identical with the dispensero or steward. In the sixteenth century this official had a salary of 2000 maravedís, besides two maravedís a day for each prisoner and five blancas for cooking and washing; he was required to have honest weights and not to charge more for food than it cost him; he kept an account with each prisoner and was paid out of the sequestrations.[723] Locksmiths, masons and other mechanics employed on the buildings were also sometimes reckoned as officials, for their duties in repairing the prisons were confidential. All tribunals moreover had from one to three abogados de presos or advocates of prisoners, whose duties will claim consideration hereafter; they were classed as salaried officials, though sometimes they received a small stipend and sometimes none, and they were allowed to serve other clients if they had any.
Besides these officials who were concerned in the primary business of the tribunal as a bulwark of the faith, there were others whose functions may be briefly dismissed here. The finances necessarily required a special organization, consisting of a receiver of confiscations, subsequently called the treasurer, whose duties in the active period were of the utmost importance, entitling him to a salary which sometimes was even larger than that of the inquisitors.[724] The fines and penances also amounted to large sums for which, in the earlier period, there was usually a special receiver, for they were kept as a separate fund, but finally they likewise passed through the hands of the treasurer. The receiver had to pay his own assistants and agents but, in the enormous amount of complicated business thrown upon him, he was aided by the abogado fiscal, a salaried official of legal training, while the notary of sequestrations had charge of sequestrated property until its confiscation was pronounced, and further served as a check upon the receiver. The intricate claims arising from these seizures were settled in a separate court of confiscations, known as the juzgado, presided over by the juez de bienes or judge of confiscations and furnished with its notary and nuncio. We sometimes also meet with a procurador del fisco and also with a superintendent of property. All this, which, especially at first, formed so large a part of the business of the Inquisition, will be more conveniently considered in detail hereafter.
We have seen how much of the activity of the tribunals was consumed in the civil and criminal business of their officials, and it necessarily formed a separate department, which had its notario de lo civil and secretario de las causas civiles, the latter office being suppressed in 1643.[725]
SALARIES