1761. Carta de Manuel Guardiola y Rueda, franciscano descalzo, para Mariana García Monsalve.

Letter from Manuel Guardiola y Rueda, a barefoot Franciscan, to Mariana García Monsalve.

The author is concerned that Mariana García Monsalve has denounced «the subject», term he uses to refer to himself. He requests an explanation; in case she has made such denouncement. He wants to know in which terms she has made it in order to be aware of everything and verify the account of the facts provided by her, since he knows there is a Holy Office commissioner in town. He reminds her the seriousness of the deeds, which according to him are not a crime.

The trial began when Manuel Guardiola y Rueda is accused of solicitation in 1761. Guardiola was a Lector of Sacred Theology and a guardian of his barefoot Franciscans convent at Santa María de los Llanos, outside the town of Albacete. The solicitation occurred on April 1760, when he told Mariana that «he could not sleep, thinking that the object of his will was so close and he was not able to talk to me», and that from his point of view, these facts could only be venial sin and it could be absolved by himself (fls. 3r-v). The denouncement took place in September 1761. The letter was provided by Mariana García Monsalve’s confessor and although there was more correspondence between the sender and the addressee, she had burnt it. The defendant’s main concern was for the addressee to appear in court in order to declare she had made a mistake. Manuel Guardiola was afraid his previous action was misjudged by the confessor and argued that the things he expressed were not motivated by malice, but by ignorance. He also justifies his argument by quoting some authors.