CHAPTER II.

THE TRIBUNAL.

During the active career of the Inquisition, it was the local tribunal which represented it to the people. The inquisitor-general and Suprema were distant and held no direct relations with the community. It was otherwise with the inquisitors, at whose bidding any one, however high-placed, could be thrown into the secret prison, to emerge with an ineffaceable mark of infamy, while his property, to the minutest item, was sequestrated and tied up, perhaps for years, and, if not confiscated, was largely consumed in expenses. Men wielding such power, and virtually irresponsible, shed terror around them as they walked abroad and, as we have seen, their habitual use of their position was not such as to allay these apprehensions. They were the visible agents of the Holy Office, the embodiment of its mysterious and all-embracing authority, empowered to summon to their aid the whole resources of the State and answerable only to their chief. The tribunal, in which they sat in judgement on the lives and fortunes of all whom they might call before them, could only be regarded with universal dread, for no one knew at what moment an unguarded utterance, or the denunciation of some enemy, might bring him before it.

* * * * *

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

[Sidenote: _EXPROPRIATION OF HOUSES_]

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

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

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

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _NUMBER OF OFFICIALS_]

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

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

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

[Sidenote: _NUMBER OF OFFICIALS_]

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

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

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

[Sidenote: _SALE OF OFFICES_]

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

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

[Sidenote: _SALE OF OFFICES_]

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

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

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

[Sidenote: _NUMBER OF OFFICIALS_]

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

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

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

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

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

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[Sidenote: _HEREDITARY TRANSMISSION_]

Offices were virtually held for life, although the commissions technically expired with the death or removal of the grantor, for we have seen that, with each change in the inquisitor-generalship, the new incumbent renewed them and the interregnum was bridged over by the action of the Suprema. This did not cover the financial officials, who held from the crown and the same process was required on a change of sovereigns. Thus, when Philip II died, in 1598, the Suprema made haste to inform the tribunals that Philip III confirmed all the judges of confiscations, receivers and auditors.[587] Thus the incumbents came to regard themselves as holding vested rights in their offices and in fact were technically called "proprietors" of them, a corollary to which was to consider them as property, subject to hereditary transmission or to transactions more or less disguised.

A tendency to nepotism seems to have manifested itself early, for the Instructions of 1498 forbid the appointment, in any tribunal, of a kinsman or servant of the inquisitors or of any other official.[588] The force of this was weakened, in 1531, by a decision of the Suprema that the deputy of the receiver of Valencia was not an official in the sense of the prohibition--a decision which opened the door to hereditary transmission by enabling fathers to introduce their sons as deputies in their offices, as we have seen in the case of Géronimo Zurita.[589] Still, the prohibition was held to be in force and, in the instructions to visitors, one of the points to be investigated was whether two members of a family were employed in a tribunal.[590] Like all other wholesome rules, however, there was no hesitation in violating it. When the tribunal of Lima was established in 1570, it was specifically called to the attention of the inquisitors, but they had scarce been installed when a letter from Secretary Vázquez ordered them to appoint Pedro de Bustamente, brother of one of them, to any office for which he was fitted, and he was duly made notary of sequestrations.[591]

Hereditary transmission seems to have been favored from an early period. In 1498, we find Ferdinand not only approving the resignation of Pedro Lazaro, alguazil of Barcelona, in favor of his son Dionisio, but increasing the salary of the latter because he is a person who cannot live upon the regular stipend. So, in 1502, when Juan Pérez, notary of the tribunal of Calatayud, was incapacitated by age, he executed a will leaving all the papers and documents to his son Juan, and Ferdinand confirmed the bequest and empowered Juan to act.[592]

So completely did this become the policy of the Inquisition that when an official died, leaving a minor son, the place was filled temporarily till the boy should reach adult age and he was provided for meanwhile. In 1542, Luis Bages, notary of sequestrations in Saragossa, died and Tavera appointed Bartolomé Malo to the vacancy, ordering the receiver to pay from the fines and penances five hundred sueldos a year to Juan Bages, the young son of Luis. Accompanying this was a private communication to the inquisitors, informing them that Malo was appointed only until Juan should have age and experience for the position and, as the arrangement does not appear in his commission, a notarial act must be taken so as to insure Juan's succession. Secret arrangements such as this, however were not usually considered necessary. The next year died Miguel de Oliban, notary of the secreto in the same tribunal, when a temporary appointee was inducted who divided the salary with Juan Pérez de Oliban, son of Miguel, till he should be old enough to take the place.[593] The requirements of age were waived in favor of such transmissions. About 1710, Carlos Albornoz, receiver of Valencia, asked to be allowed to transfer his office to his son, aged twelve; this was refused but when, two years later, he renewed the request, it was granted.[594] Of course the service suffered from the incompetence of those thrust into it, but when they were absolutely unfit they were allowed to employ substitutes who served for a portion of the salary. Thus when Juan Romeo, in 1548, resigned a notariat of the juzgado in favor of his brother Francisco, Valdés wrote to the inquisitors that he hoped that Francisco would soon learn his duties and be able to fill the office personally without employing a substitute as had previously been the case.[595]

[Sidenote: _HEREDITARY TRANSMISSION_]

It would be useless to multiply examples of what was of daily occurrence. Officials were constantly resigning or retiring on half-pay in favor of their sons or grandsons or nephews, who were accepted as a matter of course. So completely was office regarded as property that a bereaved widow sometimes held it as a dowry, with which to tempt a new husband, or was granted a pension on it to be paid by the successor. Or, a man with a marriageable daughter would secure the promise of the succession for whoever would marry her; or, if he died leaving a girl unprovided for, the tribunal would kindly look up a husband for her on the same conditions, as in the case of Juana de Treviño, daughter of Antonio Españon in Valencia. Unluckily the first suitor failed to prove his limpieza and another one was found in the person of Antonio de Bolsa.[596]

The natural result of this was to found inquisitorial families who continued through generations to live on the Holy Office, rendering such service as might be expected from those who held their positions to be personal property, like purchasers for four or more lives. Many examples of this could be cited, but a single one will suffice. In 1586 we find Juan del Olmo officiating as notary or secretary of the Valencia tribunal--whether the first of the line or not does not appear. In 1590, his widow Magdalena asked the reversion for her son Joseph, to whom it was given, and during his minority it was served by the alcaide, Pedro Juan Vidal, who gave a third of the salary to the widow. In 1623 this Joseph secured the succession for his son Joseph, who seems to have been a somewhat turbulent gentleman for, in 1638, he and his son were accused of the murder of his fellow secretary, Julian de Palomares. Escaping punishment for this, he died in 1644 and was succeeded by his son Jusepe Vicente, who, in 1666, not without difficulty, obtained the reversion for his son Vicente. The latter was still functioning in 1690. Who followed him I have not been able to trace, but the male line seems to have failed and the office to have passed to a nephew for, in 1750, it is filled by a Vicente Salvador y del Olmo.[597]

Philip II was not blind to the evils of this abuse and, in his instructions of 1595 to Manrique de Lara, he ordered that offices should not be transferred to brothers or sons unless there were special cause and the recipients were capable of filling them without appointing deputies; but Philip III reversed this, in 1608, in his instructions to Sandoval y Rojas, and prescribed that, when an official died, his children should be borne in mind.[598] In the instructions of Carlos II, in 1695, there is exhibited the fatal Spanish tendency of recognizing evils while tolerating them. He prohibited the transfer of office, save from father to son or from brother to brother when there is a just cause and the appointee has capacity for the position, for it had often happened that sons and brothers so appointed were unfit, or were so young that the Inquisition had to wait long to its detriment and even more so when substitutes were taken temporarily, for they went out with a knowledge of the secrets of the Inquisition and imagined themselves no longer bound to secrecy. Yet, after this clear admission he proceeded to repeat the order of Philip III that, when an official died, care was to be taken of his children.[599] Of course the warning went for nothing and the abuse continued to the last. A certificate of limpieza issued, November 23, 1818, to Juan Josef Paris, describes him as secretary of the tribunal of Toledo, on half-salary, while his father, Juan Antonio Paris, jubilado, has the other half.[600]

[Sidenote: _LENIENCY TO OFFENDERS_]

When there was no lineal successor available, the custom arose of granting--doubtless for a consideration--coadjutorships with the right of reversion. In 1619 the tribunal of Valencia took exception to this and consulted the Suprema, resulting in a decision not to recognize such transactions for the future.[601] They still continued, however and, in September 1643, a papal brief was procured prohibiting them, in spite of which a well-informed writer tells us that the inquisitor-general still granted them.[602] Another frequent abuse was saddling an office with a pension in favor of some representative of the previous incumbent or even of a stranger, suggesting collusion of the appointing power. Even inquisitors themselves sometimes accepted office under these degrading conditions. In 1636, a commission issued to Don Alonso de Buelva, as inquisitor of Toledo, bore on its face the full salary, but it was secretly coupled with the condition that he was to draw only the half, while the other half was given to Don Francisco de Valdés. A man taking such an office on these terms would probably not be nice in his methods of recouping himself. Still more suggestive of this was the not infrequent custom of taking office "sin gages"--without pay. Thus, in 1637, the Licenciado Pedro Montalvo accepted such a commission as notary of the secreto in Toledo and, in 1638, a similar one was issued for Córdova to Pedro Gutiérrez Armentía. Even inquisitors did not disdain to stoop to this as when, in this same year 1638, Doctor Villaviciosa took the inquisitorship of Murcia without pay.[603]

It is easy to understand how a system such as this should encumber the tribunals with useless hangers-on whose only serious duty was the drawing of salaries. So well was this understood that when, in the confusion of the War of Succession, there often was not money enough to go around, an order was issued that those who were performing duties should be paid in preference to those who were not. So, one of the features of the reform of 1705, attempted by Philip V, was a royal decree declaring null and void all commissions issued without carrying the obligation to work in the office, that no jubilation with salary should be granted without consulting the king, and that no ayuda de costa or other gratification should exceed thirty ducats without the royal assent.[604]

* * * * *

Malfeasance was stimulated by the excessive tenderness which forbore to visit misconduct with punishment. Warnings and threats were freely uttered but rarely enforced and, even when the penalty of suspension was inflicted, the term was apt to be reduced before expiration. This patience under repeated and prolonged wrongdoing was partly owing to the paternalism which generally governed the relations between superiors and subordinates, but principally because dismissal was a public acknowledgement of fallibility, endangering the popular veneration which the Inquisition sought to inspire. It was so from the first. It is true that the reformatory instructions of 1498 declare that any notary, who does what he should not do, shall be condemned as a perjurer and forger and be perpetually deprived of office, besides such other penalty of fine or exile as the inquisitor-general may determine, but this carried few terrors for offenders.[605] The power of effective punishment lay exclusively with the central head, which was not readily moved to active indignation by offences committed at a distance. A letter of Ferdinand, May 17, 1511, to an inquisitor, who had complained bitterly of a subordinate and evidently had asked his discharge, embodies the principle to which the Inquisition remained faithful to the last. The complainant was told that, when any of his officials was in fault, he was to be admonished; if he persisted, he was to be rebuked in the presence of his fellows; if this did not suffice, consultation was to be had with those who had been present and every care be taken to avoid injustice before going further, for the dismissal of officials of the Inquisition is most odious; the utmost caution must be observed that it is founded on justice and the success of the work depends on all living in harmony.[606] This forbearance Ferdinand himself practised in cases which might well move him to inflict summary chastisement.[607] When the inquisitor himself proved incorrigible, he might be suspended for a year or two, but the usual course was to transfer him and inflict him on some other district. In extreme cases he might be jubilado or retired on half-pay as was done with officials who were superannuated or too infirm to work. Dismissal was almost unknown and I have met with but few cases of it.

Jubilation might be either a reward or a punishment. In the earlier time, when an official was obliged to retire on account of age or infirmity he was taken care of with either a pension or a substantial gift, of which various cases are to be found in the records. In time this became an established custom, known as jubilation, and the retiring pension was usually half the salary, sometimes, but not often, deducted from the salary of the successor. Applications for jubilation were common, as men grew old or incapacitated, and we have seen, in the enumeration of the tribunal of Murcia, how many wage-eaters of this kind weighed on the finances of the Inquisition.

[Sidenote: _RELAXATION OF DISCIPLINE_]

The use of jubilation as a punishment affords a striking illustration of the tenderness shown to offenders. Instead of the deserved dismissal, they were shielded as far as possible from disgrace and were retired with a pension, thus placing them on a par with aged officials worn out in service. So far was this sympathy carried that, in the instructions of Carlos II to Rocaberti, in 1695, he is warned that, as jubilation inflicts grave discredit, even sometimes involving risk of life, it is only to be resorted to with ample cause, after taking a vote in the Suprema.[608] How superfluous was this caution could be instanced by a number of cases, of which it suffices to mention that of Melchor Zapata who, about 1640, succeeded his father-in-law as alcaide of the secret prison of Valencia. Then the correspondence of the tribunal becomes burdened with complaints of his disorderly conduct; he was constantly getting into scrapes and being tried on various charges, among others, that of hiring four soldiers to commit a crime of violence. At length, in place of dismissal, he was jubilated with a life-pension of 20,000 maravedís in silver and his office was given to his cousin, Crispin Pons. The _titulo de jubilacion_ issued to him by Sotomayor describes his long and faithful service, for which he is thus rewarded and he was assured of the enjoyment of all the exemptions and prerogatives attached to his office--though his subsequent conduct was so disreputable that, in 1642, it was felt necessary to deprive him of them.[609] When this was the policy observed toward incapable and delinquent officials it is not difficult to understand the financial troubles of the Holy Office and the grievances endured by the people.

The natural effect of this misguided leniency was looseness of discipline and indifference to duty. Inquisitors could inflict fines on their subordinates, except the fiscal, but for serious offences they could only report to the Suprema and, as they had no power of appointment or dismissal, it was impossible for them to exert adequate authority.[610] How little control they possessed is indicated when, in 1546, it was necessary for the Suprema to issue a formal order to the janitor of the Granada tribunal to shut the inner gates of the castle, which was its residence, at such hours as the inquisitors might designate and, if he did not do so, he was to be reported for such action as the Council might see fit to take.[611] Under such a system it is not surprising that, in the suggestions for reform, in 1623, it was proposed to give the inquisitors power to punish and suspend, for the tying of their hands resulted in insubordination, causing grave troubles in the tribunals.[612]

That there was gross neglect of duty follows as a matter of course. The hours prescribed for work, during which all were required to be present, were only six--three in the morning and three in the afternoon--except on the numerous holidays, and visitors in their inspections were instructed to inquire especially into this.[613] From such reports of visitations as I have examined, it would appear that the enforcement of the rule was difficult; Cervantes, indeed, in his report on Barcelona in 1561, says that there is no hope of securing regular attendance unless the Suprema will impose a penalty for default of more than an hour.[614]

[Sidenote: _INSPECTORS_]

Absence from the post of duty was an abuse which also seemed incurable. Even under the vigilant rule of Ferdinand, a circular letter of the Suprema, September 7, 1509, calls attention to the absence of the officials on their private business; the inquisitors, in urgent cases, could grant leave of absence for twenty days in the year, but this was never to be exceeded; records were to be kept and salaries were to be proportionately docked.[615] This was perfectly ineffectual. In 1520 we find the Suprema writing to the officials of Barcelona to return to their posts within ten days, and rebuking the inquisitors for permitting this neglect of duty, but a repetition of the letter in 1521 shows how fruitless had been the first one. The trouble was by no means confined to Barcelona and, in 1521, Cardinal Adrian made an effort to check it by declaring vacant the office of any one absenting himself for two months.[616] It was not only the subordinates, for the inquisitors themselves had frequently to be taken to task for similar neglect of duty.[617] The trouble was endless and serves in part to explain the cruel delays which aggravated so greatly the sufferings of those under trial. In 1573 the rule of 1509 was repeated with the addition that, if the twenty days granted were exceeded by ten days, the absentee was not to be admitted to his office on his return and this again was reissued in 1597, together with an order that no inquisitor should absent himself without the permission of the Suprema.[618]

This was not the only matter in which inquisitors had to be kept in check. The frequent commands for them not to accept commissions to attend to outside business show how eager were people to secure the service of agents so powerful and how ready were the inquisitors thus to sell their influence. So, when Valdés, in 1560, ordered them not to ask for favors, for complaints were made by people that they were forced to grant what was asked, we recognize how infinite were the resources of petty tyranny afforded by the terror which they inspired. That they were not superior to the vices of the period may be inferred from an injunction of Valdés, in 1566, to exercise great moderation in gambling.[619]

* * * * *

Earnest efforts were not lacking to maintain a fair standard of efficiency and discipline in the tribunals, although they were largely neutralized by the restricted authority allowed to the inquisitors and the fatal clemency shown to delinquents. Isabella has the credit of reforming the administration of justice in Castile by periodically sending inspectors, incorruptible and inflexible, to scrutinize the operation of the courts, and it was not long after the organization of the Inquisition that a similar plan was found necessary for its tribunals. We happen to hear of a _visitador_ or inspector at Medina del Campo, while Torquemada was still in the active exercise of his functions, probably before 1490.[620] From letters of 1497 we learn that the salaries of an inspector and his notary were the same as those of an inquisitor and notary--a hundred thousand maravedís for the one and forty thousand for the other. These were appointed by the inquisitor-general and carried royal letters ordering inquisitors to receive and treat them well and all officials to aid them, give them free passage and levy no tolls, dues, ferriages or fees of any kind.[621] The Instructions of 1498 create permanent inspectors-general, of whom there were to be one or two, to visit all tribunals and report their condition; they were not to lodge or eat with the inquisitors or to receive presents from them and were to exercise only the powers expressed in their commissions.[622] Under this Francisco de Simancas, Archdeacon of Córdova, was appointed inspector, with González Mesons as his notary; how long he served does not appear, but orders for the payment of his salary can be traced until 1503.[623]

When the Inquisitions of Castile and Aragon were separated, in 1507, each continued to employ inspectors. Alonso Rodríguez, of whom we hear in 1509, probably belonged to Castile; in 1514 Ximenes appointed Juan Moris as inspector, after which special inspectors ceased for a time to be employed for, in 1517, the Inquisitor of Córdova was sent to inspect Toledo, Seville and Jaen and the Inquisitor of Jaen to inspect Córdova, Cuenca and Valladolid.[624] In Aragon, Mercader in 1513 sent Juan de Ariola to inspect Majorca, Sardinia and Sicily and, about the same time, Hernando de Montemayor to inspect the tribunals of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia.[625] After the reunion of the Inquisition, Cardinal Adrian introduced an innovation by appointing laymen to the office--the Licentiates Sisa and Peña--the former a judge in the high court of Valladolid. Their functions were enlarged, for Charles V describes them as persons of high authority, not connected with the Inquisition, sent to investigate all the tribunals and to reform whatever required amendment, for which he clothed them with ample powers.[626]

[Sidenote: _INSPECTORS_]

These regular routine inspections came to an end and, though the wholesome supervision was not abandoned, it became irregular, either employed occasionally or when complaints seemed to indicate its necessity. Barcelona was a troublesome tribunal, but it seems to have been visited only at intervals of from six to ten years. The inspections were not inexpensive and the cost had to be defrayed by the Suprema. When, in 1567, de Soto Salazar, a member of the Suprema, was sent to investigate Valencia, Barcelona and Saragossa, he was given at the outset four hundred ducats and his secretary, Pablo Garcia, two hundred.[627] The rule became established to employ only inquisitors and those in active service, not retired.[628] The work, when conscientiously performed, was not light. An inspection of the Canary tribunal, made by Claudio de la Cueva, lasted from 1595 to 1597 and his report forms a mass of 1124 folios.[629] This was unusually laborious, but reports covering three, four or five hundred pages are not uncommon.

The _visitador_ was expected to make a thorough investigation of the condition and working of the tribunal, to discover all neglect of regulations, all abuses and malfeasance of the officials, all derelictions of duty, all maladministration of the property and revenues, all misuse of power, whether through oppression of the defenceless or remissness in vindicating the faith. He was to examine the records, not only to see that they were properly kept and indexed but also whether justice had been duly administered and the _estilo_ of the Holy Office had been rigidly followed. He visited the prisons, listened to the complaints of the prisoners and investigated them. On arrival, he fixed a day on which he would appear in the audience-chamber; the inquisitors and all officials were assembled, his credentials were read and the inquisitors promised obedience in the name of all present. The next day the inquisitors were examined under oath, as to whether there was anything requiring amendment and whether the officials performed their full duty, the answers being taken down in writing. The inspector brought with him an elaborate series of interrogatories, usually forty-eight or fifty in number, covering all the points which experience had shown as likely to tempt to wrongdoing and on these he examined all the officials singly. He also listened to all who had complaints to make; if these appeared to be justified he investigated them thoroughly, summoning all witnesses, who were guaranteed that their names would be kept secret, and on this evidence he framed charges against those inculpated and heard them in defence. When his duties in the tribunal were accomplished he was expected to visit the district and investigate all complaints. The results were reduced to writing and, when his labors were completed, he sent or carried the whole to the Suprema for its action.[630] As a rule, he had no executive authority and could only make recommendations, but visitadores to the colonies were frequently invested with greater power, presumably in view of the long delays in communication. When, in 1654, Medina Rico came as inspector to Mexico, where maladministration was flagrant, he sat in judgement on the inquisitors, Estrada and Higuera, suspended them and occupied the tribunal for years.[631] It can readily be conceived that at times there was no little friction between inspector and inquisitors, and, in 1645, the Suprema presented to the king a consulta on the controversies thence arising.[632]

The necessity for these visitations diminished in proportion as the tribunals were subordinated to the Suprema. When they had to make monthly reports of all pending cases, so that their action was under constant supervision; when all sentences were submitted for confirmation or revision, with the papers showing the conduct of the cases; when no arrest could be made without presenting the sumaria and receiving authority; when, moreover, the business management of property was scrutinized through monthly reports of the _junta de hacienda_, there was no longer a justification for the expenses of visitations. The growing facilities of intercommunication encouraged centralization and enabled the Suprema to maintain a constant supervision. When, therefore, it concentrated in itself all the judicial faculties of the Inquisition, rendering the tribunals merely instruments for investigation, the functions of the visitador became superfluous, at least in the Peninsula.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _THE SECRETO_]

The palace or building, which was the seat of the tribunal, was divided into the _secreto_ and the outside rooms or apartments. It was expected to furnish lodgings for the inquisitors and, if spacious enough, for the other officials. The most important feature was the _carceles secretas_ or secret prison for those on trial, for it was necessary that they could be brought at any moment to the audience-chamber without being seen by any one. There was, of course, a torture-chamber, which seems to have generally been underground. The _secreto_ originally was merely a record-room in which the papers and documents were preserved. From the first these were guarded with jealous secrecy, not only on account of their importance in the trials but because their abstraction or destruction was so ardently desired by the kindred or accomplices of convicts. As early as 1485, Ferdinand, in his instructions to the tribunal of Saragossa, orders that no servant of any of the officials shall enter "lo secreto de la Inquisicion."[633] The Instructions of 1498 provide that the chest or chamber in which the papers are kept shall have three keys, two held by the _notarios del secreto_ and one by the fiscal, so that no one can take out a document save in the presence of the others, and no one shall enter it except the inquisitors, the notaries and the fiscal, rules substantially repeated in the Sicilian instructions of 1516. Among the derelictions of the Barcelona tribunal, reported in 1561 by Cervantes, was the neglect of this rule, leading, he said, to grave abuses.[634] The functions and extent of the secreto were gradually enlarged. In Mercader's Instructions of 1514, the money-chest with three keys was ordered to be kept in the secreto, a provision which became permanent.[635] When the rule was established of conducting the trials in profound secrecy, and a veil of impenetrable mystery was thrown around all the operations of the Inquisition, the audience-chamber was included in the secreto, as well as the offices occupied by the fiscal and secretaries. The door to it was secured by three locks having different keys and entrance was forbidden save to those officially privileged or summoned.[636] In 1645, it was discovered that there was danger in the notaries or secretaries bringing in their swords, for a prisoner when led to an audience might in his desperation seize one and give trouble, and they were consequently ordered in future to be left outside.[637] In the Valencia tribunal there was considerable excitement, in 1679, when the pages of the inquisitors got possession of the keys and had false ones made, with which they gained at will access to the sacred precincts, but no harm seems to have arisen from the boyish prank.[638] One feature of the audience-chamber was significant--a _celosía_ or lattice, behind which a witness could identify a prisoner, without being seen or recognized.[639]

[Sidenote: _THE INQUISITORS_]

In considering the personnel of the tribunal, we may dismiss the assessor with a few words. Such an official was unknown in the Old Inquisition, but we have seen that, when the first inquisitors were sent to Seville, they were accompanied by an assessor, and such a functionary continued for some time to be considered a necessary adjunct to a tribunal. At the beginning the inquisitors were Dominican friars, presumably good theologians but unversed in the intricacies of the law. It was therefore desirable to associate with them a lawyer as a guide, and his presence moreover might serve as an assurance to the people of the legality of the proceedings. In Torquemada's instructions of 1485 it is provided that they must always act in concert and that anything done by one without the other was invalid; even communications to the Suprema must be signed by both.[640] In the trials of this period we sometimes find the assessor sitting with the inquisitors and sometimes not, and the sentences are rendered by the latter with the concurrence of the former.[641] In the secular law of the period, the assessor had only a consultative and not a decisive vote, and this would appear to be his position in the tribunal, when the routine of the Inquisition had established its own precedents, when all doubtful questions were decided by the Suprema and the services of trained lawyers were no longer required.[642] In the early time their salaries were the same as those of the inquisitors--indeed, at Saragossa, in 1486, Martin Martínez, the assessor, receives five thousand sueldos while the inquisitors are rated at four thousand.[643] It was not long, however, before it apparently became indifferent whether there was an assessor or not. In 1499, the salary lists of Seville, of Burgos and of Palencia have no mention of such an official, while there is one at Saragossa and, in 1500, Ferdinand empowers the inquisitor of Sardinia to select for his assessor any doctor he pleases.[644] The office continued to exist for a time, as a kind of supernumerary, employed in hearing the civil cases of officials but, in the Aragonese Concordia of 1568, this duty was placed on the inquisitors and the assessorship was abolished. In Castile, the list of officials, promulgated in the same year by Philip II, as entitled to exemption from taxation, makes no mention of the assessor, who may be assumed by this time to disappear.[645]

The inquisitors, of course, were the superior officials of the tribunal. They were the judges, with practically unlimited power over the lives and fortunes and honor of all whom they summoned before them, until they were gradually restricted by the growing centralization in the Suprema. To the people they were the incarnation of the dreaded Holy Office, regarded with more fear and veneration than bishop or noble, for all the powers of State and Church were placed at their disposal. They could arrest and imprison at will; with their excommunication they could, at a word, paralyze the arm of all secular officials and, with their interdict, plunge whole communities into despair. Such a concentration of secular and spiritual authority, guarded by so little limitation and responsibility, has never, under any other system, been entrusted to fallible human nature. To exercise it wisely and temperately called for exceptional elevation of character, self-control and mature experience of men and things. That friars, suddenly called from the cloister or the schools and clothed with such limitless power over their fellow-beings, should sometimes grow intoxicated with their position and commit the awful slaughter which marked the early years of the Inquisition, gives no occasion for surprise, nor that their successors should have trampled with such arrogant audacity on all who ventured to raise a voice against their misuse of their prerogatives. It is therefore worth our while to examine what qualifications were required by popes and kings in those whom they selected as fitted for an office of such bewildering temptations and such vast opportunities for evil.

[Sidenote: _QUALIFICATIONS_]

Sixtus IV, in the bull of November 1, 1478, empowered Ferdinand and Isabella to appoint, as inquisitors, three bishops or other worthy men, priests either regular or secular, over forty years of age, God-fearing, of good character and record, masters or bachelors of theology or licentiates of canon law. The prescription as to the minimum age was as old as the Council of Vienne, in 1312, and had become a matter of course; the rest was as well-chosen a definition of the requisite qualities as perhaps could be expressed in general terms, considering the temper of the age and the work to be performed.[646] So, in 1483, when Sixtus, under the influence of Cardinal Borgia, desired to get rid of Inquisitor Gualbes, he asked Ferdinand to replace him with some master of theology who had the fear of God and was eminent for his virtues.[647] The only inquisitors that Spain had known were Dominicans and, although they were not specified, it seemed to be a matter of course that the Inquisition should remain in their hands, but Ferdinand, in his struggle with Sixtus for the control of the Aragonese Inquisition, had encountered the obstacle of the obedience due by the friars to their General, who of course was a creature of the curia. He was resolved to organize the Inquisition to suit himself, which explains why Torquemada, in his Instructions of December 6, 1484, simplified the formula of qualifications to _letrados_ (either lawyers or men of university training) of good repute and conscience, the fittest that could be had.[648] This did not even require the inquisitor to be an ecclesiastic, except in so far as there were comparatively few letrados of the time who were not in orders. When Innocent VIII renewed the commission of Torquemada, February 3, 1485, it empowered him to appoint as inquisitors fitting ecclesiastics, learned and God-fearing, provided they were masters of theology or doctors or licentiates of laws, or cathedral canons or holding other church dignities, but, while this was repeated in a subsequent bull of March 24, 1486, it was simplified, in another clause, into ecclesiastics of proper character and learning, not less than thirty years of age.[649] This reduction in the age limit was retained by Alexander VI, in the commissions issued to Deza, November 24, 1498 and September 1, 1499, when the requisite of being an ecclesiastic was omitted, for the qualification was reduced simply to suitable men of good and tender conscience, even if they have not reached forty years of age but are more than thirty.[650] This became virtually the accepted formula, as shown in the commissions issued, June 4 and 5, 1507 by Julius II, to Enguera for Aragon and to Ximenes for Castile, and in those of Leo X to Mercader and Poul in 1513 and to Cardinal Adrian in 1516 and 1518.[651]

The office of inquisitor was thus thrown open to the laity and there was no hesitation in employing them so long as they remained single but, if they married, they were obliged to resign--possibly because it was thought impossible for a married man to preserve the absolute secrecy regarded as essential in the Holy Office. The Licentiate Aguirre, Ferdinand's favorite member of the Suprema, was a layman. On June 28, 1515, Ferdinand writes to Ximenes that the Licentiate Nebreda, Inquisitor of Seville, desires to marry and, as he is a good servant, another office has been found for him, while the treasurer of the church of Pampeluna will make a suitable appointee for Seville.[652] Two other similar cases occur about the same time.[653] It was an anomaly to allow laymen to sit in judgement on matters of faith, but no action was taken to prevent it until Philip II, in his instructions of 1595 to Manrique de Lara, ordered that inquisitors and fiscals at least must be in holy orders--a clause omitted by Philip III in his instructions of 1608.[654] At length the Suprema met the question, November 10, 1632, by requiring all inquisitors to have themselves ordained and prohibiting them otherwise from exercising their functions, a provision which apparently met with slack obedience, for it had to be repeated January 12 and June 5, 1637, with the addition that inquisitors and fiscals who were not in orders should receive no salaries.[655] Even this does not seem to have been effective for, in 1643, a consulta called attention to the matter as a great evil and indecency, and suggested that a papal brief should be obtained, rendering priests' orders an essential qualification for inquisitors and fiscals.[656] This was not done, but we may presume that in time the functions were confined to ecclesiastics.

Legal training was prescribed as a requisite in 1608, by Philip III, who ordered that no one should be appointed inquisitor or fiscal who could not exhibit to the Suprema his diploma of graduation in law. Carlos II repeated this, in 1695, adding that inquisitors and secretaries must not be natives of the provinces to which they were assigned, so as to avert partisanship, and that the strictest investigation into character and limpieza must precede appointment.[657]

The papal requirements expressed in the successive commissions issued to inquisitors-general continued for a while to be simply that they should appoint prudent and suitable men of good repute and sound conscience who had attained the age of thirty years. Apparently this violation of the Clementine rule of forty years led to some animadversion and, in the commission of Valdés, in 1547, there is no allusion to age. This example was followed until, in 1596, Clement VIII, in the commission to Portocarrero, inserted a minimum age limit of forty years, as required by the canons, adding that if enough suitable men of that age could not be found, as to which he charged Portocarrero's conscience, then men of thirty-five could be appointed, but if this were done without necessity, the appointment would be invalid. To this Portocarrero objected, saying that it rendered it impossible for him to make appointments without scruples of conscience, as it was difficult to find suitable persons of the designated age to take the office, and he therefore begged that the limit should be reduced to thirty years, as had been done by all popes since Innocent VIII. Clement yielded, but was careful to insert a derogation of the apostolic constitutions and especially of the Clementine _Nolentes_.[658]

[Sidenote: _APPOINTING POWER_]

Thenceforth to the end all limitation of age was discreetly omitted, the formula being simply "prudent and suitable men of good repute and sound conscience and zealous for the Catholic faith."[659] Yet the minimum age was understood to be thirty and, when younger men were appointed, dispensations were required, as when, in 1782, Inquisitor-general Bertran gave the inquisitorship of Barcelona to Don Matias Bertran. Apparently objection was made to his youth and, in 1783, a papal dispensation was procured empowering him to exercise the office in spite of his not having attained the age of thirty.[660]

* * * * *

The patronage of the inquisitors was greatly limited by the gradual centralization of power in the Suprema. In the early period they had the appointment of porteros and nuncios--apparitors and messengers--and when, in 1500, Ferdinand reorganized the Sicilian tribunal, he sent inquisitors with power to fill all offices except that of receiver. In 1502 he even authorized the inquisitor of Lérida and Huesca to appoint a judge of confiscations and notary at each place.[661] Subsequently, as we have seen, the inquisitor-general absorbed all the patronage of salaried offices, even to the porteros and nuncios. If a vacancy occurred in a post of which the daily duties were essential, the inquisitors could fill it temporarily, while reporting it at once to the Suprema and awaiting its orders, but they had no other power.[662] As regards the numerous unsalaried officials, the inquisitor-general appointed the consultores and calificadores, or censors, and also the commissioners for cathedral towns, sea-ports and cities which were seats of tribunals. This left to the inquisitors only the appointment of familiars and of commissioners in other places, though at first in cathedral towns they might select a canon of the cathedral for commissioner.[663] It was the same with regard to expenditures, as to which originally they enjoyed a certain freedom of action. This, as has been shown above, was curtailed until ultimately the Suprema controlled even the smallest outlays.

It also kept watch over the morals of the inquisitors, recognizing the temptations to which they were exposed and the opportunities afforded by their position. Among the interrogatories which the inspector was instructed to make was whether the inquisitors lived decently, without publicly keeping concubines or corrupting the female prisoners or the wives and daughters of prisoners or of the dead whose fame and memory were prosecuted.[664] When attention was called to official misconduct it was promptly looked into, as in 1528, when the inquisitors of Barcelona were accused of receiving bribes and suborning witnesses, an inquisitor of Valencia with a notary of Tortosa was despatched thither, fully commissioned to investigate and report.[665]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _DISTRICT VISITING_]

The most laborious work imposed on the inquisitors was the visitation of their districts. These were large, usually embracing several bishoprics, and, when the tribunals became sedentary, the necessity was apparent of a closer watch over aberrations than could be exercised from a fixed centre. Already, in the Instructions of 1498, a system of visitation, termed the General Inquisition, is seen at work and, in 1500, Deza ordered the inquisitors to visit all places where an inquest had not been held. Each inquisitor was to travel with a notary, receiving denunciations and taking testimony, so that on his return the colleagues could consult together and order such arrests as might be found necessary. In districts where such visitations had already been made, one of the inquisitors was ordered to travel every year, holding inquests in the towns and villages and publishing the Edict of Faith to attract denunciations; the other inquisitor remained in the tribunal to despatch routine business or, if there were none such, he too was ordered to take the road. Reports in detail of the work accomplished in the visitation were to be made to the inquisitor-general.[666] This remained the basis of the system and the Instructions of 1561 merely define more clearly the functions of the visiting inquisitor, who was told that he was not to make arrest unless there were danger of flight, but was only to gather testimony and carry it to the tribunal for action; if he made an arrest he was not to try the accused but to send him to the secret prison. Trifling cases, however, he could despatch on the spot, taking care that he bore delegated powers from the Ordinary for that purpose.[667] The importance attached to these visitations is apparent when, during the siege of Toledo in the Communidades, Cardinal Adrian and the Constable and Admiral of Castile joined in an order, November 3, 1521, to the commanders of the besieging forces, to allow the inquisitors to come out and perform their accustomed visits.[668]

In 1517 these visits were ordered to be made every four months, each inquisitor taking his turn under pain of forfeiting a year's salary. This indicates that the duty was distasteful and likely to be shirked and, in 1581, the obligation was reduced to once a year, starting at the end of January and taking such portions of the district as were deemed to require special attention. In 1607 the districts were ordered to be laid out in circuits, to be visited in turn until all were covered, when the process began anew.[669] In 1569 an elaborate code of instructions was framed by which it appears that the principal objects were the publication of the Edict of Faith with its consequent crop of denunciations, an investigation into the character and conduct of commissioners and familiars and the maintenance in the churches of the sanbenitos of those punished by the Inquisition, for which purpose the visitor carried lists for all the places to be visited.[670]

A certain amount of stateliness and ceremony attended the visit. Before reaching a town, word was sent forward of the hour of expected arrival, when the authorities, the church dignitaries and the principal gentlemen of the place were summoned to go forth to meet the inquisitor and escort him to his lodgings. The secretary was instructed to note the details of these receptions, whether honorable or otherwise, the character of the lodgings provided and utensils furnished.[671] Lack of respect on these occasions was punishable. In 1564, Dr. Zurita, visiting the sees of Gerona and Elne found the gates of Castellon de Ampurias closed against him and one of the guards seized his horse's reins. He proceeded to prosecute the local authorities, when the consuls proved that they were not in fault, but two guards, Salbador Llop and Juan Maraña, were sent to Barcelona for trial.[672]

Although occasionally nests of Morisco and Jewish apostates were discovered in these visits, as a rule the practical results appear to have been rather the gratification of old grudges by neighbors in little towns and the gathering in of fines by the inquisitors. In 1582, Juan Aymar, Inquisitor of Barcelona, in reporting a visitation of the sees of Gerona and Elne and part of Barcelona and Vich, makes parade of having published the Edict of Faith in 263 places, but he brought in only seven trivial cases, of which four were of Frenchmen.[673]

These trips involved no little labor and even hardship; four months was the time prescribed for them, commencing early in February, and the vernal equinox was not likely to be agreeable, especially in mountainous districts. Naturally the duty was shirked whenever practicable, and the effort of the Suprema to compel its performance was endless. In 1557 it instructed the receiver at Saragossa that each inquisitor, on alternate years, must spend at least four months in visitations and that this performance is an absolute condition precedent to his receiving the customary ayuda de costa.[674] This was carried even further in a carta acordada of January 25, 1607, to all the tribunals; the inquisitor, in his turn, must start on the first Sunday in Lent, without attempting an excuse or a reply, and the report of his visit must be included in the annual statement of cases, for otherwise the ayuda de costa will be withheld from the whole tribunal, because these visits are the principal reason of its bestowal.[675] This solidarity enforced on all the officials was possibly owing to the recalcitrance of subordinates for, in 1598, we find a tribunal asking the Suprema to issue the necessary orders to them direct, which it obligingly did, while remonstrating that it should not be burdened with such details.[676] Throughout the seventeenth century, the correspondence of the Suprema with the tribunals of Valencia and Barcelona is filled with orders to the inquisitor whose turn it is to go and refusals to accept excuses and, in 1705, a letter to Valencia asks why the visit had been neglected.[677]

[Sidenote: _THE FISCAL_]

When there were three inquisitors, the absence of one did not interfere with current business, but where there were only two it was a serious impediment. From the beginning the rule was absolute that two must act conjointly in all important matters, such as sentencing to torture, ordering publication of evidence, or rendering final sentence, and this in both civil and criminal actions. Minor and trivial cases, however, could be despatched by one in the absence of his colleague and he could continue to hold audiences and gather testimony, while, in the habitual leisurely transaction of inquisitorial business, procrastination caused by the crippling of the tribunal for four months in every year was evidently not regarded as of any moment.[678] In the little tribunal of Majorca, however, which could support but a single inquisitor, he was deemed competent to act by himself and he probably was excused from visitations.[679]

* * * * *

Next in importance to the inquisitors stood the promoter fiscal, or prosecuting officer. In the original Inquisition of the thirteenth century there was no such officer; there was candor in the position of the inquisitor as both judge and prosecutor, infinitely preferable to the hypocrisy that the trial was an action between a prosecutor and an accused with the inquisitor as an impartial judge. How this came to pass will be considered hereafter.

We have seen that, even in the skeleton organization of the first tribunal in 1480, a fiscal was deemed essential. He ranked next to the inquisitors and, in 1484, it was ordered that he should assist in all public functions, after the inquisitors and Ordinary but before the judge of confiscations.[680] Yet he was a subordinate. In the regulation of salaries in 1498, the inquisitors received 60,000 maravedís, the receiver the same, while the fiscal was rated at 40,000, the same as the notaries, and even the messenger had 20,000.[681] So, in the Sicilian tribunal, in 1500, the inquisitors and receiver have 6000 sueldos, while the fiscal and notaries have only 2500.[682] It was the same with the ayuda de costa. In 1540 we find the fiscal allowed only the same as the notaries and alguazil, and when, in 1557, the scale was fixed for Saragossa, the fiscal was portioned with 1000 sueldos and the inquisitors with 3000.[683]

The fiscal was held to act wholly under orders from the inquisitors. In the Instructions of 1484, they are represented as ordering him to accuse the contumacy of fugitives and to denounce the dead against whom they find evidence. So, in a trial of 1528, we find the inquisitors ordering the fiscal to present his accusation against the defendant.[684] In 1561, among his duties was prescribed that of keeping the secreto clean and in good order; he opened and closed its door with his own hands and, in 1570, he was required to have all the multitudinous documents well arranged, sewed, covered and so marked that they could readily be had when wanted. The letters and instructions of the Suprema were placed in his hands and it was his duty to give in writing to each official such portion as applied to him. In 1632, there was added to his labors that of furnishing the Suprema a monthly report embracing every pending case with a summary of all that had been done in it since the beginning--a duty apparently not relished for the order had to be repeated in 1639.[685] With all these somewhat multifarious duties, we never hear of a fiscal having a clerk, assistant or deputy.

In 1582, it was prescribed that his seat in the audience-chamber was to be smaller than those of the inquisitors, placed to one side and without cushions. In public functions his chair was to be similar to theirs except that it had no cushion. The inquisitors were required to address him and the judge of confiscations as _merced_, and, when he entered, they were not obliged to rise but merely to raise their caps.[686]

[Sidenote: _NOTARIES OR SECRETARIES_]

The position of the fiscal gradually improved. In his instructions of 1595 to Manrique de Lara, Philip II couples him with the inquisitor, in requiring both to be in orders, and prescribes great care in the appointment for it is customary to promote fiscals to the inquisitorship. Similarly Philip III, in 1608, requires both offices to be filled by jurists and when, in 1632 and 1637, the Suprema made holy orders a condition it included fiscals with inquisitors.[687] The assimilation between the offices was rapid and, in 1647, in a payment of ayuda de costa in Valencia there occurs an item of thirty thousand maravedís to Inquisitor Antonio de Ayala y Verganza, "por la plaza de fiscal," showing that he was acting as fiscal.[688] The idea of coalescence was becoming familiar. When, in 1658, Gregorio Cid, after six years' service as inquisitor of Sardinia, was transferred to Cuenca, he suggested that there ought to be there two inquisitors and a fiscal, or at least that the junior inquisitor should serve also as fiscal.[689]

The identification of the offices was facilitated, in 1660, by a royal cédula prescribing that fiscals were to be held the equals of inquisitors in precedence and honors, canopies, cushions and the like, as well as in pay and emoluments.[690] Thenceforth the office of fiscal came to be filled by one of the inquisitors, though he took care to preserve his dignity by styling himself "inquisidor fiscal" or "the inquisitor who performs the office of fiscal." Thus at length the two offices coalesced and we have seen in the table of officials in 1746 that they were reckoned together. As a matter of course the inquisitor who acted as prosecutor did not enter the consulta de fe and vote on the fate of the accused whom he had prosecuted.[691] Sometimes, when there was no fiscal and no inquisitor willing to perform the duties, the senior secretary assumed the function. Such a case occurs as early as 1655, and it continued occasionally to the end.[692]

* * * * *

The notaries, or secretaries, formed an important part of the tribunal. They reduced to writing all the voluminous proceedings of the trials, all the audiences given to the accused with the interrogatories and answers, all the evidence of the witnesses and its ratification, the endless repetitions in the cumbrous and involved system of procedure which developed until the object seemed to be to protract business beyond the limits of human endurance. They kept the records which required an elaborate system of indexing, so that the name of any culprit and his genealogy could be found whenever wanted. In the later period, moreover, when the tribunals communicated to each other all their acts, the correspondence served to fill the gap arising from diminished business. At the beginning they were forbidden to employ clerks and were required to write everything with their own hands and this seems to have continued to the last.[693] In the earlier period they were styled notaries and sometimes _escribanos_ or scriveners, possibly because as such their attestation authenticated all papers. Early in the seventeenth century the title gradually changed to secretaries, an innovation to which a writer in 1623 objects, as not distinguishing them from the secretaries of magnates and cities.[694] This objection did not prevail and a document of 1638 uses the terms as convertible, although an order of the Suprema, in the same year, forbids notaries to be called secretaries, while in 1648 we find the new appellation firmly established.[695] The importance of the office is shown by its fairly liberal salary. In the Instructions of 1498 it is placed at 30,000 maravedís, one-half of that of the inquisitors,[696] though the proportion diminished in time, for we have seen that, in 1746, the secretary received 2352 reales, while the inquisitor had 7352. There was compensation for this, however, in the heavy fees accruing to the secretaries from applicants for proofs of limpieza--a business shared with a new official known as "secretario de actos positivos." The number moreover had greatly increased for, while at the early period, with its heavy work, a tribunal was allowed but two notaries, in the later time there were often four or five salaried secretaries, to whom were sometimes added honorary secretaries with entrance to the secreto and honorary secretaries without entrance.[697]

[Sidenote: _THE ALGUAZIL_]

There was also a notary of sequestrations, whose duties were highly important in the early times of abundant confiscations. He was always present when arrests were made, so as to draw up on the spot an inventory of the property seized, but, as confiscations diminished, the office became superfluous and was suppressed by a carta acordada of December 1, 1634. After this we hear of a superintendent of sequestrations, in 1647, and subsequently its occasional duties were discharged by some other official for a moderate compensation as, in 1670, in Valencia, the procurator of the fisc received twenty-five libras a year for attending to them.[698]

* * * * *

The alguazil was the executive officer of the tribunal. In the early lists of salaries his pay is the same as, or even larger than, that of the inquisitors, but this was because the prison was at his charge.[699] From this he was relieved, in 1515, by Ferdinand, who empowered the inquisitors to appoint _carceleros_, at a salary of five hundred sueldos, after which the wages of the alguazil declined to those of the secretaries and even of the alcaide who succeeded him as gaoler.[700] His superior dignity, however, was recognized in a carta acordada of May 13, 1610, which provided that in public functions he should have precedence over the secretaries.[701] His long wand of office, which exceeded that of secular alguaziles, was also a distinction and when, in 1576, the alguaziles of the Santa Cruzada in Barcelona ventured to imitate him, the Suprema ordered the inquisitors to punish them.[702]

His functions were various. The inquisitors, the receiver and the judge of confiscations were forbidden to appoint any one else to execute their orders if he were at hand. If, in his absence, an arrest had to be made, the fact had to be attested at the foot of the warrant issued to another, without which the receiver was ordered not to pay the expenses incurred. He made all levies and seizures and was entitled to fees for the service.[703] By the instructions of 1488, if the duty was at a distance of more than three or four leagues, he was not to be sent, but a temporary substitute, whose commission expired with the performance of the errand. Perhaps this was because the thrifty Ferdinand had insisted that, if he was sent out of the city, he must pay his own expenses, but this was relaxed for, in 1502, we find the rule established that, if an alguazil is sent from one province to another, to a greater distance than four leagues, his expenses were to be paid. He had, however, to furnish at his own cost a satisfactory person to take charge of the prison during his absence and, if he required assistance in making arrests, the inquisitors selected the persons and determined their pay.[704]

The alguazil mayor seems to have been an ornamental personage, usually a man of distinction, who thereby proclaimed his purity of blood and devotion to the faith. We have seen that, in Seville and Córdova, the office was hereditary in noble houses whose ancestors had abandoned to the Inquisition royal castles of which they were alcaides, receiving in return this position with handsome emoluments. In 1655 the alguazil mayor of the tribunal of Córdova was Luis Méndez de Haro, Conde-Duque of Olivares and his deputy was Gonzalo de Cardenas y Córdova, a Knight of Calatrava. In Seville, Don Juan de Saavedra y Alvarado, Marquis of Moscoso, served as alguazil mayor at the auto de fe of March 11, 1691, and November 30, 1693. About 1750, the tribunal of Seville had the Marquis of Villafranca as alguazil mayor; that of Valladolid had the Marquis of Revilla; in Granada the incumbent was a minor, Don Nicolas Velázquez, and the office was served by Don Diego Ramírez de la Piscina.[705]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _THE PORTERO--THE GAOLER_]

The humbler officials of the tribunal were the nuncio, the portero and the carcelero or alcaide de las carceles secretas. Strictly speaking the nuncio was a messenger or courier, bearing despatches to the Suprema or other tribunals and, before the post-office was organized, his life must have been an active one. In 1502 we hear of his salary being twelve hundred sueldos, out of which he defrayed his travelling expenses, but subsequently these were paid by the receiver and, in 1541, his stipend was five hundred sueldos.[706] His ayuda de costa, in 1567, was made dependent on his accompanying the inquisitors on their visitations.[707] At that period the tribunals seem to have been allowed two nuncios but, with the development of postal facilities, the functions of the position gradually shrank, the number was cut down to one and, in the eighteenth century we find him converted into a _nuncio de camera_, or interior attendant, called indifferently nuncio and portero, while a _nuncio extraordinario_ makes the fires and attends to other servile work.[708]

The _portero_ in the secular courts was a kind of apparitor, to serve summonses, authorized to take bail up to the sum of a hundred reales and forbidden to keep a shop or tavern.[709] In the Inquisition his function was to serve citations, notices of autos de fe, decrees and other similar work, and he was prohibited from engaging in trade of any kind; he was not allowed to enter the audience-chamber, but, in the eighteenth century we find him converted into a _portero de camara_, or usher and janitor, in which capacity he had entrance to the audience-chamber. When, in 1796, we find a Doctor Don Josef Fontana serving as portero in the Valencia tribunal, we may infer that the office was not servile, and it is observable that the portero and his wife are qualified as Don and Doña, a title withheld from the nuncio and his spouse. Their salaries, however, were the same, 1420 reales. When about 1710, porteros laid claim, in public functions, to seats on the _banco de titulados_--the bench of commissioned officials--their pretensions were rejected.[710]

The gaoler was necessary to a tribunal which had its special prison. At first, as we have seen, the alguazil had charge of this and his employees were not reckoned among the officials. The first allusion to a _carcelero_ that I have met occurs in 1499, when Juan de Moya is spoken of as the _carcerarius_ of the Barcelona tribunal; he must have been an exceptional official and a person of some consideration, for he was provided with a prebend.[711] In 1515 Ferdinand deemed it advisable to put the prisons under control of the tribunals, with which view he empowered the inquisitors to appoint carceleros with salaries of five hundred sueldos.[712] The gaoler thus became a salaried official, entitled to all the privileges and immunities of this position and gradually, toward the middle of the sixteenth century, the humble title of carcelero was exchanged for the more dignified one of _alcaide de las carceles secretas_.[713] He was necessarily a person of confidence, responsible for the safe-keeping of prisoners and for their proper maintenance, functions which will be more conveniently treated when we come to consider the prison system. From the report of the tribunal of Murcia, in 1746, it appears that the salary then was 2353 reales, in addition to which there was a jubilado alcaide with 330 reales. Possibly this habit of providing for supernumeraries explains why, in the table of officials, Toledo has four alcaides and Llerena and Valencia have three each.[714] In the early period the carcelero sometimes served as torturer, but subsequently it became customary to employ the public executioner.[715]

[Sidenote: _MINOR OFFICIALS_]

The prison, sometimes crowded with inmates and exposed to insanitary conditions, rendered necessary an official physician, whose services were also indispensable in examinations before and after torture and in the not infrequent cases of insanity, real or feigned. As his duties called him within the sacred limits of the secreto, he had to be a person of confidence, sworn like all the rest to secrecy. He was expected also to bestow gratuitous service on the officials, and the Suprema, in the eighteenth century, indulged itself in two, at the fairly liberal salary of 1258 reales apiece, though they did not share in the extra emoluments so freely bestowed on other officials.[716] At first the appointment of physicians was not universal, although the salary was inconsiderable--attributable, no doubt, to the fact that the physician was at liberty to continue his private practice. Thus, in 1486, Ferdinand designated ten libras as the pay of the physician of the Saragossa tribunal, while there was none provided for that of Medina del Campo.[717] The surgeon was rated at even less for, in 1510, one is furnished to Saragossa at a salary of five libras and the same is paid to an apothecary, who can scarce have furnished expensive drugs on such a stipend.[718] The surgeon, at this period, was also a barber and, in 1502, a grant, once for all, of fifteen libras was made to Joan de Aguaviva, "cirujano y barbero" of Calatayud, for fourteen years curing and barbering the poor prisoners, without salary or other advantage.[719] By 1618, apparently, the professions had become distinct, for there is an order to pay Narciso Valle, surgeon and Miguel Juan, barber, to the tribunal of Valencia.[720] A chaplain was also a necessity, not for the prisoners, who were denied the sacraments, but for the daily mass celebrated before commencing the work of the audience-chamber. In 1572, a stipend of 7500 maravedís is assigned for this but, in the eighteenth century, the Suprema paid the handsome salary of 5500 reales.[721] Confessors were also required for the penitential prison and were called in to the secret prison for the moribund.[722] There were also two _personas honestas_, or discreet persons, friars as a rule, whose duty it was to be present when witnesses ratified their testimony. In the earlier period these services were gratuitous but, in the later time, there was a small payment which, in the case of a friar, would enure to his convent. An alcaide of the _casa de penitencia_, or penitential prison, was also a necessity during the period of active work, although subsequently it was virtually a sinecure and in many tribunals was suppressed. We occasionally also meet with the office of _proveedor_, or purveyor of the secret prison, who seems to be identical with the _dispensero_ or steward. In the sixteenth century this official had a salary of 2000 maravedís, besides two maravedís a day for each prisoner and five blancas for cooking and washing; he was required to have honest weights and not to charge more for food than it cost him; he kept an account with each prisoner and was paid out of the sequestrations.[723] Locksmiths, masons and other mechanics employed on the buildings were also sometimes reckoned as officials, for their duties in repairing the prisons were confidential. All tribunals moreover had from one to three _abogados de presos_ or advocates of prisoners, whose duties will claim consideration hereafter; they were classed as salaried officials, though sometimes they received a small stipend and sometimes none, and they were allowed to serve other clients if they had any.

* * * * *

Besides these officials who were concerned in the primary business of the tribunal as a bulwark of the faith, there were others whose functions may be briefly dismissed here. The finances necessarily required a special organization, consisting of a receiver of confiscations, subsequently called the treasurer, whose duties in the active period were of the utmost importance, entitling him to a salary which sometimes was even larger than that of the inquisitors.[724] The fines and penances also amounted to large sums for which, in the earlier period, there was usually a special receiver, for they were kept as a separate fund, but finally they likewise passed through the hands of the treasurer. The receiver had to pay his own assistants and agents but, in the enormous amount of complicated business thrown upon him, he was aided by the _abogado fiscal_, a salaried official of legal training, while the notary of sequestrations had charge of sequestrated property until its confiscation was pronounced, and further served as a check upon the receiver. The intricate claims arising from these seizures were settled in a separate court of confiscations, known as the _juzgado_, presided over by the _juez de bienes_ or judge of confiscations and furnished with its notary and nuncio. We sometimes also meet with a _procurador del fisco_ and also with a superintendent of property. All this, which, especially at first, formed so large a part of the business of the Inquisition, will be more conveniently considered in detail hereafter.

We have seen how much of the activity of the tribunals was consumed in the civil and criminal business of their officials, and it necessarily formed a separate department, which had its _notario de lo civil_ and _secretario de las causas civiles_, the latter office being suppressed in 1643.[725]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _SALARIES_]

The qualifications for holding office in the tribunal were simple. From some of the cases of hereditary transmission it would appear that the minimum age was nineteen or twenty. Limpieza, or purity of blood from admixture of Jewish or Moorish or heretic strain, was the chief essential, as will be seen when we come to consider that important subject. Legitimacy was also a requisite in both the official and his wife, although dispensations could be had for its absence.[726] By a carta acordada of June 15, 1608, those who were unmarried could not marry without permission of the Suprema; they were obliged to furnish proof that the bride was _limpia_ and, if a foreigner or the daughter or grand-daughter of foreigners, a dispensation was necessary, of all of which the appointee was solemnly notified when he took the oath of office.[727]

There was also a well-intended _informacion de moribus_ concerning applicants for office. When the inquisitor-general proposed to make an appointment in a tribunal he notified it; it then issued a commission to some one at the residence of the nominee, with an interrogatory asking whether he was a person modest, quiet, peaceable, of correct life and habits and what was known as to his limpieza, which, when returned, was forwarded to the inquisitor-general. As the witnesses examined were, however, presented by the applicant, the whole was scarce more than a formality.[728]

* * * * *

In spite of the constant complaint of the meagreness of the salaries, they seem to have been fairly adequate, at least during the first century and a half of the existence of the Inquisition. The rapid fall in the purchasing power of the precious metals necessitated frequent advances and I have met with allusions to these in 1548, 1567, 1581, and 1606, after which they seem to have remained stationary until 1795, although the vellon coinage reduced still further the value of the currency.[729] The salary of an inquisitor, which, in 1541, was 100,000 maravedís, including ayuda de costa, by 1606 had become 300,000 or 800 ducats. This was not extravagant, but was fairly remunerative. In 1630, Arce y Reynoso, when occupying one of the highest professorships in Salamanca, as _catedratico de prima de leyes_, received only 300 ducats.[730] It must be borne in mind that most of the lower officials had a comfortable additional source of revenue from the fees which they were entitled to charge for nearly all their work outside of cases of faith and, when the _arancel_ or fee-bill of 1642 sought to regulate these charges it was generally disregarded and the inspectors winked at its violation, charitably alleging the increased cost of living as an excuse.[731] The inquisitors and fiscal, on their side, usually held some canonry or other benefice which served to make good all deficiencies. In fact towards the middle of the eighteenth century, when the salaries had become really inadequate, a writer ascribes the inefficiency of the Inquisition to the fact that the inquisitors-general were obliged to appoint ignorant men who happened to possess prebends or other benefices.[732]

[Sidenote: _AYUDA DE COSTA_]

There were also the gratifications for house-rent, illuminations, bull-fights and mourning, which the officials of the tribunals enjoyed, like those of the Suprema, although not on so liberal a scale, while the ayudas de costa replaced the propinas.[733] There was also a kindly liberality in granting extra ayudas de costa to those in need and to their widows and children when they died. Applications of this kind were perpetual and innumerable; they were made to the Suprema, which naturally found little difficulty in being charitable at the expense of others.[734] It would be needless to enumerate examples of what was of such constant occurrence and these liberalities, together with the exemptions and the economies in the cost of the necessaries of life, rendered the financial position of the officials reasonably secure. Perhaps the resources of the tribunals might have justified larger salaries if they had not been drawn upon to supply the extravagance of the Suprema and been squandered on other objects with careless profusion characteristic of the age. Thus, in 1633, a Doctor Pastor de Costa, of the Royal Council of Catalonia, obtained from Inquisitor-general Zapata, on the plea of services rendered by his father, a grant of a hundred ducats a year, in silver, on the tribunal of Barcelona. Doubtless it was suspended during the Catalan revolt to be subsequently resumed and, in 1665, he applied to Arce y Reynoso to confirm it to him for life, but Arce only ordered it to be continued for four years. Not content with this, he asked for an ayuda de costa on the ground of his poverty.[735] It is not surprising that Philip V, as we have seen, in his attempted reform of 1705, forbade all grants of over thirty ducats without his confirmation.

* * * * *

The _ayuda de costa_, of which we hear so much, was either a more or less definite increase of salary, or a special gift for cause, or else a simple _merced_ or benevolence. While the salary was a matter fixed and due, the ayuda was always to a certain extent arbitrary and was used as an incentive to compel the performance of duties regarded as onerous. We see the germ of it in Torquemada's instructions of 1485, prohibiting fees and bribes, for the king provides a reasonable support for all and in time will give them _mercedes_.[736] An advance is marked in the Instructions of 1498 where, after specifying salaries, it is added that the inquisitors-general, when they see that there is much labor or necessity, can grant such ayudas de costa as they deem proper.[737] Accordingly about this time, while we find no regular ayudas given, there are constant examples of special ones, sometimes of large amounts, granted for the most varied reasons, of which two or three instances will suffice. Thus Ferdinand, April 30, 1499, in ordering the payment of the salaries in Seville, includes 40,000 maravedís of ayudas de costa for one of the inquisitors, but none for any one else. August 10, 1502, Juan Royz, receiver of Saragossa, is given an ayuda de costa of 10,000 sueldos to meet expenses incurred in illness and, on September 27th, an official of Seville is gratified with 20,000 maravedís to help him in his marriage.[738]

It cannot have been long after this that the ayuda de costa was becoming a regular annual payment as an increment of the salary. December 3, 1509, an order for the payment of arrears to Diego de Robles, fiscal of the Suprema, speaks of there being due to him his ayuda de costa for 1506 and half of 1507, at the rate of 20,000 maravedís per annum. The first formal statement of it as a settled thing, that I have met, occurs in this same year 1509, in the list of salaries made out for the attempted Inquisition of Naples, where the ayuda de costa is designated for each official. It varies from a little over half the salary to considerably below that proportion and for two of the officials there is none. Yet it was not a universal custom for, in the salaries assigned to the Sardinia tribunal, September 10, 1514 there is no allusion to ayuda de costa.[739] That the custom, however, was gradually establishing itself as a substantial addition to the regular salaries is deducible from formal lists of the ayudas de costa of the Suprema and the Valladolid tribunal in 1515 and, by this time, it may be regarded as fairly established, although innumerable special grants continued, such as one of 75,000 maravedís, June 30, 1515, to Alonso de Montoya, notary of the Seville tribunal, to assist in his marriage.[740] Confiscations, at the time, were fruitful, and the laborers were not deprived of their share in the harvest, if only to stimulate their industry. Reimbursements of travelling and other expenses also frequently took the form of ayudas de costa although, as the grants were made in round sums, it is evident that no accounts were rendered and that the payments were arbitrary.[741]

However customary the annual payments had become, they still were regarded as a special grace to which the recipients had no claim of right. In 1540, the officials of Barcelona complained to Inquisitor-general Tavera that the receiver refused payment on the ground that the grant had expired with the death of Manrique, in 1538, and that it required confirmation, which Tavera hastened to give, February 12, 1540. In fact, a number of orders issued by Tavera, in 1540, would indicate that this was the accepted view of the matter.[742] Another marked distinction at this time is that the ayudas de costa are ordered to be paid out of the fines and penances inflicted for the "gastos extraordinarios" of the tribunals, while the salaries come from the funds arising out of the confiscations.

[Sidenote: _RECORDS_]

For awhile there was a regular scale of fifty ducats for the inquisitors, thirty for the fiscal, alguazil, notaries and receiver, fifteen for the nuncio and ten for the portero and alcaide but, in 1559, this was increased by twenty per cent. Care was taken to make it understood that it was a grace and not a right and the ordinary formula was that it was given in view of the labor in determining the cases of the auto de fe of the previous year and when, in 1561, Calahorra was exceptionally active and celebrated a second auto, it was rewarded with a supplementary ayuda of half the customary amount.[743] The grant was dependent on the receipt of detailed reports of all the cases in the previous auto, which were frequently accompanied with an humble petition for it, setting forth the insufficiency of the salaries and the cost of living, and begging the Suprema to obtain the grace from the king, who was technically the giver.[744] Subsequently, as we have seen, it was made conditional on rendering monthly reports and on the discharge of the duty of visiting the district and other matters apt to be neglected, such as rendering prompt statements of accounts and of properties. Finally, in the later period, when the tribunals were under close supervision of the Suprema, it sometimes took the form of a Christmas-gift.[745] Perhaps the most remarkable of all ayudas de costa was one granted by Carlos IV, in October 1807, in the midst of his troubles with his son Fernando, when the shadow of Napoleon was already darkening Spain and the treasury was empty. It was possibly with the object of securing the fidelity of the Inquisition that he ordered an ayuda de costa of 100 ducats to be given to every official of all the tribunals who did not enjoy an income of 7000 reales outside of his salary.[746] In the existing condition of Spanish finances the money could probably have been better employed.

* * * * *

The perfected system of records kept by the tribunals so greatly increased the effectiveness of the Inquisition and rendered it such an object of dread, that some reference to it is indispensable. Its development was slow. At the start, amid the enormous labors of the slenderly manned tribunals, there could be little thought bestowed on the preservation and arrangement of the records of their operations. In the Instructions of 1484 the only allusion to them merely prescribes that the notaries shall enter on their registers all orders issued by the inquisitors to the officials.[747] As the registers accumulated, the Instructions of 1488 require all writings and papers to be kept in chests, in the public place where the inquisitors transact business, so that they may be at hand when wanted; they are never to be removed and the keys are to pass through the hands of the inquisitors to the notaries, all this being under pain of deprivation of office.[748] Ten years later we hear of a chamber assigned to their safe keeping, with three keys, held by the fiscal and the two notaries, so that all must be present when they are consulted.[749] By this time indexes to facilitate references to the rapidly growing mass of papers had become necessary, and an article in Deza's instructions, in 1500, shows that this had become recognized.[750] The disabilities inflicted on descendants of culprits rendered it essential that genealogies should be traceable, but the incredible crudeness of these early lists shows how informal was the rapid work of that awful time. One kept at Toledo, about 1500, contains such entries of the individuals despatched as "un porquero del alguazil que tiene un ojo remellado," "un converso retajado," "un converso judyo," "un sastre," "un platero sobrino de lope de cuellar platero." In Valencia, from 1517 to 1527, the index to the fifth volume of persons denounced shows equal indifference to the identification of individuals catalogued as "le boges, mare y filles," "la condesa que lleve el habito penitential," "el bachiller que esta en companya del calonge Proxita," "uno que ha sido flayle," "un remendon sastre, esta delante la rexa de mosen Penaroja," etc.[751]

[Sidenote: _RECORDS_]

After some contradictory decisions as to furnishing papers or information from the records to competent courts applying for it, the Suprema, in 1556, forbade the tribunals, without its express order, from giving any information tending to prove that any one had not been condemned or reconciled, or penanced or arrested by the Holy Office--a most cruel regulation in view of the tremendous consequences to the posterity of those who had fallen under suspicion of heresy and had been tried or even arrested. An order by the Suprema, in 1576, to the Valencia tribunal to erase from its records the name of Maestro Jusepe Esteban, because he had not been arrested for a matter of faith, is suggestive of the fearful power which the Inquisition possessed of inflicting infamy on whole families and of the importance of the accuracy of its registers.[752] The abuse of its power in this respect is indicated, as we have seen above, by the instructions which sometimes followed visitations, to remove from the records the names of those who had been improperly prosecuted for offences not of faith.

It was not easy to preserve the completeness of the records. Officials were apt to regard them as personal property and to keep them, like the notary of Calatayud who thus secured for his son the reversion of his office. In 1512, Ferdinand desired from a tribunal complete statements concerning the finances; there arose delay, during which the notary of sequestrations died, whereupon he ordered that the receiver should have all the papers or copies of them and, if the heirs of the notary refused to surrender them, execution should be levied on his estate for the whole of his salary received during his incumbency.[753] It was not only the notaries, however, but other officials who took and kept documents. In 1517 Cardinal Adrian complained of this and ordered that papers should never be removed from their depository, except to the audience-chamber for the purpose of conducting a trial.[754] This was disregarded and, about the middle of the century, the instructions to inspectors require them to order inquisitors, under pain of excommunication, to return all papers that they had taken and to discontinue the practice.[755] Even inquisitors-general were guilty of this, for Philip II issued an order March 6, 1573, on the executors of Ponce de Leon, to allow his papers to be examined and everything pertaining to the Inquisition to be removed--an order which can only be regarded as revealing a general custom, for Ponce de Leon died, January 17, 1573, before entering upon his office.[756]

The looseness which had prevailed during the early period is strikingly manifested when, in 1547, the Suprema made an attempt to gather in and preserve its past records. A commission was issued to its secretary Zurita, reciting the importance of having an inventory of all the papal bulls, briefs, registers and other papers relating to the Inquisition, which had been in the custody of the secretaries and other officials. There is, it says, information that many of these are at Calatayud and others at Huesca, among the papers of Calcena and Urries, the secretaries of Ferdinand and Charles V, and Zurita is ordered to collect these and is armed with full powers to examine witnesses and inflict penalties. All holding such papers are required to surrender them, under pain of excommunication and a hundred ducats. The inquisitors of Saragossa are instructed to assist him with censures, while letters to various parties indicate that the task is expected to be arduous. The instructions are not clear as to whether he is expected to seize the papers or merely to make inventories of them, but there can be little doubt that whatever he laid his hands on was kept.[757] What success attended his mission we have no means of knowing, but we probably owe to it many of the important documents illustrating the early history of the Inquisition.

In addition to this source of incompleteness, it seemed impossible to compel the tribunals to keep their records in proper shape. In 1544, Dr. Alonso Pérez, in an inspection of Barcelona, found them in complete disorder. Another inspection, in 1550, showed still greater confusion. In 1561, Inspector Cervantes described them as being in such a state, without indexes and inventories, that it was impossible to find anything. After the visit of Salazar, the Suprema, in 1568, took the inquisitors sharply to task for not having yet provided indexes and registers; it ordered them to do so at once and to furnish a certificate to that effect within twenty days of receipt.[758] The certificate was doubtless supplied, but we may question whether the work was done. Possibly Barcelona was worse than other tribunals, but the memorial of 1623 to the Suprema states that in many of them there are processes, books, papers, informations of limpieza etc., requiring to be inventoried, sorted into bundles and reduced to order, causing great inconvenience.[759]

[Sidenote: _RECORDS_]

Meanwhile the masses of papers had been accumulating more rapidly than ever. In 1570 the Suprema had ordered nine books to be kept--one of the commissions of officials, their oaths and royal provisions, one of commissioners and familiars with full details, one of the votes in the consultas de fe, one of letters from the Suprema and another of letters to it, one recording the inspections made of the prisons, one of the orders issued on the receiver, one of the pecuniary penances inflicted and one of the autos de fe, with statements as to the culprits and their punishments. Besides these the alcaide of the prison was to keep lists of those relaxed and penanced with three indexes. All this was exclusive of the voluminous records of the trials which it was the duty of the fiscal to keep in order.[760] Then, in order to accommodate the increasing bulk, it was ordered, in 1566 and 1572, that there should be four apartments in the camara del secreto, one for pending cases, one for suspended ones, one for those finished, divided into the relaxed, the reconciled and the penanced, and the fourth for papers concerning commissioners and familiars and _informaciones de limpieza_.[761] In 1635, alphabetical lists of all persons tried were ordered to be kept, with dates and references to the papers of the case, commencing with 1620. The order had to be repeated in 1636 and 1638, with further instructions in 1644, and these lists furnished additional means for tracing the antecedents and kindred of those who were brought before the tribunals.[762] But more potent than the mandates of the Suprema to keep the archives in order and thoroughly indexed was the mania which arose for limpieza, or purity of blood which, as we shall see hereafter, pervaded all classes and furnished a source of very profitable business to the officials, for the Inquisition was the ultimate arbiter and its records contained the evidence.

Gradually these records became an immense storehouse of minute and detailed information concerning all heretics and suspects and their kindred. Under the Instructions of 1561, the first thing in examining a prisoner was to require of him an account of parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins, with their wives and children and whether any of them had been arrested or penanced by the Inquisition.[763] Then, when the accused was brought to profess conversion and to beg mercy, his confession was not accepted unless he gave information, to the best of his ability, as to all other heretics, whether kindred or strangers, whom he had known or heard of, with details as to their culpability. All this was carefully entered and indexed, until the records became a fairly complete directory of the suspects of Spain. A Jew arrested in Granada might compromise twenty others, scattered from Compostella to Barcelona, each of whom when seized became a new source of information, and the intercommunication established between the tribunals placed the records of all at the service of each. This vastly increased the effectiveness of the Inquisition and rendered the chances of escape slender indeed. The trials of the seventeenth century, when the system became fairly perfected, show that, although the arrest of a few might scatter their accomplices, the Inquisition was ever on their track and change of name and habitation was unavailing. As soon as a suspect was arrested and his genealogy was obtained, the sister tribunals were called upon for reports, and testimony poured in, reaching back, perhaps, for twenty or thirty years, concerning himself and his kindred. The net of the Inquisition covered the land and its meshes were fine. Go where they would, hide themselves as they might, the Judaizers lived in the knowledge that it was ever remorselessly in pursuit and that its hand might fall upon them at any time.

[Sidenote: _RECORDS_]

In the eighteenth century the system was elaborated by what were known as the _Libros Vocandorum_. When any one was denounced to a tribunal or came forward spontaneously, his name, description and offence were transmitted to all the other tribunals, which entered them in alphabetical registers, arranged under the first baptismal names. These entries give the name, the date, a brief description of the person, and the nature of the charge, with a blank to be filled in with the result of the trial, which was also reported to all. Thus each tribunal possessed a digested record of the current business of the whole Inquisition, clearly arranged for ready reference, and, as the years passed, it afforded at a glance the means of ascertaining whether any culprit had been in the hands of the Holy Office before, and of facilitating researches into limpieza. The importance of the Libros Vocandorum was so fully recognized that the Suprema required the monthly reports of the fiscal always to specify that they were kept posted up to date. These registers were not arranged uniformly in all the tribunals, but the usual plan was that adopted in Valencia, where there was one general index in two volumes and a third for confessors accused of soliciting women _ad turpia_ in the confessional.[764] Thus all the tribunals co-operated and, with their machinery of commissioners and familiars in almost every town and village, they formed one harmonious organization for the detection and punishment of culprits. Human ingenuity could scarce devise a more perfect system of promptly suppressing all deviations from the standards established by the Inquisition.