Inquisition interrogations prioritized extracting accomplices over convicting the defendant.

Evidence

The excuse that Rom´an tried to produce for relapsing into his Islamic ways was that he had indeed continued as a good Christian for some eighteen years until, in 1588 in Deza, he met up with a Turkish slave who tempted him back to Islamic practices. We may suspect that this “Turkish slave” may have been a fabrication, a device thought up by Rom´an to protect his family and associates. By pointing the finger at an outsider (conveniently not available for interrogation), he probably had it in mind to save his own folk from detention and perhaps torture. Presumably the information already available to the Inquisitors about Rom´an himself would have, in itself, been enough to lead to a conviction, but once the Inquisition were seized of a case, what they wanted to achieve above all was to make their prisoner implicate others. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 928

Categorization

• XREF: The Inquisition’s priority on extracting denunciations connects to the extralegal reputation systems studied in the diamond trade and Champagne Fairs — both rely on extracting information from one inside party to police the group.