CHAPTER I.

THE EDICT OF GRACE.

Allusion has occurred above to the Edicts of Grace which, in the earlier period, played an important part in the machinery of the Inquisition. It was a custom inherited from the thirteenth century of which the conditions, as adopted in Spain, are expressed in the Instructions of 1484. When, at any place, a tribunal was opened, at the close of the initial sermon the inquisitors were to publish a Term of Grace, lasting for thirty or forty days, during which those conscious of heresy could come forward, making complete confession of all errors remembered, including those of others. They were to be assured that all who did so, with contrition and desire to abjure, would be charitably received, would be given salutary penance and would not be condemned to death, to perpetual prison or to confiscation, but the inquisitors were empowered to reconcile them and, at their discretion, to require them to give as alms a certain portion of their property in aid of the holy war with the Moors. Spontaneous confession after the Term of Grace, provided the parties had not been testified against, secured reconciliation with confiscation; where adverse testimony had been received, heavier penalties, even to perpetual prison, could be inflicted.[1344] In the supplementary Instructions of December 6, 1484, Torquemada added that the sovereigns granted to those thus reconciled the right to collect debts and confirmed all alienations made prior to the reconciliation, but that no subsequent alienations or encumbrances on real estate would be valid without special royal licence.[1345] This still left questions unsettled and, in Torquemada's further Instructions of January 5, 1485, it was provided that, if the reconciled held public office, they were to be temporarily disabled, until their steadfastness in the faith was proved; those who had been prevented by sickness, or other just impediment, from availing themselves of the Term of Grace were to be admitted but, if there was proof against them, they were subject to confiscation and their cases would be submitted for the royal decision. Those who did not confess fully as to themselves and others were to be regarded as fictitious converts and, if evidence was received against them, were to be prosecuted with the utmost rigor. Fugitives coming forward within the term were to be admitted.[1346]

A case occurring in 1483 shows that this was a mitigation of the pitiless strictness with which the limits of the Term of Grace had been observed. When, in December of that year, Juan Chinchilla was on trial at Ciudad Real, one of the articles of accusation was that he had not come forward during the term. In reply he stated that the Comendador del Carral had sent him away during that time; that he had gone to the Inquisition to confess, but Padre Caetano had retired after hearing mass and he had been told to return at another time; then he went to the receiver and begged him for God's sake to get him admitted; the receiver had promised to do so and came to summon him; he thought that he was being taken to the inquisitors, but found himself thrown in prison. His explanation availed him nothing, nor did his free confession of his errors, and he was duly burnt.[1347] In the awful confusion and haste of those opening years, such cases must have been frequent. There were few formalities observed, for there had not been time to develop an elaborate course of procedure, and each inquisitor, to a large extent, followed his own devices.

[Sidenote: _CONFESSIONS UNDER THE EDICT_]

I have nowhere met with the full text of an Edict of Grace, but the substantial formula is given in the sentence pronounced, January 30, 1484, in Ciudad Real, against the fugitives Sancho de Ciudad and his wife. This recites that, as there was public report that in Ciudad Real many nominal Christians followed the Law of Moses, the inquisitors had verified it by testimony; that, desiring to treat them with clemency, they had issued their Edict that all thus guilty should come forward and abjure within thirty days, when they would be treated with all possible mercy; that they had extended this for thirty days more and had received all who desired to present themselves, after which they had issued their summons and edict against all who had fled and had been testified against as suspect and defamed for heresy.[1348]

We have seen what was this mercy, in penitential processions and heavy amercements, and we shall see how illusory, in many cases, was the promised immunity, owing to the _diminucion_ or imperfection of the confession. It was required to be full about themselves and others; the assumption necessarily was that they were genuine converts at heart and as such must be eager, not only to discharge their consciences as to all past errors, but to aid in the punishment of all heretics and apostates, including those nearest and dearest to them. Anything short of this showed that their confession was fictitious and thus it only added to their guilt. Ample evidence against them was obtainable, not only from informers who were numerous and active, but from the confessions of others, whether coming in under the edict or on trial. The tribunals were watchful in utilizing all this material, and reconciliation under the edict was apt to be supplemented by arrest and condemnation.

The confessions under the Edicts of Grace are pitiful reading. The poor creatures naturally admit as little as possible, in the hope of diminishing the pecuniary penance. They strive to extenuate their errors and throw the blame on those who misled them; they grovel before the inquisitors, profess the deepest contrition and promise strenuous perseverance in the faith. They rarely go out of their way to compromise others, but they frankly state who it was that perverted them and have no hesitation in implicating parents and kindred and benefactors. Unlike the priest in the confessional, the inquisitors abstained from interrogating them or seeking information about themselves or others. It was not their policy to stimulate confession and the penitent was allowed to state as much or as little as he chose. The results are evidently the unassisted work of the penitents, inconsistent, rambling, frequently almost unintelligible, whether written by themselves or taken down verbatim by the notaries, for it was essential that they should be of record, to be brought up against them, in the probable case of backsliding or of testimony to omitted facts. The confession of Maria Gonsales de la Panpana, Ciudad Real, October 9, 1483, may be taken as a specimen. In it she throws all the blame upon her husband and recites the thrashings received at his hands to force her to follow Jewish observances. She was duly admitted to reconciliation but, in about three months, she was arrested and tried and was burnt in the great auto de fe of February 23, 1484.[1349] The unsubstantial character of the mercy promised in the Edict of Grace is illustrated in the typical case of Andres González, parish priest of Talavera. Soon after the tribunal of Toledo had been organized and before there had been any proclamation in the archidiaconate of Talavera, he sought to protect himself by appearing before the tribunal, making confession and obtaining reconciliation. Doubtless prisoners on trial testified against him, for he was soon afterwards arrested. November 5, 1484 he made a fuller confession, covering all the points of Judaism and disbelief in the sacraments which he had been administering. In spite of his professions of repentance, the fiscal claimed that this was extorted by fear, and presented the evidence of ten witnesses, whose testimony as a whole was but a confirmation of his confession. He gained nothing by his self-denunciation; he was degraded from the priesthood and burnt in the auto de fe of August 17, 1486.[1350]

[Sidenote: _THE TIME OF MERCY_]

If thus the Edict of Grace was of little benefit to the New Christians, it was of the utmost service to the Inquisition. The multitudes who came forward contributed large sums in their "alms;" they gave the tribunals wide knowledge of suspects and a means of subsequently convicting them on the score of their imperfect confessions--for their confessions could not fail to be technically imperfect. Moreover, the necessity of denouncing all accomplices furnished an invaluable mass of testimony for further prosecutions. Thus, by this simple and apparently merciful expedient, the inquisitor was provided with funds and had his work laid out for him, enabling him to gather in his harvest with small labor of investigation and with full certainty of results. The fisc also had a further advantage in the opportunity afforded by the imperfect confessions of the reconciled. Besides the general compositions for confiscation described above, there were special ones exempting the Conversos from this particular peril. Thus a royal cédula of April 6, 1491, grants to those of Valencia, for five thousand ducats, release of confiscation for all imperfect confessions and for heresies committed up to that date, except in cases of relapse.[1351] Their fears were speculated upon in every way conceivable.

This probably explains some obscure allusions to a Time of Mercy, as distinguished from the Time of Grace, of which the clearest account we have refers to Majorca. A contemporary relates that "Some years after the Time of Grace, perhaps two, when many heretics had confessed some errors but not all, and had suppressed the names of many accomplices, a rigorous inquisition was made against them. Then, at the persuasion of a certain great Rabbi, nearly all the apostates, seeing the afflictions visited upon them, came to the palace of the inquisitors with loud cries and tears (I wish they were sincere) begging for pardon. Then new confessions were made and, by command of the inquisitor-general, with the consent of King Ferdinand, they were admitted to mercy with a moderate pecuniary fine to redeem their lawfully confiscated property. And that time was called the Time of Mercy. And this occurred in our city of the kingdom of Majorca, viz., the Time of Grace in 1488 and the Time of Mercy in 1490, when I was ten years old. Yet the grace and mercy were of little avail for, from then until the current year 1524, the inquisition against them has never ceased; many were delivered to the secular court and very many exposed to shame and imprisoned for life and their property confiscated, yet never would they amend."[1352]

However successful was the device of the Edict of Grace, from the point of view of inquisitor and king, it evidently won over but few to the faith and, after a comparatively brief experience, the Conversos recognized that those who availed themselves of it were in a distinctly worse position than before, as their confessions were on record against them in case of relapse, and they were exposed to the added danger that any imperfections in those confessions were legally construed as impenitence, which was mortal. We shall see, when considering the subject of confession that this question of imperfection was treated so rigidly as to render its avoidance practically impossible, and of this the Inquisition took full advantage, for we find the Suprema instructing the tribunals to scrutinize carefully all confessions made by those under trial and compare them with those presented in the Time of Grace, to see whether anything had been concealed and whether the so-called penitents counselled with each other to shield their friends and kindred.[1353] This latter clause points to another serious bar to the success of Edicts of Grace, in the obligation to denounce accomplices, which involved the exposure to prosecution of all the friends and kindred of the penitent. This was especially felt when the enforced conversion of the Moriscos subjected them to the Inquisition, for one of their evil qualities, we are told, was that, while they could be forced to confess freely about themselves, they could not be induced to betray their neighbors, wherefore they were burnt for impenitence.[1354]

The Moriscos offered the largest field for the exploitation of Terms of Grace during nearly a century. There was an earnest desire, for reasons of state, to secure their conversion, and special concessions were made to them with little result. The details of these will be more conveniently considered hereafter, and it will suffice here to mention that Philip II, towards the close of his reign, proposed to issue an edict of a comprehensive character which should determine the question of expulsion. Convinced of the futility of such measures involving the denunciation of accomplices, he applied to Clement VIII for permission to omit it, but the pontiff was more rigid than the king and, in his brief authorizing the edict, he insisted on the denunciation of apostates.[1355] Philip's death, in 1598, postponed the issue of the edict until August 22, 1599. Every effort was made to render it successful and the twelve months conceded in it were extended to eighteen, expiring February 28, 1601. The result was awaited with anxiety and, on August 22, 1601, the inquisitors reported that during the whole term only thirteen persons had taken advantage of it, and these had made such imperfect confessions and had so shielded their accomplices that they deserved condemnation rather than absolution.[1356]

[Sidenote: _UNDER THE RESTORATION_]

For two centuries after the expulsion of the Moriscos we hear nothing more of Edicts of Grace. There were no longer in Spain bodies of heretics or suspects to whom such expedients were applicable, and the desired unity of faith was secured so far as practicable but, with the Napoleonic wars, there came new sources of infection. Spain was traversed from end to end by armies composed of heretics like the English or largely of free-thinkers like the French. Jews had taken advantage of the troublous times to pollute the sacred soil and liberal ideas, abhorred alike by Church and State, had ample opportunity of dissemination. With the re-establishment of the Inquisition, in 1814, it seemed opportune to meet the flood of heresy and libertinism by the old methods. On January 2, February 10 and April 5, 1815, therefore, the inquisitor-general issued Edicts of Grace, promising that all who, during the current year, should come forward and denounce themselves for heresy or other crimes justiciable by the Inquisition, should be absolved without punishment and without obligation to denounce accomplices. This was followed, April 12th, with orders to collect all information possible, but not to prosecute until after the expiration of the term, when all who should not have spontaneously presented themselves were to be put on trial. This comprehensive plan can scarce be pronounced a success. The records show that a few _espontaneados_ availed themselves of the promised grace, but the number was lamentably insignificant. This did not encourage prolongation of the term and, on January 12, 1816, another edict announced its expiration and the revival of the old obligation to denounce all offences known to the penitent.[1357] There does not seem to have followed any outburst of prosecutions. The tribunals, doubtless, had been too much occupied in repairing their shattered fortunes to waste much thought on accumulating information as to heretics.