Moriscos enjoyed a special exception. The wholesale enforced conversion of the Moors of Castile in 1502 and of the kingdoms of Aragon in 1525, filled the land with nominal Christians, whose baptism served no other purpose than subjecting them to the Inquisition. They were largely vassals of nobles, to whom their services were indispensable, and to subject whole populations to the penalties of a relapse which was inevitable was a prospect that might well stagger the statesman if not the churchman. In the unsparing rigor of the canon law, escape from this was to be sought only in Rome and, in March, 1510, Ferdinand asked for a bull enabling the converts to avoid the penalties of relapse.[600] The request was doubtless granted and was followed by numerous papal briefs, issued during the remainder of the century, which bore the shape of empowering the inquisitors-general to appoint confessors with power to absolve Morisco penitents with secret absolution and penance, even if they had relapsed repeatedly, or to proclaim terms of grace, during which absolution could be had irrespective of relapse, together with other devices, the futility of all which we shall see hereafter.[601] This was but one of the many attempts to solve the increasing difficulties of the Morisco problem, and its only relation to the general policy of the Inquisition is to prove how easily, when sufficient motive existed, the unsparing cruelty of the canon law could be set aside. Under that law, we can readily conceive how large a portion of the executions were due to relapse. Details are lacking as to the earlier period of activity, but the later records are sufficient to indicate how efficient an agent it was in procuring victims. In the great Madrid auto of 1680, there were eighteen Judaizers relaxed in person, of whom ten were for relapse, six for pertinacity and two for denial or imperfect confession.[602] In the terrible Mallorquin autos of 1691, all the relaxed--thirty-eight in person and seven in effigy--were condemned for relapse, having been reconciled in 1679, and of these only three were burnt alive as pertinacious.[603] At the Granada auto of January 31, 1723, of the eleven Judaizers relaxed, all were relapsed; at that of Cordova, April 23, 1724, seven out of eight were relapsed, and the same was the case with all of the six relaxed in the Cuenca auto of July 23, 1724.[604] In these last three autos only one person was pertinacious; the rest all professed contrition and conversion and would have escaped with reconciliation instead of strangulation had it not been for the rigor in the treatment of relapse. [Sidenote: _RELAPSE_]