CHARACTER OF EVIDENCE
While the Inquisition claimed jurisdiction over all heresy, internal and mental, as well as external and formal, it could only prosecute when heresy was manifested or inferable by external acts or words, and these had to be investigated with the utmost minuteness. The land was filled with those whose external conformity might be but the cloak for secret dissidence. The New Christian was regarded with suspicion, as a possible or even aprobable apostate, whose baptism only served to render him guilty and to subject him to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. He might be regular in religious observance, be liberal to church and friar, be a constant purchaser of the Cruzada indulgences, and yet be secretly a believer in the Law of Moses or of Mahomet. It was the business of the Inquisition to detect and punish these apostates; it was rarely that they betrayed their infidelity by imprudent avowals or hasty speeches, except to so-called accomplices or to cell-companions, and, in the absence of such witnesses, for the most part, the only proof against them arose from their adherence, in the privacy of their homes, to the rites and usages which, through long succession of generations, had become a second nature. It was on this, then, that prosecutions largely depended, and the simplest acts that savored of Judaism or of Islam were regarded as incontrovertible proofs of apostasy, requiring reconciliation to the Church, with all that it implied and, if subsequently persisted in, proving relapse with its penalty of the stake.
Familiarity with the practices of the condemned religions was therefore part of the necessary training of the inquisitor, and long descriptive catalogues were compiled for their information. In order also that the people might be duly instructed, and be on the watch to denounce their neighbors, these were incorporated in the Edicts of Faith annually published in all the churches. Much of the evidence recorded in the trials and, for the most part, accepted as conclusive, consists of acts in themselves perfectly innocent and appearing to us wholly indifferent and unworthy of consideration. Observing the Ramadan or the fast of Queen Esther of course would admit of no extenuation, but there were a host of trivial observances which seem to the modern mind altogether inadequate to the prominence accorded to them in the trials. This extreme minuteness with which such observances were held to prove apostasy was an innovation. Of old, the Church recognized the impossibility of changing abruptly customs so imbedded in the routine of daily life, and, while such practices were to be repressed, they were not treated as heresy. The great council of Lateran, in 1215, alludes to their frequency, but contents itself with ordering prelates to force converts to abandon all remnants of their old faith.[1708]It was otherwise in Spain and the evidence on which prosecutions were based andpunishments inflicted would often appear to us to be of the flimsiest character.
Changing the body-linen or table-linen on Saturday, lighting candles on Friday and similar observances were proofs of a most damaging character; even eatingamin—a broth liked by Jews—is enumerated among the offences entailing appearance in an auto de fe.[1709]When Brianda de Bardaxí was on trial at Saragossa, in 1491, she admitted that, when a child, she had eaten a few mouthfuls of Passover bread given to her by a playmate, and this was gravely detailed in her sentence as one of the proofs of “vehement suspicion” for which she was severely punished.[1710]Circumcision, in the later period, was an evidence almost decisive and, with male defendants, an inspection by the surgeon of the tribunal was customary but, in the earlier time, before the expulsion and forced conversion of the Jews, it was merely an indication that a man was a New and not an Old Christian, yet in an auto de fe at Saragossa, in 1486, Pedro and Luis de Almazan, on this evidence alone, were sentenced to perform penance with lighted candles and to ten years of exile.[1711]Among the Moriscos, staining the nails with henna was held to justify suspicion; refusing to eat the flesh of animals that had died of natural causes was highly damaging; a propensity to cleanliness by washing one’s self was an indication of apostasy and, in the trial of Mari Gómez at Toledo, in 1550, as a relapsed impenitent, one of the charges was that, in her former trial, she had not confessed that, some fifteen years before, a kid had been killed in her house by cutting its throat.[1712]
CHARACTER OF EVIDENCE
How slender was the evidence requisite for prosecution is manifested in the trials of a whole family, in Valladolid, from 1622 to 1624. When Dr. Jorje Enrriquez, physician to the Duke of Alva, died, the body was soiled, requiring washing, followed by a clean shirt. A number of witnesses thereupon deposed that it was prepared for sepulture according to Jewish rites. The consulta de fe on the arrest was not unanimous, and it was referred to the Suprema, which ordered the arrest of all concerned, with sequestration. The whole family, widow, children and servants, with some cousins, were thrown into the secret prison and theeldest son, a youth of twenty, died from the effects of torture. After nearly two years of this, the evidence was so weak that the consulta de fe votedin discordiaand the Suprema ordered the prisoners to be acquitted. So, in 1625, Manuel de Azevedo, a shoemaker of Salamanca, was denounced because he had removed the lump of fat from a leg of mutton which he took to a baker to be roasted. The consulta voted to dismiss the case but the fiscal appealed to the Suprema, which ordered arrest with sequestration. The trial went on through all the forms and when at length Azevedo learned from the accusation what was the charge, he said that he was ignorant of this being a Jewish custom, but had been told that a leg of mutton roasted better when the fat was cut out. When the defence was reached he proved that he was an Old Christian on all sides; he was not acquitted but the case was suspended. Had he been a New Christian he would have been tortured and penanced, whether he overcame the torture or not. In another case, in 1646, one of the charges was that the accused, in slicing bread, held the knife with the edge turned away and not towards his breast, as was customary with Christians. Trivial as all this may seem, one occasionally meets a case showing that the Inquisition did not always spend its energies in vain in following up the slenderest evidence, however great were the sufferings frequently inflicted on the innocent. In several Jewish cases in Valladolid, in 1642, the chief evidence was that the meat before cooking was soaked in water to remove the blood and grease. This led to the discovery and punishment as Judaizers of a group of some fifteen or twenty in Benavente, who appeared in the auto de fe of 1644. As soon as one was brought to confess, he implicated others, and the net was spread which captured them all. The fact, however, that torture was freely used casts an unpleasant doubt over the justice of the result.[1713]
Suspicion might be aroused by negative as well as by positive indications and, in the Spain of the Inquisition, it behooved every man to be scrupulously exact in the performance of what were regarded as evidences of orthodoxy, as well as in the avoidance of what created doubt, for everywhere around him were zealous spies, eager to serve the faith. In 1635, Manuel Mardes, travelling with his wife and two other women, passed two men laboring in a field without saluting them. One of them asked him why he did not say “Praised be Jesus Christ” or “Praised be the mostBlessed Sacrament,” to which he imprudently replied that God was not known in his own land. The laborers promptly denounced him to the nearest commissioner of the Inquisition, who arrested him. The calificadores voted that this was manifest Judaism and he was thrown into the secret prison of Valladolid, with sequestration. Then there came additional evidence from a cell-companion that he washed his hands on rising and before eating. He denied all intention until he was smartly tortured, when he confessed all that was desired.[1714]
Naturally this negative evidence was habitually sought by the tribunals. In the trials for Judaism and Mahometanism, the accused was always interrogated as to his training in Christian formulas. He was asked to recite the credo and the customary prayers of the Paternoster, the Ave Maria and the Salve Regina, and was made to cross himself, to see whether or not he did it in a manner to show that it was habitual. In Spain there were two forms of this—santiguarseandsignarse—the former consisting in making the sign of the cross, with the thumb and forefinger joined, passing them from forehead to cheek and from the left to the right shoulder; the latter in touching the forehead, mouth and chest with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand, or with the thumb alone. This was often a crucial test. Of Mari Gómez it is recorded, July 15, 1550, “She repeated the Ave Maria; she was imperfect in the Paternoster and the creed and said she did not know the Salve Regina. She performed the signo ill but the santiguada well.”[1715]
It has seemed worth while to enter thus minutely into the details of inquisitorial treatment of evidence, as it was so largely a determining factor in the fate of the accused. From this examination it is impossible to resist the conclusion that the system of procedure was framed rather to secure conviction than to ascertain the truth. Guilt was presumed in the fact of arrest and the business of the tribunal was to prove it.
THEheretic was not only a criminal but a sinner. This imposed on the Inquisition a two-fold function—to discover and punish crime and to save the soul of the sinner. Its position was anomalous. It could scarce be called a spiritual tribunal, for inquisitors and members of the Suprema, as we have seen, might be laymen. The jurisdiction over heresy was a special delegation from the Holy See but, although the inquisitor might excommunicate, when the censure was to be removed he did not do it himself but empowered any priest to perform the ceremony.[1716]He never received sacramental confessions or administered the sacrament of penitence; even when a Protestant applied to him to be admitted to the bosom of the Church, a priest was called in to hear the confession and grant absolution.
Thus, while exercising spiritual jurisdiction, the inquisitor, even if in holy orders, abstained from exercising spiritual functions. Yet, as a judge, his duties were not purely secular. In theory the object of the Inquisition was the saving of souls; the detection and punishment of heresy were merely a necessary means to that end. The burning of the obstinate impenitent, besides avenging the offence to God, was the removal of a gangrened member to preserve the body from infection. The penalties inflicted on the repentant were not punishment but penance and he was not a convict but a penitent; whatever statement he made during his trial, even in obstinately denying the charges, was a confession, and the penal prison to which he was consigned was acasa de penitenciaorde misericordia. Even denunciations and the evidence of witnesses for the defence were sometimes called confessions.
While the distinction was fully recognized between judicial and sacramental confession, and the inquisitor was in no sense a confessor, there was a curious assumption that in the tribunalconfession was of a mixed character, partaking of both classes.[1717]The whole procedure was directed to induce the accused to confess his errors, to profess repentance and to beg for mercy. He was adjured by the love of God and his Blessed Mother to discharge his conscience and save his soul by a full confession, as to himself and others, without uttering false testimony as to himself or to them. The so-called advocate who was furnished to defend him was instructed to urge him to this, and to explain that the Holy Office was not like the other tribunals whose business it was to punish the body, for here the only object was to cure the soul and to reunite to the Church those who, by their sins, had left the holy congregation of Christians, in violation of their baptismal promises; he should therefore cast aside all thought of that which concerns the body and think only of his soul, confessing his crimes so that the Holy Office could cure his infirmity, which was beyond the power of any other judge or confessor.[1718]
No doubt there were many inquisitors who conscientiously believed that this was the lofty duty to which they were devoted. There was another motive, however, which was not without weight in prompting the earnest and sometimes cruel means resorted to, for it was held that confession, however it might be obtained, cured all defects and irregularities in the trial.[1719]An inquisitor conscious of having overstepped the limits was therefore doubly anxious to extort from the accused admissions which should exonerate him.
Thus, from the first audience to the final reading of the sentence at the auto de fe, the effort of the tribunal was to bring the sinner to repentance, or at least to confession, by adjurations, by misleading promises of mercy, by threats and, if necessary, by torture. On his way to the stake, the man who had persistently denied his guilt was accompanied by confessors urging him to admit it and to repent. Similar advantage was taken of the death-bed fears of those who died in prison, when, as we have seen, confessors sent to them were instructed to listen to them only in case they confessed sufficiently to “satisfy” the adverse testimony.
SPONTANEOUS CONFESSION
This urgency to induce confession produced the natural result that the unfortunates subjected to it were led, not infrequently,to gratify their judges by admitting whatever they thought necessary to win the favor of the tribunal. This was recognized in a warning issued by the Suprema, in 1541, that much caution was required in weighing the truth of confessions, because the accused, through malice, were wont to confess against themselves and others in order to obscure the truth.[1720]This warning was doubtless needed, but there is little evidence that it was heeded. As a rule, the confession was accepted, provided it was sufficiently criminatory and, as far as regarded its implication of accomplices, it was used for their conviction.
An unexpected feature of the inquisitorial records is the number ofespontaneados—of those who from various motives voluntarily accused themselves. In 1172 cases occurring in Toledo between 1575 and 1610 there are 170 of these or about one in seven. This of course is attributable to the assumption that self-denunciation was an evidence of contrition which merited benignity. It is true that, in the earlier period, when Edicts of Grace were published, those who came forward within the term were subjected to reconciliation and heavy mulcts; their confessions were taken down by notaries to be used against the friends whom they incriminated and against themselves in case of relapse. It is further true that, after the expiration of the term, spontaneous confession did not avert confiscation and such other penance as the inquisitor might impose—in fact it was virtually no better than if rendered under prosecution. But, after the first fury of persecution, when spontaneous self-denunciation might be considered as arising from conviction and not from fear of accusation by others, it was regarded more mercifully. In 1568 we find the Suprema sharply rebuking the tribunal of Barcelona for having condemned to reconciliation and confiscation a French girl of eighteen and Antoine Codrie, a Frenchman, who had spontaneously confessed to Protestantism and against whom there was no other evidence; the confiscated property was to be returned to them within nine days, whether or not it was still in the hands of the receiver. The tribunal was also told that it had erred deplorably in the case of Alonso de Montoya, who had spontaneously confessed to having been a renegade when captive in the hands of the Moors, and whom it had thrown into thesecret prison and condemned to confiscation, reconciliation and appearance in an auto de fe with a mitre.[1721]
SPONTANEOUS CONFESSION
Not long after this the reports of the tribunal of Toledo present numerous cases of spontaneous self-denunciation which show that its influence on the sentence varied with the character of the confession and the motives to which the inquisitors attributed it. There was a curious case of twelve Judaizers of Alcazar de Consuegra who came forward to accuse themselves and implicate twelve others; all twenty-four figured in the great auto de fe of 1591 and all had the full penalty of reconciliation, confiscation and perpetual prison with the sanbenito. On the other hand, Andrés de Palacios, in 1586, presented himself and confessed that, when sailing in the galleys, he had made the acquaintance of an English captain who converted him to all the Lutheran heresies; for six years, and until within a few weeks, he had believed them, but now with tears he begged for mercy and for readmission to the Church. He was duly put on trial and was privately reconciled with only some spiritual penances. In the same year occurred the more complicated case of Ursule de la Croix, a French nun in the convent of Santa Margarita at Alcalá de Henares. She confessed to a commissioner there that she had imbibed some of the errors current in her native land; she had deliberately struck a crucifix and had eaten meat on Fridays. The Suprema examined the confession and ordered the commissioner to absolve her. Subsequently she returned to confess that she still held the errors which she had abjured. The Suprema ordered her to be confined in the secret prison and her trial to proceed, during which she repeated her confession, begged for mercy and professed her desire to live and die in the Catholic faith. The consulta de fe was puzzled and, on reference to the Suprema, it ordered her to be secretly reconciled, the sanbenito to be at once removed, and her reclusion for a year in a convent cell. As she was a relapsed and as Lutheranism was the object of special severity, this mercy shows ample consideration for spontaneous confession, but the event proved that the patience of the Inquisition might be tried too far. The unstable mind of the poor creature continued to torment itself and, in 1594, she again accused herself of the same errors. The tribunal reported this to the Suprema, with the statement that she had already beenthrice reconciled, and the order came to relax her to the secular arm, when she was duly burnt.[1722]
Thus far there appears to have been no formal modification of the Instructions of 1484 which made no concessions toespontaneados, except during a Term of Grace, but evidently each case was treated on its merits. It was not until 1605 that the Suprema decreed that foreigners confessing their errors voluntarily were to be reconciled without confiscation. This did not apply to natives, especially Judaizers and Moriscos, in whose cases the Suprema was consulted which usually remitted the confiscation. The matter remained in this uncertain condition, with an increasing tendency towards leniency in practice. In trivial cases, such as heretical blasphemy or thoughtless propositions, the offender was reprimanded, warned and told to confess sacramentally, even though there might have been previous denunciation insufficient to justify arrest. In more serious matters we are told that the espontaneado was treated with great benignity, even when it appeared that he had come forward through fear of denunciation by accomplices who had been arrested. He was given his house or the city for a prison, unless it was necessary to seclude him from those who would pervert him. If he confessed to formal heresy, with belief and intention, it was customary to vote secret reconciliation with the immediate removal of the sanbenito and with confiscation, but the Suprema usually remitted the latter or agreed to a composition. In some cases at Santiago, in the seventeenth century, the parties offered a payment nearly equivalent to the value of their property, but the Suprema told them that they could retain it on paying what the tribunal thought proper.[1723]
IMPERFECT CONFESSION
Confession, whether spontaneous or after arrest, to be valid in the Inquisition, implied repentance, renunciation of error and prayer for readmission to Catholic unity. Although judicial, it had this in common with sacramental confession that it must be full and complete; every separate heretical act was a sin and, like sins in a confessional, it had to be enumerated. There must be no omission, else the confession was nugatory,fictaanddiminuta, and an aggravated guilt, for the truly penitent sinner washeld to be eager to expose all his sins, in order to gain absolution for them, and to betray all his accomplices in order to satisfy his new-born hatred of heresy. Thus thediminutowas as bad as thenegative, for he was still a heretic at heart. The Instructions of 1484 treatdiminutosas impenitents, to be prosecuted if subsequent testimony shows that they have concealed anything as to themselves or to others.[1724]Tried by this standard the confessions in the early Terms of Grace were apt to be imperfect and, in the endeavor to avert the awful consequences of this, it became customary to add to them a protest that, if through lapse of memory facts had been forgotten, the penitent on remembering them would come and confess them or, if testimony was received of matters omitted, he now accepted it as true and asked penance for them. These protests availed little. In the case of Mencia, wife of Diego González, before the tribunal of Guadalupe in 1485, she added this to her confession, but additional incriminating evidence was given by other penitents; she was duly prosecuted and the tribunal apologized for not sending her to the stake, in view of her youth, her tearful contrition and her heartfelt desire to return to the bosom of the Church, wherefore she escaped with perpetual prison.[1725]Beatriz Núñez was less fortunate. She was reconciled, January 13, 1485, in the Time of Grace, after presenting a long confession including all the recognized Jewish practices. July 1st she was arrested on the strength of evidence relating to acts running back for twenty years, embracing details that happened not to be contained in her confession, although it had included a protest admitting all that she did not remember. The tribunal held that her confession had beendiminuta, that consequently it was feigned and she was an impenitent heretic, so she was burnt alive, July 31st.[1726]Similar was the fate of Andrés González, parish priest of San Martin de Talavera, who was reconciled in the Time of Grace but, when imprisoned November 12, 1485,made a fuller confession, imploring mercy in terms betraying the utmost despair. There were but two adverse witnesses—evidently prisoners on trial—whose evidence was simply confirmatory of the confessions, but it sufficed. There seems to have been some delay in getting a bishop and an abbot to degrade him, for he was not burnt until August 17, 1486.[1727]Now in all these cases the confessions had amply admitted Judaism and the subsequent testimony was but surplusage in detail. This cruel practice goes far to explain the great number of burnings, in the early period, and it long continued to furnish victims. In 1531 the tribunal of Toledo condemned to reconciliation, confiscation and prison an old woman named Teresa de Lucena; for nearly fifty years she had been living a Catholic life, but in 1484 she had been reconciled on a confession which subsequent testimony showed had omitted some Jewish observances and had not named every one whom she had seen practice them.[1728]
This demand for an absolutely perfect confession exceeded that of the confessional, where forgotten sins are charitably held to be included. It explains why inquisitors labored so strenuously and often so cruelly to make the penitent remember and declare everything testified against him—what they termed satisfying the evidence. It is true that Simancas argues that defective memory may render confession imperfect, that he who admits himself to have been a heretic includes all heretical customs, and that the rigor of the law should not be visited on those who return to the Catholic faith, while Rojas condemns the severity of those who hold that a penitent not stating the full term of his heresy should be burnt.[1729]Yet the old sternness was held to be in vigor throughout the eighteenth century, and the only concession of the authorities seems to be that, if the penitent omits in his confession anything worthy of relaxation or any accomplices, when these have been proved by witnesses, he may have the chance of purging himself by torture.[1730]
Yet this ferocity had become rather academic than practical. As early as 1570 the Suprema ordered that, in all cases ofdiminucion, the matters suppressed or omitted were to be recorded in the process, submitted to the consulta de fe, and then, without taking action, to be sent to it for its decision.[1731]This can only have been for the purpose of mitigating the execution of the law without modifying it in principle. It remained nominally in force but I have met, in the later periods, with no case in which its extreme rigor was enforced. It was not an infrequent occurrence that reconciled penitents were found, by testimony in later trials, to have made imperfect confessions. Apparently a careful watch for this was maintained and, when it was discovered, they were tried again, but in the second half of the seventeenth century the sentences were remarkably mild—a few years of prison and sanbenito and exile or possibly a parading invergüenza.[1732]With the recrudescence of persecution in the first half of the eighteenth century, there was greater severity—irremissible prison and sanbenito for life and, in a Barcelona case of 1723, a woman had two hundred lashes in addition.[1733]
INTENTION
Closely connected withdiminuciowas the confession of acts accompanied by a denial of intention. As we have seen, the Inquisition relied for proof on acts or words from which heretical belief was inferred, it being assumed that, after baptism, any one practising Judaic or Moslem rites or customs was an apostate. Many of these were wholly indifferent in themselves and their significance depended on the intention with which they were performed, so that it was not unusual for the accused to admit the acts while disclaiming knowledge of their religious character. He might confess avoidance of pork but allege that it disagreed with him; he might acknowledge to washing hands or changing linen but assert that it was for the sake of cleanliness; he might not deny uttering an heretical proposition but say that it was thoughtless or jocular. As human intentions are inscrutable, in such cases resort was inevitable to the universal solvent of judicial doubt—torture—at least in the later period. In the earlier time it was more in consonance with the swift justice then habitual to condemn him; such acts, it was argued, did not admit of doubt,they were in themselves sufficient proof and the accused was not to be allowed the privilege of torture.[1734]In the later period the authorities are not wholly unanimous, for the shades of guilt and the collateral circumstances varied so infinitely that a definite rule was difficult to frame. In general it may be summed up as admitted that for heretical acts, under the law, no plea of non-intention could be entertained, and that the offender must be relaxed, but in practice he had the benefit of torture; if he succumbed in it he was reconciled with confiscation, the galleys and perpetual prison; if he endured it without confession, according to the judicial logic of the age, he was not acquitted but was punished, less severely, for the suspicion. For words and opinions and heretical propositions, if serious, he was to be tortured on intention, but not for lesser offences, in which the appropriate penalty would be less grievous than the infliction of torture—yet one writer admits the use of torture when intention is denied in the widely current proposition that simple fornication is no sin. When, in these minor cases, torture was used, if, according to the legal phrase, it was endured sufficiently to purge the testimony, it became customary to suspend the case or to acquit the accused.[1735]
In the previous chapter (pp. 566, 567) there are one or two instructive cases as to the danger of construing Judaic observances as implying heretical intention. In the wider sphere of propositions, an illustrative instance is that of the Augustinian Pedro Retorni, tried in 1601, at Toledo, for denying the papal power to release souls from purgatory. He admitted it, but denied intention, asserting that he had only used the phrase in the course of an argument. The consulta de fe voted for abjurationde leviand a sharp reprimand, but the Suprema ordered that he should be threatened with torture up to the point of stripping him in the torture-chamber. He endured this without confessing, and the sentence of the consulta de fe was executed.[1736]
One of the most essential requisites to completeness of confession was the denunciation of all accomplices—that is, of all whom the penitent knew to be heretics or addicted to heretical practices.This, as we have seen, was required of all who came in under Edicts of Grace, and, in the Instructions of 1500, the inquisitor was ordered, when any one confessed, to examine him exhaustively as to what he knew of his parents, brothers, kindred and all other persons, and this evidence to be used against them was to be entered in registers apart from the personal confession.[1737]There was usually little hesitation on the part of the penitent to incriminate his family and friends, for they might, for all he knew, be themselves under trial and informing on him, so that any reticence on his part would convict him of being adiminutowith all its fateful consequences. The information thus obtained was registered with alphabetical indexes, so that the tribunals obtained a mass of evidence, against those who were Jews or Moors at heart, which largely explains the rapid extension of its activity. The value attached by the Inquisition to this source of information is expressed by the Suprema in its remonstrance, February 23, 1595, to Clement VIII against a jubilee indulgence. One of its chief arguments was that, as heretics were all allied and known to each other, the principal means of detecting them was through the confessions of those who were converted, while the absolution obtainable through the indulgence would release them from pressure and this mode of extirpating heresy would be lost.[1738]
In the formulas compiled for interrogating the accused, we find special stress laid on making those who confess enumerate all who had joined with them in belief and worship, or whom they knew to be heretics. These were recorded, one by one, the penitent being required to state all details concerning them, including personal descriptions, so that they could be tracked or, if there were several individuals of the same name, error could be avoided in identifying them.[1739]Any omissions in this exposed the penitent to severe punishment. In the Seville auto de fe of July 5, 1722, there appeared Melchor de Molina, who had been reconciled for Judaism in 1720. From evidence gathered in subsequent trials it appeared that he had not denounced all whom he knew; he was prosecuted anew and for this, as a fautor and protector of accomplices, his temporary prison was now made perpetual and irremissible.[1740]
DENUNCIATIONS OF ACCOMPLICES
Perhaps the most striking illustration of the effectiveness of the rule requiring denunciation of others is furnished by a Morisco of Valencia named Francisco Zafar y Ribera. He had been a Christian only in outward show, when a miraculous change of heart sent him on a pilgrimage to Monserrat, where he confessed his heresy to a priest. The good padre, unable to absolve him, referred him to the Barcelona tribunal, where, as a condition precedent, he was required to denounce all whom he knew to be Moors. The inquisitors, finding these to be Valencians, despatched him to Valencia, where he gave the names of no less than four thousand. He had been a wandering tailor and his acquaintance was extensive.[1741]
Few of those who fell into the hands of the Inquisition had the heroic courage of Manuel Díaz, a victim in the great Mexican auto de fe of December 8, 1596. Although ten of his fellow-sufferers had testified against him, he steadily denied his guilt and was proof against both the threats and the blandishments of the inquisitors. There was nothing to do but to burn him as anegativo impenitente, except that he might be used to inculpate others, and for this he was sentenced to torturein caput alienum. When this sentence was read to him he simply said that he was ready for them to do with him as they pleased. He was in his thirty-eighth year and a vigorous man, for he endured torture of unusual severity and, although he shrieked and begged to be put to death and called upon his tormentors to have mercy on his five children, he denied all knowledge of the Law of Moses and went to the stake without bearing witness against his fellows. This was held to aggravate his guilt and, in his sentence, he was stigmatized as a fautor and protector of Judaizing heretics.[1742]
If the inquisitorial records occasionally ennoble human nature with such examples of self-sacrifice, they more frequently exhibit it in its most despicable aspect, through the eagerness with which unfortunates, enfeebled and despairing in their protracted incarceration, seek to gain the favor of pitiless judges, or to render their confessions complete, by hastening to betray the confidences of their cell-companions, who incautiously relieve their hearts in careless talk with comrades in misery. The instances are innumerable in which the recipient of such avowals at once asks an audience and proves the sincerity of his own conversion by detailingwhat he had heard. There is a certain grim satisfaction, however, in noting that these revelations, however damaging to the victim, seem never to benefit the informer, for I have nowhere observed that they are accepted as attenuating circumstances to diminish his own punishment.
The time at which a confession was made was an important factor in determining the grade of punishment. At first these distinctions were crudely drawn, and there was hesitation in accepting confession as an infallible sign of repentance and conversion. The Instructions of 1484 merely say that, if it is made early and before publication of evidence, the regular penalty can be commuted to those who manifest contrition; if after publication and before definite sentence, the culprit is entitled to reconciliation with perpetual prison, but the inquisitors must determine whether he is sincerely converted, for if they have no hope of this they should relax him as an impenitent heretic. It seems to have been thought that, under these rules, too many fictitious converts escaped for, in 1498, the tribunals were warned to be cautious about admitting to reconciliation those who confessed after arrest, in view of the length of time since the establishment of the Inquisition.[1743]Thus, after arrest, confession and profession of conversion by no means saved the victim from the stake, but it depended upon the inquisitor’s belief in his sincerity.
TIME OF CONFESSION
This excessive severity was moderated in time and there came to be established a kind of sliding scale which gauged sincerity by the period in the trial at which confession was made. An elementary form of this is displayed in a report of an auto de fe at Saragossa, June 5, 1585, where many Moriscos suffered. There is a group of ten of whom it is said that, as they confessed at the beginning of their trials, they were imprisoned for two, three or four years according to the gravity of their offences. Then there are others sent to the galleys for terms of from three to eight years, because their confessions were tardy or delayed to the end of their trials. As women were exempt from galley-service, this classification was impossible for them, but their terms of prison were regulated in the same way, and two of them had their sanbenitos removed at the close of the proceedings, because they had come forward and confessed before arrest, though after they hadbeen testified against.[1744]This system was gradually perfected and, as presented by a writer of the middle of the seventeenth century, it appears that, if confession was made before the fiscal presented his formal accusation, the prison and sanbenito were inflicted for a very short time; if after accusation, they were for one or two years; if not till after publication of evidence, for the three years styled perpetual; if after torture, irremissible prison and, if able-bodied, the first three or five years to be spent in the galleys. This might be modified according to the manifestation of repentance and whether the culprit was a good confessor, both as to himself and others and, in the case of slaves, to avoid wronging the owner, scourging was substituted for prison and galleys.[1745]Subsequently this resource of scourging was freely employed for those who were not slaves, and, in the frequent autos of 1721 and the following years, the cases are numerous in which men and women are sentenced to two hundred lashes and irremissible prison and sanbenito as a special punishment for tardy confession.[1746]
Confession under torture was originally not regarded as voluntary and did not relieve from relaxation, showing that its use on a culprit who denied was either merely to gratify curiosity or to obtain information as to accomplices.[1747]Subsequent casuists, however, argued that the ratification of the confession, which was necessary after twenty-four hours, rendered it voluntary, and the more usual practice was to admit such cases to reconciliation. The Instructions of 1561 accept this, but warn inquisitors that they must observe much caution as to such cases and consider the quality of the heresies and whether the offender had simply been taught or had taught others.[1748]Still, this distinction was disregarded and Simancas tells us that the universal practice was to receive to reconciliation those who confessed under torture.[1749]
It can readily be conceived that those who confessed under the awe-inspiring formalities of the trial, with the pressure of prolonged imprisonment, the threat of torture and the fear of the stake, and whose admissions came gradually with greater or less fullness, as they vacillated between opposing influences, were not infrequently inconsistent and variable in their utterances. This was naturally provoking to the inquisitor and thevariowho thus wavered cast doubt upon the sincerity of his repentance. He was admitted to reconciliation, indeed, but he paid the penalty of his vacillation in extra punishment. Thus, in the Murcia auto de fe of October 18, 1722, Francisco Henríquez de Medina y Melo, besides the regular penance, was sentenced to a hundred lashes “por vario en sus confesiones.”[1750]
Even more provoking was therevocante, who withdrew or revoked a confession—an occurrence by no means rare, as might be expected from the methods employed to obtain it. The writers all treat this as impenitence, requiring relaxation in cases of formal heresy.[1751]In practice it was so regarded, as a general rule, but we find occasional exceptional cases, in which, however, care was usually taken to inflict heavier punishment than if the confession had been adhered to. In a Toledo auto of 1603, a Morisco, Andrés Muñoz, who had revoked his confession and consequently had been sentenced to relaxation, was saved by the Suprema, which ordered torture and, on his overcoming it, gave him five years of galleys and a heavy fine. Another case occurred in Granada, in 1593, where Jusuarte López, a Portuguese, confessed to Judaism and then, on finding that there was little evidence against him, revoked his confession and was condemned to five years of galleys, followed by irremissible prison and sanbenito.[1752]
REVOCATION
This apparent inconsistency arose from the infinite perplexities caused to the conscientious inquisitor by the arbitrary methods employed to induce or to extort confession. We obtain a glimpse into this from the remarks of an old inquisitor, about 1640, who, after laying down the rule of relaxation, proceeds to warn the judge that he should proceed with caution and consider thecircumstances under which the confession had been made. I have known, he adds, the mere fear excited by the fiscal’s formal demand for torture at the end of the accusation, bring a confession which necessitated torture to ascertain its truth. In 1628, I had a case in Saragossa, where a Frenchman voluntarily confessed that he had been a Lutheran and that, as such, he had been reconciled in Toledo. On being arrested he stated that his father had taught him Lutheranism and that he was reconciled in Toledo. After several audiences, he revoked this, and asserted that what he had confessed in Toledo was false; that there were no heretics where he came from and that his father had not taught him, and then in his defence he proved this and that both he and his father were Catholics. I voted for relaxation but the Suprema ordered torture; he overcame the torture and was finally sentenced to abjurede vehementi, to undergo publicvergüenzaand to perpetual banishment from Spain. If the revocation, the writer concludes, is of things of which there issemiplenaproof [as of one witness] and it appears that it is made to protect accomplices and friends, then in rigor he is to be relaxed, but in these times relaxation is rare if he confesses enough to justify reconciliation.[1753]
That the terrors of the situation frequently reduced the prisoner to a mental condition that was practically irresponsible is illustrated in a trivial case concerning the popular assertion that simple fornication was no sin. In 1579 at Toledo, Diego Redondo of Prado, on trial for this, denied at first; then, when the accusation was read, with its customary demand for torture, he confessed; then, when the testimony of five witnesses was read in the publication, he revoked his confession, saying that it was made through fear; he did not know whether he had made it or not, but if he did so he was out of his senses; he remembered that he had said he knew not what, and had retracted it, and he did not remember, and this was what he said. This crazed incoherence puzzled the tribunal; it referred the case to the Suprema which charitably sentenced him to hear high mass at Prado, while his sentence was publicly read, and then to spend two years in exile.[1754]
There was another form of revocation which greatly scandalized the Inquisition in consequence of the reflection cast upon itsmethods. This was the assertion by penitents, subsequent to trial, that they were innocent and had only confessed through fear of the consequences of denial. It was sufficiently frequent to be included, in the Edicts of Faith, among the offences to be denounced by all cognizant of it. In the earliest Instructions of 1484 it is ordered that such offenders are to be held as impenitent and as fictitious converts and are to be prosecuted as such—which of course meant relaxation.[1755]This severity was moderated in time, but the offence was still punished in a manner to discourage it. In 1578, Niccolò Salari, who had been reconciled by the tribunal of Sardinia, had the imprudence to present to the Suprema a petition revoking his confession; he was tried for this in Toledo and escaped with two years’ exile from Sardinia and the royal court.[1756]