A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

BOOK VII.
PUNISHMENT.

CHAPTER I.
THE SENTENCE.

IN the infliction of punishment, the Inquisition differed from secular courts in one important respect. Public law provided for impenitent heresy death by fire and confiscation, and visited on the penitent and on descendants certain disabilities, but apart from these, in its extensive field of jurisdiction over penitent heresy, suspected heresy and other offences, the Inquisition had full discretion and was bound by no rules. It was the only tribunal known to the civilized world which prescribed penalties and modified them at its will. In this, as in so much else, it combined the legislative and the executive functions.[245]

The culmination of the work of the tribunal was the sentence which embodied the result of its labors and decided the fate of the accused. In all cases that appeared in public autos de fe, the sentence was publicly read, and the opportunity was not lost of impressing on the minds of the people the lofty duties of the Holy Office and the enormity of the guilt which merited such chastisement. It afforded an occasion for the display of power, which was turned to the best account.

There were two forms of sentence—con meritos and sin meritos. The former recited at length the misdeeds of the culprit; the latter was briefer and merely stated the character of the offence. The consulta de fe, when it agreed upon a verdict, usually defined which form should be used, and also whether or not the culprit should appear in a public auto. This, in itself, was a severe infliction, aggravated by the reading of a sentence con meritos. For lighter cases the sentence was read in an auto particular, in the audience-chamber, of which there were several varieties, as will be seen hereafter.

The sentence con meritos commenced with a full recital of the details of the trial, through all the various steps of the cumbrous process, represented as a suit between the fiscal and the accused, and it specified the crimes proved against or confessed by the culprit. It was thus sometimes enormously long. In the famous case of Magdalena de la Cruz, a fraudulent beata revelandera, whose fictitious sanctity and miracles had deceived all Spain throughout a long career, the reading of the sentence at Córdova, May 13, 1546, occupied from six in the morning until four in the afternoon.[246] In the sentence of Don Pablo de Soto, convicted of bigamy at Lima, in 1761, all the examinations are detailed at full length, including information volunteered by him concerning persons and matters in no way connected with the case; the secretary appears to have copied verbatim the records of the successive audiences, as though to prolong the shame of the penitent.[247] After these prolix recitals there followed the verdict “Christi nomine invocato,” in which, if the trial had resulted in conviction, the inquisitors found that the fiscal had duly proved his charges, wherefore they must declare the accused guilty of the heresy alleged, with its corresponding penalties.[248]

DELAYED UNTIL THE AUTO DE FE

As a rule, prisoners were left in ignorance of their fate until, on the morning of the auto de fe, they were prepared for it by being arrayed in the insignia which designated their punishments. So jealously were they kept in the dark that, when the customary proclamation was made of an auto, fifteen days in advance, with drum and trumpet, the officials were not allowed to approach the Inquisition, lest the inmates should hear the sounds and guess what was in preparation. At the great auto of Lima, in 1639, we are told that, when the proclamation was made, the negro assistants of the gaoler were shut up in a place where they could not hear it, so that they might not carry the information to the prisoners, and the workmen employed in making the mitres, sanbenitos and crosses were assigned a room in the Inquisition where they could labor unseen, under an oath of secrecy.[249] The effect of the sudden revelation, when it came, is indicated in the advice that it was better to give to those who were to appear their breakfasts in their cells than to wait until they were all brought together for the procession, for then there was shame and confusion and suffering, the fathers seeing their sons and the daughters their mothers in the sanbenitos and other insignia that designated their punishments.[250] The despair induced by the preceding long-drawn suspense occasionally found expression, as in the case of Diego González, who was reconciled for Judaism in the Valladolid auto of July 25, 1644. On the morning of that day, when the gaoler entered his cell to give him breakfast, he was found pale and faint, with the blood flowing freely from a wound in his arm, made with a nail from his bedstead, under the impression that he was to be burnt, and he had to be carried to the solemnity in a sedan-chair. Llorente recounts a similar case, of which he was an eyewitness, in 1791, when a Frenchman named Michel Maffre des Rieux hanged himself in consequence of being thus kept in ignorance.[251]

The object of the delay in thus communicating the sentence was to prevent appeals to the Suprema. We have seen how, in opposing appeals to Rome, the Inquisition and the monarchs argued that they were wholly superfluous, in view of the appellate jurisdiction of the inquisitor-general, who was always prompt to rectify injustice committed by the tribunals, but this nominal opportunity was rendered for the most part illusory by this device of withholding knowledge of the sentence until appeal was impossible. This came about by degrees. Originally it would seem that the tribunals exercised discretion as to withholding the sentence until the auto, although exceptions were rare. The Instructions of 1561, while admitting a right of appeal in some cases, nullified it by ordering, in such cases, the tribunals to send the proceedings in advance to the Suprema, without allowing the accused to know of it.[252] There evidently were contending influences, of justice on one side and convenience on the other, for in 1568 it was ordered that, in cases not of heresy, when the penalty was arbitrary, the culprit should be notified in advance of the auto de fe, and this was extended, in 1573, by instructions that, in cases admitting appeal, the parties should be notified in time to enable them to do so. This concession to justice caused trouble and, on April 11, 1577 the tribunals were ordered to report on the evils arising from it. Apparently the inquisitors reported adversely for, on September 18th, they were ordered to return to the former practice of not notifying culprits prior to the auto de fe.[253]

There was, however, quite an extensive class of cases in which the right of appeal was not completely cut off by this. These were the more trivial ones, in which the sentence was rendered in the audience-chamber, and in these both parties, the culprit and the fiscal, were required to assent on the spot, when either could appeal, for the fiscal had the same right as his opponent; it was included, in the commission issued to fiscals, in the long enumeration of their powers and duties, and was a right not infrequently exercised.[254] Although the culprit thus had an opportunity to appeal, he was obliged to act without advice. In the case of María Cazalla, in Toledo, December 19, 1534, when called upon to assent to her sentence in the audience-chamber, she asked for delay; then, in the afternoon, she begged to be allowed to consult her husband or her counsel and, on this being refused, she accepted the sentence.[255] Still, as public autos diminished and private autillos multiplied, the opportunity for appeals became more frequent and were sometimes successful.