[1670-1680]. Carta de Manuel Ventura de Alarcón para Baltasar Hernández.

Letter from Manuel Ventura de Alarcón to Baltasar Hernández

The author writes to Baltasar Hernández to inform and instruct him about how to act. He warns him that he is going to be arrested and give him several advises.

In 1664 Manuel Ventura de Alarcón (also Manuel Fernández in some parts of the trial documentation), native to Horjaco, got married to Catalina Molano. He lived there with his wife for a year and then disappeared. Catalina Molano only had news from him when she learnt he remarried and was living in Granada. The informant was Francisco Romero, a neighbour who saw him with another man from the village on the way to Santa Fe (Granada). The aforementioned neighbour urged them to go back, but only Manuel´s accompanying agreed to do so, whilst Manuel himself refused to return to his wife. Catalina denounced the facts to the Holy Office and the inquiries proved that Manuel Ventura had moved to Granada to work as a farmer and then as an innkeeper. He spent 9 to 10 years in Granada, where he got married to Beatriz Gutiérrez and had to children. The letter provided to the trial documentation as proof was seized to Manuel, who was eventually scourged and publicly exposed for bigamy by the Holy Office.