292 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



consultores or assessors. Opinions were not harmonious. Four 

 voted to put Benito to the torture to verify his sanity, and if this 

 failed then to make inquiry into his antecedents, Three voted to 

 relax him to the secular arm for burning, first employing learned 

 theologians to convince him of his heresy. Two were in favor 

 of the common-sense plan of endeavoring to ascertain his sanity 

 without torturing him. 



When, in the customary routine, these diverse views were sub- 

 mitted to the Inquisitor General and Supreme Council, that body 

 considered the case maturely. Statements of the leading points 

 involved were laid before three skilled theologians, two of whom 

 pronounced Benito to be a sacrilegious heretic whose delusions 

 were feigned. The third opined that he might be subject to de- 

 moniacal possession, for which he should be exorcised and subse- 

 quently tortured to ascertain the truth. On January 12, 1622, the 

 Council sent these calificaciones or opinions to Toledo, with in- 

 structions to get similar ones from learned men there ; also, to ex- 

 amine more carefully into Benito's sanity and to investigate the 

 causes of his expulsion from the convents which he had sought to 

 enter. Accordingly, on January 15th, the Toledo tribunal assem- 

 bled four Dominican masters of theology, who unanimously pro- 

 nounced Benito a heretic and an impostor. To ascertain details 

 about an insignificant novice who some twenty years before had 

 passed a few months in a convent might seem impossible, but the 

 perfected organization of the Inquisition was equal to it. The 

 tribunals of Barcelona and Valencia were called upon ; ihefrailes 

 who had been novices in Benito's time were hunted up in the con- 

 vents to which they had scattered, and four were found who en- 

 tertained some recollection of him. Three of these described him 

 as mentally deficient, and one of these remembered his having 

 revelations ; the fourth spoke of him as " melancholy " and like 

 one possessed by the devil. 



May was drawing to an end when the result of these investiga- 

 tions reached Toledo, and the summer was spent in fresh examina- 

 tions of those in the prison who had access to Benito, and in get- 

 ting opinions from theologians and physicians. That he showed 

 signs of insanity was evident, but the experts held that the proof 

 of soundness of mind was infallible and the madness feigned. So 

 when, on September 10th, another consulta was held, the vote to 

 burn him was unanimous the two assessors who had previously 

 advocated simple investigation having been discreetly omitted 

 from the meeting. On this decision being submitted to the 

 Supreme Council, it met with no greater acceptance than the 

 former one, and it was sent back September 17th, with orders to 

 torture Benito to ascertain his intention in the sacrilege and the 

 fiction of his insanity. 



