1. This article was first published in French as “La cause de foi dans l’Inquisition espagnole. Entre droit et repentance,” Annales HSS 78, no. 1 (2023): 5–33. It is part of the results of the ARQUS University Alliance project “Injecting Legality,” carried out by the Université de Lyon, the Universidad de Granada, and the University of Bergen (2020–2021).

2. The Spanish Inquisition (officially known at the time as the Holy Office of the Inquisition) was an ecclesiastical court, under the indirect control of the state, in charge of prosecuting “heretics”—in this case baptized Christians who did not fully accept the teachings of the Catholic Church. Its jurisdiction extended over Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia, along with the Spanish colonies in the Americas and the Philippines. It was overseen by the Council of the Supreme and General Inquisition, or Suprema, headed by an inquis- itor general, himself a commissioner of the pope. It was represented at the local level by some twenty district tribunals, which, as well as maintaining an extensive day-to-day correspondence, sent the Council regular reports on their activity (the relaciones de causas). The archives of most local tribunals have not survived. The few that have been pre- served (notably in the inquisitorial districts of Toledo, Cuenca, Mexico, the Canaries, and Zaragoza) still contain thousands of original files, but many have nevertheless been lost. The relaciones de causas are the only sources that offer a broader idea of the Inquisition’s activity as an institution. See Bartolomé Bennassar, with Catherine Brault-Noble et al., L’Inquisition espagnole, xv–xix^e siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1979).

3. Jaime Contreras and Gustav Henningsen, “Forty-Four Thousand Cases of the Spanish Inquisition (1540–1700): Analysis of a Historical Data Bank,” in The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe: Studies on Sources and Methods, ed. Gustav Henningsen and John Tedeschi, with Charles Amiel (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1986), 100–129; Jean- Pierre Dedieu and René Millar Carvacho, “Entre histoire et mémoire. L’Inquisition à l’époque moderne: dix ans d’historiographie,” Annales HSS 57, no. 2 (2002): 349–72.

4. At the time of writing, the EMID contains more than 108,000 entries with information on 100,000 trials from Portugal and Spain. Publication of the first version of the database is expected in 2023: https://emid.h.uib.no/.

5. These were punishments imposed ipso facto by canon law against heretics, even secret ones: excommunication, suspension from religious orders, and interdict (exclusion from the sacraments, including Christian burial).

6. Ad cautelam can be translated as “as a precaution” or “just in case.” This phrase has caused considerable confusion, and does not in itself indicate an absolution or acquittal. Rather, it refers to the cautious lifting “as a precaution” of all ecclesiastical censures the defendant might have incurred—though without specifying them.

7. Since defendants could in principle be either male or female, this article uses the singular “they.” Nevertheless, it should be noted that more than 75 percent of defendants mentioned in the sources compiled for the EMID were male.

8. A full list is provided in appendix 2 below.

9. E. William Monter calls these “pro-forma appearances before the Holy Offi when they apply to renegades and converts to Protestantism. This turn of words downplays the significance of these cases and how they represent a continuation of the earlier practice of using abbreviated trials in times of grace—that is, periods in which, by decision of the inquisitor general, one or several local courts abstained from condemning self-denouncing defendants to any penalty imposed through criminal proceedings, limiting themselves to penances imposed on the penitential level. E. William Monter, Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisition from the Basque Lands to Sicily (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 250.

10. Nevertheless, through the EMID we have been able to see that the Holy Office did in fact prosecute at least fifteen persons for this offense in tribunals other than those that had jurisdiction.

11. Henry Charles Lea found evidence that secrecy (a typical feature of inquisito- rial trials) may have been enforced in some such cases, despite this being in direct contravention of the local laws that the tribunal was supposed to follow. Our own research, however, indicates that such trials were not generally conducted in secret. Henry Charles Lea, A History of the Inquisition of Spain, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1906–1907), 2:473.

12. For the inquisitors’ backgrounds and education, see Julio Caro Baroja, El Señor Inquisidor, y otras vidas por oficio (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1968); Kimberly Lynn, Between Court and Confessional: The Politics of Spanish Inquisitors (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). Note that Lea got it wrong when he claimed that the inquisitors were theologians, something that was only true in the first years of the Spanish Inquisition’s existence: Lea, A History of the Inquisition.

13. Manlio Bellomo, The Common Legal Past of Europe: 1000–1800, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 90–91.

14. Jean-Pierre Dedieu, “L’inquisition et le droit. Analyse formelle de la procédure inquisitoriale en cause de foi,” Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez 23 (1987): 227–51, here p. 241.

15. For Spain, see Johannes-Michael Scholz, “Relatores et magistrados. De la naissance du juge moderne au xix^e siècle espagnol,” in Les fi de l’administrateur. Institutions, réseaux, pouvoirs en Espagne, en France et au Portugal, xvi^e–xix^esiècle, ed. Robert Descimon, Jean-Frédéric Schaub, and Bernard Vincent (Paris: Éd. de l’EHESS, 1997), 151–64. In France, the judge who handled the actual trial functioned as rapporteur for the assembled judges who later passed sentence. See, for example, J. H. Shennan, The Parlement of Paris (1968; London: Routledge, 2021).

16. María Paz Alonso Romero, El proceso penal en Castilla, siglo xiii–xviii (Salamanca: Ed. Universidad de Salamanca, 1982), 260–62; Pablo Pérez García, “Perspectivas de análi- sis del proceso penal en el Antiguo Régimen. El procedimiento ordinario de Valencia Foral (ss xvi y xvii),” Clío & Crímen: Revista del Centro de historia del crimen de Durango 10 (2013): 35–82, here p. 77. On the other hand, Nuria Verdet Martínez has shown that Francisco Jerónimo de León, a judge of the secular Valencia Royal Civil High Court, used his own sentences to argue points of judicial doctrine, and hence extensively commented on the reasons for these sentences in print, though not in court. Verdet Martínez, “Francisco Jerónimo de León. Cultura, política y prática administrativa en la Valencia de los Austrias menores” (PhD diss., Universitat de Valencia, 2014), 90–111.

17. Bellomo, The Common Legal Past of Europe, 97.

18. Lea, A History of the Inquisition, 2:482. The phrase is repeated numerous times over the four volumes.

19. Tiberio Deciano, Tractatus criminalis D. Tiberii Deciani utinensis, comitis, equitisque, ac celeberrimi juris utriusque consulti … duobusque tomis distinctus, omnibusque plane cum in foro, tum in scholis versantibus, non minus necessarius quan utilis … (Turin: apud haeredem Nicolai Bevilaquae, 1593), vol. 1, lib. 5, chap. 20, “Haeresis specialia,” §41, fol. 208v.

20. Prospero Farinacci, Tractatus de haeresi, in quo per questiones, regulas, ampliationes, limita- tiones quidquid jure civili et canonico, quidquid Sacris Consiliis, Summorumque Pontifi consti- tutionibus sancitum et communiter in ea materia receptum, quidquid denique in praxi servandum, brevi methodo illustratur, cum argumentis, summariis et indice locupletissimo, (Antwerp: apud Ioannem Keerbergium, 1616), Quaestio CLXXIX, §8.

21. Giorgia Alessi Palazzolo, Prova legale e pena. La crisi del sistema tra evo medio e modern (Naples: Jovene, 1979).

22. Tomás de Torquemada, “Instructions from Sevilla” [1484], §13, in Miguel Jiménez Monteserín, Introducción a la Inquisición española. Documentos básicos para el estudio del Santo Oficio (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1981), 86–105, and Consejo de Inquisición, Compilacion de las Instrucciones del Oficio de la Santa Inquisición, hechas por el muy Reverendo Señor Fray Tomás de Torquemada… (Madrid: Diego Diaz de la Carrera, 1667), fols. 3r–9r.

23. Deciano, Tractatus criminalis, vol. 1., lib. 5, cap. 20, “Haeresis specialia,” §54, fol. 249v.

24. Ibid., §33, fol. 247r.

25. Jean-Pierre Dedieu, L’administration de la foi. L’Inquisition de Tolède (xvi ^e –xviii ^e siècle)(Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 1989), 144.

26. Farinacci, Tractatus de haeresi, Quaestio CLXXIX – 3, §23.

27. Ibid., Quaestio CLXXIX – 4 §39 and 40.

28. Antonio Montes de Porres, Suma Diana recopilados en romance todos los onze tomos del R. P. D. Antonino Diana (Madrid: Melchor Sanchez, 1657), 345.

29. Madrid, Archivo histórico nacional (hereafter “AHN”), Inquisición (hereafter “Inq.”), leg. 1931, exp. 15, relación, n.d.

30. Farinacci, Tractatus de haeresi, Quaestio CLXXIX – 3, §23.

31. Montes de Porres, Suma Diana, 344.

32. Farinacci, Tractatus de haeresi, Quaestio CLXXIX – 3, §29–33.

33. AHN, Inq., leg. 1988, exp. 67, relación, n.d.

34. See below for the difference between suspension and acquittal.

35. AHN, Inq., lib. 730, relación, fols. 315r–v, n.d.

36. Montes de Porres, Suma Diana, 344.

37. AHN, Inq., lib. 1245, fols. 68v–69r, n.d.

38. Jean-Pierre Dedieu, “De l’adhésion à la connaissance. Vie religieuse et pastorale catholique,” in L’administration de la foi, 35–54, §31.

39. Jaime Contreras, Sotos contra Riquelmes: regidores, inquisidores y criptojudíos (Madrid: Anaya & Mario Muchnik, 1992); Juan Ignacio Pulido Serrano, Injurias a Cristo. Religión, política y antijudaísmo en el siglo xvii (Alcalá de Henares: Universidad de Alcalá, Servicio de publicaciones, 2002); Ricardo García Cárcel, Herejía y sociedad en el siglo xvi. La Inquisición en Valencia, 1530–1609 (Barcelona: Península, 1980); Ricardo García Cárcel, Orígines de la Inquisición española. El tribunal de Valencia 1478–1530 (1976; Barcelona: Península, 1985).

40. Gustav Henningsen, The Witches’ Advocate: Basque Witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisition, 1609–1614 (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1980). The Lucero affair still warrants a fuller study. See John Edwards, “Trial of an Inquisitor: The Dismissal of Diego Rodríguez Lucero, Inquisitor of Córdoba, in 1508,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 37, no. 2 (1986): 240–57; Ana Cristina Cuadro García, “Acción inquisitorial contra los judaizantes en Córdoba y crisis eclesiástica (1482–1508),” Revista de historia moderna 21 (2003): 11–28; John Edwards, The Inquisitors: The Story of the Grand Inquisitors of the Spanish Inquisition (Stroud: Tempus, 2007), 41–55; Lea, A History of the Inquisition, 1:189–211.

41. The first audience of the formal trial of faith, from 1540 on, was usually devoted to a detailed interrogatory of the defendant concerning their life story and their knowledge of Christian doctrine and prayers. Fernando de Valdes’s Instructions of 1560 made this interrogatory compulsory. See Jean-Pierre Dedieu, “‘Christianisation’ en Nouvelle Castille. Catéchisme, communion, messe et confirmation dans l’archevêché de Tolède, 1540–1650,” Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez 15 (1979): 261–94.

42. Gunnar W. Knutsen, “Religious Life in Seventeenth Century Norway Seen through the Eyes of the Spanish Inquisition,” Arv: Nordic Yearbook of Folklore 61 (2005): 7–23; Knutsen, “El Santo Oficio de la Inquisición en Barcelona y soldados protestantes en el ejército de Cataluña,” Estudis. Revista de historia moderna 34 (2008): 173–88; Pauline Croft, “Englishmen and the Spanish Inquisition 1558–1625,” English Historical Review 87, no. 343 (1972): 249–68; Werner Thomas, Los protestantes y la Inquisición en España en tiempos de Reforma y Contrareforma (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2001).

43. Formally, all such cases should have been relaxed, and the doctrine is explicit on this point. Nevertheless, in our work on the EMID we have found several cases where defendants were reconciled more than once. For example, Ana Súarez was reconciled in Cartagena de Indias for witchcraft in 1634 and again in 1650. In 1636 she was acquitted of the offense of breaking her banishment after the conviction of 1634. AHN, Inq., lib. 1020, relaciones, fols. 313r–359r and 453r–485r, n.d., and lib. 1021, relaciones, fols. 157r–230v and 235r–269v, n.d.

44. AHN, Inq., lib. 1245, fols. 68r and 70r.

45. Defendants who proved in court that the evidence given against them was false, rather than simply insufficient, were acquitted and the case against them closed definitively.

46. AHN, Inq., leg. 2853, relación, “Memoria de los reos que salieron en el auto particular de fe que el Santo Oficio de la Inquisición de la ciudad y reino de Murcia celebró el día treinta de noviembre de 1724 en la iglesia del convento de San Francisco de dicha ciudad,” n.d.

47. On the importance of free will in matters of faith, see Isabelle Poutrin, “La conversion des musulmans de Valence (1521–1525) et la doctrine de l’Église sur les baptêmes forcés,” Revue historique 648, no. 4 (2008): 819–55.

48. Dedieu, L’administration de la foi, 74–95.

49. Madrid, Biblioteca nacional de España (BNE), MSS/5760, Anonymous, “Manual práctico para inteligencia y prompto despacho de causas y expedientes que regularmente suelen ocurrir en el Santo Oficio de la Inquisición,” n.d. [late seventeenth century?], p. 331.

50. Stefania Pastore, Il vangelo e la spada. L’inquisizione di Castiglia e i suoi critici (1460–1598) (Rome: Ed. di storia e letteratura, 2003), especially pp. 63–75, 99, and 208–14.

51. Arnaud Fossier, Le bureau des âmes. Écritures et pratiques administratives de la Pénitencerie apostolique, xiii^e–xiv^e siècle (Rome: École française de Rome, 2018), 618. See also Ninon Dubourg’s review of this volume in Annales HSS 78, no. 1 (2023): 159–61, https://doi.org/10.1017/ahss.2023.50.

52. Pablo García, Orden que comunmente se guarda en el Santo Oficio de la Inquisición acerca de procesar en las causas qu’en el se tratan… (Valencia: Antonio Bordazar, 1737), 14.

53. Henningsen, The Witches’ Advocate.

54. Contreras, Sotos contra Riquelmes.

55. Pulido Serrano, Injurias a Cristo.

56. Jean-Pierre Dedieu, “La información de limpieza de sangre,” in Los grandes procesos de la historia de España, ed. Santiago Muñoz Machado (Barcelona: Crítica, 2002), 193–208. This duality produced a tension resolved in some cases through integration and in other cases the closure of the group, as demonstrated in Jean-Frédéric Schaub and Silvia Sebastiani in Race et histoire dans les sociétés occidentales (xv^e–xviii^e siècle) (Paris: Albin Michel, 2021). Everything depended on the circumstances.

57. Dedieu, “La información de limpieza de sangre,” 193–208.