Note 587 — Chapter IV · THE STAKE.

Bullar. Roman, I, 821.—On the plea that such heretics claimed exemption from this on the ground of ignorance, Clement VIII, February 3, 1603, renewed and confirmed in perpetuity the act of Paul IV.—Bullar. III, 160.

Although the Spanish Inquisition preserved these decrees in its collections it does not seem to have acted on them. In 1568 there were two cases in Valencia of heretics who, among other errors, denied the virginity of the Virgin. One of these was a Gascon, Bernat de Vidosa, who was reconciled with only reclusion in a monastery; the other was Pedro Sobrino, a fisherman of Naples, more severely treated with ten years of galleys.—Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 31.