A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4

by Henry Charles Lea

In all this it is evident that the inquisitor, if conscientious, must himself have been firmly convinced of the truth that all the arts of sorcery, simple as many of them were, were based on demonic aid. Yet the occasional use of the term embustero shows that it was sometimes recognized that there was imposture as well as pact. Thus, in the Córdova auto of December 21, 1627, three women appeared, Ana de Jodar, sentenced to two hundred lashes in Córdova and one hundred in Villanueva del Arzobispo, with six years of exile; María de San Leon, to a hundred lashes and four years of exile and Francisca Méndez to vergüenza and exile. Now all these were declared to be sorceresses, invokers of demons with whom they had pacts, and their feats, as detailed in the sentences, showed them to be adepts and yet they were all stigmatized in addition as embusteras.[437] So, in the Saragossa auto of June 6, 1723, Sebastian Gómez is described as supersticioso y embustero, though his sentence of two hundred lashes and perpetual service in a hospital with shackles on his feet shows that his offence was not regarded as mere imposture.[438]

Severe as may seem some of the sentences alluded to, there is no question that, in most cases, the delinquents were fortunate in having the Inquisition as a judge rather than the secular courts, which everywhere showed themselves merciless where sorcery was concerned. We have seen the demand, in 1598, for the revival of the savage law of 1414, and this rigor had the support not only of popular opinion but of the learned. Ciruelo taught that all vain superstitions and sorcery were inventions of the devil, wherefore those who learned and practised them were disciples of the devil and enemies of God. There was no distinction between classes of offenders; all were to be persecuted with unsparing rigor. Thieves, he argued were properly hanged or beheaded, because every thief is presumed to be a homicide, and much more should it thus be with every sorcerer, as his efforts were directed rather against persons than property.[439] Torreblanca tells us that Huss and Wickliffe and Luther and almost all heretics contend against the punishment of sorcerers, but this is heretical, detestable and scandalous, and all orthodox authorities teach that they should be unsparingly put to death and be persecuted by both the spiritual and temporal swords.[440] It is well to bear in mind this consensus of opinion when considering the practice of the Inquisition. In the tribunals there was nothing to control the discretion of the judges save the Suprema, and that discretion showed itself in a leniency difficult to understand, more often than in undue harshness, and even their harshness was less to be dreaded than the mercy of the secular law. The systematic writers lay down the rule that, if the culprit confesses to pact with the demon, he is presumably an apostate; if he begs mercy he is to be admitted to reconciliation in an auto, with confiscation and a hundred lashes or vergüenza; if he is not an apostate, the reconciliation is modified to abjuration de levi and the scourging to vergüenza.[441] These rules, however, were not observed; reconciliation was exceedingly rare, abjuration de vehementi was unusual, abjuration de levi almost universal, and the tribunals exercised wide discretion in the infliction of the most diverse penalties.

PUNISHMENT

A few cases will illustrate how completely the temper of the tribunal influenced the sentences. In 1604, Valencia seems to have had exceptionally lenient inquisitors. Alonso Verlango, desiring to compromise a suit, hired a woman to perform the conjuration of the ampolletas or vials, placing in them wine, sulphur and other things, and throwing them into the fire, with the adjuration that as they burnt so might the hearts of men come to an agreement. There was also the conjuration of the oranges, cutting nine of them and placing in them oil, soap, salt and other things, with the formula that, as oil gives flavor, so might it be with the men; also driving a nail into each and saying that the nails were driven into their hearts. In both of these conjurations were invoked Bersabu, Satanas and other demons, the great and the crippled, along with St. Peter, St. Paul and other saints. There was also a long conjuration with a virgin child by which one could learn whatever was desired. Verlango himself, moreover, used conjurations to discover treasures and possessed the Dream-book of Solomon, “Vaquerio” and Cardan de Proprietatibus Rerum. For all this he escaped with a reprimand and hearing mass in the audience chamber, abjuration de levi and two years of exile. Another case was that of Fray Miguel Rexaque, a priest of the Order of Montesa, who denounced himself for going with an Italian fraile, a virgin girl and some others, to discover treasure. They dug a hole; the Italian with an olive wand made a circle, in which was lighted a blessed candle; incense was burnt and the angels were summoned to drive away the demons guarding the treasure for the coming of Antichrist, and there was also a response from a demon obtained by the girl looking into a mirror. When the papers were submitted to the Suprema it ordered Rexaque to be reprimanded and the case to be suspended, while the girls who officiated had only a year’s exile and some spiritual penances. More serious was the ease of Francois Difor, a French priest, and Francisco Juseria, a student, for it involved sacrilege. They sought the advice of an adept, who told them to baptize three coins with certain names and the coins when paid out would return to their purses. Difor solemnly baptized three pesos; Juseria spent them for fritters and pastry, but they did not come back. Under instructions of a confessor, they denounced themselves; they were duly tried and sentenced to abjure de levi, to be severely reprimanded and to perform some slight spiritual penances.[442]

Valladolid furnishes similar examples of leniency. In 1629, Isabel García, a married woman, under trial confessed that to regain a lover she had invoked the demon, who appeared in human shape, when she entered into explicit pact with him and performed various other sorceries, yet she was sentenced only to abjure de levi and to four years’ exile from Valladolid and Astudilla. The next year Gabriel de Arroya, under pressure from a confessor, denounced himself and stated that, carried away by the passion of gambling, he had, during the last seven years, gone five times into the open fields, and invoked the demon to give him money for stakes, promising in return to devote his first child to the demon and offering to sign with his blood a pact to that effect. It is true that the demon never appeared, nor did he get money that seemed to come from such a source. In the consulta de fe, some of the members pronounced him to be vehemently suspect, others lightly, but it was finally voted to suspend the case without sentence and to reprimand him in the audience-chamber.[443]

PUNISHMENT

There is contrast between these and some cases, in 1641, gathered in by a Valladolid inquisitor during a visitation in Astorga. Eight old men and women curanderos, whose offences consisted in superstitious cures of the most harmless character, were arrested and brought to Valladolid, where they were confined for months in the secret prison, to be finally sentenced to more or less prolonged exile, their simple ministrations being characterized as implicit pact with the demon. On the other hand, the Licentiate Pelayo de Ravanal, cura of Anicio, who charged twenty-three reales for blessing and ineffectually sprinkling with holy water a herd of sick cattle, and who failed in a superstitious cure of a husband and wife, was not arrested but was privately summoned and reprimanded in the apartments of the senior inquisitor. There were also two cases of loberos—practitioners whose speciality consisted in preserving sheep from wolves. One was Macias Pérez, a shepherd of Medina del Campo, accused by ten witnesses of having the wolves at his command, and using them to injure whom he pleased; five testified that he had threatened them with the wolves and that consequently many of their sheep had been destroyed. The other, Juan Gutiérrez of Baradilla, speculated on his neighbors, who gave him grain, kids, sheep etc., to preserve their flocks. The calificadores held this to be implicit pact but, although both were arrested, both escaped with reprimands.[444] The same moderation was exhibited by the tribunal of Toledo, in a curious case, in 1659. Juan Severino de San Pablo, of Wilna in Lithuania, was living as a hermit in the Sierra Morena. He had a skull which he had laboriously inlaid with silver images; this he exhibited and gave certificates as cures for tertian fevers. After his trial had been carried to the accusation, it was suspended; he was severely reprimanded and threatened with a hundred lashes for relapse; the skull was buried in consecrated ground, but not until the silver had been carefully removed and given to the receiver in part settlement for the culprit’s maintenance in prison.[445]

There are two colonial cases which illustrate the capricious character of these judgements. In 1760, at Lima, a Guinea negro slave named Manuel Galiano, aged 70, was tried as a curandero. Several cases were in evidence in which he had cured swellings that had baffled the faculty, by making a small incision, inserting a hollow cane and sucking out blood, which would be accompanied with maggots, scorpions, lizards, snakes and the like, after which he would apply certain crushed herbs. It was decided that this inferred pact with the demon; he was arrested and freely admitted the cures, explaining that he hid the animals in the cane and blew them forth as though they had been drawn from the swelling; he had pronounced the patients to be bewitched and received four or five pesos for the cure; he had also pretended to give a charm to another slave. The case was simple enough but the trial was prolonged for three years, during which he lay in prison, to be finally sentenced to appear in an auto, with the insignia of sorcery and a halter, to vergüenza and to five years (counted from the time of his arrest) of service in a hospital.[446]

In wholesome contrast to this was a similar case in Mexico, in 1794. Juana Martínez was an Indian aged 40, married to a mulatto. She made her livelihood as a curandera, using a decoction of the root of a plant known as palo de Texer or Peyote, which she gathered with invocation of the Trinity and three signs of the cross—ceremonies which she repeated when administering the remedy—and she said that her patients ejected, from mouth and nose, insects, flies etc., which was a sign that they had been bewitched. She also had an image of the Virgin, which she kept in a little reliquary and declared that it performed miracles. In short, she was an accomplished embustera, and she richly earned the designation in the accusation of a simulator of miracles. Mariano de la Piedra Palacio, cura and ecclesiastical judge of their village, Temasunchale, arrested the pair and sequestrated their little property. By active threats of scourging he elicited a confession that she had invoked the devil who appeared and taught her the art, and that she operated by his power. It was a clear case of sorcery and he handed them over to the Inquisition. The long journey to Mexico was performed handcuffed and they were consigned to the secret prison, July 22. A little skilful pressure brought Juana to admit that both the miracles of the Virgin and the insects voided by her patients were impostures. The fiscal chanced to be somewhat of a rationalist and, on August 4th he presented a report of a character not usual in the Inquisition.

He pointed out that the consummate ignorance of Cura Mariano had already caused these poor creatures sufficient suffering in tearing them from their home, defaming them, arresting them obstreperously and sending them to the prison of the tribunal without reason or justice. It was he who was to blame, for their ignorance was attributable to him, whose duty it was to instruct them. Assuming then that there was no legal basis for prosecution and that their lies were sufficiently punished by what they had endured, the fiscal suggested their discharge, with orders to abstain in future from cures and miracles, under pain of rigorous punishment, while the cura was to be warned to avoid future meddling with what pertained to the Inquisition. He should also be told to restore to them the mare and colt which he had unlawfully embargoed, to send at his own cost proper persons to conduct the prisoners comfortably home, and moreover that he and his vicars must see to the proper instruction of his flock. The tribunal was not prepared to rise to this height of justice, but it discharged the prisoners and notified Mariano to return to them the mare and colt and whatever else he had seized, without charging for their keep, and further to present himself to the tribunal on his first visit to the capital.[447]