Insanity was of much greater moment. The insane were recognized as irresponsible and were sent to hospitals. It was not infrequently pleaded, and the tribunals were constantly on the watch to protect themselves against deception, yet it was long before definite rules were adopted with regard to the matter. In the enlightened view taken by the Inquisition regarding witchcraft, instructions of 1537 indicate a disposition to regard reputed witches as insane; whenever the inquisitors considered this to be the case, all acts and words leading to such conclusion were to be scrupulously detailed in the records. Barcelona at the time had on hand a witch named Juana Rosquells, whom the physician and consultors considered to be out of her mind; not knowing what to do they referred to the Suprema, which ordered her discharge and somewhat inconsistently required her to be put under bail.[161] Even more tentative was the case of Toledo, in 1541, of Juan García, a day-laborer, favored with revelations of the wildest kind. In his audiences he replied unintelligibly to the questions asked and, when the case came before the consulta de fe, it summoned him and asked whether he would take a hundred lashes or confinement in a hospital. He very sensibly declined both, and the session terminated with a vote that his sanity be investigated. This was done in the most superficial way, the consulta de fe when reassembled voted to acquit him, with a warning that if he persisted in his wild talk he should have a hundred lashes, whether insane or not. He was accordingly told to be gone in God's name.[162] There evidently was as yet no method prescribed for dealing with such cases and it is somewhat remarkable that the Instructions of 1561 allude only to those, by no means infrequent, in which prisoners became demented during trial, and in these it is only ordered that they be provided with a curador, which infers that the trial was to be continued.[163] In conformity with this, at Granada, in 1665, a prisoner who had become insane after confessing, was furnished with a curador under whose auspices the case was carried to conclusion. He was condemned as a heretic and his property was confiscated; as he had confessed and begged for mercy while still in his senses, he was absolved from censures so that he might enjoy the suffrages of the Church, while as to the penances requiring sanity for their performance, such as reconciliation, abjuration, exile, etc., their determination was postponed till he should regain his reason.[164] When madness occurred after conviction and sentence, Peña tells us that the execution should be postponed until the reason is restored, for perhaps the culprit may repent and he is sufficiently punished by the madness. Even when it is feigned this should be done, for it is a less evil that the crime should be unpunished than to destroy his soul by putting him to death impenitent. In any event confiscation is to be enforced.[165]