A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

In fact, by this time penitential imprisonment was virtually obsolete. After the subsidence of the active persecution of Judaism, the Toledo tribunal which, in 1738, pronounced twelve sentences of prison, did not utter another until 1756. Then a long interval occurs, of thirty-eight years, before the next one, which was for heretical propositions.[441] It would not, perhaps, be safe to say that, in the concluding years of the Inquisition, this form of punishment was wholly unknown, but no cases of it have come under my observation.

There was the same reduction in the duration of imprisonment as in its severity, owing presumably to the same economical motive. As we have seen, the medieval Church recognized only lifelong imprisonment as the fitting penalty for the heretic who saved his forfeited life by recantation and, in recognition of this, the penitential prison in Spain was officially known as the perpetual prison, the sentences being always for perpetual imprisonment. At a very early period, however, it was clearly recognized that the literal enforcement of this was a physical impossibility. Bernaldez tells us that in Seville, up to 1488, there had been five thousand reconciled and condemned to perpetual imprisonment, but they were released after four or five years with sanbenitos and these were subsequently removed to prevent the spread of infamy throughout the land.[442] At Barcelona the tribunal had scarce been established, when we find it drawing a distinction in its sentences to perpetual imprisonment, some being cum misericordia and others absque misericordia—thus anticipating the so-called “irremissible” perpetual prison—and from the sentences it would appear that “without mercy” was exceptional.[443]

This inevitable laxity provoked opposition on the part of the more rigid authorities and, in 1509, while Ximenes was in Oran, there was a discussion on the subject in the Suprema, when we are told that his temporary representative, Rojas Archbishop of Granada, stood alone against the other members.[444] What was the nature of the decision is not recorded, but it probably favored the laxer view, for Ximenes and the Suprema, in 1516, deemed it necessary to order that all sentences to prison and sanbenito must be perpetual, in accordance with the canon law; if, in any case, the inquisitors thought there should be a remission it must be left to the discretion of the inquisitor-general.[445]

The tendency to shorten the term was irresistible; the conservatives had to yield and, by the middle of the sixteenth century, Simancas tells us that perpetual prison was customarily defined to be three years, if the penitent was repentant, while those condemned to irremissible prison were usually released after eight years.[446] So purely technical did the term “perpetual prison” become that inquisitors saw nothing incongruous in such sentences as “perpetual prison for one year” or “for six months,” which are constantly met with, as well as “perpetual prison” followed by terms of exile. The real infliction was therefore much less severe than it appears on the records, and when periods longer than eight years were intended, they were specified, as when Salvador Razo, for Molinism, was sentenced, in the Granada auto of July 4, 1745, to ten years, of which the first five were to be spent in the galleys—a hardship remitted on account of his infirmities.[447]

DURATION OF IMPRISONMENT

The terms of imprisonment were frequently shortened, moreover, sometimes, from humane motives, but more often from financial considerations, for the dispensing power in this, as in the other penalties, was a source of profit. Thus Mayor García, a Morisca of Daimiel, condemned in the Toledo auto of September 21, 1550, to perpetual prison for six months, on January 13, 1551, petitioned the tribunal for release “as was customary with others,” saying that her husband would pay what the inquisitors should demand. The matter was promptly arranged with Inquisitor Alonso Pérez for four ducats, to help to build the staging for an auto de fe—a somewhat heavy payment for two months’ relief.[448] This dispensing power was the subject of a prolonged struggle between the tribunals and the Suprema. In the early period, at Barcelona, the former endeavored to secure it by the device of discretional sentences, which inquisitors could curtail or extend at will, and this was recognized in a letter of the Suprema, October 4, 1499, authorizing them, under such sentences, to dispense with the imprisonment but not with the sanbenito.[449] In 1513, however, Ximenes forbade this without his consent and the repetition of the order in 1514 and 1516 shows that it was difficult of enforcement.[450] In spite of this when the Valencia tribunal, February 25, 1540, condemned five Moriscos to “habit and prison for as long a time as we shall determine,” the Suprema insisted that, when discretion was specified, it must alone be that of the inquisitor-general, a mandate that had to be repeated more than once, even as late as 1592.[451]

The question of this, as of all other commutations, was inevitably settled, as we have seen, in favor of the inquisitor-general. In many cases there was no concealment that it was purely an affair of bargain and sale, but it is pleasant to record that often it was prompted by humanity. Petitions for abridgement of the penance were numerous and were usually sent in at the time of the greater feasts, which are alleged as a reason for mercy, in addition to the misery of the penitent. As an example of these petitions may be mentioned the case of Violante Rodríguez who, with her husband Duarte Valentin, was arrested for Judaism March 15, 1664. After a three years’ trial, she was sentenced at Granada, February 24, 1667, to two years’ imprisonment, while her husband was similarly sentenced at Cuenca. About August 10th she petitioned for commutation, alleging that she had eight little children, deprived of both parents. The Suprema promptly sent to Granada for the details of the case, but the tribunal delayed until October 8th, when it accompanied its report with the suggestion that she should be released with spiritual penances after the expiration of the first year, as she had manifested true repentance. Growing impatient, on December 24th, she again petitioned the Suprema, alluding to her seven children, thus showing that one had meanwhile died. That she was duly discharged in February there can be no doubt, and there is no trace in the correspondence of any pecuniary consideration. Some of the petitions for release, in truth, were well calculated to inspire compassion, such as that of Simon Méndez Soto, in 1666, wherein he describes himself as 84 years old, blind, deaf, crippled on both sides with many infirmities and penniless, and he supplicates release that he may seek for cure.[452]

There would appear to have been no minimum age for imprisonment short of irresponsibility. The Toledo tribunal condemned for Judaism García son of Pedro the potter of Aguda, a boy eleven years of age, to perpetual prison. In the Cuenca auto of June 29, 1654, for the same offence, Escolástica Gómez, aged 12 and Isavel Díaz Jorje, aged 14 had the same penalty and, in the Toledo auto of October 30, 1701, José de Leon, a boy of 16 was sentenced to irremissible prison.[453]

THE SANBENITO.

The sanbenito, or penitential garment, was the invariable accompaniment of reconciliation and prison, constituting together the “carcel y abito” of the sentences, although it was not exclusively reserved for such cases. It was not invented by the Spanish Inquisition, even though we can scarce agree with an enthusiastic writer, who traces its origin to the Fall, when God made the delinquents put on penitential habits of skins, corresponding with the sacos benditos now used in the tribunals.[454]