A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

The perfected system of records kept by the tribunals so greatly increased the effectiveness of the Inquisition and rendered it such an object of dread, that some reference to it is indispensable. Its development was slow. At the start, amid the enormous labors of the slenderly manned tribunals, there could be little thought bestowed on the preservation and arrangement of the records of their operations. In the Instructions of 1484 the only allusion to them merely prescribes that the notaries shall enter on their registers all orders issued by the inquisitors to the officials.[747] As the registers accumulated, the Instructions of 1488 require all writings and papers to be kept in chests, in the public place where the inquisitors transact business, so that they may be at hand when wanted; they are never to be removed and the keys are to pass through the hands of the inquisitors to the notaries, all this being under pain of deprivation of office.[748] Ten years later we hear of a chamber assigned to their safe keeping, with three keys, held by the fiscal and the two notaries, so that all must be present when they are consulted.[749] By this time indexes to facilitate references to the rapidly growing mass of papers had become necessary, and an article in Deza’s instructions, in 1500, shows that this had become recognized.[750] The disabilities inflicted on descendants of culprits rendered it essential that genealogies should be traceable, but the incredible crudeness of these early lists shows how informal was the rapid work of that awful time. One kept at Toledo, about 1500, contains such entries of the individuals despatched as “un porquero del alguazil que tiene un ojo remellado,” “un converso retajado,” “un converso judyo,” “un sastre,” “un platero sobrino de lope de cuellar platero.” In Valencia, from 1517 to 1527, the index to the fifth volume of persons denounced shows equal indifference to the identification of individuals catalogued as “le boges, mare y filles,” “la condesa que lleve el habito penitential,” “el bachiller que esta en companya del calonge Proxita,” “uno que ha sido flayle,” “un remendon sastre, esta delante la rexa de mosen Penaroja,” etc.[751]

RECORDS

After some contradictory decisions as to furnishing papers or information from the records to competent courts applying for it, the Suprema, in 1556, forbade the tribunals, without its express order, from giving any information tending to prove that any one had not been condemned or reconciled, or penanced or arrested by the Holy Office—a most cruel regulation in view of the tremendous consequences to the posterity of those who had fallen under suspicion of heresy and had been tried or even arrested. An order by the Suprema, in 1576, to the Valencia tribunal to erase from its records the name of Maestro Jusepe Esteban, because he had not been arrested for a matter of faith, is suggestive of the fearful power which the Inquisition possessed of inflicting infamy on whole families and of the importance of the accuracy of its registers.[752] The abuse of its power in this respect is indicated, as we have seen above, by the instructions which sometimes followed visitations, to remove from the records the names of those who had been improperly prosecuted for offences not of faith.

It was not easy to preserve the completeness of the records. Officials were apt to regard them as personal property and to keep them, like the notary of Calatayud who thus secured for his son the reversion of his office. In 1512, Ferdinand desired from a tribunal complete statements concerning the finances; there arose delay, during which the notary of sequestrations died, whereupon he ordered that the receiver should have all the papers or copies of them and, if the heirs of the notary refused to surrender them, execution should be levied on his estate for the whole of his salary received during his incumbency.[753] It was not only the notaries, however, but other officials who took and kept documents. In 1517 Cardinal Adrian complained of this and ordered that papers should never be removed from their depository, except to the audience-chamber for the purpose of conducting a trial.[754] This was disregarded and, about the middle of the century, the instructions to inspectors require them to order inquisitors, under pain of excommunication, to return all papers that they had taken and to discontinue the practice.[755] Even inquisitors-general were guilty of this, for Philip II issued an order March 6, 1573, on the executors of Ponce de Leon, to allow his papers to be examined and everything pertaining to the Inquisition to be removed—an order which can only be regarded as revealing a general custom, for Ponce de Leon died, January 17, 1573, before entering upon his office.[756]

The looseness which had prevailed during the early period is strikingly manifested when, in 1547, the Suprema made an attempt to gather in and preserve its past records. A commission was issued to its secretary Zurita, reciting the importance of having an inventory of all the papal bulls, briefs, registers and other papers relating to the Inquisition, which had been in the custody of the secretaries and other officials. There is, it says, information that many of these are at Calatayud and others at Huesca, among the papers of Calcena and Urries, the secretaries of Ferdinand and Charles V, and Zurita is ordered to collect these and is armed with full powers to examine witnesses and inflict penalties. All holding such papers are required to surrender them, under pain of excommunication and a hundred ducats. The inquisitors of Saragossa are instructed to assist him with censures, while letters to various parties indicate that the task is expected to be arduous. The instructions are not clear as to whether he is expected to seize the papers or merely to make inventories of them, but there can be little doubt that whatever he laid his hands on was kept.[757] What success attended his mission we have no means of knowing, but we probably owe to it many of the important documents illustrating the early history of the Inquisition.

In addition to this source of incompleteness, it seemed impossible to compel the tribunals to keep their records in proper shape. In 1544, Dr. Alonso Pérez, in an inspection of Barcelona, found them in complete disorder. Another inspection, in 1550, showed still greater confusion. In 1561, Inspector Cervantes described them as being in such a state, without indexes and inventories, that it was impossible to find anything. After the visit of Salazar, the Suprema, in 1568, took the inquisitors sharply to task for not having yet provided indexes and registers; it ordered them to do so at once and to furnish a certificate to that effect within twenty days of receipt.[758] The certificate was doubtless supplied, but we may question whether the work was done. Possibly Barcelona was worse than other tribunals, but the memorial of 1623 to the Suprema states that in many of them there are processes, books, papers, informations of limpieza etc., requiring to be inventoried, sorted into bundles and reduced to order, causing great inconvenience.[759]

RECORDS

Meanwhile the masses of papers had been accumulating more rapidly than ever. In 1570 the Suprema had ordered nine books to be kept—one of the commissions of officials, their oaths and royal provisions, one of commissioners and familiars with full details, one of the votes in the consultas de fe, one of letters from the Suprema and another of letters to it, one recording the inspections made of the prisons, one of the orders issued on the receiver, one of the pecuniary penances inflicted and one of the autos de fe, with statements as to the culprits and their punishments. Besides these the alcaide of the prison was to keep lists of those relaxed and penanced with three indexes. All this was exclusive of the voluminous records of the trials which it was the duty of the fiscal to keep in order.[760] Then, in order to accommodate the increasing bulk, it was ordered, in 1566 and 1572, that there should be four apartments in the camara del secreto, one for pending cases, one for suspended ones, one for those finished, divided into the relaxed, the reconciled and the penanced, and the fourth for papers concerning commissioners and familiars and informaciones de limpieza.[761] In 1635, alphabetical lists of all persons tried were ordered to be kept, with dates and references to the papers of the case, commencing with 1620. The order had to be repeated in 1636 and 1638, with further instructions in 1644, and these lists furnished additional means for tracing the antecedents and kindred of those who were brought before the tribunals.[762] But more potent than the mandates of the Suprema to keep the archives in order and thoroughly indexed was the mania which arose for limpieza, or purity of blood which, as we shall see hereafter, pervaded all classes and furnished a source of very profitable business to the officials, for the Inquisition was the ultimate arbiter and its records contained the evidence.

Gradually these records became an immense storehouse of minute and detailed information concerning all heretics and suspects and their kindred. Under the Instructions of 1561, the first thing in examining a prisoner was to require of him an account of parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins, with their wives and children and whether any of them had been arrested or penanced by the Inquisition.[763] Then, when the accused was brought to profess conversion and to beg mercy, his confession was not accepted unless he gave information, to the best of his ability, as to all other heretics, whether kindred or strangers, whom he had known or heard of, with details as to their culpability. All this was carefully entered and indexed, until the records became a fairly complete directory of the suspects of Spain. A Jew arrested in Granada might compromise twenty others, scattered from Compostella to Barcelona, each of whom when seized became a new source of information, and the intercommunication established between the tribunals placed the records of all at the service of each. This vastly increased the effectiveness of the Inquisition and rendered the chances of escape slender indeed. The trials of the seventeenth century, when the system became fairly perfected, show that, although the arrest of a few might scatter their accomplices, the Inquisition was ever on their track and change of name and habitation was unavailing. As soon as a suspect was arrested and his genealogy was obtained, the sister tribunals were called upon for reports, and testimony poured in, reaching back, perhaps, for twenty or thirty years, concerning himself and his kindred. The net of the Inquisition covered the land and its meshes were fine. Go where they would, hide themselves as they might, the Judaizers lived in the knowledge that it was ever remorselessly in pursuit and that its hand might fall upon them at any time.