A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

It was the same with those who had only abjured for vehement suspicion. The Instructions of 1561 declare absolutely that, if they confess or are convicted, they must be relaxed, for the inquisitors have no power to reconcile them, although they are not truly but only fictitiously relapsed.[598]

Still, there were some exceptions. Self-denunciation for relapse, it was admitted, required relaxation under the law, but it was argued that such second confession was not really a conviction, for it showed that the penitent was not incorrigible and should be admitted to mercy.[599] Such cases must have been exceedingly rare, but we have seen one in that of Ursule de la Croix (Vol. II, p. 572) where, it will be remembered, a third self-denunciation was visited with the stake.

Moriscos enjoyed a special exception. The wholesale enforced conversion of the Moors of Castile in 1502 and of the kingdoms of Aragon in 1525, filled the land with nominal Christians, whose baptism served no other purpose than subjecting them to the Inquisition. They were largely vassals of nobles, to whom their services were indispensable, and to subject whole populations to the penalties of a relapse which was inevitable was a prospect that might well stagger the statesman if not the churchman. In the unsparing rigor of the canon law, escape from this was to be sought only in Rome and, in March, 1510, Ferdinand asked for a bull enabling the converts to avoid the penalties of relapse.[600] The request was doubtless granted and was followed by numerous papal briefs, issued during the remainder of the century, which bore the shape of empowering the inquisitors-general to appoint confessors with power to absolve Morisco penitents with secret absolution and penance, even if they had relapsed repeatedly, or to proclaim terms of grace, during which absolution could be had irrespective of relapse, together with other devices, the futility of all which we shall see hereafter.[601]

This was but one of the many attempts to solve the increasing difficulties of the Morisco problem, and its only relation to the general policy of the Inquisition is to prove how easily, when sufficient motive existed, the unsparing cruelty of the canon law could be set aside. Under that law, we can readily conceive how large a portion of the executions were due to relapse. Details are lacking as to the earlier period of activity, but the later records are sufficient to indicate how efficient an agent it was in procuring victims. In the great Madrid auto of 1680, there were eighteen Judaizers relaxed in person, of whom ten were for relapse, six for pertinacity and two for denial or imperfect confession.[602] In the terrible Mallorquin autos of 1691, all the relaxed—thirty-eight in person and seven in effigy—were condemned for relapse, having been reconciled in 1679, and of these only three were burnt alive as pertinacious.[603] At the Granada auto of January 31, 1723, of the eleven Judaizers relaxed, all were relapsed; at that of Cordova, April 23, 1724, seven out of eight were relapsed, and the same was the case with all of the six relaxed in the Cuenca auto of July 23, 1724.[604] In these last three autos only one person was pertinacious; the rest all professed contrition and conversion and would have escaped with reconciliation instead of strangulation had it not been for the rigor in the treatment of relapse.

RELAPSE

A case already alluded to exemplifies this and is worth relating in some detail, if only for its psychological interest. Fray Joseph Díaz Pimiento was born in Cuba, of Old Christian parents, in 1687. He was bred to the Church and his life was an example of the licence pervading the colonies. He drifted around the shores of the Caribbean, involved in all kinds of disreputable adventures. In Mexico, he forged a certificate of baptism in order to obtain ordination under age. In the Dutch colony of Curaçoa, he professed conversion to Judaism and was circumcised, in the hope of getting a few hundred dollars from the Jews. After incredible hardships he fell into the hands of the Inquisition of Cartagena de las Indias, where he recanted, was reconciled and was sent to Spain for reclusion in a convent. While confined in the episcopal prison he broke gaol, but was captured at Xeres, and was put in a convent, heavily fettered, where he endeavored to get assistance from some New Christians who were under suspicion, but in this he failed, although to excite their compassion, he wrote to the commissioner of the Inquisition that he was a Jew. Then again he escaped and fled to Lisbon, where he worked for a Dutch ship-master, who promised to carry him to Holland, whence he could sail for Jamaica. Then a sudden impulse took possession of him, which carried him to Seville, where he presented himself to the Inquisition. At first he professed to be a Christian but, after a few days, he told the alcaide that he was a Jew, and in this he persisted, stubbornly refusing to make defence. Necessarily, as a relapsed, he was condemned to relaxation in the auto of July 25, 1720, and, during the three days prior to the auto, all the learning and piety of Seville were enlisted in his conversion, while prayers for his soul were put up in all the churches. Then came another revulsion and, after two days, he announced that the grace of God had touched him, and that he was a Christian. But for his relapse, this would have saved him; as it was, it only obtained for him preliminary strangulation and this he sought to reject for, at the stake, he begged to be burnt alive in order to prove that his conversion was the result of conviction and not of fear. This could not be permitted, and the deputy assistente sentenced him to be garrotted and burnt, and his ashes scattered as usual. The pile was fired at 5 P.M.; it took until day-break to reduce the body to ashes, and it was observed that the customary stench was absent. Then the Hermandad de la Caridad asked to have the ashes to give them Christian burial, as he had died a Christian, but the assistente refused and ordered them to be scattered over the fields, in obedience to the royal pragmáticas and apostolical constitutions—all of which, we are told, was done, to the great honor of the holy Catholic faith.[605]

Yet, notwithstanding the canons that prohibited mercy to the relapsed and withheld, even from the inquisitor-general, the power to pardon, cases, as has been stated above (p. 148), are not infrequent, in which the relapsed were admitted to a second reconciliation. Even as early as 1486, we hear of Micer Gonzalo de Santa María, of the great converso family of Burgos, who was thrice penanced by the Inquisition and who finally died, not at the stake, but in gaol, under a sentence of perpetual prison.[606] Some scattering cases of penances subsequent to reconciliation occur at Barcelona between 1491 and 1502, mingled with others in which the full penalty of relaxation was inflicted, though no reasons are alleged for the distinction.[607] In 1511, at Cuenca, Leonor and Juana Rodríguez who had been reconciled in time of Grace, were reconciled again for fresh delinquencies.[608] In the later period, instances of the same benignity occur more frequently, although accompanied with punishment severe enough to show that the trivial evidence required to prove persistency was far exceeded. Thus, in the Toledo auto of December 27, 1654, Gaspar de los Reyes was sentenced, as a relapsed observer of the Law of Moses, to abjure de vehementi, to six years of galleys and a fine of a thousand ducats, while his wife, Isabel Rodríguez, and his mother, María López, both relapsed, had the same sentence, save that exile replaced the galleys and the fine was six hundred ducats each. A more unusual case was that of Manuel Rodríguez Moreira, who was relaxed for relapse in the Toledo auto of September 8, 1704, after rejecting an offer of mercy. There is even an instance, December 8, 1681, of a sentence of reconciliation, citra pœnam relapsi—without the punishment of relapse—but this is explained by the tender age of the culprit, Diego de Castro, who was but ten years old.[609]

RELAPSE

Remembering the prudent intimation given to inquisitors that sometimes fines were more productive than confiscation, the heavy mulcts inflicted on the relapsed who were admitted to mercy, suggest that possibly there may have been financial reasons, in special cases, for benignity. We have seen the number of executions for relapse in the Mallorquin autos of 1691. Besides these there were twenty-two cases of those who had been reconciled in 1679 who were not relaxed but penanced in various ways, including fines ranging from one to five hundred libras, and aggregating in all sixty-five hundred libras.[610] It is difficult not to recognize in this a speculative exercise of rigor or mercy.

As the eighteenth century wore on, it would seem that the canonical penalty of relaxation came to be enforced only on the relapsed who were pertinacious, or refused to confess and beg for mercy. In the Valladolid auto of June 13, 1745, there are three illustrative cases. Luis de la Vega, who had been reconciled in 1701, was relaxed as an impenitent relapsed, who persisted in denying his guilt. Miguel Gutiérrez, reconciled in 1699, and Franciso García, reconciled in 1706, were admitted again to reconciliation, with irremissible prison and sanbenito, ten years of galleys and two hundred lashes—a somewhat doubtful mercy but, if the sentence was justifiable, the offence unquestionably under the canons, called for relaxation.[611]