II
Judicial Procedures and Financial Structure

As an institution established in spite of strong local opposition, the Inquisition had to employ a judicious combination of mercy, terror, and public education to generate confessions and denunciations and to break down the hostility to outside interference that protected the tight-knit local communities and interlocking families that made up Valencian society from the encroachment of alien, central authority. In the early years of the Inquisition, the tribunals moved from place to place. Its arrival in a given town or village would immediately be followed by a reading of the "edict of grace," which listed a series of heresies and invited those with something on their conscience to confess during a term of grace.^[1] Voluntary confession during this period, which varied from three to six months in Valencia, would entitle the individual to receive reconciliation without confiscation of property, although the inquisitor himself could impose some monetary penance.^[2]

By offering an opportunity for reconciliation to the church without incurring harsh penalties, the edicts of grace appeared to be a reasonable and moderate solution to the persistence of Judaic practices among the converted Jews. In fact, however, the edicts contained a trap for the unwary in the shape of a demand for complete and full confession of all Judaic practices that they had ever engaged in at any point in their lives as well as the names of others whom they knew performed the same acts. Any concealment, even of acts that took place many years earlier or in childhood, rendered

the confession void and placed the would-be penitent in the dangerous category of a diminuto whose presumably deliberate concealment of apostasy demonstrated that he was really still a heretic. Since Torquemada's 1484 instructions call for the diminuto to be prosecuted if later evidence demonstrates that he has concealed anything, the hundreds of confessions taken during the grace period and carefully preserved by the tribunal really provided it with its first file of clients. During the first years of the Valencia tribunal, only twelve percent of those presenting themselves during the period of grace escaped later perseeution.^[3]

We must presume that the duplicitous character of the edicts of grace became well known in the converso community. The declining numbers of those willing to come forward led to their partial abandonment after 1500 and the substitution of a new device called the Edict of Faith, which omitted the grace period.^[4] The Edict of Faith, which was proclaimed yearly in the seats of the tribunals and in district villages and towns on the arrival of an inquisitor, was a recitation of heretical practices and offenses against orthodox Catholicism and an invitation to the entire population to confess those that they may have engaged in or to denounce those of which they had knowledge.^[5] On the third Sunday after the proclamation of the edict, an anathema against heretics and those who sought to conceal them was pronounced in the principal church. This reading of the anathema was preceded and followed by a rather impressive procession of the local clergy accompanied by the tolling of bells.^[6] In its detailed reply to the series of objections to the use of the anathema which were raised in 1587 by the cathedral chapter, the Valencia tribunal stated that the anathema was desirable to inject a greater element of "terror" into the ceremonial surrounding the proclamation of the Edict of Faith.^[7]

From the standpoint of the Inquisition, the edicts had the effect of advertising the details of heretical acts and causing people to search their memories for instances in which they had heard or seen them performed. Moreover, like the public execution where the presence of the masses was a way of "invoking the vengeance of the people to become a . . . part of the vengeance of the sovereign," the edict involved the entire population in the Inquisition's task of ferreting out and punishing offenders against the faith.^[8] Use of the edicts, and their regular annual recitation before the assem-

bled population, had the effect of clearly advertising the existence of specific boundaries of accepted behavior, although the general conservatism that characterized all early modern institutions meant that a mature edict such as the one preached in Valencia on March 16, 1642, was both a catalog of errors and a museum piece in that it included certain items, like practice of the Islamic faith, that no longer posed a threat to Spanish society or formed a significant part of inquisitorial activity.^[9]

Periods of grace and Edicts of Faith were only two of a number of devices that allowed the Inquisition to accumulate evidence that could form the basis for the prosecution of offenders. One of the most interesting of these devices was taking of an actual census of suspect groups. In Valencia, the tribunal compiled a list of converted Jews in 1506. This census, of which we only have fragments, lists converso families by parish and street and includes an impressive amount of detail about the situation of each family, including the occupation of the head of the household and his father, ages of the husband and wife, number of children, and the family "criminal" record of persons reconciled or relaxed.^[10] The tribunal was also interested in compiling information about Morisco settlement. In 1568, Inquisitor Miranda, then carrying out a visitation in Morisco areas in the northern part of the district, carefully recorded the names of all the new Christians (Moriscos) of Castellón de la Plana.^[11]

In accumulating the evidence needed to undertake prosecution, the Inquisition could count on important outside support. In the first place, parish priests were always a faithful auxiliary. The division of the 1506 census of conversos by parish indicates the key role they must have played in formulating it. As confessors, moreover, the parish priests were in an ideal position to receive confidences, and when these concerned heretical practices they were required to refuse to grant absolution unless their penitents agreed to appear before the Inquisition.^[12] In 1654, for example, the Valencia tribunal received a visit from Basilia Ferrer, who had been urged to come by her parish priest after he had confessed to having learned certain love magic from Esperanza Badía. Basilia later appeared as a witness against Esperanza in the latter's trial on charges of superstition, and her testimony was important in obtaining the conviction of her erstwhile friend.^[13]

The tribunal could also count on the active support of the network of familiares scattered throughout the district. When inquisitors toured the district on the periodic visitas, familiares would come forward to testify to any suspicious behavior they had observed or heard about. Comisarios, who were the tribunal's representatives in the major towns, were frequently given information by local familiares. In 1570, for example, Canon López de Camarena, the Valencia tribunal's comisario in Teruel, wrote to inform the tribunal that he had received information from a familiar from the village of Galve concerning acts of bestiality committed by a married man in the village.^[14]

One of the most effective ways of obtaining denunciations against suspected heretics was sending inquisitors to tour the district. The presence of an inquisitor was an open invitation for people to search their memories for heretical acts and naturally served to focus local animosities by allowing individuals to denounce their neighbors for a variety of motives.

Visitation to the district was among the most important responsibilities of inquisitors as detailed on the earliest instructions for the Holy Office, those of Torquemada (1498) and Deza (1500).^[15] By 1517, the visitation had become regularized, with each of the two inquisitors going to a different part of the district every four months.^[16] Before the instructions of 1561 were issued, the visitation was an impressive affair in which the inquisitor made use of his authority to arrest suspects and carry out all kinds of trials on the spot. The danger of allowing inquisitors so much discretion was revealed during the visitation to the Valencia tribunal which took place in 1560. As a result of this visitation, Inquisitor Gregorio de Miranda was charged with abusing his powers and violating procedural rules during his visitations to Játiva and Teruel in 1557. Among other things, Miranda was accused of ordering heavy punishments without sufficient proof, putting minors on trial without providing them with a guardian as specified in the ordinances regulating inquisitorial procedure, and totally ignoring the judge of the episcopal court.^[17]

After the reforms of 1561, the inquisitors tended to proceed more carefully when on visitation, dispatching the less important cases on the spot but sending evidence concerning graver matters back to the tribunal for decision. By the later sixteenth century, the

visitation had become more and more an occasion for gathering accusations to be included with those already in the tribunal's file. To some degree, one can even refer to a certain specific targeting of the visitations to areas where denunciations had already accumulated and only a little more evidence was needed to trigger a series of trials. Certainly that is the impression one gains from reviewing the visitation by Inquisitor Pedro Girón to Gandía in 1590. In his memorial of the visitation, Girón stated that he went there because there were already a number of denunciations from that city so that if additional evidence could be garnered during the visitation, the suspects could be arrested.^[18]

Evidence derived from the results of visitations or from the Inquisition's network of informers was always less important as a source of prosecutions than the evidence provided by the accused themselves when in the course of their interrogations they were forced to reveal fully not only their direct accomplices but anyone else engaging in heretical acts. Inquisitorial procedures in this respect were a good deal stricter than in the ordinary criminal courts, where the accused were not even expected to be asked about their accomplices except in crimes such as sodomy where an accomplice was necessary to commit the act.^[19] In what must have been something of a record for a number of persons implicated in the testimony of a single accused, Francisco Caffor, a Morisco, testified against some 964 individuals in the course of his trial for Islamic practices.^[20] Sometimes the case against an individual could be made considerably more serious by testimony given at another trial. Evidence given against Francisco Sebastián, a Morisco of Teruel, by Luis Caminero was sufficient to doom Sebastian to relaxation (execution by burning) after Inquisitor Juan de Llano de Vargas changed his vote.^[21]

Perhaps the most remarkable tribute to the Inquisition's hold on the popular imagination was the steady stream of individuals who came forward spontaneously to confess their errors. Of course, some "spontaneous" confessions were only motivated by the fear of imminent arrest or by the knowledge that one had already been denounced. Such was the case of Dr. Gaspar Jornet, who came to the tribunal to confess his homosexual relations with José Castello, a student at the law faculty. When Jornet came to the tribunal on January 13, 1687, he must have been aware that Castello had come

before it to confess only four days earlier.^[22] Fear of denunciation was behind the confession of Fray Anselmo de Gracia, guardian of the monastery of San Antonio of Mora, who was engaged in a strenuous effort to reform the monastery in the face of opposition from many of his fellow monks. Fray Anselmo admitted that at a moment of supreme frustration he had exclaimed in the hearing of other monks that if some are given a crown in heaven for their travail on earth, he would have to be given three. Although this was perhaps not a very serious matter, he had been advised that some of his enemies among the monks intended to denounce him to the Inquisition and to distort his statement to make it appear like a heretical proposition. To prevent this, he felt it was necessary to appear before the tribunal on his own.^[23]

Another clear motivation was the feeling on the part of the individual, which was shared by the Inquisition's defense attorneys, that self-confession could lead to a reduction in penalties. This was certainly true of Fray Augustin Cabades, whose spontaneous confession of soliciting sexual favors from his female penitents in the confessional was cited by his defense attorney as exceptionally full and truthful in his plea that his client be sentenced in private to prevent damage to his reputation. The tribunal was evidently sympathetic to the argument and agreed that Cabades should be sentenced and admonished within the tribunal's own chambers and in the presence of only three outside witnesses.^[24] It was by no means certain, however, that the tribunal would always react the same way, as another solicitante, Dr. Juan Bautista Catalá, rector of the village of Yátova, found in 1764. Even though Catalá's defense attorney, Dr. Joaquín Solsona, argued that his client's spontaneous confession indicated his "contrition and sincere repentance," the tribunal turned a deaf ear, and while it did permit the sentence to be read out within the audience chamber, as was customary in this sort of ease, it insisted on the presence of eighteen confessors drawn from the secular and regular clergy and sentenced Catalá to four years of exile and one year of indoctrination in a monastery. The trial record indicates that the tribunal took spontaneous confession into account as only one aspect of the case and that leniency would be shown only if other factors did not mitigate against it. As far as Catalá was concerned, the number of witnesses and the fact that they included several of the wealthiest farmers of the village

indicated that he could no longer effectively serve his office and made exile from the village a foregone conclusion. Moreover, his amorous pursuit of village women had come to the attention of several Franciscan friars as well as a Jesuit on mission, and this made it necessary to call in a representative group of confessors so that Catalá could serve as an example.^[25]

The number of those making spontaneous confessions tended to vary widely with the particular group. The Moriscos, for example, accounted for very few because of the strong pattern of group solidarity they had managed to maintain. Of all the groups subject to inquisitorial jurisdiction, it was Old Christians, especially rather simple people who were afraid that they had uttered some blasphemy, who were most apt to present themselves at the tribunal. A typical representative of this group was the illiterate silk worker Jerónimo Mevin who came all the way from Caspe to denounce himself before the tribunal before having said, while playing ball, "I deny God and his saints." The remorseful young man explained that he had been angry at losing the ball game when he uttered those words, that he had no real intention to blaspheme, and that "he was deeply sorry."^[26]

For certain persons, the very fact of the Inquisition's existence was vastly reassuring as it was the obvious and accepted place to unburden one's conscience regarding certain acts or statements. In 1678, one of the porters of the Diputació came to the tribunal to declare that fifteen years earlier he had practiced anal intercourse with a woman named Jerónima Brunet. Confessing with his parish priest did not seem to offer more than temporary solace, and he was never able to "achieve peace of mind until he came to the Holy Office."^[27]

The clergy, both secular and regular, were also well indoctrinated and regarded the Inquisition as the place to take their religious doubts and receive absolution. In 1691, Fray José Marti, a Carmelite, came to the tribunal to denounce himself for a certain statement that he had made during a sermon which might have been heretical. In the same year, Fray Silverio Garcerón, a reader in philosophy at the academy of the monastery of La Merced in Elche, came to denounce himself for certain positions that he had defended during the course of his oral examination for the post of reader of theology.^[28]

Inner wavering as to the truth or value of Catholicism was also felt to be something that should be brought to the Inquisition before the individual fell into graver doubt. When Juan Montalva, priest and benefice holder in the parish of San Martín, came to the tribunal to confess his growing skepticism about whether Catholicism was the only correct religion, he stated he had learned when he was a seminary student that the Inquisition was the proper place to come for such matters.^[29]

Once evidence had been accumulated from whatever source, the tribunal's response to it was governed by the rules of evidence followed in inquisitorial procedure modified by its own experience. In Western Europe, inquisitorial procedure was the product of a long historical tradition reaching back to the last half of the twelfth century when criticism of the ordeal as a method of proof and the growing centralization of governments, both papal and monarchial, provided the means for the development of more rational alternatives based on specialized legal procedures.^[30] The chief characteristic of Inquisition procedure was that the central power (state or papacy) asserted the public interest in the punishment of crime and that a government agency undertook all aspects of a criminal proceeding, from initial investigation to establishing the proof necessary for punishment.^[31]

In general, it was the medieval church that took the lead in establishing inquisitorial procedure, largely because it needed a more effective means to combat the rising tide of heresy. The ordeal could hardly help to reveal inner thoughts and feelings, and in the heresy trial, it was the mind and not the body that chiefly concerned the judges. Only a group of experts using sophisticated legal methods could hope to discover offenders and bring them to confess and abjure their sins.^[32]

The fact that inquisitorial procedure was first developed to defend the faith against heretics lent to it an arbitrary quality that would have probably been absent from a body of criminal law designed to punish more ordinary offenders. The heretic, according to Eymerich, was one who had deliberately chosen error and had therefore placed himself outside of and in opposition to the community of believers.^[33]

For Eymerich's sixteenth-century editor, Francisco Peña, the heretic was particularly odious because he believes and actively

teaches things contrary to the faith of Christ. Terrible consequences would follow for nations that tolerated heretics in their midst since sedition would be inevitable and would result in the destruction of public order and prosperity.^[34] This concept of the religious heretic as an especially dangerous and hateful individual whose crime had placed him automatically outside of and in opposition to the religious community and the social body is of key importance in understanding the emergence of a form of jurisprudence so heavily weighted in favor of the prosecution.^[35]

Taking its departure from the urgent need to stamp out such vicious criminals, the Inquisition tended to accept evidence from any sort of witness, however discreditable. In answer to the question of whether criminals, known perjurers, or persons of infamous reputation should be allowed to testify for the prosecution, Eymerich answered in the affirmative because "the crime of heresy is of such gravity." The only exception to this rule was in the case of mortal enemies of the accused.^[36] In practice, however, the accused's protection against ill-wishers and malicious denunciation was wholly dependent on his ability to name his enemies specifically, because the inquisitors themselves made little effort to cross-examine witnesses to find out if their testimony was based on fact. It was not uncommon for persons to be arrested and incarcerated on the basis of the flimsiest of accusations by a single witness of dubious reliability and only saved from condemnation when the witness confessed the falsity of the charge to a third party who came to the tribunal with the information. In 1565, for example, the Valencia tribunal arrested thirteen Moriscos who were accused by Angela Michaela of having been involved in the desecration and burial of a cross but was forced to release all of them after her confessor came to the tribunal to declare that she had sought absolution for having lied to the tribunal to cover up for some of her relatives.^[37] Interestingly, the arrest and trial of these Moriscos on the basis of the testimony of a single and not very reliable witness figured among the charges brought against Inquisitor Bernardino de Aguilera during the visitation of 1566-67.^[38] The inquisitor defended himself by simply reminding the Suprema that it had been fully informed about the case from the beginning and had specifically authorized the arrests.^[39]

A standard item in Inquisition procedure as practiced on the Continent was the requirement of two eyewitnesses for conviction.

Frequently, however, this rigorous standard was of little help to the accused because one eyewitness was sufficient to permit the inquisitor to use torture to extort the remaining measure of "truth."^[40] Insufficient evidence was not considered grounds for presuming innocence, but it had the effect of leaving the accused "semiguilty" and exposed to the next link in the chain of judicial procedures, which was itself a form of punishment.^[41]

In accordance with the general secrecy of proceedings, witnesses' names were not divulged to the accused. The reason for this policy, which dates from the medieval Inquisition, was that informers would be in danger from the friends and relatives of the accused. Certainly, by making it easy and safe to testify in an inquisitorial court, confidentiality had the effect of ensuring a continuous flow of denunciations.^[42]

After sufficient evidence had been accumulated, an arrest was ordered at the request of the prosecuting attorney. Once brought to the prison by the alguacil mayor or, as happened frequently, by several familiares, the prisoner was made to declare all his property, which was then sequestered and placed in the hands of a factor appointed by the tribunal. This property would be returned if the prisoner was found innocent, but in the meanwhile, portions of it were sold to pay the costs of imprisonment. There was nothing especially unusual about sequestration in a judicial system that depended for its support on revenues from its victims or clients, and Villadiego tells us that the same procedure of sequestration and inventory of property was used in the ordinary courts.^[43] When a prisoner had no property, the tribunal undertook to feed and clothe him out of its own resources, although this was only a part of the tribunal's judicial function and should not be taken as an indication of any softness toward the poor.

Ideally, the "secret prison" into which the accused was conducted after his arrest was to be characterized by a political economy of silence and isolation. This, at least, was the intention of the Suprema, which even wrote to the tribunals demanding that the patios by which prisoners could communicate with one another be closed off. Removed from the world and each other, the prisoners were to be well fed, with meat at least every other day, while the prison itself was to receive regular visits from the in-

quisitors, who were to pay careful attention to any complaints or special requests.^[44]

During the early years of the Valencia tribunal, the ideal could not be realized because the Inquisition did not have its own quarters and prisoners were housed in the ordinary city jail for common criminals. Somewhat later, as part of the process whereby the Inquisition acquired its own precincts, the prisoners were removed to separate quarters near the Trinity Gate.^[45] Silence and lack of communication among prisoners do not seem to have been characteristic of Valencia's secret prison even after this early period. For one thing, prisoners were hardly ever placed in single cells, and usually had at least one, and sometimes as many as four, cell mates. A statement taken from Judaizer Brianda Gacente during the long period of imprisonment before the conclusion of her trial revealed that she was originally placed in a cell with four other women prisoners and that she frequently had conversations with the jailer about her case.^[46]

In spite of the violation of the ideal internal economy of the inquisitorial prison, the tribunal found it useful to continue the practice of placing several prisoners together since cell mates could report conversations that they had with one another and could serve as witnesses to shore up an otherwise shaky ease with additional charges. When Juan Casanyosas, a French silk winder living in Valencia, was brought to prison on October 12, 1564, on a charge of Lutheranism, there was only one witness against him. Casanyosas made the fatal mistake of deriding Catholicism repeatedly in arguments with his cell mate, a priest named Jerónimo Biosa. After several such arguments in which Casanyosas declared that miracles were the invention of the devil and that he did not believe in purgatory, Biosa asked for a special audience with the inquisitors to testify about what he had heard and to plead for a change of cell so that he would no longer have to listen to these "heresies." Apart from his confession under torture and the one outside witness, the only evidence against Casanyosas was the testimony of two fellow prisoners, Biosa and José Esquerdon, who overheard the two quarreling.^[47]

After repeated complaints by officials of the tribunal about the inadequacy and discomfort of the prison and at least one plan of reform that was never implemented for lack of funds, Inquisitor-

General Quiroga sent his own chaplain to investigate the situation. It is to his report that we owe a detailed description of the precincts occupied by the Valencia tribunal toward the end of the sixteenth century.^[48] According to him, the Inquisition formed an "island" all to itself in which were contained the audience chambers and secret archive as well as the residences of the two inquisitors and the alcalde of the prison. What is the most striking about the layout of the inquisitorial enclave is the physical closeness of judges and prisoners. The prisoners' cells were not only right alongside one another so that prisoners could easily communicate but they shared a wall with the second inquisitor's bedroom through which he could hear them speaking to one another "in loud voices" at night. The prison had a total of nineteen cells for men and five cells for women located in a separate loft area above the audience chamber and archive. All the cells were no more than 15 to 15½ feet square and were frequently overcrowded with prisoners awaiting the auto de fé. Since the prison was too small to accommodate the desired number of suspects, this had the effect of reducing the scope of inquisitorial activity.^[49] In light of this situation, the chaplain proposed the expansion of the prison space into the houses occupied by the second inquisitor and alcalde. Although this plan would not be very costly, the composition of the precinct out of a diverse group of buildings constructed at different times and of varying quality meant that several would have to be rebuilt; poor construction had already allowed many prisoners to escape.^[50] In spite of the reforms made later in the century, there is every indication that many of the problems indicated in the visitor's report remained unresolved.^[51]

As far as the prisoners themselves are concerned, the record seems to be one of generally moderate treatment marred by sporadic abuse and exploitation rather than one of systematic ill-treatment. During the visitation of 1528, Alcalde Juan Velásquez, who apparently was an active silk manufacturer, was accused of forcing the women prisoners to work up silk and paying them less than the going rate. And prisoners were not ted properly because Velásquez was off tending to his business.^[52] In 1566 testimony concerning Vicente Corboran, who was responsible for actually cooking and serving the prisoners' food, revealed that he was in the habit of withholding one-third of the ordinary ration (which he sold

privately), and he consistently refused to purchase any special items even when given money to do so.^[53]

However, the inquisitors of Valencia did carry out their obligation to visit the prisoners at regular intervals, and there seems to have been little systematic abuse or cruelty (beating of prisoners by guards, etc.). If anything, the prison seems to have lacked sufficient security. The guards, such as they were, were in more danger from the prisoners than a danger to them. In 1605, the alcalde mentioned several deadly assaults on his assistants in a letter to the Suprema.^[54]

One pathetic example of the way criminals with experience of both the ordinary criminal jails and those of the Inquisition viewed the latter comes from a request by Pedro Adel for transfer to the inquisitorial prison in 1575. Adel, who had been tried by the Inquisition and sentenced to a term of galley service, was so decrepit that the galley captain would not accept him, and he was sent back to Valencia where, blind and impoverished, he was thrown into the municipal prison. He pleaded for a transfer to the inquisitorial prison where he would be properly "fed and taken care of." The tribunal referred his request to the Suprema, which would have nothing to do with him and ordered him to be given two hundred lashes and permanently exiled.^[55]

The relatively favorable view of the Inquisition's prison among offenders and the harrowing description of the ordinary criminal jails of Valencia city by Dr. Tomás Cerdan de Tallada, a late-sixteenth-century defense attorney, would seem to support Lea's conclusion that "the secret prisons of the Inquisition were less intolerable places of abode than the episcopal and public gaols."^[56]

If prisoners in the "secret prison" were not subject to systematic abuse by guards and workers, they were frequently forced to wait long periods before their cases were concluded. A survey of all the prisoners being held on July 18, 1566, reveals widely varying periods of incarceration before all stages of the trial process were concluded, ranging from a few months to as long as two-and-one-half years.^[57] In general, prisoners were not exposed to such long periods of imprisonment; however, the average stay before sentencing was around three months.^[58] It was the numerous exceptions to this general rule and the psychological impact that long incarceration had on certain individuals which sometimes drove them to mad-

ness or suicide that the Suprema must have had in mind when it wrote the tribunal reminding it of the October 22, 1610, carta acordada (administrative order) that ordered speedy trials to prevent "the misfortunes that have occurred when prisoners become desperate as a result of the long delay in concluding their cases."^[59]

Once incarcerated and interrogated concerning his property, the prisoner was not at first informed of the charges against him but was brought instead before the inquisitors who admonished him to confess any heretical acts that he had committed or heard about. Left in ignorance of the charges against him and denied benefit of defense counsel at this stage of the proceedings, the accused might confess immediately even to things the Inquisition was unaware of at the time of his arrest.^[60] Even if the prisoner did not confess, he was left in an agony of doubt about what the Inquisition actually knew about his case and what sort of evidence had been brought against him. It was during the first three audiences with the prisoner that the inquisitors obtained the detailed sociological and biographical information that affords the historian fascinating insights into the mental state of the accused. This included the standard information requested of prisoners in the ordinary courts (age, marital status, occupation, and place of residence) but went far beyond it to probe the prisoners' personal history and knowledge of Catholic dogma and ritual.

Another interesting aspect of interrogation at this stage of the proceedings was the effort made by the inquisitors to trap prisoners into admitting their guilt or to at least say things that would support the allegations of the witnesses. Peña's sixteenth-century comments on Eymerich reveal the emergence of much more sophisticated procedures, perhaps under the influence of the ordinary criminal courts. Peña notes that the prisoner should be put at a psychological disadvantage immediately by being placed on a chair that was "lower and humbler" than that of the inquisitors themselves. In questioning the prisoner, the inquisitor should be careful not to "irritate" or provoke him, for this would only get him angry and make him more difficult to deal with. Instead, the inquisitor should be subtle, never indicating or suggesting to the prisoner what exactly was wanted from him, first questioning him in general terms about any heretical acts he had seen or committed, then "by degrees" moving to the chief indictment itself.^[61] One example of

just how effective this questioning could be comes from a bigamy ease tried before the tribunal in 1659. In this instance, Valencia's inquisitors were successful in trapping the accused into admitting that he had knowingly committed bigamy by going to live with his third wife while his second wife was still alive.^[62] Casanyosas, the convicted French Lutheran, commented ruefully on the brutal effectiveness of the questioning that he had been subjected to by Inquisitor Bernardino de Aguilera. According to him, Aguilera "had a virtuous face but was really a villain because having imprisoned men he makes them take an oath and forces them to admit to things they neither did nor imagined."^[63]

At the end of the first three audiences, the charges against the prisoner were presented to the inquisitors by the prosecuting attorney or fiscal. The interposition of this official between judge and accused was a refinement and modification of traditional inquisitorial procedure in the sense that the inquisitors themselves could now preserve a formal impartiality, even though they had played the major role in creating the ease against the accused.^[64] The prosecuting attorney also represented the emerging idea that the crime was an offense to the public and should be prosecuted even in the absence of a private complaint.^[65]

There was frequently a good deal of hearsay evidence presented in the prosecutor's arraignment, even though it was largely superfluous to proving the crime and often amounted to little more than one individual swearing that he had heard one of the principal witnesses state that the accused was guilty of heresy. In spite of the expense and time involved in interviewing these witnesses, the purpose was to make the amount of evidence against the accused seem greater than it really was and to buttress what was frequently a slender ease at the start of the trial.^[66] Rhetorical flourishes were also not uncommon, with some fiscales making an effort to make the crime appear more deliberate and more serious than it really was. The prosecuting attorney in the ease of Brianda Gacenta, who was accused of Judaizing and specifically of participating in the lashing of a cross with Christ's figure on it, claimed that those present "took great delight in the cruel passion and torment that the Jews inflicted on his sacred person and proclaimed a strong desire to have been present at the passion." None of the rather flimsy and inconsistent evidence about the alleged incident as pre-

sented at the trial indicated any such glorying in the torture inflicted on Christ by the Jews of biblical times, and the prosecutor's statement was obviously meant to inflate the importance and significance of the heretical acts attributed to Gacente.^[67] After the accusation was presented to him by the tribunal's secretaries, the accused was required to answer each item on the spot. After this, he was permitted to choose defense counsel.^[68]

At the end of the arraignment, the prosecutor would frequently ask that the accused be made to undergo torture until he should admit the truth of the allegations made against him. In practice, however, torture was not decided on until after the prosecution and defense had concluded their arguments. If the case was still in doubt, the matter would be discussed by the members of the consulta de fé, and it was this body that would make a recommendation regarding torture if the evidence was insufficient for condemnation.^[69]

After the choice of a defense attorney had been made, the case was formally received to proof, beginning with the ratification of the testimony of the original witnesses on which the original arraignment was based. Generally, ratification involved calling back the original witnesses to repeat their testimony before the inquisitors. And, according to the rules, no evidence could be used unless it was ratified. While a rigorous system of ratification involving careful reinterrogation of witnesses by the inquisitors could have been an effective protection for the accused, few inquisitors ever put themselves to so much trouble, and ratification was limited to mere repetition of the original testimony. Moreover, witnesses could ask to have their original statements read over to them to refresh their memories and even add material to their original testimony.^[70]

At the sixth audience, the summary of evidence was drawn up, carefully omitting the names of witnesses, and presented to the accused who was required to answer every allegation immediately. After cross-examination by the inquisitors, the defense counsel was called in and given the summary of the witnesses' testimony along with the replies of the accused, although in fact those accused before the Valencia tribunal were not always assured of a formal defense until the mid-1540s.^[71]

In the Spanish Inquisition, the defense labored under some very

particular constraints that made the preparation of an effective case extremely difficult even if the court had not been biased in favor of the prosecution from the very start. For one thing, there was the ambiguous, even dangerous, position of the defense attorney himself. As a recognized, if minor, official of the court, the defense attorney would naturally want to retain the respect and approval of the inquisitors, especially if he wished to continue practicing before the tribunal. Under the circumstances, many defense attorneys were tempted to do little more than advise their clients to confess and to offer only a very perfunctory defense even if a more vigorous one were possible.

Another inhibiting factor for defense attorneys was that their role was ambiguous. An individual who presented too strong a case for his client might be seen as a protector of heretics and thus liable to suspicion. In Peña's commentary, he stresses that such protectors of heretics may "act with or without arms, during or after the trial." Since anyone who "opposed" or obstructed the work of the Holy Office in any way whatever could be considered a protector of heretics, a conscientious defense attorney had to walk a narrow line between presenting an adequate defense and avoiding the impression that he supported his client's erroneous beliefs. Torquemada's instructions of 1484 contain a clear reference to this linkage between defense attorneys and the "defenders of heretics" when they are warned not to undertake the defense of any part of the case where they know their client is guilty and not to impose "captious objections or malicious delay" on the trial, which must have inhibited them from deploying the full range of their legal talents on their client's behalf.^[72] When the defense attorney agreed to undertake the defense, he had to swear to defend his client but also to "undeceive him" if he did not have justice on his side.^[73]

Some defense attorneys took their status as officials of the Holy Office and defenders of the faith so seriously that they were unwilling to carry out their responsibilities to their clients. When Abdella Alcaxet, a Valencian Morisco turned Barbary pirate, was captured and brought to the tribunal, Luis Sarcola was assigned to defend him. Going beyond the usual admonition to confess and receive mercy, Sarcola remonstrated openly with his client and urged him to convert to Catholicism. Alcaxet remained obdurate, saying that he wanted to live as a Moor and die in the Islamic faith. On hearing

this, Sarcola said he would have nothing more to do with the defense. Since Alcaxet was impenitent, the tribunal apparently did not feel it needed to provide him with anyone to replace Sarcola, and so no defense plea was entered and the case was closed. Clearly, in the case of someone like Alcaxet who boasted openly of his corsair activities against Christian shipping and of his landings on the Valencian coast to pick up groups of Moriscos who wanted to escape to Algeria, all pretense of fairness broke down. Alcaxet was an avowed enemy of Catholic Spain, and it would have taken a far better developed sense of the rights of the accused than that possessed by the Spanish Inquisition for him to have been afforded procedural safeguards that he himself probably did not expect.^[74]

Quite apart from the difficulties presented by the awkward position of the defense attorney himself, the defense labored under a series of disabilities imposed by the nature of the procedures followed by the Inquisition. The best known of all of these disabilities was the Inquisition's refusal to divulge the names of the witnesses for the prosecution or any particulars that might allow the accused to discover them. As stated earlier, the accused was supposed to be protected from having the evil-intentioned testimony of his mortal enemies used against him, but to make use of this protection he would have to separate his mortal enemies from the other witnesses using the deliberately vague summary given to him by the inquisitors. Just how useless the rule barring the testimony of enemies was to a prisoner who was unable to guess the names of the witnesses against him is demonstrated by the case of Pedro Matheo, a Valencian velvet worker who was accused of Judaizing in 1521. Out of twelve witnesses against him, Matheo was only able to name one (his wife) as a mortal enemy and was therefore convicted and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment.^[75]

If a defendant was to formulate a ease, he would need witnesses who could help him disable opposing testimony by proving enmity or demonstrate good character. The sorts of witnesses admissible for the defense, however, were much more restricted than those allowed the prosecution, which could even call criminals or excommunicates.^[76] When a list of defense witnesses was presented to the inquisitors, they were also given a series of questions to be put to them. Even here, conscious bias against the defendant may be seen in the fact that the inquisitors did not have to accept either wit-

nesses or questions in their entirety, and it was not uncommon for some defense questions to be set aside as "impertinent."^[77]

In spite of these obvious problems, some defense attorneys labored conscientiously on behalf of their clients. Dr. Ramos, who represented Matheo in his Judaizing ease, presented what may almost be called an ideal defense. After establishing Matheo's reputation as a good Catholic who went to mass regularly and accepted everything as taught by the Roman Catholic church, Ramos went on to impugn the testimony of his wife with whom he was always quarreling. To buttress the testimony of the mainly converso witnesses who testified to his frequent attendance at mass, Ranms brought forward Yolante Martínez, an Old Christian, who had lived and worked in Matheo's home for several months. Martínez testified that she had seen Matheo attend mass in San Lorenzo "many times" and that work did not cease in his house on Friday nights and Saturdays, when Judaic law dictated that no work be performed. This testimony should have impressed the inquisitors as they frequently attempted to ascertain whether converso families would alter household routines to celebrate the Jewish Sabbath.

Ramos then expertly dismantled the prosecution's case. He began by pointing out that all the prosecution witnesses were "singular," that is, the specific incidences of Judaizing or blasphemy that they testified to were not corroborated by any of the others. Even though Matheo had performed certain Judaic ceremonies, the circumstances under which they had been performed did not indicate any pattern of criminal behavior. As a young apprentice, when he committed certain of the acts in question, Matheo would naturally have felt compelled to conform to the customs of the household, but mere conformity did not indicate conviction.

Matheo was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in the house of another velvet worker in spite of the fiscal's demand for relaxation and during a period when converted Jews were being routinely sentenced to death, and while it would be difficult to ascribe this relative leniency wholly to Ramos's defense, there is no question that in this instance a defense attorney did well by his client.^[78] Procedural disabilities notwithstanding, it is clear that conscientious defense attorneys were able to present a successful and coherent defense that might well have been convincing in a modern court of law. Unfortunately, the Inquisition was not a

modern court, and although it was willing to go further in the formal protection of accused than the French or English criminal courts of the period which did not even permit defense attorneys, the bias of inquisitorial procedure favored the prosecution, and the efforts by defense attorneys could too easily be dismissed as placing unwarranted delays in the way of just punishment.^[79] Moreover, efforts by defense attorneys to remove some of the difficulties under which they labored proved unavailing in the face of the prosecutorial bias of the Holy Office. When Dr. Montaner, an abogado de presos of the Barcelona tribunal, petitioned the Suprema to allow names of prosecution witnesses to be revealed to the defense, he and the other attorneys signing the petition were threatened with arrest.^[80]

After the prosecution and defense had concluded their presentations, the trial itself was terminated and ready for sentencing. It was at this point that the trial became open, as it were, to influence from other centers of judicial authority, since the inquisitors could not sentence alone and had to form a committee, called the con-sulta de fé, with a representative of the bishop of the diocese in which the accused as well as a judge of the chancery court lived.^[81] The group responsible for voting on the sentence of Esperanza Badía, for example, included three inquisitors as well as Dr. Francisco Fenollet, dean of the cathedral chapter acting for the archbishop of Valencia, and Dr. Basilio Esteve, a judge from the Audiencia.^[82] Although there was a certain controversy among jurists about whether the vote of the consultores was decisive, when the bishop's representative and the inquisitors disagreed, the case was generally referred to the Suprema. Later in the history of the Inquisition, when the tribunals were forced to refer most of their verdicts to the Suprema anyway, the consulta served as little more than a means for debating the issues in a case, while the Suprema, which made the decisive judgment, was under no obligation to take its deliberations into account.^[83]

If there was sufficient evidence, the consulta could then sentence the accused directly or could vote for torture on the grounds that although strong proof existed, the entire truth was not yet known; therefore, a last effort to obtain a confession from the accused must be attempted, whatever the risk to the prosecution ease. To the contemporary mind, judicial torture is perhaps the

most repugnant aspect of inquisitorial procedure, yet it must be seen as a necessary element in a judicial system whose major goal was to obtain the confession of the accused. Confession was vital because of the high and often impossible standard of proof (two independent eyewitnesses) necessary for complete certainty of guilt. The frequent failure to produce two eyewitnesses led to a whole legal "arithmetic" of partial proofs and to a considerable degree of uncertainty in sentencing, while the absence of any empirical method of evaluating circumstantial evidence made it very difficult to supplement denunciations with any other proofs. If the accused could be induced to confess, the court could resolve all of these issues and the prosecution's case would be automatically validated.^[84]

Judicial torture as practiced in early modern courts had a strong connection to the trials and ordeals of an older, more primitive legal tradition. As a real test of the veracity of the accused's assertions of innocence, it could not be unlimited and beyond endurance because the accused would obviously have to have a chance to prove his innocence by passing the ordeal successfully. This notion of torture as a "test" emerges clearly from Peña's disparaging comments about certain judges who had invented new forms of torture, an activity that smacked more "of the work of the hangman" than of the "theologians and jurists" who made up the inquisitorial tribunals.^[85]

In practice, the Spanish Inquisition used forms of torture that were common to the entire judicial system and was undoubtedly more careful than the secular courts in applying it.^[86] Moreover, in spite of the considerable discretion given to judges in the 1561 Instructions, the repetition of torture was extremely unusual even where the victim had revoked an earlier confession. In only o.8 percent of the cases for which trial details are available was torture repeated.^[87] However, the Inquisition, like the secular courts, resorted to torture because of the difficulty of producing the requisite two witnesses to the same act.^[88]

Confessions obtained under torture, unlike those given freely during interrogation, implied the failure of the entire effort to make the accused "play the role of voluntary partner in the procedure" and thereby to validate the politicoreligious role of the Inquisition.^[89] Since the ritual of acceptance and repentance could not be valid without a strong element of voluntarism, the accused who

confessed under torture had to be brought back within 24 hours to confirm the confession that he had made.

At the conclusion of the trial, the consulta de fé was required to recommend sentencing. There were a number of possible sentences that could be handed down by the tribunal. Of course, the accused could be acquitted, but outright acquittal was rather uncommon in the Inquisition because it constituted an admission that the tribunal was wrong to prosecute the ease, and given the inquisitors' sensitivity to their honor and reputation, they were extremely unwilling to lay themselves open to such an inference. Between 1478 and 1530, the Valencia tribunal only handed down 12 absolutions out of 1,862 sentences.^[90]

Simple suspension of a ease was far more common than outright acquittal, since suspension saved the Inquisition's reputation for infallibility and left the accused under a permanent cloud of suspicion. Suspended cases, moreover, could always be reopened if any fresh evidence presented itself. Suspensions formed an increasingly large number of the sentences handed down by the Valencia tribunal from the mid-sixteenth century and continued to increase as a percentage of all sentences through the eighteenth century.^[91] Those who were penanced were required to "abjure" heresy, specifically, the heresy of which they were guilty. There were two forms of abjuration: de levi , for a minor offense, and de vehementi , for a more serious one.^[92]

Exile was another punishment that was frequently imposed by the Inquisition.^[93] Normally, a sentence of exile would simply be a blanket prohibition to enter a certain place or places and their vicinity for a period of years. During the seventeenth century, the royal court (which really meant Madrid and its vicinity) was in-eluded in the sentence regardless of any other places mentioned. Sometimes the tribunal would go further in trying to make the sentence appropriate to the situation and proclivities of the criminal. Cristóbal de Centelles, one of the Valeneian nobles who was arrested during the tribunal's crackdown on Old Christian lords of Morisco vassals in the 1560s and 1570s, was found not only to have permitted his vassals to freely practice their traditional customs and rituals but to have engaged in illicit sexual practices with certain Morisco women. Centelles was fined 600 ducats and permanently forbidden from living in places with a predominantly

Morisco population, which meant, in effect, that he could not live on his own estates.^[94]

Spiritual penance, which could range from actual incarceration in a monastery to religious instruction and the performance of certain observances, was widely used, especially for the two privileged classes, nobility and clergy, and for persons convicted of lesser crimes like blasphemy. Reclusion in a monastery along with religious indoctrination, and deprivation of the right to celebrate mass or hear confession, was a punishment used in the solicitation eases that became such an important part of the business of the tribunal in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.^[95] Occasionally, the tribunal would even specify the nature of the religious instruction that it wished the penitent to have while in reclusion. On December 17, 1764, the tribunal sentenced Dr. Juan Batista Catalá, the rector of the village of Yátova north of Buñol who had been convicted of solicitation and "evil doctrine" because of certain statements he made to one of his female penitents, to one year of exile in a monastery and instructed him to read the works of Fray Luis de Granada.^[96]

A certain percentage of the sentences handed down by the tribuanl called for scourging. Usually between 100 and 200 lashes were laid on by the public executioner as the penitent rode through the streets mounted on a mule the day after he had been reconciled.^[97]

Public disgrace, which was administered by leading the criminal through the streets on an ass, carrying the insignia of his offense, could be considered one of the lightest penalties administered by the tribunal. In a reputation-conscious society, however, such a penalty could have a fatal impact on the social standing of the victim and his family.^[98]

In 1567, at the beginning of the great naval buildup that led to the battle of Lepanto, the Suprema ordered that all penitents sentenced to perpetual imprisonment and the habit should have their sentences changed to at least three years of galley service.^[99] In reality, what the Suprema was doing was falling into line with what had already been done by the ordinary criminal courts in response to a series of royal pragmáticas issued between 1552 and 1556 when Philip II began taking control of the Spanish galley fleet from the private contractors who had run it under Charles V. These laws

changed the ordinary penalties for thieves, vagabonds, and perjurers to galley service, which varied from several years for the first offense to life for the second.^[100] Direct administration and the rapidly increasing size of crews of the Spanish galley fleet required ever greater numbers of men, so that in 1573, the Suprema, under considerable royal pressure, ordered that even the so-called buen confitente who confessed early and was normally given a light sentence should be sent to the galleys for a three-year term.^[101]

Given the harsh conditions of the service, it was hardly surprising that many of the wealthier prisoners sought to reduce their term in the galleys through a monetary payment. By the late sixteenth century, this commerce in reduced sentences had become so regularized that a standard price of 300 ducats and the purchase of a slave who would serve the oars in perpetuity was established. In 1593, several of the thirty-eight Moriscos from Valencia's inquisitorial district then serving in the galleys petitioned for a reduction of their term through attorney Francisco Fuster, claiming that their relatives would help them to pay the necessary fee. These requests for remission of galley service usually became the subject of an individual dossier, that is, the meritos de reos, which included a brief summary of the case and details of the comportment of each prisoner during the term of his sentence. It was the Suprema that decided on the prisoner's merits, but normally it would agree to commute the sentence as long as the monetary payment was forthcoming, even though such early release ran contrary to royal policy and the navy's need for manpower.^[102] In the mid-eighteenth century, galley service for all crimes was eliminated, and those who would have received it were sentenced to hard labor in the Almadén mines or the North African fortresses, where they were frequently worse off than they would have been in the galleys.^[103]

In canon law, perpetual imprisonment was the ordinary punishment imposed on the reconciled heretic, and the Spanish Inquisition in both its medieval and modern forms frequently handed down such sentences.^[104] During the early years of the modern Inquisition, the tribunals frequently did not have perpetual prisons and were forced to use the ordinary prisons, as in Valencia, or make do with other expedients. Around the middle of the sixteenth century, the Valencia tribunal established its own prison, but the need to find some way to support the prisoners without

placing an undue burden on its resources meant that the number of persons actually in the perpetual prison at any one time tended to be small. Testimony taken during the visitation of 1566 indicated that there were only four people serving their terms in the prison, while many others sentenced to perpetual imprisonment were living in their own homes and freely practicing their trades with little or no supervision.^[105]

There was also a tendency to reduce the term of perpetual imprisonment, usually for a money payment. Peña's 1578 commentary on Eymerich's discussion of imprisonment, which reflected current practice in the Spanish Inquisition, makes the point that these sentences were generally commuted to a term of from three to eight years, and in Valencia it was rare to have anyone serve more than one year during much of the sixteenth century.^[106]

The sanbenito, a penitential garment made of yellow cloth (green in Valencia) emblazoned with two oblique crosses, was always worn by those sentenced to prison during the term of their imprisonment and even after their release. This garment was also the key element in perpetuating the infamy of those convicted of heresy and their families. Penitential garments worn by the reconciled were displayed prominently in local churches when they were removed either after the auto de fé or when they had served their term of imprisonment; garments worn by the relaxed were displayed immediately after the auto.^[107] Using the sanbenito to perpetuate the memory of those convicted of heresy and apostasy was consistent with the effort to bar the descendants of the convicted heretic from holding public office, carrying on honorable trades or professions, or entering an ecclesiastical career.^[108] Transmission of the penalty was a logical consequence of the hereditary nature of sin, a concept defended by such sixteenth-century writers as Gregorio López or Diego Covarrubias de Leyva and applied by them to treason both "human" and "divine."^[109]

The Spanish Inquisition, which condemned many individuals to the stake, did not actually carry out the executions itself. The supreme penalty was incurred by heretics after they were in effect "cut off from the church" and left to the secular authorities to deal with. The secular authorities, for their part, had little choice since canon law provided the penalty of excommunication for those officials who failed to punish heretics given to them by the Inquisi-

tion.^[110] In fact, the secular authorities needed no urging to carry out executions.

Several different outcomes of a case could result in the death penalty. The obstinate heretic who persisted in defending his beliefs in spite of all attempts to reason with him was judged pertinacious and condemned to the stake. The negativo, an individual who continued to deny his guilt in the face of what was felt to be overwhelming evidence against him, was considered an unrepentant heretic and also condemned to be executed. Even if an accused heretic confessed during the course of his trial, he could still be given the death penalty if his confession was judged to be incomplete. Imperfect confessions were regarded as false; they implied obstinacy and therefore placed the individual in the same position as the pertinacious heretic. A confession could be regarded as incomplete or mendacious for two principal reasons: failure to mention the names of accomplices or confession of heretical acts but denial of the intention to actually commit heresy.^[111]

Finally, the relapsed heretic was liable to the supreme penalty. This was a potentially fruitful source of condemnations because any return to former practices or even former associates could indicate that the individual was impenitent and that his conversion was false. In actual fact, however, even during the early years of the Valencia tribunal, most relapsed persons were not condemned to be executed but were given other penalties.^[112]

Between 1817 and 1818, Juan Antonio Llorente, the last secretary of the Corte (Madrid) tribunal, published the first major study of the Spanish Inquisition to be based on extensive archival materials. Llorente's work was the real beginning of modern Inquisition scholarship, but whatever its value in other respects, Llorente can justly be accused of greatly exaggerating the number of persons actually executed. In light of current research, it is difficult to accept Llorente's figure of more than 30,000 deaths. What is apparent from the figures for the Valencia tribunal is that the ferocity of the early years was succeeded by a long period of declining severity During the forty-six years from 1484 to 1530, some 754 individuals, or 37.7 percent of the total of those whose penalty is known, were sentenced to death. By 1530, the incidence of death sentences had fallen sharply, with 81 percent of all the executions decreed before 1592 having already taken place.^[113] During the later

history of the tribunal, both the number of executions and the percentage of death sentences handed down had fallen dramatically. Between 1580 and 1820, only 1.4 percent of those tried by the Valencia tribunal were condemned to death, and only half were actually executed.^[114]

Even when the death sentence had been imposed, the tribunals did their utmost to bring about conversion and confession so that a lesser penalty could be substituted. Monks, theologians used as consultants by the tribunal, and others worked feverishly to bring about an eleventh-hour conversion to reconcile the heretic with the church, and their opportunity was made even greater when the Suprema ordered that prisoners were to be notified of sentences of relaxation a full three days before the auto de fé itself.^[115]

The auto de fé, at which prisoners' sentences were announced before a vast crowd, was one of those great public spectacles that played so large a part in the politicoreligious life of early modern Europe. Early autos were relatively simple ceremonies, with condemned persons being unceremoniously marched to the central plaza where their sentences were briefly read out before they were taken away to be executed.^[116]

The auto de fé became much more elaborate later in the sixteenth century as Spain emerged as the leader of the Counter-Reformation and the struggle against Islam and as the state therefore became more involved in asserting its power over heretics. As heresy became equated with treason against the ruler, it was necessary to arrange a ceremony by which "injured sovereignty" could be reconstituted and in which "an empathic affirmation of political power" could be arranged for the edification of the public. Moreover, such a ceremony, through the presence of troops and local authorities and then the public burning of victims that took place later, could provide a "terrorific example" of princely power while advertising openly the limits of socially acceptable behavior.^[117]

In Valencia, the autos took place on the average of one per year. In many ways, it can be said that preparation for this event set the pace for the tribunal's life through much of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. After a sufficient number of convictions had been obtained, permission was requested from the Suprema to proceed with the auto. The ceremony took place before a large crowd as well as before the viceroy, president, and judges of the Audiencia,

the archbishop, and the canons of the cathedral. After the sentences were read out, those sentenced to death were burned by the public executioner at a location near the present site of the botanical gardens.^[118] By the end of the seventeenth century, the public auto de fé had been largely superseded by smaller, cheaper ceremonies held in one of Valencia's parish churches.

Significant gaps in the records, particularly between 1540 and 1570 and for several years in the seventeenth century, will probably make it impossible to know the exact number of cases tried by the Valencia tribunal. Combining the figures compiled by García Cárcel and Henningsen and Contreras for the period before 1700 with my own computations for 1700-1820, I arrive at a total of 11,458 cases, which probably understates the true figure by several thousand. (See table 1.)

In general, the tribunal's activity may be divided into three distinct periods of unequal duration. The first of these, from 1481 to 1530, was the period of intense prosecution of converted Jews who accounted for 2,160 of the 2,354 cases. The second period, 1560 to 1614, was dominated by activity against the Moriscos who comprised 2,465 of the 3,366 cases, or 73.2 percent. During the next, and much longer period, 1615 to 1820, the Inquisition concentrated on the majority Old Christian population for a variety of offenses, primarily infringing post-Tridentine moral and religious ideals. ^[119]

One of the principal differences between the medieval and Spanish inquisitions was the subordination of all of Spain's provincial tribunals to a central authority vested in the Council of the Inquisition (the Suprema) headed by the inquisitor-general. Like the Spanish monarchy's other governing councils, the Suprema had considerable autonomy and carried on the day-to-day business of the Inquisition with a minimum of outside interference.

In the early years of the sixteenth century, the Suprema's intervention in matters of faith was limited primarily to appeals and to the minority of cases where voting revealed disagreement among the local inquisitors and the ordinary. Where unanimity had been achieved, the Suprema was usually content to let well enough alone and was even reluctant to offer advice when the tribunal requested it. This extreme reticence was shown when, in 1512, the Suprema refused even to offer its advice about a case springing

Table 1.
Overall Activity of the Valencia Tribunal 1481-1820 (in Hundreds of Cases)

Note: The substantial lacunae in the relaciones de causas, especially between 1541 and 1570, 
and the dispersal of those records in the Archivo Histórico Nacional make it impossible to ever 
arrive at an accurate count of cases for the 1481-1700 period. For 1701-1820, I used a document 
(Clero 161) drawn up at the Valencia tribunal when its archive was still intact. Activity in this later 
period, however, had less and less concrete results as convictions became rare and 
most offenders were let off with a trivial fine or a warning.

from the murder of familiar Bartolomé Molner and returned it to the Valencia tribunal without comment.^[120]

During the 1540s and 1550s, however, there is evidence of growing interference by the Suprema, with an increasing number of eases being submitted to it for comment and modification by the Valencia tribunal.^[121] At this stage, though, the Suprema's advice was not always followed automatically. In 1556, when the Moriscos of Valencia seemed particularly restive, the Suprema wrote the tribunal ordering the suspension of several eases that were being formulated against certain Morisco tagarinos (Moriscos reared among Christians whose orthodox Catholicism had suddenly been questioned). In compliance with these orders, the tribunal released the Moriscos on bond, but when several of them used the opportunity to flee the kingdom, those remaining were rearrested, tried, and punished. To the Suprema's complaint that its express orders were being violated, Valencia's inquisitors replied that they had handled the matter in such a way as to "best satisfy their own consciences."^[122]

This pattern of sporadic and sometimes ineffective intervention began to be replaced by a more rigorous central control with the Valdés Instructions of 1561, where prior consultation with the Suprema was mandated before an order to arrest persons of quality could be carried into effect.^[123] That this order was being obeyed by the tribunal with not entirely satisfactory results from its own point of view is demonstrated by the ease of Gaspar Centelles, a Valencian noble suspected of Protestant sympathies. After forwarding the depositions of two witnesses to the Suprema and urging a quick decision, the tribunal had to wait a full seven months before it received a reply from the Suprema allowing it to proceed.^[124]

Ten years after its dilatory intervention in the Centelles ease, the Suprema was presented with another opportunity to deal with an important Valencian noble, but this time the scope of its intervention had broadened considerably. Pedro Luis de Borja, grand-master of Valencia's own military order of Montesa, was half brother to the duke of Gandía, Francisco de Borja, and himself a grandee of Spain so that his arrest on sodomy charges in 1572 was a major national event. In this ease, the Suprema had not only ordered the arrest (after consultation with the king) but guided every stage of the conduct of the ease itself, including his living accommo-

dations while on trial, questions to be asked the accused, and a review of the sentence handed down by the tribunal.^[125] By 1566, when the visitations that had been carried out into the proceedings of the Aragonese tribunals revealed a disturbing pattern of arbitrary behavior and gross violation of procedural norms that contrasted sharply with Philip II's personal commitment to a fair and impartial judicial system, the stage was set for an even greater reduction in the autonomy of the local tribunals.^[126] In June 1568, a carta acordada (administrative order) mandated that all death sentences should be submitted to the Suprema even if they were voted unanimously.^[127] Earlier that spring, another carta acordada brought the Suprema even more directly into trials of Moriscos when it ordered that all eases involving Morisco religious teachers (alfaquis) should be referred to it.^[128] During the early seventeenth century, the last vestiges of the provincial tribunal's autonomy in matters of faith were removed when a carta acordada of August 2, 1625, mandated that the records of trials that resulted in sentences of galleys, penance, or lashing should be submitted to the Suprema before sentence was carried out.^[129]

The process of judicial centralization, whereby provincial tribunals were required to submit their proceedings for review by higher courts, had become a part of seventeenth-century jurisprudence all over the Continent. In Spain, Villadiego informs us that ordinary criminal judges were required to consult their superiors before proceeding in all serious eases.^[130] In 1624, the Parlement of Paris, France's high court of appeals, ordered that all serious eases of sorcery that involved torture, sentences of death, or other corporal punishment must be referred to it regardless of whether the accused had requested an appeal.^[131]

In the ease of the Spanish Inquisition, continuous oversight of procedure in matters of faith was facilitated by requiring that the tribunals send summaries of all eases tried by them to the Suprema regardless of type or punishment. These relaciones de causas began in a tentative way in the 1540s, but by the 1560s, continuous series began to appear. By 1610, the Suprema began to insist on details such as the date of incarceration and the date when the accusation was presented which would permit it to monitor the entire trial.^[132] In 1632, the Suprema increased its supervision still further by ordering monthly reports on eases pending before the tribunal.^[133]

Comments scrawled in the margins of the relaciones de causas or relayed to the tribunal by the carta acordada are characteristically terse and confined to procedural matters, while virtually ignoring questions of precedent or underlying legal philosophy. Such issues were addressed by the Suprema itself in the body of Instructions that it drew up to guide provincial inquisitors, especially those of 1561. But Spanish Inquisition law also evolved through the work of such distinguished canonists as Bishop Diego de Simancas or Francisco Peña, whose new edition of Eymerich's Manual with marginal notes based on the experience of the Spanish tribunals went through several editions. There were also a certain number of Spanish inquisitors like Juan de Rojas who addressed themselves to procedural issues.^[134]

It is in the area of sentencing that the real influence of the Suprema on the tribunal may be discerned, since it became common practice to refer sentences to the Suprema after they were voted on by the tribunal's junta de fé. The Suprema's impact on sentencing was twofold: in supplying the details of the punishment that the offender would have to undergo and in altering that punishment both before sentence was actually pronounced and later when it could consider reducing terms of imprisonment, galley service, or exile.

The Suprema could also generally be counted on to intervene on the side of greater leniency, frequently reducing the term of imprisonment or exile suggested by the consulta de fé. In 1647-48, when the tribunal sentenced several women to greatly extended periods of exile for having violated the provisions of their original sentences, the Suprema responded either by demanding to see the original trial record or by drastically reducing the sentence. In general, the Suprema was about two-and-one-half times more likely to decrease a sentence as it was to increase its severity.^[135]

Sentences could be further reduced after the culprit had already begun serving them for a certain period, although this would frequently depend on the receipt of favorable reports on the way in which the individual was serving his or her sentence. Thus, the Suprema ignored Fray Pablo Cenedo's first request for relief from the remainder of his term of confinement in a monastery and only accepted his second request after receiving detailed information on his behavior from the tribunal.^[136] In the case of Fray Tomás de los

Arcos who was condemned as a solicitante in 1677, sentence was lifted but only after the Suprema had received many testimonials concerning his exemplary conduct in the monastery to which he had been confined.^[137]

There can be little doubt that a pattern of greater leniency imposed by a superior court could signal changed perceptions of certain social groups or the greater acceptance or tolerance of certain sorts of behavior by the authorities. Thus it was by modifying sentences in the direction of greater leniency rather than through elaborate disquisitions on cases that the Suprema indicated the path it wished the provincial tribunals to take. As in every other respect, however, the penal practice of the Valencia tribunal was not a passive response to the demands of the Suprema. By the early seventeenth century, for example, the tribunal had taken on itself jettisoning the harsh provisions of Valencian law that mandated the death penalty for convicted sodomites and was following a new and more lenient policy.^[138]

The structure of the earliest inquisitorial courts was extremely simple, with a minimal number of officials. In 1483, according to a memorial by Ferdinand the Catholic, each tribunal in the Crown of Aragon was to be composed of two inquisitors, a trained jurist to act as legal assessor, a prosecuting attorney (fiscal), a scribe, a constable to carry out arrests, and a porter.^[139] Within a few decades, however, the number of officials and the cost of maintaining them had increased dramatically.^[140] A letter to the Suprema by Valencia's Inquisitor Martín Pérez de Arteaga in 1553 complaining of excessive staff mentions five nuncios along with two barber surgeons and a doctor, all this in the face of increasingly inadequate funding.^[141] As early as 1534, the Valencia tribunal was regularly staffed by three inquisitors, a fiscal, and four (later five) secretaries as well as chaplains and stewards, although by that time inquisitors were all trained jurists and the post of assessor had been eliminated.^[142]

During its early years, the new Spanish National Inquisition shared with its medieval predecessor the quality of not having any fixed revenue base. The medieval Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon had always depended on the somewhat grudging support of the bishops and had supplemented what they chose to provide with erratic income from the sale of confiscated property and fines levied against convicted heretics.^[143] When it was first established, the

modern Spanish Inquisition depended on the crown, which controlled absolutely all inquisitorial finances, receiving all income and paying expenses through the royal treasury until well into the reign of Charles V. By the 1550s, however, the principle of royal control was gradually abandoned, and, in 1561, we find the Suprema ordering the provincial tribunals to stop sending information to the crown about confiscations. Instead, this information was to be sent to the Suprema, which would decide what if anything should be told to the officials of the treasury.^[144]

The Suprema used a variety of methods to gain a greater measure of control over the income and expenditure of local tribunals. To regulate the activities of receivers or treasurers, a finance committee (junta de hacienda) was established in 1569.^[145] This committee, which consisted of the inquisitors, the receiver, the notary of sequestrations, and the judge of confiscations, met each month to decide financial issues and to review the activities of the receiver who was required to present his accounts and to declare how much of the funds he had collected had actually been deposited in the tribunal treasury.^[146] By the 1570s, the deliberations of the junta de hacienda were being reported to the Suprema on a regular basis, and by the 1620s, it was insisting on a full status report on all financial eases being tried before the tribunal.^[147] Once the receivers' accounts were drawn up, they were audited yearly by the Contador-General of the Suprema.^[148]

The Suprema also showed no compunction about using the information provided by the receivers to tax the wealthier tribunals for the benefit of its own treasury.^[149] That this practice continued right down to the final years of the institution is demonstrated by the series of urgent payment orders sent to the Valencia tribunal between September 1806 and April 15, 1807, in which it was required to send the Suprema a total of 300,000 reales and 470 bolts of cloth.^[150]

In spite of these constraints, however, notorious laxity in the face of official malpractice emboldened local receivers and other financial officials to defy the Suprema and flagrantly disregard the safeguards that had been designed to prevent embezzlement.^[151] Distrust of the accounts rendered by receivers led to a struggle between the Suprema on one side and the local tribunal on the other, but the Suprema's unwillingness to punish the receivers or challenge the

control that a few families exercised over that office meant that its efforts were doomed in advance and that receivers could continue their peculations unmolested until such time as the tribunal's own poverty made further profiteering impossible.

The Suprema's tenderness toward receivers and its reluctance to interrupt the comfortable nepotism that had come to dominate the office is perfectly illustrated in the case of receiver Carlos Albornoz. After experiencing difficulties in obtaining his accounts for 1723 and several other years, the Suprema permitted him to resign in favor of his son in 1727. At this point, he was forced to render his final accounts and disgorge some 6,000 reales that he still owed the treasury. After his account was audited, however, it was found that he still owed the treasury some 6,248 Iliures besides censals collected from several towns but not entered on his books. Efforts to collect these not inconsiderable sums continued until 1734, producing an extensive correspondence and consuming much time and energy. Throughout this seven-year period, no thought was given to punishing him or to ordering the sale of his property so as to cover the debt he owed the treasury, and his son continued to peacefully serve his office.^[152]

According to regulations laid down by the Suprema, receivers were supposed to render their accounts every year so that they could be reviewed by the auditor-general. Receivers were always dilatory about this responsibility, but by 1800, the Suprema seemed to have lost control completely and was forced to engage in a protracted struggle with the Valencia tribunal and its receiver, Francisco Antonio Polop, to obtain his accounts and those of his predecessors dating back to 1785. In the end, Polop flatly refused to forward his own accounts and sent only those of his two predecessors, which occasioned an outburst from the auditor-general who accused Polop of "bad faith" and demanded that he produce the accounts within two months.^[153]

During the early period, the Inquisition derived its income largely from three principal sources: compositions, rehabilitations, and confiscations. Compositions were agreements whereby an individual convicted of heresy, which normally meant the confiscation of his property, could satisfy treasury claims by paying only a certain proportion. Sometimes these agreements were arrived at by the offender himself or sometimes by his heirs, as in the case of Dr.

Luis Esparça who arranged to pay the royal treasury 9,000 Iliures in return for which the Inquisition agreed to drop its efforts to seize the property of his brother Manuel, a convicted heretic.^[154] There were also agreements of a more inclusive nature such as the one arrived at between Ferdinand and the children of the condemned heretics of the Crown of Aragon whereby they could enjoy all the property of the condemned in return for a 5,000 ducat servicio.^[155] In Valencia, compositions tended to diminish in importance after 1500, in part because the conversos themselves had learned to distrust the local tribunal, which frequently violated composition agreements by confiscating the property of those listed on them.^[156]

For the large number of reconciled persons, one of the most fearsome penalties for themselves and their families was deprivation of the right to hold honorable offices. This penalty was the cause of numerous petitions to the pope by the affected individuals and their families and resulted in a series of battles over jurisdiction, until Alexander VI conceded the right to rehabilitate exclusively to the inquisitor-general of Spain.^[157] Rehabilitations then became a fertile source of revenue for the Inquisition.

By far the most significant source of income enjoyed by the Valencia tribunal during its early years was derived from confiscations. The Furs of Valencia followed canon law and medieval custom in prescribing death and confiscation of property as the penalty for heresy, and the early Spanish Inquisition placed heavy emphasis on efforts to seize the property of convicted heretics.^[158] When an individual was arrested, his property was subject to immediate sequestration, and he was expected to cooperate in making an accurate inventory, which was drawn up by the receiver and the notary of sequestration. This list was to be exhaustive, including such things as the amounts he was owed, any dowry he had given or received, even the slaves he owned and their purchase price.^[159] A verdict of innocence would of course involve the return of the sequestered property, but such verdicts were rare, and in many eases sequestration became the equivalent of confiscation because as long as the ease continued, the Inquisition obtained the funds it needed to support the prisoner in captivity from the sale of his property. When the almost inevitable verdict of guilty was reached, the sequestered property was usually sold at public auction.

While confiscation was the chief source of revenue enjoyed by

the Valencia tribunal during its early years, there was always a considerable gap between the amounts stated in the inventory and the actual collections. The main problem here was the inability of the Inquisition to collect the debts owed to the accused. The Inquisition could not proceed arbitrarily against the property of third parties, and it not infrequently lost cases brought before its own judge of confiscated property.^[160]

Concealment of property, the uncertainty and expense of attempting to collect debts owed to converso merchants, and, above all, the decline in the number of cases involving conversos made revenues from confiscations an increasingly unreliable source of support for the Inquisition in the 1530s and 1540s. From 1487 to 1530, the Inquisition received a total of 6,431,517 sueldos primarily from confiscations, but revenues fell drastically from 1529, and from 1530 to 1544, the tribunal collected only 737,188 sueldos.^[161] After 1579, moreover, revenues from confiscations dropped to practically nothing.^[162]

Sharply decreasing income from confiscations meant that the Valencia tribunal was in serious financial trouble from the late 1550s. With conversos no longer comprising even a significant minority of the accused, the tribunal was left with a largely Morisco clientele, some of whom were so poor that the tribunal spent more to feed them while they were in prison than it could hope to recover from the sale of their property. This situation prompted the Suprema to issue an order to the effect that impecunious prisoners were to be dealt with promptly without waiting for an auto de fé in order to avoid the costs of imprisoning them for long periods.^[163]

The situation had changed radically from the halcyon days earlier in the century. According to a letter to the Suprema written by receiver Amador de Aliaga in May 1556, virtually nothing had been received from confiscations recently.^[164] The steep decline in revenues from fines and confiscations plus the heavy burden of indigent Morisco prisoners meant that the tribunal could not even meet its most essential expenses. In August 1556, Aliaga drew up a list showing that the tribunal was behind anywhere from eight months to three years in its salary payments to officials, and he was being forced to loan them money out of his own pocket so that they could feed themselves and their families.^[165] This situation continued into the early and mid-1560s when the new receiver, Bernardino Gutiér-

rez, reported that the tribunal still owed its inquisitors and officials 5,300 escudos.^[166] There seems little reason to doubt this estimate since it was confirmed in a letter concerning the tribunal's financial situation written by the visitors who were carrying on a general investigation into the tribunal's affairs at that time. In their analysis of the reasons for this unfortunate situation, the visitors seem to be echoing the words of Amador de Aliaga several years before. After having carefully reviewed the tribunal's register of autos de fé, the visitors concluded that the sorts of eases that the tribunal was trying were generally of "poca calidad" and that little income could be expected from them. Of the eleven prisoners presently in the "secret prison" (mainly for Lutheranism), all were very poor and had to be supported by the Holy Office.^[167] In light of its manifest poverty, the eagerness with which the tribunal greeted the prospect of seizing the extensive property of Gaspar de Centelles, who was relaxed at the auto of September 17, 1564, is hardly surprising.^[168]

The ultimate solution to the Inquisition's financial problems had already been perceived by Charles V in October 1519 when he urged the tribunals to invest their funds in such a way as to yield a steady source of income. The first steps toward providing the Inquisition with a fixed endowment date from its early years when rental houses as well as long-term loans (censals) were confiscated from wealthy conversos. From 1528, the Valencia tribunal also absorbed the revenues of the former mosques and began purchasing new censals situated on Morisco and Old Christian villages.^[169] The arrival of Inquisitor-General Fernando de Valdés in 1547 marked a watershed in inquisitorial finance, and his determination to give the Inquisition a firm basis for its existence and make it independent of the royal treasury led him to throw his full support behind the policy of acquiring new censals. This policy was followed by his successors who repeatedly insisted on the reinvestment of any monies derived from the redemption of censals.^[170] Under this prodding, the tribunal greatly increased its holdings, especially at the end of the sixteenth century and during the first years of the seventeenth century. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, this policy was paying off handsomely, and the average income from censals in 1604 was at a level more than four times greater than it had been in 1529.^[171]

The other important new revenue source that was, at least in

part, a product of Fernando de Valdés's efforts on behalf of the institution that he headed was the setting aside of the income of one canonry in each cathedral or collegiate church in favor of the Inquisition. A papal bull issued by the compliant Pope Alexander VI in 1501 had already permitted the Inquisition this right, but successive popes refused to confirm it. It was not until Philip II came to the throne, and the discovery of Protestant elements in Spain itself pointed to the need for a more powerful Inquisition, that Pope Paul IV could be induced to issue the briefs that would allow for the implementation of this policy.^[172] In January 1559, Paul ordered that the first canonry in each metropolitan church, cathedral, or collegiate church to become vacant should be suppressed in favor of the Inquisition. In spite of tenacious resistance by some cabildos in its district, the Valencia tribunal was able to boast of receiving the income from benefices in the five most important churches in the district by November 1566.^[173]

The third major change in the tribunal's finances was the result of an agreement with representatives of the Morisco community which provided the tribunal with a substantial subsidy in return for abstaining from confiscating Morisco property. This agreement, which was signed in 1571, had a long gestation period going back to the tribunal's frustration with the comparative poverty of convicted Morisco heretics in the 1550s and 1560s and opposition to the policy of confiscation that had been voiced by cathedral canons and other members of Valencia's ruling elite. By 1563-64, Inquisitors Sotomayor and Aguilera were petitioning the Suprema for its support for a substantial subsidy from the Morisco community.^[174] Several years of negotiations followed during which the tribunal found itself embroiled with the nobility and the aristocratic estate in the Cortes before the issue was finally resolved in its favor. The agreement, which provided a subsidy of some 2,500 Iliures, was less than the tribunal had originally sought but still gave it 42.7 percent of its income in the late sixteenth century.^[175]

Greatly aided by these important new revenue sources, the tribunal's balance sheet improved drastically after 1565. By 1566, collection of the canonries in Valencia, Játiva, and Teruel allowed the tribunal to bring all salary payments up to date.

By the late 1580s, the Inquisition's new financial policy seemed

to have paid off handsomely. The account of receiver Benito Sanguino for 1587-88 shows a favorable balance of 100,663 sueldos, with all salaries paid in full through August 1588.^[176] No longer dependent on the unstable income from confiscations, the tribunal's finances seemed solidly based on assured revenues that would have been the envy of any local rentier. In one respect, however, the new revenue base was more precarious than the old since the Inquisition's economic health was now heavily dependent on the general prosperity of the Valencian economy as a whole and on the survival of the Moriscos whose cheap labor was one of its strongest elements. Even as the income from the Morisco subsidy, canonries, and censals grew during the 1570s and 1580s, declining agricultural and industrial production and the increasing political and social pressure against the Moriscos were threatening to undermine the whole basis of the new system.^[177]

Given the tribunal's dependence on the economy and its increasing investments in censals paid by nobles like the duke of Gandía who was himself heavily dependent on his Morisco vassals, the expulsion of the Moriscos could hardly fail to have a severe financial impact. The most immediate effect was the loss of revenues directly connected with the Morisco presence: subsidies, fines, and the censals paid by Morisco villages. The tribunal's financial problems were further exacerbated by the crown's policy of protecting the Valencian nobility from its creditors. In a report filed on October 26, 1615, the Suprema's prosecuting attorney painted a gloomy picture of the tribunal's situation and noted that royal protection was preventing it from foreclosing on several censals owed by the duke of Gandía.^[178] The reduction in the interest paid on censals was a further blow to large censal holders and elicited widespread but ineffectual protests from lenders, including the Inquisition.^[179]

In the last analysis, Philip III's government was not prepared to sacrifice the Inquisition even in the interest of its local aristocratic allies. In a step that mirrored previous royal policies of bailing out the Holy Office with revenues drawn from the Spanish church, the crown interceded with the Pope to obtain 3,158 Iliures in additional income for the tribunal, drawn from the endowment of the now-defunct Morisco colleges. The colleges, which were originally set up by Archbishop Juan de Ribera, enjoyed an endowment drawn from censals owned by the archbishopric. These censals were

turned over to the Inquisition in exchange for a group of now-worthless censals owned by the tribunal and situated on several Morisco villages.^[180] Bowing to further pressure from the tribunal, Philip III also moved to indemnify it for its losses by making it a substantial grant drawn from the proceeds of sales of ex-Morisco property located in the royal patrimony. Finally, under the new administration of Philip IV, the crown partially reversed its previous policies regarding aristocratic debtors and ordered the duke of Gandía's estate to repay some 6,949 Iliures in principal and 2,200 Iliures in accumulated interest to the Holy Office.^[181]

Royal largess and the extremely favorable treatment accorded the Inquisition in the matter of aristocratic debt made for a rapid recovery after the financial uncertainties of the immediate postexpulsion period. Favorable balances and the redemption of censals in the 1620s and 1630s also allowed the tribunal to acquire new censals.^[182] But income from censals and canonries, which had become the financial mainstay of the tribunal, depended heavily on Valencian agriculture, which had been undermined by the expulsion of the Moriscos. By the 1660s, income had fallen to one quarter of its peak in 1608-09, and by 1687, revenues had fallen to their lowest level of the century.^[183] The widespread economic disruption that was caused by the War of Succession and the invasion of the kingdom by foreign troops in 1706 only confirmed the tribunal's financial decadence.^[184]

Rising population and the recovery of the Valencian economy after the War of Succession, however, brought an improvement in the financial condition of all institutions whose income depended largely on agricultural rent. The Valencia tribunal was one of these beneficiaries, and the mid-eighteenth century ushered in a "golden age" of financial plenty that was to last until the wars of the 1790s brought on the final crisis of the Spanish Old Regime.

If, during its early years, the Spanish Inquisition can be said to have resembled its medieval predecessor in more than a few respects, by the 1560s, it had evolved into a substantially different institution. No longer dependent on traditional sources of financial support, it had acquired its own revenue base derived from investments in censals, real estate, and canonries. Morever, as Peña's marginal notes to his 1578 edition of Eymerich's Directorium inquisitorum indicate, the Holy Office had evolved its own proce-

dures that were derived from its experience with a deviant population far larger and more complex than that encountered by the medieval tribunal. By the mid-sixteenth century, the prestige of the Inquisition as a judicial institution had never stood higher, so much so that it frequently received testimony from persons who came to denounce themselves. Fear of persecution and an oppressive and pervasive system of informants had something to do with this, of course, but so too did public esteem for an institution that had successfully established itself as a strong defender of the faith, the monarchy, and the established order.