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Springer Geography

Viacheslav Vasenev · Elvira Dovletyarova

Zhongqi Cheng · Tatiana V. Prokof'eva
Jean Louis Morel · Nadezhda D. Ananyeva
Editors

Urbanization:
Challenge and
Opportunity for
Soil Functions and
Ecosystem Services
Proceedings of the 9th SUITMA Congress
Springer Geography
The Springer Geography series seeks to publish a broad portfolio of scientific
books, aiming at researchers, students, and everyone interested in geographical
research. The series includes peer-reviewed monographs, edited volumes, text-
books, and conference proceedings. It covers the entire research area of geography
including, but not limited to, Economic Geography, Physical Geography,
Quantitative Geography, and Regional/Urban Planning.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10180

Viacheslav Vasenev Elvira Dovletyarova
•

Zhongqi Cheng Tatiana V. Prokof’eva

•

Jean Louis Morel Nadezhda D. Ananyeva

•

Editors

Urbanization:
Challenge and
Opportunity for
Soil Functions and
Ecosystem Services
Proceedings of the 9th SUITMA Congress

123
Editors
Viacheslav Vasenev Tatiana V. Prokof’eva
RUDN University Lomonosov Moscow State University
Moscow, c.Moscow Moscow, c.Moscow
Russia Russia

Elvira Dovletyarova Jean Louis Morel

RUDN University Université de Lorraine
Moscow, c.Moscow Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy
Russia France

Zhongqi Cheng Nadezhda D. Ananyeva

City University of New York Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological
Brooklyn, NY Problems in Soil Science
USA Russian Academy of Sciences
Pushchino, c.Moscow
Russia

ISSN 2194-315X ISSN 2194-3168 (electronic)

Springer Geography
ISBN 978-3-319-89601-4 ISBN 978-3-319-89602-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89602-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018943443

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
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or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
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Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer International Publishing AG
part of Springer Nature
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface

This edited volume contains a selection of refereed and revised papers originally
presented at the ninth International Congress on Soils of Urban, Industrial, Traffic,
Mining and Military Areas (SUITMAs) entitled “Urbanization as a challenge and
an opportunity for soils functions and ecosystem services.” The congress was
organized in RUDN University, Moscow, Russia, on May 22–7, 2017. The con-
gress introduced SUITMAs, considering their unique features, spatial–temporal
variability and potential to provide functions and services important for environ-
ment and society. The SUITMA 9 congress developed a platform for international
and interdisciplinary discussion between soil and environmental scientists, land-
scape designers, urban planners, and policy-makers involved in sustainable urban
development. We would like to thank more than 300 participants and 210 speakers
who contributed with plenary, oral and poster presentations, roundtables, and field
excursions. We wish to express our especial gratitude to the authors who con-
tributed to these proceedings. The proceedings include an introduction and 34
research papers, which were selected by the scientific committee with additional
help of external expert reviewers from 95 submissions. The authors were asked to
consider the reviewers’ comments and make all necessary edits to improve the
quality of the papers.
The conference was organized under the umbrella of the International Union of
Soil Sciences. The organizational and financial support to the SUITMA 9 Congress
was provided by “RUDN University Program 5-100” and the “Erasmus+ Jean
Monnet project “European traditions in governance, design and environmental
management of megacities: search for solutions (EDEMS).” We would like to
express our gratitude to the many people who put essential efforts to ensure this
successful conference: keynote speakers, members of organizing and scientific
committees, conveners of sessions and roundtables, reviewers and technical editors.
We wish to express our sincere thanks to Dr. Michael Leuchner, Publishing Editor,
Earth Sciences, Geography and Environment, and Rajan Muthu, Project coordi-
nator, for their help and cooperation.

v
vi Preface

We hope these proceedings will serve as a valuable reference for researchers,

practitioners, and policy-makers in the related fields.

Viacheslav Vasenev
Elvira Dovletyarova
Zhongqi Cheng
Tatiana V. Prokof’eva
Jean Louis Morel
Nadezhda D. Ananyeva
Organization

Committee

Chief Patron

Vladimir M. Philippov Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia

(RUDN), Russia

Scientific Program Chair

Kim Kye-Hoon University of Seoul, South Korea

Scientific Program Committee

Jean Louis Morel Université de Lorraine, France

Rattan Lal Ohio State University, USA
Wolwgang Burghardt University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Jetse Stoorvogel Wageningen University, the Netherlands
Zhongqi Cheng City University of New York, USA
Nikolay S. Kasimov Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
Ivan I. Vasenev Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia
(RUDN), Russia
Christophe Schwartz Université de Lorraine, France
Przemyslaw Charzynski Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland
Gerd Wessolek Technical University of Berlin, Germany
Ronliang Qiu Sun Yat-Sen University, China
Maxin Levin Soil Science Society of America, USA
Maria Gerasimova Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

vii
viii Organization

Riccardo Valentini Tuscia University, Italy

Olga Marfenina Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
Olga Bezuglova Southern Federal University, Russia
Rattan Lal Ohio State University, USA
Igor Zamotaev Russia Academy of Sciences, Russia

Organizing Chair

Elvira A. Dovletyarova Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia

(RUDN), Russia

Organizing Co-chair

Viacheslav I. Vasenev Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia

(RUDN), Russia

Organizing Committee

Tatiana V. Prokof’eva Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

Vadim G. Pluyshchikov Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia
(RUDN), Russia
Kristina Ivashchenko Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia
(RUDN), Russia
Eugeny Abakumov Saint Petersburg State University, Russia
Tatiana A. Fedorova Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia
(RUDN), Russia
Anna Paltseva City University of New York, USA
Sophya Ibatulina Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia
(RUDN), Russia
Andrey Dolgikh Russia Academy of Sciences, Russia
Olga Romzaykina Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia
(RUDN), Russia
Tatiana Zhukova Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia
(RUDN), Russia
Anna Buyvolova Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
Ramilla Hajiaghaeva Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia
(RUDN), Russia
Alexandr Rappoport Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
Ludmila Popova Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
Organization ix

Organized by
Contents

SUITMA 9: Urbanization as a Challenge and an Opportunity for Soils

Functions and Ecosystem Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
V. I. Vasenev, Z. Cheng, E. A. Dovletyarova, J. L. Morel,
T. V. Prokof’eva, R. A. Hajiaghayeva, and V. G. Plyushchikov
Functional-Environmental and Properties-Oriented Approaches
in Classifying Urban Soils (In Memoriam Marina Stroganova) . . . . . . . 4
Maria Gerasimova and Olga Bezuglova
Anthropogenic Materials as Bedrock of Urban Technosols . . . . . . . . . . 11
Andrzej Greinert and Jakub Kostecki
Influence of Technic Surfaces on the Selected Properties
of Ekranic Technosols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Jakub Kostecki and Andrzej Greinert
The Technosols on 60–70 Year-Old Technogenic Deposits
of the Lomonosov Moscow State University Campus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Tatiana V. Prokof’eva, Marina S. Rozanova, and Alexei V. Kiriushin
Reflections on the Modern Soil Cover of the New Jerusalem
Monastery: The History of Anthropogenic
Landscape Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
V. M. Kolesnikova, I. S. Urusevskaya, and V. Yu Vertyankina
Organic and Inorganic Contaminants in Urban Soils
of St. Petersburg (Russia) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
George Shamilishvili and Evgeny Abakumov
Impact of Building Parameters on Accumulation of Heavy Metals
and Metalloids in Urban Soils . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
I. D. Korlyakov, N. E. Kosheleva, and N. S. Kasimov

xi
xii Contents

Microfungal Community Composition and Alternaria Phytotoxic

Effect in the Lead Polluted Urban Soil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
E. A. Dovletyarova, L. V. Mosina, R. A. Hajiaghayeva,
and P. A. Petrovskaya
Removal of Heavy Metals and Metalloids in an Industrial Stormwater
Treatment System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Zhongqi Cheng, Richard K. Shaw, and Paul S. Mankiewicz
Analysis of Carbon Stocks and Fluxes of Urban Lawn Ecosystems
in Moscow Megapolis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
A. S. Shchepeleva, M. M. Vizirskaya, V. I. Vasenev, and I. I. Vasenev
Abandonment of Arable Lands Triggers the Recovery
of Native Vegetation and Organic Carbon Content in Soils . . . . . . . . . . 89
Yu. I. Baeva, I. N. Kurganova, V. O. Lopes de Gerenyu,
V. M. Telesnina, and N. A. Chernykh
Dynamics of Soil Organic Carbon of Reclaimed Lands
and the Related Ecological Risks to the Additional CO2 Emission . . . . . 97
Janina Dmitrakova and Evgeny Abakumov
Comparative Study of Soil Respiration Partitioning Methods
for Herbaceous Ecosystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Olga Gavrichkova, Ilya Evdokimov, and Riccardo Valentini
Seasonal and Annual Variations in Soil Respiration
of the Artificial Landscapes (Moscow Botanical Garden) . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
O. Yu. Goncharova, G. V. Matyshak, M. M. Udovenko,
A. A. Bobrik, and O. V. Semenyuk
Oil Destructive Activity of Fungi Isolated from the Soils
of the Kola Peninsula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
M. V. Korneykova, A. A. Chaporgina, and V. V. Redkina
Biodiversity of Algae and Cyanobacteria in Soils of Moscow . . . . . . . . . 135
Marina F. Dorokhova
Application of Silicon-Contained Mining Wastes
in Urban Greening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Irina Mikhaylova, Marina Slukovskaya, Irina Mosendz,
Irina Kremenetskaya, Ekaterina Karavayeva,
and Svetlana Drogobuzhskaya
Evaluation of Peat Stability Under Various Temperature
and Moisture Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
I. P. Brianskaia, V. I. Vasenev, R. A. Hajiaghayeva, and D. V. Morev
Contents xiii

Bitsevsky Forest Natural and Historical Park of Moscow:

Rare and Protected Plant Species Population Structure
Under Recreational Load . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Irina Igorevna Istomina, Marina Evgenievna Pavlova,
Aleksey Alekseevich Terekhin, and Tatiana Petrovna Meer
Modern Technologies of Ornamental Plants Cultivation
in Vertical Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Gosse Dmitriy and Afonina Alevtina
Spatial Heterogeneity of Some Soil Properties of the Botanical
Garden of Lomonosov Moscow State University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Irina A. Martynenko, Joulia L. Meshalkina,
Alexander V. Rappoport, and Tatyana V. Shabarova
Contrast of Soil Cover as a Factor of Land Suitability
for Agricultural Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
V. V. Alakoz, S. I. Nosov, A. K. Ogleznev, and B. E. Bondarev
Spatial Model of Electron-Ionic Concentrations Distribution
of in Low-Temperature Air Plasmoid Over Strong Radiation
Contamination of Soils and Territories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
D. V. Kovkov, N. D. Koryagin, S. Yu Eroshkin, N. A. Kameneva,
E. G. Zaitsev, Т. А. Sukhorukov, and A. I. Sukhorukov
Ecotoxicological State of Urban Soils of the Arctic with Different
Functional Load (Yamal Autonomous Region) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Ivan Alekseev, George Shamilishvili, and Evgeny Abakumov
Anthropogenic and Natural Soils of Urban and Suburban Parks
of Saint Petersburg, Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Natalia N. Matinian, Kseniia A. Bakhmatova,
and Anastasiia A. Sheshukova
Heavy Metals in Soils and Plants of Arid Zones of Russia . . . . . . . . . . . 221
A. F. Tumanyan, N. V. Tyutyuma, L. P. Rybashlykova,
N. A. Shcherbakova, E. V. Romanova, V. G. Plyushikov,
and Parfait Kezimana
Heavy Metals and Fluorine in Soils and Plants
of the Minusinsk Basin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
J. Yu. Vasil’chuk, E. A. Ivanova, P. P. Krechetov, and E. V. Terskaya
Rapid Screening of Bioaccessible Pb in URBAN Soils Using pXRF . . . . 240
Anna Paltseva and Zhongqi Cheng
xiv Contents

Use of Tomographic Methods for the Study of Urban

Soil Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
S. N. Gorbov, K. N. Abrosimov, O. S. Bezuglova, E. B. Skvortsova,
K. A. Romanenko, and S. S. Tagiverdiev
Hydrophysical Properties of Substrates Used for Technosols’
Construction in Moscow Megapolis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
B. Bhoobun, V. I. Vasenev, A. V. Smagin, D. D. Gosse,
A. Ermakov, and V. S. Volkova
Current Issues in Legal Regulation of Urban Soil Management . . . . . . 267
M. A. Vakula, A. S. Yakovlev, M. A. Tarakanova,
and M. V. Evdokimova
Sustainable Development of Forest Ecosystems in Urbanized
Territories as a Way of Wildfire Control in Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
E. Maksimova, E. Abakumov, and G. Shamilishvili
Design and Construction of Facsimile Yellow Kandosols
at Barangaroo, Sydney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Simon Leake and Alisa Bryce
Managing Urban Soils for Food Security and Adaptation
to Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Rattan Lal
Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
 SUITMA 9: Urbanization as a Challenge
and an Opportunity for Soils Functions
and Ecosystem Services

V. I. Vasenev1(&), Z. Cheng2, E. A. Dovletyarova1, J. L. Morel3,

T. V. Prokof’eva4, R. A. Hajiaghayeva1, and V. G. Plyushchikov1
1
Department of Landscape Design and Sustainable Ecosystems,
Agrarian-Technological Institute, RUDN University, Moscow, Russia
[email protected]
2
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Brooklyn College,
The City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY, USA
3
Laboratory of Soils and Environment, University of Lorraine, Nancy, France
4
Soil Science Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

Abstract. Soils of Urban, Industrial, Traffic, Mining and Military Areas

(SUITMAs) present a novel, interesting and very important topic for investi-
gation and discussion. Soil-forming factors, properties and processes of SUIT-
MAs are completely different from those of natural soils. SUITMAs’ functions
and ecosystem services are still rarely studied and likely underestimated. The 9th
SUITMA congress provided a platform to discuss theoretical and practical
aspects of monitoring, assessment, modelling and management of SUITMAs to
understand their roles in environment and society.

Keywords: SUITMA
Urban soils and ecosystems
Megapolis

Soil assessment and management
Sustainable development

Globally, urbanization is progressing rapidly and coincides with substantial changes in

vegetation and soils (Pickett et al. 2011, Levin et al. 2017). In response to these issues,
policy agendas are focusing on achieving and maintaining optimal functioning and
sustainable use of urban ecosystems and their components, for present and future
generations. Soil is a key component of urban ecosystems, responsible for multiple
functions and services, contributing to environment and quality of life in cities (Lorenz
and Lal 2009, Morel et al. 2015). Soils of Urban, Industrial, Traffic, Mining and
Military Areas (SUITMAs) represent a relatively new and rapidly developing direction
in environmental and ecosystem sciences. The acronym SUITMA also refers to a
working group of the International Union of Soil Science (IUSS) and is a world leading
scientific community dedicated to investigating urban and technogenic soils (Morel and
Heinrich 2008). SUITMAs differ substantially from natural counterparts in their
physical, chemical and biological features, their functions and services. Therefore,
studying SUITMAs raises new research questions in soil classification, morphology,
monitoring, assessment and management.
Traditional views of urban ecology have emphasized the negative anthropogenic
impacts on SUITMAs (e.g. contamination, salinization and over-compaction)

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2019

V. Vasenev et al. (Eds.): SUITMA 2017, SPRINGERGEOGR, pp. 1–3, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89602-1_1
2 V. I. Vasenev et al.

(Stroganova et al. 1997, Yang and Zhang 2016). However, the more recent views on
sustainable urban development highlight capacity of SUITMAs to provide important
functions and services, including substrate and support for greenery, water purification,
transport and storage, habitat for microorganisms, contribution to carbon and nitrogen
cycles and climate mitigation (Gomez-Baggethun et al. 2013, Morel et al. 2015).
Reviewing and summarizing the experiences and existing methodologies in analyses,
assessments, and modeling of properties and processes of SUITMAs, their vulnera-
bility to anthropogenic impacts and global climate changes is needed. This will help
improve understanding of the SUITMAs’ role for human and environment and to
develop policies and strategies enhancing their functions and ecosystem services. The
9th SUITMA congress provided an international and interdisciplinary platform to
discuss challenges and opportunities of urbanization for soil functions and ecosystem
services.
The SUITMA9 Proceedings introduce SUITMAs, considering their unique fea-
tures, spatial variability, temporal dynamics anthropogenic threats and potentials to
provide important functions and ecosystem services. The volume includes 34 papers,
covering different aspects of SUITMAs’ study, assessment and management. These
papers are organized into nine different thematic sections (i) classification and genesis
(papers 1 to 5), (ii) pollution and mitigation (papers 6 to 9); (iii) carbon stocks and
fluxes (papers 10 to 14); (iv) life phase and biodiversity (papers 15 and 16); (v) engi-
neered soils and urban green infrastructure (papers 17 to 20); (vi) assessment and
mapping (papers 21 to 23); (vii) SUITMAs in different climates (papers 24 to 27); (viii)
advanced techniques in monitoring SUITMAs (papers 28 to 30); and (ix) policies and
practices of soil management for sustainable urban development (papers 31 to 34). The
volume starts from more conventional issues of SUITMAs’ study, continues with
functions and services provided by SUITMAs and finishes with perspectives of
SUITMAs for sustainable urban development.
The variability in soil forming factors, processes, features and management prac-
tices results in uniquely high heterogeneity of SUITMAs, which is a challenge for
classification (Rossiter 2007, Levin et al. 2017). Current opinions on classification are
presented in Paper 1, devoted to the memory of Marya Stroganova - a well-known
Russian soil scientist and an expert in SUITMAs’ classification. Genesis and mor-
phology of SUITMAs are presented in Section 1 with case studies of Moscow in
Russia and Zielona Góra in Poland. Soil pollution with trace metals and organic
contaminants remain among the main threats for human health and this is demonstrated
in Section 2 by examples from Russia and USA. Urban environment brings a set of
specific conditions and processes affecting carbon stocks and fluxes in soil, thus
SUITMAs can become hotspots of carbon accumulation or important sources of carbon
emission. Balance between carbon stocks and fluxes in SUITMAs is mainly driven by
land management and climatic conditions and it is shown in Section 3. Sections 4 and
5 present important services of SUITMAs to protect biodiversity and support urban
green infrastructures. Urban soils are exposed to anthropogenic pressure and influenced
by traditional soil-forming factors; therefore relict zonal signs are complemented and
complicated by new technogenic and anthropogenic features. Spatial variability and
regional specifics of SUITMAs are clearly demonstrated in Sections 6 and 7, where
results from arctic to arid zones are presented. Advanced techniques in studying and
 SUITMA 9: Urbanization as a Challenge and an Opportunity 3

monitoring SUITMAs’ properties, including XRF screening, tomographic methods and

equilibrium centrifuging are described in Section 8. Finally, papers of Section 9 dis-
cuss the legal issues of SUITMAs management, as well as practices and perspectives of
implementing data and knowledge of SUITMAs for urban planning, food security and
adaptation to climate change. In such a way, a wide range of relevant topics was
discussed in 9 thematic sessions of SUITMA 9 Proceedings.
The SUITMA 9 congress attracted a broad audience, including scientists,
policy-makers and practitioners in urban planning, management and development,
which allowed an inter-disciplinary discussion of environmental and social roles of
SUITMAs for sustainable urban development.

Acknowledgments. The conference was organized and the papers was prepared with the sup-
port of RFBR Project # 17-04-20126, Jean Monnet Project EDEMS and RUDN Project “5-100.”

References
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planning. Ecol. Econ. 86, 235–245 (2013)
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 Functional-Environmental
and Properties-Oriented Approaches
in Classifying Urban Soils (In Memoriam
Marina Stroganova)

Maria Gerasimova1(&) and Olga Bezuglova2

1
Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow University,
Leninskie Gory, 1, Moscow 119991, Russia
[email protected]
2
Rostov-on-Don Southern Federal University,
Stachki, 194/1, Rostov-on-Don 344090, Russia

Abstract. Professor of Moscow Lomonosov University Marina Stroganova

was the first in Russia to acknowledge urban soils as soils, name them by their
location and/or functions and partly by their properties. Her system is popular
among specialists, and urbanozems, ekranozems, culturozems and similar soils
are recognized as mapping units and study objects for ecologists. Global pro-
gress in classifying soils resulted in the shift of priorities in the choice of
diagnostic criteria: from soil-forming factors to soil properties. However, for
urban soils, strongly affected or even constructed by humans, soil-forming
factors, processes, and properties remain important as seen from the expert
evaluation of criteria in WRB, Soil Taxonomy and French system. In Russia, an
attempt to insert urban soils in the basic classification system, without violating
its substantive principles is described.

Keywords: Soil functions
Soil classification
Soil names

1 Introduction

A first comprehensive classification of urban soils in Russia was proposed by Marina

Stroganova in the 1990-s, and it became very popular among soil scientists and spe-
cialists in urban management and planning. The system was described in her book on
soils of Moscow; its English version edited by W. Burghardt
was published in 1998 – the year of birth SUITMA (Soils of
Urban, Industrial, Transport, Military, and Mining Areas)
[1]. Judging by publications of Lehman and Stahr [2, 3] and
Capra et al. [4], there was a fantastic growth of interest to
urban soils in the late 1990-s, and Stroganova’s system was
more than timely then. Moreover, Lehman and Stahr noted
that since the mid-1990-s, urban soils were studied as soils

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2019

V. Vasenev et al. (Eds.): SUITMA 2017, SPRINGERGEOGR, pp. 4–10, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89602-1_2
 Functional-Environmental and Properties-Oriented Approaches 5

rather than objects of pollution [3]. Stroganova’s system was based on data collected in
the course of working in projects on the ecological status of Moscow, and it had
therefore a distinct ecological bias [1, 5].
This classification was the first one identifying urban soils as soils and not as
sediments or garbage, which is illustrated by emphasizing the difference between the
terms «urban soils» and «soils of the city». The names Stroganova proposed for all
urban soils have a formative element “zem” used for soils in Russian classifications
(chernozem, cryozem), and the “prefixes” are indicating the functions performed by
soils, and urbanozem was the first soil among them (Table 1). The others are: indus-
trizem, necrozem, recreazem, culturozem, etc. Similar names were used in early Polish
[6] and Slovak systems [7]; this functional nomenclature was clear and easy for users.
The classification of Stroganova has elements of a hierarchical system, although not
strictly implemented at the upper taxonomic levels unlike the lower ones, where rules
and criteria inherent to the traditional Russian soil systematic were applied. This feature
has its rationale: it is available to users, habitual to soil scientists, and facilitates con-
nections with the basic classification system.

2 Soil-Forming Agents or Soil Properties?

This dualism of the approach to anthropogenic soils is clearly illustrated by the paper of
R. Dudal with co-authors in early 2000-s, where he considered economic activities as a
“human factor of soil formation” on one hand, and proposed a broad scheme of
man-made soils classified by the features of their profiles: horizons, parent materials
degree of disturbance, on the other hand [10]. The current concepts concerning the
diversity of urban soils and environments with emphasis on regimes are outlined in the
recent review by W. Burghardt [11].
It is a trivial statement that principles of soil classification are implemented at the
upper taxonomic levels. In our case, all the above-listed “zems” derive more of functions
and location of soils (recreazem, necrozem) rather than of assessing soil properties;
hence, the priority is given in this system to the environment and land-use features.
However, there is one exception – urbanozems. The main diagnostic criterion for
urbanozems is the presence of the diagnostic urbic horizon, which was defined by
Stroganova in mid-1990-s according to its properties and origin [1]. Urbic horizon has
a broad range of properties, however, the following ones are most common: dark color,
light texture, neutral to weakly alkaline pH, varying density 1.1–1.6 g/cm3, weak
crumb structure, high BS, higher humus content than that in the reference soils, more
than 10% artifacts, and upward growth due to additions. Urbic horizon is composed of
the fragments of initial natural soil horizons, cultural layers, natural and/or artificial
materials; the ratio of these ingredients varies in different urban environments.
Other urban soils in the system of Marina Stroganova are identified less strictly, and
mostly in accordance with their functions or their location, although sometimes soil
characteristics are mentioned as supplementary information. Thus, culturozems are
deep (> 50 cm) humus-rich soils of botanical gardens, old kitchen gardens; they
contain artificial organic materials, sometimes as layers, are underlain by the remnants
of initial subsoils or cultural layer or any materials. Chemically modified soils comprise
 6

Table 1. System of soils and non-soils in the city [1, 8].

Open areas Sealed areas
Soils Soil-like bodies Materials Soils& Materials Buildings
soil-like
bodies
Natural Human-modified Artificial Natural Under asphalt or other Under
M. Gerasimova and O. Bezuglova

Topsoil Profile pavements houses

Urbosoils Urbanozem, necrozem, Technozem, Natural (in situ), Ekranozem Sealed
intruzem, culturozem, replantozem, technogenic (ex materials
industrizem constructozem situ)
Short comments to the table: (1) natural soils are conventionally natural, since they are affected by technogenic emissions, even those in urban forests, or
they might have been plowed and/or drained in the past; (2) urbo-soils are identified by their subsoils, more or less intact, and urbo-podzolic and
urbo-alluvial soils may serve as examples; (3) solid-phase objects on technogenic materials, either filled, or cut are referred to “Technogenic Surface
Formations” coined by V. Tonkonogov [9].
 Functional-Environmental and Properties-Oriented Approaches 7

industrizems and intruzems; the former occur near industrial enterprises and are
strongly polluted by any toxicants reducing, if not destroying soil biota, the latter are
confined to filling sites and parking zones, where impregnation of any soils or materials
by oil products is common. Human-made urban soils have similar origin: they are
created by filling several layers on the former soil, or on any material with the
humus-enriched top layer. The targets to construct such soils may be different: re-
plantozems or recreazems are produced by rehabilitation of disturbed lands or made in
the public gardens, for example, for flower beds. Constructozems are completely
artificial soils intended for some special purposes, for example, for playgrounds, and
their construction is oriented on moisture balance and stability. The origin and func-
tions of technozems are related to coalfields, where stabilization of heaps of overburden
rocks was required; and this was the initial meaning of this term proposed as early as in
1989 by L. Eterevskaya [8]. Later on, the term acquired a broader connotation. The
essence of necrozems and ekranozems does not need comments.
This list clearly shows the priority of criteria used for the definitions of urban soils
hardly related to soil properties, which couldn’t be different in the early studies. Prob-
ably, there were two main reasons. In the late 1990-s, soil scientists needed to prove the
importance of their objects and their status of soils, therefore, such ‘site or functional’
names were understandable and indicated the soil-forming conditions. On the other
hand, properties of urban soils were not sufficiently known, although it was already clear
that they strongly vary within the city and even within its functional zones.
Fast development of urban soils knowledge and concepts, along with current trends
to the priority of substantive elements in soil classifications, resulted in a shift to
properties-oriented diagnostic criteria. We tried to make an expert evaluation of the
ratio of criteria in most advanced systems by applying to qualifiers for humanly
modified objects, although it was not always easy to discriminate among the results of
intended anthropogenic impacts and properties produced by them (Table 2). For
example, in WRB, the Relocatic qualifier is referred to factors, while Lignic denom-
inates property. In the third version of the French system (Référenciel pédologique
[12]), there are many “double” qualifiers, such “mixed” or “truncated” comprising
factors – processes – results in their definitions. The objects comprise broader groups of
soils than only urban ones in all systems; these are also soils of other SUITMAs.

Table 2. Types of criteria used to classify urban soils in three classification systems.
Classification system, soils Diagnostics based on:
properties factors both
WRB – 2014 (2015), Technosols, all qualifiers [13] 40 16 8
Référenciel pédologique, 2008, grand ensemble de références – 6 3 8
Anthroposols [12]
Keys to Soil Taxonomy, 2014. Characteristics for human-altered 6 6 2
and human-transported soils [14]
8 M. Gerasimova and O. Bezuglova

Despite a certain ambiguity of the procedure, it is clear that soil-forming factors and
soil properties are of similar diagnostic significance. Presumably, it is explained by the
nature itself of urban soils, hence, the unfeasibility to make “a purely substantive”
system for them. Moreover, at the upper taxonomic levels, functional or factor per-
ception of soils concealed in their names seems to be attractive for users because of
their clarity and universality. Soil properties, as criteria for further subdivision are
removed to lower levels. There, they are implemented by specialists to differentiate
urban soils within functional units, to designate details in their properties, origin and
functioning, record current changes and/or spatial variability.

3 Should Urban Soils Be Classified Apart from Other Soils?

One more novel feature of Stroganova’s sytem is the introduction of intergrades –

urbo-soils (urbo-podzolic, urbo-chernozems, urbo-alluvial). These are soils with an
urbic horizon  50 cm thick underlain by the remnants of former subsoils; In case the
depth of urbic horizon is  50 cm, soils are qualified for urbanozems. Intergrades
mostly occur in the suburbs of megapolises and in small settlements. In the downtown,
they may appear in the gardens among urbanozems, replantozems and ekranozems.
In terms of taxonomy, urbo-soils in Stroganova’s system correspond to subtypes,
and are further subdivided into genera, species, subspecies, varieties and phases in
accordance with the criteria of the basic system for properties of the natural soils. For
example, a soil in a Moscow suburb may receive a full name: urbo-podzolic
surface-gleyic, few-artifactic, PAH-polluted loamy sandy on glaciofluvial sands.
The importance of intergrades for working with urban soils is triple: (i) they are
needed for mapping as being real spatial bodies; (ii) they provide confidence to the
non-traditional ‘urban’ terminology, since new names are mixed with the habitual ones;
(iii) they serve as bridges to the basic soil classification. In her system, Marina Stro-
ganova applied the approach to intergrades used in the recent basic classification of
soils of Russia [15]. Agro-soils are introduced there at the type level because they have
acquired a new agro- (plow) horizon as compared to their archetype (natural soil), and
according to the rules of this system, soil types are identified by their ‘profile formulas’,
which are the assemblages of diagnostic horizons; subtypes derive of them by adding
qualifiers indicating additional superimposed processes. Hence, the initial
soddy-podzolic soil type has the following profile formula: AY-EL-BEL-BT-C, and its
plowed variant looks like: P-(EL)-BEL-BT-C, the eluvial EL horizon may be either
included into the agro-horizon P, or partially preserved. By adding lowercase index “g”
to BEL and/or BT diagnostic horizons it is possible to record gley features, if they are
observed.
These examples with soddy-podzolic soils enable us to show the possibility of
inserting urban soils into the basic system of Russian soil classification without serious
difficulties. Urbic horizon was accepted as diagnostic, and it may be introduced in the
profile formula of any integrade within the trunk of postlithogenic soils, if its depth
does not exceed 50 cm. Thus, urbo-(soddy)-podzolic and urbo-chernozems may be
specified. Since the profiles of urban soils are growing upward owing to all kinds of
additions, so that the depth of their urbic horizons exceeds 50 cm, they should be
 Functional-Environmental and Properties-Oriented Approaches 9

referred to the trunk of synlithogenic soils, order of stratozems, and types of ur-
bostratozems; depending on the underlying material types of typical urbostratozems or
urbostratozems on buried soils may be identified (UR-C, UR-D or UR-[ABC],
respectively). In case of thin urbic horizons or weak manifestations of urbic properties,
a subtype qualifier may be added to the original name of soil; this is an “urbostratified
genetic property”, which already exists in the Russian system.
Recently, a group of soil scientists made efforts to come to agreement on embed-
ding urban soils into the classification system of soils of Russia [16] following its
concepts and diagnostic criteria. The definition of urbic horizon was formulated more
strictly; the taxonomic position of soils with different manifestations of urbic elements
was found; other horizons related to urbanization were defined: technogenic and
recultivation-mixed with corresponding subtype qualifiers; technogenic material and its
several variants were proposed for soils occurring in natural and urban environments.
The experience gained confirmed suitability of classifying urban soils together with
the natural ones in a sequence: natural soils – intergrades – urban soils – non-soils
(Technogenic Surface Formations - TSF). Looking for boundaries between the last two
members is an objective for further research.

4 Conclusions

The definition and grouping of urban soils by their location and functions was first
proposed in Russia by Marina Stroganova, and remains broadly used by soil scientists
and ecologists owing to its ecological bias and functional soil names. At the upper
levels of most soil classifications, the criteria related to soil-forming factors are of
almost equal importance as those derived of soil properties, which does not completely
coincide with the principles of WRB, Soil Taxonomy, new Russian and some other
systems. However, this seems to be inevitable because of the anthropogenic nature of
urban soils: the composition of soil profiles depends on the purpose and way of their
formation and materials used. In the same time, urban soils should be classified
together with the natural and semi-natural soils in the same open hierarchical systems.

Acknowledgements. The publication was partly supported by Russian Science Foundation

project № 15-04-04702.

References
1. Stroganova, M., Myagkova, A., Prokofieva, T., Skvortsova, I.: Soils of Moscow and Urban
Environment. Ed. by W. Burghardt. Moscow. 178 p. (1998)
2. Lehman, A.: Technosols and other proposals on urban soils for the WRB (World Reference
Base for Soil Resources). Int. Agrophy. 20(2), 129–134 (2006)
3. Lehman, A., Stahr, K.: Nature and significance of Anthropogenic soils. J. Soils Sediments 7
(4), 247–260 (2007)
4. Capra, G.F., Ganga, A., Grilli, E., Vacca, S., Buondonno, A.: A review on anthropogenic
soils from worldwide perspective. J. Soils Sediments 15(7), 1602–1618 (2015). Electronic
resource
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5. Stroganova, M.: Urban Soils – Concept, Classification and origin/Classification, Correlation,

and Management of Anthropogenic Soils. In: Proceedings of the Meeting in Nevada and
California, pp. 181–186 (1998)
6. Konecka-Betley, K., Janowska, E., Luniewska-Broda, J., Szpotansky, M.: Preliminary
classification of soils of the Warsaw agglomeration. Roczniki gleboznawczet. XXXV, No 2,
Warszawa: 151–169 (1984). (in Polish)
7. Sobocka, J.: Diagnostic key feature for Technosol: human transported and altered material
and artefacts. SUITMA 9. In: 9th International Congress. RUDN, Moscow. pp. 24–26
(2017). Abstract book
8. Gerasimova, M., Stroganova, M., Mozharova, N., Prokofieva, T.: Anthropogenic soils.
Moscow: Oekumena, 268 p. (2003) (in Russian)
9. Tonkonogov, V., Lebedeva, I.: A system for categorizing technogenic Surface Formations.
In: Proceedings of the Classification, Correlation and management of Anthropogenic soils,
Nevada and California. USDA-NRCS, Lincoln, NE, pp. 186–192 (1999)
10. Dudal, R.F.O., Nachtergaele, F., Purnell, M.: The human factor of soil formation: functions
and models of urban soils. In: Proceedings of 17th World Congress of Soil Science,
Bangkok, 14–22 August 2002, Symposium No. 18:1–8 (2002)
11. Burghardt, W.: Composition, properties, and functions of soils in the urban environment. Ed.
M. Levin, K. Kim et.al. Catena Schweizerbart. In: Soils within cities. Stuttgart, pp. 19–27
(2017)
12. Référenciel pedologique: Baize, D., Girard, M-C., (Eds.) Versailles Cedex, 404 p. (2008)
13. IUSS Working Group WRB: World Reference Base for Soil Resources 2014, update 2015.
In: International Soil Classification System for Naming Soils and Creating Legends for Soil
Maps. World Soil Resources Reports No. 106. FAO, Rome (2015)
14. Soil Survey Staff: Keys to Soil Taxonomy, 12th edn. USDA-Natural Resources Conser-
vation Service, Washington, DC. 372 p. (2014)
15. Classification and diagnostic of soils of Russia. Shishov, L., Tonkonogov, V., Lebedeva, I,
Gerasimova, M. (Eds.), Smolensk: Oekumena, 342 p. (2004) (in Russian)
16. Prokofieva, T., Gerasimova, M., Bezuglova, O., et al.: Inclusion of Soils and Soil-Like
Bodies of Urban Territories into the Russian Soil Classification System. Eurasian Soil Sci.
47(10), 959–967 (2014)
 Anthropogenic Materials as Bedrock
of Urban Technosols

Andrzej Greinert(&) and Jakub Kostecki

University of Zielona Gora, Institute of Environmental Engineering,

Department of Geoengineering and Reclamation, 15 Prof. Szafrana
St., 65-516 Zielona Gora, Poland
{A.Greinert,J.Kostecki}@iis.uz.zgora.pl

Abstract. Technogenic materials are common in SUITMA’s and may cause

significant changes in the properties of soils covering urban areas. Investigations
showing the diversification of properties of these materials to consider their role
as a bedrock of Technosols are of interest of soil scientists and urban planners.
The research was carried out in Zielona Gora urban area (western Poland). The
technogenic materials were collected from anthropogenic deposits building
layers 0–20(40) cm of the urban Technosols. A high content of technogenic
materials deposited in urban Technosols is frequently occurred and expected
situation. Many of the analysed materials have a high chemical reactivity, which
can induce significant changes in the properties of urban soils, mainly in terms
of pH, the content of CaCO3, carbon and EC. Some materials like slags, ashes
and sewage sludges contain significant quantities of Cd, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb and Zn.
The diversification of artefacts should be reflected in the soil classification
system, especially when boundary conditions are specified for inclusion of soils
into the Technosol group.

Keywords: SUITMA
Technogenic parent soil material
Anthropogenic soils

Technosols

1 Introduction

The soil cover in cities results from the impact of different human activities in time and
space as well as other soil-forming factors on various parent materials, both natural and
anthropogenic ones [1–8].
Anthropogenic soil-forming materials are significant factor of changes in the
properties of urban soils [6, 9–13]. The most common anthropogenic materials in urban
soils are: building debris, slags, dusts and ashes, translocated rock material, communal
wastes, sludges, subgrades and mulches. The most commonly described artefacts in
Technosols are widespread admixtures of building materials, wastes and waste building
materials produced as a result of mass demolition of buildings [1, 12–14]. Due to the
construction technologies that were used, materials such as brick rubble, cement-lime
rubble, as well as bonding, covering and insulating building materials can be found in
the soils of built-up areas. A number of authors mention consequences of their presence
in the soil mass such as changes in the physical, chemical and biological properties of

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2019

V. Vasenev et al. (Eds.): SUITMA 2017, SPRINGERGEOGR, pp. 11–20, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89602-1_3
12 A. Greinert and J. Kostecki

soils in urban areas [11, 15, 16], as well as in their functionality [9, 17, 18] and
evolution line [19].
Literature often describes the effect of anthropogenic modification of the chemical
composition of soils as a consequence of polluting them with various types of waste.
One of the confirmed facts in this aspect is an increase in the content of heavy metals in
technogenic soils [3, 15, 17, 20]. Another issue is the environmental risk connected
with the presence of pollutants in Technosols. El Kahlil et al. [15] found that the
physical alteration of technic materials deposited in Technosols is leading to metal
contamination of the soil solution. The release of metallic ions from wastes to soil
solution can lead further to inhibition of germination and plant growth disturbances.
Materials of technogenic origin, such as construction debris, slag, dust, rock
material, lignite, coal, municipal waste and sludge, are currently considered to be
parent materials for Technosols [21]. Admixtures of materials found in technogenic
soils can be introduced in different ways, always with the activity of humans. In the
WRB soil classification system [21], anthropogenic admixtures are called artefacts –
solid or liquid substances created or modified by humans, or brought to the surface by
human activity from a depth and deposited in an environment. They should have
substantially the same chemical and mineralogical properties as when first manufac-
tured, modified or excavated. All artefacts are treated in the same way by the WRB
classification without distinguishing their susceptibility to weathering or the intensity of
their influence on soil material. Only one – quantitative determinant of the presence of
artefacts in Technosols was indicated  20% by volume, weighted average in the
upper 100 cm from the soil surface or to continuous rock or technic hard material or a
cemented or indurated layer.
The goal of the paper is to present the properties of anthropogenic materials
deposited in the surface soil layers as factors having a direct and different impact on the
soils in urban areas.

2 Material and Methods

Zielona Gora is almost 700 years old town on the Polish-German borderland
(51°56ʹ23ʹʹ N, 15°30ʹ18ʹʹ E), inhabited in 2016 by about 140 thousand residents. From
the geological and geomorphological point of view, Zielona Gora is located on the
Middle-Odra-Land. Most of geological materials building superficial layers of the
Zielona Gora locality are medium and coarse sands of glacial and water origin, gravels
and in some areas silts and clays within glacitectonically disturbed moraine structures
[22]. In 61% of soils samples taken from the soil profiles of Zielona Gora area different
technogenic materials have been noted [20, 23, 24].
The technogenic materials were collected from anthropogenic deposits covering the
soils in 30 sites in Zielona Gora, building their layer from 0 to 20(40) cm. Fragments of
plastering material (cement-lime plaster) with a diameter of 20–50 mm were sampled
from the wall of a residential building and from the soil at a distance of up to 100 cm
from it. The building had been plastered about 20 years before sampling. Particular
kinds of technogenic materials (Fig. 1) were separated in laboratory conditions, mixed
 Anthropogenic Materials as Bedrock of Urban Technosols 13

up in order to obtain an average. For the chemical and physic-chemical analyses the
fraction with a diameter of less than 2 mm was obtained by sieving.

Fig. 1. Selected technogenic materials analysed in the paper: neat plaster, aerated concrete,
bricks, asbestos-cement roof plank, building sand and municipal sewage sludge

Sorption properties were determined by the Pallmann method, pH-H2O and

pH-1 M KCl values were measured with a glass electrode WTW SenTix 41 in the
supernatant of a 1:2.5 soil: water suspension, electrical conductivity (EC) of the
soil-water 1:2 extract was determined using the conductometric method, heavy metals
content in aqua regia extract (3HCl:HNO3 acc. to ISO 11466) using the ICP-OES
technique (Perkin Elmer Optima 8000) and the total carbon (TC) content using the
Shimadzu VCNS analyser. For the determination of the content of carbonates in the
soil samples the ISO 10693 method was used, based on the displacement of carbon
dioxide by hydrochloric acid addition. Extracts in aqua regia were prepared and
analysed both for the soils and anthropogenic materials as well. All analyses were
carried out three times.
The mineralogical composition of technogenic materials (analysis of solid crys-
talline, semi-crystalline and amorphous materials) was conducted using GE X-ray
Diffraction System Seifert XRD 3003, with method of reflection, refraction and pos-
sible X-ray enhancement on the planes and nodes of crystalline meshes of crystalline
substance. Settings – Method: 1 Strongest Lines; Deleted Phases: used; Long Search;
Error Window: 0.1° *(1 + sin(Theta)); Theta Shift: 0.200°; Max proposals: 100; rel.
Intensity Level: 60%; Intensity Threshold: 0%; Database: without Subfile selection.
14 A. Greinert and J. Kostecki

3 Results

Many anthropogenic materials varying in terms of properties and their potential impact
on the environment are deposited in the soils of urban areas. It is possible to find ones
with a high chemical reactivity (neat plaster, asbestos-cement roof plank, slags and
ashes) and chemically neutral ones (bricks, building sands and gravels) or ones that
improve the properties of soils acting as fertilizers (compost, bed materials), Table 1.

Table 1. Selected properties of technogenic materials deposited on the soil surface [4, 17]*
Material pH EC1:2 CaCO3
in H2O mS
cm−1 %
Neat plaster 10.1–12.2 0.6–6.8 26.6–57.4
Aerated concrete 8.3–8.6 0.9–2.1 29.7
Roof tiles and bricks 7.6–8.2 2.3–3.0 20.7
Clinker brick (factory chimney) 7.8–8.2 1.1–3.8 30.4
Asbestos-cement roof plank 11.8–12.2 4.5–8.4 36.3
slag 8.7–9.2 7.0–9.0 4.0–15.0
Ash after biomass combustion 10.2–10.3 7.8–11.6 32.2
Building sands and gravels 7.4–9.3 0.2–0.7 20.4
Bed for coniferous plants 4.3–5.0 0.2 1.7
Bed for deciduous plants 5.8–6.5 0.3 4.2
Compost of green wastes 6.7–7.1 0.3 5.0–10.0
Municipal sewage sludge 7.1–12.4 0.6–18.0 10.0–44.5
*
expanded

Neat plaster, asbestos-cement roof plank, ash after biomass combustion and some
municipal sewage sludges (lime treated) are materials characterized by a very high
pH – 10.1–12.4. Building sands and gravels are very different materials because of
admixtures and impurities – pH between 7.4 and 9.3. Other technogenic materials such
as aerated concrete, roof tiles, clinker bricks and slag are also alkalic, with a lower pH,
between 7.4 and 9.2. Compost of green wastes and some municipal sewage sludges is
almost neutral – pH 6.9–7.1. Only artificially prepared beds for ornamental plants were
acid, with pH 4.3–5.8. Slag, ash after biomass combustion and lime treated sewage
sludges having the highest EC level in the range of 9.0–18.0 mS
cm−1 can influence the
soil salinity level. Neat plaster and asbestos-cement roof planks can also have a high
EC level (even 6.8–8.4 mS
cm−1). Other technogenic materials are characterized by
lower EC values being in the range – from 0.6 to 3.8 mS
cm−1.
Typical for the most of construction artefacts is high CaCO3 content. Analysed
rubble materials have been characterised by the carbonates content ranged from 20.4 to
57.4%. The carbonates content in ashes was lower – 4–15%, and in ashes very similar –
av. 32.2%. The carbonates content in compost and sewage sludge was dependent from
the technology of sanitation of them – with addition of different doses of lime.
 Anthropogenic Materials as Bedrock of Urban Technosols 15

In the case of the cement-lime plaster samples it was found that retention in the soil
changes the properties of the material. After about 20 years’ retention of the material in
the soil, the CaCO3 content decreased from 57.4 to 26.6% in comparison with the
material sampled from the wall of a neighbouring building. For the material extracted
from the soil, an average EC score of 6.82 mS
cm−1 was obtained in comparison with
1.72 mS
cm−1 for the material sampled from the wall of the building. In this context it
was also found that the pH of the materials analysed increased from 10.1 to 12.2
(Table 1).
The X-ray analysis showed the quartz’s dominance among the minerals contained
in the samples, which was the expected result – higher peaks by 21, 27, 36, 50 and 60°
(Fig. 2a–c). In the cases of neat plaster, building sands and gravels and Technosols
samples, important content of calcite and other Ca minerals was established. Very
interesting is a comparison between neat plaster materials taken from the wall of
building and from the soil of adjacent area (Fig. 2a and b). Besides the characteristic
high peaks of quartz, carbonate lines are present on the diffraction pattern, slightly
different for these two samples. In the sample from the wall are visible Ca minerals
different than calcite – probably calcium oxide/calcium hydroxide (peak by the 68°). It
is noticeable that there is a bigger peak corresponding to these calcium compounds in
the case of a sample of neat plaster that does not come in contact with the soil (Fig. 2b).

Fig. 2. X-ray analysis of the chosen technogenic materials; a – neat plaster from the soil,
b – neat plaster from the wall, c – Technosol with carbonates from rubble materials; d: x-ray lines
matched in analyse of the neat plaster from the wall

Some materials – mainly slags and ashes may contain quantities of heavy metals
significant for the natural environment. An especially high content was estimated for
slag (1 mg Cd
kg−1, 34 mg Cu
kg−1, 140 mg Ni
kg−1, 205 mg Pb
kg−1), ash
after biomass combustion (4.8 mg Cd
kg−1, 88 mg Cu
kg−1, 43 mg Ni
kg−1,
16 A. Greinert and J. Kostecki

400 mg Zn
kg−1), compost of green wastes (1.1 mg Cd
kg−1, 24.5 mg Cu
kg−1,

258 mg Zn
kg−1) and municipal sewage sludge (4.1 mg Cd
kg−1, 37.3 mg Cu
kg−1,
55.7 mg Pb
kg−1, 313 mg Zn
kg−1). The materials described also include significant
quantities of Fe, from 1.2 to 4.8% (Table 2).

Table 2. Heavy metal subtotal content in technogenic materials deposited on the soil surface
Material Cd Cu Fe Ni Pb Zn
Average values in mg
kg−1
Neat plaster 0.2 3.7 88 6.0 2.8 26
Aerated concrete 0.2 1.0 n.d.* 5.0 1.7 2.4
Roof tiles and bricks 0.2 8.3 3060 2.0 n.d. 34
Clinker brick (factory chimney) 0.2 17 3750 1.3 n.d. 41
Asbestos-cement roof plank 0.2 5.7 n.d. 4.3 4.6 3.2
Slag 1.0 33.7 48400 140 205 76
Ash after biomass combustion 4.8 88 18700 43 5.8 400
Building sands and gravels 0.2 8.6 2842 9.0 11.4 28.4
Bed for coniferous plants 0.1 2.2 1160 1.1 6.8 9.1
Bed for deciduous plants 0.1 1.2 2610 0.4 11.1 10.1
Compost of green wastes 1.1 24.5 27620 6.9 39.9 258
Municipal sewage sludge 4.1 37.3 11896 12.8 55.7 313
*
n.d. – not detected

4 Discussion

A characteristic feature of urban regions is the presence of technogenic parent materials

of soils made or transformed by man. Technogenic materials are characterised by a
high diversity of constituents, a high spatial variability, and a range of temporal dis-
continuities [10, 11, 17, 25]. Their presence significantly modifies the morphology of
soils and their properties. Furthermore, this may be a factor explicitly determining the
directions of soil-forming processes and the evolution of soils [5, 12, 17, 26].
This induces an effect of heterogeneous soil properties in urban areas (even small
ones). Since a significant part of wastes introduced into soils has dimensions of the soil
skeleton, they affect the surface soil layers by acting as a drainage medium. Regional
and linear introduction of wastes leads to the creation of extensive waste layers,
deposited at varying depths. In addition, they change the flow and deposition of soil
solution, which results in an unusual variation of the chemical composition of the soils.
Some technogenic materials are found in soils in the form of large particles, which
are classified as the soil skeleton. This can be seen when a content of 0.0 to 4.7%,
typical of the skeleton in the Zielona Gora soils of natural origin, is compared to the
content in Technosols, which reaches a dozen or even dozens of percent. The presence
of soil layers with a content of technogenic materials of up to 96% was also found,
mainly in urban and transport areas. An increase in skeletal properties, as a symptom of
 Anthropogenic Materials as Bedrock of Urban Technosols 17

transformations typical of Technosols, has been widely described in literature [1, 4, 12–
14, 27, 28].
Different materials introduced into soils or onto their surface have different physical
and chemical properties (Table 1). The introduction of construction rubble into soils,
consisting of various wastes containing lime, caused a considerable increase in the
content of CaCO3 (Table 2, Fig. 2). In the surroundings of Zielona Gora natural soils
are non-carbonic. Technosols created by the introduction of building sand and gravel
into the soil as well as municipal wastes are similar in this respect, though some
differences have also been found. They resulted from the contamination of mineral
building materials with lime and cement and from mixing municipal wastes with
alkalizing materials. Technosols including rubble had a content of carbonates ranging
from 3.7 to 25%. Mazurek et al. [11] found that the surface levels of Technosols were
significantly enriched with CaCO3.
The pH of the technogenic materials analysed ranged from acid to strongly alkaline,
they also contained varying amounts of chemical compounds with different solubility
in water (as indicated by EC values). This largely affects the reactivity between these
materials and the soil. A higher percentage of brick rubble (pH 8.1–8.9) than of sandy
soil material of natural origin (pH 6.4–7.7) was described by Nehls et al. [12] as a
typical phenomenon. Wessolek et al. [13] found that occurrence of soils containing
rubble with a pH-CaCl2 value of less than 7.0 was unlikely.
Nehls et al. [12] also found that the EC value increased as a result of the presence of
rubble in the soil. This interesting observation made by these authors about an increase
in the EC value in rubble materials deposited in the soil in comparison with raw
building materials, caused by their intensive weathering, was fully confirmed by the
research carried out in Zielona Gora – in the case of plastering materials it was
6.82 mS
cm−1 in soil material and 1.72 mS
cm−1 in the material from building walls.
Slag, ash after biomass combustion and lime treated sewage sludges having a high EC
level (9.0–18.0 mS
cm−1) can influencing the soil salinity level, which is very low for
the local, sandy soils of natural origin (0.1–0.2 mS
cm−1). Neat plaster and
asbestos-cement roof planks can also have a high EC level (even 6.8–8.4 mS
cm−1).
Other technogenic materials are characterized by lower EC values being in the range of
0.6 to 3.8 mS
cm−1. Wessolek et al. [13] described the soils in Berlin in post-World
War II rubble as not very salty, with an EC value of 75% in samples collected below
0.14 mS
cm−1. The EC value of soils above 2 mS
cm−1 can be a problem to plant
growth and development [29].
A higher content of organic carbon (2.6–6.4%) was caused by two situations – in
the case of the surface soil layers by the application of horticultural substrates, and in
the case of the deeper layers, mainly by the presence of ash, slag and mixed municipal
waste.
In a vast majority of Technosols values of sorption capacity close to those typical of
soils of natural origin were found. This is consistent with research done by other
authors indicating a CEC value for rubble of 6 cmol(+)
kg−1 [12], which is not sub-
stantially different from the CEC value of soil material. Technosols containing building
rubble have a BS value of up to 80–100% but only Technosols built of non-calcareous
technogenic materials have a BS value similar to natural soils (32–73%).
18 A. Greinert and J. Kostecki

An increase in the content of heavy metals is commonly regarded as a phenomenon

typical of urban centres [28]. However, it is difficult to directly attribute this increase to
the weathering of technogenic materials.
Literature widely describes significant differences in the weathering of technogenic
materials and the effects of such variation on Technosols [10, 30]. The research pre-
sents the concept of differentiation of artefact types in the context of their lower content
in soils, enabling the classification of such soils as Technosols. The PSSS Anthro-
pogenic Soil Working Group suggests dividing technogenic materials into two groups.
The first would cover chemically reactive artefacts - they have a significant impact on
the physical, chemical and biological properties of soils and their presence poses
environmental or health risks (e.g. lime and derived products without concrete, blast
furnace slag, slag and ash after coal combustion, post-flotation metal ore wastes, rock
materials containing sulphides and sulphur, phosphogypsum, petrochemical and
chemical wastes, bones and household wastes, etc.). The second group would include
low-reactive artefacts – they may have a significant impact on the physical and
physical-chemical properties of soils, but they are not highly toxic and do not pose
environmental or health risks (e.g. sand, gravel, building dusts, rock materials not
containing sulphides and sulphur, selected fractions of loose rocks, glass, concrete,
building and household ceramics, timber and household wood, etc.).
After the recognition that some artefacts have a very high impact on soil properties
because of their chemical reactivity, it would be desirable to consider reducing their
necessary content in order to classify soils as Technosols. Charzyński et al. [31] pro-
posed a content of 10%vol. in a layer with a thickness of  30 cm present to a depth of
100 cm below ground level as a sufficient boundary condition.

5 Conclusions

A high content of anthropogenic materials deposited in urban Technosols is frequently

occurred and expected situation.
Many anthropogenic materials have a high chemical reactivity, which can result
significant change in the properties of urban soils, mainly in terms of pH, the content of
CaCO3, carbon and EC.
Some materials like slags, ashes and sewage sludges contain significant quantities
of Cd, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb and Zn.
The diversification of artefacts should be reflected in the soil classification system,
especially when boundary conditions are specified for inclusion of soils into the
Technosol group.

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 Influence of Technic Surfaces on the Selected
Properties of Ekranic Technosols

Jakub Kostecki(&) and Andrzej Greinert

Department of Geoengineering and Reclamation,

University of Zielona Góra, Institute of Environmental Engineering,
15 Prof. Szafrana St., 65-516 Zielona Góra, Poland
{J.Kostecki,A.Greinert}@iis.uz.zgora.pl

Abstract. Soil sealing is the most common type of soil degradation in the
urban areas. Soil under the different pavement and road covers shows many
important disturbances in the exchange of matter and energy between the bio-
sphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere, what is leading to further disorders. Many
important differences between the Ekranic Technosols behaviour are connected
with the tightness of technic surface. As usual a diversification between soil
properties under the complete (e.g. asphalt roads) and non-complete sealing
(pavement bricks) is observed. The paper presents the physico-chemical prop-
erties of Ekranic Technosols overhung under bitumen surface, concrete slabs
and concrete paving stones. The effect of top layers compaction is visible in all
cases, especially in the bulk density, total porosity and capillary water capacity.
The pH of the soils was different belonging on soil material and land preparation
technique. The top layers of the tested soils can be characterized by the low
content of organic carbon. The technogenic layers located directly under the
sealed surface showed a lower content of some heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn)
than the layers below. However, in some cases the opposite situation can be
seen. There were no significant differences in the content of trace elements under
different technic surfaces.

Keywords: Soil sealing
Urban soils
Anthropogenic soils

1 Introduction

Urban areas are significantly different comparing with located outside the city, when
describing the ecological problems, including the quality of soil cover. Many of soils of
the urban area are degraded in a consequence of the strong human impact. Soil sealing
is one of the main forms of soil degradation, additionally constantly growing [1–6].
Soil sealing is the situation when soil surface is constructed as a layer of impervious
material [6] or wider – sealing over of soil through urban development. The problem of
soil sealing has been shown as influencing on the most of the total area of urban
development [1, 7]. It is relative complicated to define the borders of contemporary
urban development, especially through the soil transformation. Contemporary urban
area takes ca. 6% of the European continent, and this value increases every 5 years by
0.34–0.50% [8]. In the city from a few to above 80% of the total area is covered with

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2019

V. Vasenev et al. (Eds.): SUITMA 2017, SPRINGERGEOGR, pp. 21–30, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89602-1_4
22 J. Kostecki and A. Greinert

impermeable surface [9–11] dependent on size, spatial economy of the city and the
form of land development [12, 13].
An impermeable layer, like asphalt or concrete, strongly reduces the infiltration of
rainwater into the soil profile and interferes with gas exchange between the soil and the
atmosphere. All kinds of soil sealing can disturb the water-gas balance in soil and affect
physio-chemical processes within the soil profile. It also significantly reduces the
possibility of retention of water in urban areas (increased water runoff) [6, 14]. Today
these phenomena are regarded as the more formidable ones as far as sustainable urban
development is concerned [14–16].
In general, the urban areas can be divided into:
– non-sealed (urban greenery, backyards),
– semi-permeable (porous roads, paving and squares),
– impermeable (asphalt and concrete sealing, area under the buildings).
The morphology of the Ekranic Technosols is very different because of various
superficial layers development and construction techniques have been used [17]. The
most frequently used technic surfaces are made of: bitumen, concrete, large and small
concrete slabs, concrete paving stone and porous materials (slags of different origin and
building aggregates) [18–20]. Below the superficial layers, different technogenic
materials are putted in, creating binder course, load-bearing layer, anti-freeze course
and other artificial layers of Ekranic Technosols profile [10].
In general, raised level of the heavy metals content is typical phenomena for the
urban sites [1, 10, 21]. The sources of heavy metals in urban soils and urban road dusts
are mainly derived from traffic sources and industrial sources. From this point of view,
sealed areas can be protected against the immision of contaminants from the outside of
the soil. It does not act in situation of the direct input of contaminants to soil with
different wastes [10]. Many of the artificial materials used for road foundation can be
contaminated with different elements and substances. In the built-up area of Zielona
Góra, per example, slag is widespread in soils as an effect of areas levelling and soil
reinforcement [18–20]. A large amount of different contaminants are brought to the soil
with mixed building rubble also. Due to the non-agricultural use of the most urban
soils, the attention is focused on the chemical safety of soil for inhabitants in the case of
direct input. In this respect, they are essential pathways of heavy metals and other
contaminants from the soil into the human body. Some authors described the influence
of different kinds of surface sealing on the chemical composition of soil and distri-
bution of contaminants in soil profile [1, 21].
The aim of the study was to characterise chosen influences of the soil sealing to its
properties. The research gives information about the geochemistry of Ekranic Tech-
nosols – frequently occurred urban soils, impacted by the heavy construction works.
 Influence of Technic Surfaces on the Selected Properties 23

2 Materials and Methods

The study was conducted in Zielona Gora – the medium size city, located in the
western part of Poland (51°56’07” N, 15°30’13” E). The research was carried out in
the central districts of Zielona Gora city (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Location of the investigation sites in Zielona Gora urban area.

Particular locations were selected in areas with different soil surfaces: bitumen
sealing form, concrete slabs and concrete paving stone – 5 soil profiles at a depth of
150 cm (samples from each of the morphological layers or genetic horizons).
The soil samples were air-dried and sieved using the mesh 2 mm in diameter.
Sorption properties were determined by the Pallmann method, pH in 0.01 M CaCl2
values were measured with a glass electrode WTW SenTix 41 in the supernatant of a
1:2.5 soil: water suspension, total organic carbon (TOC) content using a Shimadzu
VCNS analyser, particle size distribution – using hydrometer method. The CaCO3
content was determined by loss of weight, and the total content of heavy metals by the
inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) in samples after
mineralisation in aqua-regia. All analyses were carried out in triplicate.
24 J. Kostecki and A. Greinert

3 Results

Ekranic Technosols have specific soil profiles not only due to the presence in topsoil
roads and pavements construction materials – impermeable or semi-impermeable.
Construction works, related to the roads, sidewalks and squares formation, consist in a
number of activities that drastically change the soil profile. They begin with the removal
of organic and humic (non-bearing) soil horizons, after which the surface is sealing
formed with mineral aggregate. It creates a cut-off layer between the surface and the soil
levels. The horizons located lower in the soil profile are reach indifferent wastes, usually
not removed from the soil – unless they are undesirable for construction reasons (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Ekranic Technosols profiles from Zielona Góra urban area

A characteristic feature of the sealed soils is the impairment of the physical

properties in at least some horizons. This is because of the compaction of the material
to ensure the stability of the solid surface. The described density of tested soil ranges
between 2.63–2.86 g cm−3 in layers below the sealed surface and 2.54–2.79 g
cm−3 of
less than 20(35) cm. The bulk density varies from 1.36 to 1.68 g
cm−3 in layers below
the sealed surface and 1.54–1.71 g
cm−3 below 20(35) cm. The effect of compaction of
top layers is visible. The bulk density of other layers also indicates strong compaction.
Total porosity reaches values of 16.7-34.6%. Capillary water capacity is 9.9-15.1%.
The reaction of the soils was neutral to alkaline (with one exception in the bottom
of soil profile No. 3 – light acid). The following pH indices have been found: 6.8–7.3
for soil sealed with bitumen, 5.8–7.4 for soil sealed with concrete slabs and 6.9–7.4
concrete paving stone. There is no significant dependences between the pH value and
sealing material or place of sampling in the soil profile.
The basic sorption properties of analysed soils are typical for soil cover of Zielona
Góra area with exception of very low level of hydrolytic acidity (0.08–0.65 cmol(+)

kg−1). Because of the sandy texture and low total organic carbon content (0.12–1.08%),
total exchange bases and cation exchange capacity are low, respectively: 2.18–17.05
and 2.38–17.27 cmol(+)
kg−1 Table 1.
 Influence of Technic Surfaces on the Selected Properties 25

Table 1. Physical and chemical properties of Ekranic Technosols from Zielona Góra.
Depth TOC Texture CaCO3 pH-CaCl2 HA TEB CEC BS
cm % % cmol(+)
kg−1 d.m. %
Soils sealed with bitumen surface
30–40 1.08 s* 1.30 7.3 0.10 6.68 6.78 98.56
40–60 0.35 s 1.50 6.9 0.35 6.33 6.68 94.73
60–100 0.11 s 0.40 6.8 0.29 2.23 2.52 88.67
100–130 0.16 s 0.00 7.1 0.19 4.97 5.16 96.36
130–150 0.08 s 0.00 6.9 0.20 2.18 2.38 91.50
20–80 1.50 s 0.70 7.2 0.23 7.47 7.70 97.08
80–150 0.87 s 0.00 7.1 0.31 6.11 6.42 95.21
Mean 0.59 – 0.56 – 0.24 5.14 5.38 94.59
SD 0.52 – 0.59 – 0.08 1.98 1.98 3.16
Soils sealed with concrete slabs
05–10 0.72 s 0.60 7.2 0.14 7.16 7.30 98.05
10–100 0.65 s 0.00 7.2 0.22 7.57 7.79 97.21
100–150 0.16 s 0.00 5.8 0.58 2.62 3.20 81.94
5–8 1.08 s 0.40 7.2 0.12 11.89 12.01 99.00
8–50 0.59 s 0.00 7.0 0.33 9.49 9.82 96.64
50–90 0.36 s 0.00 7.3 0.15 6.21 6.36 97.64
90–120 0.29 s 0.00 7.3 0.19 6.48 6.67 97.19
120–150 0.21 s 0.00 7.4 0.17 6.12 6.29 97.26
Mean 0.51 – 0.13 – 0.24 7.19 7.43 95.62
SD 0.29 – 0.22 – 0.14 2.53 2.44 5.21
Soils sealed with concrete paving stone
5–10 0.12 s 0.20 7.3 0.56 7.64 8.20 93.14
10–15 0.89 s 0.00 7.4 0.22 17.05 17.27 98.74
15–25 0.64 s 0.00 7.3 0.32 11.37 11.69 97.30
25–80 0.59 s 0.60 7.1 0.35 11.35 11.70 97.05
80–110 0.38 s 0.00 6.9 0.65 8.25 8.90 92.67
110–150 0.25 s 0.00 6.9 0.17 3.68 3.85 95.52
Mean 0.48 – 0.13 – 0.38 9.89 10.27 95.74
SD 0.26 – 0.22 – 0.17 4.12 4.09 2.21
*
s – sand

Heavy metals content in investigated soil profiles was low, in any cases below the
thresholds values (TV) permitted in Poland for soils of traffic areas (soil group IV in
Ordinance of the Minister of the Environment of Rep. of Poland, 01.09.2016 [22]).
Maximum values for the Ekranic Technosols were respectively, for Cd 1.12 mg
kg−1
(TV 15 mg
kg−1), Cu 38.6 mg
kg−1 (TV 600 mg
kg−1), Ni 15.7 mg
kg−1 (TV
500 mg
kg−1), Pb 56.8 mg
kg−1 (TV 600 mg
kg−1) and Zn 154 mg
kg−1 (TV
2000 mg
kg−1). In many cases the content of described metals was higher in the lower
horizons of soil profiles, but it is hard to talk about the rule Table 2.
26 J. Kostecki and A. Greinert

Table 2. The content of heavy metals in Ekranic Technosols from Zielona Góra.
Depth Cd Cu Ni Pb Zn
cm mg
kg−1 d.m.
Soils sealed with bitumen surface
30-40 0.28 20.18 15.40 22.58 52.80
40-60 0.30 28.58 5.84 56.80 71.40
60-100 0.22 12.28 13.86 21.42 25.20
100-130 0.34 20.14 14.90 23.00 43.80
130-150 0.42 15.04 15.20 9.91 22.00
20-80 0.28 10.08 5.36 16.27 29.80
80-150 0.34 13.00 15.00 9.40 61.00
Mean 0.31 17.04 12.22 22.77 43.71
SD 0.06 5.90 4.21 14.86 17.55
Soils sealed with concrete slabs
05-10 0.36 8.00 13.42 5.95 12.80
10–100 0.64 19.78 15.74 30.80 154.40
100–150 0.34 13.00 13.48 13.20 48.40
5–8 0.42 10.90 3.84 6.80 49.00
8–50 0.22 8.87 3.22 15.56 31.60
50–90 0.26 10.32 1.88 14.20 46.00
90–120 0.18 7.04 3.56 8.14 17.80
120–150 0.40 11.50 5.16 15.20 86.80
Mean 0.35 11.18 7.54 13.73 55.85
SD 0.13 3.72 5.28 7.39 42.95
Soils sealed with concrete paving stone
5–10 0.40 13.68 12.62 7.00 24.80
10–15 0.38 38.60 12.80 20.29 40.00
15–25 0.36 15.48 4.80 35.80 85.00
25–80 0.26 8.10 3.26 7.24 16.40
80–110 1.12 23.06 10.24 19.20 116.60
110–150 0.26 15.14 2.44 10.00 70.60
Mean 0.46 19.01 7.69 16.59 58.90
SD 0.30 9.79 4.33 10.10 35.29

4 Discussion

The exponential increase in the number of cities inhabitants results in need for urban
expansion and building densification. The growth of the cities results in seizure of large
areas of land. Soils in urban areas show a significant mechanical transformation, that
affect their physical, chemical and biological properties [21, 23]. Many areas within the
cities are sealed with impermeable and semi-impermeable materials. In Zielona Góra
the share of the Ekranic Technosols ranged from 13 to 15% in total area of the city,
depending on city district [2]. Sealing form soil with impermeable materials such as
 Influence of Technic Surfaces on the Selected Properties 27

asphalt and concrete is mentioned as one of the main forms of mechanical degradation
of urban soil. This kind of soil degradation strongly reduced permeability which effects
in reduction of the infiltration of rainwater into the soil profile and interferes with gas
exchange between the soil and the atmosphere.
The soil horizon below the technic surface has been mineral in the most of loca-
tions; the residual humic horizon occurrence has been noted rarely (3-10 cm thick). At
a depth of 10 to 80 cm, the content of organic carbon ranged from 0.75 to 1.50%. In a
consequence of land preparation for road construction purposes soils are truncated and
the topsoil reach in organic carbon is transported to the other places. In effect lowering
of organic carbon content in soil is observed. The low organic matter content in urban
soils (urbanozems and ecranozems) can be explained other ways, by the disturbance of
the soil/vegetation relationships [24]. However, changes between soil sealed with
permeable and non-permeable material can be seen in the long term [3].
Sorption properties depend on the particle size distribution, organic matter content
and the content of different artificial porous materials. CEC ranged from 2 to 17
cmol
kg−1 d.m. is typical for the most soils of Zielona Góra city and its surroundings.
One of the most commonly observed characteristics of Technosols is a presence of
different artefacts, mainly construction rubble. Because of high carbonates content in
the mixed rubble, pH values of soils in urban areas are normally higher than in city
surroundings. All of examined soils show pH higher than these typical for agricultural
or forest land in Zielona Góra surroundings (5.8–7.4 vs. 4.1–5.6). Soils sealed with
concrete elements show higher reaction in the topsoil [1]. Frequently used technique of
concrete element lay-out is locating them on special prepared sand-cement foundation.
Additionally it is very rare situation cleaning the soil from rubble before the traffic area
construction. An effect of this is unification of soil pH regardless of location and form
of sealing. Lack of difference between the different Ekranic Technosols in the average
pH values was described also by other researchers [1, 17].
The layers located directly below the pavements show a lower content of some
heavy metals (mainly Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn) comparing to the deeper horizons. However, in
some cases the opposite situation can be seen – the content of Zn, Ni and Pb can be
relative higher. The described study does not detected significant differences in the
heavy metals content under different technic surfaces. The presence of heavy metals in
soil is an effect of different activities, natural and anthropogenic origin. Besides the
mineralogical composition and rock weathering processes, many factors of heavy
metals deposition are connected with water or air transport. Such movement determines
the superficial distribution of trace elements in the soil profile. Many changes in such
described causal chain are expected when the human impact is taken into account –
mostly in a consequence of soil mixing, artificial layers forming and artefacts input.
The heavy metal content in soils is also the result of time of impact.
Metals and metalloids unlike organics compounds are not degraded in the envi-
ronment, which might occur even more dangerous when it comes to environmental
safety. Huber with co-authors [25] show that presents of selected heavy metals can vary
significantly in the runoff from traffic areas. Some research demonstrate that urban soil
surface conditions have considerable influence on convective rainfall and that they are
important in the chain of heavy metal distribution in the urban ecosystem [26]. Runoff
from urban roadways can impact the quality of the environment, in the first place
28 J. Kostecki and A. Greinert

surface waters and soils, after that the groundwater reservoir [27]. Some authors
emphasize [28, 29] that non-permeable materials used for pavements may work as a
natural filter for the contaminated rain water. This phenomenon can be linked with the
sorption properties of the materials used for the technical construction [30].

5 Conclusion
1. Ekranic Technosols of Zielona Góra urban area are very poor, in most cases rep-
resenting grain-size composition of sand. The material of these soils has been
strongly modified during the pre-investment area preparation and process of
building. As a result of the construction works, the soil material with good con-
struction properties (bearing capacity, no swelling and shrinkage) was obtained.
2. The organic matter content is very low. Relatively higher content was revealed only
in the horizons, situated directly under the technic surface, what is normal situation,
due to the soil truncation before the road/pavement construction.
3. Physicochemical properties are not significantly different between soils representing
sealing categories or changes can be seen in the longer term. Typical feature for
these soils is high pH level what is result of building material admixture – con-
structional or waste. Many horizons show low sorption capacity due to the
admixture of building sands and gravels or even artificial sand/gravel horizons
construction.
4. Heavy metals were found in the tested samples in the quantities similar to the
geochemical background of Zielona Gora urban area. This content can be regarded
as ‘safe for the environment’.

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 The Technosols on 60–70 Year-Old
Technogenic Deposits of the Lomonosov
Moscow State University Campus

Tatiana V. Prokof’eva(&), Marina S. Rozanova,

and Alexei V. Kiriushin

Soil Science Faculty of the Lomonosov Moscow State University,

Moscow, Russia
[email protected]

Abstract. The complex of buildings of the main campus of the Lomonosov

Moscow State University (LMSU) on the Leninskie Hills (Sparrow Hills) was
constructed in the middle of the 20th century. In this paper we compare results of
soil formation under different combinations of low intensity anthropogenic
influences within an area of soils 60–70 years old, which were formed on similar
technogenic deposits – ‘building grounds’. Pedogenesis is shown to have two
main trends, postlithogenic and synlithogenic, depending on the rates of matter
accumulation on the soil surface. Matter accumulation can lead to the formation
of specific urban humus horizons that are eutrophic and calcareous. The climate
warming and increasing humidity have resulted in intensive organic matter
accumulation within areas, where leaf litter has not been removed and composts
have been applied.

Keywords: Urban soils
Soil organic matter
Soil evolution

Russia

1 Introduction

Modern urban environments are characterized by the active relocation of ground

masses with the formation of new layers of technogenic deposits. Surfaces undergo
long-lasting changes caused by intensive land use and the development of newly
built-up areas. As a result, city soils generally tend to be quite young.
The complex of buildings of the main campus of the Lomonosov Moscow State
University (LMSU) on the Leninskie Hills (Sparrow Hills) at the South-Western
suburb of the city was constructed in the middle of the 20th century. Following the
completion of the buildings, a Botanical Garden was established together with general
land ameliorations within the LMSU campus. As a result, the site consists of a vast area
with varying land use and soils 60–70 years old. Therefore, this allows for comparison
of soil formation under different combinations of low intensity anthropogenic
influences.

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2019

V. Vasenev et al. (Eds.): SUITMA 2017, SPRINGERGEOGR, pp. 31–41, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89602-1_5
32 T. V. Prokof’eva et al.

2 Study Site

Prior to the construction of the campus, the whole area of Leninskie Hills was occupied
by rural settlements, fields and woodland patches. The native soils were classified as
Albic Retisols (profile A-AE-E-Bt-BC-C) [1]. They are called sod-podzolic soils in the
Russian tradition. This soil developed in a loamy parent material with predominantly
Umbric humus horizon with 7–15 cm thickness, gradually going down to the
light-colored Albic eluvial horizon having an irregular lower border with interfingering
penetrating into illuvial Bt horizon having visible accumulation of clay. Sod-podzolic
soils are predominantly formed on the not-stony mantle loams in the Moscow region.
The area has been realigned several times during and after construction. Some layers of
technogenic deposits have been formed at the surface from a mixture of natural soil
material, natural sediments (from excavations) and different wastes (construction and
household). Natural sediments are represented by moraine and mantle loam. Moraine
age is synchronous with Alpine glaciation RISS 2. Works on soil remediation and
landscape design were carried out after the construction phase.
The soils which were studied were formed on similar technogenic deposits –
‘building grounds’, from 0.3 to 3 m thick. Calcareous inclusions were very rare or
absent within the surface layer, where modern pedogenesis takes place.
Currently, the territory of the campus includes a harmonious combination of
buildings, roads of various sizes, lawns, planted trees and the botanical garden, which
includes an arboretum (dendrarium), orchard, plots of cultivated plants, etc.
Land use was determined by the character of the human impacts. These include:
1. pollution from traffic and airborne solids from surrounding areas;
2. removal of fallen leaves (only partial since 2010 and not for 50 years in the
Botanical Garden arboretum);
3. replacement of surface horizons and fertilizing of lawns by bedding composts;
4. periodic soil disturbances in connection with construction work;
5. sealing of soils by road surfaces;
6. the climate change resulting from the inclusion of the area into city territory, i.e., it
is becoming warmer, from frigid and isofrigid to mesic soil temperature classes,
with increased rainfall [2–4].
Studied soil pits were located in the Botanical Garden arboretum, on road-side
lawns and under planted trees, altogether 20 pits (Fig. 1). The land management
involved the complete removal of fallen leaves in the autumn except in the Botanical
Garden arboretum. However, since 2011, only a partial removal of leaves has been
practiced. The lawns have been regularly improved by additions of fertile composts.

3 Methods

Soil bulk density was determined in three replications in undisturbed core samples
taken by a metal cylinder of known volume pressed into the soil. The bulk density was
calculated by the ratio of dry mass to volume at the determined water content and/or the
specified water tension [1]. Particle-size composition was determined in the field [5].
 The Technosols on 60–70 Year-Old Technogenic Deposits 33

Fig. 1. Location of soil pits on the Lomonosov Moscow State University campus area.

Magnetic susceptibility of soil was measured with a KT-5 susceptimeter under

natural conditions. Measurements were performed in five replicates for each horizon [6].
The pH of a 1:2.5 water suspension was determined potentiometrically. The car-
bonate content of soils was determined by the volumetric method with a calcimeter in
two replications [7].
The organic carbon content was determined using the modifications of the Tyurin
titrimetric method (dichromate oxidation). The group composition of soil humus
(Cha/Cfa) was determined by use of the accelerated pyrophosphate method according
to Kononova and Belchikova [8]. Organic carbon pools were calculated for the
0–30 cm, 0–100 cm and 0–150 cm layers.
Extraction of labile fractions of soil phosphorus and potassium was carried out by
Machigin’s method by solution of carbonate ammonium (NH4)2CO3 (1% (w/w) con-
centration) at a ratio of soil to solution 1:20 [7]. Standard quantitative methods – atomic
absorbtion spectroscopy for potassium and photometric for phosphorus.
Exchangeable cations composition was investigated in 0.1 N NH4Cl-ethanol
extract after leaching of water-soluble compounds [7]. K and Na were determined by
flame photometer, Ca and Mg by atomic absorbtion spectrometry.

4 Results and Discussions

The Botanical Garden’s soils had a magnetic susceptibility of 0.5–0.1 SI, which is
double or triple of that found in background soils. The road-side lawn soils had a
magnetic susceptibility of 1–3 SI, which is comparable to mean values over the city.
The rate of accumulation of airborne solid deposits in the soils studied varied from 15
to 50 g/m2 per year, which corresponds to low and medium atmospheric loads within
Moscow that are themselves 10–40 times higher than those outside the city [9, 10].
34 T. V. Prokof’eva et al.

Macromorphologically, the results of 70-year-long pedogenesis were expressed in

the formation of humus horizons. Micromorphologically, soil-forming processes were
identified as follows: structuring of technogenic grounds due to their processing by soil
fauna; vertical migration of soil organic matter and clay in the absence of carbonates;
mineral weathering and decomposition of inclusions within soil; and the formation of
calcareous and ferruginous pedofeatures.
Most soils of the study site can be classified as Technosols, according to the WRB
[1]. In fact they can be subdivided into two groups depending on general pedogenetic
trends.
The first group includes soils of typical postlithogenic pedogenesis and the A-AC-C
profile, located within areas of low anthropogenic pressure. The description of a typical
profile of this group of soils is shown below. According to WRB the soil was defined as
Urbic Technosol (Siltic, Endogrossartefactic) (Fig. 2A).

A B C

Fig. 2. Urbic Technosols: A. - postlithogenic; B. and C. - sinlithogenic on the Lomonosov

Moscow State University campus.

O* (0–1) - Fragmentary litter composed of pine needles, small branches and remnants of cones.
AYur (1–16) - Slightly moist, greyish-brown (10YR 3/2) sandy loam, weak to moderate
crumbly structure, many roots (grass roots in the upper part, and tree roots in the lower one),
soft, friable, fine rock and brick fragments and few coarse ones, local effervescence with HCl;
clear transition, even or slightly wavy boundary.
AYTCH1 (16–27) - Slightly moist, grey light brownish (2.5Y 5/4) sandy loam, blocky sub-
angular to crumbly structure; very few roots; slightly firm; slightly compact; 10–20% fragments
of brick and glass; few earthworm channels; no effervescence with HCl; clear transition by the
decreasing number of earthworm channels, wavy boundary.
TCH1 (27–60) - Slightly moist, heterogeneous in colour: grey light brownish (2.5Y 5/3) with
dark grey and reddish brown mottles (10YR 4/4), sandy loam, prismatic and blocky subangular
structure, very few roots; hard and firm, clay-humus coatings on ped faces, charcoal, brick and
stone fragments are common (20–30%), some of them effervesce with HCl; clear transition by
colour, abundance of artefacts and density, wavy boundary.
 The Technosols on 60–70 Year-Old Technogenic Deposits 35

TCH2 (60–100) - Slightly moist, light brown (2.5Y 4/4), sandy silty loam, prismatic and blocky
subangular structure, no roots, firm and dense, many charcoal, brick and stone fragments
(40–50%), strong effervescence with HCl.

* Indices of the horizons according to [11] and can be correlated as follows: AYur –
humus horizon with urban artifacts – Au, TCH – technogenic sediments – Cu.
The humus accumulation process resulted in a humified layer up to 30 cm deep
(A+AC). Dense horizons of technogenic sediments are loosened under the action of
macrofauna. Humus horizons are saturated with Ca and Mg (Table 1). Some humus
horizons contain carbonates unlike the parent material. The accumulation of phos-
phorus is moderate, with most available phosphates being concentrated in the
technogenic horizons.

Table 1. Properties of Urbic Technosols on the Lomonosov Moscow State University campus [4].
Horizon** Depth, Exchangeable cations, cmol (+)/kg CaCO3, Available
P
cm Na+ K+ Ca2+ Mg2 % P2O5,
+ mg/kg
1. MSU2 postlithogenic - Grey humus soil (partial removal of leaf litter)
AYur 1–16 0.17 0.30 7.71 1.04 9.22 <1% 40
AYTCH1 16–27 0.17 0.14 12.73 0.78 13.82 n.d. –
TCH1 27–60 0.14 0.05 10.02 0.68 10.89 n.d. 333
TCH2 60–100 – – – – – <1% 39
2. MSU5 synlithogenic soil - Urbanozem (leaf litter removal, compost additions and intensive
atmospheric deposition)
URrat 0–6 0.41 1.17 19.50 1.52 22.60 2.0 29
UR1 6–41 0.33 0.26 10.57 0.89 12.05 3.2 8
UR2 41–50 – – – – – 1.7 13
TCH 50–100 0.72 0.43 14.26 0.69 16.10 <1 41
3. BG9 Reclaimed soil - Recreazem (regular compost additions and atmospheric deposition)
RAT 0–12 0.54 0.42 16.43 1.53 18.92 <1 62
AY1 12–23 1.19 0.35 22.34 1.43 25.31 <1 –
AY2 23–37 – – – – – <1 36
TCH 37–72 – – – – – <1 42
[Pur.g] 72–90 – – – – – n.d. 40
‘n.d.’ not detected; ** ‘–’ no data
** Indices of the horizons according to [11] and can be correlated as follows: AYur – humus
horizon – Au, UR – urbic humus horizon – Au, RAT – peat-compost layer – A, P – arable
horizon – Ap, TCH – technogenic sediments – Cu, BT – illuvial horizon of Albic Retisols – Bt.

The stratification of the surface horizons occurs in areas with the most active
deposition of material onto the surface. The reasons for this may be different: long-term
fertilization of soils; deposition of solids from the atmosphere and casual adding of peat
or organic composts to the soil surface.
36 T. V. Prokof’eva et al.

The second group includes soils with the synlithogenic trend of pedogenesis and
comprises a greater diversity of soils: some of them have had an incrementally growing
humus horizon due to compost additions (profile A1-A2-…-C), while others have had a
specific urban humus horizon – Urbic (UR) (a kind of humus horizon) and have been
termed as Urbostratozems [11]. Urbostratozems are formed within areas, where a
significant rate of airborne dust deposition is combined with the occasional deposition
of solid waste and possible additions of fertile composts. The description of a typical
profile of this group of soils is shown below. According to WRB the soil was defined as
Urbic Technosol (Eutric, Siltic, Mollic) (Fig. 2.B). The humus horizons are determined
[11] as UR.
URrat*** (0–6) - Slightly moist, greyish and reddish brown (2.5Y 4/2), friable, mostly strong
granular crumbly structure. Crumbs are angular, rather firm, and there are also earthworm casts
and clusters of coprolites along fine roots, silty sandy loam. Many roots, plant residues are
weakly decomposed. Weak discontinuous effervescence with HCl. Clear transition by the
abundance of roots, colour, structure and number of artefacts; wavy boundary.
UR1 (16–41) - Slightly moist, heterogeneous in colour: from dark brownish grey to reddish
brown grey (10YR 4/2, 4/3, 3/2); dark mottles are earthworm channels and coprolites. Rather
firm, crumbly subangular blocky and granular structure with a trend to stratification. Peds are
more firm than in the above horizon, coarse silty loam with sand admixture. The heterogeneity
is seen as caused by the input of different substrates on the soil surface. Many roots (fine and
coarse tree roots). Effervescence is medium and continuous. Many anthropogenic artefacts –
construction and municipal wastes (>30%). Clear transition by colour, slightly wavy boundary.
UR2 (41–50) - Slightly moist, dark brown grey (10YR 4/2, 3/2, 2/2). Moderate to weak
granular crumbly structure, more friable that the above horizon, dense tree roots, more abundant
than above, many well decomposed plant residues. Silty sandy loam, very few artefacts, con-
tinuous effervescence with HCl. Clear transition by colour, abundance of roots and density,
slightly wavy boundary.
TCH (50–100) - Slightly moist, but more moist than the above horizon, heterogeneous in
colour: yellowish grayish brown (10YR 5/2, 5/3, 4/3, 4/4). Angular prismatic structure of
several orders (from small to medium-size prisms), peds are firm. Loam with admixture of sand,
few voids, (1–2 mm), dense. Fe-Mn segregations and iron ortsteins (nodules). Few roots,
artefacts of construction wastes 10–20%, fine fragments of soft brick, charcoal, limestone in the
fine earth. The colour heterogeneity is due to fragments of soddy-podzolic soil horizons. Weak
effervescence of some artefacts.

*** Indices of the horizons according to [11] and can be correlated as follows:
UR – urbic humus horizon – Au, rat – peat-compost material, TCH – technogenic
sediments – Cu.
The Urbic horizons which developed over a period of 65 years were relatively thick
(about 50 cm at the sites with preserved upper horizons), with a distinct tendency for
horizontal splitting of structural units, high contents of artefacts of different sizes and
well-developed processes of transformation of chemical properties. This has been
formed concurrently with the parent material addition by the transformation of
organomineral natural and/or artificial substrates. The UR horizons of the study site had
the following features: Color Value <4 and Chroma 1–3; platy-blocky structure; the
volume of (urban) artifacts of more than 20% in fine earth; alkaline to neutral pH;
effervescence with 10% HCl; content of soil organic carbon (Corg.) of about 1–2%; the
Cha/Cfa ratio of about 1:1; an increased Corg. pool as a result of large thickness of the
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 The reason commonly alleged, in deprecation of reckless arrest, was the
infamy cast on the accused and his kindred, but this was by no means the
only infliction peculiar to the Inquisition. There was special hardship in the
segregation at once imposed on the prisoner. From the moment of his arrest,
the utmost care was taken to prevent his exchanging a word with any one.
When it took place at a distance, the commissioner was instructed to
observe this with the utmost rigor, both in confining the prisoner on the spot
and in sending him to the tribunal. If two or more were arrested
simultaneously, they were strictly kept apart, both in prison and on the road.
Thus, in 1678, when several Judaizers were to be seized at Pastrana, the
instructions from Toledo were that they were at once to be shut up,
incomunicado, in houses of officials, and to be sent to Toledo one by one,
observing rigid precautions that they should speak with no one. Each was to
be under charge of a familiar and, if there were not enough in Pastrana,
those of the neighboring towns were to be called upon.[1446] The misery
caused to the prisoner and his family by the arrest was intensified by this
sudden inhibition of all exchange of affection and all instruction and advice
as to what they were to do in their affliction.
Another feature, falling with especial severity on the
poorer classes, arose from the rule of the Inquisition to cast IMPORTANCE
OF
all expenses on its prisoners. The officer who made the SEQUESTRATI
arrest was instructed to bring with him a specified sum to ON
be deposited with the alcaide of the prison for the
maintenance of the prisoner; also a bed for him to sleep on and clothes for
him to wear. If, as usually was the case, the required amount was not found
in cash among the effects of the culprit, enough of his household goods was
sold at auction to meet the demand. The working of this is seen in the case
of Benito Peñas, a poor ploughmaker of Cobeña, near Alcalá de Henares—a
half-crazed devotee, who created scandal by denying that Christ had died
on the cross. The order for his arrest by the Toledo tribunal, January 25,
1641, required the familiar to bring with him 30 ducats for expenses and a
bed. The only coins found in Benito’s possession amounted to 19 cuartos
vellon, equivalent to about 2½ reales: so on Sunday, February 10th, all his
little possessions of tools, furniture and clothing, except the garments on
him and two old shirts, were sold at auction. Even the rosary in his hands
was included, but the total proceeds, after deducting charges, amounted to
only 20 ducats. Of this about a half was absorbed by the expenses of guards
and conveyance to Toledo, and only 105½ reales were delivered with him at
the carceles secretas, out of which the tribunal refused to pay anything to
the familiar for his time and labor. Benito’s mental unsoundness developed
rapidly in his incarceration and, in August, he was discharged as
irresponsible. The authorities of Cobeña were obliged to take him home at
their own expense, and doubtless to support him afterwards, as he had been
deprived of all means of earning his livelihood, while, with customary
inquisitorial logic, in spite of his insanity, he was condemned to wear a
parti-colored garment of gray and green, in penance for his heresy.[1447] In
the case of a religious, if his peculium was insufficient to furnish the desired
amount, the superior of his convent was required to complete it.[1448]

Another feature of extreme severity which, however, was common to

secular and episcopal as well as to inquisitorial practice, was the
sequestration which accompanied arrest in all cases involving confiscation.
The losses and hardships incident to this were fully recognized in secular
proceedings and, in 1646, the Córtes of Aragon endeavored to mitigate
them and also to prevent the frauds which were admitted to be frequent.
[1449] On the other hand, to have the property of the accused in the power of
his family was to risk its dissipation before the conclusion of the trial; it had
to be preserved at all hazards and the only way to do this was to make sure
of it by seizure at the moment of arrest. The importance attributed to this by
the Holy Office is seen in the details which form so prominent a portion of
the Instructions. It is true that the canon law strictly prohibited the seizure
of property, before a sentence of condemnation had been duly rendered, but
this had been framed at a time when the temporal lords enjoyed the
confiscations, and was disregarded when they enured to the benefit of those
who decreed them.[1450]
The alguazil executing a warrant of arrest was accompanied by the
notario de secrestos, or notary of sequestrations, who at once seized all
visible property and compiled a minute inventory. It was then placed in the
hands of a sequestrador or depositario, who held it until the case was
decided, when, if confiscation was decreed, he handed it over to the
receiver; if not, it was returned, or what was left of it, to the owner.
In the earliest instructions, the receiver and his scrivener accompanied
the notary of sequestrations, and two copies of the inventory were made.
Much conflicting legislation followed, directed to finding means for
preventing the receiver from appropriating portions of the sequestrations,
but the trouble was perennial and, in interrogatories drawn up for inspectors
on their visitations, there was one which required all officials to declare
whether the receiver had taken any sequestrated property before the case of
the owner was determined.[1451]
Irregularities continued and, in 1633, some respect was
paid to the interest of the accused by a rule that a THE
INVENTORY
representative appointed by him should be present, with
the receiver and notary, when seizing the property and making the
inventory. In 1635, this was followed by requiring the senior inquisitor to
report promptly to the Suprema all details as to kind and amount of property
sequestrated, and whether any collusion or secreting of goods had occurred
—a mandate of which the frequent repetition shows the difficulty of its
enforcement.[1452] Finally, in 1654, Philip IV assembled a junta to
formulate regulations by which, when farmers of the revenue were arrested,
the interests of the royal fisc, of all creditors, and of the owner if acquitted,
might be protected. These provided that the first duty, on making an arrest,
was to search the prisoner for papers and keys. He was then told to name a
representative to be present at the sequestration and inventory. If the hour
suited, this followed at once, otherwise it was postponed to the next day,
padlocks being meanwhile placed on everything, and one or two guards
being stationed. The inventory was made in the minutest detail, room by
room, specifying the contents of all desks, trunks, chests and other
receptacles. The keys were then delivered to the depository selected, who
receipted for the property and became responsible for it. Then followed
immediately the audiencia de hacienda, in which the prisoner was made to
give an account of all of his possessions. If among the effects seized were
some of a nature requiring them to be sold, or if it was necessary to provide
for the food of the prisoner, they were disposed of at auction, after
appraisement made in the presence of his representative.[1453]
As the inventory was the basis of all further proceedings, from a very
early period rigid instructions were issued that it should be complete to the
minutest detail. Every paper found in the prisoner’s possession was to be
enumerated; in 1607 the Suprema complained of negligence in this respect
and ordered that in future not only must every paper be set down but also its
nature and contents.[1454] Such inventories as I have had an opportunity of
examining show the laborious trifling entailed by these instructions. In the
case, for instance, of Margarita Altamira, in 1681, the list covers four
closely written pages, consisting of entries such as “an old pair of scissors,”
“a worn tow towel,” “an old broom,” “an old earthen pot,” etc. She was the
wife of an agricultural laborer, apparently separated from her husband and
owning nothing save her little household plenishing and clothes.[1455]
Official zeal sometimes outran discretion, gravely affecting the interests of
others, as when, in 1597, the Suprema was obliged to issue instructions that,
when heretic ship-masters were arrested in the sea-ports, only their own
effects were to be seized and not the ships and cargoes.[1456] It was
unavoidable that the property of third parties, in the hands of the accused,
should be included in the sequestration and, as we have seen, from an early
period the orders were that such goods should be surrendered as soon as
owners should prove their rights. Such cases were of perpetual occurrence,
causing much damage or inconvenience, and were attended with
exasperating delays. The daughters of Brianda Royz, reconciled with
confiscation, presented, March 19, 1530, a claim for some seventy articles
of household furnishing, which were not adjudged to them until July 7,
1531. The list included a pair of chickens which had doubtless long before
disappeared in the olla.[1457] The case of Margarita Altamira affords some
quaint illustrations of the annoyances inflicted on those who chanced to
have had dealings with the accused. She was arrested in November, 1681
and, on April 8, 1682, the priest Francisco Juan Sans presented a petition
representing that, among the effects sequestrated, was a lot of shirts and
undergarments of which he furnished a list—Margarita apparently having
been his washer-woman. The paper was endorsed to be filed away and its
proof to be received in proper time. The proper time was slow in coming
for, in August, the good padre again petitioned for his shirts, but whether he
eventually recovered them the documents fail to show. A year later, August
3, 1683, Margarita Batlle made application for a cradle which she said that
she had lent to Altamira. The case was referred to the receiver who reported
that there was in the sequestration an old cradle, which if sold might fetch
two or three reales. Then, on August 25th, the inquisitors resolved that, as it
was of so little value, it might be surrendered to her on her proving
ownership under oath and, on October 6th, she was duly sworn and
examined; she described the cradle, told from whom it was bought at the
price of two reales, explained why she had lent it and why she had not
reclaimed it prior to Altamira’s arrest, whereupon it was ordered to be
restored to her.[1458] Evidently there was no haste in relieving the
necessities of those who were caught in the sweep of sequestration.
It was very properly a cardinal principle, frequently
reiterated, that sequestrated property was sacred and was PROVISION
FOR FAMILIES
not to be diverted, however great might be the necessity.
[1459] It was easier, however, to enunciate such a self-denying ordinance
than to observe it, in an institution practically secure from supervision.
Ferdinand set the example by selling or granting as favors numerous houses
in Perpignan, abandoned by fugitives before the Inquisition was in
operation in Roussillon, and he had no scruple in assuming the
condemnation of the owners before their prosecution had commenced.[1460]
We have seen how, in 1644, the Suprema admitted to Philip IV that, to
satisfy his exigencies, it had sold sequestrated property, for which the
owners, who had been acquitted, were clamoring.[1461] In fact, the use of
such property became habitual for, towards the end of the century, we find
an official depositario of the Suprema in charge of the sequestrations, who
was accustomed to meet, from the funds in his hands, the expenses of the
Madrid tribunal, subject of course to repayment. In one transaction of the
kind, the advance made July 3, 1680, was not refunded until November 17,
1681.[1462] The tribunal was thus exposed to the risk that its decisions
might be influenced by the condition of its account with the depositario.
At first there would seem to have been no provision for the family of a
prisoner whose property was thus suddenly seized. They were cast adrift
and deprived of subsistence, regardless of the fact that confiscation might
not be decreed. In the early Instructions there is no arrangement for their
support during the trial, and any exceptions to this were matters of favor, as
when Ferdinand, July 11, 1486, wrote to the receiver of Saragossa that, as
the lands and personalty of Juan Navarro had been sequestrated, as his
children had no other support, and as one of them had rendered him good
service, all the rents and profits of the estate should be paid to them during
the pendency of the case.[1463] Common humanity demanded that some
attention be paid to the necessities of the innocent and helpless, while
confiscation was as yet uncertain, and in time this severity was relaxed,
though it cannot be positively stated when this commenced. The earliest
allusion to it, that I have met, occurs in the memorial of Llerena, in 1506,
which, while denouncing the cruelty of turning the family into the streets at
night, admits that some allowance was made to them from the
sequestrations. It complains, however, that this was miserably insufficient
and so irregularly paid that sometimes months elapsed without anything
being received. In one case two little daughters of a rich prisoner perished
of hunger, and their elder sisters subsisted by beggary at night. A woman
thus left with ten souls dependent upon her was allowed twenty-five
maravedís a day, when two hundred and fifty were requisite, and even of
this pittance she had received nothing for three months.[1464]
The matter was one which called for regulation, and various
experimental instructions were issued from time to time. Absolute
arrangements were not easy to provide and, between 1538 and 1558, a
number of utterances show the difficulty of reaching a satisfactory result.
The general features of these are that the inquisitors are to consult with the
receiver and notary of sequestrations and assign an allowance proportioned
to the amount of the property and station of the recipients, while
consideration is to be given to the ability of individuals to earn a living,
provided it is not derogatory to their rank.[1465] A definite policy was
finally reached in the Instructions of 1561, which remained the standard.
These provide that, if the wife or children of a prisoner apply for support,
he is to be consulted and, if he so wishes, an allowance out of the
sequestration is to be made to them, proportioned to their station, but if
there are some of an age to work they must provide for themselves. This
was a matter of grace and not of right, for a subsequent regulation restricts
the grant to a limited time because the trial may be prolonged and it may be
advisable to discontinue the payments. In 1567 it was added that common
clothes and bedding could be given, but every article must be specified, as
the depositaries were apt to be too liberal unless restricted.[1466] It thus
became a settled principle that the family of a prisoner was to be cared for
out of the sequestration of its head, if he had property and, in the printed
form of a warrant of arrest, in 1696, this is specified as the object of placing
it in the hands of a depositary selected by the prisoner.[1467]
While recognizing the humanity of these provisions it
may be questioned how far they relieved the hardships of THE
dependents, especially in the later period, when the SECRESTADOR
dilatory methods of the Inquisition prolonged the trials inordinately. Unless
an estate was unusually large, it was apt to be speedily consumed by
wasteful methods and the accumulation of expenses. As we shall see
hereafter, unless the accused was penniless, the cost of his maintenance in
prison was a first lien on his sequestrated property and, if there was not
ready money, his effects were auctioned off to supply it. The strictness of
the rule to pay all expenses out of the sequestration is illustrated in the case
of two children of Antonio Enríquez Barrios, confined with their father in
the prison of the tribunal of Madrid. When they were discharged, 1423
reales, the cost of their clothing and food, were collected from the
sequestrated estate of their father, whose trial was unfinished.[1468] It may
be assumed, under such a system that, when the accused escaped without
confiscation, only a remnant of his property was restored to him, especially
as he had to accept on account from the depositario whatever the tribunal
had ordered to be paid out of the sequestration and be content with the
balance, while whatever he might owe for his prison maintenance had to be
paid before an order was issued to lift the embargo. In this respect, a
suspension of the case was equivalent to an acquittal and entitled him to
resume possession of what remained of his property.[1469]
Of course nothing could compensate a man engaged in trade for thus
locking up during years all his business concerns. To such a one, arrest with
sequestration meant ruin, however clearly his innocence might be
demonstrated after the prolonged proceedings of the tribunal. A curious
inventory of a printing office thus seized shows the breaking up of a
business and the destruction of the means of livelihood. One item is “a
hundred and twenty reams of the third volume of Rodríguez, the book at
present in hand,” which is highly suggestive of the loss inflicted, without
redress, on other parties concerned, as author or publisher, as also of the
sacrifice incurred by peremptory auction sales of such material.[1470]

The office of secrestador or depositary would seem, in the earlier period,

to have been regarded as desirable, and it certainly offered opportunities for
the dishonest. That these were sometimes improved is apparent from the
case, in 1510, of Fernando de Mesa, a jurado of Córdova, who was
secrestador of the estate of a certain Celamin. By the time the latter was
condemned, Mesa had died and the sequestrated property was not
forthcoming. He had placed four daughters as nuns in the convent of Santa
Ines and their share of the defalcation was thirty thousand maravedís, but
the convent pleaded inability to pay through poverty and Ferdinand kindly
forgave it the debt.[1471]
To the honest, however, the office was in every way undesirable. It
involved labor, anxiety and responsibility without payment but, when
selected and approved, the appointee was obliged to serve, under penalty of
excommunication and a fine of ten or twenty thousand maravedís. It was
recommended that, if possible, he should not be a kinsman of the prisoner
or a Converso, and he was always to be of good repute and standing.[1472]
If the accused was a householder, the house was locked and the keys were
given to the depositary; otherwise he was put to the expense of storage; he
was obliged to sign a paper subjecting himself to the penalties imposed on
him by the alguazil and pledging his person and property to make good any
deficiencies occurring through error or negligence, for which he renounced
his fuero and submitted himself wholly to the Inquisition.[1473] The
perplexities and tribulations to which he was exposed are illustrated by
those of Jaume Taxes, who served as depositario in the case of Margarita
Altamira. He appealed, April 26, 1682, to the inquisitors, representing that,
when the sequestration was made, he was given the key of the house, but he
is now required to surrender it to the owner and to have the goods stored
safely; he has no room for them in his own house and petitions to have them
delivered to some one else. No attention was paid to this and, on May 14th,
the owner of the house, a priest named Francisco Canudes, came forward
with a complaint; on March 26th he had obtained an order for the key, but
Taxes refuses to surrender it, wherefore he desires that he be forced to do so
and to pay him six months’ rent.[1474] The documents fail to inform us what
was the solution of the complication which the tribunal had thus created,
but the affair illustrates the manner in which the Inquisition was wont to
call for gratuitous services and to pay little regard to the convenience or
interest of those on whom it imposed onerous duties.
There were some limitations on the power of
sequestration. It was confined to property found in LIMITATIONS
possession of the accused; whatever he owned that was in
the hands of third parties could not be sequestrated and had to await
sentence of confiscation before it could be seized.[1475] An application of
this principle led to the somewhat remarkable rule that there could be no
sequestration in prosecutions of the dead, however convincing the proofs of
guilt, because the possessions of the offender had passed into the hands of
third parties. As early as 1537 this was prescribed by the Suprema, in a
letter to the tribunal of Barcelona, and it was embodied in the Instructions
of 1561.[1476]
A more important limitation confined sequestration to arrest on charges
of formal heresy, and the fiscal was required in his clamosa to specify
whether or not he asked for it, though as late as 1575 the Suprema was
obliged to notify the tribunal of Valencia that heresy was a prerequisite of
sequestration.[1477] The definition of heresy, however, was somewhat
elastic and when, in 1573, a determined effort was made to eradicate the
general popular belief that fornication between the unmarried was not a
mortal sin, it was ordered to be prosecuted as heresy with sequestration.
[1478] When formal heresy was involved, sequestration was to be decreed,
whether the accused had property or not and, in 1665, the Suprema rebuked
the tribunal of Barcelona for omitting it in the case of a galley-slave.[1479]
The Inquisition at length grew restive under the limitation of
sequestration to formal heresy, for, as heretics grew fewer, it exempted a
vast proportion of the cases which formed the current business of the
tribunals, consisting of blasphemy, sorcery, bigamy, solicitation, marriage
of clerics, propositions scandalous, audacious or ill-sounding, the
possession of prohibited books, and, in fact, as we are told, all offences
which did not in law import confiscation.[1480] In these cases the warrant of
arrest, during the sixteenth century, instructed the alguazil to arrange so that
the prisoner could leave his property in the hands of any one whom he
should select, to be used for the maintenance of himself and his family, and
an inventory was to be made to prevent misappropriation.[1481] In time the
Inquisition outgrew this consideration for the innocent sufferers, which
reduced it to sharing with them in the use of what was apt to disappear in
the course of the protracted trials. To remedy this and without, so far as
appears, any warrant of law, the expedient was devised of substituting for
the word sequestration the euphemistic term of embargo, and ordering the
property of all prisoners not liable to confiscation to be embargoed. The
words had the same meaning and, in the earlier time, were used as identical,
often copulatively as “embargo y secresto”—a mere pleonasm of legal
phraseology, the context showing that sequestration was meant.[1482] The
slight shade of difference was that in embargo the prisoner selected the
depositary who was to hold the property and pay from it the expenses of his
maintenance in prison during his trial.[1483] Thus sequestration, under the
flimsy veil of calling it embargo, became a matter of course in all arrests
and the fiscal was instructed, when the calificacion was of formal heresy, to
ask for sequestration, in other cases for embargo and, when frailes were the
culprits, for embargo of their peculium and papers. So universal was this
that, in 1665, the Suprema required the Barcelona tribunal to furnish
reasons for not embargoing the property in any case of arrest for minor
offences.[1484] So it continued to the end. In 1815 we find numerous cases
of embargo in arrests on charges of bigamy, solicitation, irreverence,
propositions and the like, while the Dominican Fray Tomas García, for
celebrating mass without priests’ orders, had his peculium embargoed.[1485]
In this illegal extension of sequestration there is
something peculiarly heartless. When the offence charged ILLUSTRATIVE
CASE
inferred confiscation, there was some excuse for making
sure that the property would not be secreted or dissipated, but in minor
cases to subject the offender and his family to the hardship, and perhaps
ruin, caused by seizing his property and holding it during the leisurely
progress of his trial, merely in order to secure to the tribunal the
reimbursement of his maintenance in prison, shows how thoroughly
hardened the Holy Office had become to human suffering and how its
selfish greed stifled all the promptings of humanity.

A practical illustration of the process of arrest and sequestration is

furnished by the case of Ana de Torres, a woman of twenty-two, recently
married to Gaspar Agustin, a confectioner of Ciudad Real. Testimony of
Judaism had been gathered against her and, on May 9, 1680, the Toledo
tribunal ordered its familiar, Don Alvaro Muñoz de Figueroa, a Knight of
Santiago, to arrest her, sequestrate her property and send her to Toledo with
bed and clothing and 100 ducats. On May 17th Muñoz reported that, after
ascertaining her address, he had gone to her house at nine o’clock that
night, with a notary, familiar and servants, had carried her off to his own,
turning out the husband and placing two guards, so that the sequestration
could be made the next day. From what he could see, all the contents of the
house was not worth 100 ducats and he was told that they belonged to the
husband, for she had come to Ciudad Real in September with nothing but
her person. Moreover she was five or six months gone with child. He asked
for instructions, which were given in apparent disregard of the husband’s
rights, for he was told to make the sequestration and send her with her bed
and clothes and whatever he could get for her things. On May 24th he
reported that he had started her on her journey with 400 reales (about 36
ducats) which was all that he had realized on the sale of the effects.
Successive relays of familiars carried her gratuitously and the next day the
receiver of Toledo acknowledged the receipt of the 400 reales to pay for her
food. Then, on July 6th, the alcaide reported that she was suffering from an
inflammation of the throat which, in her condition, threatened serious
complications. The medico was called in, who prescribed bleeding and
gargles and removal from the confined air of the prison. She was taken to
the house of the alcaide, where she was duly bled and, on July 18th, was
sufficiently recovered to ask for an audience. In due time, on September
13th, the alcaide reported her confinement and that he had provided a
midwife, when he was ordered to take care that she had everything
necessary for her recovery and comfort. On September 29th the child was
baptized and the mother brought back to the prison, when she was placed in
a cell with two other women and, in October, orders were drawn for 146
reales to pay for the clothes and swaddling-bands of the infant and for 14
reales to the chapel of the cathedral for its baptism.[1486]
The redeeming features of these latter details afford a welcome relief to
the sordid eagerness of the Inquisition in grasping everything within its
reach in order to escape the costs of persecution, regardless of the misery
which it inflicted. In the present case we learn nothing as to the husband,
presumably innocent, thus turned out of his house and stripped of his
furniture. This was no concern of the Holy Office.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SECRET PRISON.

THE cárceles secretas, or secret prison, was the official designation of
the place of confinement during trial of those accused of heresy. It formed
part of the building of the Inquisition, so that the prisoner could at any
moment be brought into the audience-chamber without being exposed to
public view—such a case as Carranza’s, where confinement was in a
different place and the inquisitors went there, being wholly exceptional. The
secret prison was exclusively one of detention, the casa de penitencia, or
punitive prison, being wholly different, and the contrast between the two—
the laxity of the imprisonment as a punishment of the guilty and its rigor
towards those whose guilt was yet uncertain—is not the least of the
anomalies of the Holy Office.
As a general rule it may be said that imprisonment followed arrest and
that admission to bail was an exceptional favor in the early time, virtually
withdrawn afterwards. In 1530 we have an example in the case of Antonio
de Parejo, a priest whose offences did not amount to formal heresy, who
was released by the Toledo tribunal from the secret prison and given the
city as a prison on bail in 100,000 maravedís, furnished by his brother
Vizcaino, who renounced his fuero; Parejo moreover took a solemn oath not
to leave Toledo on his own feet or on those of others, and that a certain
Matheo Pérez could always tell where he was to be found.[1487] Various
regulations, in 1535 and 1537, allow bail in cases where arrests had been
made on slender evidence but, in 1560, Valdés ordered that no exceptions
should be made when the charge was of heresy.[1488]
For those held on less serious charges there was less rigorous treatment.
The inquisitorial jurisdiction extended over a wide range of offences, more
or less trivial, and the tribunals did not care to be burdened with the expense
of prisoners who were not likely to seek safety in flight or to warn their
accomplices. For these there were various grades of confinement, under the
practice known as aplacería, of assigning the city as a prison, or the
offender’s house, or the less rigorous prison for officials under trial, known
as the cárcel de familiares. Thus, about 1640, a writer says that, in cases of
blasphemy, the accused can be assigned the city as a prison or, if the offence
has been especially shameless and scandalous and reiterated, it may be
proper to confine him in the cárcel de familiares or, if flight is anticipated,
even in the secret prison, although this is a rigor not now practised. He adds
that, when astrologers spontaneously denounce themselves, they are not
thrown into the secret prison but into the cárcel de familiares or are given
their own houses or the city as a prison.[1489] Friars often, unless the
charges were particularly grave, were assigned for detention to the convent
of their Order, in accordance with the general policy of guarding the honor
of the Church. When the prisons of the tribunals were crowded, convents
were also sometimes used as subsidiary prisons, as they were provided with
cells for detention.
In some tribunals we also hear of cárceles medias,
cárceles comunes and cárceles públicas, for offences not LESS HARSH
THAN OTHER
of faith. These appear to be similar to the cárcel de GAOLS
familiares and, in all of them, confinement was held not to
inflict the indelible stain of the secret prison. As a rule, the prisoner in these
was not debarred from communication with his friends, although he might
be confined sin comunicacion. In fact, the whole matter lay at the discretion
of the tribunal. We have seen how, in the passionate conflicts of jurisdiction,
inquisitors sometimes wreaked vengeance on their opponents by inflicting
on them the infamy of confinement in the secret prison. So, on the other
hand, culprits charged with heresy, when the proofs seemed slender, were
sometimes placed in the cárceles medias and then, as the trial advanced and
the evidence grew more compromising, were transferred to the secret
prison. Thus, in 1678, Angela Pérez, on trial for Judaism by the tribunal of
Toledo, was moved, June 22nd from the medias to the secretas; the same
occurred at Valladolid, in 1697, in several cases of Judaism, and, as late as
1818 there is an example at Seville, where Ana María Barbero, tried for
superstitions and blasphemies, was similarly shifted when the case reached
the stage of formal accusation.[1490]

In compassionating the hardships of the secret prison, the horrors of the

gaols of the period must not be lost to sight and, in the comparison, we shall
see that those of the Inquisition were less vile than those of other
jurisdictions. It is true that the ancient laws of Castile proclaimed that
prisons were meant not for punishment but for detention while awaiting
trial, and that Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1489, ordered a weekly inspection
by the judges, who should listen to all complaints made by prisoners, a
provision repeated by Charles V, in 1525.[1491] Yet the petition of the
Córtes of Madrid, in 1534, shows how little attention these enlightened
enactments received and the condition of the gaols can be conjectured from
that of Valencia, where, about 1630, Pedro Bonet, secretary of the
Inquisition, was confined, while a competencia was fought over him, and
when he was surrendered to the tribunal he was in such a state that he died
within three days.[1492] It is certain that the Inquisition regarded its secret
prison as more humane than the royal gaol, even in modern times, for in
1816, when Don Agustin Pirala was tried by both jurisdictions, for certain
irreligious and “anti-political” propositions, the tribunal of Madrid, in
procuring his transfer to its cells, asserted that this was to relieve him from
the inevitable hardships of the royal gaol in which he was confined.[1493]
This may well be true, for the secret prison had the reputation of being
less harsh than those of the spiritual jurisdictions. In 1629, Fray Diego de
Medina, when brought before the tribunal of Valladolid for uttering some
radical heresies, explained that, in his convent de la Victoria, he was kept in
the stocks in the convent prison, and he had made the heretical assertions in
order to be transferred to the milder treatment of the Inquisition, whereupon
he was dismissed with a reprimand. We might regard this as an isolated case
were it not for a similar one, about 1675, where a cleric, confined in the
episcopal prison, pretended Judaism with the object of being removed to the
Inquisition. In this instance the tribunal rebuked him and remanded him to
the tender mercies of his bishop.[1494]
Whether the secret prisons were better or worse than the royal and
ecclesiastical gaols, they were dismal and unwholesome places of
confinement. Of course as structures they varied greatly. Few, if any, of the
buildings of the Inquisition were constructed for its use. In Saragossa the
royal castle of the Aljafería, in Barcelona the royal palace, in Valencia the
archiepiscopal palace, in Seville the castle of Triana, in Córdova the Alcázar
were occupied and utilized, and elsewhere such buildings as seemed
suitable were taken. Those which had served as castles had dungeons
already provided; in the others, cells were constructed. Under the
circumstances there could be no common plan and no general standard of
convenience or healthfulness. It is to be hoped that not many were like that
of Palermo, where there were great subterranean caverns in which the
inquisitors constructed cells for their prisoners, but probably not much
better was part of the secret prison of Toledo, of which we get a glimpse in
1592. Mari Rodríguez, after lying there for nine months, with a year-old
baby, asked an audience and begged to be removed from her cell, for it was
entirely dark and she and her companions suffered greatly and they were
sick, to which the inquisitor coldly replied that what she needed was to
discharge her conscience and save her soul and, for the rest, she should
have justice.[1495]
That the prisons should be unsanitary was a matter of course at the
period and the death-rate must have been large, especially during the
pestilences, which are of constant recurrence in the annals of the time.
Statistics are of course unattainable, but the records frequently refer to the
death of prisoners during trial. In Valladolid, the report of 1630 to the
Suprema includes the names of twelve deceased prisoners, with the existing
state of their cases and, in the great Madrid auto de fe of 1680, all the dead
who were burnt in effigy, to the number of eight, had died in the prisons.
[1496]
Confinement in the secret prison was regarded as one of
the gravest misfortunes that could befall a man, in TERROR
INSPIRED
consequence of the indelible stain that it inflicted on him
and his descendants. The Consults Magna of 1696 dwells eloquently on the
horror inspired by such imprisonment and the injustice of subjecting to it, at
the whim of an inquisitor, those whose offences had no relation to the faith.
In support of this it adduces the case of a woman of Seville, in 1682, who
had some words with the wife of a secretary of the tribunal; the alguazil
was sent to arrest her and, in her frenzied desire to avoid imprisonment, she
threw herself from an upper window and broke both her legs. The Consulta
adds that those who were guilty only of an insult to a familiar were not
infrequently thrust into the deepest dungeons of the secret prisons.[1497]
The terror thus caused was rated as one of the most efficient powers
possessed by the Inquisition. When, in 1622, Gregory XV granted to the
bishops concurrent jurisdiction over the crime of solicitation, the
remonstrances addressed to him from Spain represented this dread as a
deterrent much more powerful than anything that the bishops could bring to
bear. In the royal instructions to the Duke of Alburquerque, then
ambassador at Rome, it is argued that the fear of the infamy wrought by the
prisons of the Inquisition restrains the hardiest culprits.[1498] Power such as
this was liable to constant abuse, even after the Suprema had deprived the
tribunals of initiative and, when the attention of Carlos IV was called to it,
in 1798, by the case of Ramon de Salas, a professor at Salamanca, he
proposed to require special royal permission before consignment to the
secret prison, but Llorente tells us that court intrigues prevented the
enactment of this wholesome reform.[1499]

The cruelty which kept all prisoners in chains was not peculiar to the
Inquisition, for we have seen that it was a common practice in the secular
gaols. An Italian visiting Madrid, in 1592, describes three prisons there; that
of the court, of the city and of the priests, and says that all prisoners, no
matter how slight their offences, were fettered. It was evidently a novelty to
him which he sought to explain by the insecurity of the buildings.[1500]
None of the Instructions refer to chains, but a chance allusion of Pablo
García shows that their use was assumed as a matter of course, and this
occasionally presents itself in the trials as when, in 1565, Pierre de
Bonneville asks their removal to enable him to change his drawers and, in
1647, Alonso Velázquez, who had escaped and was recaptured, describes
how he rid himself of them.[1501]
While thus the Inquisition is not to be taxed with special cruelty in
following the universal custom, it had its own methods of inflicting
intolerable hardship in special cases. When a heretic proved to be
impenitent, a mordaza, or gag, was applied to him. What was the exact form
of this instrument of torture it would be impossible to say, but the allusions
to it show that it was regarded as a severe infliction. When thus worn in
prison it was not a mere precaution against the prisoner spreading his
heresies, for an order of the Suprema prescribes that no one be allowed to
speak with him except the confessor sent to him in the night before his
execution, while even then the mordaza was not to be removed.[1502] There
was another device of pure cruelty—the pié de amigo—an iron fork or
crotch, fitted to the chin and secured by a band around the neck or the waist,
to keep the head up and rigidly fixed. The customary use of this was on
culprits scourged through the streets or paraded in vergüenza, but it was
sometimes employed to heighten the sufferings of prisoners, either through
mere malignity or to induce confession. When the celebrated Doctor
Agustin Cazalla was burnt in Valladolid, in 1559, envoys from the tribunal
sent to him the afternoon before the auto de fe found him in a dark cell,
loaded with chains and wearing a pié de amigo, although he had freely
confessed, recanted and begged for mercy.[1503] In 1599, in the case of
Jacques Pinzon, a French Calvinist, in Toledo, who made a disturbance in
the prison, fifty lashes were administered and a pié de amigo was ordered,
April 20th. At an audience granted him six months later, October 19th, he is
described as still wearing it, as well as two pairs of fetters and, in this case,
the pié de amigo extended from the neck to the right hand.[1504]
In spite of fetters, escape from the secret prison was by
no means rare, but it was not often finally successful, for ESCAPE
the organization of the Inquisition generally enabled it to
recapture the fugitive. A description of the culprit was at once distributed,
with a mandate ordering the civil authorities to summon every one to assist
and the familiars and commissioners to scour the roads, under pain of
excommunication and five hundred ducats.[1505] Thus an army was
promptly on foot, every suspicious stranger was scrutinized, and the
fugitive was usually soon arrested and returned. In the jurisprudence of the
period, breaking gaol was held to be a confession of guilt and some
authorities held that this applied to the prisoners of the Inquisition, but
Simancas and Rojas agree in regarding this as excessive severity. If the
fugitive was recaptured, the ordinary practice was to give him one or two
hundred lashes; his trial was resumed and carried forward to the end. If he
was not recaptured he was prosecuted for contumacy in absentia.[1506]
Numerous cases attest the accuracy of this although, when the culprit was a
person of condition, the scourging was replaced by stricter imprisonment
and increased severity in the sentence.[1507] For those who eluded
recapture, the prosecution for contumacy had but one ending—the absentee
was held to be a self-confessed and impenitent heretic, fit only for the stake.
Thus, in 1586, Jean de Salines, a Frenchman, on trial for Lutheranism in
Valencia, succeeded in escaping with a number of fellow-prisoners. He was
not recaptured; the necessary edicts of summons were issued in due order
and, as a contumacious heretic, he was burnt in effigy, January 23, 1590
although, at the time of his evasion his case had already been voted on, with
the insignificant sentence of abjuration de levi and six months’ seclusion.
[1508]

The cruellest feature of inquisitorial prison discipline was the rigid

denial of all intercourse with the outer world. In the secular gaols, the state
always had the right of imprisoning sin comunicacion, where there were
special reasons for such rigor, but in the secret prisons of the Holy Office
this was the universal rule, enforced with the utmost solicitude as an
essential part of its highly prized secrecy. We have seen that, from the
moment of arrest until delivery to the gaoler, the prisoner was not allowed
to exchange a word with any one but the officials, and this was continued
with the same strictness when he was within the walls, so far as concerned
the outer world, to which he was as one already in the tomb. He could learn
nothing of those whom he held dear, nor could they conjecture his fate until,
after perhaps the lapse of years, he appeared in an auto de fe as one destined
to the stake or to the galleys or to perpetual prison. It would be impossible
to compute the sum of human misery thus wantonly inflicted by the
Inquisition during its centuries of existence—misery for which the only
excuse was that communication with friends might aid in his defence.
According to inquisitorial theory, the presumption of guilt was so absolute
that all measures were justified which would hinder fraudulent defence.
This strictness was not observed at first. The
Instructions of 1488 call attention to the evils arising from SEGREGATION
communication with prisoners and order inquisitors to see
in future that it is not permitted, except by the admittance of religious
persons for their spiritual benefit.[1509] This received scant attention, for the
Instructions of 1498 order alguazils and gaolers not to permit the entrance
of wives or kindred, and whatever is sent to prisoners must be examined to
ensure that no letters or messages reach them. Even inquisitors and other
officials were forbidden to speak with prisoners except in the presence of
another official.[1510] This rigor was relaxed, for an order of the Suprema,
in 1514, provided that no one from the outside should speak with a prisoner,
except by special licence of the inquisitor, and then only in his presence or
that of a notary, and a further concession, in 1536, was that, if a prisoner
desired an interview with his wife, the inquisitor, if he saw fit, could grant
permission.[1511] These slender concessions, however, were soon
withdrawn and, in 1546, officials were reminded that only those permitted
by the Instructions could be admitted and any contraventions would be
severely punished.[1512] Surreptitious communications were difficult to
prevent, and so little were the officials trusted that two locks were required
on each cell-door, so that the alcaide or gaoler could not enter without his
assistant.[1513] The success with which all this was enforced is boastingly
alluded to in a report of the Valladolid auto de fe of May 21, 1559, where it
is declared that the inquisitorial process was so secret that no one knew
what was the offence of any prisoner till he appeared on the scaffold.[1514]
The increasing importance attached to this is revealed in the Instructions
of 1561, which take for granted that all access from outside is forbidden and
which regulate the interior life of the prison with the same object.
Everything brought to a prisoner, whether provisions or other matters, was
reported to the inquisitors who decided as to its delivery; if allowed, it was
minutely examined to see that it transmitted no message. If it were found
that prisoners had communicated with each other, no pains were spared to
find how it was done and what had passed between them. When prisoners
were confined together, if their cell was changed, they were kept together
and not scattered among others. The segregation from the world was
maintained to the end; at the auto de fe no one was allowed to speak with
penitents, except the confessors assigned to them, and those who were burnt
were sent to their last reckoning without being allowed to learn what was
the fate of those whom they held dear. When penitents left the prison, after
the auto, they were subjected to the avisos de cárceles, in which they were
examined under oath as to all that they had seen or heard while confined,
and were ordered, under heavy penalties, to reveal nothing of their own
experiences.[1515] All this was not wanton and cold-blooded cruelty; it was
merely the pitiless enforcement of a rule which was superior to all the
promptings of humanity.
In the fulfilment of the rule the most minute regulations were multiplied
and reiterated. The alcaide was warned to be especially careful about his
wife and children, who were never to be allowed to see the prisoners; no
one was to be admitted to the cells, except the sworn attendant who served
the food, and when, as in some tribunals, it was served uncooked for the
prisoners to cook, it was not to be wrapped in paper but was to be brought
in earthen pots. In serving food and in cleaning cells, the door of one was
always to be securely locked before opening another; no windows which
looked upon those of the cells were allowed to be opened; in Murcia, the
water-carrier who served the Inquisition was not allowed to enter the court-
yard to fill the jars, but to do so from a window opening upon the court, or
to have the water in a room where the jars could be filled.[1516] No
precaution was too minute, no watchfulness too careful, when the supreme
object was concerned of isolating the prisoners from their friends and from
each other.
Yet there were ways of eluding the vigilance of the
tribunals, of which bribery of the underlings was the most WRITING
MATERIALS
frequent. Even the alcaides were not insensible to such
seductions and a writer advises them to take warning by the example of
those who enter office in honor and leave it in ignominy.[1517] The kindred
and friends of prisoners were frequently people of means and there could be
no hesitation in outlays to circumvent the cruel rules which forbade to them
and to the captives all knowledge of each other’s fate. The Inquisition was
by no means consistent in its treatment of those who thus violated its
regulations. In 1635, Miguel de Maradillo, a bricklayer working on the roof
of the prison of Valladolid, carried a message from one prisoner to another
informing him that his wife and son had been arrested. On another occasion
he told the same prisoner that his daughter had been relieved of the
sanbenito and he conveyed a paper from him to them. In this he seems to
have been actuated merely by compassion and his punishment was light—a
reprimand, six months’ exile from Valladolid and prohibition of future
employment on the building of the Inquisition. In 1655, Francisco López
Capadocia, on trial by the tribunal of Valladolid, was subjected to a second
prosecution, for communicating with other prisoners and was sentenced
only to reprimand and exile.[1518] Greater severity seems to have been
shown when employees of the tribunals were the guilty parties. In 1591,
when Don Alonzo de Mendoza was confined in Toledo on a charge of
heresy, his friends outside established correspondence by means of the
cook, Francisca de Saavedra, who conveyed the letters in the dishes. She
admitted having received bribes to the amount of 8160 maravedís and was
punished with a fine of 6000, besides a hundred lashes and four years’ exile.
[1519] Still harsher was the treatment, about 1650, in Mexico, of Esteban
Domingo, a negro slave employed as an assistant in the crowded
inquisitorial prison. He was detected in carrying for money communications
between the prisoners and their friends, for which he was condemned to two
hundred lashes and six years in the galleys.[1520]
Towards the close of its career the Inquisition seems to manifest a
disposition to relax somewhat in its rigidity. In 1815 the Madrid tribunal
referred to the Suprema a petition from Doña Manuela Osorno to be
permitted to see her husband, Don Vicente Lema, then in its prison. The
answer was that, after he had completed his declarations, she might be
allowed to see him once or twice a week, in the presence of an inquisitor,
but only to confer on their domestic affairs. To this tendency may also be
attributed the leniency shown to Alfonso González, barber of the tribunal of
Murcia, who made use of his position to convey letters and paper to
Francisco Villaescusa, a prisoner, and who was benignantly treated with a
reprimand and disability to hold office under the Inquisition.[1521]
A necessary feature of the prohibition of communication was that
prisoners were debarred from the use of writing materials, except under the
strictest supervision. Some use of them was unavoidable, when drawing up
a defence or a petition to the tribunal, opportunity for which was never
refused, but they were required to apply to the inquisitors for paper, stating
the number of sheets wanted, when these were carefully numbered and
rubricated by the secretary, at the upper right-hand corner, and were
required to be scrupulously returned, so that there could be no withholding
of any for another purpose. This device was prescribed by the Suprema in
1534 and remained the invariable rule.[1522] Thus when Fray Vicente
Selles, in Valencia, at an audience of June 27, 1692, asked for two sheets of
paper and, on June 30th, returned one and a half in blank, saying that what
he had written on the other half-sheet was false and he had thrown it into
the filth, he was made to fetch it, filthy as it was.[1523] Whatever quantity a
prisoner asked was given to him, and some consumed paper by the quire—
indeed, Fray Luis de Leon relieved the tedium and anxiety of his four years’
imprisonment at Valladolid by writing his classical devotional work, the
“Nombres de Cristo.”

While, as we have seen, great care was taken to prevent prisoners from
communicating with each other, it by no means follows that confinement
was solitary. As a general rule it was regarded as preferable that male
prisoners should be alone, and that women should have companionship, but
there could be no hard and fast line of policy followed, except that
accomplices and negativos (those who denied the accusation) should not be
placed together. Husband and wife were thus always separated but, when
occasion required, there was no hesitation in crowding four or five persons
together and, in the careless confidence of common misfortune, this often
opened a valuable source of information, for there never seems to have been
any scruple in betraying that confidence in the hope of winning favor by
reporting to the tribunal the compromising utterances of cell-companions.
The object in keeping apart those who were accomplices was to prevent
their encouraging each other in denial and agreeing on a common line of
defence. Men who were confined by themselves sometimes asked for a
companion and women more frequently did so.[1524]
It was impossible that discipline should be uniform at
all times and places and we sometimes find it exceedingly REGULATIONS
lax. It infers great looseness when, in 1546, the Suprema
felt it necessary to enjoin care in permitting prisoners freely to visit each
other and, in the trial of Isabel Reyner at Toledo, in 1570, we find her
stating, in an audience, that in passing through the prison she saw a fellow-
prisoner who informed her that her husband and Estevan Carrier were also
prisoners, and who asked her why she was imprisoned.[1525] In fact, as we
gather from chance allusions in the trials, there must have been a certain
freedom of movement. In the case of Benito Ferrer, in 1621, at Toledo,
there was an investigation as to his sanity, in which the alcaide spoke of his
going regularly to the cistern for water and cooking his food like the rest,
while the assistant described taking him to the latrines when desired. From
the trial of Jacques Pinzon, in Granada, in 1599, we learn that, in the
morning, the alcaide brought the prisoners water and returned after mass
with their food; the mention of a pan to hold ashes shows that they had fire,
and we hear of pots, spoons and other utensils.[1526] There was evidently a
diversity of routine in the different tribunals and when Valdés, in 1562, was
obliged to order that prisoners were not to go for their rations, because they
met the servants of the purveyor, and that the alcaide must receive the food
and carry it to the cells, it argues that, in some tribunals at least, a
considerable freedom of movement had existed.[1527]
In 1662, a minute code of instructions for the alcaide shows us what at
that time were the regulations. On rising in the morning, he is to visit all the
cells and see how the prisoners are; he is to examine carefully for openings
through which they may communicate with each other; doors are to be
carefully closed and he is not to leave with the prisoners knives, cords or
scissors—if scissors are needed, he is to stay while they are used and take
them away. He is not to give them books to read without permission of the
inquisitors. Rations are served twice a week—on Sundays and Thursdays—
and, on the afternoon previous, he is to see each prisoner, ascertain what he
wants, and set it down in a book so that the purveyor may provide it. Every
nightfall he is to examine the cells to guard against attempts to escape,
searching under the pillows for articles that would assist flight, or for
writing materials. Prisoners able to cook their food will do so in a brasero;
for those who cannot, the cooking is done by an appointee of the tribunal.
[1528] All this shows a commendable desire to avoid unnecessary harshness,
yet the regulations enforce one hardship which appears to have been
universal at all periods after the earliest—the prohibition of lights, a severe
infliction for, in the obscurity of their cells, the hours of darkness must have
seemed interminable. It is probable that at first this was not the rule for, in
1497, in Valencia, there is an item of 7s. 4d. for lights, in the account of the
expenses of Alonso de Roman, who had lain in the secret prison for nine
months and nine days.[1529]
Of course, in the general venality of the period, prison officials were not
always inaccessible to bribery, and money could procure relaxation of the
rules but, when detected, it was visited with a severity not often shown to
delinquent officials. This is illustrated by a case in Toledo, in 1591, when
judicious liberality procured unlawful privileges, such as having cell doors
open, allowing communications and other similar indulgences. Francisco
Méndez de Lema, the alcaide, attempted flight, but was caught and
sentenced to a hundred lashes, galley-service, exile and deprivation of
office. His cousin and assistant, Miguel de Xea, confessed partially and was
tortured without extracting more; he escaped with dismissal, disability for
office and four years of exile.[1530]
There was one regulation which bore with especial severity on the
innocent, while it was a matter of indifference to the heretic. This was the
deprivation of all religious consolation during the period, often prolonged
for years, of incarceration. It is difficult to understand this in the professors
of a theology which teaches the infinite importance of the sacraments as
aids to spiritual development as well as to salvation, especially when so
large a portion of the prisoners were good Catholics tried on charges which
did not infer formal heresy. Possibly it may be explained by the customary
assumption of the guilt of the accused, who had thus incurred ipso facto
excommunication, and the Spanish Inquisition had the example of the
Roman, whose prisoners were similarly not allowed to receive the
sacraments or to hear mass.[1531] Yet the great canonist Azpilcueta, whose
attention was probably drawn to the matter by the case of his client
Carranza, thus deprived of the sacraments for eighteen years, tells us that
there is no law justifying the Spanish Inquisition in this, though perhaps it
may have special authority and also good reasons. To him, however, it
appeared that the sacraments would soften the hearts of prisoners and lead
them to confess, while it was cruel to leave them exposed without defence
to the assaults of the demon during the many years of their captivity.[1532]
Yet the refusal was absolute. Fray Luis de Leon, after three years of
imprisonment, pleaded earnestly for the sacraments, but the only reply of
the Suprema to his petition was to tell the Valladolid tribunal to finish the
case as soon as convenient.[1533]
While the sacraments were denied, sacramental
confession was allowed, though of course the priest could SACRAMENTAL
CONFESSION
not grant absolution. The earliest allusion I have met to
this is an order by Cardinal Manrique in 1529, and, in 1540, formal
instructions were issued that, when a prisoner asks for a confessor, if the
case admits of it, a proper person should be given to him.[1534] This
privilege was somewhat abridged by the elaborate provisions of the
Instructions of 1561, which are framed to turn it to advantage. If a prisoner
in good health asks for a confessor, it is safer not to grant the request, unless
he has confessed judicially and has satisfied the evidence. But, as he cannot
be absolved for heresy until reconciled to the Church, such confession is not
of full effect unless he is in the article of death or a woman in the peril of
child-birth, in which case the canon laws are to be observed. If a sick man
asks for a confessor he shall have one, who shall be sworn to secrecy and to
reveal to the tribunal any commission entrusted to him, if it is outside of
confession, and to refuse it if within confession; the inquisitors shall
instruct him to tell the prisoner that he cannot be absolved, if guilty, unless
he confesses judicially. If his judicial confession satisfies the evidence, he is
to be formally reconciled before he dies and, when judicially absolved, the
confessor shall absolve him sacramentally when, if there is nothing to
prevent it, he may receive Christian burial, as secretly as possible. If a sick
man does not ask for a confessor and the physician is apprehensive of the
result, he must urge him in every way to confess.[1535] The advantage thus
afforded by the confessional is illustrated in the trial for Judaism of Ana
López, at Valladolid, in 1637. She had denied, but was taken sick and
declared by the physician to be in danger. To the confessor she admitted
that, at the age of seventeen, she was taught Judaism, that she subsequently
returned to the true faith until, on coming to Valladolid, a woman perverted
her. The confessor warned her that she must confess judicially; she
authorized him to report her confession and he absolved her sacramentally.
An inquisitor with a notary went to her cell, when she repeated her
confession and gave the name of the woman who had perverted her, and, on
her recovery, her trial was resumed when she confirmed her confession.
[1536]
It is the kindly rule of the Church that absolution is never to be refused
to the dying; he is to be saved from hell and can settle the account of his
sins in purgatory, or by an indulgence or a mass on a privileged altar. With
this the Inquisition did not interfere, as its professed object was the saving
of souls and it even, by a carta acordada of 1632, permitted communion to
dying heretics who had confessed judicially and satisfied the evidence. It
required, however, the wafer to be consecrated in the tribunal, if there was
time; if the haste was extreme, it could be brought from the parish church,
but without pomp or procession.[1537] Even the veneration due to the
Godhead had to yield to the secrecy which forbade it to be known that a
prisoner was dying in the Holy Office. In the same spirit, when a prisoner
died without reconciliation, the alcaide reported it to the inquisitors, who
ordered the secretary to identify the body and bury it secretly.[1538] It was
thrust into a hole, without his family knowing his fate until, if his trial was
unfinished, his heirs would be summoned to defend his fame and memory
or, if it had reached a point where sentence could be pronounced, they saw
his effigy reconciled or burnt in an auto de fe. Even when he had confessed
and been reconciled on the death-bed, we have just seen that his Christian
burial was to be as secret as possible. When the trial ended in acquittal or
suspension, if he had property sequestrated, the lifting of the sequestration
would announce it to the heirs; otherwise, it does not seem that there was
any provision for their notification. Suicide in prison, which was not
infrequent, was regarded as conclusive proof of impenitence, even if the
prisoner had confessed and professed repentance, but his heirs were allowed
to defend him on the score of insanity, failing which he was burnt in effigy.
[1539]
Sickness was of frequent occurrence and was treated
with creditable humanity. The Instructions of 1561 require FEMALE
PRISONERS
that the sick shall have every care and that whatever the
physician deems necessary for them shall be provided.[1540] Of course the
fulfilment of this command must have varied with the temper of the
tribunals, but nevertheless the spirit dictating it is in marked contrast with
the conduct of the gaols of the period. When cases transcended the
resources of the Inquisition, the ordinary course was to transfer the patient
to a hospital, in disregard of the cherished secrecy of the prison. Instances
of this are common enough in the records and a single case will suffice for
its illustration. November 6, 1641, Juan de Valdés, on trial for bigamy in
Valladolid, asked an audience to beg for despatch as he was very sick. This
was confirmed by the alcaide and by the physician, who said that for
nineteen days he had had a tercian and was too weak to be bled, and
moreover he was suffering from stone and strangury; that he could not be
cured in the prison and should be removed to a hospital. This was done, the
hospital authorities being notified not to allow him to escape and to keep
the tribunal advised of his condition. In January, 1642, he was reported as
being still in mortal danger, but he recovered, was returned to the secret
prison, and was sentenced on August 21st.[1541]

The care of female prisoners was naturally a subject of some perplexity,

especially as the refinement of matrons and women assistants was unknown
to the Inquisition. When the Instructions of 1498 order that the prison for
men and for women shall be separate,[1542] it does not infer that previously
they had been herded promiscuously together, but that in future distinct
quarters should be provided for the sexes—a provision which was not
observed, as it was deemed sufficient that women should be confined
separately so that there could not be communication between them and the
men. The condition of helpless women, virtually at the mercy of their male
attendants, in the secrecy which shrouded everything within the prison
walls, can readily be imagined, and there must have been outrages coming
to the knowledge of Ximenes, in 1512, that aroused him to a sense of the
dangerous opportunities existing, for in that year an order was issued
threatening death to any attendant who should have intercourse with a
female prisoner.[1543] The severity of the penalty measured the gravity of
the necessity calling for it, but, like so many other salutary provisions, the
tribunals were too merciful to enforce it on their subordinates. In 1590,
Andrés de Castro, alcaide of the Valencia prison, was tried for seducing a
female prisoner, kissing and soliciting others, allowing communications
between prisoners and accepting bribes from their kindred. There were
twenty-nine accusing witnesses; he denied the charges but virtually
admitted their truth by breaking gaol. On his recapture, for this complicated
series of offences he escaped with a hundred lashes, three years in the
galleys, perpetual exile from Valencia, and disability for office in the
Inquisition—a sentence which, when compared with the habitual severity of
the tribunals, shows how lightly his sexual crime was regarded by his
judges.[1544] It was not that the death-penalty had been abrogated, for we
find it repeated, in 1652, in the Logroño instructions to alcaides.[1545]
Doubtless the rule mentioned above, that women should be gathered
together in their cells, was designed to afford them protection against their
gaolers.
In the not unusual case of the arrest of pregnant women, due
consideration was given to their condition, and suitable temporary
accommodation was found for them, during confinement, outside of the
prison. Thus, in the case of María Rodríguez, in the tribunal of Valladolid,
who was arrested June 3, 1641, the delay in presenting the accusation, until
September 16th, is explained on the record by her being pregnant and
removed from the prison until she recovered.[1546] This was an
improvement on the earlier practice, if we may believe the Llerena
memorial of 1506, which states that women in the throes of child-birth were
denied all assistance, even that of a midwife; they were abandoned to nature
and many had perished in consequence.[1547]

It was not only in the general prescriptions of the

Instructions that regard for the welfare of the prisoners is HUMANE
REGULATIONS
manifested. Special orders issued from time to time as to
details are animated by the same spirit. Thus, in 1517, Cardinal Adrian told
the Sicilian inquisitors (in a letter probably addressed to all the tribunals)
that they must pay particular attention to the qualities requisite in the
gaoler; they must sedulously bear in mind that the prison is for detention
and not for punishment; the prisoners are to be well treated and not be
defrauded in their food, for which ample provision must be made; the
prison must be inspected every Saturday, by one of the inquisitors, and not
fortnightly as provided in the Instructions; those of the prisoners who have
trades are to work and thus contribute to their support and, if the officials
give the women sewing to do, they must be paid.[1548] An extract made, in
1645, from a book of instructions which was read annually in the tribunals,
shows that this praiseworthy care for the welfare of the prisoners was the
permanent policy of the Inquisition. It prescribes the utmost punctuality in
inspecting the cells every fortnight and learning what the inmates desire,
reporting this to the tribunal, which decided what each one should have and,
if there was a surplus in the allowance for rations from which it could be
procured, the alcaide was at once to be ordered to see that the purveyor
bought it; if he neglected anything he was to be reproved for the wrong
committed in his lack of punctuality. Special attention was called to serving
the rations in the morning, so that the prisoners could prepare their midday
meal. Meat was to be given daily, and only one day’s rations at a time in hot
weather, lest it should spoil; in cool weather, two days’ supply; and this was
so important for the health of the prisoners that it should be the special
charge of some one, while an inquisitor ought occasionally to look to it.
[1549]
All this is admirable in tone and spirit; unfortunately its execution
depended on its enforcement by the inquisitors, on their regular
performance of inspection, and on holding the gaolers responsible by
rigorous punishment for derelictions. The duty of inspection by inquisitors
had been prescribed as indispensable by the Instructions of 1488, but it was
impossible to make them obey and complaints of their negligence are
frequent. In 1632 it was found necessary to reissue the Instructions of 1488;
in 1644 we have the testimony of a contemporary that, in some places at
least, it was regularly, if perfunctorily, performed and the Logroño
instructions of 1652 make it the duty of the alcaide to remind the inquisitors
of it every fortnight, because it is customarily forgotten.[1550] The other
requisite, severity of punishment for derelictions, was also lacking, through
the customary tenderness shown to delinquent officials.
 It would be manifestly unjust to condemn as a whole the management of
the prisons: it would be equally unwarranted to praise them
indiscriminately. Everything depended on the conscientious discharge of
duty by the inquisitors and no general judgement can be formed as to the
condition of so many prisons, during three centuries, except that their
average standard was considerably higher than that in other jurisdictions
and that, if there were abodes of horror, such as have been described by
imaginative writers, they were wholly exceptional. There were good and
there were bad. The memorials of Llerena and Jaen, in 1506 describe them
as horrible dens, overrun with rats, snakes and other vermin, where the
wretched captives sickened in despair and were starved by the
embezzlement of a large portion of the moneys allowed for their support,
while no physician was permitted to attend the sick and the attendants
maltreated them like dogs.[1551] Making allowance for rhetorical
exaggeration we can imagine that this description was applicable to
Córdova under Lucero. Matters seem to have been not much better at
Seville in 1560, where the oppression of the alcaide, Gaspar de Benavides,
provoked a despairing revolt in which his assistant was mortally wounded.
Vengeance was wreaked on the participators in the fray, of whom one was
burnt alive and another, a boy of fourteen, had four hundred lashes and was
sent to the galleys for life, while Gaspar, who had provoked it, was let off
with appearing in an auto de fe, forfeiture of wages and perpetual
banishment from Seville.[1552]
When malfeasance in office escaped with such ill-
judged leniency, it was impossible to maintain discipline VARIABLE
TREATMENT
and the prisoners suffered accordingly. As the result of an
inspection of Barcelona by Doctor Alonso Perez, the alcaide Monserrat
Pastor is scolded, in 1544, for keeping a mistress in his house, for placing a
kinsman in charge of the prison and absenting himself, for receiving
presents from discharged prisoners, for frequent absence, leaving the prison
unguarded, for combining the incompatible positions of gaoler and
dispensero, and of making the women prisoners work and taking their
earnings, but Pastor was only reprimanded and ordered to restore the
presents and the women’s earnings. Virtual immunity invited continuance of
abuses and, in 1550, after another inspection, we find the Suprema again
adverting to the evil results of combining the functions of gaoler and
dispensero and ordering the inquisitors to fill the latter position.[1553]
 The prison of the Canary tribunal at times seems to have been equally
mismanaged. An Englishman named John Hill was brought there from
Ferro, June 23, 1574, with nothing but his clothes and no money. For nine
months his complaints were loud and frequent; a day’s ration was
insufficient for a single meal; he begged for more bread and water, also for
a mat to lie on, as he had to sleep on the ground and he could not rest for
the lice and fleas; for more than two months he prayed for a shirt to cover
his nakedness and, though an order was issued, January 22nd to give him
one, it had to be repeated February 18th. Even as late as 1792, Don Juan
Perdomo complained that for fourteen months the alcaide had kept him on a
diet of salt fish, that he would allow him to change his linen but once a
fortnight, and that he caused him to suffer such torment from thirst that he
would go into the court-yard and cry aloud, hoping that some passer-by
would summon the alcaide.[1554]
Yet other passages in the Canary record show a praiseworthy desire to
alleviate the rigors of confinement and in general it may be said that the
condition of the prisoners depended wholly on the temper and character of
the officials in charge. When these were kindly, the prisoners were spared
unnecessary hardships. Francisco Ortiz, in 1529, at Toledo, bore willing
testimony to good treatment which he had not anticipated.[1555] In 1563,
Fernando Díaz, a peasant, after a month’s detention in Toledo, speaks of
improved health; here, he says, he has mutton to eat, while at home he had
only sardines.[1556] In 1567, a member of the Suprema, visiting the prison
of Valladolid, was told by Leonor de Cisneros that she had nothing to
complain of; she had mutton and bread and wine and fruit and was well
treated.[1557] As she was a relapsed, whose husband had been burnt eight
years before, she probably had no property and the expense was defrayed
by the tribunal.
These are by no means isolated instances. In 1541, at Toledo, Juan
García, a day-laborer on trial, after six weeks in prison, asked that night-
clothes be given to him as to the other prisoners, as he was obliged to sleep
in the garments worn during the day, when the inquisitor at once ordered
him to be supplied.[1558] In 1657, the accounts of the tribunal of Madrid
show 447½ reales spent on clothing for a poor prisoner and those of the
Suprema, in 1690, have an item of 688 reales devoted to the same purpose.
[1559] We have seen that warrants for arrest ordered beds to be brought with
the prisoner, as the Inquisition did not furnish them, in accordance with an
order of 1525, which assumes that this was to relieve the hardships of those
brought from a distance.[1560] Yet, even in the financial pressure of the
seventeenth century, we find in the accounts of the Madrid tribunal, in
1659, an order, July 11th, to the receiver to pay 230 reales for the hire of
beds for poor prisoners up to July 15th.[1561] Even more noteworthy are
some entries arising from the trial in Madrid of Francisco de Matos, in
1680-81. He seems to have had five children for whose support was spent,
in about a year from September, 1680, 3519 reales, of which 1284 were
paid to the Hospicio Real de Pobres for its care of three of them during
sickness.[1562] The tribunal evidently felt itself obliged to take care of the
helpless children, and such incidents serve to show that, when the
inquisitors had humanitarian instincts there was nothing in the policy of the
Holy Office to prevent their full manifestation.

It is remarkable that, during the period of most active

work, there seems to have been no general settled system EXPENSES
of defraying the maintenance of prisoners. There is no
provision for it in the instructions of 1484, but in Torquemada’s
supplementary orders of December, the receivers were required to pay the
expenses.[1563] Yet we have seen that immediately after this the alguazil
was in receipt of a salary equal to, or more than, that of the inquisitors
because, as Ferdinand said, he had to meet the great charge of the prisoners
—“tiene tan gran costo con los presos”—and, as we find this in the salary
lists of Saragossa, Burgos, Medina del Campo and Seville, it would seem to
be a general rule, while the Instructions of 1498 appear to show it still in
force.[1564] Yet the accounts of the Valencia tribunal, in 1497-8, indicate
that the maintenance of those who had property was drawn from the
sequestrations while the “pobres miserables presos en las carceles” were
supported by outside friends or kindred, who were subsequently reimbursed
by the receiver. The per diem was 9 dineros for men and 8 for women,
while Ali Divit, a Moor and presumably abstemious, was reckoned at 5.
[1565]
A letter of Ferdinand, in 1501, authorizing the receiver of Sardinia to
include among his disbursements the cost of maintaining prisoners, would
indicate that this was becoming the rule, but another letter of the same date
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