We happen to have the details of the cost of the autos sacramentales performed before the Council on the Corpus Christi feast of 1659, amounting to 2040 reales vellon and 1168 of silver.[530] The fiestas de toros, or bull-fights, cost nothing for the performers but were attended with elaborate and somewhat expensive preparations for the enjoyment and refreshment of the members and officials. As there were three or four of these a year, the amusement was costly, but the Suprema did not grudge expense when its own gratification was concerned. As affording an insight into this unexpected aspect of the Holy Office, I give below the items of expenditure for the “toros” of June 5, 1690, amounting to 2067 reales 7 mrs., to which is to be added, as the exhibition was given at the palace of Buen Retiro, the sum of 4400 reales paid to the treasurer of the palace for the use of the balconies occupied by the Council and its servants.[531] This is a single example of a constant outlay on occasions where the Suprema defrayed the expenses of its members and attendants. They were by no means confined to the toros and autos. In this same year 1690, the Suprema paid 3300 reales for balconies on the Calle Mayor from which to see the new queen, Maria Anna of Neuburg, when she entered Madrid.[532]

In addition to salaries and extra emoluments, the officials of the Suprema had a fertile source of income from the fees which they were entitled to charge. Every act or certificate or paper made out was paid for by the party applying for it, in the multitudinous business flowing in to the Council, from applicants for favors, examinations into limpieza or purity of blood, or in the perpetual litigation subject to its extensive jurisdiction. From the fiscal and his clerk, who levied upon all documents passing through his hands, down to the portero who had his recognized fee for serving a summons, every one was entitled to charge for the services pertaining to his office. According to the arancel, or fee bill, issued in 1642, the secretaries were entitled to twenty reales for every grace issued—licences to read prohibited books, commutations of penance, dispensations and the hundred other matters in which the Suprema alone could grant favors. The secretario de camera, or private secretary of the inquisitor-general, had a fee for every commission issued—on one for an inquisitor or fiscal, he collected a hundred reales, besides eight for his clerk, on those for minor offices a doubloon and eight reales for his clerk, and so on, and these, according to the arancel of Cardinal Giudice, were payable in silver.[533] Burdensome as were these legalized fees, the limitations of the arancel were not enforced and complaints of imposition were constant. The members of the Suprema had not this source of income, but, as a rule, they held lucrative benefices with dispensation for non-residence.

The Suprema could not be thus lavish in its expenditures without an assured and steady source of income. It no longer was dependent on what it could call from one tribunal or another, for it had so persistently utilized its control over their funds as to accumulate for itself an amount of invested capital the interest on which went far to meet its regular requirements, the deficiency being made up by contributions from the tribunals, especially those of the colonies. These latter had become very productive. Besides accumulating large capital for themselves, they were able to make heavy remittances to Spain. Mexico and Lima were expected to furnish regularly 10,000 ducats a year and this was frequently exceeded. Even from Cartagena de las Indias the Suprema received, in 1653 and 1654, more than 100,000 pesos.[534] About 1675, we chance to hear of a remittance of 40,000 pesos (about 29,000 ducats) of which Lima furnished 10,000 and Mexico 30,000.[535]

An estimate of income and outlay, of about the year 1635, shows that the Suprema held securities of various kinds bringing in an annual return as follows:

Against this its regular expenses were estimated at 13,350,275, which, with a sum of 1,353,625 that it had been ordered to pay to Cardinal Zapata, the late inquisitor-general, left a deficit of 4,864,672, or 12,966 ducats.[536] This it could have had no trouble in making up from the tribunals at home and in the colonies, besides such amounts as might still come in from confiscations.

In the period of storm and stress for some twelve years, commencing with 1640, the incessant demands of the king unquestionably caused the Suprema some trouble. Already, in 1640, we find it borrowing considerable sums, but its resources were large and, about 1657, a statement of its indebtedness amounts, reduced to silver, only to 14,500 ducats. Against this may be set a list of investments and sources of income, yielding a revenue of 18,500,000 maravedís or 50,000 ducats, showing what power of accumulation it had possessed, in spite of the troublous times through which it had passed.[537] All this was clear interest on investment securities except 10,000 ducats from the colonial tribunals, about 2000 ducats estimated to come in from confiscations, etc., and 200,000 maravedís from the Fabrica de Sevilla. This latter item merits a word of explanation. In 1626, the Castle of Triana, occupied by the Seville tribunal, was threatened with ruin by an inundation. In view of the heavy cost of repairs, in 1627, it was determined to meet this by imposing for three years, on every calificador appointed, a fee of 10 ducats, on every commissioner and familiar 5, and on every notary 4. The three years passed away but the charge was continued and, in 1640, it was extended to a number of other minor positions, both salaried and unsalaried. The repairs had long been finished but the Suprema coolly appropriated the income as part of its regular resources and kept it to the end. In 1790 the receipts from Valencia amounted to 27½ libras, and an allusion to it in 1817 shows that the Fabrica de Sevilla was still collected.[538]

In 1743, Philip V made an effort to reduce the excessive number of officials and expenses of the Inquisition and some other departments, but he was unable to withstand the conservative influences brought to bear. It was probably in connection with this that an elaborate statement of the resources and expenditures of the Suprema was prepared. The work of the Inquisition by this time had shrunk virtually to censorship of the press and punishing bigamists, soliciting confessors, blasphemers, diviners, wise-women and incautious utterers of suspicious propositions, but its machinery was as ponderous and costly as ever. The pay-roll of the Suprema counted forty names whose salaries and emoluments aggregated in round numbers 64,000 ducats, to which were added the expenses of the Madrid tribunal, dependent on the Suprema, and other estimated outlays amounting to 12,000, making a total of 76,000 ducats. Its annual revenue was stated at 51,000 ducats, leaving a deficit of 25,000.[539] How this was made good does not appear; possibly there was concealment in the statement of resources, for the Suprema does not seem to have curtailed its liberalities, and a salary list of 1764 shows that there had been no change in the pay and emoluments, except that the number of officials had increased to forty-one.[540]

The financial condition of the whole Inquisition, however, was seriously compromised by royal orders, from 1794 onward, requiring investments to be sold and the proceeds to be placed in government securities to aid in defraying the costs of the wars, in which Spain became involved, with France and then with Portugal and England.[541] The virtual bankruptcy of the monarchy and the destruction consequent on the Napoleonic wars naturally reduced it to the greatest straits, the results of which will be seen when we come to investigate its finances as a whole.

Considering the liberal salary and allowances which, in the eighteenth century, amounted to 4030 ducats for each full member, the labor was not heavy. The council held daily sessions of three hours in the morning and, on three days of the week—Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays—a two hours’ session in the afternoon at which were present the two auxiliary members from the Council of Castile, who received 1400 ducats. The pay of the inquisitor-general was nearly 7000 ducats,[542] besides which he usually held a bishopric and the members some comfortable preferment. The meetings of the Council were originally held in the apartments of the inquisitor-general, until the accession of Philip IV, when the house of the condemned favorite, Rodrigo Calderon, was purchased for it and became its permanent office.[543]

CHAPTER II.

THE TRIBUNAL.

The delimitation of the land into districts, each subject to its own tribunal, was naturally a work of time. In the early period, when there were Converso suspects everywhere, it mattered little where an Inquisition was set up, for it could find abundant occupation in any place and, when the field was temporarily exhausted, it could transfer itself elsewhere in search of a fresh harvest. Ferdinand, in his instructions to the inquisitors of Saragossa, in 1485, tells them that wherever in Aragon they think that an Inquisition is necessary, they are to notify Torquemada, who will send inquisitors there.[544] Thus we hear of tribunals in Aragon at Teruel, Jaca, Tarazona, Barbastro and Calatayud; there was one, partly Aragonese and partly Catalan—Lérida and Huesca, which was not divided between Saragossa and Barcelona until 1532. In Catalonia there were tribunals at Perpignan and Balaguer, and, in Castile, others more or less permanent, at Medina del Campo, Avila, Guadalupe, Osuna, Jaen, Xeres, Alcaraz, Plasencia, Burgos, Durango, Leon and doubtless many other places.[545] Even as late as 1501, a royal cédula announces that Deza is about to send inquisitors with their officials to various bishoprics to provide them with tribunals and all receivers were instructed to pay them such sums as he might designate.[546] Under such conditions there could be no very precise boundaries of jurisdiction, for it mattered little who burnt a Judaizing New Christian, but it was otherwise with the confiscations which required to be garnered by those responsible and authorized by the king, and the first strict definitions of districts would seem to have arisen in commissioning receivers. Thus, in 1498, the receiver of Saragossa is qualified for the sees of Saragossa and Tarazona; he of Valencia for those of Valencia, Tortosa, Segorbe and Teruel, while we hear of one for Huesca, Gerona and Urgel, apparently distinct from Barcelona.[547]

For a considerable time, moreover, the tribunals, to a certain extent, were ambulatory, travelling around with their whole corps of officials and empowered to take possession of such buildings as they might require, wherever they saw fit to establish themselves for a time, while the receivers were instructed not to require of them an account of their travelling expenses. The regulations for such an itinerant court may be gathered from a cédula of May 17, 1517, addressed to all the officials and inhabitants of Leon and the bishoprics of Plasencia, Coria, Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo, instructing them to give free lodgement, but not in inns, to the inquisitors and their officials and to charge them only current prices for food. Where they settle for a time and set up their court, they are to rent lodgings in houses where they can have the use of one door and the owner of another, while suitable provision must be had for an audience-chamber and a secret prison; the rent is to be determined by appraisers mutually selected but, if the stay is less than a year, rent will be payable only for the time of occupancy. There is to be no opposition or maltreatment, but they are to have all aid and favor under penalty of ten thousand maravedís.[548] The power thus conferred of temporary expropriation was not always exercised considerately. In 1514, Hernando Sánchez of Llerena complained to Ferdinand that, seven years before, the inquisitors had taken his house, compelling him to build another, and this they were now about to seize; Ferdinand compassionated him and prohibited them from doing so. It was otherwise when the tribunal, in 1516, was transferred to Plasencia. The corregidor reported that the most suitable house was that of the dean who was residing in Rome and had rented it; when he was told to turn out the tenant and install the tribunal, the rent, as usual, to be determined by two valuers.[549] Even the episcopal dignity had to give way to the exigencies of the Inquisition. The Bishop of Cuenca was president of the audiencia of Toro and, during his absence, his palace was occupied by the tribunal. In 1519 he was about to return and gave it notice to quit, when Charles V wrote to him that, if he was going to Cuenca, he could find other buildings for his residence; the Inquisition had spent much money on the prisons and must not be disturbed—nor was this the only similar case.[550] Yet existing rights were sometimes respected. When, in Seville, the castle of Triana was assigned to the tribunal, the Count-duke of San Lucar was its hereditary alcaide; he ceded his position in exchange for the hereditary office of alguazil mayor of the tribunal and, in 1706, this office was still enjoyed by his descendants, the Marquises of Leganes, to whom it was reckoned to be worth 150,000 maravedís a year. A similar bargain was made with the Marquis del Carpio, who was hereditary alcaide of the royal alcázar of Córdova, when it was occupied by the tribunal of that city and, in 1706, the marquis of the period was drawing an income of 100,000 maravedís from it. In both cases the incumbents provided deputies at their own expense.[551]

In the original economical simplicity of the institution, Torquemada, in 1485, ordered that all the officials should lodge in one house, but, as the personnel of the tribunals waxed larger and self-indulgence increased, this rule became obsolete and houses were furnished to the subordinates, the rents of which, under instructions from Cardinal Manrique, about 1525, were defrayed from the fines and penances levied on culprits.[552] This became the general rule, although there are some instances of its inobservance and of individual officials complaining of adverse discrimination in not being thus favored.[553] In thus providing houses for its employees the Inquisition claimed the right of eminent domain and vindicated it after the usual arbitrary fashion, when it encountered resistance, as occurred in Valladolid in 1612. The secretary of the tribunal wanted a house which was occupied by an official of the chancellery, or high court of justice for Old Castile and Leon. The tribunal incontinently ejected him and installed its secretary, who in turn was ousted by the offended court. The judges were promptly excommunicated and the court rejoined by fining the parish priests for publishing the censures; arrests were made on both sides; the court imposed fines on the inquisitors who replied by threats of further anathemas. The chronicler fails to inform us of the outcome but, under Philip III, there can be little doubt of the final triumph of the tribunal.[554]

The cédula of 1517 was repeated in another of February 8, 1543 and remained as a permanent regulation. In 1645 a formula shows that, whenever any official travelled on the business of a tribunal, he was furnished with a letter embodying the cédula of 1543 and commanding, in the customary imperious style, that he be furnished with free lodging, and beds and provisions at current rates, under pain of excommunication and a fine of a hundred thousand maravedís.[555]

The organization of the tribunal at first was exceedingly simple. We have seen how, in 1481, in Seville, two Dominican friars, with a legal assessor to guide them, and a fiscal as prosecuting officer, did such active work that they speedily required two receivers of confiscations to gather in the products of their industry. There must doubtless have been subordinates to attend to the clerical duties, to serve citations and to take charge of prisoners, but the tribunal was manned on the most economical basis and there was no time wasted. After four years’ experience, Torquemada defined a tribunal as consisting of two inquisitors, an assessor, an alguazil and a fiscal, with such notaries and other minor officials as might be necessary; they were to receive salaries and no fees were to be charged under pain of dismissal, and no inquisitor was to use an official as a household servant.[556] In this no account was taken of the force necessary to secure and handle the confiscations, for these were the concern of the sovereigns and as yet their management was distinct from the prosecution of heretics. It constituted an intricate business, involving innumerable questions arising from claims of every description, which at first were settled in the secular courts, not always to Ferdinand’s satisfaction. He grew intensely anxious to bring them within the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, declaring that if they were decided according to the law of the land he would never get justice.[557] For awhile these duties were therefore thrown upon the inquisitors; in 1499, in the tribunal of Burgos and Palencia, Rodrigo de Cargüello is styled inquisitor and judge of confiscations at a salary of 75,000 while his colleague, Alonso de Torres, receives only 60,000.[558] Eventually, as we shall see, a subsidiary court for this purpose was established in each tribunal under a juez de bienes, or judge of confiscations.

Ferdinand was thriftily resolved that the profits of persecution should be protected against the growth of expenses and he struggled, though in vain, against the expansion of the pay-roll. Writing to Torquemada, July 22, 1486, he protests against the efforts of the inquisitors to multiply salaried positions—the torturer, the scriveners, the deputy alguaziles—the alguazil should supply the latter and also pay the portero; the pay-roll is already excessive and the inquisitors demand so many salaries that they must be carefully watched.[559]

Ferdinand might chafe under the increasing burdens, but he could not check them. In this same year we find him obliged to give orders for the payment, in the tribunal of Saragossa, of two inquisitors, an assessor, an episcopal vicar-general, an advocate fiscal, a procurator fiscal, an alguazil, two notaries, a receiver of witnesses, two messengers, a receiver and his scrivener, a physician, and a royal notary for the confiscations, whose salaries amounted to 37,700 sueldos (about 1800 ducats), to which were to be added ayudas de costa, not as yet an established custom, but prevalent in one form or another. At the same time the pay-roll of the tribunal of Medina del Campo was somewhat smaller, amounting to about 1550 ducats, although there were three inquisitors and an assessor, for there were fewer minor officials.[560] In 1493 the tribunal of Valencia, one of the most active, was run with only one inquisitor and no assessor, costing only about 1450 ducats.[561] At the same time it should be borne in mind that these sums include the prison expenses, defrayed by the alguazil out of his salary, which was usually the largest in the list—an arrangement more economical than conducive to the welfare of the captives.

The law of growth continued to operate. A list of ayudas de costa for Valladolid, in 1515, shows three inquisitors, a fiscal, an alguazil, three notaries of the secreto or trial-chamber, a receiver, a notary of sequestrations, a gaoler, a messenger and a portero.[562] In 1568, Philip II, in defining the salaried officials exempt from taxation enumerates, for this same tribunal, two or three inquisitors, a fiscal, an alguazil, an auditor, a judge of confiscations, four notaries of the secreto, a notary of sequestrations, a receiver, a messenger, a portero, an alcaide of the secret prison and one of the penitential prison, a notary of the juzgado or court of confiscations, an advocate of the fisc, a procurator of the fisc, two chaplains, a physician, a barber, a surgeon and a steward for the poor prisoners.[563] Besides these salaried officials, there was an indefinite number of unsalaried ones, consultors, who served in the consultas de fe, calificadores or censors, who pronounced on the charges prior to arrest and sat in judgement on books and writings, advocates of the accused, “personas honestas” who were present at the ratification of witnesses, in addition to the familiars and commissioners with their notaries. Then there came subsequently to be other officials, either salaried or living on fees—the notary de lo civil or secretary in civil cases, the notary of actos positivos in matters of limpieza, the depository with whom applicants to prove their limpieza had to deposit in advance the cost of investigation, the superintendent of sequestrations, the superintendent of property, the proveedor or purveyor of food for prisoners and, in some tribunals, the locksmith and bricklayer were reckoned as officials.[564] Even when the salaries were trifling, the pressure for place was incessant, in order to enjoy the privileges and exemptions of the Inquisition, and we shall see that when financial despair caused offices to be offered for sale they were eagerly purchased, irrespective of profit.

This overgrown personnel was admitted to be an abuse and repeated efforts were made for its reform. A decree of June 19, 1629, repeated in 1638, prescribed the number to be allowed in each tribunal but, as usual, these provisions were disregarded or eluded. In 1643 Philip IV animadverted on this disobedience; the excessive number of officials caused the greatest evils, both to the tribunals and the kingdom, and he ordered their reduction to the ancient standard in the briefest time possible. To this the inquisitor-general replied, fully admitting that this overplus of officials was the cause of the impaired character of the Inquisition and of the insufficiency of the revenues to meet the salaries; the Suprema, he said, had repeatedly attempted a reform, but the misfortunes of the times and the pressure of the king had rendered it powerless and the only remedy would be a papal brief defining numbers and invalidating all surplus commissions. The Suprema, on its side, presented a consulta suggesting a reissue of the decrees of 1629 and 1638, while the inquisitor-general should be deprived of power to exceed these limitations. It further stated that it had sent orders to each tribunal prescribing the numbers and requiring them to be reduced forthwith.[565]

The effect of all this was nugatory. In the Aragon Concordia, forced upon the king in 1646, the number allowed to a tribunal, in addition to the inquisitors and fiscal, commissioners and their notaries and familiars, was twenty-three, which shows how excessive had been the practice.[566] What this was elsewhere is indicated in a memorial from Majorca, about 1650, occasioned by the imprisonment in chains of a familiar, named Reginaldo Estado, because he desired to resign on being appointed Consul del Mar. The opportunity is taken of representing the evils arising from the multiplication of officials, as set forth in a previous petition of January 11, 1647, and protesting that the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the Inquisition was the total ruin of the people, so that they would welcome its limitation to matters of faith as a full recompense for all the services rendered to the crown. In each of the thirty-four villages, outside of the capital, there were three officials, besides familiars. In Palma they were multiplied without limit, by creating places that had no duties and appointing assistants and deputies ad libitum, while all the tradespeople and mechanics employed were reckoned as officials, bringing the number up to a hundred and fifty besides familiars. All these, with their wives and children and household servants, and the widows of the deceased, enjoyed the active and passive fuero in both civil and criminal cases, bringing in large revenues to the tribunal, through the excessive costs of litigation, and stimulating oppression of all kinds endured through dread of its censures. This memorial, with evidence sustaining its allegations, was submitted to the Council of Aragon which, after due examination, reported it to the king with a recommendation that the officials and familiars in Majorca should be reduced to what was necessary for the business of the tribunal, but there is no trace that attention was paid to this advice.[567]

These Mallorquin grievances reveal not only the consequences but the causes of this inordinate multiplication of official positions. It had been stimulated, moreover, by the suicidal policy of selling offices and of creating them for the purpose of sale—one of the ruinous expedients resorted to by Philip IV in his desperate efforts to make an exhausted treasury supply the extravagance of the court and the drain of foreign wars. There is no positive evidence that this example was followed by inquisitors for their individual profit, but it would be surprising if this were not occasionally the case. Venality had crept in as early as 1595, when Philip II, in his instructions to Manrique de Lara, speaks of an innovation by which offices were transferred for money—sometimes for large sums—which was very prejudicial and caused much murmuring.[568] These apparently were transactions between individuals, but they could not take place without the connivance of the appointing power, and from this the step to creating offices for sale was easily taken, when the pressure or the temptation was sufficient. It came in 1629, though in justice to Philip IV it must be said that he hesitated before succumbing. In that year the Suprema assembled, December 23rd, a number of theologians and submitted for their opinion the proposition that, in every place where there were six familiars, one of them should be permitted to purchase the vara or wand of an alguazil, with the title and all the privileges and exemptions, being a valuable privilege that would bring in much money. The theologians pronounced the scheme lawful, with advantages far outweighing its disadvantages, and suggested that districts might be combined so as to furnish the six familiars. The proceeds were evidently intended for the exchequer of the Suprema for, when the plan was submitted to Philip, he said that it might greatly prejudice the public peace and referred it to the Council of Castile and the Suprema. Finally, on March 20, 1630, he returned it to the inquisitor-general saying that it had been approved by persons of learning and conscience and he asked for an estimate of its productiveness.[569]

After some further parleying the scheme was adopted and announced to the tribunals by the Suprema, August 7, 1631. The limitation of one familiar out of six was abandoned and the offer was thrown open to all who could prove limpieza; the sale was for three lives, the commissions were issued by the inquisitor-general himself, the vara of the alguazilship carried with it a familiarship and the only limitation was that, if the third life fell to one who could not prove limpieza, the tribunal could sell it again and report to the Suprema.[570] Thus the sale went on, the ostensible object being the payment of the troops; there was no limit to the alguazilships and finally other offices came into the market—the depositario de pretendientes, the notariat of civil causes, of the juzgado, of sequestrations, and receiverships, auditorships, etc. It goes without saying that simple familiarships were sold and, in 1642, we hear of a block of three hundred being offered.[571] Regulations issued between 1631 and 1643 show that, although public auctions were nominally forbidden, the positions were put up privately and sold to the highest bidder. Even women sought to obtain the privileges attached to the offices and, in 1641, it was found necessary to prohibit receiving bids from them, except when made in favor of men whom they were about to marry.[572] In 1639 Philip proposed even to put up for sale the office of alguazil mayor of the Suprema and of all the tribunals, by which he expected to defray the pay of 400 foot and 200 horse. This staggered the Suprema, which represented that papal authority would be necessary and the proceeds would be small, as the places were all filled and would fall in slowly, while only that of the Suprema and three or four others would fetch considerable sums, reasoning which put a quietus on the project.[573]

From various indications we may assume that the confidential posts in the secreto were not sold and that offices of active duty in the tribunals were sold only when vacated, although a decree of 1641 shows that they were vacated for the purpose. The prices realized were large. February 6, 1644, Valencia reported that the sale by auction of the unimportant office of depositario de pretendientes for 6000 reales of full-weight silver had been cancelled because the purchaser insisted that it conferred the exemptions of an office in the secreto.[574] A reply of the Suprema, February 11, 1643, to a request from Philip for means to pay 400 foot and 200 horse for eight months, gives us the prices fetched by a number of positions and also shows that the terms varied from spot cash to instalments running through a year or two. In Murcia, it says, there were still due 3500 ducats vellon for the offices of auditor and notary of sequestrations; in Seville the receivership had been auctioned for 8500 ducats, of which 2000 were in silver, and there was still due 1000 ducats in silver for an auditorship; in Llerena the notariat of sequestrations had brought at auction 3000 ducats vellon; in Logroño the auditorship had fetched 1000 ducats vellon; in Toledo the receivership had been sold at auction for 6360 ducats vellon; in Córdova the receivership had brought 5000 ducats, one-fourth in silver; the aggregate, payable at various periods, was 4250 ducats silver and 24,110 ducats vellon—but the final remark of the Suprema shows the incurable prodigality of Philip, even in his deepest distress, for it quietly adds that none of this is available because it had all been granted by royal decree to Don Pedro Pacheco, a member of the Suprema.[575]

We are told that when, in 1643, Arce y Reynoso assumed the inquisitor-generalship, he recognized that there were too many supernumeraries and that he prohibited the sale of offices until further orders. If so, the intermission was but temporary, for a royal decree of 1648 shows that it was still going on, and, in 1710, we happen to hear of the sale in Valencia of a notariat del juzgado for four lives for 16,000 reales.[576] In 1715 the tribunal of Peru seems to have been doing a little business of the kind on its own account, which the Suprema promptly stopped, stigmatizing it as simoniacal.[577] This probably indicates that it had ceased in Spain, but the custom of selling for three or four lives seems to have been conducive to longevity, for many continued to be thus held until late in the eighteenth century. An investigation ordered, in 1783, into the records concerning them, indicates that there were still survivors, or at least claimants, whose titles were to be scrutinized.[578]

It was impossible to get rid of those who held offices under these grants for successive lives, but efforts were made to reduce the numbers of the class that had not been put up at auction. In 1677, Valladares represented to Carlos II that the income of the Inquisition did not meet more than half the expenses for salaries, prisons, etc., wherefore he recommended that, as vacancies occurred, the offices should be suppressed until, in the busiest tribunals, there should not be more than three inquisitors, a fiscal and four secretaries, while in the smaller ones two inquisitors, a fiscal and three secretaries would suffice. The king assented and the plan was enlarged by leaving unfilled other superfluous places. Like other reforms, this was not permanent. In 1695 Carlos caused Rocaberti to investigate the personnel of the tribunals and to enforce the regulations of 1677. About 1705, Philip V, in his attempted reform, instituted a searching examination into the increase in numbers and salaries since the time of Arce y Reynoso and of Rocaberti, and the Inquisitor-general Vidal Marin again put in force the schedule of 1677, which continued to be, nominally at least, the rule. At intervals, as in 1714, 1728 and 1733, inquiries were made and reports were ordered from the tribunals, doubtless with a view to see that the limitations were observed for, under the Bourbons, the Inquisition was held to an accountability much stricter than of old.[579]

We have seen the futile effort of Philip V, in 1743, to reduce the overgrown numbers of officials in the Santa Cruzada and Inquisition. It was possibly in connection with this that Prado y Cuesta, on his accession in 1746, demanded from all tribunals detailed reports as to all officials and their salaries, stating any vacancies or supernumeraries, and whether there were more familiars than were allowed by the Concordias. The answers to this ought to give a complete census of the Holy office. In the Appendix will be found a table compiled from these returns and also the report from Murcia, at that time one of the most active of the tribunals, which give a tolerably clear inside view of existing conditions. These documents represent an institution which had outlived its purpose, rapidly falling into decadence, no longer commanding popular veneration and chiefly useful as a refuge for those who were content to live on a miserable pittance in virtual idleness. The diminished number of consultors indicates, as we shall see hereafter, that the consulta de fe was falling into desuetude, while the army of calificadores points to the fact that the chief business consisted in the censorship of the press and the prosecution of propositions requiring theologians to define them. The irregularity in the number of commissioners is explained by the Murcia report which shows that, for the most part, they were omitted from the statements, but it is not so easy to understand the absence of alguazils, of whom at least one would seem to be necessary to each tribunal. There are many honorary officials and others serving without pay, while still others are jubilado or retired, especially among the secretaries and, where there are two receivers, one is jubilado or absent.

The paucity of keepers of penitential prisons shows that that punishment had become practically obsolete. With the absence of confiscations the juez de bienes has disappeared, except in Majorca. The blanks in the returns of familiars, although information concerning them had specially demanded, may be due either to the tribunals keeping no registers of them, or to concealment of the fact that the numbers allowed by the Concordias were exceeded. That there were serious omissions, indeed is proved when we consider that the total aggregate reported is only 951, while the census of 1769 gives 2645 as the number of those admitted to exemption through connection with the Inquisition. During the interval between this and the next census in 1787, strenuous and successful efforts were made to diminish the number of exempts, in spite of which the employees of the Inquisition had increased to 2705.[580]

Surveying the table as a whole it will be perceived that the higher offices of inquisitors and secretaries had rather increased than diminished from the standard set by Valladares in 1667. Yet there was virtually no serious work for them to do. Their predecessors had successfully enforced unity of faith and little remained except to repress all freedom of thought and aspiration for improvement. How they earned their salaries by laborious trifling is exemplified, in 1808, when three inquisitors and an inquisitor-fiscal of the Valencia tribunal pottered for eighteen months over the case of a poor laboring woman accused of “supersticiones,” because she had suggested certain charms to some of her neighbors, and finally concluded to suspend it and to order her parish priest to reprimand and threaten her.[581]

The tribunals were constantly complaining of their penury and of the inadequacy of the salaries, doubtless with reason, but the pressure for appointment precluded the wholesome reduction in numbers which would have afforded relief. It was probably with a view to some practical re-adjustment that the Suprema repeatedly, in 1776, 1783, 1793 and 1806 called upon the tribunals for full and exact reports of all employees.[582] If so, the only result was a trifling increase in the salaries of the lower officials, averaging about fourteen per cent., leading to a complaint, in 1798, repeated in 1802, that the pay of the secretaries and messenger—the hardest worked of all the officials—had remained unchanged for a hundred years, while the cost of living had quadrupled and they had been deprived of their old exemptions and emoluments. It took, as the Valencia tribunal declared, half of their salaries to rent a decent house, which would seem to show that they were no longer furnished with dwellings.[583]

The excess of officials is emphasized by the fact that the Inquisition was empowered to call upon every individual for gratuitous service. Its commissioners were told that, if there was no appointed notary available, he could make another one serve and, when he summoned any one to accompany him on duty, even to a distant place, if the party refused to go he was to report the fact to the tribunal that it might take the proper steps.[584] Temporary commissions were constantly sent to the parish priest or to a canon, even when their names were unknown, with instructions as to what they were required to do. As the real work of the tribunals diminished there was an increasing habit of deputing what remained to outsiders. Inquisitors, who did not decide more than five or six trivial cases in a year, were too indolent to investigate denunciations or examine witnesses and would issue a commission to some priest or friar to do the work for them.[585] They spared their subordinates in the same way. Thus, in 1791, at Barcelona, there was some reason for identifying a man described as Alexandre Valle, sergeant in the second battalion of the Walloon guards. In place of sending one of the underlings of the tribunal on so simple an errand, a formal commission was made out to Francisco Lluc, Augustinian prior, who in due time reported that he had found him in the sixth battalion.[586] If the salaries were trivial so was the work which earned them.