A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4

by Henry Charles Lea

[274] Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Leg. 1465, fol. 16.—MSS. of Royal Library of Copenhagen, 218^b, p. 265.

[275] Archivo de Alcalá, Hacienda, Leg. 544³ (Lib. 4).

[276] A Cunha, Q. XXIV.—De Sousa, Tract. II, cap. 16, 18, 21.

[277] Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Leg. 552, fol. 6, 22, 23, 29.

There was more wholesome severity in Rome. In 1626 the Congregation of the Inquisition reserved to itself the designation of the penalty (Collect. Decret. Sac. Congr. S. Officii, p. 397—MS. penes me). Some ten years later Trimarchus (op. cit., pp. 302, 304) after enumerating the punishments decreed by Gregory, adds that in practice, if the culprit has only once solicited an ordinary woman, deprivation of confessing suffices; if two, repeatedly, add suspension of priestly functions and, for a regular, especially if there has been scandal, perpetual reclusion in a convent or, for a secular, perpetual service in a hospital. If the penitent solicited is a nun or the wife of a magnate, or there are many women and much popular scandal, degradation or the galleys.

Although Gregory included relaxation, Benedict XIV (De Synodo Diœcesana, Lib. IX, cap. vi, n. 7) says that in no case, however aggravated, can it be found that relaxation had been inflicted, and this is repeated by Fray Manuel de Nájera in his Enchiridion canonico-morale de Confess. p. 161 (Mexico, 1764).

[278] Bibl. national, MSS., V, 377, cap. xx.

[279] Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 290, fol. 80.

[280] Ibidem, Inq. de Toledo, Leg. 229, n. 32.

[281] Ibidem, Leg. 1.