Perhaps the harm of the Inquisition was, rather, not that it affected original thought and research, but that it created in everyday life an intolerable spirit of suspicion and distrust. It was to the animosity of their private enemies that the imprisonment of both Archbishop Carranza and Luis de León was due, and it is difficult to believe in the sincerity of the witnesses who, “without being cited” and “for the discharge of their conscience,” laid their accusations before the Inquisition. In the University of Salamanca there was much prying and spying, fostered by the rivalries and enmity of the professors. The professors were elected by the votes of the students after a public discussion between the candidates on a given theme, and this system naturally led to considerable ill-feeling and many abuses. During discussions in the University there would be always some one on the watch for any specious subject of accusation. Thus, when Luis de León maintained that “marriage was not in itself an evil but only a less blessed state than celibacy,” León de Castro had written it down in order to denounce it to the Inquisition, and in the same way another professor had gone hastily out during a discussion in order to fetch pen and ink. On one occasion, when Zuñiga was in Luis de León’s cell at Salamanca, the latter mentioned a book which his friend, the celebrated Arias Montano, had sent him. Zuñiga thereupon displayed suspicions of Montano which Luis de León resented. A few days afterwards, to quote Luis de León’s own words, “he seemed to me to be still suspicious and, knowing that he was of a morose spirit and ever inclined to see things in their worst light, I said to him laughingly: ‘You are indeed a pessimist; it seems you still think ill of Montano.’ He said, ‘No; of the man I do not think ill, but I am not certain that it is not my duty to denounce the book.’” Luis de León goes on to say that more than two years afterwards he also “had a fit of pessimism, and, considering the number of heretics who had been discovered and were being discovered daily in Spain,” determined himself to lay the matter before the Inquisition--a common way of forestalling an accusation. Again, Medina examined with most holy zeal (_con santísimo celo_) Luis de León’s lectures and other papers. The result would be all the more fruitful in that he would not omit the notes taken by students at the lectures, and, as Luis de León was well aware, “ignorant students often put a quite wrong interpretation on what the lecturer said.” Medina did, in fact, call a meeting of students in his cell and inquired of them if they had heard or knew of any suspicious or perverted doctrines of Luis de León. Such methods must multiply means of attack and further spin out a trial. Of one witness Luis de León, in his defence, said, “This witness is the Bachelor of Arts Rodríguez, nicknamed ‘Doctor Subtle’ in the University. I think it is he because he says I left him without an answer, and he was the only person of that University with whom this happened. For as he was a man of unsound judgment and sometimes asked impertinent questions and from what he heard and did not understand collected nonsensical answers, I grew angry and called him a fool. And at other times, in order not to become angry and out of humour on his account, I would give him no answer but flee from him. And he is so witless and importunate that I remember trying to escape him both indoors and in the Schools and in the streets, he following and asking absurd questions, I hurrying on without answering, until at last some of my companions or other students would push him aside and hold him back by force.” A little picture of academic life which for vividness it would be hard to surpass. Luis de León, indeed, was not sparing in his criticism of his various accusers. Their names, in accordance with the custom of the Inquisition, were kept from him, but on reading the anonymous accusations, he referred each one to its true author with unfailing judgment and was thus enabled to refute them with a sure hand. Of one of the witnesses who belonged to his own order he said: “He is known among us as a man who never speaks the truth except by accident.” Of another he speaks satirically as “most spiritual,” _espiritualísimo_, and says that the words “kisses,” “embraces,” “bright eyes,” and other words in the Spanish rendering of the Song of Songs scandalized him; words, that is, which had not struck him when he read them in Latin, shocked him now that they were written in the romance. Luis de León was not unaware that the worst interpretation would be put on his sayings, or reported sayings, and he was led by this fear himself to lay many trivial details before the Inquisition.