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were also sometimes reckoned as officials, for their duties in repairing the prisons were confidential. All tribunals moreover had from one to three abogados de presos or advocates of prisoners, whose duties will claim consideration hereafter; they were classed as salaried officials, though sometimes they received a small stipend and sometimes none, and they were allowed to serve other clients if they had any.

Besides these officials who were concerned in the primary business of the tribunal as a bulwark of the faith, there were others whose functions may be briefly dismissed here. The finances necessarily required a special organization, consisting of a receiver of confiscations, subsequently called the treasurer, whose duties in the active period were of the utmost importance, entitling him to a salary which sometimes was even larger than that of the inquisitors. The fines and penances also amounted to large sums for which, in the earlier period, there was usually a special receiver, for they were kept as a separate fund, but finally they likewise passed through the hands of the treasurer. The receiver had to pay his own assistants and agents but, in the enormous amount of complicated business thrown upon him, he was aided by the abogado fiscal, a salaried official of legal training, while the notary of sequestrations had charge of sequestrated property until its confiscation was pronounced, and further served as a check upon the receiver. The intricate claims arising from these seizures were settled in a separate court of confiscations, known as the juzgado, presided over by the juez de bienes or judge of confiscations and furnished with its notary and nuncio. We sometimes also meet with a procurador del fisco and also with a superintendent of property. All this, which, especially at first, formed so large a part of the business of the Inquisition, will be more conveniently considered in detail hereafter.

We have seen how much of the activity of the tribunals was consumed in the civil and criminal business of their officials, and it necessarily formed a separate department, which had its notario de lo civil and secretario de las causas civiles, the latter office being suppressed in 1643.2

The qualifications for holding office in the tribunal were simple. From some of the cases of hereditary transmission it would appear

1 Archivo gen. de la C. de Aragon, Regist. 3684, fol. 64.

Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 9, n. 3, fol. 123, 166.

that the minimum age was nineteen or twenty. Limpieza, or purity of blood from admixture of Jewish or Moorish or heretic strain, was the chief essential, as will be seen when we come to consider that important subject. Legitimacy was also a requisite in both the official and his wife, although dispensations could be had for its absence. By a carta acordada of June 15, 1608, those who were unmarried could not marry without permission of the Suprema; they were obliged to furnish proof that the bride was limpia and, if a foreigner or the daughter or grand-daughter of foreigners, a dispensation was necessary, of all of which the appointee was solemnly notified when he took the oath of office.2

There was also a well-intended informacion de moribus concerning applicants for office. When the inquisitor-general proposed to make an appointment in a tribunal he notified it; it then issued a commission to some one at the residence of the nominee, with an interrogatory asking whether he was a person modest, quiet, peaceable, of correct life and habits and what was known as to his limpieza, which, when returned, was forwarded to the inquisitor-general. As the witnesses examined were, however, presented by the applicant, the whole was scarce more than a formality.3

In spite of the constant complaint of the meagreness of the salaries, they seem to have been fairly adequate, at least during the first century and a half of the existence of the Inquisition. The rapid fall in the purchasing power of the precious metals necessitated frequent advances and I have met with allusions to these in 1548, 1567, 1581, and 1606, after which they seem to have remained stationary until 1795, although the vellon coinage reduced still further the value of the currency. The salary of an inquisitor, which, in 1541, was 100,000 maravedís, including ayuda de costa, by 1606 had become 300,000 or 800 ducats. This was not extravagant, but was fairly remunerative. In 1630,

Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 12, n. 1, fol. 46, 48, 61, 108.

Ibidem, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 498; Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 6, n. 2, fol. 217.-Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 942, fol. 64.

Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 498.

Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Sala 40, Lib. 4, fol. 169; Lib. 979, fol. 21, 25, 139.--Bibl. nacional, MSS., Ii, 16.-Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Cartas del Consejo, Leg. 10, n. 9, fol. 34.

Arce y Reynoso, when occupying one of the highest professorships in Salamanca, as catedratico de prima de leyes, received only 300 ducats.1 It must be borne in mind that most of the lower officials had a comfortable additional source of revenue from the fees which they were entitled to charge for nearly all their work outside of cases of faith and, when the arancel or feebill of 1642 sought to regulate these charges it was generally disregarded and the inspectors winked at its violation, charitably alleging the increased cost of living as an excuse. The inquisitors and fiscal, on their side, usually held some canonry or other benefice which served to make good all deficiencies. In fact towards the middle of the eighteenth century, when the salaries had become really inadequate, a writer ascribes the inefficiency of the Inquisition to the fact that the inquisitors-general were obliged to appoint ignorant men who happened to possess prebends or other benefices.3

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2

There were also the gratifications for house-rent, illuminations, bull-fights and mourning, which the officials of the tribunals enjoyed, like those of the Suprema, although not on so liberal a scale, while the ayudas de costa replaced the propinas. There was also a kindly liberality in granting extra ayudas de costa to those in need and to their widows and children when they died. Applications of this kind were perpetual and innumerable; they were made to the Suprema, which naturally found little difficulty in being charitable at the expense of others. It would be needless to enumerate examples of what was of such constant occurrence and these liberalities, together with the exemptions and the economies in the cost of the necessaries of life, rendered the financial position of the officials reasonably secure. Perhaps the resources of the tribunals might have justified larger salaries if they had not been drawn upon to supply the extravagance of the Suprema and been squandered on other objects with careless profusion characteristic of the age. Thus, in 1633, a Doctor Pastor de Costa, of the Royal Council of Catalonia, obtained from Inquisitor-general Zapata, on the plea of services rendered by his father, a grant of a hundred ducats a year, in silver, on the tri

1 Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, fol. 146, n. 49.

2 Ibidem, D, 150, fol. 1.

' Ibidem, Mm, 130.

Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 9, n. 1, fol. 410; Leg. 309, Cuentas, fol. 4; Leg. 371; Leg. 372.

Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Leg. 1479, 1480.

bunal of Barcelona. Doubtless it was suspended during the Catalan revolt to be subsequently resumed and, in 1665, he applied to Arce y Reynoso to confirm it to him for life, but Arce only ordered it to be continued for four years. Not content with this, he asked for an ayuda de costa on the ground of his poverty.1 It is not surprising that Philip V, as we have seen, in his attempted reform of 1705, forbade all grants of over thirty ducats without his confirmation.

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The ayuda de costa, of which we hear so much, was either a more or less definite increase of salary, or a special gift for cause, or else a simple merced or benevolence. While the salary was a matter fixed and due, the ayuda was always to a certain extent arbitrary and was used as an incentive to compel the performance of duties regarded as onerous. We see the germ of it in Torquemada's instructions of 1485, prohibiting fees and bribes, for the king provides a reasonable support for all and in time will give them mercedes." An advance is marked in the Instructions of 1498 where, after specifying salaries, it is added that the inquisitorsgeneral, when they see that there is much labor or necessity, can grant such ayudas de costa as they deem proper. Accordingly about this time, while we find no regular ayudas given, there are constant examples of special ones, sometimes of large amounts, granted for the most varied reasons, of which two or three instances will suffice. Thus Ferdinand, April 30, 1499, in ordering the payment of the salaries in Seville, includes 40,000 maravedís of ayudas de costa for one of the inquisitors, but none for any one else. August 10, 1502, Juan Royz, receiver of Saragossa, is given an ayuda de costa of 10,000 sueldos to meet expenses incurred in illness and, on September 27th, an official of Seville is gratified with 20,000 maravedís to help him in his marriage.'

It cannot have been long after this that the ayuda de costa was becoming a regular annual payment as an increment of the salary. December 3, 1509, an order for the payment of arrears to Diego de Robles, fiscal of the Suprema, speaks of there being due to him his ayuda de costa for 1506 and half of 1507, at the rate of 20,000 maravedís per annum. The first formal statement

1 Libro XIII de Cartas, fol. 20, 21, 26, 27, 28 (MSS. of Am. Philos. Society). 2 Vol. I, Appendix, p. 578. Arguello, fol. 22.

3

• Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 1; Lib. 2, fol. 1, 15.

1

of it as a settled thing, that I have met, occurs in this same year 1509, in the list of salaries made out for the attempted Inquisition of Naples, where the ayuda de costa is designated for each official. It varies from a little over half the salary to considerably below that proportion and for two of the officials there is none. Yet it was not a universal custom for, in the salaries assigned to the Sardinia tribunal, September 10, 1514 there is no allusion to ayuda de costa. That the custom, however, was gradually establishing itself as a substantial addition to the regular salaries is deducible from formal lists of the ayudas de costa of the Suprema and the Valladolid tribunal in 1515 and, by this time, it may be regarded as fairly established, although innumerable special grants continued, such as one of 75,000 maravedís, June 30, 1515, to Alonso de Montoya, notary of the Seville tribunal, to assist in his marriage. Confiscations, at the time, were fruitful, and the laborers were not deprived of their share in the harvest, if only to stimulate their industry. Reimbursements of travelling and other expenses also frequently took the form of ayudas de costa although, as the grants were made in round sums, it is evident that no accounts were rendered and that the payments were arbitrary.3

2

However customary the annual payments had become, they still were regarded as a special grace to which the recipients had no claim of right. In 1540, the officials of Barcelona complained to Inquisitor-general Tavera that the receiver refused payment on the ground that the grant had expired with the death of Manrique, in 1538, and that it required confirmation, which Tavera hastened to give, February 12, 1540. In fact, a number of orders issued by Tavera, in 1540, would indicate that this was the accepted view of the matter. Another marked distinction at this time is that the ayudas de costa are ordered to be paid out of the fines and penances inflicted for the "gastos extraordinarios" of the tribunals, while the salaries come from the funds arising out of the confiscations.

For awhile there was a regular scale of fifty ducats for the inquisitors, thirty for the fiscal, alguazil, notaries and receiver, fifteen for the nuncio and ten for the portero and alcaide but, in 1559, this was increased by twenty per cent. Care was taken to

1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 3, fol. 41, 42, 308.

2 Ibidem, fol. 397, 408, 418.

Ibidem, Libro 9, fol. 140, 194.

Ibidem, Sala 40, Lib. 4, fol. 106, 107, 111, 116, 124.

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