The fiscal advocate, or prosecutor of the tribunal, prepared his case against Yucé Franco, and on December 17, 1490, he came before the court at the audience of vespers to open the prosecution. CHAPTER XXI THE TRIAL OF YUCÉ FRANCO The Fiscal, D. Alonso de Guevára, announces to their Reverend Paternities that his denunciation of Yucé Franco is prepared, and he solicits them to order the prisoner to be brought into the audience-chamber that he may hear it read. The apparitor of the court introduces the accused into the presence of the inquisitors and their notary, to whom Guevára now hands his formal accusation. This the notary proceeds to read. Thus: “Most Reverend and Virtuous Sirs,--I, Alonso de Guevára, Bachelor of Law, Fiscal Prosecutor of the Holy Inquisition in this City and Diocese of Avila, appear before your Reverend Paternities in the manner by law prescribed, to denounce Yucé Franco, Jew, of the neighbourhood of Tenbleque, who is present. “Not content that, in common with all other Jews, he is humanely permitted to abide and converse with the faithful and Catholic Christians, he did induce and attract some Christians to his accursed Law with false and deceptive doctrines and suggestions, telling them that the Law of Moses is the true one, in which there is salvation, and that the Law of Jesus Christ is a false and fictitious Law never imposed or decreed by God. “And with infidel and depraved soul he went with some others to crucify a Christian boy, one Good Friday, almost in the manner and with that hatred and cruelty with which the Jews, his ancestors, crucified our Redeemer Jesus Christ, mocking and spitting upon him, striking and wounding him with the aim of vituperating and deriding our Holy Catholic Faith and the Passion of our Saviour Jesus Christ. “Item, he contrived, as principal, together with others, to obtain a consecrated Host to be outraged and mocked in vituperation and contempt of our Holy Catholic Faith, and because amongst the other Jews--accomplices in the said crime--there were certain sorcerers who on the day of their Passover of unleavened bread were to commit enchantments with the said Host and the heart of a Christian boy. And if this were done, as said, all Christians were to enrage and die. The intention moving them was that the Law of Moses should be more widely kept and honoured, its rites and precepts and ceremonies more freely solemnized, that the Christian Religion should perish and be subverted, and that they, themselves, should become possessed of all the property of the Catholic and Faithful Christians, and there should be none to interfere with their perverse errors, and their generation should grow and multiply upon the earth, that of the Faithful Christians being entirely extirpated. “Item, he committed other crimes concerning the Holy Office of the Holy Inquisition, as I shall state and allege in the course of these proceedings as far as I may consider necessary.