his feelings unequivocally in a letter of April 7, 1510—“the prisoners say that they have been long in prison and those who informed against them have gone to Portugal or other parts, and others have been burnt or penanced as heretics, showing clearly that they testified falsely, and they supplicate me to provide that their trial be by inquisitorial and not by accusatorial process, so that they shall not be exposed to greater infamy than hitherto by dead or perjured witnesses, especially as the law provides that the trial be summary and directed only to reach the truth. There is great compassion for their long imprisonment and suffering, wherefore I beg and charge you to look well into the matter and treat it conscientiously and with diligence for its speedy termination, with which I shall be well pleased.”[572]
INQUISITORIAL METHODS
In spite of this urgency the trial dragged on, much delay being caused by the difficulty of finding an advocate willing to undertake Lucero’s defence. The Suprema selected the Bachiller de la Torre, but he declined to serve and Ferdinand, on May 16th, expressed his fear that no one would assume the duty. July 19th he writes that Lucero complains that he still has no counsel and he suggests that, if none of the lawyers of the royal court can be trusted, Doctor Juan de Orduña of Valladolid be called in and his fees be paid by the Inquisition. The suggestion was adopted and, on August 20th, Ferdinand wrote personally to Orduña ordering him to take charge of the defence and see that Lucero suffered no wrong, and at, the same time, he wrote to the University of Valladolid to give Orduña the requisite leave of absence. Under this royal pressure, and considering that the adverse witnesses had been largely burnt or frightened into flight, it is perhaps rather creditable to the Suprema that it ventured to dismiss Lucero, without inflicting further punishment on him. He retired to the Seville canonry, which he had acquired by the ruin of the Archdeacon of Castro, and there he ended his days in peace. In 1514, Ferdinand manifested his undiminished sympathy by a gift of 15,000 mrs. to Juan Carrasco, the former portero of the tribunal of Córdova, to indemnify him for losses and sufferings which he claimed to have endured in the rising of 1506.[573] Yet before we utterly condemn him for his share in this nefarious business we should make allowance for the influence of Lucero’s accomplice, his secretary Calcena, who was always at hand to poison his mind and draft his letters. To the same malign obsession may doubtless also be attributed an order of Charles V, in 1519, requiring the Córdovan authorities to bestow the first vacant scrivenership on Diego Marino, who had been Lucero’s notary.[574]
That Lucero was an exceptional monster may well be admitted, but when such wickedness could be safely perpetrated for years and only be exposed and ended through the accidental intervention of Philip and Juana, it may safely be assumed that the temptations of secrecy and irresponsibility rendered frightful abuses, if not universal at least frequent. The brief reign of Philip led other sorely vexed communities to appeal to the sovereigns for relief, and some of their memorials have been preserved. One from Jaen relates that the tribunal of that city procured from Lucero a useful witness whom for five years he had kept in the prison of Córdova to swear to what was wanted. His name was Diego de Algeciras and, if the petitioners are to be believed, he was, in addition to being a perjurer, a drunkard, a gambler, a forger and a clipper of coins. This worthy was brought to Jaen and performed his functions so satisfactorily that the wealthiest Conversos were soon imprisoned. Two hundred wretches crowded the filthy gaol and it was requisite to forbid the rest of the Conversos from leaving the city without a license. With Diego’s assistance and the free use of torture, on both accused and witnesses, it was not difficult to obtain whatever evidence was desired. The notary of the tribunal, Antonio de Barcena, was especially successful in this. On one occasion he locked a young girl of fifteen in a room, stripped her naked and scourged her until she consented to bear testimony against her mother. A prisoner was carried in a chair to the auto de fe with his feet burnt to the bone; he and his wife were burnt alive and then two of their slaves were imprisoned and forced to give such evidence as was necessary to justify the execution. The cells in which the unfortunates were confined in heavy chains were narrow, dark, humid, filthy and overrun with vermin, while their sequestrated property was squandered by the officials, so that they nearly starved in prison while their helpless children starved outside. Granting that there may be exaggeration in this, the solid substratum of truth is clear from the fact that the petitioners only asked that the tribunal be placed under the control of the Bishop of Jaen—that bishop being Alfonso Suárez de Fuentelsaz, one of Torquemada’s inquisitors, who had risen to be a colleague of Deza. He had not been a merciful judge, as many of his sentences attest, yet the miserable Conversos of Jaen were ready to fly to him for relief.[575]
INQUISITORIAL METHODS
A memorial from Arjona, a considerable town near Jaen, illustrates a different phase of the subject. It relates that a certain Alvaro de Escalera of that place conspired with other evil men to report to the inquisitors of Jaen that there were numerous heretics in Arjona, so that when confiscations came to be sold they could buy the property cheap. In due time an inquisitor came with the notary Barcena. No Term of Grace was given, but the Edict of Faith was published, frightening the inhabitants with its fulminations unless they testified against their neighbors. Then a Dominican preached a fiery sermon to the effect that all Conversos were really Jews, whom it was the duty of Christians to destroy. The inquisitors then sent for the slaves of the Conversos, promising them liberty if they would testify against their masters and assuring them of secrecy. The notary followed by traversing the town with Escalera and his friends, proclaiming that there was a fine of ten reales on all who would not come forward with testimony, and the exaction of the fine from a number had a quickening influence on the memories of others. Then a house to house canvass was made for evidence; the women were told that it was impossible that they should not know the Jewish tendencies of their neighbors; they could give what evidence they pleased for their names would not be divulged; they were not obliged to prove it, for the accused had to disprove it. Those who would not talk were threatened that they would be carried to Jaen and made to accuse their neighbors, and, in fact, a number were taken and compelled to give evidence in prison. Then the inquisitors departed with the accumulated testimony; there was peace in Arjona for three months and the Conversos recovered from their fright. Suddenly one night there arrived the notary, the receiver and some officials; they quietly aroused the regidores and alcaldes and made them collect a force of armed men who were stationed to guard the walls and gates. When morning came the work of arresting the suspects was commenced; their property was sequestrated, their houses locked and their children were turned into the street, while the officials carried off their prisoners, who were thrust into the already crowded gaol of Jaen. The confiscations were auctioned off and those who had plotted the raid had ample opportunity of speculating in bargains.[576]
Still other methods are detailed in a memorial from Llerena, the seat of one of the older tribunals with jurisdiction over Extremadura. It stated that for many years the Inquisition there had found little or nothing to do, until there came a new judge, the Licenciado Bravo. He was a native of Fregenal, a town of the province, where he had bitter law-suits and active enmities; he had had two months’ training under Lucero at Córdova and he came armed with ample evidence gathered there. On his arrival, without waiting for formalities or further testimony, he made a large number of arrests and sent to Badajoz where he seized forty more and brought them to Llerena. They were mostly men of wealth whose fortunes were attractive objects of spoliation, and Bravo took care of his kindred by appointing them to positions in which they could appropriate much of the sequestrated property. The treatment of the prisoners was most brutal, and when his colleague, Inquisitor Villart, who was not wholly devoid of compassion, was overheard remonstrating with him and saying that the death of the captives would be on their souls, Bravo told him to hold his peace, for he who had placed him there desired that they should all die off, one by one. The petitioners were quite willing to be remitted to the tribunal of Seville or to have judges who would punish the guilty and discharge the innocent, but they earnestly begged, by the Passion of Christ, that they should not be left to the mercy of Inquisitor-general Deza. Orders, they said, had been given to him to mitigate in some degree the sufferings of the people of Jaen, which he suppressed and replaced with instructions to execute justice. What this meant we may gather from a last despairing appeal, by the friends of the prisoners of Jaen, to Queen Juana;
