A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4

by Henry Charles Lea

How soon began the espionage, which eventually brought every man under its baneful influence, is seen in the case of Juan de Zamora, condemned in the Saragossa auto of February 10, 1488, to perpetual prison, because at Medina, in chatting with some casual aquaintances, he was said to have spoken disrespectfully of the Eucharist and to have denied the real presence, while, in the auto of May 10, 1489, Juan de Enbun, a notary, was penanced for saying that he cared more for ten florins than for God.[307] Even more significant of the danger overhanging every man was the case of Diego de Uceda, before the Toledo tribunal, in 1494, on the very serious charges of having said that the Eucharist was only bread, that so villanous a crew as the Jews could not have put Christ to death, and that he ate meat on fast-days. He explained that, some six or eight years before, at Fuensalida, a priest in celebrating found the wafer broken and angrily cast it on the floor, ordering the sacristan to bring him another; the people were scandalized and Diego sought to quiet them by explaining that the wafer before consecration was only bread. The next charge arose from a remark in a discussion on an exuberant sermon on the Passion. As for the third, he proved that he was a devout Catholic, punctual in all observance, with a special devotion to St. Gregory, to whose intercession he attributed his relief from a chronic trouble of stomach and liver, that had forced him at one time to eat meat on fast-days. He lay in the secret prison for six months, with sequestration of property, and was finally sentenced to compurgation, which he performed with the Count of Fuensalida and two priests as his compurgators, but had he not been a man of standing and influence he might have been burnt as an impenitent heretic.[308] There was no prescription of time for heresy, and trivial matters occurring years before might thus at any moment be brought up, when they had faded from the memory of all but those who had a grudge to satisfy.

The ever-present danger impending over every man is well illustrated by the case of Alvaro de Montalvan, a septuagenarian, in 1525. Returning to Madrid, after a day’s pleasure excursion in the country, Alonso Rúiz, a priest, who was of the party, took occasion to moralize on the troubles of life, in comparison with the prospects of future bliss. Alvaro (who subsequently pleaded that he was in his cups) remarked that we know what we have here but know nothing of the future. Some six months later, one of the party, in his Easter confession, chanced to mention this, and was instructed to denounce Alvaro. He was arrested and, on searching the records, it was found that, nearly forty years before, in 1486, during a term of grace, he had confessed to some Jewish observances without intention, and was discharged without reconciliation or penance. On this new charge he was made to confess intention and was sentenced, October 18, 1525, to reconciliation, confiscation and perpetual prison, the latter being commuted, November 27, 1527, to confinement in his own house.[309]

TRIVIALITIES

There was scarce anything, however innocently spoken, that might not be tortured into a censurable sense and as, in so wide and vague a region, no formal rules could be enunciated to restrain inquisitorial zeal, it afforded ample opportunity for oppression and cruelty, especially before the tribunals were thoroughly subordinated to the Suprema. The occasional visitations by an inspector might reveal abuses but could not prevent them. That of de Soto Salazar at Barcelona affords ample evidence of the recklessness with which inquisitors exercised their power. In 1564 we hear of a physician, Maestre Pla, prosecuted for saying that his wife was so exhausted that she looked like a crucifix dead with hunger. Juan Garaver, a swineherd, was forced to appear in an auto with a mitre, followed by scourging, for saying that if he had money and enough to eat, the devil might take his soul—which the Suprema decided to belong to episcopal and not to inquisitorial cognizance. It rebuked the tribunal sharply for relaxing Guillen Berberia Guacho for a single proposition, without calling in learned men to persuade and advise him, especially as one of the witnesses stated that he uttered the words in French. Clemensa Paresa was fined ten ducats and penanced for saying “You see me well enough off in this world and you will not see me punished in the other,” and Juana Seralvis, for the same utterance was condemned to public penance. Badia, priest of Falset, was fined twenty ducats, with spiritual penances, for saying that he would not forgive God. Juan Canalvero was fined six ducats and penanced for saying that he would cheat his father or God in buying or selling. There were many other similar cases, in some of which the Suprema ordered the fines to be returned and the names to be stricken from the registers.[310]

The very triviality of these cases illustrates the atmosphere of suspense and distrust in which the Spanish population existed, nor can their full import be realized unless we remember that, slight as the penalties may seem, they were the least part of the punishment, for penancing by the Inquisition was fatal to limpieza. How readily a man’s career could thus be ruined by rivals or enemies is seen in the case of the Dominican Alonso de los Raelos in the Canaries. In 1568 some assertions of his respecting purgatory attracted attention, but led to no formal trial, because he did not deny its existence, and theologians are not agreed as to its exact locality and character. Some years later, there were feuds in the Order, due to an attempt to erect the Canaries into a separate province, when the prior, Blas de Merino, who hoped to become provincial, and who regarded Fray Alonso as a possible rival, accused him to the tribunal for this proposition. He was thrown into prison and, in 1572, was sentenced to penance and reclusion, thus rendering him ineligible.[311]

We have seen in the previous chapter the penalties regarded as sufficient for the crime of seduction in the confessional, and a comparison between these and the punishments inflicted for utterances in the heat of discussion and indicative of no settled tendency to heresy, reveal the very curious standard of ethics prevalent at the period. In 1571, a priest named Miguel Lidueña de Osorio was accused in Valencia of having said that the bishops at the Council of Trent deserved to be burnt, because they assumed to be popes, and moreover that St. Anne was deserving of higher honor than St. Joaquin. For this he was required to abjure de vehementi, he was suspended from orders, recluded for six years and banished perpetually from Valencia.[312] It was not often that flagrant cases of solicitation were visited with such severity.

RULES OF PROCEDURE

The infinite varieties and intangible nature of the offence rendered impossible the formulation of hard and fast rules for the tribunals, which were thus left to their discretion in a matter which was constantly forming a larger portion of inquisitorial business. The space devoted to it by Rojas, in his little book, indicates its growing importance, and he tells us that he was led to treat it thus at length because so many of the accused admit the facts, while denying belief and intention, and he had seen such diametrically opposite modes of treatment and punishment adopted in different tribunals. He is emphatic in insisting on the allowance to be made for the ignorance and rusticity of most of the culprits, and he points out that, in view of the restrictions on the defence, the inquisitor should be especially careful to give weight to whatever could be alleged in favor of the accused, whether he were ignorant and rude, or learned and subtle. The manner and occasion of the utterance ought to be carefully considered, as well as the nativity of the speaker, if he comes from lands where heresy flourishes. How much depended on the temper of the tribunal is exhibited in a case in which a man, going to hear mass and finding that it was over, said “faith alone suffices” and was prosecuted for the remark. Rojas decided that he was not to be held as asserting that faith without works suffices, which would be heretical, for doubtful words are to be interpreted according to circumstances, but a more zealous or less conscientious inquisitor could readily have convicted him. For ordinary cases, he tells us, the accused should rarely be confined in the secret prison; the abjuration may be de levi or de vehementi according to circumstances, and the extraordinary punishment should be scourging or fines.[313]

As the Suprema gradually assumed control over the tribunals, there grew up certain more or less recognized rules of procedure. Thus, if there was evidence of heretical utterances, and the accused confessed them but denied intention, he was to be tortured; if this brought confession of intention, he was to be reconciled with confiscation in a public auto as a formal heretic; if he overcame the torture he had to abjure de vehementi in an auto, with scourging, vergüenza, exile etc., according to his station and the character of the propositions. This, we are told, was merciful, for the common opinion of the doctors was that, if the propositions were formally heretical, the offender should be relaxed, in spite of his denying intention. Mercy was carried even further for, if ignorance was alleged with probable justification, the accused was not tortured nor condemned as a heretic, but abjured de levi, with discretional penalties. There was moreover, as we have seen, a vast range of propositions in which heresy was only inferential, characterized as scandalous, offensive to pious ears etc., for which abjuration de levi was considered sufficient, with spiritual penances.[314]

In this enumeration of penalties there is no allusion to fines, which, however, were by no means neglected. In 1579, for instance, the Bachiller Montesinos, in defending an adultress, put in an argument of cynical ingenuity to prove that she had committed no sin. This was transmitted to the Toledo tribunal, whose calificadores found in it four heretical propositions besides a citation from St. Paul amounting to heretical blasphemy. Montesinos threw himself on the mercy of the tribunal, wept and wrung his hands, protested that he must have been out of his senses, owing to old age, and offered every excuse that he could suggest. He escaped with abjuration de levi, six months’ suspension from his functions as an advocate, and a fine of eight thousand maravedís. Many similar cases could be cited from the Toledo record, but two more will suffice. In 1582, the Bachiller Pablo Hernández denounced himself for having, in the heat of discussion, been led on to say that in canonizations the pope had to rely upon witnesses who might be false and therefore it was not necessary to believe that all so canonized were saints. He was sentenced to abjure de levi, to pay six thousand maravedís, and to have his sentence read in his parish church while he heard mass. From this he appealed to the Suprema, which remitted the humiliation in church, but thriftily increased the fine to twenty thousand maravedís. In 1604 the tribunal had a richer prize, in an old German named Giraldo Paris, a resident of Madrid who seems to have been a dabbler in alchemy. He was accused of saying that the Old Testament was a fable, that St. Job was an alchemist, the Christian faith was a matter of opinion and much more of the same kind. The evidence must have been flimsy for, serious as were these charges, there was discordia on the question of arresting him, and it required an order from the Suprema before he was confined in the secret prison. He gradually confessed the truth of the charges, but was not sentenced to reconciliation, escaping with absolution de vehementi, a year’s reclusion in a monastery, the surrender of all books and papers dealing with alchemy and quintessences, and a fine of three thousand ducats. The general impression produced by a group of these cases is that scourging was reserved for those too poor to pay a moderate fine, and that fines were scaled rather upon the ability of the culprit than on the degree of his guilt.[315] In determining penalties, however, it was advised that considerable weight in extenuation should be allowed for drunkenness, and for the readiness and frankness of the culprit in confessing, as well as for his ignorance or simplicity.[316]