A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

The tribunals did not cease to afflict the people, but some relief was afforded by a practice, which gradually came into use, of including, in a sentence for light offences or of acquittal, a clause declaring that the party and his descendants were not subject to disabilities and that he could have a certificate to that effect. Two examples of this, occurring in Valladolid in 1638 will suffice. In the case of Agustin López, tried for blasphemy, the consulta de fe could not agree and the Suprema sentenced him to reprimand and exile, adding that the sentence should be no bar to offices of honor or in the Inquisition. So a sentence, acquitting Miguel Rúiz of a charge of sorcery, says that his imprisonment shall not be an obstacle to him and his children, and that he shall have a certificate to that effect. That Rúiz had not even been confined in the secret prison but in the public gaol shows how sensitive was the popular mind.[514] These certificates de no obstancia, as they were called, would appear, as a rule, not to be issued unless specially applied for, and yet how important they were to the individual and his posterity is manifested by a petition presented, January 17, 1818, by the Licenciate Mariano de Santander y Alvárez setting forth that, twenty years before, in 1798, his father had been arrested and prosecuted by the Valladolid tribunal because, in his trade as a bookseller, he had sold prohibited books. In the final sentence it was declared that his imprisonment and prosecution did not prejudice him or his descendants in the enjoyment of their civil rights, but the secrecy of the Inquisition, and the loss of the certificate given to the father, prevented the petitioner from furnishing the proofs necessary to his admission as an advocate in the royal chancellery, wherefore he begged for a proper testimonial. The Suprema had the statement verified and ordered a certificate to be duly issued.[515]

From this, as well as from the memorial of 1623, it appears that not merely reconciliation but even abjuration or lesser penalties inflicted disabilities, if not as to the cosas arbitrarias at least as to the attainment of an honorable career. In the closing years of the Inquisition this sometimes led to a merciful moderation of the sentence, as in that pronounced, August 27, 1817, on Francisco Mosquera Villamarino, of Santiago, “Bachiller clasico y Profesor del 6º Cuerpo de Canones en su Real Universidad,” for certain propositions. He escaped with a reprimand in the audience-chamber and without abjuration, it being expressly stated that he was treated with this benignity in order not to prejudice him in his career, though he was warned that the Inquisition would keep a watch on him.[516]

DISABILITIES

Popular prejudice, as we have seen, intensified the cruelty of the cruel laws. How inveterate was this is manifested in the case of Josef Calot who, in 1791, sought in marriage the daughter of Pablo Bordo, a merchant of Valencia. The parents refused assent and the lovers eloped. Bordo brought the matter before the royal Audiencia, showing that Calot was the great-grandson of Clara Muñoz who, at the age of 19, was reconciled for Judaism in the Barcelona auto de fe of April 2, 1724, and was sentenced to irremissible “carcel y abito,” though after two years her husband, Antonio Antonelli, obtained her release. In view of this descent the Audiencia decided that Bordo’s opposition to the marriage was reasonable and just, thus inflicting an indelible stigma on Calot and his posterity. In some way the affair reached the Suprema, which wrote to Valencia for details and, in transmitting them, the inquisitors added an expression of sympathy for Calot in the dishonor cast upon him; the punishment of his great-grandmother did not disable him from the professions, but it would be difficult to restore him to his good fame without calling in question the justice of the sentence of the Audiencia.[517] Even the Inquisition did not venture to repair an injustice caused by its assiduous training of the population in an unreasoning abhorrence of heresy.

The penalty for disregarding the disabilities settled down to the thrifty one of a fine. As regards those imposed by the pragmáticas, the Suprema, in 1531, replied to an inquiry from the tribunal of Avila and Segovia that, although the laws prescribed confiscation for infractions, yet the practice was to penance culprits in accordance with their wealth and station and the degree of the offence. So, in respect to the cosas arbitrarias, it decreed in 1536, that although the Instructions of 1484 provided the pain of relapse, they did not require the inquisitors to condemn the infraction as such, and the practice was to impose pecuniary and spiritual penances.[518] Cases of prosecution for infraction are not very numerous in the records, chiefly owing, we may presume, to the customary sale of rehabilitations; in the tribunal of Toledo they amount only to ninety-one and of these it is noteworthy that there are only three posterior to 1586—two in 1600 and one in 1616.[519] When they occurred, the penalty was at the discretion of the tribunal, and Toledo exercised this with great moderation, in 1579, when Bernardino de Aldana, a ribbon-weaver, spontaneously denounced himself. His mother, Isabel Alvárez, had been burnt by the Cuenca tribunal, yet he had worn a velvet cap, had carried a sword and had ridden on a mule with a saddle; he was married and had done this to satisfy his wife and her kindred, and besides his brother had told him that they had been rehabilitated. His artless story seems to have moved his judges, for he escaped with a reprimand and a fine of two ducats.[520] In 1703 the tribunal of Madrid was more severe with Simon de Andrade, a reconciled penitent, who had worn the prohibited articles. He was harshly reprimanded, was fined in fifty ducats, was banished for a year and was required to surrender the cosas arbitrarias, but we are told that he was permitted to keep the garments which he had on to cover his nakedness, especially as they were of ordinary cloth.[521]

CLERICAL OFFENDERS.

In a land where theocratic influence was so strong, it was inevitable that there should be especial favor shown to erring ecclesiastics. The Church has ever sought to conceal from the public the knowledge of weaknesses that might diminish veneration for its ministers, and scandal has been more dreaded than sin. The Inquisition established its jurisdiction over both the secular and the regular clergy, but it exercised that jurisdiction in accordance with the general policy of the Church. Every care was taken to keep clerical offences from public knowledge, except in cases of formal heresy or of administering the sacraments by those who held only the lower orders. As a rule, in place of being confined in the secret prison during trial, they were housed in some convenient convent, where their presence need excite no surprise. When convicted, they were not exposed in the public autos de fe, but their sentences were read in the audience-chamber with closed doors, though in certain cases a prescribed number of other clerics were summoned to be present as witnesses; even then they did not wear the penitential habit as did laymen.[522]

CLERICAL OFFENDERS

For aggravated offences, the ordinary punishment was reclusion in a designated convent for a specified term, a penalty which might be infinitely varied. Perhaps six months or a year was to be passed in a cell; the culprit was to be last in choir and refectory; he might be suspended for a term or perpetually from some or all of his functions and of the right to vote or to be voted for; spiritual penances might be superadded or, at his entrance, he might be subjected to a zurra de rueda, or circular discipline, in which all the members of the house, including the lay-brethren, took a hand. All these greater or less aggravations could be varied or accumulated to meet the exact shades of guilt. This conventual reclusion was adopted, perhaps, partly for concealment and partly as a milder form of incarceration, but the mercy was doubtful if we may trust the story told by Llorente of a Capuchin guilty of aggravated abuse of the confessional who, when condemned to five years’ reclusion in a convent of his Order, begged to have it changed to incarceration in the secret prison; he had been, he said, provincial and guardian, he knew how the brethren treated those thrust upon them as criminals, and it would cost him his life. His prayer was refused and his prevision was correct, for he died within three years.[523] I have met, however, with cases in which the recluded fraile survived longer terms; as a rule, no doubt, life was not rendered pleasant, but it depended on circumstances. The Franciscan, Francisco Ortiz, sentenced to confinement for two years in a cell in the convent of Torrelaguna, without intercourse with his brethren, refused to leave his retirement on the expiration of the term and remained there till his death, twelve years later, the object of veneration to all around him.[524] There might or might not be sympathy for the penitent and his treatment naturally corresponded.

When, however, the offence was formal heresy, entailing reconciliation or relaxation, the cleric was obliged to appear in an auto de fe, like any other culprit. Cases of the kind were common enough in the early period, when many Conversos had entered the Church but, after the thorough weeding out by the Inquisition, they became rare. An essential preliminary was degradation from the priesthood, which was of two kinds, verbal and formal—the former sufficing for cases of reconciliation, while relaxation required the latter. Verbal degradation effaced the orders, but not the priestly character and, in the later period, publicity was often avoided by executing the sentence in the audience-chamber, as in the Toledo cases of Jacinto Vásquez Aranso, a priest convicted of Judaism and condemned to the galleys, December 4, 1688, and of Buenaventura Frutos, cura of Mocejon, sentenced February 19, 1722.[525] Originally the ministration of a single bishop sufficed for verbal degradation, while two were required for formal, until Gregory IX, to facilitate the operations of the Inquisition, decreed that, in cases of heresy, the bishop of the culprit could perform the ceremony, in the presence of some abbots and other learned men, and finally, in 1551, the Council of Trent permitted a single bishop to officiate in all cases of formal degradation, and his vicar-general in verbal degradation.[526]