The torture of witnesses who were not themselves under trial was permitted when they varied or retracted, or so contradicted other witnesses that it was deemed necessary thus to ascertain the truth; but whether clerical witnesses could be so treated was a subject of debate. As a rule torture in such cases was directed to be moderate, neither light nor excessive, but when testimony was revoked it could be repeated up to three inflictions.[37] As we have seen above (Vol. II, p. 537) slaves testifying in the cases of their masters could always be tortured if necessary to confirm their evidence. In the prosecution of Juan de la Caballería, in 1488, as accessory to the murder of San Pedro Arbués, his slave-girl Lucía gave compromising evidence which she was persuaded to retract, with the result that she was twice tortured and confirmed it.[38]
Like _majestas_, in heresy there were no privileged classes exempt from torture. Nobles were subject to it and so were ecclesiastics of all ranks, but the latter were to be tortured less severely than laymen, unless the case was very grave, and they were entitled to a clerical torturer if one could be found to perform the office. As in their arrest, so in torture the sentence, by a carta acordada of 1633, had to be submitted to the Suprema for confirmation.[39]
As regards age, there seems to have been none that conferred exemption. Llorente, indeed, in describing a case in which a woman of ninety was tortured at Cuenca, says that this was contrary to the orders of the Suprema which prescribed that the aged should only be placed _in conspectu tormentorum_,[40] but I have never met with such a rule. In 1540 the Suprema ordered that consideration should be given to the quality and age of the accused and, if advisable, the torture should be very moderate, while the Instructions of 1561, which are very full, impose no limit of age and leave everything to the discretion of the tribunal.[41] Cases are by no means infrequent in which age combined with infirmity is given as a reason for omitting torture or inflicting it with moderation, but age alone offered no exemption. At a Toledo auto de fe we find Isabel Canese, aged seventy-eight, who promptly confessed before the torture had proceeded very far, and Isabel de Jaen, aged eighty who, at the fifth turn of the cords fainted and was revived with difficulty.[42] In 1607, at Valencia, Jaime Chuleyla, aged seventy-six, after confessing certain matters, was accused by a new witness of being an alfaquí; this he denied and was duly tortured.[43]