A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2Lea, Henry Charles
History
A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition -- Spain
Meanwhile the masses of papers had been accumulating more rapidly than
ever. In 1570 the Suprema had ordered nine books to be kept--one of the
commissions of officials, their oaths and royal provisions, one of
commissioners and familiars with full details, one of the votes in the
consultas de fe, one of letters from the Suprema and another of letters
to it, one recording the inspections made of the prisons, one of the
orders issued on the receiver, one of the pecuniary penances inflicted
and one of the autos de fe, with statements as to the culprits and their
punishments. Besides these the alcaide of the prison was to keep lists
of those relaxed and penanced with three indexes. All this was exclusive
of the voluminous records of the trials which it was the duty of the
fiscal to keep in order.[760] Then, in order to accommodate the
increasing bulk, it was ordered, in 1566 and 1572, that there should be
four apartments in the camara del secreto, one for pending cases, one
for suspended ones, one for those finished, divided into the relaxed,
the reconciled and the penanced, and the fourth for papers concerning
commissioners and familiars and _informaciones de limpieza_.[761] In
1635, alphabetical lists of all persons tried were ordered to be kept,
with dates and references to the papers of the case, commencing with
1620. The order had to be repeated in 1636 and 1638, with further
instructions in 1644, and these lists furnished additional means for
tracing the antecedents and kindred of those who were brought before the
tribunals.[762] But more potent than the mandates of the Suprema to keep
the archives in order and thoroughly indexed was the mania which arose
for limpieza, or purity of blood which, as we shall see hereafter,
pervaded all classes and furnished a source of very profitable business
to the officials, for the Inquisition was the ultimate arbiter and its
records contained the evidence.
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