Chapter III: Harsher Penalties (1)

THE SCOURGE.

Although at first sight the use of the lash, as a persuasive to correct religious belief, may appear somewhat incongruous, it must be borne in mind that, under the euphemy of the discipline, it has always formed a prominent feature of penance, especially among the monastic orders where, in the daily or weekly chapters, it was liberally administered for all infractions of the Rule or other sins, as a preliminary to absolution. In fact, the touching of the penitent's shoulder with a wand by the priest in absolution from excommunication, is a symbol of the discipline which was anciently indispensable. In the Old Inquisition it was in frequent use, although there it was rendered a matter of edification, through its infliction by priests during divine service or in religious processions. That it should form part of the penal resources of the Spanish Holy Office was therefore natural, although it lost its penitential aspect and became purely punitive and vindictive.

It was no longer the priest who wielded the discipline with an indeterminate number of strokes during an indeterminate series of feast-days. The tribunal prescribed the number of lashes and they were laid on by the vigorous arm of the public executioner. The penitents who had to suffer appeared in the auto de fe with halters around their necks; if there was one knot in the halter, it signified a hundred lashes, if two, two hundred and so on, one hundred being the unit and the minimum number. The next day the populace was treated to the spectacle. Mounted astride of asses, bared to the waist, with halter and mitre bearing inscription of their offences and a _pié de amigo_ holding the head erect, they were paraded through the accustomed streets, with a guard of mounted familiars and a notary or secretary to make record, while the executioner plied the _penca_, or leather strap, on the naked flesh, until the tale was complete, and the town-crier proclaimed that it was by order of the Inquisition for the crimes specified. A clause in the proclamation, after the great Madrid auto of 1680, forbidding, under pain of excommunication, any one to throw stones at the penitents, indicates that the populace had a playful habit of thus manifesting its detestation of heresy.[361]

In 1568 the Suprema rebuked the Barcelona tribunal for condemning to public scourging penitents reconciled for heresy. This, it said, was contrary to the _estilo_ of the Inquisition, and in future the lash was not to be used unless there was some other crime than heresy.[362] This indicates how completely the scourge had become punitive and how it was dissociated from the ancient discipline, but if such regulation existed it met with scant recognition. All the offences subjected to the Inquisition were constructively heretical, and there never seems to have been any discrimination exercised between them. Indeed, we have seen that the lash was especially indicated for heretics who were tardy or variable in their confessions, and Judaizers are constantly seen to be subjected to it.

[Sidenote: _SCOURGING_]

Scourging was a favorite penalty which was lavishly and often mercilessly employed. In the Saragossa auto of June 6, 1585, out of a total of seventy-nine penitents, twenty-two were scourged; in that of Valencia, in 1607, of forty-seven penitents, twenty-four received the lash.[363] This, however, exceeds the average. The Toledo reports, from 1575 to 1610, present a hundred and thirty-three cases of scourging which, allowing for a break in the record, give about four per annum.[364] On the other hand, a collection of autos de fe celebrated between 1721 and 1727, embracing in all nine hundred and sixty-two cases, affords two hundred and ninety-seven sentences of scourging, or about thirty per cent.[365] When we recall that, in the list of officials reported by Murcia, in 1746, there figures Joseph García Bentura as _notario de açotaciones_--a notary of scourgings--to keep record of the stripes, with a salary of about 2500 reales, we realize how prominent a feature it was in inquisitorial penology.[366] The brutalizing effect on the populace of these wholesale exhibitions of flogging, especially of women, can readily be estimated.

The usual number of lashes prescribed was two hundred, though in occasional cases a hundred sufficed. In the two hundred and ninety-seven just alluded to, two hundred and ninety were of two hundred lashes and only seven of one hundred. It was rare that two hundred were exceeded in any one infliction, though sometimes it was mercilessly duplicated, as in the Seville auto of September 24, 1559, Martin Fernando Saldrian, a shepherd, for blasphemy was scourged in Seville and again in his native town; Alonso Martin of Carmona, for Lutheranism, was scourged in both Seville and Carmona and Juan de Aragon of Málaga, who had pretended to be a familiar, was scourged in Málaga and again in the scene of his offence.[367]

Probably two hundred lashes were about the limit of safety, especially with those enfeebled by prolonged incarceration, for the infliction was excessively severe. We hear of Margarita Altamira reduced to such extremity after a scourging that the viaticum was administered to her.[368] There was no mercy for age or sex. In the Valencia auto of January 7, 1607, Isabel Madalina Conteri, a Morisca girl of 13, after overcoming torture, had a hundred lashes, Jayme Chulayla, a Morisco of 76, who had been tortured, had a hundred and the same was administered to Francisco Marquino, aged 86 for sorcery in treasure-seeking, while Magdalena Cahet, aged 60, who had escaped torture on account of heart-disease, was not spared a hundred.[369]

As the eighteenth century advanced there appears to be more readiness to remit the execution of sentences of scourging on account of age and infirmities and of "accidentes," which probably mean crippling by torture. Then there developes a tendency to spare women and finally men; the sentences continue to be pronounced, but they are remitted by the inquisitor-general. In 1769, at Toledo, Gerónimo Clos, for bigamy, was pardoned the two hundred lashes of his sentence, which could not have been for infirmity, as he was not released from hard labor for five years in the royal works at Cartagena.[370] From this time scourging may be regarded as obsolescent and soon to become obsolete. Under the Restoration, from 1814 to 1820, in the _votos secretos_, there is not a case in which the lash was inflicted, for when included in the sentences, it was always remitted by the Suprema.[371]

The clergy, of course, were not subjected to the disgrace of public scourging. In their cases it took the form known as a circular discipline, administered in a convent by all the inmates in turn.

VERGÜENZA.

Vergüenza, or shame, was the same as scourging, with the lashes omitted. The culprit, stripped to the waist and with the _pié de amigo_, was paraded through the streets, with the insignia of his offence, while the town-crier proclaimed his sentence. It was naturally regarded as less severe than scourging and was sometimes substituted for the latter, when the penitent was too aged or feeble to endure the lash. For the beldams and ruffians who were often its subjects it could have had but few terrors, but it was greatly dreaded by those of sensitive nature. The inquisitors took little count of this, when dealing with Judaizers and Moriscos, who had a keen sense of personal dignity, and Pedraza informs us that those exposed to it regarded death as a mercy, preferring to die rather than to endure a life of infamy.[372] To young women the exposure was especially humiliating, yet, on the whole, it may be regarded as more humane than the pillory of our forefathers, for the penitent was not exposed to the missiles of a brutal populace.

Vergüenza was a comparatively infrequent punishment. In the Toledo reports of 1575-1610 it occurs in but twenty-six sentences, which may be compared with the hundred and thirty-three scourgings, and the records of the same tribunal from 1648 to 1794 present but ten vergüenzas to ninety-two scourgings. In the very severe series of autos de fe between 1721 and 1727, the comparison is thirteen to two hundred and ninety-seven.

[Sidenote: _THE GAG--THE GALLEYS_]

MORDAZA.

The _mordaza_ or gag, as we have seen, was regarded as increasing greatly the severity of the infliction of which it formed part. It was sometimes used in scourging and vergüenza, when the so-called penitent was a hardened blasphemer or likely in some way to create scandal. It was likewise employed in the autos de fe, on pertinacious and impenitent heretics of whom it was feared that they might on their way to the stake produce an impression on those not firm in the faith.[373] Its use was not frequent, although, in the dread inspired by Protestantism, in 1559, at the great Seville auto of September 24th, twelve of the victims wore the mordaza. There were also twelve thus gagged in the Madrid auto of 1680, but these numbers were exceptional.[374]

THE GALLEYS.

Enslavement in the galleys, to labor at the oar, would appear to be even more incongruous than scourging as penance for spiritual offences. It was a Spanish device, unknown to the elder Inquisition, and had its origin in the thrifty mind of Ferdinand. We shall presently see how exercised were the monarch and the Holy Office over the problem presented by the maintenance of those condemned to the canonical penalty of perpetual prison, and Ferdinand, whose Sicilian possessions required a powerful navy, bethought him of the expedient of utilizing his able-bodied prisoners to man his galleys--the galley propelled by oars being as yet the equivalent of the modern battle-ship. Galley-service was recognized as so severe that the old fueros of Aragon forbade it under heavy penalties, except with the free assent of the individual, and it was not until the curtailment of ancient privileges, in the Córtes of Tarazona in 1592, that judges were permitted to use it as a punishment for robbers.[375] In Castile, the pressure for slaves to man the galleys is indicated by a royal cédula of November 14, 1502, commuting the death-sentence of criminals in the secular courts, and ordering them to be sent to the galleys.[376] It was probably about this time that Ferdinand turned to the Inquisition, which was bound by no laws, for relief from overcrowded prisons and undermanned galleys. Even the callous morality of the age seems to have been shocked at this and, as usual, the sanction of the Holy See was sought for the iniquity. It was of course granted, and Alexander VI, in a brief addressed to the inquisitors, May 26, 1503, recited that Ferdinand and Isabella had represented to him that those condemned to perpetual prison relapsed into heresy; that there was a lack of prisons in which they could be confined without perverting others, and that multiplication of prisons would lead to dissemination of heresy; that their power to commute imprisonment into other perpetual punishment had been called into question, and that they had asked him to provide a remedy. As the chief solicitude of the inquisitors should be the prevention of relapse, he therefore empowered them to change the perpetual prison of penitents into other penalties--deportation to the colonies, or imprisonment in the royal galleys, where, in perpetual confinement, they might render enforced service, or to any other perpetual punishment, according to their quality and offences.[377]

[Sidenote: _THE GALLEYS_]

That full advantage was taken of this there can be no doubt, to the relief of the prison funds and the facilitation of the conquest of Naples. We chance to hear of the transfer at Barcelona, January 24, 1505, of nineteen prisoners from the gaol of the Inquisition to the galleys of Ramon de Cardona, which we may fairly accept as an example of what was on foot everywhere.[378] In fact, the eagerness of the tribunals to disembarrass themselves of their prisoners seems to have led to their discharging on the galleys those in every way unfit for the service, for the Suprema was obliged, in 1506, to declare that men over 60, clerics and women were exempt from the punishment of the galleys.[379] Even Ferdinand himself, towards the close of his career, seems to have shrunk from the responsibility of openly authorizing an extension of this heartless business for when, in 1513, the Inquisitor of Sicily asked permission to send to the galleys those condemned to perpetual prison, Ferdinand threw the decision back on him; to build prisons will cost much money, he said, but the galleys may deter men from confessing their heresy; the inquisitor is therefore to think the matter over and do what he deems best.[380] The conclusion reached is unknown, but we may reasonably surmise that the Palermo tribunal did not waste its funds in constructing prisons.

Ferdinand's hesitation seems to have been shared by Charles V for, in 1527, the Suprema ordered that penitents should not be sent to the galleys but should have other penances.[381] The motive for this humane provision, however, did not long withstand the more pressing economical considerations. In 1529, Rodrigo Portuondo, captain-general of the galleys, was instructed that no one sent to them by the Inquisition should hold any office or administration, or have charge of the rations, showing that the prohibition had been rescinded.[382] Apparently the superior intelligence of the penitents had rendered them more useful as petty officers and accountants than as slaves of the oar, but this alleviation of their misery did not satisfy the spirit of persecution and it was probably to prevent it that the formula of the sentence was service at the oar without pay--unless, indeed, the penitent was of gentle blood, in which case he could be sent to serve as a gentleman or as a soldier.[383]

We have already seen to what profitable account the Inquisition turned the power which it had assumed to grant dispensations from this abhorrent servitude, and a case in 1558 indicates how it guarded against any invasion of its prerogative. Philip II was led to interest himself in the case of Andrés de Frias, condemned to the galleys, and asked to have him dispensed from the remainder of his term. To this the Suprema demurred, saying that the statement of Frias was untrue, for in Rome he had treacherously stabbed to death the procurator of the Inquisition, Doctor Puente, after dining with him and promising to sup with him; moreover the seventeen months which he claimed to have served had not been as a galley-slave, as required by his sentence. Still, if he would present himself and manifest repentance there might be opportunity for the king to show him mercy, but otherwise it would greatly impair the authority of the Inquisition.[384]

Philip was not given to interceding for those sent to his galleys, for galley-slaves continued to be in great demand. In 1567 the Venitian envoy, Antonio Tiepolo, explains the weakness of the Spanish navy by the fact that its galleys were manned with slaves and _forçats_, who were not numerous enough to keep many galleys at sea. It would be, he says, impossible to man them with free-men, as in Venice, for no one would serve voluntarily, as the ill-treatment of the crews is notorious and their dying for lack of the necessaries of life.[385] It is true that there was a curious source of supply, besides the ordinary criminals and heretics, for the prelates of the religious Orders were accustomed to condemn their peccant brethren to the galleys, from the same economical motive that had actuated Ferdinand--to save the expense of maintaining them in prison.[386] Still, the needs of the armadas were pressing; Philip turned to the Inquisition for aid, and, in 1567, the Suprema issued two decrees intended to assist in manning the royal galleys. One bore that sentences must not be for less than three or four years, for otherwise the penitents cost the king more than the service he got from them, and this was enforced by a royal cédula of 1584.[387] The other suggested--suggestion being equivalent to an order--that sentences to the galleys could be substituted for those to prison and sanbenito. The practical deduction drawn from this is expressed by a writer of the period, who says that, if the accused confesses but does not satisfy the evidence, he is to be tortured and, if he still fails to satisfy the evidence, it is customary to send him to the galleys, but this must be for not less than three years.[388] To appreciate fully this atrocity, it must be borne in mind that torture could only be used in cases of doubt where the evidence was defective, so that, besides the torture the victim was sent to the galleys for suspicion of heresy.

[Sidenote: _THE GALLEYS_]

Even this did not satisfy the royal exigency and a further inexcusable step was taken. We have seen that tardy and imperfect confessions were visited with scourging and sometimes with the galleys, while the _buen confitente_, who confessed promptly and freely, was allured with promises of special consideration and mercy. Yet, in 1573, the Suprema issued a carta acordada ordering that Conversos, even when _buen confitentes_, should be sent to the galleys, and this it repeated in 1591, with injunctions for its enforcement.[389] The name of religion has not often been more brutally prostituted than in these provisions, and their success may be measured by a report of the inquisitors of Saragossa to Philip, of an auto celebrated June 6, 1585, in which they call his special attention to their zeal in furnishing him with twenty-nine galley-slaves for six years, besides three left over from a previous auto--and this in Aragon, which forbade galley-service as a punishment for the most heinous crimes.[390]

The galley-captains naturally were not punctilious in discharging the men when their terms had expired, giving rise to perpetual friction. The sentence ordinarily was to a term of prison or exile, of which the first three years or more were to be passed at the oar, and this was set forth in the certificates given to the penitents. The tribunals kept watch over them, and demanded their return to serve out the rest of their sentences, but this was not an easy task. The vigilance exercised is illustrated by a royal cedula addressed to the captain of a galley, ordering him to release two men whose terms had expired, and warning him that in future all such persons were to be returned to the tribunal that had sentenced them.[391] This was followed, in 1568, by general instructions to Don John of Austria, as Captain-general of the Sea, and to all captains of galleys, reciting the complaints of the Sicilian tribunal that its reclamations of its penitents were not complied with, and ordering their restoration to their tribunals without waiting for demands.[392] This was ineffectual and, in 1575, we find the Barcelona tribunal instructed to prosecute the captains who impede the discharge of those who had served out inquisitorial sentences.[393] The trouble was perennial and, in 1645, we have a formula of requisition for the return of the party specified, under pain of excommunication and of five hundred ducats, and the tribunal of the port where the galleys lie is requested to see to its execution. A significant note however adds that this is scantly courteous to such great men as the generals of the galleys, and that it is better to ask the tribunal of the port to procure the release by friendly negotiation.[394]

The cases could not have been infrequent in which men, utterly unfit for the privations and ill-usage of the galley-slave, were condemned to this hard service, and no doubt many perished in consequence. Yet exemptions on this ground were reluctantly admitted, if we may judge from a rebuke administered, in 1665, by the Suprema to the Barcelona tribunal, in a case where this was asked; the opinions of the physician and surgeon were insufficient; other professionals must be called in and examination be made as to the penitent's condition when, if it appears that he is unfit for the service, the sentence can be commuted to eight years of exile as proposed.[395] It is a marked expression of the humanitarian development of the eighteenth century that, even in the fierce persecution of its first quarter, in 1721 it was ordered that, before imposing a sentence to the galleys, the delinquent should be examined by the physician and surgeon and, if incapacitating weakness appeared, it should be mentioned in the vote of the consulta de fe that, in consequence of it, the sentence was commuted to irremissible imprisonment.[396] The succeeding autos show that this bore fruit in sundry commutations, although the alternative of irremissible prison was not observed, and less severe penalties were sometimes substituted.[397]

[Sidenote: _THE GALLEYS_]

In the sixty-four autos de fe between 1721 and 1727, of which we possess details, there were ninety-two sentences to the galleys and seven to service in the presidios. There was a certain relation between the two. In the seventeenth century legislation on offences connected with the coinage, the galleys were provided for commoners and presidio service for gentlemen and, as the century drew to a close, we find the Inquisition no longer sending gentlemen to serve as soldiers on the galleys but to Oran, Ceuta, Gibraltar, Badajoz, Peñon and other royal works and garrisons.[398] In the eighteenth century Inquisition, the galleys for all classes were gradually supplanted by the presidio, if we include in the term enforced labor in the royal dock-yards and arsenals as well as in the African garrisons. Galleys were disappearing from the sea and, in the Inquisition, they were superseded by the _bagne_, in its various forms of hard work. In 1742, the Toledo tribunal condemned Rafael Nuñez Hernández, for certain errors, to eight years of exile of which the first five were to be passed serving the king in the unwholesome quicksilver mines of Almaden, and the last sentences to the galleys that I have met occur in 1745, when Nicholas Serrano was condemned at Toledo for bigamy to eight years of service in them, and Miguel Gutiérrez and Francisco García, at Valladolid, for relapse into Judaism, to ten years. After this the galleys may be said to be obsolete, even for bigamy, as is seen in a sentence of the Valencia tribunal in 1781.[399]

The presidio continued as a punishment under the Restoration, but cases were so rare that there was question as to the reception of the convicts in their places of destination. In 1818, the Seville tribunal sentenced three persons--two for propositions and one for bigamy--to two years' service in Ceuta or Melilla, and it asked the Suprema to get the minister of war to issue orders to the governors to receive them. The Suprema replied that this was the business of the tribunal; it must do as on former occasions, and if necessary could write to the governors. The _forçats_ were duly received and, it is pleasant to add that, in six months, the Suprema humanely remitted the punishment in order that they might return and support their families. For this an order from the secretary of the Council of War was required and procured.[400]

For women, the equivalent of the galleys was service without pay in hospitals, houses of correction and similar institutions. Apparently these female convicts were not always regarded as desirable inmates and though, in the pre-revolutionary times, no opposition was ventured, under the Restoration there was sometimes difficulty in securing their admission. In 1819 the Seville tribunal appealed to the Suprema, representing that it had been unable thus to dispose of Juana de Luna, for the same reasons which it had experienced in the cases of Ana Barbero and Leonor Macias. The Inquisition inspired no such terror as of old, for the Suprema could suggest no means of overcoming the difficulty, and could only instruct the tribunal to devise some method of executing its sentences.[401]

* * * * *

It is not to the credit of the Roman Inquisition that it followed the example of the Spanish and included the galleys in its list of punishments. Carena, indeed, tells us that it was the most usual of all and was the customary penalty in a wide variety of offences.[402]

RECONCILIATION.

That reconciliation to the Church, which was represented as a loving mother, eager to welcome back to her bosom her erring children, should be regarded as a punishment, seems a contradiction in terms, yet so it was, and the Suprema did not hesitate to speak of those "who had been condemned to reconciliation."[403] It would not be easy to invent a more emphatic illustration of the perversion of the spirit of religion by persecuting fanaticism.

The apostate or the heretic, who had abandoned the Church after admission through the waters of baptism, could only be reincorporated by abjuring his errors and applying for reconciliation. In the case of Conversos, who secretly adhered to the Mosaic or Mahometan law, there could be no question as to this, nor was there with such heretics as Protestants. To what extent other errors might constitute formal heresy requiring reconciliation, or might infer suspicion of heresy, light or vehement, was a problem for the calificadores, and sometimes was an intricate one, for the gradations of theological error are infinite and subtile.

[Sidenote: _RECONCILIATION_]

In the tumultuous proceedings of the early period when, under Edicts of Grace, penitents came forward by the thousand, confessing their errors and begging for reconciliation, the ceremony was naturally simple. Under the Instructions of 1484, the form described by Joan Andrea was to be used: the inquisitors declared that the penitent had been an apostate heretic, who had followed the rites and ceremonies of the Jews and had incurred the penalties of the law but, as he now says that he has been converted and desires to return to the faith, with a pure heart and faith unfeigned, and is ready to accept and perform the penances to be imposed, they must absolve him from the excommunication incurred through the said crime and must reconcile him to Holy Mother Church, if, as he says, he is converted to the holy faith truly and without fiction.[404]

No mention is made here of any subsequent ceremonies, although at least abjuration must probably have followed. When procedure was less hurried and there had been time for its elaboration, the process became impressive. The sentence recited that the penitent was admitted to reconciliation; that as penance he was to appear in an auto de fe, without girdle or cap, in a penitential habit of yellow cloth, with two red _aspas_ or bands forming a St. Andrew's cross, and a candle in his hand when, after his sentence is read, he should publicly abjure the errors confessed and all other errors and apostasy, after which "we order him to be absolved and we absolve him from any excommunication which he has incurred and we unite and reincorporate him in the bosom and union of the Holy Mother Catholic Church, and we restore him to participation in the holy sacraments and communion of the faithful"--to which was appended a recital of the various punishments to which he was condemned. After the auto de fe was ended, the abjuration was administered. This was similar to the abjuration _de vehementi_ already given and in it he consented, in case of relapse, to submit to the penalties of the canons. On the conclusion of this, he was formally absolved and the next day his abjuration was read over to him, with a warning that in case of relapse he would be burnt.[405]

As described in an account of the Madrid auto de fe of 1632, this ceremony was imposing. The penitents to be reconciled were brought before the inquisitor-general who was presiding. While they kneeled before him he read a short catechism, comprising the creed with some additions, to each question of which they answered "Yes, I believe." Then the secretary recited the abjuration, in which they followed him. The inquisitor-general then pronounced the exorcism and the customary prayers and the royal chapel chanted the Miserere, during which the chaplains of the Inquisition struck the penitents with rods on the shoulders. After this the inquisitor-general recited the customary verses and prayers and the royal chapel sang a hymn, while the black cloth was removed from the cross, which had been covered as a sign of mourning, and the inquisitor-general concluded the solemnities with a hymn.[406]

Superficially, there is nothing formidable in this reception of a wandering sheep back into the fold, but the serious aspect of reconciliation, justifying its characterization as a punishment, lay in the penalties which were virtually inseparable from it, and were customarily included in the sentence--imprisonment, sanbenito, confiscation and disabilities, with occasionally scourging and the galleys, some of which we have already considered while others will be treated hereafter. There was further the fact that the canons pardoned the heretic but once. If, after reconciliation, he was guilty of reincidence, there was no mercy for him on earth, although the Church in its kindness, would not close the portals of heaven on him and, if truly contrite, would admit him to the sacraments, although it would not spare him the stake.[407] The crucial question of relapse, however, will be considered in the next chapter and meanwhile it should be said that the Spanish Inquisition did not always enforce this cruel precept. In the later period second reconciliations were by no means infrequent, and, even in the earlier time, men sometimes shrank from the holocausts which the strict enforcement of the rule would have caused amid a population terrorized into suddenly forswearing their ancestral faith. In Majorca, under the Edict of Grace, there were three hundred and thirty-eight reconciliations, August 18, 1488, followed by ninety-six on March 26, 1490. Soon after this an Edict of Mercy was published, under which there were reconciled a second time no less than two hundred and eighty-eight of the previous penitents. One of these, Antonia, wife of Ferrer Pratz was even reconciled a third time, June 28, 1509. Scattering cases of second reconciliations can also be found elsewhere.[408]

[Sidenote: _RECONCILIATION_]

There was a rule that the reconciled were not to be subjected to scourging or the galleys, even though they might have deserved them by varying and revoking confessions, but I cannot find that this was observed for, in both the earlier and later periods, cases as we have seen were numerous in which reconciliation was accompanied with these corporal punishments.[409] On the other hand, although the principle was absolute that reconciliation carried with it confiscation and perpetual prison, cases sometimes occur in which these penalties were lightened. In the Toledo auto of November 30, 1651, there were nine reconciliations, in which the accompanying punishments were mostly trivial--in one case the sanbenito was removed immediately on return to the Inquisition.[410]

It seems almost a travesty on solemn religious observances that effigies of the dead should be admitted to reconciliation but, as the grave afforded no refuge from the Inquisition, this was a logical outcome of the system, when a defunct heretic had recanted and sought reincorporation with the Church. As he could not be reconciled in person he had to be reconciled in effigy, especially as the sentence was necessary to secure confiscation of his estate. The only occasion of this was the death, during trial, of a prisoner who had confessed, professed conversion and received sacramental absolution on his death-bed. His trial would necessarily be continued and result in reconciliation, and the Inquisition saw no incongruity in parading his image before the people, and performing with it the solemn farce of reconciliation. There was a somewhat inexplicable instance in Majorca of three Judaizers, who had died in prison during their trials, in 1678, after manifesting the necessary signs of repentance; they were not included among the two hundred and twelve reconciliations, in the autos de fe of 1679, but, thirteen years afterwards, their effigies were reconciled in the auto of July 2, 1691 and no theologian seems to have asked himself what was their spiritual condition during this prolonged interval.[411] This reconciliation in effigy, was not, as Llorente states, an innovation introduced under Philip III, but was practised from the beginning, for there was an instance of it in Beatrix Sener, deceased, thus reconciled May 2, 1499, at Barcelona.[412]

Apparently the age of responsibility was the only minimum limit in reconciliation. In the Madrid Auto of 1632, Catalina Méndez, a child of 12, was reconciled with sanbenito and six months' imprisonment. At Toledo, in 1659, Beatriz Jorje and Ana Pereira, Portuguese Judaizers each ten years old, were reconciled; the former had her sanbenito removed at once; the latter was sentenced to confiscation and four months of prison.[413]

Reconciliation brought with it one alleviation, for the reconciled, as penitents, were entitled to the fuero of the Inquisition. This was derived from the penitential system of the Middle Ages, which deprived the penitent of bearing arms during the long series of years for which penance was imposed, and no one could be expected to assume it unless protected by the Church against his enemies. In this the Inquisition stood in the place of the Church, and cast its jurisdiction over its penitents during their term of penance. In 1501, we find a certain Pan Besante of Teruel, a _reconciliado_, to whom Ferdinand had restored his confiscated property, complaining to the king that he was persecuted and maltreated by his debtors and his neighbors, and that the inquisitors, to whom he had appealed for protection, neglected to aid him, whereupon Ferdinand promptly ordered them to come to his assistance, to enforce, by their officials, the payment of his just claims and to punish the aggressors.[414] So far was this carried that at Granada, in 1654, the reconciled penitents had an advantage in trade over the faithful, by claiming exemption from the _alcavala_, or royal tax on sales. When the citizens complained of this discrimination, the fiscal of the tribunal admitted that the question was a difficult one; to subject the penitents to the royal jurisdiction would give rise to great embarrassments, yet at the same time the inquisitorial jurisdiction ought to be a punishment and not a reward.[415] That it was a reward we have seen from the eagerness with which it was claimed by all who could put forward the slenderest pretext.

[Sidenote: _THE PENITENTIAL PRISON_]

THE PERPETUAL PRISON.

Imprisonment for life was the penance imposed by the canons on the heretic who, under the persuasive methods of persecution, sought reconciliation to the Church. It was so decreed, indeed, by pope and emperor before the Inquisition was organized, and that institution relentlessly enforced the laws. That the Spanish Holy Office should accept it was a matter of course. Its expense, however, had proved a source of tribulation in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and it was none the less so in Spain for, large as were the confiscations and pecuniary penances, they were squandered as fast as they accrued. In Torquemada's supplementary Instructions of December, 1484, the receivers are ordered to provide for the maintenance of the prisons, which shows that the sovereigns admitted their responsibility,[416] but, in the chronic financial disorder of the time, no regular provision was made, either for their establishment or support. It is true that, in 1486, at the earnest request of the inquisitors of Saragossa, Ferdinand ordered the receiver to construct a perpetual prison, in accordance with their desires, but it is safe to assume that he prudently postponed replying to their inquiry as to the maintenance of the captives.[417] In 1492, when the tribunal sentenced Brianda de Bardaxí to five years' imprisonment, it was to the tower of Saliana and this, in a few days, was changed to the convent of Santo Sepolcro in Saragossa.[418] In fact, for want of prisons, the custom was general of consigning reconciled penitents to strongholds, hospitals, convents, or even to their own houses--the latter presumably being such shelter as friends or kindred could afford to those who had been stripped by confiscation. The Instructions of 1488, indeed, authorize inquisitors, in view of the multitudes condemned to perpetual imprisonment and the lack of prisons, to designate to the penitents their houses, where they must confine themselves under the penalties provided by the laws. But this, it was added, was only meant to be temporary, and the sovereigns were supplicated to order that, at each tribunal, the receiver should provide a large enclosure with little huts and a chapel, where the prisoners could hear mass and could each work at his trade and earn his living, and thus relieve the Inquisition from heavy burdens, due care being taken to keep the sexes apart.[419] The only answer to this prayer seems to have been the device of relieving the prisons for the benefit of the galleys.

The laxity of quartering penitents on public institutions or in private houses led to impracticable rules in the effort to counteract its evils. An instruction issued about this time by the Suprema orders that no one be admitted to reconciliation without condemning him to confiscation and perpetual prison, if he has been a heretic, and those thus condemned must perform their penance most rigidly, not speaking with any one except on the days when they go to mass and hear sermons; on other days, both in going out and in eating, they must show themselves true penitents, holding no intercourse with wives and children.[420] This seems to have received scant obedience and, in 1506, the Suprema ordered that sanbenitos be placed on all prisoners, and that they must not leave their houses and then, in 1509, it prescribed that perpetual prisons must be provided. Apparently this was partially successful, for it was followed by instructions that all who had been or should be condemned must be placed in them, where they can ply their trades, or their kindred can supply them with food, or they may beg alms for their support. Thus, in 1510, Llerena selected two pairs of houses for the purpose, which Ferdinand ordered the governor of Leon to have appraised. Cuenca also seems to have obtained a prison, but an inadequate one, for in 1511 the Suprema authorized the tribunal to permit all the sick, and all who had been confined for two years, to betake themselves to their homes. Where such prisons existed the discipline must have been exceedingly lax for, in 1512, the Suprema issued a general provision empowering the tribunals to allow the destitute occupants of the perpetual prisons to go out by turns to beg in the cities, but they must wear their sanbenitos and return by nightfall, under penalty of relapse, and this was repeated in 1513. Then the further effort to provide prisons seems to have been abandoned for, in 1514, Ximenes issued an order permitting the reconciled to fulfil their penances in their own homes.[421]

[Sidenote: _THE PENITENTIAL PRISON_]

This fluctuating policy and the extraordinary laxity which it reveals were not due to any humanitarian impulses. It was simply a continuous effort to shirk the responsibility of maintaining those whose property had been confiscated, and who were required by the canons to be incarcerated for life. The Inquisition obtained the plunder, it inflicted on its victims disabilities, which increased enormously the difficulty of self-support, it rendered them odious to the population by making them wear the sanbenito, it was in duty bound to provide prisons where they could be immured and prevented from infecting the community, but it neglected this duty and virtually told them that they might beg or starve. That death by starvation, indeed, was not uncommon is asserted in the project of reform drawn up, in 1518, by order of Charles V.

Still the tribunals seem to have made some progress in providing themselves with penitential prisons for, in 1524, the Suprema deemed it worth while to order that they should be inspected monthly, and the results be recorded in a book to be kept for that purpose.[422] By no means all had done so however. Barcelona, which occupied the royal palace, had found room there, in 1489, for its penitents, and in 1544 we hear of Gerónimo de Quadras as alcaide, on a salary of fifty ducats, out of which he was to pay for a person to conduct the prisoners to mass and to bring them back. Valencia was less advanced, for it could have had no prison in 1540, when it sentenced three women to keep as a prison such place as should be designated to them, but in 1546 it secured the services of Gerónimo de Quadras as alcaide, at a salary of thirty ducats. In 1550, however, he complained that he had never received his pay and, in 1554, we find the perpetual prison of Brianda de Garcete commuted to confinement in her own house, or other designated place, which would indicate that the attempt to establish a prison had been abandoned.[423] In 1553, Logroño apparently had none, for it assigned, to Juan Prebost, Bilbao and two leagues around as a prison, with the sanbenito.[424] This need not surprise us for, if in some tribunals there was an attempt to provide a perpetual prison, it was exceptional. In 1537 the Suprema had formally declared that it would be a novelty to support the penitents at the cost of the fisc; this could not and ought not to be done; there was no objection to their performing their penance in their own homes and the tribunals could arrange it accordingly. A few months later this was repeated; the reconciled could be sent to their houses to perform their penance, if they had no other means of support.[425]

At length the Instructions of 1561 endeavored to introduce some system in this scandalous state of things. The sentence of reconciliation condemned the penitent to prison and sanbenito for a specified term, during which he was to wear the _abito_ publicly over his other garments; he was to be confined in the perpetual prison, going to mass and sermon on Sundays and feast days, and on Saturdays performing certain devotions at a designated shrine.[426] To enforce this discipline the Instructions stated that, as many tribunals had no perpetual prison, houses should be bought for the purpose as, without them there were no means of knowing whether the reconciled performed their penance. The alcaide should help them in their necessity by giving them materials to work at their trades and help to support themselves, and the inquisitors should visit the prison several times a year.[427] This seems to have been followed by an effort to induce the tribunals to provide prisons, for, in 1562, Toledo was taken to task for having none. It not only did not supply the deficiency but demurred to the suggestion that it should at least furnish a person to see that the penitents performed their penance, and it was told that for three or four thousand maravedís of extra pay the portero could attend to this.[428]

[Sidenote: _THE PENITENTIAL PRISON_]

In 1570 the Suprema resumed the attempt to bring about this much needed reform. It told the tribunals that they could rent houses until they should be able to purchase, and they must appoint proper persons as alcaides to keep watch over the penitents.[429] The result of this pressure was gradual. In 1577 the Cistercian convent of Santa Fe, in Saragossa, made formal complaint to the pope of the number of penitents quartered upon it, and Cardinal Savelli, the head of the Roman Inquisition, interposed with the Suprema to relieve it of this oppression.[430] It was not until 1598 that the Mexican tribunal, nearly thirty years after its foundation, built a capacious prison adjoining its own structure.[431] In 1600, for the first time, there is an allusion in the Toledo record to a "carcel de la peniténcia" and, in 1609, Valencia was busy in erecting one at a cost of 5110 libras; it had been planned to have three floors, but was economically reduced to two.[432] Whether all the tribunals yielded to the pressure and established penitential prisons it would be impossible to say, but they probably did so, if only in some perfunctory fashion that justified the appointment of an alcaide. Simultaneously with this there came a change in the name, and the _carcel perpetua_ was known as the _casa de la peniténcia_ or _de la misericórdia_.

It does not follow that the establishment of prisons was attended with any increased strictness of discipline. The Inquisition persistently refused to accept the burden of supporting its prisoners and left them to shift for themselves. Where prisons existed there were few penitents in them, although condemnations to imprisonment were frequent and, in 1641, Philip IV conceived the idea of liberating them all. The Suprema sent his decree to the tribunals with orders to report whether they had any prisoners and what were their cases, to which Valencia replied that it had one, imprisoned for persistent sorcery, whereupon the Suprema ordered the sentence to be commuted and the prisoner to be discharged.[433]

The royal project fell through. All prisons were not as empty as that of Valencia and a discussion occurring, in 1654, at Granada, to which allusion has already been made, illustrates the character of the imprisonment rendered necessary by the refusal to support the prisoners. They gained their living chiefly by hawking goods around the city; this at length aroused the shopkeepers, and the corregidor represented to the tribunal that scandals were occasioned by their entering houses and committing indecencies; there was loss to the king for, as penitents, they were not subject to the _alcavala_ and other imposts; thus favored they undersold the shopkeepers, who had lost half of their trade, while the penitents grew rich, for they came almost naked from the secret prison and, in a short time, they were well clothed and enriched. The tribunal admitted the force of this and, on December 24, 1654, issued an order that, for two weeks, they might cry their wares through the streets, but not enter houses, and subsequently be restricted to selling in shops. At this the prisoners complained bitterly of the deprivation of a privilege of long standing in all places where there was a tribunal, for without it they could not earn a living or support their wives and families. Thereupon the fiscal, Doctor Joseph Francisco Cresco de Escobar, seeing that both sides would appeal to the Suprema, printed for its enlightenment a memorial which reveals to us the character of penitential imprisonment. He states that, in accordance with the Instructions of 1488, the tribunals had provided penitential prisons, the one at Granada being of ample capacity for the observance of the Instructions of 1561. He quotes the canons and conciliar decrees to show that recanting heretics are to be immured for life, whence he argues that the prison should be afflictive and penal. Now, however, it is only nominal; the so-called prisoners go out at all hours of the day, without restriction, without a companion, without labor save what they voluntarily undertake, all of which is liberty and not captivity. They wander at will through the city and suburbs, they amuse themselves at the houses of their friends, they spend, if they choose, only part of the night in the prison, which serves them as a comfortable lodging-house, free of rent. The Instructions require that the alcaide shall see that they perform their penance, but this has become impossible, and there are no means of restricting their intercourse with the faithful. As for their plea that they leave the secret prison broken in health and stripped of their property, that they have no chance to learn trades and must support their families by trading, the answer is that only through the mercy of the Holy Office do they escape burning, and they should be thankful that their lives are spared; their poverty is a trifling penalty for their crimes, and their children only share the punishment of paternal heresy.[434]

[Sidenote: _THE PENITENTIAL PRISON_]

With all this laxity, there was a pretence of maintaining the old rigor, which regarded prison-breaking as relapse, but the real offence lay in the fugitive throwing off the sanbenito. There seems to have been little desire to recapture those who absented themselves, for the formula of the mandate to search for and arrest fugitives only concerns itself with those who escape from the secret prison and who thus are still on trial,[435] but when from any cause penitents were returned to the tribunal, their treatment is exemplified in the case of Juan González, who escaped from the _casa de la peniténcia_ of Valladolid, July 3, 1645. His story was that, having gone out to collect some money due to him, he gambled it away, got drunk, went to sleep under the walls of the Carmelite convent in the suburbs and, on awaking next morning and fearing punishment, he wandered away, throwing off the sanbenito and seeking work. Thus he reached Irun and designed passing into France, but was recognized by a priest who had seen him in Valladolid; he was handed over to the commissioner and was passed from familiar to familiar till he was lodged in the secret prison of Valladolid. The fiscal claimed that his flight and throwing off the sanbenito proved him to be an impenitent and pertinacious relapsed into Judaism who must be relaxed; but his sentence was only two hundred lashes and irremissible prison.[436]

Sentences to imprisonment continued as usual, but growing indifference as to providing for their execution is indicated by a correspondence between Barcelona and the Suprema in 1718. At that time the tribunal had but four cases under trial; it still occupied the ancient royal palace but, after it had condemned for Judaism María Meneses to irremissible, and her daughter Catalina de Solis, to perpetual prison, it did not know what to do with them and applied for instructions. There was, it said, no penitential prison nor could it find that there ever had been one, neither was there an alcaide; it possessed no house that could be used for the purpose, and no official could be spared from his other duties. The Suprema replied by inquiring whether there was a prison for familiars in which a room could be used for the women, or whether some little house near the palace could be had and some official or familiar could serve as alcaide. The tribunal rejoined negativing the proposed use of the prison for familiars; it would see whether a house could be had, but there was no money for the purpose; as for the officials, they were all fully occupied and no one would take the position without salary. This the Suprema met with a peremptory order to rent a little house and appoint an alcaide at the ordinary wages. Under this pressure some kind of provision must have been made for, in an auto of January 31, 1723, the tribunal condemned four Judaizers to irremissible prison.[437]

During the recrudescence of persecution at this period, the number of condemnations to imprisonment was large; in the Granada auto of December 21, 1720, there were twenty-seven and, in sixty-four autos between 1721 and 1727, there were seven hundred and forty.[438] How these numerous prisoners were accommodated it would be difficult to guess, for the neglect of the penitential prisons was progressive and, in the census of all the tribunals, about 1750, but three reported to have alcaides--Córdova, Granada and Murcia.[439] It does not follow that others had not prisons, but only that they had no prisoners and cared to have none. For instance, in 1794, when the Suprema inquired of Valencia whether its prison would suit for the priest Juan Fernández Sotelo, whose health required a change from the convent where he was recluded, the tribunal craftily replied that its prison was constructed with cells and dungeons and that, in the eyes of the people, confinement in it produced infamy, so that quarters for Sotelo had better be found in some convent in the suburbs. Apparently it forgot all this when, in 1802, it complained that the salaries of its secretaries had not been raised in 1795, while that of the alcaide of the penitential prison had been increased from a hundred and twenty to twenty-two hundred reales, although he had nothing to do, and enjoyed the use of a house in the prison as good as those of the inquisitors.[440]

[Sidenote: _DURATION OF IMPRISONMENT_]

In fact, by this time penitential imprisonment was virtually obsolete. After the subsidence of the active persecution of Judaism, the Toledo tribunal which, in 1738, pronounced twelve sentences of prison, did not utter another until 1756. Then a long interval occurs, of thirty-eight years, before the next one, which was for heretical propositions.[441] It would not, perhaps, be safe to say that, in the concluding years of the Inquisition, this form of punishment was wholly unknown, but no cases of it have come under my observation.

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