Book 5, Chapter 1, Part 3, of the History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Guero. The History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 2, by Henry Charles Lee. Book 5, Resources, Chapter 1, Part 3, Confiscation In the rigor of collection, debtors to the confiscated estates, who were unable to pay, were imprisoned without mercy. Thus, in 1490, the Judge of Confiscations at Segovia orders the Alguacil to seize the lands and goods and money of Don Mose de Cuejar, who was indebted in the sum of 393,000 marvedes to the late Consalo de Cuejar, Regidor Abutrago, burnt for heresy. If he cannot find property enough to satisfy the debt, he is to seize the person of Don Mose and confine him in the public prison of Segovia. It was the same with husbands who were liable for the dowries of their wives, as we have seen in the case of Don Pedro Gascon, page 334. Forbearance, however, was sometimes found to be better policy. In 1509, Sancho Martínez of Egin was sentenced to pay 50,000 marvedes for the dowry of his wife, whose parents had been reconciled. He pleaded poverty to the Suprema, which ordered that, if his property was insufficient, he should not be imprisoned, and that, at the auction of his effects, he should be allowed to purchase to the amount of 10,000 or 12,000 marvedes on a year's credit. The event showed the wisdom of the arrangement. The auction realized 17,000. He was the purchaser, and paid for it at the expiration of the year. He accumulated, as the years went by, 100,000 marvedes, and the judge ordered execution on him for the 33,000 still due on the dowry. Again he appealed to the Suprema, some members of which doubted whether his subsequent acquisitions were liable, and the matter was compromised July 5, 1519, by ordering him to pay half the deficiency. These instances are not without interest, as illustrations of the matter in which this gigantic expoliation was effected through more than a couple of centuries. The elaborate system adopted is revealed to us in the records of the Valencia Court of Confiscations in 1530 and 1531. When an arrest was made with sequestration, the receiver opened an account in his Libro de Manifestaciones in which the notary of sequestrations entered all the items of the inventory. Then followed the Odiencia de Hacienda and the summons to debtors to declare their obligations which were likewise entered. If the prisoner was engaged in trade, his books were examined and all debts were duly placed in the same record. Information of all kinds was diligently sought, and no matter how vague and worthless was similarly recorded. Much of this was obtained from prisoners who testified to gossip heard from cell companions in the dreary hours of prolonged confinement. Thus July 9, 1527, Violante Salvador testified that Leonor Bonin told her that Angela Parda, when arrested, had entrusted certain small coins to Leonor Madresa, Angela Parda and Leonor Bonin were both burnt and Violante Salvador was reconciled. Leonor Madresa, when summoned to account for the deposit, denied it under oath, and as there was no other witness, the claim for a few pennies was abandoned. The persistence with which these shadowy claims were pursued is illustrated in the case of Rafael Moneada, arrested in 1524. A certain Sor Catalina testified that she had heard say, by someone whose name she could not recall, that Moneada had said that, during the revolt of the Germania, 1520 to 1522, he had hidden a large amount of goods. His wife, or widow, Violante, when summoned, declared that during the troubles he had hidden some silks in the die-house. When peace was restored, he had taken them out and when, two years later, he was arrested, they were among the effects sequestrated. She was brought forward again and again, always adhering to the same story, and it was not until 1531 that she was discharged. This persistence is explained by the fact that the receiver was responsible for every item entered by the notary of sequestrations, unless he could show that it was not collectible, to the satisfaction of the judge who would then relieve him by a sentencia de diligencias, signifying that he had made due exertion. The care thus induced in following up the minutest fragments of property is manifested in a petition presented by the receiver, March 4, 1531, to the effect that he had made every effort to recover fourteen sueldos, the dowry given by Pérez Barbera and Graviel Barbera to their sister, Leonor Barbera, on her marriage to Graviel Mas. More than twenty years ago, Pérez Barbera was burnt in effigy. Mas went to the canaries covered with debts and died there poor. Leonor died eighteen years ago, leaving her property to Pérez San, Anrich, and he too had been reconciled with confiscation. Anrich was called, and duly interrogated, and then the judge allowed the entry to be cancelled. Besides the excommunication incurred by all who did not voluntarily reveal their indebtedness to a confiscated estate, the receiver was clothed with ample powers enabling him to perform his duties thoroughly. When the first appointments were made for Aragon in 1484, all officials secular and ecclesiastic were required to assist him when called upon under pain of the royal wrath and three thousand gold florins. Apparently this was found insufficient, for the formula in a commission issued, September 5, 1519, Duolonzo de Gumiel, receiver of Ciudad Rodrigo, sets forth that, if any one refused or delayed to deliver up confiscated property, the receiver could impose penalties at discretion and these penalties were confirmed in advance, while every one of whatever station was required to obey his orders under the same discretion penalties. It is easy to imagine the wrong and oppression which an unprincipled official could inflict, under powers so vague and arbitrary, and the terror which the office shed around it is exemplified in a Valencia case decided in 1532. September 2, 1528, Nofre Katalayut mustered courage to present to the court of confiscations a petition setting forth that in 1507, as heir to his father, he became liable for a violario, a sort of annuity of 50 sueldos a year, redeemable at 15 libras, due to Luis Alcaniz, which he paid sometimes to Jaime Alcaniz and sometimes to a daughter of Joan Alcaniz. Jaime was condemned and the receiver seized the violario. Through fear of the consequences, Nofre continued to pay it up to the present time, although it did not belong to Jaime and the parties on whose lives it was based, Guillem Rancón de Belvis and Johann Boluda had been dead for twenty years. The case must have been bitterly contested, for it was not until April 17, 1532, that a decision was rendered in his favor, to the effect that the violario had not belonged to Jaime Alcaniz and that the lives had ended a quarter of a century before, wherefore the receiver was ordered to refund all the payments that he had received. It was fortunate that a court was sometimes found to check the lawless rapacity of the receivers. It would not be easy to exaggerate the confusion and the hardships caused by the enforcement of confiscation, especially in the early period. The new Christians had filled so many positions of public and private trust, and the trade of Spain was so largely in their hands, that the long procession of arrests accompanied with sequestration and followed by confiscation could not but be paralyzing, and affect interests far wider than those of the victims and their kindred. Even after the first wild torrent of prosecution, the industry of the tribunals was constantly involving men hitherto unsuspected, bringing ruin or inextricable perplexities on the innocent who had chance to have dealings with them. The backward search, moreover, into the heresies of those long-sensed dead, vitiated old transactions and invalidated titles to property that had long been held by innocent owners. During Ferdinand's life we hear of many of these cases brought before him on appeal, and for the most part not in vain, for when the injustice of his receivers was clear he was prompt to revoke their action, and when there was doubt he would often kindly wave a portion or the whole of his claim. A few typical instances will illustrate some of the various aspects of the troubles which pervaded the land and crippled the development of Spanish prosperity. Early in 1498 Ferdinand was startled to learn that the Barcelona Tribunal had arrested Jaime de Casa Franca and had sequestrated his property. Casa Franca was deputy of the Royal Treasure General of Catalonia. He had served long and faithfully, without suspicion of his orthodoxy, and possessed the king's fullest confidence. In his hands were the monies of the crown, and also sums sent thither for the repairs of the castles of Rusulon, and the embargo laid on these funds threatened serious complications. Had private interests only been concerned the embarrassment would have been irredeal. But Ferdinand set aside the established routine by ordering all the sequestrations to be placed in the hands of his advocate fiscal, who was directed to employ the monies as instructions should be sent to him and to furnish an inventory so that public and private property could be separated. Then a messenger to Italy had just been dispatched in hot haste with orders to Casa Franca to provide immediate passage for him to Genoa, and, as delay would be most injurious, this must be seen to at once. Besides this there were two chests of silk in the name of Gabriel Sanchez, but belonging to the king, and two chests of paper for the royal secretary, and some horse covers and tools, the property of the treasure general, and some books belonging to the heirs of Gonsales Ruiz, all of which had to be looked after. Moreover Ferdinand recommended Casa Franca to the kindly consideration of the tribunal, as the accusation might be malicious, and he charged the conscience of the inquisitors to observe justice. Casa Franca, however, in the end was convicted, and Ferdinand consoled his children with some fragments of the confiscation. The arbitrary comprehensiveness of inquisitorial procedure and the difficulties thrown in the way of the new Christians are exemplified in the case of Hilaber de Santa Cruz, the younger. When his father, of the same name, was penanced, the son made a compromise with the receiver, under which he received a portion of his father's property in settlement of his mother's dowry and some other claims. Then he married Maria Siv, and pledged this property in the nuptial contract. In 1500 the father was again arrested when the property was at once sequestrated again. He was living with the son, under which pretext all the latter's household effects, even to the clothes and trinkets of the wife, were included in the inventory. Moreover the son was a member of a firm who employed the father as a factor, on which account all their goods and books were sequestrated, threatening the ruin of their business. In this emergency the only recourse was to Ferdinand, who responded with instructions to the tribunal that his will was that injustice should be done to no one. It was to examine the papers and at once to act according to the facts, without oppressing or injuring the parties in interest and without awaiting the result of the father's trial. The insecurity which overshadowed all transactions is illustrated by the case of Diego de Salinas of Avila, who had received as a marriage portion with the daughter of Gonzales Gómez since deceased a rent of forty-five fanegas of wheat, which the latter, in 1499, had bought for the purpose from Rodrigo del Barco for thirty thousand marvedés. In 1501 it was found that Rodrigo had inherited this rent from his grandfather, Pedro Albares, whose fame and memory were condemned, and it was legally claimed by the Fisk. Luckily for Diego he had rendered services to the sovereigns in consideration of which they granted him twenty-five thousand marvedés of the rent. It was to be valued and he was to pay whatever it was worth over and above that sum. Ferdinand's kindly interposition was sought by Pascual de Begido, who had sold to Pedro de Santa Cruz a house for one thousand sueldos, reserving the right of redemption at the same price. Pedro was reconciled with confiscation and Pascual applied to the receiver to allow him to redeem the house, but as he had mislaid his carta de gracia he was denied, and the house was sold for sixteen hundred sueldos. In 1502 he found the document and claimed the excess of six hundred sueldos which the receiver refused to pay until Ferdinand ordered him to do so, because Pascual was poor and had a daughter to marry. It was by no means the conversos only who suffered in this way, for old Christians were constantly finding themselves embarrassed by the cloud-thrown untitles. In 1514 Dom Pedro Núñez de Guzmán, clavero, or treasurer of the Order of Galatrava and Major Domo of the Infante Ferdinand, represented to the king that his uncle, Luis Osorio, Bishop of Jain, had a Major Domo named Rolríguez Habalín, who fell in debt to him and settled with certain properties renting for forty-five hundred maravidis. The bishop died in 1496, and Guzmán, who inherited the properties, gave them to the dean and chapter of Jain to found a perpetual mass for his uncle's soul. The chapter sold them, and in 1514 the inquisition seized them because Habalín had inherited them from an ancestor whose fame and memory were condemned. Guzmán represented that, if the present possessors were ejected, the chapter would have to make it good. The mass thus would be discontinued, and, at his prayer, Ferdinand ordered the seizure to be withdrawn. As an insurance against such losses, sellers and purchasers sometimes sought to procure, from the king or the tribunals, licenses to convey property real and personal. This was probably rare, as I have met with but a single case, that of Johan Carriga, whose wife and children, who, in 1510, from Majorca, petitioned Ferdinand for license to sell his property and faculties for others to purchase. Ferdinand referred the matter to the Majorcan Inquisitor, saying that he did not know whether the property was in any way liable to the Fisk, but if the Inquisitor thought the license ought to be granted, he was empowered to issue it with a royal confirmation. If Carriga obtained his license, he probably had to pay roundly for it, for the officials were often by no means nice in the abuse of their unlimited power. In this same year, 1510, Antonio Mingoth of Alicante complained to Ferdinand that he had been sentenced to pay 294 libras as a debt due to Gonzalo Ruiz, condemned for heresy. He had appealed to the Inquisitor-general, who referred the matter back to the Inquisitors, but, before they had decided the case, the receiver put up at auction property of his worth more than 4000 ducats, and then, for a payment of 100 ducats, postponed the sale to St. John's Day. Ferdinand sought to appeal to the king, but could not get copies of the necessary papers, delays being interposed to carry the matter over the postponement. Ferdinand warmly expressed his displeasure in a letter of May 21st ordering copies of all papers to be furnished and proceedings to be suspended for seventy days thereafter, but the peckant officials were not punished. Pissed claims, long since satisfied, were constantly turning up and prosecuted, from which the only recourse would seem to be the king. A few months later than the last case, he had a petition from the people of the Hamlets of Scavilla in La Mata, stating that on November 3, 1487, they had paid off a senso of 400 sueldos to Leonardo de Sant Angel, and now, after nearly a quarter of a century, the receiver demands it of them, on the ground that Sant Angel, at the time, was in prison and incapable of receiving the money. Ferdinand ordered the receiver not to trouble them, as they were ignorant peasants, and the payment was made with the assent of their lord, the Bishop of Huesca. Similarly, in 1511, Domingo Hust of Zaragoza represented that, in 1484, he had given an obligation for 3000 sueldos as security for the issue to him of a bill of exchange on Rome. On his return he had been unable to secure the surrender of the paper, in consequence of the flight of the holder, but it had turned up and was now demanded of him. Ferdinand ordered him to be relieved on his taking an oath, guaranteed by excommunication. Old and forgotten heresies were exploited with equal rigor. In 1510 Pedro de Espinoza of Bassa represented to Ferdinand that when Bassa was recovered from the Moors, December 4, 1489, he married Aldonza Rodriguez, niece and adopted daughter of the Esquire Lázaro de Ávila, and Catalina Jiménez, and, on Lázaro's death, they went to live with Catalina. Now Catalina has been condemned for an act of heresy committed when a child in her father's house, probably a fast or eating unleavened bread, and her property, worth some 18,000 ducats, has been confiscated. In view of his services in the war with Granada, Espinoza begged that the confiscation be remitted and Ferdinand liberally assented to the amount of 18,000 ducats. With the death of Ferdinand these frequent appeals to the crown become fewer and are met with less kindness, though the call for relief from the rigor of the law was undiminished, as will be seen from the case of the Monastery of Bonifasa. In 1452 Pedro Roy, priest of Tortosa, sold to Dalvido Tolosa of Salced for 400 libras, a rent of 20 libras per annum, secured on certain property. And this property Roy subsequently sold to the Monastery. In 1475 Dalvido died, leaving the rent to his son, Luis Tolosa, from whom the Monastery redeemed it, March 1, 1488. Luis, or his memory, was condemned, and about 1519 the receiver demanded of the Monastery the 400 libras and all arerages of rent, claiming that the redemption had been in fraud of the fisk, as Luis's heresy anti-dated it. The case was clear and judgment against the Monastery was rendered. June 7, 1519. Pleading poverty it applied for relief to Charles V, who instructed the receiver that, if it would pay 100 libras during July and fifty more within a year, he should release the claim. The avidity of the Inquisition did not diminish with time, nor its disastrous influence on all exposed to its claims. In 1615 a German Protestant, known as Juan Cote, was condemned by the Toledo Tribunal to perpetual prison and confiscation. He was then twenty-four years old, and had been taken, in early youth, by his uncle Juan Aventrote, to the Canaries, where the uncle married Maria Vandala, a widow with four children, who died in 1609, leaving one-fifth of her estate to Cote. In 1613 Aventrote sent him to Spain with a letter to the Duke of Lerma, which led to the discovery of his heresy. For the confiscation of his share in the widow's estate dragged on interminably. September 7, 1634 the Suprema ordered the Toledo Tribunal to furnish papers in the case, including a certificate of the date of Cote's heresy, which, in view of his having been brought up as a Protestant, it fixed at the age of fourteen, when he could be considered responsible. And this the Inquisition overreached itself, for in 1635 the Canary Tribunal reported that the heirs alleged Cote to have been incapable of inheritance, seeing that he was brought up as a Protestant, and both he and his uncle had pretended to be Catholics, and they called for a copy of the sentence to demonstrate this. The unabashed Suprema then shifted its ground and procured September 10, 1640 from the Toledo Tribunal a certificate that Cote had commenced his heretical acts in 1613, when he brought the letter to Lerma and delivered it to Philip III in August 1614. How the affair terminated, and how much longer it was protracted, we have no means of knowing, but the Inquisition had at least succeeded in tying up the estate for twenty-five years. The hardship of this system on innocent Third Parties was intensified by the fact that in this, as in all else, the Inquisition claimed and exercised exclusive jurisdiction. There was no appeal to a disinterested tribunal, but only from the judge of confiscations to the Suprema, which was as much interested as its subordinates in obtaining as large returns as possible from all sources. As these fell off, the liberality, so often displayed by Ferdinand, was no longer in place, and it became inexorable. Confiscations were specially assigned to the payment of salaries, and the judges were thus directly interested in their productiveness. The danger and the humiliation of this were fully recognized. In his futile plan of reform, in 1518, Charles V proposed to assign to the officials definite salaries and relieve them from dependence on the sentences which they pronounced. In 1523 he received from his privy council a memorial in which, among other matters, he was urged to see that proper appointments were made in the Inquisition, and that they had fitting salaries from other sources, so that they should live neither by beggary nor on the blood of their victims, and that their labors should tend to instruction, rather than to destruction, and to rendering Christianity odious to the infidel. The Cortes of Castile, remonstrated repeatedly to the same effect. Those of 1537 complained of the salaries being thus defrayed. Those of 1548 asked Charles to provide fixed salaries so as to put an end to the notorious evil of the judges paying themselves by fining and confiscating, and again, in 1555, they pointed out that, besides the danger of judges deriving their pay from the condemnations which they decree, it diminished the respect due to the holy office. To this the answer was merely that the matter has been considered, and will be fittingly decided. Spanish finances, however, were never in a position to assure the Inquisition that if it paid over its receipts to the Crown, it would get them back in appropriations for salaries and expenses. As we have seen, it kept them under its own control, and it jealously repelled all intrusion, even by the Crown, on its exclusive jurisdiction over confiscations. This position had not been won without a struggle. January 20, 1486, Ferdinand empowered the Inquisitors of Zaragoza to act as judges in the complicated litigation which was growing, and he commissioned them to decide all questions thence arising. On March 31 he reiterated the injunction. If the secular judges were allowed to intervene, everything would be lost. They were to be restrained by censures. As had already been done, and if royal letters or ejecutorias were required, they would be promptly furnished. There evidently was active resistance to this, for on May 5 he wrote that all questions must be settled by ecclesiastical law, for if the Fuedos were admitted, he would never get justice. The Inquisitors must therefore act. The receiver and fiscal must try the cases before them alone, and they must be speedy. When persecution was active, this threw upon the Inquisitors too heavy a burden, and one, moreover, for which they were unprepared, for they were theologians, and not canon lawyers. The assessors, it is true, assisted them. But a special tribunal evidently was a necessity, and this was furnished by the erection of courts of confiscation, presided over by the jueces de los bienes. In Castile, where the Fuedos were not an impediment, this had already been tried. As early as 1484 there is an allusion to such an official, and they commissioned as such was issued, April 10, 1485, to the bachiller Juan Antonio Serrano of Córdoba. For some time, however, such appointments continued to be unusual. In 1490 we hear of Juan Pérez de Nieba as jueces de los bienes in Segovia, but for the most part the Inquisitors and their assessors continued to perform the functions, and, when a juece existed, his position was subordinate, as appears by a letter of Ferdinand, August 27, 1500, to an assessor, telling him that the juece was only to relieve him in ordinary cases, and not to tie his hands in important ones. Inquisitors also continued to act, for in 1509 we hear of Niño de Villalobos as Inquisitor and juez in Cartagena, and a certain de Embredo as filling both positions in Seville, while as late as 1514, Toribio de Saldana, is spoken of as Inquisitor and juez. With the gradual disappearance of the assessors, however, the necessity of a separate functionary became apparent, and the courts of confiscations grew to be an established feature of the tribunals, so long as confiscations continued to be numerous and profitable. Towards the end, when they had become infrequent, the senior Inquisitor performed the duties of the juece. Ferdinand, meanwhile, persisted in asserting the exclusive jurisdiction of the Inquisition over all matters connected with confiscation, recognizing that his interests would suffer if the secular courts were allowed to intervene. The establishment of this as a rule of practice is attributable to the year 1508. The receiver of Cheyenne had sold a confiscated house to Diego García Errico for 42,000 Maraveddís on a year's credit. When the term expired, García, instead of paying, exhibited a grant made to him of the house by Philip of Austria. After Philip's brief career was over, his acts were not treated with much respect, and the juez de los bienes refused to recognize the grant, on the ground that it was not countersigned by the Suprema. García appealed to the Chancellery of Granada, which ordered the grant to be recognized, but Ferdinand interposed, January 18, 1508, commanding the juez to keep their hands off and not to interfere with the Inquisition in any way, either in its civil or criminal jurisdiction. The Chancellery did not take this kindly, and invited, in 1510, another rebuke for meddling in suits concerning sequestrations and confiscations. If any cases of the kind were pending, they must be forthwith remitted to the tribunals to which they belonged, and in future nothing of the kind was to be entertained. It was impossible that this monstrous policy of making it the judge in its own cases should be submitted to without resistance, but it was stoutly maintained by the crown. The Tribunal of Chayin invested some of its funds in a senso created by a cleric of Alcalá. He died in 1524, when his mother and brothers attacked the senso as being secured on a property in which they held undivided interests, and another party came forward with an encumbrance on the same property. The Inquisition seized it, and also collected some debts due to the deceased, which reduced its claim to seven or eight thousand maravides. The other parties appealed to the chancelary of Granada, which entertained the case, but the Inquisition invoked Charles V, who, in letters of May 19 and July 7, 1525, repeated the commands of Ferdinand to abstain from all interference. The Inquisition was the sole judge, and parties thinking themselves aggrieved must appeal to the Suprema. Still, those who smarted under injustice sought relief in the secular courts, which were nothing low to aid them. Complaints were loud on both sides, and competencias were frequent, until, as we have seen, they led to the settlement of 1553, in which Prince Philip emphatically forbade cognizance of such matters to all courts and ministers of justice, and confined appellate jurisdiction strictly to the Suprema. As has been seen in other matters, the great High Court of Granada was recalcitrant, and persisted in asserting its jurisdiction. In 1571 and 1573 it entertained cases relating to the settlement of the Suprema, and the Inquisition of the Suprema, and the Inquisition of the Suprema, and the Inquisition of the Suprema, and the Inquisition of the Suprema, and the Inquisition of the Suprema, and the Inquisition of the Suprema, and the Suprema. But the Tribunal of Murcia chanced to hold a senso of his for a thousand ducats. The juez de los bienes stepped in, seized the property, sold it, and kept the money. The chancelary was seeking to obtain justice for the other creditors. It arrested the juez and threw him into prison, when Philip again intervened, ordering his liberation and the abandonment of the case. It illustrates the independence of the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragón, that when the tax collectors of Valencia levied taxes and imposts on confiscated property and its sale, Charles V was obliged to appeal to the Holy Sea for its prevention. Clement VII obligingly granted a bowl, July 7, 1525, forbidding this under pain of excommunication, and a fine of a thousand ducats to the papal chimera. The Inquisitor General was named as conservator and judge to enforce it by censures and interdict and invocation of the secular arm, which doubtless put an end to the practice. As the operations of the Inquisition developed, an additional source of gain was found in speculating upon the terror pervading the new Christian communities, whether the idea originated in their mercantile instincts or in the desire of the sovereigns for prompt realization cannot be determined. But it was, in essence, a kind of rude and imperfect insurance against certain contingencies of confiscation, for which those in danger were willing to pay a heavy premium. As early as September 6, 1482, in a letter of Ferdinand to Luis Cabanillas, Governor of Valencia, there occurs an illusion to an arrangement of this kind, made with the conversos of that city, under which apparently they had agreed to pay a certain sum, in lieu of the confiscations, and had appointed assessors to apportion the share of each individual. Some of those, thus assessed, refused to pay, and Ferdinand ordered them to be coerced by imprisonment. What were the exact terms of this, we have no means of knowing, but on June 6, 1488, he made another bargain with the Valencia Conversos, who were reconciled under an edict of grace, by which they paid him for exemption from confiscation. Apparently rather a fresh impost, for this reconciliation substituted fines for confiscation. Then April 6, 1491, he confirmed this, and, for a further payment of five thousand ducats, he added exemption for heretical acts subsequently committed, if they did not amount to relapse, and for imperfect confessions made under the edict of grace, for as we shall see hereafter such confessions were frequently a source of danger arising from trifling omissions construed by the inquisitors as rendering them fictitious and entailing relaxation. It is an indelible disgrace to Ferdinand that in these compositions he did not keep faith with those whose money he took. In 1499 the Suprema took exception to this arrangement, probably in consequence of complaints that it was violated by the seizure and sale of properties comprehended under it. Then Ferdinand declared that it had not been his intention to relieve from confiscation those whose confessions had been imperfect, whereupon the Suprema ordered the inquisitors and receiver to prosecute and confiscate the property of all such penitents in spite of the agreement. Even the hardened receiver Aliaga seems to have hesitated to obey these orders, for Ferdinand was obliged to write him, September 27, that they were to be executed notwithstanding the privilege and its confirmation. The hardships inflicted on the innocent by this breach of faith are illustrated in a petition presented in 1519 to Charles V by Juan M. Beatriz Quimera, children of Bernat and Violante Quimera, who, after the composition of 1488, had been condemned for imperfect confession and their property confiscated. Juan M. Beatriz, with other children in the same position, appealed to Ferdinand, who, under the provision of April 6, 1491, ordered the receiver to restore all such property. They received and enjoyed possession for twelve years, after which, under the orders of 1499, the inquisitors took it from them. From this they appealed, but were too poor to follow it up, and the Suprema declared the appeal abandoned. Now they prayed Charles for the restoration of their property, and showed that, after the execution of their parents, they had paid all the installments remaining of the composition. In view of this, Charles, as a special grace, and in the exercise of the royal clemency, ordered, not that the property of which they had been robbed should be restored, but that the receiver should repay them what the inquisitors might find that they had paid of the composition after the death of their parents, without deducting therefrom the claim of the Fisk for the income of the property during their twelve years' possession. Even worse, if possible, was Ferdinand's course in a composition made, September 10, 1495, with the heirs and successors of all who, in Aragon, had died up to that time, and whose memories had been, or might in future, be condemned. For the sum of five thousand ducats he abandoned, to those who contributed, all the confiscations of their inheritances, and also the inheritances of those who refused to contribute, to be distributed among them in proportion to their contributions. Influentially this was confirmed when, in 1499, in view of trouble with the receiver at the prayer of the contributors, he appointed Vicent de Bordalba, administrator of the property, to claim and hold it and distribute it to the owners. After seven years had passed, in 1502, he was seized with qualms of conscience at thus violating the canon law which incapacitated the children of heretics as inheritors. It is true that he might have assumed the property, and then made a free gift of it, as was frequently done in special cases, but his scruples were too delicate for such a subterfuge. By letters of December 13, 1502, to the inquisitors and assessor, he ordered the seizure and confiscation of all the property thus devolved, and the return to the contributors, in all cases where they were sufferers, of the money which they had paid, thus retaining the contributions of those who had not profited by the composition. This breach of faith made an immense sensation in Saragossa, and even his son, the Archbishop, ventured to remonstrate, when he replied sanctimoniously, that he was acting by the advice of learned and God-fearing men, who had demonstrated to him that he could not, with a clear conscience, and without peril to his soul, grant a privilege contrary to the canon law. The sufferers must have patience, for it was in accordance with the canons of Holy Mother Church which were obligatory on him. The inquisitors and receiver were not over nice in utilizing their opportunity, and complaints speedily came pouring in, that, besides the inheritances, they seized all the property belonging to the heirs, including their acquisitions and the dowries of their wives, and that moreover they did not repay the contributions. Thus, before the month of December 1502 was out, the brothers Buendia appealed to him. They had paid 15,000 sueldos to the composition, and now the receiver had seized what they had inherited from their father. Much of this they had sold, they had acquired other properties by their labor, they had inherited from their mother, who was an old Christian, and had received dowries with their wives, all of which was included in the seizure. Ferdinand merely reported this to the inquisitor, with a vague order to do justice so as not to afford grounds for complaint. It is easy to conceive the confusion of titles, the multiplicity of suits, and the amount of misery resulting from this arbitrary abrogation of a contract. Resistance was prolonged, but it was unavailing, for Ferdinand held good, and repeated his preemptory orders January 4 and March 8, 1503, July 8, and November 7, 1504, and October 7, 1508. It would appear moreover that many of the contributors who suffered never obtained a return of their money. For this formed the subject of one of the articles of the Aragonese Concordia of 1512, confirmed in the 1516 Bowl of Leo X, providing that whoever had joined in a composition for the property of the dead, and had paid his money, if the deceased was subsequently convicted and the Fisk seized his inheritance, he should recover from the estate what he had paid, provided the payment had not been made out of the effects of the deceased. It was thus admitted that the contracts were no bar to the inquisition. There were various forms of these compositions ensuring against the different risks and disabilities to which the property of the Conversos was exposed. But they all had this in common, that the contributor threw his money into a pool from which his chance of deriving advantage was in the highest degree problematical. It is therefore a striking evidence of the desperation to which the new Christians were reduced, that they were eager to grasp at these forlorn chances and to pour their money into the ever-gaping royal treasury, while Ferdinand, in spite of his conscientious scruples, was always ready to speculate on their despair. It is impossible now to say how many compositions were made, from first to last, but they probably covered nearly the whole of Spain at one time or another. We have seen that there was one in Córdoba prior to 1500, which was highly profitable to the inquisitor who managed it, and another of uncertain date in Andalusia, Volume I, pages 190-220. There was one in Oriuella in 1492, and a second in Valencia in 1498, and in 1515 there were others in Biscayen provinces and in Cuenca. Occasionally, more over, inquisitors were authorized to enter into such bargains with individuals as in Vallorca in 1498 and in Catalonia in 1512. A specimen of these individual compositions is revealed to us in an investigation made in 1487 by Dr. Alfonso Ramírez, who este los bienes of Toledo, into the accounts of Juan de Uriya, the late receiver, who was reported to have defrauded the fisc of more than a million and a half Maravidis. Pedro de Toledo had fled to Portugal to escape trial, and his wife, Isabel Díaz, arranged with Uriya for a royal letter of security and pardon for him. His property and his paternal inheritance, for which the price agreed upon, was half a million Maravidis, in addition to which Uriya was promised a hundred florins for his services. Pedro returned and paid for the letter, when Isabel gave Uriya thirteen gold cruzados and fourteen pieces of cloth, which he sold and claimed that he was five hundred Maravidis short. This was productive, but still more so was won, in fifteen-fourteen, by which Francisco Sanchez of Talavera ransomed the estate of his deceased father for a million Maravidis. These transactions justify the conclusion that persecution was largely a matter of finance as well as of faith. Such conviction is strengthened by the history of the greatest of the general compositions a most prolonged and involved transaction of which space will permit only the barest outline. It commenced with a composition signed to December 7, 1508, with Seville and Gavis, by which, in consideration of twenty thousand ducats, there was made over to the peninstin condemned, or to their heirs, all confiscated property in suit, or that had not been discovered and seized from the commencement of the Inquisition up to November thirtieth, except what was included in the Auto de Fe of October twenty-ninth. The property of those who did not join in the agreement and paid their assessments was liable to seizure and all amounts thus realized were to be deducted from the payment. There was also granted the valued privilege of going to and trading with the Indies forbidden to all reconciliados. This was extended, October ten, fifteen-o-nine, in the name of Queen Juana, covering the arch-bishopric of Seville, the bishopric of Cadiz in the towns of Lepe, Ajamonte, and La Redondilla, and providing for the payment of forty thousand ducats for which the queen made to the contributors a donation of all real and personal property forfeit to her from persons reconciled and guilty of imperfect confessions or other offenses prior to reconciliation. Also all the property of those who had died reconciled or to be reconciled and forfeitable by reason of prior offenses, together with all property confiscated on those who refused to contribute. All alienations made by contributors were confirmed to the purchasers and contributors were relieved from all penalties incurred for disregarding the disabilities inflicted on those reconciled and their descendants. On the other hand, it was expressly stated that the grant did not exempt the property of those who relapsed or committed offenses subsequent to reconciliation, nor did it relieve them from prosecution in person or fame. After this, for some cause, the total payment was increased to eighty thousand ducats, of which sixty thousand were for the composition and twenty thousand for rehabilitation or removal of disabilities. The first obstacle lay in the assembling of the enormous mass of papers relating to the old confiscations. The Tribunal of León, which held some of them, refused to deliver them. And the same occurred with papers concerning Ecija, requiring repeated, peremptory orders from Ferdinand to procure their deposit in the Castle of Triana for inspection. At last the unwieldy business was got under way. Assessors were appointed to make the assessments on contributors, but troubles arose and the whole affair was put in the hands of Pedro de Villacis, the experienced receiver of Seville, who had been instrumental in getting up the agreement of 1508. The work went on, and large collections were made, although delays and payment incurred penalties, which, by fifteen-fifteen, amounted to seven hundred and fifty thousand marvedés to be paid to the Tribunal of Seville, but it never got the money. Encouraged by this initial success, the scheme was extended over the Kingdom of Granada, the bishoprics of Córdoba, Hayen, Badajoz, Coria, and Placencia, and the province of León. The sum agreed upon for them being fifty thousand ducats. Complaints, however, arose about injustice in the assessments. Payments were not forthcoming in time. Difficulties apparently insuperable accumulated in Ferdinand, after consultation with Jiménez and the Suprema, revoked the composition. Then it was revived, and Ferdinand, January 18, 1515, placed it in the hands of Villacis, whose instructions justify the assumption that, under the guise of an act of mercy, the whole scheme was merely the pretext for fresh exactions on the defenseless. He was ordered to proclaim the composition in all places within the district's concern. To order all persons obligated to pay their contributions. Those proposing to join were to appear before him by their procurators at a specified time and arrange the assessments to be paid by each place or person, such assessments being binding on the absent. As for those who refuse to join, Villacis was empowered to levy on their property as being jointly liable and to sell it at auction, giving to the purchasers good and sufficient title, guaranteed by the crown, while all secular officials were required to give him whatever aid he required. Inquisitors were to do the same and were to commission as Al-Guasil's such persons as he might name. Letters were sent to the corregidores of the towns, telling them that some contributors refused to pay, and they were empowered to decide all such questions summarily and finally. That the matter was really an unauthorized impost, enforced by the authority of the Inquisition, would appear not only from this admittance of secular jurisdiction, but also from what we know as to the methods pursued in the original composition of Seville. Each town was assessed at a certain sum which it divided at discretion among the contributors. When Al-Kasar was assessed at a thousand ducats it remonstrated to Ferdinand who kindly ordered executions suspended. Other places were not so fortunate, and the pitiless exaction of the assessment provoked resistance. Thus in March 1514, when, by order of the tribunal and as representative Villacis, Fernando Roiz, went to San Lucar de Barrameda, he seized some slaves and other property and placed them in prison for safe keeping. The Duchess of Medina Sidonia ordered the Al-Kalde to return them to their masters and would allow no further levies to be made. Ferdinand forthwith rebuked her, ordering her to assist the officials and never again to interfere in matters concerning the Inquisition. He also wrote to the Inquisitors to inflict due punishment on the person and property of the Al-Kalde and all connected with the affair. The levies and executions must proceed and the money be collected, for the last instalment of the composition was to be paid by the end of May. This indicates that the Seville composition had been fairly productive, but the other had continued to drag. With the death of Ferdinand in January 1516 the pressure was removed and resistance became general. A Cédula issued in the name of Queen Juana, February 24, states that those who were assessed were refusing to pay and were supported by nobles and magnates, wherefore the Inquisitors of Seville, Córdoba, Haien and León were instructed to enforce the payments by levy and execution and to prosecute with all rigor those who impeded the collection, irrespective of their rank and dignity. This was ineffective. In Córdoba, the Count of Cabra and the Marquilla Priego forced the agents of Vigiasis to abandon work among their vassals, and the latter compelled them to deposit 60,000 Marbetis which they had collected. It was in vain that the governors of Castile ordered them to desist, and when in September the Count of Cabra justified his persistence by stating that his people had paid their composition to Rodrigo de Madrid, who had organized the scheme and he would not allow them to be coerced into duplicate payments, he and the Marquis were told that Rodrigo had no authority and that his receipts were worthless, which suggests the impositions practiced on the victims. In the lands of the Duke of Medina Sidonia the same opposition was offered and the High Court of Granada took advantage of the opportunity by issuing mandates restraining the collection, nor is it likely that it respected a royal cedula of July 4th commanding it to abstain from interference. This resistance was fully justified, even before Ferdinand's death the proceedings of Vigiasis and his underlings had aroused general indignation. At the Cortes de Burgos in 1515 the procurators of Seville had called the attention of the nation to their extortions in a petition which set forth their misdeeds, doubtless with exaggeration, but which, coming from those not personally interested, must have had substantial foundation in fact. Vigiasis was accused of arbitrary assessments and of making up deficiencies by assessing again those who had already paid of cruelty, extortion, and fraud, of selling at auction property taken in execution, at unusual places and times, so that he and his friends could buy it in, of using the machinery of the composition to collect his private debts, of defrauding the Fisk by false returns, of charging to the contributors the exorbitant fees and expenses of his collectors, although the agreement provided that the Fisk should bear them, of rendering to the contributors only a partial account of his collections and refusing to complete it, and in this charging himself with only forty ducats as collected in the Canaries, when there was evidence that the amount was more than a thousand. In short, he was accused of abusing his arbitrary powers in almost every conceivable way to oppress the people and enrich himself, and numerous specific cases were cited in support of the allegations. The magistrates of Seville had endeavored to restrain him, but he scorned their jurisdiction and therefore in the name of the whole community the king was supplicated to send to Seville someone empowered to investigate and punish and make restitution to those wrongfully despoiled. It was impossible to ignore such an appeal made in the face of the nation, and the Licenciado Giron, one of the judges of the High Court of Granada, was dispatched to Seville, but only with power to investigate and report to the Suprema within sixty days. The time proved too short, and after exceeding it, he begged to be relieved on making a partial report. In December fifteen-sixteen, the Licenciado Mateo Basquez, a resident of Seville, was commissioned, with the same powers, to complete the investigation and also to inquire into many complaints coming from various places that, prior to the appointment of Villa Cis, Pedro de la Alcazar in Francisco de Santa Cruz and their employees had made large collections of which they had rendered no account, that they had retained more than a million of maravidis, while those who had paid them were subjected to levy and execution to enforce duplicate payments. All together the whole business would seem to have been a Saturnalia of spoliation and embezzlement. Basquez undertook the task, and on September seventeen, fifteen-seventeen, he was ordered to furnish to Villa Cis a copy of the evidence to enable him to put in a defense, after which all the papers were to be submitted to the Suprema for its action. If anything resulted from this, it has left no trace in the documents. The influence of Villa Cis carried him through, for he was continued in office and went on with the work. August thirteen, fifteen-eighteen, Charles the Fifth ordered an audit of his accounts and payment of balances due, which he skillfully parried. A new assessment was ordered to make good any part of the eighty-thousand ducats that might still be uncollected, and this was given to him to enforce. The old methods were still pursued, for in March fifteen-nineteen, Charles was obliged to write vigorously to the Count of Cabra, the Marquis of Priego, and the Alcalde Major of the Marquis of Gumares, who had again interfered with his collectors and stopped all proceedings in their lands. Charles's Flemish favourites were growing impatient to share in the elusive spoils. He had granted to his chamberlain Monsieur Dubourin the rest of his composition, but it was not forthcoming nor were the accounts of Villa Cis. In January fifteen-nineteen, he wrote to Torquemada, one of the civil inquisitors, to enforce on Villa Cis, with the utmost rigor of the law, the payment to Bourain, of any amounts collected and not paid over. While if there was a balance uncollected, Villa Cis was to assess it afresh and account for it to Bourain. This produced nothing, and on March twenty-fourth Charles emphatically repeated the order, granting full power to enforce it with penalties at discretion. Villa Cis, however, had experience in eluding such demands, and Ferdinand had not left much to glean. In fifteen-fifteen he had divided up the Côte d'Avac composition, giving twenty-thousand to the inquisition and reserving thirty-thousand for himself. Of this he had received twenty-thousand, and the remaining ten he granted to the Marquis of Denia. But when the latter presented this order to Villa Cis, he was told that eight-thousand was covered by previous grants, and he could only have two-thousand. Denia complained to Ferdinand, by that time mortally sick, who on December fourth assented to the transfer to him of the previous grants. But Jimenez, in transmitting this order to Villa Cis, made a condition that the twenty-thousand for the inquisition must first be paid, and he subsequently suspended Denia's grant altogether. The Marquis complained of this to Charles, who from Ghent, May twenty-two, fifteen-seventeen, ordered Jimenez to lift the suspension. But again Jimenez insisted with Villa Cis that the inquisition must first be paid. The funds seemed to evaporate and vanish into thin air. It is probable that Denia got little or nothing, and that Borene fared no better, for Charles's prime favorite, Adrian de Croix, received as his share of the spoils only the seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand Marvedis, the penalties for delay, which had been assigned to the tribunal of Seville. The insatiable Calcena and Aguirre, however, secured a thousand ducats, which in fifteen-fifteen Ferdinand granted them in recompense for their labors on the composition. Thus for ten years the new Christians of a large part of Spain had been harried and impoverished under delusive promises of exemption, and of the monies thus extorted, but little reached either the crown or the inquisition. The tribunal of Seville, indeed, can have received virtually nothing, for as we have seen in fifteen-fifty-six, its Archbishop Valdez asserted that, since the beginning of the century, it was so impoverished that it could support but a single inquisitor and pay only one-third of the ordinary salaries. It would be impossible now to conjecture what was the amount of which the industrious and producing classes of Spain were thus dispoiled, or what was the sum of misery thus inflicted, although we may estimate the retribution which followed in the disorganization of Spanish industries and the retardation of economic development. What reached the royal treasury and the money chests of the inquisition was but a portion of the values of which the owners were deprived. The assets taken melted in the hands of the spoilers, the expenses of the trials which became inordinately prolonged and the maintenance of the prisoners consumed a considerable part, dilapidation and peculation, which even Ferdinand's incessant vigilance could not prevent, with a source of constant loss. Even without these, the necessity for immediate realization to supply the peremptory demands of the treasury and the tribunals through an enormous amount of property and goods of all kinds on the market enforced sales which were inevitably sacrifices. It was the established rule perpetually enunciated that everything except money and securities was to be sold at auction, the real estate on the thirteenth day after condemnation in presence of the receiver and notary of sequestrations. Notwithstanding, all precautions collusion and fraud were perpetual. It was doubtless as an effort to check them that Valdez in 1547 ordered that real estate or censos or government securities should not be sold without consulting the Suprema, together with an attested statement of past income and probable proceeds, and this was followed in 1553 with an order that property and litigation was not to be sold. Precautions, however, were unavailing. The memorial of 1623 to the Suprema remarks that there are many opportunities for human wickedness in the sequestration, valuation, and sale of sequestrated property. The valuations are habitually too low and the sales are made at the lowest prices. Whenever possible, property should be brought to the city of the tribunal, be properly valued, and the receiver be forbidden to sell it for less. When sales have to be made at the place of arrest, they should be by public auction, in the presence of the commissioner and of a familiar to see that just prices are obtained. The Suprema seems to have mooned over this until 1635, when it called for reports as to the manner in which the auctions were held, and whether just prices were obtained. If the property was in some small place, it must be brought to a larger town to prevent fraud. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Guedel. THE HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION OF SPAIN VOLUME II BY HENRY CHARLES LEE. BOOK V. RESOURCES. CHAPTER I. PART V. CONFISCATION. During the period of active confiscation, moreover, when the moneyed classes were either ruined or anticipating ruin, it was sometimes impossible to effect sales, and in the pressure and confusion, property was allowed to go to waste. A letter of March 20, 1512, to the receiver of Huesca and Lérida, speaks of the uninhabited houses and lands which had not been sold, because fair prices could not be had, and which were perishing in consequence, and he was told to see whether he could not sell them on ground rent, redeemable or irredeemable. It is impossible not to see in this the commencement of the despoblados, which were the despair of Spanish statesmen for more than two centuries. So in 1531, the dwelling of Chativa of Poinsance, on whom it was confiscated, was allowed to fall into such disrepair that no one would take it, subject to the encumbrances, and the rentals did not meet the ground rents, so it was abandoned to the encumbrancers. The manner in which property melted away is seen in the settlement, made in 1519, of the estate of Major de Monzón, burnt for heresy. It was appraised at 110,197 Maravedís, but against this were the expenses of the woman and her children while in prison, amounting to 41,100, and the widower, Diego de Adrade, finally agreed to take the estate for 17,000 Maravedís, subject to whatever claims there might be against it. Everybody concerned, grasped at what he could, in 1532, the Valencia Tribunal, since Rafael Diego de Majorca, to arrest and fetch Leonor Juan, wife of Ramón Martín, who was blind. She was reconciled with confiscation, and Charles V made a grant to the husband of 100 libras from the estate. But when the account was made up, the expenses did not leave enough to pay him. One item against which he protested was 25 ducats to Diego for 20 days' work, when his salary was only 80 ducats a year. The Suprema consequently suspended the item, but in 1545 Inquisitor General Tavera ordered it to be paid. It is perhaps superfluous to insist upon what was inevitable, in an age when integrity was exceptional in public affairs, and in a business affording peculiar temptations to malversation, through the fluctuating uncertainty of receipts, and the difficulty of affecting competent supervision. Ferdinand did his best to establish accountability, and his incessant activity exhibits itself in his minute criticisms on his auditorís reports of the accounts of receivers, but even his vigilance could not prevent frauds and speculation, nor was it possible for him to penetrate the mysteries lurking behind statements of receipts and expenditures, when the receivers were apt to use the funds as their own. When Juan Denbín, the receiver of Saragosa, died and his accounts were balanced, after all possible allowance were made, he was found in 1500 to own 9,367 sueldos, which Ferdinand vainly endeavored to collect from his heir the Abbot of Veruela. Denbínís deputy at Calatayud improved on his example, and was found in 1499 to be short 24,000 sueldos, of which he paid 8,000, and promised the rest at the rate of 4,000 a year. The installment of 1500 was obtained after some delay, and when we last hear of him Ferdinand was endeavouring to secure that of 1501. It is easy to understand the chronic reluctance of such officials to render statements, and Ferdinandís correspondence shows how difficult it was to force them to do so. There is much suggestiveness in a letter of October 15, 1498, to the Maestro Racional, or Auditor-General of Catalonia, telling him that, as Jaime de la Ram, the former receiver, and Pedro de Badia, the present one, refuse under various pretexts to hand over their books so that their accounts can be settled. He is to take legal steps to compel it. They can have until March 1, 1499 to obey, and if they still refuse, their salaries are to be stopped. When the books are obtained, no time is to be lost in striking a balance, and special care is to be taken that they do not give themselves fraudulent credits. Juan de Montaña, receiver of Huesca en Lérida, was another whose accounts were chronically in a rear. This continued to the end of Ferdinandís reign. In 1515 we find him writing to a receiver who had flatly refused to obey an order of Jimenez to go to Valencia with his books and papers and render an account of his collections, for persistence in which the king threatened him with prosecution. After his death he men is labored energetically to evoke order out of disorder. He appointed a receiver-general with power to collect by levy, execution, and sale all moneys due by the receivers, and all fines, penances, commutations, and rehabilitations. Moreover, to a new auditor-general, Hernando de Villa, he addressed a cédula, February 21, 1517, reciting that the receivers had collected from the confiscations and other sources, large sums of which, for a long time, they had rendered no account. Wherefore he was instructed to visit every tribunal, to demand an accounting from the receiver, to examine all papers and vouchers, and ascertain the balances due, while all notaries were instructed to furnish whatever documents he might call for, and he was empowered to enforce his orders with punishment at discretion. Possibly this may have produced improvement, but if so it was but temporary. We have just seen how recalcitrant about his accounts was Pedro de Badilla, the receiver of Barcelona. He did not improve, and when he died in 1513 he left his office in bad condition. He was replaced by Martín de Marrano, transferred from Majorca, who proved to be no better. In 1520 Cardinal Adrián, to punish him, reduced his salary to 2,880 sueldos, and then, April 16, 1521, wrote a long and indignant letter to the inquisitors, principally devoted to Marrano's misdeeds, among which was refusal to settle his accounts and alleging claims for which he had no vouchers. Yet, to all appearances, with the inexplicable tenderness shown to official culprits, he was retained in office. The tribunal of Sicily, where the confiscations were large, was in even worse hands. Diego de Obregón, who served as receiver from 1500 to 1514, left its affairs in lamentable confusion. He was succeeded by Garcia Cid, who was sent to reduce it to order. How he accomplished this is seen in a report of Benito Mercader, sent as inspector, describing the financial management as characterized by every vice, while speculation was rife among all the officials. Garcia Cid returned to Spain in 1520, and it was not until 1542 that the Suprema ordered him to pay the 1,420 ducats, which he was found to owe, as well as what he had collected, of 9,300 more, which were charged against him. Things did not mend, for, as we have seen, Surita, who became auditor general for Aragón in 1548, describes his untangling of the Sicilian accounts, which had not been received for twenty years, and were in the utmost disorder. It is evident that the receipts of the royal treasury formed but a portion of the amount wrung from the victims. What those receipts were we have no means of knowing, but in 1524 the Licenciado Tristan de León, in an elaborate memorial addressed to Charles V, asserted that Ferdinand and Isabella obtained from this source the enormous amount of ten million ducats, which greatly assisted them in their war with the Moors. Occasionally we have scattering indications of the productiveness of inquisitorial labours. Thus in the little temporary Geronimite Inquisition of Guadalupe in 1485 the sovereigns appropriated the proceeds to the erection of a royal residence for their frequent devotional visits to the shrine. It was a magnificent palace, the cost of which two million seven hundred thirty-two thousand three hundred thirty-three marabides was almost wholly defrayed from this source. In 1486 the Valencia Tribunal must have been productive, for Ferdinand wrote from Galicia to the receiver Juan Ram to supply all that was needful for a fleet, as he had not the money in hand at the court. The impression produced on contemporaries is conveyed in Hernando de Pulgar's grim remark when describing the violent expulsion from Toledo of the Count of Fuensalida he adds that the populace, like rigid inquisitors of the faith, found heresies in the properties of the Count's peasants, which they plundered and burnt. The large sums which were raised in the various compositions in return for the very slender exemptions offered are an index of the magnitude of the confiscations, and so is a proposition made to Ferdinand and declined of a loan of six hundred thousand ducats if he would transfer the adjudication of such matters to the secular courts. Although receipts were perhaps diminished, with the weeding out of the judaizing new Christians we have seen, volume one, page 220, the offer made in 1519 to Charles V, to provide an endowment which would meet all the salaries and expenses of the inquisition, and in addition to pay him four hundred thousand ducats in compensation for the abandonment of the confiscations. Soon after this another offer was made of seven hundred thousand ducats, which seems to have been held under consideration for a year or two. During the remainder of the sixteenth century the constant drafts by the Suprema on the several tribunals shows that they were as a rule supporting themselves with a surplus for the central organization, although occasionally a tribunal in bad luck, had to be helped by some more fortunate brother. The grant in 1559 of a prebund in each cathedral and collegiate church supplied the growing deficiency of confiscations, but the latter received a notable augmentation after the annexation of Portugal in 1580. This was followed by a large influx of new Christians from the poorer to the richer kingdom where their business ability speedily led to the acquisition of wealth, while their attachment to the ancient faith gave to the inquisition a new and lucrative field of operations. We shall see hereafter the curious transaction by which in 1604 they purchased a brief immunity, and this led soon afterwards to an offer by the new Christians of Seville and the western provinces of one million six hundred thousand ducats for a forty year suspension of confiscation, coupled with the release of descendants from disabilities and infamy, the rating of testimony as its true worth, and papal intervention with the king in the rendering of sentences. The offer was seriously considered, but an investigation of the treasury accounts showed that, in its financial aspect, it would be a losing bargain for the crown, which would have to support the inquisition, and it was rejected. The persecutions in Peru and Mexico furnished evidence against wealthy merchants at home, which was profitably utilized. In 1635 the Pereiras, who were large contractors in Madrid, were implicated, and also, quote, the pasariños and all the rich merchants of Seville, end quote. Then, too, Francisco Ulan of Madrid, rated at three hundred thousand ducats, was accused, and we hear of the arrest of Juan Rodriguez Musa, described as a wealthy merchant of Seville. It is true that when in 1633 Juan Nune Sarabia was arrested, and his book showed a fortune of six hundred thousand ducats, hope was dashed by Gabriel Ortiz de Sotomayor, a member of the Suprema, who claimed the major part of it as a deposit by him as curador of Donia Maria Ortiz, and as executor of Don Bernabe de Vivanco. Still, a class of culprits such as these, composed of rich bankers and merchants, gave ample opportunity of swelling the assets of the Holy Office. In 1654, in an auto de fe a cuenca, there were fifty-five Judaizers, many of them evidently in easy circumstances, one of whom said, on the way to the Bracero, that his chances of heaven were costing him two hundred thousand ducats. Yet these were uncertain resources, and we have seen that the Suprema, in its budget for 1657, only reckoned on receiving from the tribunals seven hundred fifty-five thousand five hundred twenty Marbeves, or about two thousand ducats. But, on the other hand, in a consulta of May 11th, 1676, it boasted that, within a few years, it had contributed to the royal treasury, confiscations amounting to seven hundred seventy-two thousand seven hundred forty-eight ducats vejón, and eight hundred eighty-four thousand nine hundred seventy-nine pesos in silver. In addition to this, the confiscations were not only defraing any deficiencies in its income, but it was gradually becoming richer, for in the years sixteen sixty-one to sixteen sixty-eight, the surplus of the Suprema, and tribunals invested in government securities amounted to twenty-one thousand sixty-four ducats. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the persecution of the Judaizing New Christians became sharper, and we have seen the large results obtained in 1679 by the Majorca Tribunal from its wholesale prosecution of the Conversos of Palma. This persecution lasted till near the middle of the eighteenth century, with a large number of victims and, as they belonged in great part to the commercial class, the receipts must have been substantial. In sixty-six autos de fe, celebrated between seventeen-twenty-one and seventeen-twenty-seven, there were seven hundred seventy-six sentences of confiscation. Many of these were unproductive, for confiscation was included in the sentence whether the culprit had property or not, and the formula confiscación de los bienes que no tiene of the property which he has not got is one of frequent occurrence, but there were doubtless enough possessed of wealth to make a fair average. Then there were occasional windfalls from others than Judaizers, as in the case of Milchor Macanaz in seventeen sixteen. The financial management seems to not have improved since the days of Ferdinand. No account of the estate was rendered until December 31st, seventeen twenty-three. This shows that his real estate brought in a revenue of one thousand two hundred sixty-nine libras, indicating a value of about twenty-five thousand libras. There had been collected nine thousand three hundred twenty libras, seven sueldos, ten ducats, and expended five thousand eight hundred thirty-eight libras, one sueldo, leaving a balance of three thousand four hundred eighty-two libras, six sueldos, ten ducats. If the results were not greater it was not owing to any scruples. Milchor's brother Luis had an interest of seven hundred seventy doubloons on the books of the glass factory of Tortosa. It was guessed that he had not sufficient capital to justify such an investment, so the Madrid Tribunal, October twenty-one, seventeen sixteen, ordered Valencia to sequestrate it. Another piece of good fortune was the discovery in seventeen twenty-seven of an organization of moriscos who had preserved their faith and whose confiscations were so profitable that the principal and former, Diego Díaz, received as reward a perpetual pension of one hundred ducats a year. As the eighteenth century advanced confiscation gradually grew obsolete. Heresy had been so successfully extirpated that relaxation and reconciliation grew rarer and rarer. In the records of the Toledo Tribunal, extending to seventeen ninety-four, there is no sentence of confiscation later than seventeen thirty-eight. In the census of all the tribunals, about the year seventeen forty-five, there was but a single juez de los bienes, though occasionally we find that office tacked on to an inquisitorship, as in Valencia in seventeen ninety-five, where in addition a fifty-two libras ten sueldos is made to the salary in consequence, but that it was sinecure is apparent from the fact that, in a record of the sentences of the tribunal, from seventeen eighty to eighteen twenty, there is not a case of confiscation. It is not without interest to examine what was the use made of the large receipts during the early period, when they were controlled by Ferdinand and Charles V, and before the Suprema monopolized them for the support of the tribunals, save on occasional concession extorted by the Crown. Bulgar and Surita loyally assure us that large as they were the sovereigns employed them solely for the advancement of the faith, the war with Granada, the maintenance of the Inquisition, and other pious uses. Supported by these authorities, modern writers assume that no covetousness can be attributed to the sovereigns in the employment of these means for the public wheel. Unfortunately the records do not bear out these flattering assurances. The Inquisition, of course, had the first claim on the product of its labours, and its expenses were defrayed from this source. I have met with but two cases, one in fifteen hundred and one in fifteen oh one, where a salary was paid from the royal treasury, and in both of these the recipient was Diego López, member of the Suprema and royal secretary, a duplicate position which might justify calling upon either source of supply. During the war with Granada, ending with fourteen ninety-one, undoubtedly the funds derived from the industry of the Holy Office were largely employed in its prosecution which according to the standards of the age was not only a patriotic but an eminently pious use. While this drain continued, it is not likely that much of the confiscations was otherwise employed, and I have met with but one or two pious gifts. In fourteen eighty-six a thousand sueldos to aid in the construction of an infirmary for the Franciscan convent of Santa Maria de Jesús, and in fourteen ninety-one a rent of five hundred sueldos a year to the Church of San Juan of Caleta Yuz. After the conquest of Granada we find occasional grants to convents and churches, but they are not frequent and as a rule are meager in comparison with the profusion lavished on courteurs and servants. The only large recipient of bounty seems to have been Ferdinand's favorite Geronamite convent of Santa Engrasia of Zaragoza, to which in fourteen ninety-five he gave thirteen thousand sueldos for the purchase of certain lands and gardens, and in fourteen ninety-eight ten thousand more. There was, in addition, a yearly allowance of six thousand sueldos for the maintenance of the frailes. The payment of this was suspended in fourteen ninety-eight on account of lack of funds, but Ferdinand, after some hesitation, made this good by transferring to the convent certain censos that had been appropriated to the acquisition. In his correspondence of this period, up to fifteen fifteen, there occur a few more pious expenditures, but all are of moderate amount and in no way justify the assertion that the confiscations were largely expended in this manner. The acquisitive secretary Calsena was a much more frequent beneficiary. His position gave him exceptional facilities for watching the confiscations and of profiting by his knowledge. His name continually recurs as the recipient of gifts of censos, houses, and money, and he had indirect means of participating, as we have seen when he shared in the ruin of the Archdeacon of Castro. Some light is thrown on the methods in vogue when in fifteen hundred the estate of Francisco Lopez of Calatayjud was confiscated. In this, certain houses, valued at ten thousand sueldos, were included, which the son of Lopez hoped to save, as belonging to his mother's dowry, but the father's papers had been seized, and the marriage settlement was inaccessible. The son thereupon promised Calsena a third of the valuation for a copy of the document. The effort failed, the houses were confiscated, and Ferdinand, compassionating Calsena's loss, not only gave him the promised third, but pledged himself to defend the title in case it should be attacked. This suggests a possible source of profit in favoring the sufferers by confiscation. Many instances have been cited above of Ferdinand's kindly consideration in mitigating exceptional cases of hardship, and we shall have occasion to refer to others. It would be pleasant to attribute them wholly to a side of his character that has not hitherto revealed itself in history. But one cannot escape an uneasy suspicion that as Calsena was the channel through which these bounties flowed, in some cases at least, the successful petitioners were those who had made it worth his while to aid them. The abuse of making to favorites, grants of confiscations, and to dated the establishment of the Inquisition. The Cortes of 1447 petitioned against it, and Juan II assented in a fashion too equivocal to hold out much prospect of improvement. It continued, and, when the property of the new Christians came pouring in, Ferdinand yielded to the greed of his courtiers and nobles, the profuseness which explains where much of the products of confiscation disappeared. His recklessness in this matter is illustrated by a complaint, in 1500, of the Admiral of Castile, representing that he had been given a senso on his briscundado of cabrera confiscated in the estate of Juan Beltrán, but that certain parties to whom it had also been granted were suing him for it. Ferdinand evidently kept no record of these heedless gifts, for he could remember nothing as to this duplication, and he applied to the tribunal for a list of the provisions respecting the estate so that he could decide between the claimants. His only serious collision with the Inquisition arose from this source, and he found its censures more effective than his own. His lavishness kept the tribunals drained to the point that frequently there was no money to pay the salaries. As early as 1488 the Inquisitors assembled at Baja Dolith complained of this and supplicated the Sovereigns to order receivers to provide for salaries before honoring royal drafts. If they failed to keep sufficient funds on hand for salaries, they should be subject to removal by Inquisitors. This was ineffective. The royal treasury was chronically bankrupt, endurance ceased to be a virtue, and the question came to a head at the close of 1497. On November 15 Ferdinand wrote to receiver Juan Ruiz of Saragosa to pay some small amounts, less than a hundred ducats in all, chiefly needed for an inspection and reform of Franciscan convents than on foot. He knew, he said, that the Saragosa tribunal was in great straits, but he could not furnish the money himself, and means must be found to raise it, without compelling him to write again. Ruiz, however, refused to make the payments, stating that the Inquisitors general had placed him under excommunication if he should pay any royal grants. Ferdinand shifted the order to the receiver of fines and penances, but the Inquisitors general had been beforehand with him by removing that official. Thus baffled, he wrote to them, January 28, 1498, telling them that these payments were absolutely necessary, and he had nothing wherewith to meet them. Besides, there were other pressing demands. The Gortes were about to meet at Saragosa, and he had ordered certain alterations in the Alhaferia to accommodate him during his residence, the cost of which Ruiz refused to pay, and the work was stopped. There was also the tomb of his father and mother, with alabaster statues, which he was building at the Abbey of Boblet, the burial place of the kings of Aragon. At a cost of 1,500 ducats. 5,000 sueldos were due to the architect Maestre Gil Morian, and when Ruiz refused to pay this from the confiscations, Ferdinand ordered the amount to be collected from the ground rent of Parasquejos. But it chanced that Ruiz himself owed that ground rent, and was in no haste to pay it. Meanwhile the salaries were paid, but the excommunication still hung over Ruiz, and he refused obstinately to furnish money for these needs, and for some more that were crowding in. February 28th Ferdinand vainly endeavored to induce the Inquisitor to make Ruiz yield by excommunicating him, and he then appealed to Suarez de Fuentesas, one of the Inquisitor's general, but equally without success. Finally, on March 30th, he wrote to Torquemada, by a special messenger, with orders to bring an answer, telling him that as the salaries were paid, the excommunication must be lifted, for he would not permit it. This was successful, and on April 10th he wrote again, promising that in future he would not make grants from the confiscations and penances. On April 20th he communicated to Ruiz the removal of the excommunication, and urged the speedy completion of the alterations of the alhaferia and the payment of Santa Gracia of what was due. Thus ended this episode, which sheds a curious light on the relations of Ferdinand with the Inquisition, and on the precarious nature of public finance at the time. The excommunication had not been confined to Saragosa, nor was it removed elsewhere when Saragosa paid its salaries. In July 1500 we find Ferdinand arguing with Objurit Kwan de Montaña, receiver of Huesca and Lérida, that it did not apply to the completion of an old donation to the Church of Lérida, which had never been fully paid. We hear nothing subsequently of the censure, though complaints continued of salaries in arrears, and the Archdeacon of Almasan, who was inquisitor of Caleta Yudh, was consequently unable to pay his debts, when in 1500 he was transferred to Barcelona. The tribunal of Valencia was hopelessly bankrupt, when in 1501 there came a lucky composition, with the heirs of Juan Masip, for sixty thousand sueldos, which Ferdinand ordered to be applied to its liabilities, so that, for once, it might be out of debt. It is scarce necessary to add that Ferdinand's promise to make no more grants was violated almost as soon as made. In the profusion which kept the tribunals exhausted, it by no means followed that those who had no influence profited by the royal favor. In 1493 Ferdinand granted to Leonor Hernández two thousand sueldos as a marriage portion. Under various pretext payment was evaded. Leonor married and died, leaving the claim to her husband and brother, who in 1502 procured from Ferdinand an order for its immediate settlement, but whether this was honored is problematical. Even more delayed was a concession in 1491 to Martin Marín of Calatayud, of three thousand sueldos on the confiscations of his father and mother-in-law. In 1512 Marín represented that he had never been able to obtain it, and Ferdinand ordered its payment forthwith. These postponements were not always due to poverty. In 1491 a grant was made to Antón del Múr, Royal Alguacil of a vineyard, forming part of the confiscated estate of Pascual de Santa Cruz. Receiver Ruiz of Saragosa made answer that the vineyard had been sold, but when the king ordered him to make over the proceeds to del Múr, the latter got nothing, and Ruiz managed fraudulently to keep the vineyard in the hands of a third party. After nineteen years del Múr, in 1510, revived the matter. When Ferdinand ordered the Inquisitor and Receiver to find out who held the vineyard, and by what title, and if it was not found that Ruiz had sold it for a just price, del Múr was to be placed in possession. End of Book 5, Chapter 1, Part 5, Recording by Guero.