The second and third of these regulations are contrary to the system of the holy office, which leads me to suppose that the temporary disgrace and exile of Manrique contributed to this moderation, which could not last long: the inquisitors have always proceeded against persons guilty of these crimes, on the pretence of examining if any circumstance might cause suspicion of heresy. The same spirit is found in another order of the 19th February, 1533: it obliges the inquisitors to receive all the papers which the relations of the accused wish to communicate to them. The council made this rule, because these writings (though useless on the trial) might yet be serviceable in proving the innocence or guilt of the accused.
On the 10th May, 1531, the council decreed, that if bulls of dispensation from the use of the San-benito, imprisonment, or other punishments, were presented to the Inquisition, the procurator-fiscal should demand that they should be suppressed, as well as those obtained by the children and grandchildren of persons declared infamous by the holy office: the council supported this rule by alleging that children always followed the example of their heretical ancestors, and that it was a scandal to see them occupying honourable employments.
On the 22nd of March in the same year the council wrote to the tribunal of the provinces, that it had remarked, in one of the trials, that certain writings had not been digested in the places where the facts mentioned had happened; whence they concluded that these formalities had not been fulfilled at the proper time, but at the moment when the proceedings were to begin: the council then recommended them to avoid these abuses, as contrary to the instructions. But the orders of the council were not obeyed: the same irregularity was renewed, and produced another still more dangerous, which during my time had the most serious consequences. In order to supply what might be omitted in the course of the trial, the inquisitors adopted the custom of writing each act, declaration, and deposition, on separate sheets of paper. As in these tribunals they did not make use of stamped paper, and as the pieces of the process were not numbered, it often happened that those which they wished to conceal from the council, the diocesan in ordinary, or other interested parties, were changed or suppressed. This manœuvre was employed by the inquisitors in the affair of the Archbishop of Toledo, Carranza, and I have myself seen several attestations of the secretary changed at the request of the inquisitors of Madrid.
The circular of the 11th of July in the same year is more remarkable, and had more success than the preceding. The inquisitors of the provinces were directed to refer to the Supreme Council all sentences pronounced without the unanimity of the inquisitors, the diocesan and the consulters, even supposing that there was only one dissentient voice. The inquisitors were afterwards obliged to consult the council on all the judgments which they passed; and I must confess that this measure was extremely useful, because, in a difference of opinion, the decisions of the supreme were much more just than those of the tribunals of the provinces, from being composed of a greater number of enlightened judges.
The council displayed the same love of justice in 1536, when it decreed that those convicted of making use of gold, silver, silk, or precious stones, should be punished by pecuniary fines, and not by fire, although they had been prohibited from so doing on pain of being relaxed.
The decree most contrary to the wisdom which ought to have animated the council, was that of the 7th of December, 1532, in which it was ordained that each provincial Inquisition should state the number and rank of the persons condemned to different punishments within their jurisdictions, since their establishment, and to deposit in the churches those San-benitos which had not been placed there, without even excepting those of persons who had confessed and suffered their punishment during the term of grace. This direction was executed with a severity worthy of the Inquisition; at Toledo those San-benitos were renewed which had been destroyed by time, and they were likewise sent to the parishes of the condemned persons. The consequences of these proceedings were the ruin and extinction of many families, as the children could not establish themselves according to the rank they had possessed; while the condemnation of their ancestors by the Inquisition remained unknown. The council discovered too late the injustice it had committed in respect to the San-benito since it revoked the decree seven years after, in 1539.
It is not necessary to give the history of the quarrels which took place between the Inquisition and the different civil authorities, during the administration of Manrique. A scandalous enterprise of the Supreme Council ought nevertheless to be mentioned. In 1531, it presumed to condemn the president of the royal court of appeals, in Majorca, to ask pardon of the holy office, to attend mass (as a penitent), with a wax taper in his hand, and to receive the absolution of censures, for having defended the jurisdiction of the criminal tribunal in an affair which involved several persons, among whom was one Gabriel Nebel, a servant of the summoner of the holy office.
CHAPTER XV.
PROSECUTIONS OF SORCERERS, MAGICIANS, ENCHANTERS, NECROMANCERS, AND OTHERS.
UNDER the administration of the inquisitor-general, Manrique, the Inquisition was particularly occupied by the sect of sorcerers.
Pope Adrian VI. (who had been inquisitor-general in Spain), published a bull on the 20th July, 1523, in which he says, that in the time of his predecessor Julius II. a numerous sect had been discovered in Lombardy, which abjured the Christian faith, and abused the ceremonies of religion and the eucharist. These sectarians acknowledged the devil as their patron, and promised obedience to him.