ducats vellon-but the final remark of the Suprema shows the incurable prodigality of Philip, even in his deepest distress, for it quietly adds that none of this is available because it had all been granted by royal decree to Don Pedro Pacheco, a member of the Suprema.1

We are told that when, in 1643, Arce y Reynoso assumed the inquisitor-generalship, he recognized that there were too many supernumeraries and that he prohibited the sale of offices until further orders. If so, the intermission was but temporary, for a royal decree of 1648 shows that it was still going on, and, in 1710, we happen to hear of the sale in Valencia of a notariat del juzgado for four lives for 16,000 reales. In 1715 the tribunal of Peru seems to have been doing a little business of the kind on its own account, which the Suprema promptly stopped, stigmatizing it as simoniacal. This probably indicates that it had ceased in Spain, but the custom of selling for three or four lives seems to have been conducive to longevity, for many continued to be thus held until late in the eighteenth century. An investigation ordered, in 1783, into the records concerning them, indicates that there were still survivors, or at least claimants, whose titles were to be scrutinized.*

It was impossible to get rid of those who held offices under these grants for successive lives, but efforts were made to reduce the numbers of the class that had not been put up at auction. In 1677, Valladares represented to Carlos II that the income of the Inquisition did not meet more than half the expenses for salaries, prisons, etc., wherefore he recommended that, as vacancies occurred, the offices should be suppressed until, in the busiest tribunals, there should not be more than three inquisitors, a fiscal and four secretaries, while in the smaller ones two inquisitors, a fiscal and three secretaries would suffice. The king assented and the plan was enlarged by leaving unfilled other superfluous places. Like other reforms, this was not permanent. In 1695 Carlos caused Rocaberti to investigate the personnel of the tribunals

1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 35, fol. 249.

2 Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 3, n. 7, fol. 40; Leg. 4, n. 2, fol. 137; Leg. 9, n. 2, fol. 243.-Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, fol. 146.MSS. of Royal Library of Copenhagen, 218b, pp. 300-1.

MSS. Bibl. nacional de Lima, Protocolo 225, Expediente 5278.

Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 16, n. 5, fol. 69; n. 6, fol. 23.

and to enforce the regulations of 1677. About 1705, Philip V, in his attempted reform, instituted a searching examination into the increase in numbers and salaries since the time of Arce y Reynoso and of Rocaberti, and the Inquisitor-general Vidal Marin again put in force the schedule of 1677, which continued to be, nominally at least, the rule. At intervals, as in 1714, 1728 and 1733, inquiries were made and reports were ordered from the tribunals, doubtless with a view to see that the limitations were observed for, under the Bourbons, the Inquisition was held to an accountability much stricter than of old.'

We have seen the futile effort of Philip V, in 1743, to reduce the overgrown numbers of officials in the Santa Cruzada and Inquisition. It was possibly in connection with this that Prado y Cuesta, on his accession in 1746, demanded from all tribunals detailed reports as to all officials and their salaries, stating any vacancies or supernumeraries, and whether there were more familiars than were allowed by the Concordias. The answers to this ought to give a complete census of the Holy office. In the Appendix will be found a table compiled from these returns and also the report from Murcia, at that time one of the most active of the tribunals, which give a tolerably clear inside view of existing conditions. These documents represent an institution which had outlived its purpose, rapidly falling into decadence, no longer commanding popular veneration and chiefly useful as a refuge for those who were content to live on a miserable pittance in virtual idleness. The diminished number of consultors indicates, as we shall see hereafter, that the consulta de fe was falling into desuetude, while the army of calificadores points to the fact that the chief business consisted in the censorship of the press and the prosecution of propositions requiring theologians to define them. The irregularity in the number of commissioners is explained by the Murcia report which shows that, for the most part, they were omitted from the statements, but it is not so easy to understand the absence of alguazils, of whom at least one would seem to be necessary to each tribunal. There are many honorary officials and others serving without pay, while still others are jubilado or retired, especially among the secretaries and, where there are two receivers, one is jubilado or absent.

Archivo de Alcalá, Hacienda, Leg. 5442 (Lib. 10); Estado, Leg. 2843.— Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 10, n. 2, fol. 155; Leg. 12, n. 2, fol. 128; Leg. 13, n. 2, fol. 180; Leg. 14, n. 1, fol. 133; n. 2, fol. 77.

The paucity of keepers of penitential prisons shows that that punishment had become practically obsolete. With the absence of confiscations the juez de bienes has disappeared, except in Majorca. The blanks in the returns of familiars, although information concerning them had specially demanded, may be due either to the tribunals keeping no registers of them, or to concealment of the fact that the numbers allowed by the Concordias were exceeded. That there were serious omissions, indeed is proved when we consider that the total aggregate reported is only 951, while the census of 1769 gives 2645 as the number of those admitted to exemption through connection with the Inquisition. During the interval between this and the next census in 1787, strenuous and successful efforts were made to diminish the number of exempts, in spite of which the employees of the Inquisition had increased to 2705.1

Surveying the table as a whole it will be perceived that the higher offices of inquisitors and secretaries had rather increased than diminished from the standard set by Valladares in 1667. Yet there was virtually no serious work for them to do. Their predecessors had successfully enforced unity of faith and little remained except to repress all freedom of thought and aspiration for improvement. How they earned their salaries by laborious trifling is exemplified, in 1808, when three inquisitors and an inquisitor-fiscal of the Valencia tribunal pottered for eighteen months over the case of a poor laboring woman accused of "supersticiones," because she had suggested certain charms to some of her neighbors, and finally concluded to suspend it and to order her parish priest to reprimand and threaten her.'

The tribunals were constantly complaining of their penury and of the inadequacy of the salaries, doubtless with reason, but the pressure for appointment precluded the wholesome reduction in numbers which would have afforded relief. It was probably with a view to some practical re-adjustment that the Suprema repeatedly, in 1776, 1783, 1793 and 1806 called upon the tribunals. for full and exact reports of all employees. If so, the only result was a trifling increase in the salaries of the lower officials, averaging about fourteen per cent., leading to a complaint, in 1798,

3

1 Censo español en el año de 1787 (Madrid, Imprenta Real).

2 Proceso contra Rosa Conejos (MS. penes me).

3 Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 15, n. 11, fol. 31; Leg. 16, n. 6, fol. 34; n. 9, fol. 18; Leg. 17, n. 3, fol. 4.

repeated in 1802, that the pay of the secretaries and messenger -the hardest worked of all the officials-had remained unchanged for a hundred years, while the cost of living had quadrupled and they had been deprived of their old exemptions and emoluments. It took, as the Valencia tribunal declared, half of their salaries to rent a decent house, which would seem to show that they were no longer furnished with dwellings.1

The excess of officials is emphasized by the fact that the Inquisition was empowered to call upon every individual for gratuitous service. Its commissioners were told that, if there was no appointed notary available, he could make another one serve and, when he summoned any one to accompany him on duty, even to a distant place, if the party refused to go he was to report the fact to the tribunal that it might take the proper steps.' Temporary commissions were constantly sent to the parish priest or to a canon, even when their names were unknown, with instructions as to what they were required to do. As the real work of the tribunals diminished there was an increasing habit of deputing what remained to outsiders. Inquisitors, who did not decide more than five or six trivial cases in a year, were too indolent to investigate denunciations or examine witnesses and would issue a commission to some priest or friar to do the work for them. They spared their subordinates in the same way. Thus, in 1791, at Barcelona, there was some reason for identifying a man described as Alexandre Valle, sergeant in the second battalion of the Walloon guards. In place of sending one of the underlings of the tribunal on so simple an errand, a formal commission was made out to Francisco Lluc, Augustinian prior, who in due time reported that he had found him in the sixth battalion.* If the salaries were trivial so was the work which earned them.

3

Offices were virtually held for life, although the commissions technically expired with the death or removal of the grantor, for we have seen that, with each change in the inquisitor-generalship, 1 Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 4, n. 3, fol. 166, 260; Leg. 16, n. 9, fol. 34.

2 Instruccion que han de guardar los Comisarios.

3 As early as 1680 this is observable in the Toledo trial of Angela Pérez (MS. penes me). In 1728 it seems to be customary in Valencia (Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 390). I have even met with a case in which the commission was merely verbal (Ibidem, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 228, n. 28), MSS. of Am. Philos. Society.

the new incumbent renewed them and the interregnum was bridged over by the action of the Suprema. This did not cover the financial officials, who held from the crown and the same process was required on a change of sovereigns. Thus, when Philip II died, in 1598, the Suprema made haste to inform the tribunals that Philip III confirmed all the judges of confiscations, receivers and auditors. Thus the incumbents came to regard themselves as holding vested rights in their offices and in fact were technically called "proprietors" of them, a corollary to which was to consider them as property, subject to hereditary transmission or to transactions more or less disguised.

A tendency to nepotism seems to have manifested itself early, for the Instructions of 1498 forbid the appointment, in any tribunal, of a kinsman or servant of the inquisitors or of any other official. The force of this was weakened, in 1531, by a decision of the Suprema that the deputy of the receiver of Valencia was not an official in the sense of the prohibition-a decision which opened the door to hereditary transmission by enabling fathers to introduce their sons as deputies in their offices, as we have seen in the case of Géronimo Zurita. Still, the prohibition was held to be in force and, in the instructions to visitors, one of the points to be investigated was whether two members of a family were employed in a tribunal. Like all other wholesome rules, however, there was no hesitation in violating it. When the tribunal of Lima was established in 1570, it was specifically called to the attention of the inquisitors, but they had scarce been installed when a letter from Secretary Vázquez ordered them to appoint Pedro de Bustamente, brother of one of them, to any office for which he was fitted, and he was duly made notary of sequestrations.*

Hereditary transmission seems to have been favored from an early period. In 1498, we find Ferdinand not only approving the resignation of Pedro Lazaro, alguazil of Barcelona, in favor of his son Dionisio, but increasing the salary of the latter because he is a person who cannot live upon the regular stipend. So, in

1 Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 5, n. 2, fol. 27, 46, 163. 2 Arguello, fol. 13.

3 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 76, fol. 394.

Ibidem, Inquisicion de Canarias, Visitas, Leg. 250, Lib. 1, fol. 7, 844, 935-6. -Modo de Proceder, fol. 62 (Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 122).

5 MSS. of Bibl. nacional de Lima, Protocolo 223, Expediente 5270.