1600. Carta de Sebastião Rodrigues Painho, inquisidor, para destinatários não identificados, inquisidores.

Justification letter from Sebastião Rodrigues Painho, inquisitor, to unidentified addressees, also inquisitors.

The author justifies with his malaria seizures the delay on the mission he had in Ourique, where he should investigate the case of frei Jerónimo do Espírito Santo, accused of bigamy and apostasy.

The monk frei Jerónimo do Espírito Santo, or Jerónimo Mendonça The Painter, as he was also known, was a Franciscan monk in the monastery of Alenquer. From there he fled to Angola, where he married, and then to Brazil and Lisbon, where he came to live with his wife. In a trip to Madrid, he remarried and took this second wife also to Lisbon. As there were many witnesses, he was found guilty, banished from the clergy and sentenced to the gallows for 5 years.