It is not a little remarkable that, when the institution was introduced in Castile, so little was known of its practical working that its procedure was public, like that of the secular and spiritual courts. Thus, in 1483, the record of a trial in Ciudad Real speaks of the inquisitors sitting in public audience; the notaries specify as present at the hearing certain persons by name “and many others who were there present;” the inquisitors were listening to all who came before them, while the fiscal and notary were making reports.[1369] It was deemed necessary that there should be spectators to bear witness to the proceedings; sometimes these were connected with the tribunal, sometimes they were citizens called in for the purpose, whose names were regularly entered upon the record.[1370] Even the prison, subsequently guarded so jealously, was not as yet known as the cárceles secretas, but as a cárcel publica.[1371] In 1488, the Instructions order the records to be kept “in a public place, where the inquisitors customarily perform the duties of the Inquisition.”[1372] The earliest indication of a change in this respect occurs in the Instructions of 1498, where the oath prescribed for inquisitors and other officials contains a pledge of secrecy.[1373] This did not, as yet however, extend to a complete exclusion of publicity, for some Toledo trials of 1501 describe the fiscal as presenting his clamosa, or demand for prosecution, where the inquisitors were sitting as customary in their public audience, but, during the trial itself, they sat in the “audiencia de cárcel.”[1374] From the expressions used we may assume that as yet the inquisition building and the prison were separate; that public audiences were held in the former, and that the latter contained a room to which the accused could be brought from his cell when on trial. The secreto, which subsequently embraced the prison and everything beyond the ante-chambers, as yet only designated a chest or a room in which the records and registers were kept in safety.[1375]

Yet even during this early period there had commenced, in certain portions of procedure, a practice of secrecy which markedly differentiated the Inquisition from the ecclesiastical and secular courts. The suppression of the names and identity of witnesses and the strict seclusion of prisoners from the outside world are matters which will be more fully discussed hereafter, but already they had become distinctive features of the inquisitorial process, inflicting great hardship on the accused, which was keenly felt. The tendency of all such abuses to development, the facility with which the reasons alleged in justification could be extended over all the acts of the Inquisition, and the attraction of the arbitrary and irresponsible power thus gained, readily explain the rapid evolutionary process which enveloped, with an impenetrable veil of secrecy, everything connected with the tribunals, from the preliminary inquest and the arrest of the accused, to his discharge or appearance in an auto de fe.

The obligation of the oath of secrecy was rigidly construed when, in 1523, the vicar-general of Saragossa seems to have babbled about what he had heard when called in to vote at a consulta de fe, and the Suprema ordered the inquisitors to summon him and warn him not to reveal the secrets of the Holy Office.[1376] In 1544, Mari Serrana, on trial at Toledo, was charged with impeding the Inquisition, because she had endeavored to ascertain whether a certain person had testified in another case and what he had said—the mere attempt to learn what went on within those mysterious walls was treated as a crime.[1377] In 1547, when the tribunal of Granada was moved into new quarters, it found its secrecy imperilled by the fact that it was overlooked by some windows in the house of Francisco de Santa Cruz, and, on its complaint to Prince Philip, he ordered the corregidor to have those windows closed up—apparently without compensation to the owner.[1378] So impenetrable was the shroud enveloping all that took place within the tribunal that, when Philip II deemed it imperative to consult a distinguished surgeon who had been arrested, Inquisitor-general Quiroga left two applications unanswered and to a third replied that, if the person was there, he could not be taken out, nor could it even be told whether he was or was not a prisoner, whereupon the king desisted from his request. On this the comment of an inquisitor is that to all inquiries the answer must be that nothing is known.[1379] So when, in 1643, the Suprema argued against the claim of the Justicia of Aragon to grant his manifestacion or habeas corpus in secular cases, the chief reason alleged was that, if a tribunal could be required to differentiate cases of faith from others and to admit that it had a certain person in its prison, and the cause, its secrecy would be violated.[1380] This was emphasized, in 1678, by a declaration of the Suprema that an inquisitor admitting that any individual was in the secret prison would incur excommunication removable only by the pope.[1381] It is easy to understand why the prison was habitually designated as the cárceles secretas and why, when a person was arrested, he disappeared as utterly as though the earth had swallowed him.

At every step in the progress of a case minute precautions were taken to insure absolute secrecy. It was not only all officials who were thus sworn, but accuser and accused and their witnesses were subjected to the same obligation. As early as 1531, a witness when dismissed was ordered to observe silence as to all that he had said or heard, under pain of excommunication and a thousand ducats, and of the other penalties of those who violate the secrecy of the Holy Office.[1382] As late as 1817, in a trifling case which was suspended, the informer was fined for not having preserved secrecy.[1383] It was the same with the accused. At the very first audience, the oath administered to tell the truth contained a clause pledging him to silence, not only as to his own case but as to all that he might see or hear. When he was dismissed, whether to punishment or to freedom, he was required to sign a pledge under oath to the same effect, to which was added a threat of punishment, occasionally taking the shape of one or two hundred lashes.[1384] In the later years of the Inquisition this was frequently reinforced by including in the sentence a clause prohibiting the culprit from talking in any manner about his case.[1385] The tribunal thus was relieved from responsibility and could commit injustice without fear of unpleasant revelations, and the Holy Office could boast, as it customarily did, of the exquisite equity of its judgements, without danger of contradiction. To what extent this was justified may be guessed from a remark of Peña, that no inspection was allowed of the acts of the tribunals because they were often in conflict with the common law and the universal opinion of the doctors.[1386]

Nothing connected with the proceedings of the Inquisition was allowed to remain outside of its walls. Every letter, or mandate, or instruction, or warrant, sent out was invariably required to be returned with the answer or endorsement of its execution. Even the Edicts of Faith and Anathemas given out for publication in the churches were returned with statements of the day on which they were publicly read.[1387] This applied to the counsel entrusted with the defence of the accused. Not only was he sworn to secrecy and to communicate with no one concerning the cases, but the scanty papers entrusted to him were to be kept under lock and key and be scrupulously returned to the tribunal, so that there should be no trace or memory of them. The formal defence which he prepared had to be written by his own hand and no rough draft of it be preserved; no printer was allowed to print such a document nor, indeed, any other paper relating to the Inquisition, without special licence from the inquisitor-general or Suprema, under pain of excommunication and a hundred ducats.[1388] This jealous reserve explains the form in which the records of the Inquisition reach us—those of each process rudely but firmly sewed together and never bound, for they could not be given out to a binder nor could one be admitted into the sacred precincts of the secreto. These injunctions of secrecy were not allowed to be a dead letter. In the Edicts of Faith special clauses called for the denunciation of all cases of violation, or of papers concerning its acts being in the possession of any one.[1389]

Its procedure was guarded with the same anxious care from public knowledge. In 1573, Leonardo Donato, the Venetian envoy, who regarded the Inquisition as necessary to Spain, describes its action as so secret that nothing was known of its victims and their cases until their sentences were published in the autos de fe, but the fear entertained of it was so universal that little was said concerning it through dread of arousing suspicion. He had been able to learn nothing of its methods, but was told that they were good and that the sentences were always just.[1390] No one, in fact, was allowed to know what was its form of procedure. The Instructions, it is true, were necessarily printed. There was an edition of the Antiguas in Seville, in 1536, reprinted in Madrid in 1576. The Nuevas of 1561 were printed in 1612 and the whole were re-edited by Arguello, an official of the Suprema, in 1627 and 1630, but these were strictly reserved for use in the tribunals and their details were constantly subject to modification by the cartas acordadas of the Suprema, which never saw the light. Experienced inquisitors drew up manuals of practice, many of which are still preserved in the MSS. of the archives and libraries, but this knowledge of the estilo or methods of procedure was strictly confined to officials sworn to secrecy. It was apparently soon after the preparation of the Instructions of 1561 that a Doctor Blasco de Alagona had the audacity to ask for a copy of them, when the fiscal, to whom the petition was referred, declared that the granting of such a request would be unexampled, and he had no difficulty in proving that parties before the tribunal had no business to inquire into its methods; the Instructions were solely for its guidance and were to be known to others only by their results in the administration of justice. If they came to public knowledge, evil-intentioned men could debate whether the estilo of the Inquisition was good or bad.[1391]

The extreme importance of the “seal” was fully recognized in assuring freedom of irresponsible action and in creating the popular impression of mysterious impeccability. Philip II, in his instructions to Manrique de Lara, in 1595, dwelt on this and pointed out that “without it the Holy Office could not preserve the untrammelled exercise of its functions” wherefore any official violating it must be punished with the utmost rigor.[1392] Apparently cases of infraction occurred, drawing from the Suprema a carta acordada pointing out that all the power and authority and reputation of those serving in the Holy Office rested upon secrecy. The more secret its affairs were kept, the more they were venerated by those from whom they were concealed. The neglect of this had aroused in the Suprema the greatest resentment, as it was a matter of so great moment to the estimation and respect in which the affairs and the members of the Inquisition had always been held. Therefore it had been resolved that the oath of secrecy, taken on admission to office, should be so construed that its infraction should constitute perjury and infidelity. Single witnesses should suffice for conviction; on a first offence the culprit should be suspended irremissibly for a year and pay fifty ducats, and on a repetition be perpetually dismissed. Even if not convicted he should realize that, in the forum of conscience, he could not draw his salary. This secrecy covered not only matters of faith and depending thereon, but all votes, orders, determinations, letters of the Suprema, informations of limpieza and all other matters, no information concerning which was to be given to the parties concerned or to any outside person, while even the public utterances of the tribunals were not to be spoken of. Moreover, the above penalties and major excommunication were incurred by all who, knowing of infractions of secrecy, did not report them to the Suprema. Finally, this carta was ordered to be filed with the Instructions, to be read annually to the assembled officials.[1393]

The instructions to commissioners warned them that the existence and preservation of the Inquisition depended chiefly on the absolute secrecy to be observed as to all its affairs.[1394] This continued to the end. A decree of the Suprema, December 7, 1814, speaks of the seal which is the soul of the Inquisition.[1395] In fact, there was no hesitation in assimilating it to the seal of confession and in employing the casuistry which justified a confessor in denying under oath what he had learned in the confessional. Similarly the official was told that no oath was binding when the affairs of the Inquisition were concerned—he could depose as to what he knew as an individual, but not what he knew as an official entrusted with its secrets.[1396] We can understand the significance of the popular saying con el rey y la inquisicion, chiton!—keep silence as to the king and the Inquisition.

Even within the tribunals the same mystery was observed in investigating cases of infraction. When an intimation was received that secrecy had been violated, the junior inquisitor examined into it and wrote out the “information” with his own hand, and without allowing any one to know of it. This was then deposited in a separate chest, of which the senior inquisitor held the key; the Suprema was advised of the matter and its instructions were awaited.[1397]

Not the least important result of this secrecy was the fact that it enabled the Inquisition to combine legislative and judicial functions in a manner known to no other tribunal. It framed its own code and administered it in darkness. It is true, as we shall have occasion to see, that many of the regulations and limitations of the Instructions were inspired by a sense of justice, but this mattered little when the secrecy, so jealously preserved, practically left everything to the discretion of the tribunal, until the Suprema absorbed and centralized everything into itself. Shielded from responsibility—save to the more or less perfunctory occasional visitation of an inspector—there was scarce any injustice that could not be safely perpetrated, or any enmity that a perjured witness could not gratify. The secrets of those dark prison-houses will never be known, even by the records, for these were framed by those whose acts they recount and they may be true or falsified. What was the real administration of so-called justice can only be guessed by occasional revelations such as we chance to have in the trials of Archbishop Carranza, of the Nuns of San Placido, of Gerónimo de Villanueva, of Fray Froilan Díaz and, when the principles of justice were set at naught by the chiefs of the Inquisition in the cases of those so prominent, it is not likely that the obscure were treated with greater consideration by the tribunals. At its best, the inquisitorial process left much to the temper and disposition of the judge; as modified by the Inquisition, the fate of the accused was virtually at the discretion of the tribunal, and that discretion was relieved of the wholesome restraint of publicity. At a time when, as we have seen, the secular courts, although open to the public, were little better than instruments of oppression and extortion, it is not to be imagined that the inquisitorial tribunals, shrouded in impenetrable secrecy, and largely dependent for support on fines and confiscations, were scrupulous in the administration of the cruel laws against heresy.

In the original medieval Inquisition the procedure was a pure inquisitio, the inquisitor frankly acting as both prosecutor and judge, collecting testimony, examining witnesses, seeking to make the accused confess or convict himself, and passing sentence. As the institution, in the fifteenth century, declined and became disorganized, its duties were to some extent resumed by the bishops, in whose courts the pressure of multifarious business had long rendered necessary a prosecuting officer, known as the promotor fiscal, duly trained in the civil and canon law. Cases of heresy inevitably followed the routine of the court and consequently assumed the form of actions between the fiscal and the accused, as plaintiff and defendant, with the bishop or his Official as judge.[1398]

This, at least in appearance, removed one of the most repulsive features of the pure inquisitorial process, as the judge was no longer a party to the case and could affect a semblance of impartiality, even though he were, in reality, the instigator of the prosecution. When the Holy Office was established in Castile, it assumed to be merely the continuance of the Old Inquisition; in its collections of privileges it included papal thirteenth century bulls, along with the modern ones, and the ferocious laws of Frederic II with the cédulas of the Catholic kings.[1399] Yet it knew so little of the older formulas and procedure that it adopted those of the secular and spiritual tribunals of the period, and thus its practice assumed the external form of accusatio rather than of inquisitio, with a fiscal, or public prosecutor, as an accuser. While, on the surface, this was a step towards fairness and justice, care was taken that the interests of the faith should not suffer. It gave to the inquisitors the assistance of a trained lawyer, whose business it was to prove his charges, who lost no opportunity of exaggerating the offences imputed to the accused, who assumed that they had been proved, who resisted all the efforts of the defence to disprove them, and who was free from all the penalties and responsibilities of an accuser. The form of sentence, adopted at the beginning and steadfastly adhered to, asserts that the judges have been listening to a case pending between the fiscal and the defendant, and they find that the fiscal either has proved his charges completely or partially, or that he has failed to do so.[1400] This was an assumption perfectly false and intended to deceive the people when read in an auto de fe.

It was the inquisitors who gathered testimony. The Instructions of 1484 expressly order the examination of witnesses to be made personally by an inquisitor and not to be committed to a notary, unless the witness is too sick to appear and it should be indecent for the inquisitor to go to him, when he could empower the ecclesiastical judge to perform the duty with a notary.[1401] Business was too pressing, however, for the inquisitors always to examine witnesses and they frequently deputized persons to act for them, but those deputies were never the fiscal, and the apologetic tone of the commission shows that it was irregular and demanded an excuse.[1402] As time went on, the tendency to shirk the labor increased; the notaries were allowed to examine, by the Instructions of 1498, provided it was in presence of the inquisitor; then this condition was neglected, in spite of vehement remonstrance by the Suprema, and finally, in the later period, when there was little serious work to be done, special commissions, as we have seen, were common, apparently with no greater excuse than the indolence of the inquisitors.[1403]

Still, the fiction was preserved that the witnesses were presented by the fiscals, although the Suprema, in 1534, informed them that it was no part of their duty to collect evidence, although if they obtained any, they were to communicate it to the inquisitors.[1404] Their duties, in fact, in addition to seeking the condemnation of the accused, were those of a superior clerk of the court—to draw up accusations, to conduct correspondence, to advise the inquisitors, to marshall the evidence, to keep the records in order or to see that the secretaries did so, to attend to the execution of sentences, and to exercise a general supervision over the officials, besides attending the meetings of the junta de hacienda and looking after the financial interests of the tribunal.[1405] The fiscal, moreover, served a useful purpose as a bogey to frighten the accused, who were constantly threatened with what would happen if they did not confess before he was admitted to present a formal accusation, in which he customarily demanded torture and relaxation for them—but, after all, his chief use was to preserve the fiction that the prosecution was an action between parties. As Simancas says, even when the culprit confesses, the fiscal must present an accusation, in order that a judgement may be based on accuser, accused and judge.[1406] In short, he was simply one of the officers of the court who, as a trained lawyer, gave to the inquisitors, who were apt to be theologians, the benefit of his legal knowledge. His only real position as a party to an action was a distinct disadvantage to the accused for, in case of acquittal or of a sentence which he deemed too light, he had the right, not infrequently exercised, of appealing to the Suprema, and consequently his assent to the decision was necessary. As his dignity gradually increased, he was classed among the judges by the Córtes of Aragon in 1646;[1407] we have seen how he finally came to be known as “inquisitor-fiscal” and how his place was generally filled by one of the inquisitors, who, however, abstained from the final vote on the case. The fiscal, indeed, from an early period was admitted to the consulta de fe, where he could state facts and advance arguments—a most indecent privilege—though he was required to depart before the vote was taken. In 1660 this was discontinued, not in consequence of its shocking incongruity, but because there was a troublesome question of precedence between him and the episcopal Ordinary, whose duty it was to be present.[1408]

There was nothing in the function of the fiscal to prevent the inquisitor from initiating proceedings on the strength of any rumors that might reach him, or of compromising evidence gathered from the confessions of others. He had not to wait for the fiscal’s action, but could order an inquest to be made and testimony to be taken and, when this was done, it was given to the fiscal to be put into shape for the formal prosecution. No matter how upright might be the inquisitor, the mere fact that he had ordered an arrest and trial necessarily committed him to belief in the guilt of the accused; he was unconsciously prejudiced from the start and to acquit cost a greater effort than to convict. Thus although externally the form of procedure was accusatio, in reality it was inquisitio, and the injection of the fiscal as accuser only diminished the chances of the defence, by giving the inquisitors a skilled legal assistant in the conduct of a prosecution, in which they were all prosecutors.

Yet, whatever we may think of the morality of the inquisitorial process, there can be no doubt as to its efficacy. In studying the long and minute records of the trials, where every detail is set forth in writing, it is instructive to see how often the accused, who commences by boldly asserting his orthodoxy, comes in successive audiences to make some admission of which advantage is skilfully taken and gradually the denial breaks down, or perhaps yields to the terrors of the accusation and the publication of evidence, ending in complete confession and eager implication of kindred and friends. The situation of the accused, in fact, was helpless. Standing up alone before the stern admonitions of the trained and pitiless judge; brooding in his cell, cut off from all external communication, during weeks or months of interval between his audiences; apparently forgotten, but living in the constant uncertainty of being at any moment summoned to appear; torturing his mind as to the impression which his utterances might have made, or the deductions drawn from his admissions or denials; balancing between the chances of escape, by persistent assertions of innocence, and those of condemnation as an impenitente negativo, and urged by his so-called advocate to confess and throw himself on the mercy of the tribunal—it required an exceptionally resolute temperament to endure the prolonged strain, with the knowledge that the opponent in the deadly game always had in reserve the terrible resource of the torture-chamber. The whole course of the procedure was based on the assumption that the accused was guilty; that it was the province of the tribunal to induce or compel him to confess his guilt and, in the great majority of instances the assumption was correct. To those who regarded aberrations from the faith as the greatest of crimes before God and man, and their punishment as the most acceptable service that man could render to God, this presumption of guilt served to justify the cruelty of the procedure and the denial of all facilities for defence which, to those trained in the principles of English justice, seem the imprescriptible right of the accused, whether innocent or not.

There can, indeed, be no doubt that, amid much greed and callous indifference to justice, there were men engaged in the service who deemed themselves to be doing the work of God and that their methods were merciful. The Inquisition was not as other tribunals which only punished the body; it asserted its high and holy mission to be the saving of souls. As the inquisitors of Valencia said, in 1536, to Miguel Mesquita, on his trial for Lutheranism, they required of him nothing but the truth and, if he had fallen into error, they sought to disabuse him and to cure his conscience so that his soul might not be lost.[1409]

The Instructions of 1561, which remained to the last the basis of procedure, are emphatic in cautioning inquisitors not to be led astray, either by the witnesses or by the confessions of the accused, but to determine all cases according to truth and justice; they must preserve strict impartiality for, if they lean to one side or to the other, they can readily be deceived.[1410] If we may believe the veteran inquisitor Páramo, the Holy Office was so conducted on this lofty plane as to be an unmixed blessing to the land. Its holiness, he says, is so conspicuous that there is no opening for hatred, favor, subornation, love, intercession, or other human motive. Every act is performed with such conscientiousness and regard for equity and justice; the inquisitors so investigate everything, undisturbed by the multitude, that they inspire all men with dread of the crimes which are brought before them and, in the all-pervading silence, they act with incredible conscientiousness. The evidence of witnesses is scrutinized in the light of their character and quality and those who are found to bear false-witness are most severely punished. The accused, while detained in the prisons, are treated kindly and liberally, according to their condition; the poor and the sick are abundantly furnished with food and medicines, at the expense of the fisc, and are favored in every way. Not only are the utterances of witnesses investigated with distrust but, as Time is the revealer of truth, cases are not hurriedly finished but are prudently prolonged, as is requisite when there is such peril of the life, fame and property, not only of the accused but of his kindred. If his innocence appears probable, every effort is made to prove it and, if it is proved, to avert from him any loss of reputation, for which reason he is carried on horseback, adorned with laurels and palms like a victor in a triumph—a spectacle inspiring to the souls of the timid, depressed by the severity with which the guilty are punished. Those who are restored from such peril to their former condition never cease to thank God for placing on earth a tribunal of which the chief care is to uphold the honor of the innocent. When inquisitors punish heretics it is not with the desire to destroy them, but that they shall be converted and live. In judging and chastising, the Holy Office labors to amend him whom it punishes, or to benefit others by his punishment, so that they may live in security when the wicked are removed.[1411]

To what extent this idealization of inquisitorial methods was justified, we have had some opportunity to see, and we shall have more.

CHAPTER III.

ARREST AND SEQUESTRATION.

No duty was more strenuously inculcated on the people than that of denouncing any utterance or act partaking of calidad de oficio—that is, which came within the cognizance of the Holy Office. Divine law required this under penalty of mortal sin, and ecclesiastical law under that of excommunication.[1412] From this no ties of blood furnished release. It is true that, under the imperial jurisprudence, accusations of near relatives were forbidden; a mother could not accuse a son except of offences against herself and even a man brought up in another’s house could not accuse his benefactor.[1413] But Simancas, while highly approving of this, says that there are two cases in which a son must accuse his father—one, when under examination by the Inquisition, the other, when the father is a persistent heretic and, as the obligation of the son to the father is of the highest, this includes all other cases.[1414] The Instructions of 1484 offer mitigation of punishment to minor children who spontaneously denounce their parents, and Alfonso de Castro relates that he denied absolution to a young man, perfectly orthodox in faith, who in confession, in response to interrogatories, admitted that his father was a Judaizer, but refused to denounce him in view of the consequences to himself of poverty and infamy.[1415]

The annual publication of the Edict of Faith, with its accompanying anathemas, proclaimed this imperative obligation in the most solemn manner and, at the same time, furnished a list of the offences to be denounced, thus rendering every one a spy upon his neighbor. The denunciation might be either verbal or written and, if written, either anonymous or signed; it could be made to a tribunal or to any commissioner, and it was expected to contain the names of witnesses to be summoned in its support. These denunciations came in more frequently after the publication of the Edict of Faith, and also about Easter, when the faithful confessed in preparation for the indispensable paschal communion, and the confessors enquired whether they had denounced whatever they had heard, seen or understood that was, or appeared to be, contrary to the faith or to the rights of the Inquisition, and absolution was withheld from those refusing to do so. This denunciation and the evidence of the witnesses summoned in its support, or the testimony acquired by inquest, or by the confessions of those on trial, constituted the sumaria—the instruction préparatoire of French practice.

The tribunal, however, was held not to act summarily in so grave a matter as an arrest casting infamy on an entire lineage. After the first tumultuous period, when no one was safe from arbitrary imprisonment, the portions of the evidence which conveyed the nature of the charge, without the name of the accused, underwent the process of calificacion, or censorship, to determine whether they presented calidad de oficio. We have seen, in the cases of Carranza, of Villanueva and of Froilan Díaz, how important was the function of the calificadores, or censors, and how much sometimes depended on the manner in which the evidence was submitted to them. In the rehabilitation of the Nuns of San Placido, they were careful to declare that, if they had had to act upon the testimony laid before their predecessors, they would have reached the same conclusion. Against such garbling there could be no guarantee, in the profound secrecy enveloping every act of the tribunals.

The calificadores were learned theologians, whose duties we have already referred to (p. 263). Some were regular appointees, but any one could be called upon, nor could he refuse to serve without pay. When there was not unanimity, the inquisitors decided or submitted the case to others. There seems to have been no settled or absolute rule. In 1634, in the case of Jacques Garrigues, a wandering French beggar, professing sanctity and curative powers and claiming to be a messenger of God, not without indications of insanity, the two inquisitors joined with four calificadores in considering the evidence before arrest, but this seems to be exceptional.[1416] The resource of calling in successive calificadores in obscure cases frequently led only to a hopeless divergence of opinion, bewildering rather than assisting the inquisitors. When, in 1640, the Bernardine Fray Tomas de Nieba defended some subtle conclusions in scholastic theology, there were eleven calificadores called into service, of whom some found nothing to censure, others that the doctrine was a condemned one, others again that it merely approached to error. In the same year, in the similar case of the Franciscan Fray Juan Lazaro, one calificador pronounced his doctrine to be obscure and perilous, if not formally, at least virtually, heretical; another that to defend it was a most grave error, while two others could find in it nothing objectionable. Yet Lazaro was put on trial and, after the case had traversed its various stages for months, it was suspended, though Lazaro was ordered in future to teach the opposite opinion.[1417]

At length a carta acordada of October 8, 1708 sought to regulate the system. In all cases requiring calificacion, a correct extract was to be made from the evidence as to the acts and speeches charged, with all circumstances contributory to a clear understanding. This was to be sent to one of the calificadores, who was to keep it at least three days, and return it with his opinion, not only as to the requisite censure but also as to the defence that could be made. It was thus to pass from one to another, after which the tribunal was to call them together to frame a common opinion. Books and papers were to be treated in the same way and there was no obligation of secrecy between the parties called in.[1418]

All classes of charges were not subjected to calificacion, for there were numerous and important groups of offenders who were deprived of this safeguard, slender as it was at the best. Judaizers and Moriscos, renegades, bigamists, those administering sacraments without being in priestly orders and solicitors of women in the confessional were not entitled to it.[1419] Thus taken as a whole, up to the middle of the eighteenth century, the major portion of the business of the tribunals was exempt from calificacion and practically it was limited to the refinements of venturesome theologians, to the degree of heresy involved in more or less picturesque blasphemy, the culpability of careless or reckless talkers, and the implied pact with the demon in the conjurations of wise-women and treasure-seekers. Like much else in the Inquisition, designed for the protection of innocence, its working effect was reduced to a minimum.

At what period calificacion was introduced it would be difficult to say with precision. Llorente assures us that in 1550 it was not as yet in use.[1420] This is incorrect for, in 1520, we find the Suprema ordering that calificadores shall not be appointed without its consent and on the simple petition of aspirants.[1421] By that time the custom was evidently established and, in 1556, the Suprema explained it, not as a protection of innocence but as a means of placating the Ordinaries and showing them that inquisitors were not seeking to extend their jurisdiction beyond heresy.[1422] The Instructions of 1561 merely provide that, when there is sufficient testimony in a case pertaining to the Inquisition, if it requires calificacion, theologians of approved learning and character shall be consulted, thus inferring that this is unnecessary when ceremonies known to be Jewish or Moorish are concerned, or manifest heresy or fautorship.[1423] The Suprema felt it necessary, in a carta acordada of July 11, 1569, to warn calificadores to confine themselves to defining the nature of propositions submitted and not to say whether or not there was calidad de oficio—a limitation which they outgrew. Another carta of November 22, 1577, shows that it had become by this time a recognized preliminary to arrest, by ordering that, if an arrest should be necessary without it, there should at least be calificacion before the formal accusation is presented, which occurred in a later stage of the proceedings.[1424]

In the gradual absorption of all initiative by the Suprema, so that eventually no arrest could be made without its order, the importance of calificacion declined. Calificadores continued to be appointed, but they seem to have been rather ornamental than useful members of the official family, if we may judge from the variation in the number attached to the different tribunals. The table in the appendix shows that, in 1746, Madrid and Llerena had none, while Valencia rejoiced in forty. They still had a function, however, in the censorship of the press, and tribunals that were insufficiently supplied could always summon theologians to their aid when necessity demanded their services.

As the sumaria was careful to recite that there was sufficient proof, that all formalities had been observed, and that further investigation was unnecessary, the calificacion completed the preliminaries. The next step was the presentation by the fiscal of his clamosa or demand for the arrest of the accused. In the fully developed formula of this, he presented and swore to the sumaria, and embodied the calificacion as showing that the culprit merited the severest punishment, to which end he asked for arrest and imprisonment, with sequestration or embargo of property, promising in due time to present a formal accusation and asking that meanwhile the registers of the other tribunals be examined with the view of securing further evidence. Forms of this were provided suited to the various classes of offences and to the cases of the absent or dead.[1425]

It manifests a praiseworthy desire to avoid precipitate action that a consulta de fe, or consultation of the inquisitors with the consultores and Ordinary, was still technically required before issuing the warrant of arrest. The existence of something of the kind is indicated, as early as 1509, by an order of the Suprema that when there is not unanimity it must be consulted before arrest is made.[1426] Yet, in 1521, a special order requiring such a consulta de fe in the case of Moriscos would infer that the rule was otherwise obsolete.[1427] That it was so is shown by subsequent cases and, even as regards Moriscos, in a number of prosecutions at Daimiel, between 1540 and 1550, the warrants are issued immediately on presentation of the clamosas.[1428] The Instructions of 1561 revived the practice, but did not enjoin it as essential, leaving it virtually to the discretion of the inquisitors.[1429] After this we find it frequently observed and, in the case of Elvira del Campo, accused of Jewish practices, in 1567, there is a consulta prior to the clamosa and a second one afterwards before the warrant of arrest is issued.[1430] When solicitation in the confessional was subjected to the Inquisition, the desire to shroud the offence in obscurity led to a regulation, in 1564, that only the vicar-general should be called into consultation and, in 1600, even he was excluded; the inquisitors were to consult only with each other and then await the orders of the Suprema.[1431] As the rule became established that the Suprema was to be consulted before arrest, these formal preliminaries became of less importance and, in the eighteenth century, we are told that the consulta was no longer held, the reason alleged being that the inquisitors then were jurists.[1432]