A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

Suspension wholly without penance was, however, unusual, for the infallibility of the Inquisition was commonly emphasized by accompanying it with some infliction, more or less severe. The lightest of these was the reprimand and warning administered when discharging the accused. In 1650 the tribunal of Toledo summarily got rid of quite a number of cases in this fashion—four on June 18th, two on the 25th and three on the 30th, and those were fortunate who escaped so lightly. About the same time, Doña Gabriela Ramírez de Guzman, accused of superstitious sorcery, was not only reprimanded, when her case was suspended, but was banished for a year from Toledo and Madrid, and the same penance was assigned to Domingo de Acuña, when his trial for propositions was suspended.[293] How little incongruity was recognized in this is illustrated by the case of Martin Mitorovich, at Madrid, in 1801, when one of the inquisitors voted to suspend the case and confine him for life in the hospital of Ceuta.[294] In fact, as suspension grew more frequent in the closing years of the Inquisition, it was often coupled with severe inflictions. Thus, August 30, 1815, the tribunal of Llerena suspended the case of María del Carmen Cavallero y Berrocal, but sentenced her to reprimand, two hundred lashes and three years’ seclusion in a hospital; at the same time, in view of her ingenuous confession, the scourging was suspended until her amendment should earn its forgiveness, and the same phrases were used with her accomplice, Nicolás Sánchez Espinal, who was sentenced to reprimand, certain spiritual exercises and perpetual exile from the province.[295]

ADMISSION TO BAIL

In cases like these, however, suspension had somewhat outgrown its original purpose of a substitute for acquittal, and was a more than doubtful mercy, for the case remained unconcluded, though visited with full penalties, and could at any moment be reopened. That originally it was merely a convenient device for escaping the admission of having prosecuted the innocent is manifested by cases of which the records are full. Thus, in 1607, Francisco Dendolea, a Morisco of Xea, was tried at Valencia on the evidence of a witness that, when limosnero or almoner of Xea, he had, under pretext of begging for the poor, used his office to serve notices of the commencement of the fast of Ramadan and give other ceremonial instructions. He proved that he never was limosnero and the charge fell to the ground, but the case was merely suspended. So, in 1653, Doña Isabel del Castillo was prosecuted for Judaism at Toledo. She had previously been reconciled at Valladolid, and it was found that the evidence related to a period prior to the reconciliation. She of course ought to have been acquitted, but the case was suspended.[296] Even more self-evident is the case of the Benedictine Padre Francisco Salvador, tried at Valladolid, in 1640, for sundry propositions presented in a competition for a professorship. The consulta de fe voted to suspend the case and the Suprema, in confirming the sentence, added that a certificate should be given to him that no offence had been found that would in any way prejudice him.[297]

There was also a kind of imperfect or informal acquittal, which consisted in admitting the accused to bail at the end of the trial. It saved the tribunal from the trouble of a decision and of an acknowledgement that the prosecution had been in error, but it was cruel to the party involved, as it left him but partly liberated and with the stigma of heresy. Its working is fairly exemplified by the case of Petronila de Lucena, tried in 1534, at Toledo on a charge of Lutheranism. After nearly a year’s incarceration, her brother, also under trial, revoked in the torture the evidence which he had given against her. There was no other testimony, yet she was not acquitted but merely released, March 20, 1535, under bail of a hundred thousand maravedis, to present herself when summoned. The security was furnished and she was delivered to the bondsmen as her gaolers. On June 27th, she petitioned for release, for the discharge of the bondsmen and for the removal of the sequestration, which included some articles of personal necessity in the hands of the gaoler; she was, she pleaded, poor and an orphan, she needed the property and wished to be free to dispose of herself. No notice was taken of this and, sixteen months later, on October 20, 1536, she applied again; this time an order to lift the sequestration was issued, but there is no record of her having been released from subjection to bail. She thus remained under the ban and, at the age of 25, the two careers open to a Spanish woman—marriage and the nunnery—were virtually closed to her.[298]

There was yet another kind of acquittal, still more informal, in which the accused was simply discharged and bade to be gone, without a sentence, leaving him under the dreadful uncertainty of what might be his position. An instance of this is the case of Miguel Mezquita, tried for Lutheranism at Valencia, in 1536. The evidence was of the flimsiest, and the inquisitors merely ordered him to be released from prison without making further provision.[299]

The comparative frequency of these various forms of release, in the earlier period, may be inferred from the record of the Toledo tribunal from 1484 to 1531, in which there are eighty-six cases of acquittal, to only four of suspension, four of release under bail, and two of simple discharge—the latter forms thus being negligible quantities.[300] The proportions changed rapidly with time, showing how much more in harmony with the spirit of the institution were the forms which evaded acknowledgement of error. A record of the same tribunal, from 1575 to 1610, contains an aggregate of eleven hundred and seventy-two cases of all kinds, in which there were fifty-one acquittals, ninety-eight suspensions and thirty simple discharges.[301] This tendency continued with increasing development. A Toledo record from 1648 to 1694, comprises twelve hundred and five cases, of which but six ended in acquittal, one in discharge for mistaken identity, and a hundred and four in suspension, nearly all of the latter coupled with a reprimand in the audience-chamber—apparently a scolding for having given the tribunal so much bootless trouble. The suspensions were, in nearly every case, ordered by the Suprema, as though the inquisitors shrank from the admission which it involved.[302]

COMPURGATION

This repugnance existed to the last. In 1806, Don Matias Brabo, an ex-Agonizante and calificador of the Saragossa tribunal, was tried in Madrid on the charge of uttering certain propositions; he was acquitted but, in view of his disorderly life, especially in regard to the sixth commandment, he was sentenced to a reprimand, to fifteen days of spiritual exercises, and to make a general confession at such time as he could do so without disrepute.[303]