an important factor in keeping the Moriscos in subjection. A letter to Philip II. from the inquisitors of Saragossa, June 6, 1585, enclosing a relation of an auto de fe held that day, in which there were five culprits burnt and 63 reconciled, who were nearly all Moriscos, dwells on the service rendered in repressing their insolence; they have been deprived of their leaders, they now seem quiet and obedient and no longer manifest their customary impudence and effrontery.1 The inquisitors also call special attention to their usefulness in another direction, for they take care to point out that they have sent twenty-nine Moriscos to serve in the galleys, besides three left over from the auto de fe of the previous September. Galley slaves were always in demand and although such brutal punishment was usually reserved for specially blasphemous cases of heresy, the Suprema issued orders, May 8, 1573, to send the new converts to the galleys even when they confessed readily and well, a command which it repeated in 1591.2

There doubtless is some truth in the assertion that the terror of the Inquisition was less for the Moriscos than for Spaniards, since the former when punished were naturally regarded by their fellows as martyrs and were consequently held in high esteem. It was for them an honor to appear on the scaffold of an auto de fe and thus the infamy which was one of the severest inflictions accompanying the penances of the Holy Office was ineffective, especially in Morisco communities, where we are told that such martyrs

1 Biblioteca Nacional, Seccion de MSS. PV. 3, No. 20.

2 Archivo Hist. Nacional, Inqn de Valencia, Leg. 5, No. 1, fol. 285, 329. The buen confitente was always regarded as entitled to mitigation of punishment.

were frequently rewarded with rich brides. There is a story of a woman who, when the sanbenito was put on her, asked for another for her child, as the weather was cold. Another story illustrates this and also the care with which all expenses were thrown upon the culprits. A number of Moriscos of Gestalgar were scourged in an auto de fe, after which the executioner went there to collect his fees from his patients; one from whom he demanded payment refused on the ground that he had not been flogged, and on investigation it was found that he had been inadvertently omitted, whereupon the lashes were duly administered, to his great satisfaction.1

Pecuniary penances and confiscation, however, were of another character and were acutely felt, not only by the Moriscos themselves but by their lords, who naturally objected to the impoverishment of their vassals, as they desired to extort all that patient industry could earn, over and above a bare existence. When, after the fall of the Roman Empire, heresy first became the subject of systematic persecution in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, confiscation was one of the penalties decreed for it under the canon law and princes who did not enforce this vigorously were threatened with the censures of the Church. The monarch who profited by the spoliation of his subjects could therefore, strictly speaking, not forego it without papal authorization, leading at times to some curious and intricate questions. Although in Spain, as elsewhere, the confiscations enured to the royal fisc and in the earlier times of Ferdinand and Isabella they had

1 Bleda Defensio Fidei, p. 98; Crónica, p. 883.-Fonseca, p. 85. 2 Cap. 10 Extra, V. vii.-Innoc. P.P. IV. Bull. Cum fratres (Bullar. Roman. I. 90).

been a source of large income, as they diminished in amount they had practically been diverted to the Inquisition, which was always pleading poverty, and little attention was paid to the degrading spectacle of judges pronouncing sentences in which they were personally interested as a source from which their salaries were to be paid. Fines, or pecuniary penances as they were euphemistically termed, occupied virtually the same position. In the early days of the Spanish Inquisition they were its perquisite; then the crown claimed and took them, but finally the Inquisition recovered them by the device of imposing them for its extraordinary expenses.

In the kingdoms of Castile there was no question as to the applicability of all this to the Moriscos, but in those of Aragon it was different. This was especially the case in Valencia, where the Moriscos were most numerous and the interest of the nobles and gentry in them was greatest. The earliest fuero, granted by Jayme I. after the conquest, provided that in case of condemnation to death for heresy, treason or other crime, the allodial lands and personal property of the offender should be confiscated to the king, but feudal lands or those held under a censo or rent-charge, or other service, should revert to the lord. When the new Inquisition was established, it paid no attention to this and, in 1488, the ecclesiastics and nobles in the cortes of Orihuela complained to Ferdinand and demanded its observance to which he assented. This proved nugatory, for the Inquisition continued to confiscate and, in the cortes of 1510, the nobles repeated the complaint and asked that he should compound for the lands illegally obtained and that purchasers should be compelled to pay all rent-charges and fines for transfer, to all of which he

gave his assent. This was as ineffectual as the previous promises and, in 1533, the complaint was repeated in the cortes of Monzon; it was the lords and the churches that suffered by the confiscation imposed on their vassals ; only corporal punishments should be inflicted, not pecuniary ones, and some compromise should be reached as to past infractions of the fuero to be determined by a commission. To this the reply was equivocal; there was no confiscation and, please God, with the efforts now on foot for the instruction of the new converts, there will be no necessity for it in future, but, if there should be, provision will be made to protect the lords, and meanwhile a commission can decide what is just as to the past.1

The next year, at Saragossa, Charles issued a solemn pragmatica for Aragon in which, after consultation with the inquisitor-general and Suprema, he promulgated as a law to be inviolably observed that, if any of the new converts should commit apostasy requiring confiscation, the property should be made over to the legal Catholic heirs, or in default of such be distributed in accordance with the intestate laws of Aragon, and perpetual silence was imposed on the royal fisc which was declared to have no claim, and all this without prejudice to the lords of the culprits. This he swore to publicly with his hand on the gospel and ordered its enforcement by his son Philip and all royal officials.2

1 Coleccion de Doc. ined. XVIII. 106-13.—Archivo de Simancas, Patronato Real, Legajo unico, fol. 37.

2 Archivo de Simancas, Inqn, Libro 939, fol. 9.

A brief of Paul III., under date of 1536, asks Charles to adopt exactly this policy and habilitates the descendants of offenders to hold such property. There may be a mistake in the date, and it may have given the impulse to Charles. In any event it was practically a papal

been a source of large income, as they diminished in amount they had practically been diverted to the Inquisition, which was always pleading poverty, and little attention was paid to the degrading spectacle of judges pronouncing sentences in which they were personally interested as a source from which their salaries were to be paid. Fines, or pecuniary penances as they were euphemistically termed, occupied virtually the same position. In the early days of the Spanish Inquisition they were its perquisite; then the crown claimed and took them, but finally the Inquisition recovered them by the device of imposing them for its extraordinary expenses.

In the kingdoms of Castile there was no question as to the applicability of all this to the Moriscos, but in those of Aragon it was different. This was especially the case in Valencia, where the Moriscos were most numerous and the interest of the nobles and gentry in them was greatest. The earliest fuero, granted by Jayme I. after the conquest, provided that in case of condemnation to death for heresy, treason or other crime, the allodial lands and personal property of the offender should be confiscated to the king, but feudal lands or those held under a censo or rent-charge, or other service, should revert to the lord. When the new Inquisition was established, it paid no attention to this and, in 1488, the ecclesiastics and nobles in the cortes of Orihuela complained to Ferdinand and demanded its observance to which he assented. This proved nugatory, for the Inquisition continued to confiscate and, in the cortes of 1510, the nobles repeated the complaint and asked that he should compound for the lands illegally obtained and that purchasers should be compelled to pay all rent-charges and fines for transfer, to all of which he