Simply trading with heretics, sending to or receiving from them merchandise, money or letters constituted fautorship of heresy and subjected the trader to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.—Masini, Sacro Arsenale overo Prattica dell’ Officio della S. Inquisizione, Roma, 1639, p. 16.
[257] MSS. of Ambrosian Library, H. S. VI, 29.—Le Bret, Magazin zum Gebrauch der Staaten-und Kirchengeschichte, Sechste Theil, 101 (Frankfurt, 1777).
During the 18th century the powers of the Inquisition were greatly limited by the civil authorities. In Tuscany we learn, in 1746, that in Florence and Siena no arrest or imprisonment could be made by it without the assent of the Government.—Consulta fatta dalla Real Camera di S. Chiara, in Napoli (MS. penes me).
[258] The tribunal of the Canaries was reckoned among those of Castile and most of the new material in my possession concerning it has been embodied in the “History of the Inquisition of Spain.” Its insular position, however, and the consequent attraction of foreign merchants and sea-faring men, rendered its career somewhat peculiar, and it has seemed worth while to devote a chapter to it, based on two works—
Historia de la Inquisicion en las Islas Canarias, por Agustin Millares, 4 vols., Las Palmas de Gran-Canaria, 1874.
Catalogue of a Collection of Original Manuscripts formerly belonging to the Holy Office of the Inquisition in the Canary Islands and now in the possession of the Marquis of Bute. By W. De Gray Birch, LL.D., 2 vols., Edinburgh and London, 1903.
[259] Birch, I, 5, 7-8.
[260] Millares, I, 95-6—Birch, I, 160-7, 173.
[261] Birch, I, 6.—Millares, I, 71.
[262] Birch, I, 1, 67.