Note 196 — Chapter VI · SOLICITATION

Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 1, n. 6, fol. 274, 393.—Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Leg. 1465, fol. 16.

The clause concerning solicitation in the Edict of Faith, published at Valencia, Feb. 24, 1630, shows this and also the devices used to elude the technical definition of the offence. “Or, whether any confessor or confessors, clerics or religious of whatever station pre-eminence or condition, in the act of confession or immediately before or after it, or with occasion or appearance of confession, although there is no opportunity and no confession may have followed, but in the confessional or any place where confessions are made, or which is destined for that purpose, when the impression is produced that confession is being made or heard, have solicited or attempted to solicit any one, inducing or provoking them to foul and indecent acts, whether between the penitent and confessor or others, or have held indecent and illicit conversation with them. And we exhort and order all confessors to admonish their penitents, whom they understand to have been solicited, of the obligation to denounce the solicitors to this Holy Office, which has exclusive cognizance of this crime.”—Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Lib. 7 de Autos, Leg. 2, fol. 114.