CHAPTER II.

FINES AND PENANCES.

Although, at least in the earlier period, confiscation was the main financial reliance of the Inquisition, it had other resources. Of these a productive one was the pecuniary penance which the tribunals had discretionary power of imposing on those whose offences amounted only to suspicion of heresy and not to the formal heresy which entailed reconciliation or relaxation with confiscation.

Almsgiving in satisfaction of sin formed a feature of ecclesiastical practice and, in the middle ages, the schoolmen had no difficulty in proving that pecuniary penance was more efficacious than any other[1125]--and it certainly was more efficacious in the sense that the enormous possessions of the Church were largely gathered from this source. Moreover, the inquisitor inherited from his medieval predecessors an undefined duplicate function of confessor and judge--his culprits were penitents and the punishments he inflicted were penances.[1126] Even when the canon law required the hardened or relapsed heretics to be relaxed to the secular arm for burning, they are sometimes alluded to as _penitenciados_[1127] When, under the early Edicts of Grace, penitents by the thousand flocked to confess their sins and escape corporal penalties and confiscation, the inquisitor was instructed to make them give as "alms" a portion of their property, according to the quality of the person and the character and duration of his offences, and these _penitencias pecuniarias_ were to be applied to the war with Granada as to the most pious of causes.[1128] Thus, at the start, pecuniary penance and almsgiving were regarded as convertible terms, both equally applicable to the discretionary fines which the inquisitor could impose on his penitent. There was a technical, though not a practical, distinction between these and the mulcts inflicted on offenders for other than spiritual offences, in the exercise of the royal jurisdiction conferred on the Holy Office. They formed together a common fund which was known as that of the _penas y penitencias_--the fines and penances--of which the former were drawn from the secular and the latter from the spiritual jurisdiction. This distinction at best was shadowy and though it was observed at first, in time the tribunals grew indifferent and recognized that penance was punishment.

The earliest formality is seen in the case of Brianda de Bardaxí, where the consulta de fe, March 18, 1492, pronounces her guilty of vehement suspicion, to be penanced at the discretion of the inquisitors. Accordingly, on March 20th, the inquisitors deliberated on the "penance" and pronounced an _Impositio penitentie_, consisting of five years' imprisonment, with certain spiritual observances, "and moreover we penance her in the third part of all her property, which we apply to the coffer of penances of this tribunal and to the costs of her trial, which third part, or its true value, we order to be paid within ten days to Martin de Cota, receiver of penances."[1129] By the middle of the sixteenth century this scruple was overcome. In the case of Mari Serrana, at Toledo in 1545, the consulta de fe, it is true, votes that she be "penanced" in a third of her property, but the public sentence, which customarily did not specify the amount, after enumerating certain spiritual observances, adds "also the pecuniary punishment imposed on her, for a certain reason is reserved for the present." So, in the case of Mari Gómez, in 1551, it is stated that she is "condemned" in twenty ducats for the expenses of the tribunal, which she is to pay within nine days to the receiver. When the sentence was read to her in the audience-chamber, she asked how she was to pay the twenty ducats and was told it would come out of the property sequestrated at her arrest.[1130] Sequestration, we may observe, enabled the tribunal to help itself at discretion from the culprit's property and to proportion the penalty to his ability.

[Sidenote: _DISTINCT FROM CONFISCATION_]

There was an advantage to the Inquisition in considering these fines as penitential, for penance was part of the sacrament of absolution which was an ecclesiastical function, the proceeds of which were controlled by the Church, and it differed thus wholly from confiscation. It is true that practically this was merely a verbal juggle, for the inquisitor did not absolve and, as he was not necessarily a priest, his office did not comprise the administration of the sacraments, but the verbal juggle sufficed and serves to explain the rigid separation of the funds arising from penance and from confiscation, even after both were controlled by the Inquisition. We have seen (Vol. I, p. 338) the prolonged struggle made by Ferdinand to obtain possession of the penances, which finally terminated in favor of the Inquisition. This was rather beneficial to the accused, as the tribunal would be inclined to find him guilty only of suspicion of heresy, enabling it to inflict a pecuniary penance for its own benefit, rather than of formal heresy which inferred confiscation. Of course this passed away when financial control practically lapsed to the Suprema, but the distinction between the funds was still maintained.

In the earlier period the distinction was emphasized by the office of special receiver for the penances, who seems to have been subject to the inquisitor-general, while the receiver of confiscations held from the king. Thus the sentence of Brianda de Bardaxí shows us Martin de Cota as receiver of penances in Saragossa in 1492 and we still hear of him in that position in 1497, while Ferdinand had, as his own receiver, Juan Denbin, succeeded by Juan Royz. As early as 1486, Esteve Costa was "receptor de las penitencias" in Valencia, whose salary of fifty libras shows the office to be of much less importance than that of the receiver of confiscations.[1131] Still, there came to be no settled rule about this. In 1498, Juan Royz was receiver of both penances and confiscations in Saragossa and, in Valencia, Juan de Monasterio was inquisitor and at the same time receiver of penances, while, in 1512, in Barcelona the fiscal also filled the latter office, as we learn from his salary being suspended until he should render an account of his receipts.[1132] As late as 1515 there was still a special receiver of penances in Huesca, the Canon Pero Pérez, whose death revealed him to be a defaulter to the extent of four thousand sueldos, when the office was consolidated with that of the receivership.[1133] In 1516, among his other reforms, Ximenes abolished this special office and put the fines and penances in the hands of the receivers of confiscations, with instructions, however, to keep the funds separate and not to disburse the fines and penances except on orders from the inquisitor-general. There had previously been, in the Suprema, a receiver-general of fines and penances, an office which was likewise suppressed and all the revenues were placed in charge of a single official, a regulation which was confirmed by Manrique in 1524.[1134]

[Sidenote: _DISTINCT FROM CONFISCATION_]

There was difficulty in preventing the unauthorized collection of these funds, by other officials, with the consequent absence of responsibility and risk of embezzlement. In instructions for the prevention of abuses, October 10, 1546, it is prescribed that all fines be paid to the receiver; again, August 20, 1547, it is ordered that neither the inquisitors nor other officials save the receiver shall collect the penances or other moneys. Inspection of the Barcelona tribunal, in 1549, showed that this was not obeyed; other officials made the collections and they were not reported to the receiver, all of which was forbidden for the future, but the order of 1547 had to be repeated December 4, 1551, May 9, 1553, and December 20, 1555.[1135] Evidently there were leaks which the Suprema was vainly seeking to stop. A special commission was issued, January 12, 1549, to Gerónimo Zurita, as contador for the kingdoms of Aragon, to audit the accounts of all receivers, past, present and to come, concerning the fines and penances and other _parties casuelles_, with full powers to send for persons and papers under such penalties as he might designate, which is highly significant.[1136] Possibly his investigations led to a carta acordada of September 23, 1551, which states that, in some tribunals, some of the pecuniary penalties are not entered in the Book of Punishments; the notaries of sequestrations are therefore impressively ordered, under holy obedience and major excommunication _latæ sententiæ_, to make such entries when sentence is rendered, stating whether they are applicable to the Inquisition or to some pious work, so that the contador may know whether they are collected, and all fines thus omitted are to be deducted from the salaries of the notaries.[1137] As, by this time, the fines and penalties were invariably applied to the Inquisition, the pretence of appropriating to pious uses was presumably a mere device for embezzling them. The Suprema evidently had no doubts as to this, when the inquisitors of Barcelona, in the case of Pirro de Gonzaga, imposed a penance of three hundred ducats and appropriated twenty-five to the convent of N. Señora de los Angeles, twenty-five to the nuns of San Gerónimo and the remainder to beds and garments for the poor. It told them, in 1568, that all fines were for the expenses of the Inquisition and required them, within thirty days, to furnish authentic evidence of the disposition made of the two hundred and fifty ducats, under pain of rigorous proceedings against them.[1138] As for holding the notaries responsible, there was manifest injustice in this, for they were powerless to prevent fraud by the inquisitors. In 1525, some instructions to the tribunal of Sicily mention that the notary had repeatedly and vainly requested that notice be given to him of all penances, in order that he might charge them to the receiver.[1139] How reckless sometimes were the inquisitors appears in the case of the murder of Juan Antonio Managat, deputy receiver at Puycerda. In 1565 the three Barcelona inquisitors inflicted on the accused certain heavy fines which were duly collected and placed in the coffer with three keys, after which they coolly helped themselves to a thousand reales apiece, under pretext that it was for fees in trying the case. On this being discovered, in the inspection by de Soto Salazar, the Suprema ordered the money to be returned to the coffer and satisfactory evidence of the restitution to be furnished within thirty days.[1140]

* * * * *

The distinction between the confiscations and the fines and penances was rigidly maintained when both were concentrated in the hands of the receiver. A special commission was issued to authorize him to receive the latter[1141] and he was straitly instructed to keep the accounts separate. The confiscations were devoted to salaries and, if there was an overplus, to investments of a more or less permanent character, while the fines and penances were levied, as the formula of the sentences habitually expressed it, for the _gastos extraordinarios_--the other and extraordinary expenses of the tribunals. Still, when the confiscations ran short, there was no hesitation in drawing upon the other fund, although a special order of the Suprema was necessary for its authorization. Ayudas de costa were generally drawn from the fines and penances, though frequently the receiver is told to pay them out of any funds in hand.[1142] In 1525, Manrique directed the house-rents of the officials to be paid from the fines and penances; in 1540 Tavera granted, from the same fund in Valencia, three thousand sueldos to the nunnery of Santa Julia as the dowry of a reconciled Morisca, placed there to save her soul; in 1543 he calls upon the receiver of Granada to furnish, from the same source, two hundred ducats to Juan Martínez Lassao, secretary of the Suprema, on the occasion of his marriage; in 1557 the inquisitors of Saragossa were allowed, in the same manner, to defray the cost of alterations in the Aljafería.[1143] In short, this fund was expected to meet the innumerable miscellaneous expenses of the tribunals and to supply all deficiencies, rendering the inquisitors watchful to keep it abundantly supplied.

There were occasions when penances replaced confiscations, to the manifest advantage of the tribunals. Thus, in 1519, when the estate of Fernando de Villareal was subject to confiscation, Charles V authorized the inquisitors to impose on him such penance as they deemed fit and released to him the surplus. It is not likely that this surplus was allowed to be large for, when in 1535, the tribunal of Valencia was trying the Bachiller Molina and learned that the viceroy had promised Molina's wife that, in case of confiscation, he would ask the emperor to forego it, the inquisitors wrote to the Suprema that they proposed not to confiscate his property but to impose a penance of something less than its value.[1144] This indicates that the penances were not subject to the crown and thus it exposes the disingenuousness of the Suprema, in replying to a petition of Valencia, in the Córtes of Monzon in 1537, that the Inquisition should be restrained from penancing the Moriscos. It argued that these pecuniary penances were applied to the royal treasury and that his majesty should not be asked to remit them, or be required to supplicate the pope to revoke what the canons prescribe.[1145]

[Sidenote: _REPLACE CONFISCATION_]

The canons prescribed confiscation, but there was no hesitation, as we have just seen, in substituting penance. The largest scale on which this was tried was in the kingdoms of Aragon, where the Moriscos were mostly vassals of the gentry and nobles, who suffered when they were impoverished and their lands were taken. The fueros of Valencia provided that feudal lands confiscated, whether for heresy or other cause, should revert to the lord, and this was repeatedly sworn to by Ferdinand and Charles, but the Inquisition calmly disregarded all laws and insisted on confiscating for its own benefit. Even a brief of Paul III, August 2, 1546, decreeing that for ten years and subsequently, at the pleasure of the Holy See, there should be no confiscations or pecuniary penances inflicted on the Moriscos, received no attention and the practical answer to the remonstrances of the Córtes of 1564 was a specific instruction from the Suprema to the Valencia tribunal to go on confiscating, no matter what the people might say about their privileges.[1146] Aragon, meanwhile, had obtained, in 1534, a pragmática by which Charles renounced his right to the Morisco confiscations, which were to revert to the heirs or be distributed as intestate, and to this the assent of the Suprema was secured. This was, however, practically nullified for, in 1547, the Córtes complained that confiscations were replaced by penances greater than the wealth of the culprits, who were obliged to sell all their property and, in addition, to impoverish their kindred, to which the Suprema loftily replied that, if any one was aggrieved, he could appeal to it or to the inquisitors.[1147]

A lucrative bargain was finally made with Valencia, which had the largest Morisco population. In 1537 the Córtes proposed that, for a payment of 400 ducats a year, the Inquisition should abstain from penancing the Moriscos, but the Suprema refused, on the ground that it would be a disservice to God. It was shrewd in this for, in 1571, it secured an agreement under which, for an annual payment of 50,000 sueldos (2500 ducats) it abandoned confiscation and limited penance to 10 ducats, the payment of which was rendered secure by levying it on the aljamas of the culprits.[1148] Favorable as was this, the inquisitors did not restrain themselves to its observance. In the auto de fe of January 7, 1607, there was a penance of 50 ducats, one of 30 and one of 20 and, while there were only eight reconciliations, there were twenty penances of 10 ducats. The Suprema took exception to this, saying that, without reconciliation, the fines were uncalled for, in the absence of some special offence.[1149] The agreement, in fact, was one under which the gains of the tribunal were limited only by its industry, for there was no lack of Morisco apostates. The little village of Mislata, near the city, must have been well-nigh bankrupted, for it was liable for the penances of its inhabitants, of whom there were eighty-three penanced in 1591 and seventeen in 1592.[1150]

* * * * *

As confiscations diminished throughout Spain, the unrestricted power to impose fines and penances came in opportunely to fill deficiencies. They could be levied in a vast variety of cases--not only for suspicion of heresy and for fautorship, but for bigamy, blasphemy, ill-sounding expressions and all offences against the tribunal and its officials, as well as for those of the officials themselves and the familiars. The temporal jurisdiction especially afforded large opportunities, for the defendant, whether he was a familiar or an outsider, could always be fined for the benefit of the tribunal and this was rarely omitted. It was no secret within the Holy Office that this discretional power was to be exercised, not in accordance with the merits of the case, but with the needs of the Inquisition. As early as 1538, this was intimated in the instructions to Inquisitor Valdeolite of Navarre, when sent on a visitation to investigate witchcraft. He was forbidden to inflict confiscations but was told that he could impose fines and penances, in proportion to the offences and wealth of the culprits, in order to meet expenses and enable the receiver to pay salaries.[1151] In time the Suprema grew more outspoken. A carta acordada of October 22, 1575 told inquisitors that they could impose pecuniary penalties while on visitations, as well as when sitting in the tribunal, and must bear in mind the poverty of the Suprema as well as the wealth of the culprits and the character of the offence. This was repeated in 1580, and in 1595 attention was called to the necessity of relieving the wants of the Inquisition in this manner, an exhortation repeated in 1624.[1152]

[Sidenote: _PRODUCTIVENESS_]

This stimulation was apparently superfluous, for the inquisitors exploited their powers in this respect to a degree that sometimes moved even the Suprema to reproof. In a visitation of Gerona and Elne by Doctor Zurita of Barcelona, in 1564, we find him inflicting fines and penances continually, of 4, 6, 10, 20, 30 or 100 ducats, apparently limited only by the means of the victim. His colleague, Dr. Mexia, on a visitation penanced Damian Cortes in 100 ducats because, thirty years before, when some one told him to trust in God, he had exclaimed "Trust in God! By trusting in God last year I lost 50 ducats" and, when Juan Barbero made a comment on this sentence, he was fined 20 ducats and costs. When this last exploit was reported by de Soto Salazar, the Suprema ordered the fines to be refunded, as it also did with those inflicted by Mexia, of 60, 40 and 15 ducats, on the Bayle of Vindoli and two jurados for an offence so trifling that their names were ordered to be stricken from the records. When sitting as a tribunal these inquisitors were even more liberal to themselves, for they fined the Abbot of Ripoll 400 ducats for keeping a nun as a mistress--an offence wholly outside of their jurisdiction.[1153] As late as 1687, the tribunal of Logroño furnished a flagrant instance of this abuse of arbitrary power, when it excommunicated and fined in 200 ducats D. Miguel Urban de Espinosa, a Knight of Santiago and familiar, because, when summoned to attend at the publication of the Edict of Faith, he sought to enter the church while wearing a sword. The inquisitor-general promptly ordered his absolution and suspended the fine until further information.[1154]

The receipts from penances, although fluctuating, were a substantial addition to income. In the Seville auto de fe of May 13, 1585, a penitent accused of Lutheranism was penanced in 100 ducats, a bigamist in 200, provided it did not exceed half his property; for asserting fornication to be no sin one man was penanced in 200 ducats or less, according to his wealth, another in 200 and two in 1000 maravedís apiece, while, for concealing heretics, there was a penance of 50 ducats. In all, the auto yielded 850 ducats and 2000 maravedís.[1155] Even more productive was the auto of June 14, 1579, at Llerena, where the tribunal harvested 626,000 maravedís and 2700 ducats, or about 4375 ducats in all--owing to some of the penitents being well-to-do ecclesiastics, given to Illuminism.[1156] Toledo, in 1604, imposed a penance of 3000 ducats on Giraldo Paris, a German of Madrid, guilty of sundry heretical propositions, including the assertion that St. Job was an alchemist.[1157] The same tribunal, in 1649 and 1650, penanced four persons engaged in endeavoring to shield a Judaizer, two of them 500 and the other two 300 ducats apiece. In 1654, again, in two autos, November 8th and December 27th, it realized a total of 4000 ducats. After this it had occasional good fortune and, in 1669, it was supremely lucky in a rich penitent, Don Alonso Sanchez, priest and physician to the Cuenca tribunal, whom it convicted of fautorship and penanced in the large sum of 13,000 ducats.[1158] In 1654, Cuenca realized 2250 ducats, besides thirteen confiscations, from its auto of June 29th.[1159] Córdova was more fortunate, in an auto of May 3, 1655, when a group of wealthy Judaizers and their friends yielded an aggregate of 7000 ducats.[1160]

In addition to this source of revenue from penance imposed on penitents there were the fines inflicted in the exercise of the secular jurisdiction of the Inquisition. How liberally this power was exercised, even when the delinquents were officials, is seen in the defence offered by the Suprema, in 1632, when strenuous complaints were made about the familiars of Valencia. It instanced the case of Jaime Blau, who was fined 600 libras, half to the complainant and half to the fisc; Vicente de San German fined 300 libras; Hierónimo Llodra, 500 ducats; Pedro Carbonel, 500 ducats; Tomás Real, 300 ducats; Miguel Rubio, 400 libras, and Hierónimo Pilart, 500 libras.[1161] Doubtless through these inflictions the culprits escaped corporal punishments much less endurable, and they serve to explain the persistent multiplication of familiars, coupled with disregard of the character of the appointees. It was the same with outsiders who were prosecuted for offences against officials, as when, in 1565, Don Tristan de Urria of Saragossa was fined 60 ducats for insulting a notary.[1162]

[Sidenote: _LUCRATIVE RESULTS_]

In the seventeenth century the Suprema claimed these fines as its special perquisite. When Jaime Blau, for instance, was mulcted in 300 ducats for the fisc, no sooner was the Suprema apprised of it than it ordered the amount to be remitted at once, and the length of correspondence which ensued indicates that this was a novelty submitted to unwillingly.[1163] Even a fine of 100 libras, imposed on Ignacio Navarro, in 1636, was called for immediately and remitted, as was also soon afterwards 100 ducats with which he purchased his pardon; as he was forthwith arrested again for murdering Don Juan Augustin Saluco, he probably yielded another series of fines.[1164] In the extreme exigencies of the royal treasury, the king claimed a portion of these receipts and, by a decree of September 30, 1639, he ordered one-fourth of all fines for secular offences to be paid to the official designated to receive the fines of the royal courts.[1165]

In the unscrupulous exercise of discretional power, fines and penances were frequently imposed beyond the culprit's ability to pay, and inquisitors had a habit of adding in the sentence the alternative of some corporal punishment, such as the galleys, scourging or vergüenza, with the object of inducing the kindred to contribute, in order to avert from the family the shame of the public infliction. The Instructions of 1561 strictly forbid this cruelty; the sentences are to be without condition or alternative and inability to pay is not to be thus visited.[1166] This received scant obedience. In 1568 it was the ordinary practice of the Barcelona tribunal to enforce payment of its arbitrary impositions by the alternative of such punishment.[1167] About 1640, however, we are told by an inquisitor that the question was evaded by the prudent custom of sending poor men to the galleys and reserving pecuniary penance for the wealthy.[1168]

In fact, after the middle of the seventeenth century, the number of such penances diminished and they are usually for larger amounts. In a record of the autos de fe of Toledo, from 1648 to 1794, there is but one that is less than 100 ducats and that one is for 50. In all there are but sixty-four penances imposed up to 1742 and none subsequently. The aggregate is 30,600 ducats, besides fourteen of half the property of the culprit.[1169] Whether from a growing sense of their indecency or from a lack of material, the custom of imposing pecuniary penances rapidly declined in the eighteenth century. In a collection of sixty-six autos de fe, between 1721 and 1745, comprising in all 962 cases, there is not a single pecuniary penance.[1170] Fines, however, continued to be imposed to the last. March 27, 1816, Pasqual Franchini of Madrid, for possessing two indecent pictures, was fined 100 ducats and, as these are defined as applicable to the royal treasury, it would appear that the crown had absorbed this trifling source of revenue.[1171]

In this matter the Roman Inquisition offered a creditable contrast to the Spanish. Except in Milan, Cremona and other places under Spanish rule, pecuniary punishments were rarely to be inflicted; the assent of the Congregation of cardinals was required, and they were at once to be distributed in pious uses, of which a strict account was required. Thus in 1595, one of 4000 crowns was given to the poor of Genoa and, in the same year at Naples, one of 400 crowns was parcelled out among the charitable establishments. Even this was felt to derogate from the character of the Holy Office and, in 1632, Urban VIII decreed that papal confirmation must be had in each case and, at the same time, he withdrew the special privileges of the Milanese tribunals.[1172] So strong was the disgust felt in Rome for this commercialized zeal for the faith that, when the Fiscal Cabrera was there representing the Inquisition, in the case of Villanueva, and Arce y Reynoso sent to him, for presentation to the pope, a report of an auto celebrated by the tribunal of Santiago, with the expectation of arousing his sympathy for an institution that was doing so much for religion, Cabrera replied, January 6, 1656, that he would not present it without special orders. Alexander VII, he said, disliked pecuniary penalties in matters of faith, and there were some of these in the report; his Holiness had already spoken to him on the subject and it was wiser not to call his attention to it afresh.[1173]