[1549]. Billete de Pedro de Orellana, fraile y cura, para un destinatario no identificado.

Note from Pedro de Orellana, a friar and priest, to an unidentified addressee.

The author informs an unidentified addressee about the arrival of the residence judge Diego Tavera, and about the existence of a witness who is willing to testify against the inquisitor Pedro Cortés and the governor Miguel de Villanueva.

The defendant of this process was Pedro de Orellana, a Franciscan friar and priest. During his youth he participated in infightings within his congregation, and for that reason he was exiled to Portugal. There, he was imprisoned in the diocesan jail of Évora for criticizing the king John III for his tolerance towards the Jews. After he had gone back to Spain, he was imprisoned by the mayor of Cádiz for his relationships with women. In 1530 he was expelled from the Franciscan order, although in the same year he was granted absolution by the superior of the congregation in Rome. In 1531 he was accused of several robberies and imprisoned in the episcopal prison of Cuenca. Then he was transferred to the Inquisition prison and accused of heresy. He was sentenced in 1533 to abjure de vehementi in a public auto de fé, and to life imprisonment in the prison of the Holy Office in Cuenca. Four years later he was freed, but he was forbidden to exercise any priestly function, including preaching. However, Pedro de Orellana disobeyed to this sentence, and in 1538 he was imprisoned in the secret jails of the Holy Office in Cuenca, accused of instigation and of injury against the Inquisition. In 1540 he was sentenced again to life imprisonment, and he was prohibited from having any contact with the outside world. However, he managed to elude this prohibition, and during this period he wrote the majority of his literary and theological works. It is also the period in which he wrote and received the majority of his correspondence. In 1560, eventually, he entered the Hospital de Inocentes, in Toledo, where he died.