Prosecution Calls Witnesses In Inquisition Trial: May 30, 1494

In the case of Marina González, May 30 1494, was the day that the chief prosecutor came forward and declared that she, the accused had refused to accept canonical compurgation and hence, she should be recognised as having failed it and be condemned as a heretic. In addition he brought, as witness to her crimes, her jailers, who confessed she had been starving herself - accepting only sometimes, forced feedings, and yet still, she would not confess. She admitted to them that she must not be a Christian since she was here, in prison.
This canonical compurgation, decided previously, by the lords inquisitors, came after the woman's difficult time during water torture the month before. A compurgation, literally, [con + purgere] 'a purge with-' meant to clear a charge not with water, but with the  help of others. If sworn faithful members of the clergy or Christian flock would come forward and swear to her reputation, she could be cleared of her religious crimes. And, coming after a long detention and many attempts at getting 'a confession' from her otherwise, the court allowed a memo that she had produced, during the interim, to be heard on May 22, as the records tell us. These of course are according to the records edited and translated by Lu Ann Homza in her anthology of sources.

The inquisitors had given the accused woman seventeen days to consider if there was anything else she had wanted to confess. Sometime in May she had set down the name of her witnes and guardian and a few names of other people she knew. But when brought before the judges, and the names were read out in the hearing on May 22, she stopped them at a certain point and said she no longer wanted them to be her witnesses. The reverences, lord inquisitors (as the text keeps reminding us) then said that they would hear her witnesses for fifteen days and then make a decision. [pp. 46-7]

But since then, Marina began refusing food and had gotten visibly weaker. The prosecutor declared on the 30th that she thus implied she was not only guilty, but also, killing herself by not eating. Also a sin. Further, he saw this as an attempt on her part to 'avoid punishment which she deserved'.

"Accordingly, she should be held as convicted. Therefore, he asked their reverences to pronounce and declare her a heretic and relax her to justice and the secular arm, and he asked that justice be done." 

He called forth witnesses, Pedro González the Flat-Nosed, 'warden of the lordship's prisons' and a man that worked for him. They spoke of her refusing food, refusing to confess and admitting she wasn't Christian. He said that she said,

"...since they intended to kill her, why bother to eat...".

The same jailer-witness said that she had also been induced and then forced her to eat.

"They have forced her to eat in that way, against her will. He said that she has done this more fixedly since she was entrapped by the compurgation...". [p. 47]

This witness then asked her if she wanted to confess, if she was a Christian and she said no and that if she were, she wouldn't be there. And this was witnessed by a number of other female inmates. Another jailer-witness, Roderigo de Valdelecha said that rather than eating, she wanted him 'to shred and rip her to pieces'. He stated that this is what she begged him to do. [p. 48]
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 quotes and pagination, entirely from The Spanish Inquisition 1478-1614: An Anthology of Sources, edited and translated by Lu Ann Homza, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 2006