It is true that, in theory, the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was confined to heretical blasphemy and, if the older definitions were observed, only a moderate self-restraint was required for the most inveterate gambler or hot-headed ruffler to keep on the safe side, but definitions were malleable and could be moulded to suit the temper or the aggressiveness of a tribunal anxious for business and for fines. The doctors found it no easier to agree upon the delimitation of heretical blasphemy than upon the thousand other questions suggested by Moral Theology. It was easy to say in general terms that heretical blasphemy consisted in affirming or denying of God that which the faith requires to be denied or affirmed, or in attributing to the creature that which pertains solely to the Creator, but when it came to applying these abstract principles in the concrete, there was apt to be discordance, and it is easy to imagine how ample a field for casuistry was afforded by the variety, vigor and picturesqueness of the blasphemy of the southern races.

As a rule, the Suprema was inclined to check the readiness of the tribunals to discover heresy in expletives which were, it is true, blasphemous, irreverent and indecent, but not indicative of lack of faith. There was a class of these, which seem to have been in the mouth of every one, ineradicable by the most severe legislation, such as “Mal grado aya Dios” (May it spite God), “Pese á Dios” (May God regret) “Reniego á Dios” (I renounce God), “Descreo de Dios” (I disbelieve in God) etc., for which Ferdinand and Isabella, in their laws of 1492 and 1502, provided penalties ranging from a month’s imprisonment for a first offence, to piercing the tongue for a third and, in 1525, Charles V added “Por vida de Dios” (By God’s life) to the list. In 1566, Philip II in his desire for naval recruits, added ten years of galleys to the penalties for blasphemy and six years of galleys to the tongue-piercing for the third offence, as provided by his predecessors.[696] When these offences were so fully covered by secular law, the Suprema deemed it unnecessary that the tribunals should be diverted from their legitimate functions to take cognizance of them. In 1537, Dr. Giron de Loaysa, in his visitation of Toledo, writes for instructions concerning these expletives. He regards them as heretical, but he understands that the Suprema does not wish the tribunals to take action on them, as they are so common and there are already judges enough for them.[697] It was probably in response to this that, in the same year 1537, the Suprema decided that utterances such as these were not within its jurisdiction, because they were conditional, being merely explosions of wrath or disappointment, a decision which it repeated in 1547; it had already, in 1535, construed the Instructions of 1500 as implying that sudden ejaculations of anger were to be handed over to the episcopal courts and, in 1560, it included “por vida de Dios” among non-heretical blasphemies. In 1567, however, among the charges against Estevan Pueyo, in Valencia, is included his exclaiming “pese á Dios” and the tendency of inquisitors to widen the definition is seen in the rebuke by the Suprema of Inquisitor Moral because, in San Sebastian, he had punished for sayings such as “God cannot do me more harm” and “in this world you will not see me suffer,” unless, indeed, it sagely observes, the last expression is used with disbelief in the final Judgement.[698]

This latter remark illustrates the ingenious casuistry with which heresy could be discovered whenever desirable, of which we have already seen an example in the case of Antonio Pérez, for one of the charges against him was his swearing that, if God the Father interfered with his defence, he would cut off his nose, in which Fray Diego de Chaves found savor of the heresy of the Vaudois who attributed human members to God. It is possible that the successful employment against Pérez of the jurisdiction over blasphemy may have led to a more liberal definition of heresy for, in the seventeenth century, we find a consensus of opinion that such expletives as “reniego de Dios” or “de la fee” or “de la crisma” or “de Nuestra Señora” or “descreo de Dios” were heretical. Whether this applied to renouncing St. Peter, St. Paul and other saints was a more doubtful question on which the doctors differed. There were even strict constructionists who held that to call God all-wise or all-beautiful, as a lover might address his mistress, was blasphemy. In Sicily, the exclamation “Sanctus Diabolus” was usually admitted to be heretical, but it was not prosecuted because it was so universally used that it was more convenient to class it as simple blasphemy.[699] It will readily be seen how elusive were the questions arising from the variegated ingenuity of blasphemers, and what scope there was for the indulgence of temperamental idiosyncracies among inquisitors.

In the region so full of doubt, where there were three claimants of jurisdiction—the secular, the spiritual and the inquisitorial—much clashing might naturally be expected, but I have not met with any competencias with the royal courts arising from this source.[700] In his anxiety to suppress blasphemy, Philip IV in 1639 assembled a junta to consider whether the jurisdiction of the Inquisition could not be enlarged, so that it could punish the utterance of a single “por vida,” when the outcome of its deliberations was a comprehensive decree punishing all swearing, save in judicial procedures, with a graduated scale of penalties, and those addicted to the habit were incapacitated for holding office under the State. Of course this was ineffective and, in 1655 and 1656 he ordered the rigid infliction of the punishment in order to disarm the divine indignation manifested in the public misfortunes.[701]

Neither did the episcopal courts surrender their jurisdiction, and it proves the ineradicable character of the offence that it continued to flourish in spite of persecution by all three. A case illustrative of their cumulative action, and of the susceptibility of Spanish piety, was that of Diego Cabeza, of Manzanal de la Puente who, about 1620, in quarrelling with a man, said that he did not know what God was about when he made him. The local magistrate, Francisco Prieto, exacted of him a fine of forty ducats, by threatening to denounce him to the Inquisition, but the episcopal court heard of the matter, arrested, tried and punished him. Then, some ten years later, in 1630, he was denounced to the Valladolid tribunal; the calificadores duly pondered over his utterance and pronounced it to be an heretical blasphemy, but, when the inquisitors learned that it was ten years old, and that he had already been punished by the episcopal Ordinary, they wisely suspended the case.[702]

Presumably it was the worst cases of blasphemy that came before the Inquisition and, as a rule, its moderation offers a favorable contrast to the savage ferocity of secular legislation. It is true that, as suspicion of heresy was inferred, the accused was thrown in the secret prison which, in itself, was a severe infliction, but torture was not employed. The penalties prescribed were abjuration de levi, appearance in an auto, gagging, scourging and galleys, according to the gravity of the offence, while frailes were recluded in convents of their own Orders.[703] These, however, were reserved for aggravated cases of habitual blasphemy by offenders of low degree; nobles and gentlemen had their sentences read in the audience-chamber, were excused from abjuration, and were recluded in a monastery for some months. Outbreaks of passion, in quarrels or gambling and even drunkenness, were held to entitle the accused to acquittal, or to merely nominal penalties. A writer of about 1640, indeed, assumes as a rule that the culprit was only reprimanded in the audience-chamber, without abjuration, except in very scandalous cases, deserving of scourging and the galleys, but even in these such punishments were no longer inflicted. There was no sequestration of property, and repetition of the offence was not regarded as relapse.[704] A later writer, however, holds that such heretical blasphemies as “reniego de Dios,” “descreo de Dios” and the like are punishable with vergüenza or a hundred lashes.[705]

It may be assumed, in fact, that there was a wide discretion in these matters. We have seen the severity with which the wild outbursts of rage of Antonio Pérez were treated, yet, in 1624, a young soldier who, when put in the stocks, exclaimed “I renounce God and the saints; devils why don’t you come and carry me off?” when duly tried with all formality by the Valladolid tribunal, was discharged with a reprimand and without a sentence. So, in 1630, two girls in the Dominican convent of Valladolid, on being confined in a room by the prioress, in a burst of rage repeatedly renounced God and the saints. Naturally on trial they expressed extreme repentance and were discharged with a reprimand.[706] This wise moderation did not exclude severity, when the case seemed to demand it. In 1669, Antonio del Hero, for heretical blasphemy “en grado superlativo” was sentenced in Toledo to appear in the auto of April 7th, to abjure de levi, to hear mass as a penitent, to receive a hundred lashes and to serve three years in the galleys.[707]

Considering the prevalence of the vice and the energetic efforts for its suppression, the number of cases in the Inquisition is less than might be expected. In the Toledo record, from 1575 to 1610, there are only forty-six. In that of the same tribunal from 1648 to 1794, the number is but thirty-seven. In all the tribunals, from 1780 to 1820 the total is one hundred and forty-seven. It is evident that, in this matter, the activity of the Inquisition diminished greatly as time wore on, whether from an increase in popular reverence or from a growing disinclination to denounce the offence.

CHAPTER XVI.

MISCELLANEOUS BUSINESS.

The celibacy enjoined on the Catholic clergy includes the seculars, from the subdiaconate upwards, and the regulars who are bound by the three vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. Even degradation from orders does not remove the disability, as the indelible character impressed in ordination remains.[708] Strict as has been the enforcement of the canons, since the twelfth century, the weakness of the flesh has, at all times, led to occasional infractions of the rule, punishable with degradation, reclusion in a monastery and other penalties. Whether the offence was justiciable by the Inquisition was, in the earlier period, the subject of debate, some authors holding that, if the marriage was public, it implied heretical error, bringing it under inquisitorial jurisdiction, but that, if it was secret, this showed that there was no intellectual misbelief, making the offender guilty only of violating the law and subjecting him, if secular, to the spiritual courts, and if regular, to the prelates of his Order.[709]

The Reformation, which sanctioned clerical marriage, introduced a new and controlling factor that in time altered the situation. Yet, for a considerable period there was a powerful movement, especially among German Catholics, to relax the prohibition in the hope of effecting a reunion. The question was regarded as open for discussion, as a matter merely of discipline; Arnaldo Albertino argues that the pope can dispense for marriage in orders, and instances the dispensation granted by Alexander VI to his son Cæsar Borgia, then a cardinal-deacon, to marry the heiress of Valentinois.[710] The reactionary influences which controlled the Council of Trent changed all this when, in 1563, it made clerical celibacy a matter of faith, rendering priestly marriage unquestionably thenceforth heretical.[711]

The Inquisition, however, did not wait for this to assume jurisdiction, though it seems not to have acted until after the outbreak of the Reformation had rendered clerical celibacy a subject of discussion. The earliest case that I have met is that of Miguel Gómez, a priest of Saragossa, sentenced, for marrying in orders, by the Toledo tribunal in 1529, when the peculiar punishment would seem to show that it was a novelty for which no precedent existed. He was exhibited for three days on a ladder at the portal of the cathedral, in his shirt and drawers, with his hands tied, his feet chained and a mitre on his head, after which he was deprived for life of sacerdotal functions and banished forever from the province. Toledo had no other case until 1562, when it had to deal with the somewhat complicated offence of Fray Juan Ramírez, who entered a religious order while married, but twice left it and returned again, during which performances he married two wives.[712] That jurisdiction depended wholly on the sacrament is seen in the case of Juan Carrillo, alias Fray Juan Ortiz, a Franciscan denounced, in 1596, to the Toledo tribunal by his prelate, Fray Juan de Ovando, for apostasy and living with a woman reputed to be his wife. Investigation showed that she was merely his concubine, so the case was suspended, and he was remanded to Ovando to be dealt with under the rules of the Order.[713]

After the offence had clearly been made heresy by the Council of Trent, the terrifying formula of accusation by the fiscal describes the offender as unworthy of mercy, to be deprived of all ecclesiastical privilege, to be degraded from his orders and to be relaxed to the secular arm, to which was added the otrosi demanding the free use of torture.[714] In practice, however, there was the widest discretion. It is true that writers speak of appearance in public auto or degradation and reclusion in a monastery for a few years, or a similar term of galley service, but there seems to have been no rule.[715] Indeed, it is not easy to understand how an offence so uniform in its nature should have been visited with penalties so diverse. In 1597, Francisco Agustin, an Augustinian of Barcelona, married in Toledo, sought to defend himself on the plea that he had entered the Order under compulsion in order to escape his debts; his sentence was appearance in an auto, abjuration de levi and imprisonment for life in the convent where he had made profession.[716] In 1629, Fray Lorenzo de Avalle, a Benedictine priest, accused himself to the Valladolid tribunal of having married and lived for eight years as a musician in Aragon. Notwithstanding his self-denunciation, he was sentenced to verbal degradation and to four years’ detention in a monastery, where he was to undergo a circular discipline, while the woman was notified that she was free to marry again.[717] In strong contrast with this was the case of Juan Alonso Palacios, a married Jesuit, before the Toledo tribunal in 1659, who, though not an esponianeado, escaped with a reprimand and four years of reclusion. Then, in 1664, Fray Juan de Ayala, a Mercenarian priest, was, by the same tribunal, suspended perpetually from his functions and recluded for three years in a convent with one year’s Friday fasting and some spiritual penance. Again, in 1675, the same tribunal condemned Gerónimo de Morales, a married subdeacon, to five years in the galleys, three more of exile and disqualification for orders.[718] Five years of galleys, with three more of exile and deprivation of functions and benefices, was the portion of Don Cristóval de Zabiati, alias Don Juan Baptista de Verganza, priest of Talavera de la Reina, who appeared in the great Madrid auto of 1680.[719] In 1700 the Toledo tribunal had to deal with a case characterized as “con circonstancias gravísimas,” so that we may regard the sentence as representing the extremity of punishment for the offence. The culprit was not required to appear in an auto, but his sentence was read in the audience-chamber, in the presence of twenty-four ecclesiastics. It prescribed abjuration de levi, perpetual deprivation of functions, perpetual confinement in a convent cell, to be left only for choir and refectory, in which he was to have the last place, to fasting for four years, on bread and water on Fridays and vigils, and to a circular discipline when taken to the convent. The details of his career are not given, but there is a suggestion of material for a picaresque novel, as the culprit was a Dominican, Fray Tomas Juster, who had been a calificador of the Inquisition and a preacher of the king, and who enjoyed the multifarious aliases of Don Juan de San Feliú Cisneros, Don Vicente de Ochaita and Don Juan de Ibarrola.[720] It is somewhat remarkable that degradation appears so rarely to be resorted to.

The offence seems to have been by no means frequent. In the Toledo reports from 1575 to 1610, there are only the two cases referred to above, and, in the record of the same tribunal from 1648 to 1794 the number is only ten. From 1780 to 1820 the combined records of all the tribunals show only six cases.[721]

Personation of Priesthood.

The veneration with which the sacraments are regarded, and the supreme importance ascribed to them as a means of salvation, render it indispensable that they should be guarded with the utmost solicitude. Not only is their validity essential to those who seek them, but any fraud in their dispensation is sacrilege, which, in the case of the mass, may plunge all worshippers present into the sin of idolatry. With the exception of baptism, they can be administered only by those in full priest’s orders, and the pretence to do so by men unqualified is a wrong, not only to the faithful who are deceived, but to the Creator who has established them for the solace and salvation of His creatures.[722]

The fees attaching to the confection and bestowal of the sacraments are a valuable privilege of the priesthood, and the temptation was great for graceless laymen or clerics in the lower orders to simulate the possession of the requisite faculties, and to betray the unsuspecting into accepting from their hands the worthless simulacra. In the venality of the fourteenth century this would seem not to have been regarded as an especially grave offence for, in the tax-roll of Benedict XII, the official fee for absolution for pretending to be a priest, hearing confessions and granting absolution, is only six grossi or about three-quarters of a florin.[723] After the outbreak of the Reformation it was regarded as a more serious matter. Paul IV, in briefs of May 20, 1557, and February 17, 1559, defined the offence as subject to the Inquisition, and to be punished by relaxation, even when there was not relapse.[724] Sixtus V felt compelled to reissue the brief of Paul, and Clement VIII, in 1601, confirmed the acts of his predecessors, authorizing prosecution by either the Inquisition or the episcopal Ordinary. This was applicable only to culprits who had reached the age of 25, but Urban VIII, in 1627, reduced the limit to 20.[725]

This repetition of legislation shows the stubbornness of the evil and the papal determination to suppress it. Even complicity was sternly punished for, in 1619, a layman assisting a celebrant, whom he knew to be unqualified, was tortured for intention, made to abjure de vehementi, to serve five years in the galleys, and was perpetually suspended from assisting at mass.[726] Cardinal Scaglia, however, states that when the offence was committed through thoughtlessness, relaxation was commuted to ten years of galleys,[727] but there was no hesitation in inflicting the full penalty in appropriate cases. As late as July 18, 1711, Domenico Spallacino, a hardened offender, who had lived for five years by celebrating mass in Rome, Loreto and other places, was relaxed and condemned to be hanged and burned; he was duly hanged in the Piazza di Campo de’Fiori, the body was fastened to an iron stake on a pile of wood and was reduced to ashes, which were gathered up and buried.[728]

In Spain the matter was treated less seriously. The Inquisition at first did not regard itself as having jurisdiction unless there were misbelief as to the sacraments. A carta acordada of January 31, 1533, instructs the tribunals that, in these cases, the culprit is to be asked whether he thought himself possessed of the power, or whether he had anywhere heard it so asserted as an opinion, and what was his intention; if he acknowledges no erroneous belief, the matter does not concern the Inquisition and, he is to be handed over to the magistrate. The briefs of Paul IV were not admitted in Spain, and the matter slumbered until 1574 when, on January 13th, the Suprema addressed to the tribunals a circular inquiry, asking whether there had been any prosecutions for this offence; if so, on what grounds was the jurisdiction based, what form of procedure was followed, and what penalty was inflicted; also opinions were asked as to how such cases should be treated.[729] Evidently no attention had as yet been paid to the question; the replies showed that there was no general policy, and a brief of August 17th, of the same year, was obtained from Gregory XIII reciting that in Spain there were conflicting opinions whether the Inquisition had or had not jurisdiction, wherefore he granted to it exclusive cognizance, and forbade the episcopal courts from entertaining such cases.[730] This the Suprema sent, November 26th, to all the tribunals with orders to prosecute in such cases, and to introduce a corresponding clause in the Edict of Faith.[731]

It is evident that the Spanish Inquisition did not share the horror felt in Rome for such offences, and this is manifested in the comparative moderation of the penalties inflicted. About 1650, a Spaniard in Rome, writing to a friend at home, and comparing the severity of the Italian Inquisition with the mildness of the Spanish, instances the Roman torture of bigamists and soliciting confessors, the longer terms of galleys for the former, and the implacable relaxation of those who celebrate mass without ordination.[732] There was no such ferocity in Spain. No time had been lost in assuming the jurisdiction and already, in 1575, there was a culprit in a Toledo auto—Fray Alonso García, a Franciscan—who had celebrated mass and heard confessions, and whose sentence was merely abjuration de levi and four years’ galley service. The most complete discretion was exercised and the penalties varied in the same tribunal according to the circumstances of the case and the temper of the inquisitors. Thus in Toledo, in 1578, Pero Joan Queito, a student, who carried forged certificates and had confessed many persons, absolving them and imposing penance, appeared in an auto, with halter and candle, abjured de levi, and had two hundred lashes and three years of galleys. In the same year a Frenchman named Pierre Saletas, accused of having for twenty years heard confessions and celebrated mass on forged certificates, was tortured without confessing and was banished the kingdom for four years and forbidden to administer sacraments without genuine certificates. In 1600, Balthasar Rodríguez, a deacon, appeared in an auto, abjured de levi, was suspended for ten years from the exercise of his orders, with perpetual disability for promotion, and had six years of galleys. In the same year the Mercenarian, Fray Gregorio de Palacios, was spared appearance in an auto, but abjured de levi, had fifty lashes and was recluded for three years in a monastery of his Order.[733] In 1622, at Valladolid, the Franciscan deacon, Fray Juan Tapia, for celebrating mass, was merely ordered to keep his convent as a prison and to present himself when summoned. Somewhat greater severity was shown to Fray Antonio Frechado, a Trinitarian subdeacon, who for publicly hearing confessions was required to abjure de levi, was suspended from his functions for two years, during which he was recluded in his convent, was disabled for promotion and had some spiritual penance.[734]

It would be useless to multiply examples of this diversified moderation. I have met with but one case in which the papal prescription of relaxation was obeyed and this occurred in Mexico, in 1606, when Fernando Rodríguez de Castro, a mulatto, was relaxed for administering sacraments without ordination, but this was no precedent for, in the great auto of 1648, Gaspar de los Reyes was sentenced to two hundred lashes and the galleys for life and Martin de Villavicencio Salazar to the same scourging and five years of galleys.[735]

The systematic writers assure us that the papal decrees were not received in Spain, and that the punishment varied with the nature of the case, consisting usually of scourging, unless the offender was a fraile, the galleys, exile, reclusion, degradation, suspension of functions, etc., varied at the discretion of the tribunal and that, in cases of minor culpability, it could be commuted for money. Relaxation was kept in view only for some error in faith persistently held—a purely academical supposition, although the culprit was exhaustively examined as to his belief in the necessity of priestly orders to the validity of sacraments.[736] That ecclesiastics between themselves in reality attached but little importance to the offence may be inferred from the case of the Mercenarian Fray Pedro de la Presentacion, who celebrated mass when only in subdeacon’s orders. The Toledo tribunal condemned him, June 16, 1662, to three years of galleys. The superior of his Order at once interceded for him and, in September, the Suprema commuted the penalty to three years’ reclusion in a convent, with three years’ subsequent exile from Daimiel, Toledo and Madrid. When only ten months of the term had expired the Provincial of Castile applied for the remission of the remainder, but in vain and, when two years had passed the effort was renewed.[737] Evidently the good frailes recked little of the idolatry into which he had plunged all who were present at his ministration.

As the eighteenth century advanced a still more lenient view seems to have obtained. In 1749 the case of Fray Juan de Santa Rosa, a Franciscan deacon, was an aggravated one, for he had administered the sacraments of baptism, the Eucharist, penitence and matrimony, but the Toledo tribunal only declared him “irregular” for promotion, suspended him from the diaconate for two years and imposed fifteen days of spiritual penance. No special expectation of amendment earned this benignity, for his Provincial was instructed to send him to a convent, from which he was not to go out alone, so as not to expose him to relapse.[738]

Under the Restoration there was leniency difficult to understand. The sentence of the Dominican Fray Tomas García by the Cuenca tribunal, November 14, 1816, for celebrating mass without priests’ orders, was that the commissioner of Villaescusa was to reprimand him in presence of the superior of his convent, pointing out the severe penalties provided by the papal decrees and prescribing spiritual penances for a year, besides informing the prelate that he could not ascend to full orders. This was confirmed by the Suprema, with the addition that he be transferred to a house of stricter observance. December 11th of the same year, Angel Sampayo, a married layman of Campo Ramiro (Lugo) was convicted of celebrating mass. The Suprema alludes to his atentato horrible, but merely orders him to be reprimanded and sent back to his home, where the parish priest and his father are to keep watch over him.[739]

In connection with this subject it may be mentioned that the Inquisition also took cognizance of a class of cases, alluded to above under Solicitation, in which laymen managed to hear confessions of women, not with a view to administer the sacrament of penitence, but through jealousy, or for the opportunity of asking indecent questions, or in the hope of listening to prurient details. These cases were by no means infrequent. In 1785, there were three before the tribunal of Valencia; in 1793, one in Murcia; in 1796, Joseph Herranz was prosecuted in Madrid for doing this in order to hear his wife’s confession. The same year there was a case in Seville; in 1797, one in Barcelona and, in 1807, Miguel Domínguez, sacristan of San Miguel de Niebla, pretended to be a Capuchin with the object to listening to the confession of a woman.[740] With what severity such cases were treated, I have not been able to ascertain.

Personation of Officials.

In the universal dread inspired by the Holy Office, the temptation was great to personate its agents, and to extort money as the price of forbearance, for no one ventured to question the authority or acts of any stranger who presented himself as an official.

The opportunities thus afforded were speedily recognized and utilized. As early as 1487, at Saragossa, a special auto was held, April 1st, at which appeared a cleric who had pretended to be an inquisitor and as such had made an arrest. The penalty inflicted is not recorded, but evidently the opportunity was taken to make an impressive warning[741].

The systematic writers assume that in these cases there should be careful consideration of the injury inflicted, for the pretender may deserve exemplary punishment. The usual offence is asserting that there are accusations and that he will save the accused from prosecution; for this he must refund the money received, appear in an auto and suffer two hundred lashes and five years of galley service. If the imposture is assumed only to escape from some trouble and causing no damage, there is some penalty of fine or exile; if there has been only an assertion of official position, the penalty is very light and secret.[742] Other authorities tell us that, if the culprit is of a low class, he has two hundred lashes and four years of galleys, more or less according to the gravity of the offence; if he is a noble or rich, he is fined one or two thousand ducats and serves for two or three years, without pay, as a gentleman in the galleys, or against the Moors or heretics[743]. Evidently in an offence which varied so much in motive and result, much was necessarily left to the discretion of the tribunal and a few cases will serve to indicate the different methods of operating and the deterrent penalties inflicted.

In the Seville auto of September 24, 1559, there were three cases of personation. Alonso de Hontiveros, for pretending to be a familiar and endeavoring to make arrests for the purpose of extortion, appeared with halter and gag and was sent to Xeres his place of residence to receive a hundred lashes; Juan de Aragon, of Málaga, for the same offence, was spared the gag, but wore a mitre and had a scourging at Málaga and another where his offence was committed, besides two years of exile, while his accomplice, Francisco Prieto, received the same sentence, with the substitution of vergüenza for scourging[744]. On the other hand, at Toledo, in 1581, Francisco de la Bastida was visited with the utmost rigor. He represented himself as an alguazil, carrying a vara de justicia and using the name of the inquisitor-general. He would summon the alcades and other officials to render assistance, which was freely given without question; he would make arrests, carry his prisoners to some distance, take their money, leave them in charge of some local familiar and disappear. In this way he moved from Fuente de Enzina to Almaden and Madrid, and thence to Saragossa where he was arrested. He confessed freely at once and was condemned to relaxation, by virtue of a special brief obtained from Gregory XIII, but the Suprema, with doubtful mercy, commuted this to six hundred lashes—two hundred each in Toledo, Almaden and Fuente de Enzina—and the galleys irremissibly for life[745]. Zapata relates what is evidently the exploit which brought to a close the promising career of this enterprising knave. At Almagro, he says, the agent of the Fuggers of Augsburg was Juan Xelder, a man highly esteemed and reputed to be of great wealth. Suddenly a stranger appeared, with the vara of an alguazil of the Inquisition, who sought out two familiars and commanded them to assist him in making an arrest. Proceeding to Xelder’s house he made the arrest, locked him up in a room and consoled the frightened family by assuring them of the customary mercy of the Inquisition. He then summoned a notary and placed all the property of the prisoner under sequestration, except two thousand ducats which he said he had orders to take for the expenses of the trial. The whole town was thrown into commotion, but no one dared to ask for papers, or authority, or identification. Xelder was placed in a carriage, with strict orders that no one should exchange a word with him; the familiars were required to accompany it to the next halting place, where they and the carriage were dismissed with handsome gratuities and the stranger confided Xelder to the care of a familiar of high standing, with orders to guard him carefully, incomunicado, while he would proceed to Toledo and send instructions. Ten days passed when the familiar, growing tired of the expense, made inquiries and ascertaining the facts released the prisoner. Meanwhile the impostor, fearing to carry the gold, deposited it with a banker and took a bill of exchange on Saragossa, so that he was readily tracked and arrested when he presented the bill for payment. The secular court claimed him, but the Inquisition asserted its jurisdiction—fortunately, Zapata says, for the culprit, for the offence was capital and he escaped with scourging and the galleys[746].

Another method of speculation on the fears and hopes of the defenceless appears in the case of Gerónimo Roche, son of the secretary of the University of Lérida. He pretended to be an official, to have much influence with the tribunal, and to hold faculties to remit four sanbenitos and to appoint four familiars. He approached a Morisca who, with her three daughters, had been reconciled, and offered to relieve her of her sanbenito for two hundred ducats, and those of her three daughters if one of them would abandon herself to him. He was forbidden the house but he persisted in writing letters of mingled threats and love. For this he appeared in the Saragossa auto of June 6, 1585, where he was sentenced to vergüenza and eight years in the galleys, being spared the scourging in consideration of his father[747].

There appears to have been a very lenient view taken, in 1582, by the Toledo tribunal, of the case of Pedro Moreno, a sacristan, who pretended to be a familiar and as such visited the hospital and asked the inmates whether they had confessed, when he arrested and carried off those who had not. It was in evidence also that, on seeing two men quarrelling in a church, he arrested one in the name of the Inquisition. There does not seem to have been a pecuniary motive in these eccentricities, and he escaped with a reprimand and banishment for a year[748]. Another motive, which was regarded with a lenient eye, was assuming official position in order to enjoy the exemptions and privileges of the Inquisition. Thus when Jayme Corvellana of Barcelona in this manner bluffed off the officers of justice who came to his house to seize some salt, Inquisitor Padilla imposed on him a fine of fifty ducats and some spiritual penance, and was rebuked by the Suprema for inflicting so heavy a penalty for so trifling a cause—“en causas tan livianas.”[749]

Personation was by no means uncommon, but I am convinced that Llorente is mistaken when he says that there rarely was an auto in which some one was not punished for this offence. In the Toledo record from 1575 to 1610, the number of cases is only thirteen and, in the same tribunal, from 1648 to 1794, they amount only to four.[750]

The principal interest in these cases is the evidence which they afford of the terror inspired by the Inquisition, the very name of which seemed to paralyze, so that no one, whether magistrate or individual, dared to question the authority of any impostor who assumed to represent it, and this same terror doubtless is the reason why this apparently facile method of trading on popular fear was not more frequently exploited. It required more than common nerve to incur the risk of inquisitorial vengeance.

Somewhat akin to this was the levying of blackmail by threats of denunciation. No doubt there was a good deal of this, in which the victims prudently suffered in silence, rather than to draw upon themselves the attention of the dreaded tribunal. It was a matter of which the Inquisition took cognizance, but the only case which I have happened to meet is that of Pedro Jacome Pramoseltes, who was sentenced by the Toledo tribunal, in 1666, to three years of galley-service for astrology and had his term extended to five for attempts at extortion in this manner.[751]

Demoniacal Possession.

That evil spirits can take possession of a human being, deprive him of his free-will and subject him to extreme bodily and mental suffering, is a belief handed down from ancient times and still largely held as a matter of faith. That relief can be had by the ministrations of an exorcist, duly authorized by admission into one of the lower orders of the priesthood, is a corresponding belief, and formulas without number have been prepared to enable him to exercise his power over the demon. There is no heresy involved in either the possession or the exorcism and, under normal conditions, there was no call for interference by the Inquisition, but when, for any reason, such interference was desired, there was little trouble in finding pretext for its jurisdiction. We have seen (Vol. II, p. 135) the active measures taken, in 1628, with the nuns of San Placido, whose demoniacally inspired revelations were somewhat revolutionary. Greater self-denial was exhibited by the Valladolid tribunal in a contemporaneous case, when a Jesuit confessor reported to it that Doña Felippa and Doña Aña de Mercado, Bernardino nuns in Santo Espíritu of Olmeda, made gestures and other irreverent acts in confession and communion, which caused scandal, and he thought proceeded from demoniacal possession. The tribunal felt doubts as to its jurisdiction and consulted the Suprema, which submitted the matter to a calificador of high attainments. Prolonged investigations were made, other nuns were examined, and it was in evidence that the two inculpated were women of exceptional virtue and piety who had prayed to God to test them with afflictions. The case dragged on for more than ten years, resulting in the conviction that it was undoubtedly one of possession, for which the nuns were free from blame, and finally, April 16, 1630, the Suprema ordered its suspension[752]. Wherever there was the faintest suspicion of heresy, the Inquisition could assert jurisdiction.

This involved the question of the responsibility of the demoniac for his utterances, which was somewhat intricate. In the case of one under trial by the Granada tribunal, in 1650, the learned Jesuit, Padre Diego Tello, who was called in as a calificador, reported, with an immense array of authorities, and after three visits to the accused in the secret prison, that there could be no doubt as to the possession, for he was able to discuss points of theology and other matters far beyond his capacity; he could also speak Latin intelligibly and he quoted Scripture while, as he uttered many heresies, it was evident that the spirit was evil. At the same time he was rational on so many points that he could not be regarded as irresponsible for his heresies. Luther and Zwingli, he added, were notoriously possessed by demons, but they were none the less held responsible for their teachings and it was the uniform practice of the Inquisition so to decide in these cases.[753]

In the hysterical epidemics which form so notable a feature of possession, the Inquisition was apt to be called in and was ready to act, although it would be difficult to determine on what grounds. In 1638 there was such an epidemic in one of the Pyrenean valleys and, on September 24th, Jacinto de Robles, secretary of the Governor of Aragon, reported to the Saragossa tribunal that, on a recent visit to Jaca, he had found, in the Valle de Tena, that there were about sixty endemoniadas and that the malady was spreading. It was attributed to Pedro de Arrecibo and his friend Miguel Guillen, who had been seized by the secular authorities; Guillen had been executed, while Arrecibo’s trial was nearly concluded. He had confessed that a Frenchman had given him a paper and some conjurations through which to win women, but it only rendered them possessed—a statement evidently fabricated to satisfy his torturers. It was the demons who had accused these two men, adding that their death would not stay the infection, for there were other accomplices. The women affected were of the best families, their ages ranging from 7 to 18—some were pregnant and others were suckling their infants, for demons were able to produce these results in the virtuous. The Bishop of Jaca and some Jesuits were exhausting their exorcisms, and an inquisitor was badly needed. What function was expected of an inquisitor is not stated, but the Suprema was consulted and, after some delay it appealed to the king. It was ready to send an inquisitor and four frailes, but it had no funds for the expenses of the latter, which would have to be defrayed from some other source. The king gave orders accordingly, but they were not obeyed, and the last we hear of the matter is another consulta of March 28, 1640, in which he was urged to speedy action in view of the great importance of the affair.[754]