Full and formal, too, is the denial of Yucé’s participation in the crucifixion of any boy, and of having procured or attempted to procure a Host. The advocate ridicules the notion of this cobbler-lad being a sorcerer, or having knowledge of, or interest in, sorcery.
Finally—burrowing ever in the dark, and seeking to undermine possibilities, since he is given no facts that he may demolish—he suggests that the depositions received against Yucé are perhaps susceptible of being interpreted in different ways, and may refer equally to good or evil, and that since he is accused and arrested the things he has, himself, deponed (i.e. concerning Alonso Franco’s Judaizing tendencies) should be interpreted in his favour, and not against him.
Therefore he petitions their Reverend Paternities to order the witnesses to declare with whom, where, when, and how Yucé committed these things which are deponed against him. Failing that, he begs them to declare his client acquitted, to release him, restoring him his good fame and all property that may have been confiscated by order of their Paternities or any other judges of the Inquisition.[180]
The court commanded the notary to prepare a copy of this plea, and to deliver it to the Fiscal, who was instructed to reply to it within three days. And they further commanded that at the time of the delivery of the said reply, Yucé Franco should again be brought before them that he might learn what was determined concerning him.
The only matter of interest in the next sitting[181]—and this from the point of view of the illustration which these proceedings afford us of inquisitorial methods—is the Fiscal’s repudiation of any obligation on his part to precise the time or place of the crimes with which Yucé Franco is accused, and his insistence that, in spite of all that has been advanced by the defendant, the case must be considered one of heresy.
The court evidently takes the same view, for it commands both parties to the action to proceed to advance proof of their respective contentions within thirty days. Meanwhile, to clear up the matter of the venue, the court communicates with the Cardinal of Spain. The Primate very promptly grants the requisite permission to transfer the action to Avila from his own Archbishopric of Toledo within whose jurisdiction it had lain. This was the merest formality; for considering the explicit commands in the matter left by the supreme arbiter, Torquemada, the Cardinal could hardly have proceeded otherwise.
The methods now adopted by the Fiscal to obtain the proofs which he requires, or at least to build a more complete and overwhelming case—for we cannot but suppose that already he had sufficient material upon which to have obtained a conviction—are eminently typical.