All this, of course, involved expense and the fees earned in the work by the officials formed a welcome source of revenue. In 1625 the pay of notaries or secretaries was fixed at a per diem of sixteen reales.[885] This was subsequently raised for, in 1665, a statement of expenses in the case of Doctor Martin Roig, applicant for the position of consultor in Valencia, shows that the secretary was paid 30 sueldos a day and a local commissioner 20. This was only part of the cost, for every act and every blank filled in, every piece of writing bore its separate charge. The bill rolled up for him and his wife in Barcelona, for this unsalaried position, amounted to 955⅔ sueldos and this was only the beginning. Similar researches were required in the tribunals of Valencia and Cuenca, which must have been still more costly, for the Barcelona report only occupied twenty-three folios, while that of Valencia was in ninety and one against his son Vicente was in a hundred and eight. Two years later, in 1667, the affair was still dragging on.[886] It was a large price for the honor of an unpaid position, even if he proved successful. These extortions were multiplied as often as possible. In 1661, Juan Temprado Múñoz made his proofs as receiver of the tribunal of Murcia and of course this included his wife, but when, in 1667, their son Juan Temprado de Cereña desired an office in the tribunal of Barcelona, he had to go through the same process afresh, when the examination of the Barcelona registers alone cost him 546 sueldos. In addition to this the registers of Cuenca and Valencia had to be examined and evidence had to be taken in the home of his ancestors. This chanced to be in Roussillon, which was now French territory; there was war between the nations and, even in peace, France refused entrance to officials of the Inquisition, so the ingenious formality was devised of sending a commissioner to the border and examining there the requisite number of old men as witnesses. The evidence of course was valueless, but it gathered in the per diem all the same.[887] In time this per diem for the secretary was increased to 50 reales and, from one or two cases in 1815, it appears that it was a perquisite which the secretaries took in turns, and, when the commissioner nearest to the place of examination was employed, it was without prejudice to the secretary—that is, the commissioner who did the work received 30 reales a day, while the secretary took the other 20.[888]
In order to secure the payment of these fees, the applicant was required, when he presented his genealogy, to make a deposit, originally of 300 reales. As the business increased it became evident that a separate fund and separate accounts of these moneys must be kept and, in 1600, it was ordered that a special chest be provided, with two keys, one entrusted to the fiscal and the other to a secretary. Abuses crept in, effectively described in the memorial of 1623 to the Suprema, as a remedy for which a new official was created, known as the Depositario de los Pretendientes, who received and accounted for the deposits, charging two per cent. on the sums passing through his hands. This he remitted to the Suprema, for his office was salaried and he was relieved of the temptation of perquisites. The office was one of those put up for sale, for three or four lives, under Sotomayor.[889]
The whole business was provocative of fraud and perjury and bribery. Despite the well-meant efforts of the Inquisition to preserve the profoundest secrecy, the writers of the period are too unanimous in deploring the success of enemies in casting infamy on those they hated, for us to doubt that means were found to ascertain what was on hand and to abuse the opportunity. To the applicants the stake was too great for them to shrink from any means that promised success. Cases become not infrequent in the records of prosecutions for false-witness in matters of limpieza, showing that aspirants were not remiss in furnishing testimony to prove fraudulent claims.
FRAUDULENT TESTIMONY
Although, in 1560, Valdés humanely ordered that descendants of penitents, who committed perjury in getting up statements of limpieza, should not be prosecuted, this policy changed in 1577, when they were subjected to prosecution and in 1582 the thrifty plan was adopted of inflicting pecuniary penance.[890] This proved profitable, for the culprits were many, not only among aspirants to office but because limpieza was requisite in many careers, and the Inquisition took cognizance of all cases of perjury in this matter, whether it was concerned or not in the investigation. Thus, in 1585, Bernardino de Torres, a prominent citizen of Toledo, had occasion, in a suit, to prove his nobility and purity of blood, which he did with a number of witnesses. The tribunal had evidence in its records that, on both father’s and mother’s side, he was descended from Conversos who had been penanced, and it promptly prosecuted both him and his witnesses. Among them was the Regidor of Toledo, Diego de Parades, who had likewise sworn to his own limpieza, although the records showed his descent from reconciliados in a time of grace. Altogether there were sixteen witnesses, the advanced age of most of them showing that old men found profitable occupation in testifying to their recollections. Bernardino himself was penanced in fifty thousand maravedís. Many of the witnesses were let off with perpetual disability to testify in such cases, but a hundred and thirty-six thousand maravedís were collected from the rest. A few other Toledo cases at the same time may be mentioned to show the various motives impelling men to these frauds. Gerónimo de Villareal desired to place his daughter in a convent where limpieza was required. The Licenciado Antonio de Olvera was about to emigrate to the colonies and wished to protect himself from insult. Hernando de Villareal had a son who proposed to take orders and another who aspired to an appointment as familiar. The records showed them to be descended from grandparents or great-grandparents who had been burnt or reconciled and they were duly punished.[891] The taint spread with every new generation and a large part of the population was heavily handicapped in life.
If there were frequent perjury and subornation of testimony it is not to be supposed that the seekers for limpieza hesitated to corrupt the officials who controlled their destinies, nor is it unreasonable to assume that many of the latter were accessible to bribery. The opportunities were tempting and they were freely exploited. An experienced writer, in 1648, describes this as the most troublesome business in the tribunals, leading to quarrels, which he hints arose between those honestly endeavoring to discharge their duty and those who had been bribed. The fiscal is reminded that he must set his face like flint against all efforts to pass a genealogy in which there is a flaw, for the aspirants tempt the officials, there is collusion between them and forged documents are to be expected. The chief reason, he says, why commissionerships are sought is because of the opportunities thus afforded and, writing in Toledo, he declares that all the commissioners and notaries attached to that tribunal are untrustworthy and venal.[892]
It was natural that the evils with which this absurd cult of limpieza afflicted the land should arouse opposition and call forth suggestions to mitigate its hardship. The earliest writer who ventured publicly to urge a reform seems to have been Fray Agustin Salucio, a distinguished Dominican theologian. In 1599 he issued a brief tract, pointing out that practically all Spaniards, in the course of ages, had contracted some more or less infinitesimal impurity of blood and that, unless investigations were limited to some moderate period, such as a hundred years, only the lower orders, whose genealogies were untraceable, could escape the consequences. He tells us that both Pius V and Gregory XIII drew up briefs prescribing narrow limits to these investigations but that, on communicating their designs to Philip II, discussions arose as to the term, which proved so protracted that the briefs were never published. Philip himself became convinced of the necessity of some limitation and, towards the close of his reign, he assembled a junta, including Inquisitor-general Portocarrero (1596-99) which unanimously agreed to a term of a hundred years, but Philip’s death caused the project to be dropped. Salucio’s tract was promptly suppressed by Philip III, but it was reprinted, in 1637, by Fray Gerónimo de la Cruz with a verbose confutation. Yet, while he indignantly denied the aspersion on the limpieza of the nation, he was fully alive to the misery caused by the current practice and he urged a limitation of time, placing it at 1492, the year of the expulsion of the Jews.[893]
ATTEMPTED REFORM
At length Philip IV was induced, in a pragmática of February 10, 1623, to attempt some amelioration of existing conditions. Anonymous communications were to receive no attention and precision as to dates and persons was required in alleging punishment inflicted by the Inquisition. Witnesses were prohibited to testify as to common rumor unless they could allege reasons and details. Some tribunals, especially colleges, were so rigorous that they required not only proof of limpieza but also that no doubts had been expressed, whereby many families had been unjustly defamed through the malice so frequent in these matters, all of which was forbidden for the future. A significant clause pointed out that, in the early days, persons sometimes confessed to matters about which there was no other evidence and such confessions, unsupported by external proofs, were not to be prejudicial to their descendants. The practice of many persons in compiling books called “Libros verdes ó del Becerro,” fabricated with no greater authority than their own malignity, was condemned, because they caused irreparable injury and injustice and disturbance of the public peace, seeing that many persons gave evidence based only on having read such books. Any one possessing books or papers calling in question the limpieza or nobility of others was therefore commanded to burn them under pain of five hundred ducats and two years of exile. Then, to place some limit on the multiplication of investigations, it was decreed that when there had been “tres actos positivos”—three positive decisions affirming limpieza or nobility—it should be deemed a proved and settled matter for the party involved and his lineal descendants, not thereafter to be called in question, provided always that the decisions were made, with full knowledge of the case by proper tribunals, which were defined to be the Inquisition, the Council of Military Orders, the Order of St. John, the four principal colleges of Salamanca, the two principal ones of Valladolid and Alcalá and the Church of Toledo.[894]