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 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
About three years ago he was told by a Hebrew physician, named
Yucé Tazarte, since deceased, that the latter had begged Benito
Garcia to obtain him a consecrated wafer, and that Benito had stolen
the keys of the church of La Guardia and so contrived to obtain a
Host; that in consequence of that theft, Benito was arrested—upon
suspicion, we suppose—two years ago last Christmas (i.e. 1488),
and detained in prison for two days.

Tazarte told Yucé that the wafer was required “to make a cord with
certain knots,” which cord, together with a letter, Tazarte gave the
witness for delivery to the Rabbi Peres of Toledo, with which request
Yucé had complied.

But beyond this, he adds, he has no knowledge of what became of

the Host, nor did Tazarte tell him; and that not only Tazarte, but also
Benito Garcia, Mosé Franco—his own brother, since deceased—and
Alonso Franco of La Guardia, were mixed up in the affair, according
to what had been related by Mosé to his wife Jamila. In this last
particular he presently corrected himself: it was not, he says upon
reflection, to Jamila that Mosé had related this, but to Yucé himself.

It is a curious statement, and would no doubt be made in answer to

the trend of the questions set him as to what he knew of a certain
Host that had been used for purposes of magic. And there is reason
to believe that—as we shall see presently—Yucé was deliberately
lying, in the hope of putting the inquisitors off the scent of the real
affair.

But it is noteworthy that in this, as in other depositions, he is careful

to betray no Jews whom his evidence can hurt. His brother and
Tazarte are dead; Alonso and Benito Garcia are already under arrest,
and the latter has admitted to Yucé that he has already said enough
to burn him. Moreover, they are Christians—having received baptism
—and their betrayal cannot be to Yucé as serious a matter as would
that of a faithful Jew. Particularly is this emphasized by his retraction
of what he had said concerning the slight connection of his sister-in-
law Jamila with the affair, having perhaps bethought him that even
so little might incriminate her—as undoubtedly it would have done.

The inquisitors withdraw, obviously dissatisfied, and later on that

same day they order Yucé to be brought before them in the
audience-chamber. There they recommence their questions, and
they succeed in extracting from him a considerable portion of what
passed between him and Benito in prison—matters of which, beyond
all doubt, they would be already fully informed.

Twice on the following day, which was Sunday, was he haled before
their Reverend Paternities. At the first audience his statement of
yesterday is read over to him, and when he has ratified it he is again
pressed with stealthy questions to add a little more of what passed
in those conversations with Benito. But in the course of the second
examination on that Sunday, Yucé is at last induced or betrayed into
supplying the inquisitors with information nearer their requirements.

He says that four years ago he was told by his brother Mosé that the
latter, with Tazarte, Alonso Franco, Juan Franco, Garcia Franco, and
Benito Garcia had obtained a consecrated wafer, and that by certain
incantations they were to contrive that the justice of the Christians
and the inquisitors should not have power to touch them. Mosé
invited him to join in the affair, but he refused to do so, having no
inclination, and being, moreover, on his way to Murcia at the time.
And he knows, from what Mosé told him, that about two years ago
the same men repeated the same enchantment with the same
Host.188

We do not know whether Yucé is now left in peace for a whole

month, but we cannot suppose it. And we have to explain the
absence of any report of an examination during that period by the
assumption that whatever examinations did take place were entirely
fruitless and brought no fresh particulars to light. As the dossier
does not anywhere contain a single record of a fruitless examination,
this assumption—although we admit its negative character—does
not seem unreasonable.

Anyway, on May 7 it is Yucé himself who begs to be taken before the

inquisitors to tell them that he remembers having asked Mosé where
he and his associates assembled to do what they did, so that the
wives of the latter—who were Christian women—should have no
knowledge of the affair, and Mosé had answered him that they
assembled in the caves between Dosbarrios and La Guardia, on the
road to Ocaña.189

It is difficult to suppose such a statement to be entirely spontaneous

as following upon depositions made a month earlier. Much rather
does it appear to be the result of some fruitless questionings such as
we suggest may have taken place in the interval. Similarly we
assume that the examinations steadily continue, but another month
passes before we get the next recorded one, and this—on June 9190
—contains a really important admission.

He says that he doesn’t remember whether he has mentioned that

some four years ago, being ill at Tenbleque and the physician
Tazarte having come to bleed him, he overheard a conversation
between his brother and Tazarte, from which he learnt that the
latter, together with the Francos of La Guardia, had performed an
enchantment with a Host and the heart of a Christian boy, by virtue
of which the inquisitors could take no proceedings against them in
any way, or, if they did, the inquisitors themselves would die.

His statement that he doesn’t remember whether he had mentioned

a matter of so grave a character is either a foolish attempt to
simulate guilelessness, or else, in itself, it suggests a bewildered
state of mind resulting from the multiplication of examinations in
which this matter of the heart of a Christian boy—contained, as we
know, in Guevára’s indictment—has been persistently thrust forward.
 THE DISTRICT OF LA GUARDIA.

He is asked whether he heard tell whence they procured the Host,

and where they killed the boy to obtain the heart. But he denies
having overheard anything, or having otherwise obtained any
knowledge of these particulars.

We have seen Eymeric’s prescription for visiting a prisoner and

assuring him that the inquisitors will pardon him if he makes a frank
and full confession of his crime and of all that is known to him of the
crimes of others. Although it is not positively indicated, there is
reason to suppose from what follows that this course was now being
pursued in the case of Yucé Franco. To play the part of the
necessary mediator, the inquisitors have at hand the gaoler who
must have been on friendly terms with the prisoner, having contrived
for him a means of communication with Benito at the time when the
latter had occupied the cell immediately beneath Yucé’s. That Benito
no longer occupies this cell may safely be assumed; for having
served his turn, he would of course be removed again.
Whatever the steps that were taken to bring it about, on July 19—a
little over a year after his arrest—Yucé is brought before Villada and
Lopes,191 at his own request, for the purpose of making certain
additions to what he has already deponed.

He begins by begging their Paternities to forgive him for not having

earlier confessed all that he knew, protesting that such is now his
intention, provided that they will pass him their word assuring him of
pardon and immunity for himself and his father for all errors
committed.192

It certainly seems that without previous assurance that some such

consideration was intended towards him, he would never have
ventured to prefer a request of this nature, at once incriminating—
since it admitted his possession of knowledge hitherto withheld—and
impudent in its assumption that such information would be
purchased at the price he named.

The inquisitors benignly answered him that they agreed to do so

upon the understanding that in all he should tell them the entire
truth, and they warned him that they would soon be able more or
less to perceive whether he was telling the truth.193

(This pretence of being already fully informed is the ruse counselled

by Eymeric to persuade the person under examination of the futility
of resorting to subterfuge.)

Reassured by this answer, and deluded no doubt by the apparent

promise of pardon conditional upon a full confession, Yucé begins by
offering, as an apology for his past silence upon the matters he is
about to relate, the statement that this has been due to an oath
which he swore not to divulge anything until he should have been in
prison for a year.

Thereupon he is sworn in the Jewish manner to speak the entire

truth without fraud or evasions or concealment of anything known
by him to concern the Holy Office of the Inquisition, and he
addresses himself to the task of amplifying and rectifying what he
has previously said.

His confession is that once some three years ago he had been in a
cave situated a little way back from the road that runs from La
Guardia to Dosbarrios, on the right-hand side as you go towards the
latter place, and midway between the two villages. There were
present, in addition to himself, his father, Ça Franco, his brother
Mosé, since deceased, the physician Yucé Tazarte and one David
Perejon—both deceased—Benito Garcia, Juan de Ocaña, and the
four Francos of La Guardia—Juan, Alonso, Lope, and Garcia.

Alonso Franco had shown him a heart, which he said had been cut
out of a Christian boy, and from its condition Yucé judged that this
had been lately done. Further, Alonso had shown him a wafer, which
he said was consecrated. This wafer and the heart Alonso enclosed
together in a wooden box which he delivered to Tazarte, and the
latter took these things apart, saying that he went to perform an
enchantment so that the inquisitors could not hurt any of them, or, if
they attempted to do so, they must themselves go mad and die
within a year.

At this point the inquisitors interpolate two questions:

“Does he know whence the Host was obtained?”

“Does he know whether they sacrificed any boy to procure the

heart?”

His answer to the first is in the negative—he has no knowledge.

To the second question he replies that he remembers hearing Alonso

Franco state that he and some of his brothers crucified a Christian
boy whose heart this was.

Resuming his statement, he says that some two years ago all the
above-mentioned assembled again between La Guardia and
Tenbleque, and that on this occasion it was agreed to send a
consecrated wafer to Mosé Abenamias of Zamora, and that such a
Host was delivered to Benito Garcia enclosed in parchment tied with
red silk. This, Benito was to take to Abenamias, together with a
letter which had first been written in Hebrew, but which—lest this
should excite suspicion in the event of the letter’s being discovered—
was replaced by another one written in Romance.

The interpretation to place upon this seems to be that, doubts

having arisen as to the efficacy of the enchantments performed by
Tazarte, it was deemed expedient to have recourse to a magician of
greater repute, and to send a consecrated wafer to Abenamias in
Zamora, that he might accomplish with it the desired sorcery.

The inquisitors press Yucé to say whether he knows if Benito did

actually deliver the wafer to Abenamias. He replies that he doesn’t
know what Benito did with it; but that he has been told by Benito [in
the course of their conversations in the prison of Avila] that he went
upon a journey to Santiago, and that in passing through Astorga he
was arrested by order of Dr. Villada, who was the provisor there at
the time.

As for the heart, he doesn’t know what happened to it; but he

believes that it remained in the possession of Tazarte, who
performed his enchantments with it.

Questioned as to who was the leading spirit in the affair, he replies

that Tazarte invited him together with his father and his brother
Mosé, and that they all went together to the cave, whilst he believes
that the Christians (i.e. Ocaña, the Francos, and Benito Garcia) and
David Perejon from La Guardia were also summoned by Tazarte.
Finally he is asked whether Tazarte received any money for his
sorceries, and whether Benito Garcia was paid to convey the Host to
Zamora; and he answers that money was given by Alonso Franco to
Tazarte, and that Benito too would be paid for his trouble.

From a ratification on the next day (July 20) of a confession made by

the octogenarian Ça Franco, it becomes clear that immediately upon
dismissing Yucé, his father was introduced into the audience-
chamber for examination.

The inquisitors are now possessed of the information that Ça was

present in the cave when Alonso Franco produced the heart of a
Christian child. Working upon this and upon the other details
obtained from Yucé, they would now be able, by a clever parade of
these—and a seemingly intentional reticence as to the rest—
convincingly to feign the fullest and completest knowledge of the
affair. Thus does the “Directorium” enjoin the inquisitor to conduct
his examination.

Believing that all is betrayed, and that further concealment will,

therefore, be worse than useless, Ça at last speaks out. He not only
confirms all that his son has already admitted, but he adds a great
deal more. He confesses that he himself, his two sons and the other
Jews and Christians mentioned, assembled in a cave on the right-
hand side of the road that runs from La Guardia to Dosbarrios, and
he says that some of them brought thither a Christian boy who was
there crucified upon two timbers rectangularly crossed, to which
they bound him. Before proceeding to do this, the boy was stripped
by the Christians, who whipped and otherwise vituperated him.

He protests that he, himself, took no part in this beyond being

present and witnessing all that was done. Pressed as to what part
was taken by his son Yucé, he admits that he saw the latter give the
boy a light push or blow.

It is to this mention of Yucé that we owe the inclusion in the present

dossier of this extract from Ça’s ratification of his confession, which
reveals to us so clearly the method pursued by the tribunal.

Ça is removed, and Yucé is forthwith brought back again. Questions

recommence, shaped now upon the further information gained, and
betraying enough of the extent of that information to compel Yucé to
amplify his admissions.

No doubt they would question him directly upon the matter of the
crucifixion of the boy, insisting upon this—now the main charge—and
depending upon Yucé’s replies to supply them with further details
than they already possess, so as to enable them to probe still
deeper.

Unable to persist in denial in the face of so much obvious knowledge

on the part of his questioners, Yucé admits having witnessed the
actual crucifixion in the cave some three or four years ago. He says
(as his father had said) that it was the Christians who crucified the
child, and that they whipped him, struck him, spat upon him, and
crowned him with thorns.

So far he merely confirms what is already known. But now he adds

to the sum of that knowledge. He states that Alonso Franco opened
the veins of the boy’s arms and left him to bleed for over half an
hour, gathering the blood in a cauldron and a jar; that Juan Franco
drew a Bohemian knife (i.e. a curved knife) and thrust it into the
boy’s side, and that Garcia Franco took out the heart and sprinkled it
with salt.

He admits that all who were present took part in what was done,
and he is able to indicate the precise part played by each, with the
exception of his father: he doesn’t remember having seen his father
do anything beyond just standing there while all this was going on;
and Yucé reminds the inquisitors that his father is a very old man of
over eighty years of age, whose sight is so feeble that he couldn’t so
much as see clearly what was being done.

When the child was dead, he continues, they took him down from
the cross. (They untied him, he says.) Juan Franco seized his arms,
and Garcia Franco his legs, and thus they bore him out of the cave.
Yucé didn’t see where they took him, but he heard Juan Franco and
Garcia Franco informing Tazarte that they had buried him in a ravine
by the river Escorchon.

The heart remained in the possession of Alonso until their next

meeting in the cave, when he gave it, together with the consecrated
wafer, to Tazarte.

“Did this,” they ask him, “take place by day or by night?”

“By night,” he answers, “by the light of candles of white wax; and a
cloak was hung over the mouth of the cave that the light might not
be seen outside.”

He is desired to say when precisely was this; but all that he can
answer is that he thinks it was in Lent, just before Easter, three or
four years ago.

They ask whether he had heard any rumours of the loss of a child at
about that time in that district, and he says that he heard rumours
of a child lost in Lillo and another in La Guardia; the latter had gone
to a vineyard with his uncle, and had never been seen again. But he
adds that, in any case, the Francos came and went between La
Guardia and Murcia, and that on one of their journeys they might
easily have found a child and carried it off, because they had sardine
barrels in their carts, and some of those would be empty—by which
he means that they could have concealed the child in one of these
barrels.
Urged to give still further details, he protests that he can remember
no more at present, but promises to inform the court if he does
succeed in recalling anything else.

He is dismissed upon that with an injunction from Dr. Villada—which

may have been backed by a promise or a threat—to reflect and to
confess all that he knows to be the business of the Holy Office
concerning himself or any others.
 CHAPTER XXII
THE TRIAL OF YUCÉ FRANCO (Continued)

It is not difficult to conjecture with what fresh energies the court—

armed with such information as it now possessed—proceeded to re-
examine the other seven prisoners accused of complicity in the crime
of La Guardia, pressing each with the particular share he was himself
alleged to have borne in the affair, and continuing to play off one
accused against another.

It is regrettable that the records of these proceedings should not at

present be available, so that all conjecture might be dispensed with
in reconstructing step by step this extraordinary case. And it is to be
hoped that M. Fidel Fita’s expectations that these records will
ultimately be brought to light may come to be realized.

A week later, on July 28, Yucé is again brought into the audience-
chamber for further examination. But he has nothing more to add on
the subject of the actual crime. All that he has contrived to
remember in the interval are scraps of conversation that took place
when the culprits assembled—on that later occasion—for the
purpose of sending the consecrated wafer to Abenamias.
Nevertheless, what he says is, from the point of view of the
inquisitors, as damaging to those who uttered the things which he
repeats as their actual participation in the crucifixion of the boy, and
it is hardly less damaging to Yucé himself, since it shows him to have
been a fautor, or abettor of heretics—a circumstance which he may
very well entirely have failed to appreciate.
He depones that Alonso Franco had said that the letter they were
dispatching to Abenamias was better than the letters and bulls [of
indulgence] that came from Rome and were offered for sale. Ocaña
agreed by launching an imprecation upon all who should spend
money on such bulls, denouncing such things as sheer humbug
(todo es burla), and protesting that there is no saviour other than
God. But Garcia Franco reproved him with the reminder that it was
good policy to buy one now and then, as it gave them the
appearance of being good Catholics.

On this same subject of appearances, Alonso grumbled at the

trouble to which they were put by the fact of their being married to
Old-Christian women who would not even permit the circumcision of
their children.

Three days later Yucé has remembered that it was Benito who
crowned the child with thorns. He is again questioned as to what he
knows about the boy, and he admits having heard Tazarte say that
the child was obtained “from a place whence it would never be
missed.”

They press him further on the subject, but he can only repeat what
he has already said—that as the Francos travel a great deal with
their carts, they may have found the boy on one of their journeys.

As no more is to be extracted from him on the subject, they now

change the line of examination, and seek information concerning
other Judaizing practices of the Francos of La Guardia, asking Yucé
what he knows upon this matter.

He answers that about six years ago the Francos, to his own
knowledge, kept the Feast of the Tabernacles and gave the beggar
Perejon money to buy a trumpet which was to be sounded on the
seventh day of the feast, as is proper. He knows, further, that they
sit down to meat prepared in the Jewish manner, over which they
utter Jewish prayers—the Beraká and the Hamoçi—and that they are
believed to have kept the great fast and to give money for the
purchase of oil for the synagogue.194

Asked further to explain the oath of secrecy which he says was

imposed upon him and to which he has said that his past silence has
been due, he states that all were solemnly sworn by Tazarte that
under no circumstances would they utter a word of what was done
in the cave between Dosbarrios and La Guardia until they should
have been one year in the prison of the Inquisition, and that even
should the torture betray them into infidelity to their oath, they must
refuse to ratify afterwards, and deny what they might have divulged.

M. Isidore Loeb clung so tenaciously to the theory that the affair of

the “Santo Niño” was trumped up by Torquemada that he would not
permit his convictions to be shaken by the revelations contained in
these records of Yucé’s trial when they came to light. He fastens
upon this statement of Yucé’s and denounces such an oath as a
flagrant absurdity, concluding thence that here, as elsewhere, Yucé
is lying.195

M. Loeb’s criticisms of this dossier are worthy of too much attention

to be lightly passed over, and we shall return presently to the
consideration of them.

In the meanwhile we may permit ourselves a digression here to

consider just this point upon which he bases so much argument for
the purpose of proving false the rest of the story.

If we were to agree with M. Loeb that Yucé is lying in this instance,

that would still prove nothing as to the rest—and it would be very far
from proving that Torquemada is the inventor of the whole affair.
Assuming that this tale of an oath of silence to endure for one year
after arrest is a falsehood, it may very well be urged that it is
employed by Yucé in the hope that it will excuse his having hitherto
withheld information and that it will induce the inquisitors to deal
leniently with him for that same silence. Let it be observed that he
prefaces his confession with that excuse at the time of asking the
inquisitors to give him an undertaking that they will pardon him if he
divulges all that he knows.

But is he really lying?

It seems to us that in arriving at this conclusion, M. Loeb has either

overlooked or else not sufficiently weighed the following statement
in Yucé’s confession: “Yucé Tazarte ... went to perform an
enchantment so that the inquisitors could not hurt any of them, or if
they attempted to do so they must, themselves, go mad and die
within a year.” This means, of course, within a year of attempting to
hurt any of them, which again means within a year of the arrest of
any of them.

Now, the fact of our not believing to-day in the efficacy of Tazarte’s
incantations and in the power of his magic spells with the heart and
the Host to accomplish the things he promised, is no reason to
suppose that Tazarte himself was not firmly persuaded that his
enchantments would take effect. Indeed, he and his associates must
firmly have believed it, or they would never have gone the length of
imperilling their lives in so dangerous a business.

Tazarte’s belief was that these sorceries would invest them all with
an immunity from inquisitorial persecution, and that should any
inquisitors attempt to violate that immunity, such inquisitors must go
mad and die within a year of arresting any of Tazarte’s associates.
Therefore in the event of arrest, all that would be necessary to
procure ultimate deliverance would be stubbornly to withhold from
the inquisitors all information on the subject of this enchantment
until the period within which it was to work should have expired.
When this is sufficiently considered, it seems to us that such an oath
as Yucé says was imposed by Tazarte becomes not only likely but
absolutely inevitable. Some such oath must have been imposed to
ensure the efficacy of the enchantment in the event of the arrest of
any of them.

It is difficult to think that Tazarte was a mere charlatan performing

this business with his tongue in his cheek for the sake of the money
he could extract from his dupes; difficult, because he was dealing
with comparatively poor people, from whom the remuneration to be
obtained would be out of all proportion to the risk incurred. But even
if we proceed upon that assumption, are we not to conclude that,
being a deliberate charlatan, Tazarte would be at great pains to
appear sincere and to impose an oath which he must have imposed
if he were sincere?

It is rather singular and it seems to ask some explanation, which it is

not in our power to afford, that not until now do the inquisitors
make any use of that grave admission of Yucé’s to the supposed
Rabbi Abraham in Segovia. It is true that it was extremely vague,
but in Ça’s admissions of July 19—if not before—they had obtained
the connecting link required.

But not until September 16, when they pay Yucé a visit in his cell, do
they touch upon the matter. They then ask him whether he
recollects having talked when under arrest in Segovia, upon matters
concerning the Inquisition, and with whom.

His answer certainly seems to show that even now he has no

suspicion that the “Rabbi Abraham” was an emissary of the Holy
Office. He says that being sick in prison and believing that he was
about to die, he asked the physician who tended him to beg the
inquisitors to allow him to be visited by a Jew to pray with him, and
his further admissions as to what passed between himself and the
“Rabbi” entirely corroborate the depositions of Frey Alonso Enriquez
and the physician Antonio de Avila.

The inquisitors ask him to explain the three Hebrew words he used
on that occasion: mita, nahar, and Otohays. He replies that they
referred to the crucifixion of the boy, as related by him in his
confession.196

At this stage it would almost seem to transpire that Benito’s

admissions under torture at Astorga, when, as he has said, he
admitted enough to burn him, must have been confined to matters
concerning the Host found upon him, and that until now he has said
nothing about the crucifixion of the boy.

This assumption is one that deepens the mysterious parts of the

affair rather than elucidates them, for it leaves us without the
faintest indication of how the Fiscal Guevára was able to incorporate
in his indictment nine months ago the particulars of “enchantments
with the said Host and heart of a Christian boy.”

From what Benito has said to Yucé in prison we might be justified in

supposing that the former is the delator; but in view of the turn now
taken by the proceedings this supposition seems to become
untenable. It is of course possible that the particulars in question
may have been wrung out of one of the other prisoners, or it is
possible that Benito himself may have confessed and afterwards
refused to ratify. But beyond indicating these possibilities we cannot
go.

The fact remains that on September 24 the inquisitors found it

necessary to put Benito Garcia to torture that they might obtain his
evidence relating to the crucifixion.

And on the rack he confesses that he and Yucé Franco and the
others crucified a boy in one of the caves on the road to
Villapalomas on a cross made of a beam and the axle of a cart
lashed together with a rope of hemp; that first they tied the boy to
the cross and then nailed his hands and feet to it; and that as the
boy was screaming they strangled or stifled him (lo ahogaron); that
all was done at night, by the light of a candle which Benito himself
had procured from Santa Maria de la Pera; that the mouth of the
cave was covered with a cloak, so that the light should not be seen
outside; that the boy was whipped with a strap and crowned with
thorns—all in mockery and vituperation of our Lord Jesus Christ; and
that they took the body away and buried it in a vineyard near Santa
Maria de la Pera.197

There are some slight discrepancies between the details of the affair
afforded by Benito and those given by Yucé. The latter has not
mentioned that the child’s hands and feet were nailed to the cross;
according to him they were merely tied. Nor has he said that the boy
was strangled; his statement seems to be that the child was bled to
death, as a consequence of opening the veins of his arms—a matter
which Benito does not mention. But on the score of the strangling, it
is possible that by the word employed—ahogaron—Benito merely
means that the boy’s cries were stifled, a detail which would be
confirmed by Yucé’s statement that the child was gagged.

The prisoners are evidently permitted to learn that Benito has been
tortured. Very possibly they are given the information to the end
that it may strike terror into them and so induce them to betray
themselves without more ado. But it does not seem that they are
very greatly frightened by the prospect of having to undergo the
same suffering, if we are to judge by Garcia Franco. This prisoner is
permitted on the following day (which is Sunday), by contrivance of
the Holy Office, to get into communication with Yucé. In the course
of their conversation Garcia strongly urges a policy of denial under
torture, should they be subjected to it,198 from which it seems plain
that he has no notion of the extent to which Yucé’s tongue has been
loosened already.

On the following Wednesday it is Juan Franco’s turn to be put to the

torture.

Under it he gives a general confirmation of what has already been

extracted from the others. He confesses that he and Yucé Franco
and the other Christians and Jews crucified a boy in the cave of
Carre Ocaña, which is on the right going from La Guardia to Ocaña;
that they crucified him on a cross made of two beams of olive-wood
lashed together by a rope of hemp; that they whipped him with a
rope; and that Yucé was present when the deponent himself cut out
the boy’s heart—as is more fully contained in the deponent’s
confession (of which, again, this is no more than an extract relating
to Yucé’s share in the crime). He states that an enchantment was
performed with the heart, so that the Inquisition might not proceed
against them.

This confession was duly ratified upon the morrow.199

On the Friday of the same week they torture Juan de Ocaña and
extract from him a confession that is, in the main, in agreement with
those already obtained. He relates how he and the others crucified a
boy in the caves of Carre Ocaña; that they whipped him with ropes
when he was crucified; that they cut out his heart and caught his
blood in a cauldron; that it was night and that they had a light; and
that when they took the body down they buried it near Santa Maria
de la Pera, as fully set forth in his confession.200

As a consequence of his having in the course of this confession

spoken of the Host that was sent to Zamora for delivery to
Abenamias, Ocaña is questioned again—on October 11—touching
this particular. He is asked how he knows that this was done. He
replies that he heard Alonso Franco and the Jews—i.e. Ça Franco
and his sons (Yucé and Mosé), Tazarte and Perejon—say that such
was the intention, but he doesn’t know whether the Host was
actually delivered or otherwise disposed of.

The persistence with which this apparently trivial question arises—

particularly when it is remembered that the inquisitors were,
themselves, in possession of the Host found upon Benito at the time
of his arrest—leads us to suppose that they were probing to discover
whether this consecrated wafer was the identical one dispatched
upon the occasion to which the confessions refer. Considering the
lapse of time between the dispatch of that wafer and Benito’s arrest,
they may reasonably have been concluding that the Host found upon
the latter relates to some similar, later affair. Such an impression is
confirmed by the fact that no letter—such as was addressed to
Abenamias—had been discovered upon Benito.

The question again crops up in an examination to which Yucé is

submitted on that same day.

“Did any of the Jews or Christians,” he is asked, “go to Zamora to

Abenamias in this matter?”

He answers precisely as he has answered before: that he doesn’t

know what became of the Host beyond the fact that he saw them
dispatching it together with a letter to the said Abenamias, as
deponed, and that all were present when this took place.

They seek to learn who was the instigator of the affair, but Yucé
cannot answer with certainty on that point. What he knows he tells
them—that Tazarte meeting him when he was on his way to Murcia,
the physician asked him would he join in a matter to be performed
with a consecrated wafer to ensure that the Inquisition could not
harm the Christians in question. Before they met to crucify the boy,
Tazarte told the deponent and his brother Mosé that he had
arranged for it; and although Yucé protests that he had no
inclination to have anything to do with the affair, he and his brother
allowed themselves in the end to be persuaded to be present, and
they went with Tazarte that same night to the cave. There they were
joined by the Christians, who brought the child with them.

So far, it will be seen, the evidence collected from Yucé’s fellow-

prisoners, whilst admitting that he had been present in the cave
when the boy was crucified—an admission in itself grave enough and
quite sufficient to procure his being abandoned to the secular arm—
did not charge him with any active participation in the proceedings.
In his own depositions Yucé had insisted that he and his father had
been no more than spectators and that they had gone to the cave
more or less in ignorance, as if hardly understanding what they were
to witness.

Moreover before relating the happenings in that cave of Carre

Ocaña, Yucé had made a sort of bargain with the inquisitors that his
confession should not be used against himself or his father. And it is
noteworthy that the other Jews whom he incriminated were all dead,
and that he suppressed the name of the only surviving Jew—
Hernando de Ribera—who had taken part in the affair. Of betraying
the New-Christians he would, as we have already said, have less
concern, as these by their apostasy must have become more or less
contemptible in the sight of a faithful Jew.

Whether the inquisitors conceived that in view of his passivity in the

matter, combined with the promise they had made him before
obtaining his confession, they were not justified in proceeding to
extremes with him, we do not know. It is difficult to suppose any
such hesitation on their part. Whatever their object, it is fairly clear
that they did not account themselves satisfied yet, and for the
purpose of probing this matter to the very bottom they now adopted
a fresh method of procedure which appears particularly to aim at the
further incrimination of Yucé.
Just as the court was in the habit of suppressing evidence entirely or
in part, or the names of witnesses, when this course best served its
purposes, so, when the depositions were obtained from co-accused,
there must obviously come a moment when the publication of the
evidence and of the witnesses by confrontation must further the
aims of the tribunal.

The anger aroused in each prisoner by the discovery that his

betrayer is one of his associates must spur him to reprisals, and
drive him to admit anything he may hitherto have concealed. There
is, of course, the danger that he may be urged to embark upon
inventions to damage in his turn the man who has destroyed him.
But inquisitorial justice was not deterred by any such consideration.
Pegna—as we have seen—tells us plainly enough that the point of
view of the Holy Office was that it was better that an innocent man
should perish than that a guilty one should escape.

In pursuit of this policy, then, Benito Garcia is brought before the

inquisitors on October 12, and he is asked whether in the matter of
the crucifixion and the Host he will repeat in the presence of any of
the participators in the crime what he has already deponed. He
replies in the affirmative. Thereupon he is taken out. Yucé Franco is
introduced and asked the same question with the same result.
Benito is brought in again, and, the two being confronted, each
repeats in the presence of the other the confession he has already
made.

They are now asked whether they will repeat these statements once
more, in the presence of Juan de Ocaña, and they announce
themselves ready to do so. They are removed. Ocaña is introduced,
and having similarly obtained his agreement to repeat before others
whom he has accused of complicity what he has already confessed,
the inquisitors order the other two to be brought back.

The notary records that they actually manifest pleasure at seeing

one another.
Ocaña now repeats his confession, and Yucé and Benito again go
over theirs. The three agree one with the other, and it is now further
elicited that it was six months after the crucifixion, more or less,
when they assembled between Tenbleque and La Guardia to give
Benito the letter and the Host which he was to convey to Abenamias
in Zamora.

On October 17 there is another confrontation—of Juan Franco with

Ça and Yucé Franco. In this each repeats what he has already
confessed, which we now learn for the first time. Juan Franco admits
that it was he himself who opened the boy’s side and took out his
heart, and in this as in other particulars the depositions agree one
with another.

Juan Franco goes on to say that they next met in the cave some
time after the crucifixion, and that his brother Alonso brought the
heart and the Host in a box which he gave to Tazarte, who withdrew
with them to a corner of the cave to carry out his enchantments.
Later on they assembled between Tenbleque and La Guardia—at a
place which, according to this witness, was called Sorrostros—and
gave Benito a letter to take to Zamora, this letter being tied with a
coloured thread.

So far he is completely in accord with the other deponents; but now

there occurs a startling discrepancy. He says that at this last meeting
(which, we are told, took place some six months after the
crucifixion), in addition to the consecrated wafer and the letter for
Abenamias, they also gave Benito the heart to take to Zamora.

Now all the other depositions lead us to suppose that the heart and
the first wafer were employed—presumably consumed in some way
—by Tazarte in the enchantment performed at the first meeting after
the crucifixion, and that as doubts afterwards arose touching the
efficacy of the spells performed by the physician, another Host was
obtained some six months later, which they forwarded to Zamora.

Is the explanation the simple one that Juan Franco is mistaken on

the subject of the heart? It seems possible, because he adds that he
did not actually see the Host (on this particular occasion), but that
he understood that it was given to Benito. Similarly he may have
understood—erroneously taking it for granted—that the heart
accompanied it.

And now you may see the confrontation bearing fruit, and yielding
the results which we must suppose are sought by the inquisitors—
the further incrimination of Yucé Franco.

Juan de Ocaña is examined again on October 20 and questioned as

to Yucé’s participation in the crime. He now adds to his former
confession that Yucé and the others used great vituperations to the
child, which vituperations were really aimed at Jesus Christ; he cites
the expressions, and in the main they are those we have already
quoted from the Testimonio201; these, he says, were used by Ça
Franco and his two sons. He says that they all whipped the boy, and
that it was Yucé himself who drew blood from the arms of the victim
with a knife.

“Whence was the child?” they ask him.

He replies that it was the dead Jew Mosé Franco who had brought
the boy from Quintanar to Tenbleque on a donkey, and that,
according to Mosé’s story, he was the son of Alonso Martin of
Quintanar.202 From Tenbleque several of them, amongst whom were
Yucé and his father, brought him on the donkey to the cave where
he was crucified, and it was Yucé who went to summon the brothers
Franco of La Guardia, Benito Garcia, and the witness himself.
So that from having been a more or less passive spectator of the
scene, Yucé is suddenly—by what we are justified in accounting the
vindictiveness of Ocaña—thrust into the position of one of the chief
actors, indeed, almost one of the instigators of the crime.

On the same day Benito Garcia is re-examined. His former

depositions are read over to him, and he is asked if he has anything
to add to them. He has to add, he finds, that Yucé—whom he has
hardly mentioned hitherto—had whipped and struck the boy, and
that he was an active participant in all that was done, his avowed
aim being the destruction of Christianity, which he spoke of as
buffoonery and idolatry.

On the morrow Ocaña is brought back to ratify his statements of

yesterday. He is asked if he has anything to add that concerns the
participation of Yucé, and his answer is so very much in the terms of
the latest additions made by Benito that one is left wondering
whether, departing from their usual custom, the inquisitors put their
questions in a precise and definite form—founded upon what Benito
has said—and obtained affirmative replies from Ocaña. For Ocaña,
too, remembers that Yucé said that Christianity was all buffoonery
and that Christians were idolaters.
 CHAPTER XXIII
THE TRIAL OF YUCÉ FRANCO—(Concluded)

It might now be said that, thanks to the patient efforts which the
inquisitors themselves have been exerting for close upon a year, the
prosecutor is at last furnished with the evidence necessary to
support his original charge against Yucé Franco.

To this end he appears before the court on that same October 21,
1491, to present in proof of his denunciation the entire dossier, as
taken down by the notary of the tribunal. He begs that Yucé be
brought into the audience-chamber to hear the additions which he
has to make to the original charge. These additions are the matters
lately extracted from Ocaña and Benito Garcia: that Yucé used
vituperative words to the child when he was being crucified, and that
these vituperations were really aimed at our Lord Jesus Christ and
His Holy Catholic Faith; that he struck the boy many times, and that
he drew blood from the boy’s arm with a penknife. Wherefore, he
begs the inquisitors to abandon the prisoner to the secular arm, as is
right and proper.203

He does not, however, add that Yucé’s brother had procured the
child, and that Yucé was one of those who brought him to the cave
and who summoned the Francos to attend—an omission which
shows the credit attached to Ocaña’s statement and its lack of
corroboration.

Yucé’s answer is a denial of all that is alleged and added by the

Fiscal, the lad protesting that he never did or said anything beyond
what he has, himself, confessed.
Guevára, thereupon, petitions the court to permit him to submit his
proofs of the matters of which he accuses the prisoner, and the court
having accorded him this petition, he puts in as evidence the entire
dossier from which we have drawn these pages on the subject.204

Five days later both parties are again before the court, Guevára now
petitioning their Reverend Paternities to pass to the publication of
witnesses, that the trial may be brought to its conclusion. Dr. Villada
announces his readiness to do so, but accords the defendants three
days within which to lodge any objection to any of the matter
contained in the depositions.

Yucé begs through his advocate that copies be given him of all the
depositions of those who were present at the crucifixion, with the
name of each hostile witness and a statement of the day, month,
year, and place in which anything alleged against him is said to have
taken place.

But Guevára immediately objects, urging that in the copies of the

depositions to be given defendant, no names shall appear of any of
the witnesses who had deponed, and no circumstances shall be
included which might enable Yucé to conjecture the names. It seems
a purely formal objection; for after the confrontations there have
been it appears to serve very little purpose. But some purpose it
does serve, because those confrontations after all were limited to
Ocaña and Benito, and from the moment that it was not considered
necessary to proceed to confrontation with any of the other
prisoners it would seem that they had needed no such spur to drive
them into depositions hostile to Yucé.

However, the reverend inquisitor replies loftily enough that he will do

what justice demands, and he orders the notary to deliver to Yucé
copies of all the depositions against him. But from Yucé’s advocate’s
plea on October 29—upon the expiry of the three days appointed—it
is plain that the particulars claimed have been withheld.
From the fact that the advocate Sanç has drawn up so strong an
objection on behalf of his client, it is perfectly clear that even at this
date Yucé’s guilt of heresy cannot be considered as established. If
that were the case, Sanç, in obedience to the oath imposed upon
him when entrusted with the defence, would have been compelled
to lay down his brief and withdraw.

Yucé denies all the allegations against him which charge him with
having taken any active part in the crucifixion of the boy, and he
protests that he is unable properly to defend himself because the
copies of the depositions supplied him do not mention time or place
of the alleged offences nor yet the names of the witnesses by whom
these allegations are made. Upon the assumption, however, that
these deponents are Benito Garcia, Juan Franco, and Juan de Ocaña,
he proceeds to answer the charges as best he can.

This answer consists of a repudiation of those depositions as

inadmissible upon the grounds that they do not agree one with
another, and that each refers to a separate circumstance, no two
confirming any one particular accusation, and all being contrary to
what the same witnesses had stated in confrontation with the
defendant, when each had acknowledged that Yucé’s relation of the
events was the true one. Hence it is established that on one or the
other of these occasions they must have lied, from which it follows
that they are perjured and unworthy of faith.

Further, he claims that they may not be admitted as witnesses

because they were, themselves, participators in the crime
committed. Finally, he declares that their implication of himself is an
act of spite and vengeance upon him. It is his full and faithful
confession which has placed the inquisitors in possession of the facts
of the case and the names of the offenders, and the latter are
determined that since they themselves must die, Yucé shall die with
them—out of which malice and enmity they have accused him.
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