A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

After these preliminaries, of which the results were carefully recorded, he was asked whether he knew, presumed or suspected the cause of his arrest. With rare exceptions, the reply was in the negative and then followed what was known as the first of three monitions. There is no trace of these in the earliest trials, but toward 1490 an informal monition makes its appearance and the Instructions of 1498, in requiring the formal accusation to be presented within ten days after arrest, prescribed that within that time the necessary admonitions shall be given.[105] In 1525 a letter of Manrique shows that these monitions then were three, but they still were negligently observed, and in trials from that time until 1550 they vary from none to three.[106]

THE THREE MONITIONS

After the Instructions of 1561, the three monitions became the established rule in cases of heresy, while one sufficed in lighter matters. The formula was formidable. The accused was told that, in the Holy Office, no one was arrested without sufficient evidence of his having done or witnessed something contrary to the faith or to the free exercise of the Inquisition, so that he must believe that he has been brought hither on such information. Therefore, by the reverence due to God and his glorious and blessed Mother, he was admonished and charged to search his memory and confess the whole truth as to what he feels himself inculpated, or knows of other persons, without concealment or false-witness, for in so doing he will discharge his conscience as a Catholic Christian, he will save his soul and his case will be despatched with all speed and befitting mercy, but otherwise justice will be done. At intervals a second and a third monition were given, the last one ending with the warning that the fiscal desired to present an accusation against him, and it would be for his benefit, both for the relief of his conscience and for the favorable and speedy despatch of his case, if he would tell the truth before its presentation, as thus he could be treated with the mercy which the Holy Office was wont to show to good confessors; otherwise he was warned that the fiscal would be heard and justice would be done.[107]

This brought an exceedingly effectual pressure to bear upon the anxious prisoner, especially when the system of delay, whether calculated or merely procrastinating, left him for months, and perhaps years, to lie in his cell, shut out from the world, brooding over his fate, and torturing himself with conjectures as to the evidence so confidently assumed to be conclusive against him. He was simply admonished to discharge his conscience, being kept in the dark as to the crimes of which he was accused, and left to search his heart and guess as to what he had done to bring him before the terrible tribunal. This had the further utility that in many cases it led to confession of derelictions unknown to the prosecution, his impassible judges coldly accepting his revelations and remanding him to his cell with fresh adjurations to search his memory and clear his conscience.

This cruel device of withholding all knowledge of the charge appears to have been introduced gradually. In some cases, of about 1530, slight intimations of the nature of the accusation are given, but by 1540 complete reticence seems to be general. There was no formal instruction prescribing it, but it became the universal custom, based perhaps on the principle that the confession, like that to a priest, to be trustworthy must be spontaneous, showing the change of heart and conversion which alone could render the culprit worthy of mercy. Yet, towards the end of its career, under Carlos III and after the Restoration, the Inquisition occasionally granted an audiencia de cargos, in which the accused was apprized of the charges against him and, in trivial matters, this frequently took the shape of summoning him under some pretext that would save his reputation, informing him of the alleged offences and, after hearing his explanations, determining what course to pursue. Even in so serious a matter as the celebration of mass by a married layman, the Santiago tribunal, in 1816, after throwing Angel Sampayo into the secret prison, gave him an audiencia de cargos before proceeding further.[108]

How systematic reticence sometimes succeeded is indicated by the case of Angela Pérez, before the Toledo tribunal in 1680. After lying in prison for eleven months she asked an audience, May 19th, to inquire why she had been brought to Toledo. She was admonished that she had already been told that no one was arrested who had not said or done something contrary to the faith; if she wished to discharge her conscience she would be heard, and, on her asserting that she had nothing to confess, she was sent back to her cell with an admonition to think it over and discharge her conscience. On June 13th she sought another audience, for the same purpose and with the same result. Then, on June 22d she was transferred from the carceles medias to the secret prison and, on the 25th, she obtained another audience in which she entreated the inquisitors, in the name of the Virgin, to bring the charges, but all that she obtained was to have her genealogy taken and to receive the first monition. To this she replied that she had nothing to confess and wanted her case despatched as she had been thirteen months in prison. The implacable methods of the Inquisition triumphed, however, for the next day she sought an audience in which she confessed that for eight years she had observed the Law of Moses.[109]

THE ACCUSATION

Even more suggestive, though in a different way, is the Mexican case of the priest Joseph Brunon de Vertiz, who was one of the dupes of some women pretending to have revelations. They were all arrested and he was thrown in prison September 9, 1649. In repeated audiences he vainly sought to learn the charges against him; he fairly grovelled at the feet of the inquisitors; he made profuse statements of everything concerning himself and his accomplices; he submitted himself humbly to the Church and was ready to confess whatever was required of him, but all to no purpose. The strain proved too great for a mind not overly well-balanced, and it began to give way. The first symptoms were complaints of demoniacal possession, followed, after an incarceration of two years and a half, by his writing a paper full of the wild imaginings of a disordered brain, in which he denounced the Inquisition as a congregation of demons and the Jesuits as the most detestable enemies of God. Then he lay in his cell for more than two years, until, July 23, 1654, he presented another incoherent paper. Finally he died, April 30, 1656, after more than six and a half years of imprisonment, without ever learning of what he was accused. His body was thrust into unconsecrated ground and the prosecution was continued against his fame and memory. On May 11, 1657, the fiscal at last presented an informal accusation for the purpose of summoning the kindred to defend the case; on October 22, 1659, more than ten years after the arrest, the formal accusation was presented and, as defence was impracticable, Brunon de Vertiz was condemned and his effigy was burnt in the auto de fe of November of the same year.[110]

When, in the third monition, the accused was warned that, if he did not confess, the fiscal would present an accusation, there was implied deceit for, whether he confessed or not, the trial went on in its inevitable course. It was usually in the same audience, after he had replied to the monition, that the fiscal was introduced with the accusation, to which he swore and then retired. This formidable document was framed so as to be as terrifying as possible. In cases of heresy it represented that the accused, being a Christian baptized and confirmed, disregarding the fear of the justice of God and of the Inquisition, with great contempt for religion, scandal of the people and condemnation of his own soul, had been and was a heretic, an impenitent, perjured negativo and feigned confessor; that he had committed many and most grievous crimes against the divine majesty and the free exercise of the Inquisition, and was a fautor and receiver of heretics. Then followed the recital of the acts developed by the evidence, arranged in articles, reduplicated and exaggerated and presented in the most odious light. Besides this he was a perjurer, by refusing to confess in the audiences, after swearing to tell the truth, from which it was presumable that he was guilty of other and greater crimes, of which he was now accused generally and would be specifically in due time. Wherefore the fiscal prayed that the accused should be found guilty of the crimes recited, condemning him to confiscation and relaxing his person to the secular arm and declaring him to have incurred all the other penalties and disabilities provided by papal letters, instructions of the Holy Office, and pragmáticas of the kingdoms, executing them with all rigor so as to serve as a punishment for him and an example to others. After this followed the terrible clause, known as the Otrosi, demanding that he be tortured as long and as often as might be necessary to force him to confess the whole truth.

One thoroughly unjustifiable feature of the accusation was that, if there was evidence of other misdoings of the accused, wholly outside of the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, they were inserted because, as the Instructions of 1561 remark, they serve as an aggravation of his heresies and show his unchristian life, whence may be derived indications as to matters of faith.[111]